Sitting in the bus which was suffocating me with people's myriad smells and presence, I heard a neta speaking at a roadside shamiana at some function in city today evening. He was saying that if Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would have been horrified or something to that effect. In a matter of seconds that I heard those words, I felt they sound so hollow, that they clang, clang, clang against themselves. Who cares what are these netas' opinions? Because they surely wouldn't be theirs. Here is one Minister who speaks of HIV in theatre festival, with a complete absence of mind and sense that people would inwardly snigger at him. There is one more MP who tirades against his own party members and agenda, holding a press meet every other day just to keep himself floating in the midst of the political vortex. He doesn't undersand that it is they, the elected representatives, whose job it is to correct the administration and carry out people-friendly works. They don't know their work, why they have been elected. All they do is talk, talk and talk endlessly.
'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares?
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