An Eulogy - A Candle or An Incense Stick

Saransh was turning on the 2^nd staircase towards the 1^st floor office where he had been working from last year as a part time officer. It was the administrative office of a molecular research company in a suburb near Mumbai. As he set his foot on the 3^rd step of the last stretch he slipped and his hustle to save his lunch box his spectacles fell and the glasses broke. The Managing Director’s driver Tiwari, a short guy with thick moustache in his well ironed white safari suit called out “Sambhalke Saheb, kya hua .ohhho glass tut gaya. Koi fikr nahi Sir, yehi sochiye koi badi vipta aane wali thi, tal gai (meaning - Be careful Sir, what happened, Oh your glasses broke. It’s ok, just be positive thinking that a bigger trouble has been warded off with this small incident). This phrase and incident stuck in Saransh’s mind and he carried this positive thought ever after.

As days passed bigger events happened with bigger risks and perils. The ones which went through sailed the ocean boosting confidence and ones which did not went through giving themselves as an analogy to the phrase. He went through phases, travelled continents and through several trials and tribulations in his life. Saransh was a workaholic and put his heart in whatever he did. He had passed the Banking test and managed to join a Government Bank. Marriage was another phase in life he went through his parent’s consent. GOD graced him two blossoms and he named them Zara and Ansh, the elder being a part of his wife name Zaheera. The same concept of positive thoughts was embedded in the family by Saransh.  Both Ansh and Zara grew with the thought process that everything happens for the good. As days passed Saransh got engrossed in his work more and the family was taken care by wife.

One day Saransh noticed that Zaheera was in all praise for Ansh at the dinner table for scoring well in school. She was reiterating the word’s “I am Proud of him that he got so much marks”. While all this was happening Saransh noticed that Zara was sulking a bit and Ansh had a proud grin on his face. After dinner Saransh told them a Story of “The Proud Red Rose”. It goes like this.

One beautiful spring day a red rose blossomed in a forest. As the rose looked around, a pine tree nearby said, “What a beautiful flower! I wish I was that lovely.” Another tree said, “Dear pine, do not be sad. We cannot have everything.” The rose turned and remarked, “It seems that I am the most beautiful flower in this forest.” A sunflower raised its yellow head and asked, “Why do you say that? In this forest there are many beautiful flowers. You are just one of them.” The red rose replied, “I see everyone looking at me and admiring me.” Then the rose looked at a cactus and said, “Look at that ugly plant full of thorns!” The pine tree said, “Red rose, what kind of talk is this? Who can say what beauty is? You have thorns too.” The proud red rose looked angrily at the pine and said, “I thought you had good taste! You do not know what beauty is at all. You cannot compare my thorns to that of the cactus.”

“What a proud flower,” thought the trees. The rose tried to move its roots away from the cactus, but it could not move. As the days passed, the red rose would look at the cactus and say insulting things, like ‘this plant is useless. How sorry I am to be his neighbor.’ The cactus never got upset and even tried to advise the rose, saying, “God did not create any form of life without a purpose.” Spring passed, and the weather became very warm. Life became difficult in the forest, as there was no rain. The red rose began to wilt. One day the rose saw sparrows stick their beaks into the cactus and then fly away, refreshed. This was puzzling, and the red rose asked the pine tree what the birds were doing. The pine tree explained that the birds were getting water from the cactus. “Does it not hurt when they make holes?” asked the rose. “Yes, but the cactus does not like to see the birds suffer,” replied the pine. The rose opened its eyes in wonder and exclaimed, “The cactus has water?”

“Yes, you can also drink from it. The sparrow can bring water to you if you ask the cactus for help.” The red rose felt too ashamed to ask for water from the cactus, but finally it did ask for help. The cactus kindly agreed. The birds filled their beaks with water and watered the rose’s roots. Thus the rose learned a lesson and never judged anyone by their appearance again.

  Zaheera too understood the message which Saransh wanted to convey. She understood that “To be proud of your child is a thought process of bringing Ego into existence that he or she is superior. So being proud is not what is important but being happy with both her children’s deeds is what a parent need to inculcate in oneself. The seed of being human.

As the day ends today on 1^st May 2020, the analogy of “Being Human” could not have been better dawn on me. While the world mourned the loss of two greats on successive days, we felt the tremor on the 3^rd day too. Venu Uncle as we fondly called him passed away on 1^st May 2020. As the other two he too died of Cancer. We have fond memories in our childhood of this tall, lanky, handsome gentleman who was a workaholic and hardcore family man. But as Saransh, he had a sense of “being human” in all his deeds. I never saw an egoistic proud feeling on any of his achievements though there were many. People write eulogy once you die, I wonder why? Once you write the eulogy it is like a candle whose which is burnt off, rather it should be like the Incense stick. It burns but slowly and the fragrance lingers for long. Some persons leave such mark in your life and Venu Uncle was one of them. This is not a eulogy but my burning of the incense stick for the great soul.