AmAnatvam, adhambatvam.
Humility. Lack of self glorification.
The first two of the list of virtues that Krishna gives Arjuna in Chapter 13, Bhagavad Geetha.
The other day I was asked to fill in a form for a nomination for some certificate. I always duck. Because for one thing, the village work is only of the people, by the people. I have little enough to claim. For another, if any visibility gets on us, it simply gets diverted. From where it belongs. The people.
And yet, I thought i would fill it up, and any visibility for the PaalaGuttaPalleBags is a good thing. Livlihoods, orders. More work, and more women.
And yet I am just stuck. It is simply a set of questions that demands that one glorifies oneself. Ones work. Blows one's trumpet, so to say. I have not managed to write anything so far. In that 2 page form. A pencil is chewed up. Thats all.
And meantime, somewhere I wonder, at how far these processes are. How far they remove us. From the essentials.
AmAnathvam, adhambatvam.
...
There was a line in the form asking for references. I realised that the only people who can speak of the village work, who know the details, are the people of the village.
I gave Eashwaramma's and Roopa's phone numbers.
I know no greater people than them. In integrity, in ability. Or whose commendation I would value more.
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Aparna Krishnan That is never a problem, that is always done.This is structured differently.
Anyway I was thinking about the process in general. This is not uncommon, such a requirement. In many places. And a society accepts it, unheeding of how it works against many essential values, and nurturing of those values. The values of amanatvam, adhambhatvam.
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Aparna Krishnan A society loses itself. As it runs after the tinsel of name and fame.
Aparna Krishnan I remember my classmates used to write something for admission to colleges abroad. I think that also demanded something like this. Self glorification.
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Rahul Banerjee Living as we do within a capitalist and casteist framework some compromises are necessary so as to provide relief to the dispossessed in the interim.
Aparna Krishnan When one joins the system to beat the system. One has become the system. It never works, even if it may seem to.
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Aparna Krishnan To find that way of response, rooted in ones own mores and praxis and roots. In every act and way is the challenge. Maybe the only challenge.
Gandhis satyagraha was a response rooted in the soil of this land. It belonged to the people, they owned it up.
Bhuvana Murali Can't tell you how much I still struggle with this institutionalized need for self glorification. We were taught something else in our culture and now the world is entirely different. It is very tough to resign to and live with this "reality".
Aparna Krishnan I remember this story. A kings coutiers tells the sage, "If you learn to cultivate the king, you will not need to live on rice gruel.". The sage answered, "If you learn to live on rice gruel you need not cultivate the king."
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Aparna Krishnan "We were taught something else in our culture ...". To stay rooted in that culture, in that soil, in the peoples rooted in that soil. Opens out possibilities. What I learnt, I learnt in my village. Nowhere else.
Bhuvana Murali Aparna Krishnan I agree. We are in a certain tirisangu space (I won't even call it tirisangu sorgam) fully aware that we are round pegs in square holes. We try to be rooted in that culture and not lose it for the sake of fitting in, although I do concede that it can never be as being physically there and being a part of every life experience there, good and difficult . It is the goal. But some situations, some reasoning beyond what can be explained in this public space keeps us fighting the current here.
Aparna Krishnan Bhuvana Murali understand. Yes, we are all in greys. Trying to reach understanding. And harmony, of thought word and deed. It's a journey of lifetimes.
Aparna Krishnan My only learning is that we need to understand what understanding we need to seek. After that it's a stumble, a getting up, a step forward, a step backwards. It's a long long way to integrity.
And yet suddenly sometimes one meets people who live it, and then some understandings get clearer. Some possibilities become more real. That is the gift my village gave me. Possibilities.
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