Back to basics.
By: Navin (January 31st, 2009)
Son,
I was concerned about the news that was reaching my ears and that is exactly why I am writing to you. In the past six months, our village has lost three of its cherished sons in the U.S. and all of them I believe could not live up to the mounting pressures of life and these uncertain days. I hope this letter will reach you in time, because I know you too are not finding it easier to keep your job, especially after the scandals that have broken out here.
This letter is to bring a moment of cheer and a lot of hope. Probably you have not seen the bad times that I have seen and this gives me a higher ground to ‘teach’ you about the valley experiences in life. I was born in a decade which posed the greatest challenges in the life of a young nation, a nation just born out of great struggle having lost many of it’s patriots to the freedom struggle. In the midst of communal strife, lack of clean drinking water, widespread diseases which had no vaccinations, living on food provided by other countries, I was born in this small village here in Andhra Pradesh.
Life did not come more intimidating and challenging than this. I lost my mother when I was born, I faced the empty stomach and a cruel society from a very young age. Losing my mother when she was giving birth to me was a bad omen and invited curses from friends and relatives. But I was determined to keep going and not give up on life.
I did not get the privilege of studying as the ways and means to make a living were limited and I had to help my father at the farm. My young hands toiled away on the hard ground, sometimes with the spade and sometimes with the sickle. My father taught me how to plough the ground with the ox. From getting up early in the morning as the cock crowed, to the energy sapping toil under the burning sun, nobody knew the pains and hardships that I and my father went through. Bread was limited and we had to survive daily on a diet which today many would consider a punishment. But everything tasted good after the back breaking work in the farm.
We had to part with a lot of our harvest with the landlords and had just enough to sell in the market a make a living. As I grew I know how God protected me from those days when Small pox used to be a giant killer and the shadow of death hovered over every house. The cries from the neighborhood were scary not knowing when would be my turn. Many were buried alive as the fear of a contagious disease spread though villages and cities. To add to this, there was widespread tension between the communities. Massacres and massive blood letting was heard about from nearby towns and villages. But through this all, a wretched and cursed boy, a slave farmer’s son, found nothing to hold on to, except hope, that there will be another day, a new sunrise, spreading light and showing a new way.
Slowly things began to improve but still when you compared to today, life in those times were lived out on hope. As the government gave some new land, to till and to make a living, we were encouraged to take up new initiatives. We sowed the seed and worked the land without rest, it bore results. We began to make so much of produce that, we could go on carts to other cities and towns to sell it and make more money.
My father soon handed over his work to me. I had now become a young man, able and strong to face the challenges that the world would throw up at me. So did our country, we slowly moved from getting grains and help from other countries, to a fully self sustaining economy built by farmers. I was proud to have contributed to this cause. When you were born, you never saw the old trials of life. You were born with all the opportunities and privileges that the world could offer. You were the youngest of the ten born to me, and also the most loved of all my sons.
I was determined that you would get the best of what I could offer. But I always told you my story, the old days and how I came through them. You always wanted to hear my story again and again, probably it sounded like a fairy tale. But probably the day has come for you to go back, go back to the basics. Yes, in this hour of pain and sorrow, you need to apply this father’s learning. Learning which was not gained out of the textbooks but out of the valley experiences of life. I never went to the best colleges or universities that you had the privilege of but my lessons were gained out of facing life and death everyday. Your professors might have been great men of knowledge, but I give you the wisdom that was gained when I toiled on the barren land and having seen the richness that can come out of God’s created order. We never trusted on degrees and fat pay cheques but everyday on the provisions of God. Yes, asking for water when there was none, praying for rains when the predictions were for drought and famines.
Today, a different era and a different generation, a generation which has never seen the difficult times but always protected and pampered in the growing and rich economies of the world, stands face to face with a crisis. Life is not as easy as you always thought, but a real battle. It’s not about fighting it with your education and technological know how, read Satyam, and you will know that it is fought with the virtues and convictions that God builds in to a person through the good and bad times.
Do not be a coward like the ones that took their life in to their own hands, but learn from this old man and his story and you will have done well by the end of your life. I promise no wealth, no pleasures and no luxury for you but knowing that there is somebody more powerful and above all our situations, God himself.
Take care and God Bless.
Your aged but stronger father.
Tags: depression, father and son, financial crisis, job loss, unemployment