A Father's Dream

Many of my childhood moments are still vivid and fresh in my eyes. It is overwhelming to be drowned in those blissful moments to forget all the others. The time in there was very majestic but swift.

In the rainy days, we used to play in the rain behind our parent’s eyes. I used to be incredibly amused to make those paper boats, write my name and flow it in the small canal infront of my home. We(i and my friends) even used to have boat-race competitions. Defeat or victory, we hadn’t any feelings of superiority or inferiority. May be, it was the innocence. In the blend of innocence, playfulness and liveliness, the winter would forget to chill while we played hide and seek in the hay. I used to be too much blitheful to play in the hailstones. There was no such winter when I didn't not bedridden once. But also, my parents could never stop my craze to play in the hailstorm.

Then a quirk, spring would hail me with refreshing calm zephyrs and welcome with a gracious and serene environment of greenery and flowers. For me, the most interesting of all activities in there was to go for hunting with my friends taking the catapults we made (with v-shaped piece of a twig attached with rubber on either side equally, so that a piece of leather could be tied to hold a stone at the end of the pieces of rubber) ourselves. Oh god! I was really gallant enough (I guess) to explore the vast jungle with very few friends and just the catapults. It was a real gratification when we traveled across the rivers, rivulets, hills, ponds and forests wildly in search of the birds. Whether we could kill them or not; we really glimpsed many. Moreover, after it, much time of the spring and summer would pass fishing and swimming in the river Andhikhola. We would make the instrument for fishing (we called it teer). After the curved thin and long metal of umbrella was straighten, it would be fixed inside the cover of a ball pen-both of them attached to a long rubber such that once it is stretched and left, the pointed part of the spear would bustle fiercely and pierce the fish. We could do fishing like that in the shallower part while the fish would be under a small stone showing its any part.

Apart from those, what I want to recall most are the nasty things that our group of about thirty friends would do. We would hold meetings to make plans were never clumsy, now I wonder how, despite of being so young. What we would do, although it might be the orchard of one amongst us; was to thief fruits like guava, papaya, citrus, bananas, pomegranates, pineapples, mangoes and many others. If our parents would know about the theft; some of them would pretend as if they knew nothing and some would simply advise us not to be a bad boy. And to my father, he always said, “my child, be a person whom you can respect. If you are such that you can respect yourself, you are a good boy. There are many successful men but what we lack is good men.”

Ever since I knew ‘the good man’ of my father, I always wanted to be it although my fathers’ words were very abstruse to me to understand at that time. But also, I had felt that he must have said well. And being good man is good, I used to think.

My father died when I was just twelve and in year six in the school.

Since then, those of his words always echoes and coheres intensely in my mind trying to find a path-a path to be a good person rather than the abundantly found successful persons in this earth whom people even may falsely call a good person.
I have not seen any good person in my life (may also be because it is not the matter to be seen), but I have heard of them like Gautam Buddha, Mother Teresa, and some more. I have also seen many successful persons who have forgotten their goodness for the sake of the money and so called reputation! What if their names be printed in the pages of daily newspapers or the magazines? The satisfaction is never derived because of the popularity and the wealth. Rather it is a wander thirst which goes on increasing. If a person is not a good man, just successful, he will never be satisfied. Satisfaction is the only way to measure happiness. So, unless a person is such that he can respect self he is neither satisfied nor happy.

I have known, only a good person can respect to self. That was what my father wanted to make me realize. I was unknown about hunting when I was child; but now I know and I don’t hunt. I don’t curse my innocence as it is not a crime but to pretend to be innocent is the greatest crime. So my father did not punish my innocence, but always tried to enlighten my ignorance. He always wanted to make me a good person rather first of all. Really there is a heavenly pleasure to be a good person. So let us try to be a good person as ‘a father’ said.

May everyone wish every other in Christmas or Id or Diwali to be a good person to the traditional way to wish to be a successful person! Then only everyone will think to be a good person. If anyone starts to think well, he will do well, and so will be good. He then respects himself and knows to respect others. If it flourishes in the earth; the Shangri-La of morality and humanity will replace this world of terror with peace and harmony.