WE SIMPLY TRUSTED... AND LIVED

Today, my friend, Milind, has sent me, through Face book, a very nice picture: scores of mineral water cans are lined up near a running-water tap, somewhere in a galli... and a young urchin is busy filling them!


"We all insist on 'only mineral water' to be served during a marriage or any other function in our families... We may end up drinking this!"


Well, that was the message of that picture. It made me think... and, go back to my golden days of childhood.




Some things, about living in this world, are so beautiful, so re-assuring: We simply trust... and we live,so beautifully!


We simply trust and inhale the air...


We simply trust and pray before our God's idols...


We simply trust and walk into marriages...


We simply trust and drink the water that comes through our kitchen taps...


We simply trust and eat the food served by strangers in restaurants or temples...


We  simply trust and jump in our swimming pools... 


We simply trust the Doc and lie on his table...


We simply trust a friend or even a neighbour and swallow the pills they prescribe... 


And yes, we simply trust the shop owner and change clothes in his 'trial room'...


Or, we simply trust and check into the hotel rooms in unknown places.


We simply trust  and get into  buses,  autos,  taxis,  trains or even  aeroplanes...


We simply trust and hear the Sunday Sermons and receive the Holy Communion,


Or, we simply trust and repeat the chants the Pundit wants us to... 


And savour the prasad he hands us with...


We simply trust and eat those vegetables , fish or meat from the roadside vendors...


We simply trust and smoke those cigarettes, drink those liquors, and chew those tobaccos... 


I can go on and on.... Yes, the picture sent by Milind has triggered off this medley of thoughts.


I am a teacher. I have to take care of my throat, my voice.... So, for the past several years, I have been drinking either boiled water or the mineral one. Even if by default, I consume the tap water directly, my throat starts itching!


In the village, where I grew up, we had wells. There were water-snakes and frogs in them... and we blissfully drank that water. Yes, we survived, superbly!


The local primary school, where I studied, had no water taps. Just outside the school, on the roadside, we had a municipal tap. When the bell rang, the whole school would line up there... Wow! No glasses, no minerals... and, no fear... 'Bindaaas'!


Then, when we went the High School and the College, we had those general water-taps. Again, we held our mouths straight under those taps, till we wet not only our shirts but pants as well! With that, we walked into our class rooms yelling - "May I come in, teacher?" And, our teacher would yell back, "Come in buddy,  'Bindaaas'!"


Big deal! Kids still do that even in the fine schools and colleges,  yes, even today! And, they all survive, brilliantly, brother!

When I and my brothers were kids, one of our glorious moments was the summer vacation.The very evening when the vacation broke out, all of us would be off to Karambar... my mom's birth place, where our uncle Lawrie and his kids lived. To reach that village house, we had to walk miles, through the fields and the hillsides... It was a hay-house... No toilets, no electricity, the mud-floor was neatly tiled up with cow-dung...the bathroom had no doors... and the house had no locks! Just a little away from the house, they had to reach to fetch the drinking water. From the far away heights of the hill, came gushing down the stream water... miles of distance through the dense, uninhabited jungle - and at the foothill, the house ladies would hold their pots to fetch water home.

There lived bears, bores, jackals

 and deadly snakes in that jungle...

 People had no toilets, I have already told you!... 

And, all of us 

would drink that heavenly water, 

so blissfully...

And, yes, we all have survived, gloriously, buddy!


I forgot to tell this: We would return home from this heaven-on-earth... only after the Sun went down on the eve of our school re-opening!


I thought, I would share these golden moments with you...


We simply trusted, then... and lived... survived, gloriously!


And, we still do, even today!


Maybe, that we now have these fine Italian toilets inside our houses... these sensuous French doors to our bathrooms... and, these ultra-strong German locks to our houses!


Enjoy the Holi, enjoy the colours...


'Bindaaas!!!'




GERALD D'CUNHA


Pics.: Suhas Lokhande