Prayer, Parents and Profession

Prayer – Some words are really fascinated me. Isn’t it a good idea to pray?

It added a spirit to me, a spirit to be positive, to be calm, to be kind and most important to be myself. When both hands touches together, head bents and eyes are closed, I get freedom from being me.

I become a free bird of an open sky, who could think anything, who could do anything; no barriers are there on my thoughts, dreams and desires. The darkness all around my vision looks like the universe to me and I resemble myself with the little source of light that I can see only after closing the eyes. It’s moving, revolving, igniting, diminishing, brightening, fading and again igniting…it’s a great pleasure to watch myself like this.

Soon the darkness of universe shaded and I can see the entire new world of my thoughts and dreams. This world is completely based on my internal wisdom and eternal emotion. But this internal wisdom and emotion are not fully imaginary; Many times my knowledge, perception and emotion that I shared with the world makes the foundation for the internal world. And its vice-versa is also true; many times the internal wisdom and emotion amalgamate into my attitude and behavior with the world.

Really prayer is the continuous process of self-learning and self-evolving. No teacher and no books can give such education that prayer produces. I think this may be the reason prayer is compulsory in all schools and religions all around the world.

But I must confess I am not regular in prayer. If you talk about the conventional way of prayer, you find me praying rarely. Being nurtured in a Hindu family, we have a little temple in my home, in which you can find idols and photos of many Hindu God and Goddess.

My mother prays regularly in the temple. But she does it only after completing her household duties. Her morning starts with serving us first. Whether its chilling winter day or hot summer, she wakes up early in the morning daily. She prepares tea and breakfast for everyone. She ensures that everyone is leaving comfortably for school, college or job. Many times she cooks the lunch early in the morning itself when my father goes to our farms at native place. After saying bye-bye to everyone, she cleans the home, completes her kitchen tasks and at last she washes clothes.

After completing all these tasks, she baths and enters into temple. There she prays to god with all Hindu worship rituals. But I would not say that she worship the god every day, rather I would say she worship her family more than anything. She does the work at home like a monk is praying to God. And you know, shine in the tiles and walls of my home and taste in my home cooked food would tell you everything how dedicatedly and devotionally this monk is praying to her duties from last thirty years.

Many times I teased her that she is not the real Hindu woman. Because in most of the Hindu families, first thing a woman do in morning (after bath) is worship God and what my mother does just opposite of this.

But her stand is very straight forward and realistic on this – ‘I can’t skip my duties as a mother or wife; that comes first in my priority. And also I can’t do anything just for the sake of completing a task; I pray to God only when I can immerse myself in the devotion without any worry or hurry.’

My father has a little different phenomenon than my mother. My mother worship the God every day in temple but my father makes his presence there occasionally. As a person, he is very much connected with ground so his prayer also starts with soil. He worship his farms, crops, soil, water, rain, nature and even cows and buffaloes at our farm.

During my childhood, I saw many times my father prefers to accomplish his tasks as a farmer rather than religious rituals. As per him, we can celebrate Diwali and pray Goddess Laxmi every day until our farms are green and soil is fruitful. When it comes to work, he never thinks about his name, fame, position, attire, attitude or ego. He can run tractor, he can play plough, he can pick pickaxe, he can lift sackful of grain and even he can pile into mud to irrigate crops.

Whether it’s the burning hot sun or teeth chattering cold or thundering black clouds, nothing can stop my father to pray his work as a farmer. And you know, the patience, simplicity and boldness in my father’s attitude would tell you everything how dedicatedly he loves his work.

Though my parents are not very regular in performing religious rituals, Saturday is very special day for them. Both of them keep fast on the Saturday. My father could not bear hunger for a long time but he does it on Saturday just for my mother. My mother was regular in fasting on Saturday and my father loves her so he also started accompanying her on particular day.

Unlike my father, my mother can survive in hunger for a long time; may be because God has given more strength in woman to bear the pain. On Saturday, my father tries to return early at home in evening and my mother cook the dishes that my father likes. They break the fast together in evening. They dine together in evening, sometimes in the same plate too. Both of them are very regular and dedicated in performing this ritual every Saturday. Though I like my mother’s food every day, Saturday‘s meal taste me more than other day. Perhaps romance is the best spice that makes the food tasty and life healthy.

If someone would ask me what would I want to call myself – a software engineer, tester, cool dude, champ, writer, poet, monk or thinker?
The time has come to make a choice, I choose Joy of being a farmer.
I always want people remember me as a farmer. Even though I don’t do anything specifically in my farms and in near future also I may not go there. It’s not work, it’s the attitude that attracts me. An attitude expressing joy. A true farmer always connect with earth without any pride or ego. He is not very ambitious person but never be aimless. His job requires hard work, dedication, smartness plus faith in God, nature and sixth sense.

This job not only earns money but also the satisfaction of the fact that we are contributing in feeding the nation. The most gratifying aspect of farming is you get pride of producing something from scratch. There are many other professions also in this world that can give you similar pleasure to create something your own like any kind of business, art, research or medical services.

But what’s wrong with them is once the person gets fame, his feet left the ground. An attitude enters into businessman’s mind and an ego in-housed into artist’s heart. Beauty of farming profession resides in the fact that in-spite of success, a farmer remains a farmer, connected with his roots and joined firmly with his roots.

I am not sure whether its related with story but this is something I am remembering this time. Once I was travelling in a train and some eunuchs entered into our compartment. They started clapping, singing, dancing and asking for money to everyone. One of uncle was sleeping at the upper birth; he gave five rupees to them and asked them to stop singing and clapping. On this, one from the eunuch gang revealed very interesting fact –

“ paanch rupeiye me juban khamosh karane chale ho. Aadmin aankho se bolta he aur aurat aadato so, koi to he jo juban se bolta he, use kyu chup karate ho sahib.” (Do you want to zip our lips by just five rupees? In this world, man speaks with eyes and woman speaks with her habit; it’s just us who speaks with tongue, why you want to stop this.)

I was always think that woman are more expressive than man but that person gave me entire new fact that man speaks with eyes and woman with habits. I don’t know whether it’s true or not but it’s something that made me think that time. The observation gave me a new perspective on how the universe unfolds.
1416 words.