Smouldering wicks

Traveling on Indian railways is always an exhilarating experience. Flights can never replace the joy of train travel. And with the massive upgrade of the railways, it is better than ever before. The new facade of the railway stations, the colorful lights, and the ethnic architecture are worth admiring. The new trains and the upgrading of the old ones, with new colors and pictures, are great to see. Vande Bharat (VB), the most recently introduced one, is sleek and cute.

But once you enter the station, it is still the same or better than before. Crowds are more than ever, almost a stampede at times, a 4-hour wait for the VB to arrive and a 7-hour delay to reach the destination, the waste from the previous run pushed into one corner of the train (there was no time for the turnaround trip), the large beautiful bio-toilets, but left un-flushed by the previous occupant, the automatic closing of the doors, etc., give you a mixed feeling. That some things never change. The uncertainty of travel that gives you a thrill. The external-internal divide leaves one confused because you expected an internal change too. I realized that it was my expectation that was the problem!

 

But then, is this not true of everything today? What is promoted to create a perception of all is well, vs what is true and real. What is promised especially as elections near and what finally ends up being delivered. The visible parts of the nation vs the invisible parts that are kept away or not talked about. The 4th estate that casts a blind eye to what is uncomfortable and promotes what increases their TRP, what the powers that be tell them to promote, etc.

 

The reality is, this is not a problem of the powers that be only. It is of me and maybe you and others too. The cardio-oral (heart-mouth) divide – what I think and what I say does not correlate. 

It was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote in The Gulag Archipelago (1918–1956) “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”.

 

Can this change? The good book says, “If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” The good book also says, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;”. 

That is the answer, to nurture the small bridgehead of good that we see around, reignite the smoldering wicks of lights around us and within. So that there is no cardio-oral divide, no disintegration between what is promoted and what is real and true.

 

I need someone to blow on my smoldering wick…