Travels within oneself
I met JRM Pawar some four and a half years ago… and the meeting was very brief. And yet I remember him very distinctly.
During those days he used to head the regional Head Office of Directorate of Field Publicity in Pune, popularly known in the government circles as DFP. The office was located in some non-descript corner of the city and was nothing great to write about… however, it housed an organization that I would rate highly in concept and potential, yet low in implementation.
Actually it has been a case with all the DFP units I have seen… and I have seen quite a few of them- in Chandigarh, in Allahabad, in Aurangabad, and in Pune. They all have a very high potential and yet the implementation of vision behind them is lackadaisical.
DFP was a vision of our first Prime Minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru…the dream was to create autonomous teams in every district of India… well averse with multimedia and modern mass communication technique… and utilizing them to educate masses on issues of communal importance. It was a masterpiece of an idea, like so many other ideas of this great man- that ultimately failed due to poor implementation.
The reason as to why I remembered DFP was because today I was talking to my friends… about administrative set up in district level and was reminded that a lot of potentially fruitful ideas have become a burden to exchequer… posts like Locust Control Officer, Malaria Control Officer, and Agriculture Extension Officer… and the Office of Directorate of Field Publicity. The reasons for the failure of these offices are not far to seek… however I would not go into these reasons, lest I may digress from the issue at hand.
It has been more than four years… so I have practically forgotten how he looked like… but his eyes were powerful and his gaze was deep. One look at him and I knew that I am meeting someone special. Somebody who has an ability to look deep into your being and yet choosing not to do so… for the ephemerality of it all.
While talking to him, he asked me as to what are my interests… I told... given a choice I would like to travel and travel… see new places, new cultures, new way of living and thinking and document it all. He smiled… somewhere in me, perhaps, he saw his past. His smile was full of meaning… and I found myself- helpless, unable to decipher it. I smiled back, albeit sheepishly.
He smiled back… yet again, reclined back on his seat and took a deep breath.
"So what are the places you have visited in this life time of yours"… this was a profound question… not because it was… but because it was coming from a person, who rendered an altogether different meaning to it…. I looked deep inside myself… trying to relive those moments of wanderings… of Western Ghats, of Gujarat, of Uttaranchal, of West Bengal, of Himachal Pradesh, of Uttar Pradesh. And when I looked deep inside me, it humbled me… for I had not in a third of my existence visited a third of India.
"And have you visited inside yourself"… this was another profound question… though I couldn’t understand its profoundness. That however raised a storm of question inside me… why do I travel, what is in it for me? What do I get out of it?
Traveling has been a natural urge for me, for quite some time… though I hardly ever sat back and tried to understand why it is so. I lived a large part of my life… traveling aimlessly and sporadically, meaninglessly. And yet I had my most intense experience while traveling in Gujarat… when under a tremendous emotional duress, I packed my bag and headed towards Diu… I went to Junagadh, then upon some urge to Somnath (I had two buses in front of me… one going to Diu and another going to Somnath… and despite the fact that I wanted to go to Diu… I knowingly took the bus to Somnath)… and what happened was something mystic and divine.
Ever since, traveling became a spiritual exercise for me. Undertaken once every five six months… in soliloquy… to emancipate myself… to rejuvenate myself… and to start loving myself all over again. It has had a tremendous therapeutic effect on me… and therefore I suggest it to everybody, as a spiritual exercise.
In a way… whenever I visit the outer world, I visit inside me… while walking long distance in the woods… in a busy thoroughfare… in a marketplace… and on a virgin beach… I start speaking to myself… I start pointing out my mistakes, start accepting my mistakes and start seeking apologies for it all… I never do them, otherwise… Ego is it.
But never did I visit inside me… figuratively, perhaps.
"The world inside you is wondrous… it will startle you, amaze you, entice you and mesmerize you. The world outside is nothing when compared… its transient and meaningless. When I used to be of your age… I used to be a hippy… wandering in the hills of Himachal, taking grass and what not… and then everything changed when I started looking within myself."
I had a question on my face… how does one look into oneself. He read that… he smiled and said
"You need a Guru… and when you will require him the most… he will automatically come to you"… these words were imprinted on my mind. I have been living with these words, ever since.
A lot of changes have happened in me in last two years… I am able to define myself in a better way…. Something tells me that the time has come… I am waiting for him.
