Ek aur Shyam...
After my usual evening tea, I started walking back towards my Packard Lab. I was thinking about the forthcoming DBMS quiz on Mon, normalization, DBMS project and what not. My mind was totally occupied by academic things.
The weather was fantastic. Not very cold, just the right chill to enchant your mood. All of a sudden as if a spark extinguishes the darkness, my attention was captivated by the tall and broad trees around me. I looked at them and then gradually started observing them. Felt as if they were telling me something... These lovely, silent marvels of life have been trying to tell something for the last 200 years. Has anyone listened to them? These trees have been a living witness to the innumerable events of the time bygone. They have been a testimony to everything. Yet silent. I felt as if no language was needed to understand them. I felt them, still gazing upwards at their height, as if touching the sky.
After my usual evening tea, I started walking back towards my Packard Lab. I was thinking about the forthcoming DBMS quiz on Mon, normalization, DBMS project and what not. My mind was totally occupied by academic things.
The weather was fantastic. Not very cold, just the right chill to enchant your mood. All of a sudden as if a spark extinguishes the darkness, my attention was captivated by the tall and broad trees around me. I looked at them and then gradually started observing them. Felt as if they were telling me something... These lovely, silent marvels of life have been trying to tell something for the last 200 years. Has anyone listened to them? These trees have been a living witness to the innumerable events of the time bygone. They have been a testimony to everything. Yet silent. I felt as if no language was needed to understand them. I felt them, still gazing upwards at their height, as if touching the sky.
The trees were still leafless, yet they were telling me again and again that the body is just a cover. Even if this cover dies, the spirit of life, the mind will always remain, it is eternal. Even if you are enslaved, nobody, no power in this world can enslave your mind and your thinking. Very soon, the trees will wear a new dress. Throughout our lives we are preoccupied with silly things but do not realize that every sorrow, every pain is just a passing phase. Night is never permanent, neither is day. Joy is never permanent, neither is sorrow. But what is permanent is our spirit, our conscience. The happiness contained in our conscience is the real happiness, the eternal joy. My mind was saying to go inside the lab and get back to DBMS :-), but this time I listened to my heart, and sat in front of the Packard Lab near the fountain. There wasn't any water rising from the fountain, but soon there will be, Spring is on its way!!
Suddenly my attention was captured by some children enjoying this moment. They started climbing a tree and playing with it. This sight took me back to my childhood (I remember clearly 6th/7th standard) when we used to go out in the summer afternoons to get "Jambool" fruits near our home. Our determination was so strong that we used to try rope tricks taught in Scouting to climb the trees and get the tasty "Jambool" fruits. I came back from my nostalgia and started watching the children again. I feel sad for those thousands of children living in the Indian metros who do not see the real childhood. They are born in an artificial world which is very far from the reality, imprisoned by the endowments of technology - Television, Concrete Jungles. I wonder what kind of personalities will they become, who have had no taste of nature, who have had no taste of tolerance, who have had no taste of reality.
The majestic Packard Lab was standing behind me gazing proudly at these trees. The Packard Lab. Yes, which has stood here for the last 150 years and has produced thousands of Engineers. But still the trees were also there. It occurred to me, that in this great land man had achieved a perfect balance between human ambition, human ego and the Nature. Who says that science leads to destruction? Yes, it has the power to, but the control is within our hands isn't it? If we want we can reach to great heights and at the same time to abyss. Where do you want to go?
I also observed that in this scene before my eyes, there was also the Packard Church. Yes the temple of our conscience. The picture was complete.
Suddenly my attention was captured by some children enjoying this moment. They started climbing a tree and playing with it. This sight took me back to my childhood (I remember clearly 6th/7th standard) when we used to go out in the summer afternoons to get "Jambool" fruits near our home. Our determination was so strong that we used to try rope tricks taught in Scouting to climb the trees and get the tasty "Jambool" fruits. I came back from my nostalgia and started watching the children again. I feel sad for those thousands of children living in the Indian metros who do not see the real childhood. They are born in an artificial world which is very far from the reality, imprisoned by the endowments of technology - Television, Concrete Jungles. I wonder what kind of personalities will they become, who have had no taste of nature, who have had no taste of tolerance, who have had no taste of reality.
The majestic Packard Lab was standing behind me gazing proudly at these trees. The Packard Lab. Yes, which has stood here for the last 150 years and has produced thousands of Engineers. But still the trees were also there. It occurred to me, that in this great land man had achieved a perfect balance between human ambition, human ego and the Nature. Who says that science leads to destruction? Yes, it has the power to, but the control is within our hands isn't it? If we want we can reach to great heights and at the same time to abyss. Where do you want to go?
I also observed that in this scene before my eyes, there was also the Packard Church. Yes the temple of our conscience. The picture was complete.
