These days we are doing a narrative essay by the American
author, Mark Patinkin, in standard XI. A cricketer gets into his peak form, so I
have been told, during his mid thirties. I am not sure of the peak time frame
for a teacher, but I believe that as a teacher gets older, she gets better at her job. And am i not enjoying myself with all these gems and priceless pieces of Literature?
We have reached that part of the essay, where the narrator,
prepared to get to bed without dinner, smells cooking. The Tuareg Chief informs
him that he is their honoured guest, come all the way from America, to find out
more about their pathetic plight and make people all over the world aware of it.
Finding the Chief having trouble cutting the meat with his blunt sword, the
narrator offers his Swiss Knife to him. Soon they are ready for the grand feast
(for people who go dinnerless almost every day of their lives in the Sahara,
having meat on a particular evening is like having a feast!). As the people
inside the tent start eating, there is a seriousness and respect for the food
on their saucer.
Now here I think of straying for the purpose of inculcating
some values. “How do you eat with seriousness and respect?” Not the way most of
our students do it. As rations are supplied free by the Government, they take
it for granted and do not bother much about their meals ( 3 meals per day!) and
even throw it away at times. But do they know that people in many African and
Asian countries are starving, starving due to famine, drought and a lot of
other natural disasters? I share with them, in this connection, the story of a
photograph that our former Principal, Mr. Tashi Chonjur,was wise and considerate enough
to share with us during one of the Council Meetings. The photograph actually
went on to bag The Photograph of the Year Award. It is a grim picture of a
skeletal boy, not more than 4/5, scavenging through a pile of wastes. His bare
bones underneath the fleshless skin make a horrifying sight and glare at the
injustice of it all!
But the most abysmal sight is not the child but the presence
of the vulture waiting patiently not very far away, waiting to make a meal of
this hapless, helpless Child of God! I came to know from some of our students
that the photographer who took the photograph was shamed into committing hara kiri,
for not doing enough to save the
kid from the vulture. Whatever it may be, the fact of the matter is there are
people who lead a hand to mouth existence in many parts of the world.
Naturally, when they get something to eat, anything to eat at all, they do so
with a kind of seriousness hard to believe for most of us.
Coincidentally, a few weeks after the meeting, some boarders
during dinner, threw away their left over food. Mr. Tashi Chonjur was livid
with anger the next morning. Principal Tashi Chonjur, admonished the culprits
for not valuing their food in throwing it away. I still remember him telling
our students, during the assembly, that in many countries across the globe,
especially in Africa, there are people dying out of hunger, starvation and
drought. They do not even have a few grains to fill their belly, whereas in
Bhutan our students are lucky to have everything provided free and waste them
as a result!
Anyway, to come back to Patinkin’s poignant essay, the
concluding part is nothing less than heart-touching. The Chief takes the
narrator round the camp for what he has come for. He picks up a child in a tent
and embraces it. The child is a total stranger, but as the Chief holds it
tightly to his chest, the narrator notices the pain and hurt on his face. There
is hurt and pain as, in spite of being their Chief, there is not much he can do
to alleviate their suffering and hunger. The narrator admits that even in his
own country, this kind of kinship and bonding between the Chief and the child,
is rare.
The concluding sentence is what sums up the essence of the
essay. As the writer gets into the Land Rover and turns his head back to have a
look at the Touaregs for the last time, his spirit gets uplifted, elevated at
the thought of ours being one world. WE are all a family,
irrespective of our caste, race, religion and culture. We are inhumane if we do
not get pained at others pain and happy at their happiness.Do we need a special time, place or people to celebrate the joyous NOEL?
