I Pledge

The doors have got eyes. They see you as you close in and open on their own. The smooth and shining granite floor welcomes you as you smile at your own reflection on the tiles. Don’t forget to carry a helmet, lest you may slip and break your head. People are buried in their cushion seats in an air conditioned zone oblivious to the blazing sun outside. Beautiful women in deep blue blazers outnumber the nurses here. You are entering Columbia Asia, a recent addition to the chain of ‘Five Star Hospitals’ springing up at the outskirts of Bangalore. There is no accreditation to the number of stars, but with a small cup of coffee priced at Rs.15 and the same amount of milk priced at Rs.30, you won’t argue. If you belong to the typical middle-class-IT-Indian-insured-by-company, then you know that this is the place for you.

It was a tense moment for our family. My brother was being operated on his left leg for an accident he met with 26 years ago. While the surgeon was busy constructing a blood canal through his leg, I was quietly turning the pages of a day old Deccan Herald education supplement sitting outside the operation theater. Several thoughts over the state of Indian education paraded through my mind and the flow broke every time the doors of the theater opened, only to bring anyone but my brother out. Out of the several breaks I had that day, I clearly remember three.

An old man in his eighties was rejecting all offers for help. Fear and doubt gripped his heart and pain danced all over his face. He abused everyone. It was probably sheer coincidence, but no members of his family were around to help him ease out. The condition of this man represented everything old age stood for: fear, hatred, neglect, and denial. It was not anything like Siddhartha’s moment, but when one looks at old age it is not easy to brush away the feeling that one’s own journey is not in the opposite direction. I was only hoping that as the day comes when I get close to my destination, I should not be ashamed of the journey I made.

Time is just a perception. When you wait for something, it seems like an eternity. The grains of sand seem too big to make it through the small pores. The clock stops ticking and the world is in a perennial state of suspension, while you are the only one moving restlessly. Frustration eats on you and the door opens only to add to your disappointment. A lady in her late thirties made her way out. Her parents have been waiting as long as me. All my disappointment disappeared, as her mother lovingly stroked her head and called her “My Baby”. I had never come across a thirty seven year old baby before that, but love has the power to make anything happen.

Stay in a hospital for a day and you will see more pain than you can handle. Your heart will sink into a valley of depression and you might start feeling that the only truth about this world is sorrow. One needs great courage to reason otherwise and see the world from a different perspective. Slowly, the passageway was filling in with people. They looked more expectant than anxious. The door opened and there was no customary bed and a patient accompanied with a nurse. This time around the nurse carried in her hand a basket and a beautiful baby was glowing inside like a pot of gold. In a flash, my world of pain turned upside down. It is not for nothing that we surround babies. They carry a fountain of joy into this world and we surround so that we could drink from them. This fountain was born on Friday, the 5th of June, 2009. I suddenly realized that it was the world environment day and my heart sunk again.

This little baby gave me joy, but I am going to leave her a burning earth. Green may be a color she will have to do away with. Best things in this world are for free, but I have exploited them beyond use. No costly gifts would mean a thing to the new generation, if we cannot offer them clean air, water and earth. One day this baby will ask of me such questions that I might end up being ashamed of my whole journey and hence I pledged.
I pledged that I will do all that is in my capacity to gift every child that was born on the 5th of June 2009, clean air, abundant water and green earth. I need more people to pack this gift. Will you join me?