OUR VANVAS BY CHOICE






Pic.: Devki Joshi



To me, Baba Amte had, always, been a great motivator. Many years ago, The Dawn Club had run a cover story on this hero of ‘Anandvan’ in its motivational magazine – ‘The BLOOM’. But, honestly, I hadn’t followed much about his son, Dr. Prakash Amte...

It took just a 2-hr-15-min Marathi-movie to tell me who Dr. Prakash was and why he was a hero in his own right... as tall and as tough as his legendary father...Both, my wife and I, came back a lot moved by his life, remarkably portrayed by Nana Patekar and Sonali Kulkarni (as his wife)...

Both, Dr. Prakash and his wife, Manda, had studied together in Government Medical College, Nagpur, where they fell in love with each other...

Falling in love with each other is a ‘conscious choice’ a young man and woman make...

It is the same conscious choice that they make when they promise each other in marriage,  before God – “I shall live with you in good times and bad times, in joys and sorrows.”

Before he married Manda, Prakash had made a conscious choice to go to the remote jungle and work for the tribals where there were no roads, electricity, phone, leave alone schools, hospitals and shops... The calling had come while doing his M.S. and he had chosen to go there and spend rest of his life...

But, what about Manda, the girl who he loved? Would it – the ‘vanvas’ -  be her choice, too?

There is a beautiful scene in the movie. Prakash and his supportive brother, Vikas, have brought Manda to be introduced to their parents. Baba Amte, the father, asks his son, “Have you told her about your decision to spend the rest of your life in the jungles?”

Before the son could answer, the would-be daughter-in-law tells the father, “Yes, he has and that is going to be my life, too!”

At the end of the movie, Dr. Prakash gives his acceptance speech, after being honored with Magsaysay Award jointly with Manda for their leadership role in social development among the triabls. After thanking all who mattered in his work, Dr. Prakash thanks his wife Manda... “What did you see in me?” he asks, “What made you stick with me through such harrowing times?”... Then, he calls her to the podium, and she shyingly goes into his arms...

Yes, as the august American audience applauds with wet eyes and as the audience, here in the movie hall, is unable to breathe!


When, by your conscious choice, you settle for cotton shorts and vests as your attire for life, you will never feel you are deprived in life...

When, by your conscious choice, you settle for some simple meal, sleep on mud-floor of your hut, without electricity, telephone or entertainment, you will never feel deprived in life...

When, by your conscious choice, you choose to fast, give away in alms, treat the sick and lonely, you will never feel deprived in life...

Deprivation comes only when the life we live is the life we have not chosen consciously...

The fourteen-years in an ashram, seminary or jungle or wherever is just a metaphor. It only prepares us for an authentic life to come, if we all choose our respective 'vanvas’ consciously...

Please don’t miss the movie – ‘Dr. PRAKASH BABA AMTE - THE REAL HERO’



GERALD D’CUNHA

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