Skip to main content

Silence of the within

 


Pablo Neruda ascended the podium and said:

Brothers and Sisters of the world, lend me your ears for a moment. We can still save the earth if we wish to. All that we need to do is slow down a bit. All this rush, all this single-minded pursuit of so-called development, is not going to take us any further because the earth is dying.

We are killing the planet. With all the wars we fight day in and day out. Green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire. Our skies are dying unable to breathe. We have sent too much gas and smoke up there. Our rivers are dying. And so are our seas.

Death is our primary contribution. To the planet.

And to fellow human beings as well. To all the creatures on the planet.

We are a belligerent lot. We love to fight. If there is nothing to fight for, we will create new idols and fight for their sake. We arm our gods with deadly weapons. There is poison in our hearts. And our hearts overflow profusely into our rivers and forests and oceans and the skies.

We laugh seeing the frothing poison and we think we are happy.

We mistake intoxication for happiness. The truth is we are a sad lot.

That is why we need to pause a moment.

And reflect. Look within. And see that it all begins there. Within ourselves. All those wars. And gas. And smoke. And the poison.

We can clean it up. We need to.

We don’t need much to live happy lives. A little realization is enough, in fact.

I have talked too much. Words are not what’s required. Silence is. So I’m taking leave of you. Let this silence continue for a few moments. Silence.

PS. Inspired by Pablo Neruda’s poem Keeping Quiet. Written for Indispire Edition 439: Imagine you're given an opportunity to address the world. A unique, once-in-life chance. What will you tell the world? #Viswasandesh

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    ...... breathe....... beautiful. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. We all can do our part.
    Coffee is on, and stay safe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You have shared wonderful information hope you will publish more content. Please Check my website & blog as well hope you will also learn something new from my blogs. Canada PR News

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...