During those days he used to head the regional Head Office of Directorate of Field Publicity in Pune, popularly known in the government circles as DFP. The office was located in some non-descript corner of the city and was nothing great to write about… however, it housed an organization that I would rate highly in concept and potential, yet low in implementation.
Actually it has been a case with all the DFP units I have seen… and I have seen quite a few of them- in Chandigarh, in Allahabad, in Aurangabad, and in Pune. They all have a very high potential and yet the implementation of vision behind them is lackadaisical.
DFP was a vision of our first Prime Minister Pundit Jawahar Lal Nehru…the dream was to create autonomous teams in every district of India… well averse with multimedia and modern mass communication technique… and utilizing them to educate masses on issues of communal importance. It was a masterpiece of an idea, like so many other ideas of this great man- that ultimately failed due to poor implementation.
The reason as to why I remembered DFP was because today I was talking to my friends… about administrative set up in district level and was reminded that a lot of potentially fruitful ideas have become a burden to exchequer… posts like Locust Control Officer, Malaria Control Officer, and Agriculture Extension Officer… and the Office of Directorate of Field Publicity. The reasons for the failure of these offices are not far to seek… however I would not go into these reasons, lest I may digress from the issue at hand.
It has been more than four years… so I have practically forgotten how he looked like… but his eyes were powerful and his gaze was deep. One look at him and I knew that I am meeting someone special. Somebody who has an ability to look deep into your being and yet choosing not to do so… for the ephemerality of it all.
While talking to him, he asked me as to what are my interests… I told... given a choice I would like to travel and travel… see new places, new cultures, new way of living and thinking and document it all. He smiled… somewhere in me, perhaps, he saw his past. His smile was full of meaning… and I found myself- helpless, unable to decipher it. I smiled back, albeit sheepishly.
He smiled back… yet again, reclined back on his seat and took a deep breath.
"So what are the places you have visited in this life time of yours"… this was a profound question… not because it was… but because it was coming from a person, who rendered an altogether different meaning to it…. I looked deep inside myself… trying to relive those moments of wanderings… of Western Ghats, of Gujarat, of Uttaranchal, of West Bengal, of Himachal Pradesh, of Uttar Pradesh. And when I looked deep inside me, it humbled me… for I had not in a third of my existence visited a third of India.
"And have you visited inside yourself"… this was another profound question… though I couldn’t understand its profoundness. That however raised a storm of question inside me… why do I travel, what is in it for me? What do I get out of it?
Traveling has been a natural urge for me, for quite some time… though I hardly ever sat back and tried to understand why it is so. I lived a large part of my life… traveling aimlessly and sporadically, meaninglessly. And yet I had my most intense experience while traveling in Gujarat… when under a tremendous emotional duress, I packed my bag and headed towards Diu… I went to Junagadh, then upon some urge to Somnath (I had two buses in front of me… one going to Diu and another going to Somnath… and despite the fact that I wanted to go to Diu… I knowingly took the bus to Somnath)… and what happened was something mystic and divine.
Ever since, traveling became a spiritual exercise for me. Undertaken once every five six months… in soliloquy… to emancipate myself… to rejuvenate myself… and to start loving myself all over again. It has had a tremendous therapeutic effect on me… and therefore I suggest it to everybody, as a spiritual exercise.
In a way… whenever I visit the outer world, I visit inside me… while walking long distance in the woods… in a busy thoroughfare… in a marketplace… and on a virgin beach… I start speaking to myself… I start pointing out my mistakes, start accepting my mistakes and start seeking apologies for it all… I never do them, otherwise… Ego is it.
But never did I visit inside me… figuratively, perhaps.
"The world inside you is wondrous… it will startle you, amaze you, entice you and mesmerize you. The world outside is nothing when compared… its transient and meaningless. When I used to be of your age… I used to be a hippy… wandering in the hills of Himachal, taking grass and what not… and then everything changed when I started looking within myself."
I had a question on my face… how does one look into oneself. He read that… he smiled and said
"You need a Guru… and when you will require him the most… he will automatically come to you"… these words were imprinted on my mind. I have been living with these words, ever since.
A lot of changes have happened in me in last two years… I am able to define myself in a better way…. Something tells me that the time has come… I am waiting for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment