One day of Conscious Living - The Prelude

Friday, January 29, 2010
 Be the change that you want to see in the world - Mahatma Gandhi

I would like to introduce myself as someone who has finally understood, theoretically for now, Gandhiji’s message to ‘be the change’. I want to ‘be the change’ in practice as well, and for that, I’ve decided to refer to the wise words and images from the holy book Mahabharata and Aamir Khan’s movie Taare Zameen Par respectively.
 
Dharmaraj Yudhishthir and his brothers were under the tutelage of Guru Dronacharya. One day, Guruji asked all his students to learn the line ‘sada satya bolo’ ie always speak the truth. The next day, on being asked to repeat the lesson of the previous day, everyone except Yudhishthir repeated the line. Guruji was surprised that Yudhishthir couldn’t remember such a simple line and asked him to come prepared with it the next day. The next day and many days thereafter, Yudhishthir found himself unable to repeat the lesson. Guruji finally lost his temper with Yudhishthir and admonished him before his class-mates. He, however, stood blank faced and accepted his failure in not having managed to pass a day without being untruthful in some way or the other. Guruji was stunned at the explanation given by him. He hugged him and said that it was his good fortune to have a student who taught him the true meaning of learning by transforming a mere sentence into a way of living.
 
The protagonist in the movie, the little boy, maintained a thick drawing book in which he drew one picture each day. His dismal academic performance frustrated his parents and they sent him to a boarding school against his wish. A few months later, the boy’s teacher comes to meet his parents at his house and finds his thick drawing book. On slowly turning over the pages of that book, he found each page exactly like the other; but as he speedily runs the pages between his fingers, he discovers that the book had been made to replicate a scene in motion applying the same technique as used by an animation movie maker.
 
Now if I try to combine the lesson from the Mahabharta with the animation movie making technique portrayed in the movie Taare Zameen Par, I get to understand that if I want to ‘be the change’, then I have to work on each day of my life in such a way that even though most of the things that I do during a single day may appear to be repetitive, but some little thing slowly and almost imperceptibly changes each day making my life appear like a scene in motion that finally attains the desirable change.
 
After having shared with you my desire to ‘be the change’ as well as the technique that I plan to employ for fulfilling my desire, I sit down to draw in the first page of my drawing book. I trust in God to assist me in completing one such page daily.