I could sleep last nite..many thoughts running. Recently I have started to get these very heavy emotional rushes whenever I see a pitiful sights. Be it the bad roads, the traffic, people wasting water, thousands of one manned vehicles on the roads, kids in labour...but what most troubles me is the way we all have become de-sensitised! As if this was the exact way it was supposed to be. It seems as though we have all been sterilised with a facade that prevents us from having any emotions for such occurences. Yes occurences is what they are to us....mere everyday occurences!
I always had these rushes.....these emotional rage to do something right. But I used to ignore it as a hormonal thing flagging the 'coming soon' blue days! But no.....it can't be just that!
I beleive yesterday that myth broke....and I decided. I am just not gonna keep it mum. Keep it silent.
There is this sweeper lady who cleans up the roads everyday, and she stands just across the road where I wait for my cab. I see her picking up people's filth(plastic bags...urggh) every single day. Its been almost 2 months now. Finally I could see her that way. So prone to health hazards...so vulnerable to all x,y,z virus's that we throw out of our house! I dint know what to do. Should I give her money, or just a word of appreciation for her good work, or should I help her...I have never done this before! Who is she to me...what will people think if I talk to her... Just when I was thinking what to do she looked at me. And she smiled...in all her unimaginably stinking situation she smiled at me! Why? I was only thinking about her...thats all! I dint even do anything....but she kept on smiling and put her hands forward like she was blessing me! Why? Just for the sole reason that we both spend 10 minutes of our day on the same road at the same time....And it stuck me....I knew what to do....
I got her a pair of gloves! Thats what she needs.....simple! It wasnt gonna solve all her pains and problems in life...but then she needs to know that people respect her...her work! Just a small token of thank you....
She took it from me hesitantly....smiled back and asked me to open and teach her how to wear it. But the look that she gave me, brought tears in my own eyes! My cab then came and I left...she waived me good bye!
I was in my cab...on my everyday route and suddenly I see so many such women. Same pitiful state. Till date I could see only her coz it was very obvious..she was right in front of me. But there are hundreds of them. And I prayed to God. I prayed like anything....
God give me the strength to see others pain and make me an instrument in whichever small/big way to ease their pain.
The same day after coming back from office I saw couple of Oprah videos on you tube. And a sense of greatness dawned on me. The kind where I needed only compassion and will to make a difference...
(I actually came about to do a post on Oprah. I absolutely love her. If at all God gives me a chance to change a thing in my life I would ask him to give me a life like hers. Passionate, dedicated, generous....I am running out of adjectives! I can never have words to define her. )
She is a Saint in a Valentino!!!
One of her speeches that really inspires me and with which I would like to start all my days with...
(OPRAH WINFREY SPEECH - NAACP 2005 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE)
There is a beautiful line in a Maya Angelou poem that I love called 'To our grandmothers'.
And the line says...'I come as one but I stand as 10000'.
And tonite... I stand as 10000 to the 10th power. Representing all of those whose names we know made the history books....and the millions who dn't...for those who marched...for those who prayed...for those who sang and bled... for those who beleived and for those who died...
I stand as 10000 to the 10th power
I stand for those who knew a new day was coming.....but never recieved a moment of noteriaty a moment of applause...for their courage..for their commiment... for their command to be free. And because of them today I stand on solid rock.
It is the rock that I know they laid they laid for me, for us because I know they were the seed of free and becoz they were the seed I get to be the fruit!!
I know this...I get to be the fruit and create a new ground for freedom to blossom everyday on my own television show!
This I know for sure that God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can ever dream for yourself!
Since I was a child i asked God how do you use me and how can I live in that dream...so I thank u for this great acknowledgement for being in the Hall of fame.
And I believe I am gonna run on...see what the end will be and keep surrendering to Gods dream for me...
I so wish I could be even a tinge of the person that she is....
1 comment:
Great speech yaar!! And BTW...... GLOVES??!!
Wow...... even I cudnt thnk of that. Kudos!!!
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