THE UNFADING BEAUTY OF A GENTLE AND QUIET SPIRIT

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine

when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in,

their true beauty is revealed only if there is

a light from within."

― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

My earliest memories of watching Imran Khan was sometime in 1980. I had just come to Mumbai from Mangalore. It was, also, the first time I was watching something on TV. Back home, in Mangalore, TV. hadn’t still arrived. Here, at a cousin’s house, there was a B & W TV, and, one day, while a cricket match (India-Pakistan) was being relayed, I happened to see Imran Khan for the first time on TV… He was so dashing, so full of allure, that I asked my cousin “What’s his name?”

“He is Imran Khan,” my cousin said, “Girls go crazy over him!”

Well, ever since then, even though, like all Indians, I, too, rooted for Indian team, as a player, I just went crazy over Imran Khan… Though I was not a ‘girl’!

Yes, Imran Khan had that kind of aristocratic charm… He was charismatic, irresistible!

Maybe, as I grew old, my outlook towards physical charm, too, underwent change. Physical appeal did not make a lot of impression on me, now… I knew, that Imran Khan would grow older and get a lot of wrinkles, his hair would go and girls would stop going crazy over him…

We all have an Imran Khan in us. When we were young, we had that appeal… that allure… that physical charm of a Greek God of Goddess. And, as seasons rolled by, the appeal began to fade… Now, we look around us – our own children walk the way we did once, talk the way we did once… We see girls going crazy over the boys and boys going crazy over the girls as they did when we were young and dashing… And, we all smile or weep inside, saying, “Been there, done that”, or, “Those were the days”!

Last night, a dear old-student of mine was telling me, that she loved her job of training the new staff in her organization. She has been doing this job for over two decades and the management was very happy with her work. But, of late, one of her new bosses (a lady) had started sending in her a feeling that my friend was not up to the mark.

“What makes you think so?” I asked my friend, “Has she told you, that  you should change your ways or anything about you?”

“No Sir, nothing of that sort,” my friend explained, “I look at that lady and feel so… She comes impeccably dressed in formal attire… Her hair, looks and, partially, the style of talking have suddenly begun to make me feel inferior… Need I change myself?”

My friend was in her mid-fifties. She had worked for the organization close to forty years, of which twenty year in training… She loved her job… The trainees loved her, found her very effective. The new boss, despite her own physical charm and stylish speech, has not said anything negative to my friend… Then, why on earth, my friend should change? To please whom?

Two days ago, when my idol, Prof. B.S. Raman, died in his eighties, I was telling my friend Joe, “Sir, was such a simple soul… He did not possess any physical charm… He came in the simplest of the attire… He spoke English with a heavy South Indian accent… Yet, there was something so magical and mystical about our Sir… The moment he mounted on the teaching platform, he transformed… The spell would be cast over all of us…”

“Gerry, our Sir was like our former President Dr. Abdul Kalam,” my friend said, “Dr. Kalam’s charm was beyond his physical appeal and speech.”

I couldn’t agree more with Joe.

The Bible says (Peter 3:3-4 New International Version):

^“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

Yes, there is this unfading beauty of gentle and quiet spirit, my friend... Take heart.

GERALD D’CUNHA

LOVE

Pics: Internet