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The road seldom taken

    While standing on that airy bridge on the Yamuna bank last evening, I kept on watching the fast moving traffic, their shining headlights, their honking, their zooming noises. Just when I turned to the other side, to rest my eyes from the glitter of the headlights, I saw a road silent, dark, clean(i don't know how) but it was alone. No one took it. What, had no one to go there? Had no one to take the road not taken by many? Had no one any interest, had no one any adventurous desire to explore, to go get lost and then found? Had no one had any time to???
      Our lives have very much become like the roads in the evening. Going with the flow, much like the traffic towards Laxmi nagar, the traffic coming from Akshardham, the rush, the counting of minutes of each hour and the seconds of each minute. We're so busy getting ahead of one another, on the same road, honking for sides, silently and violently overtaking. The only thing different between us is the vehicle we are traveling in. It can be an audi Q7 or an old rusting santro, the difference between us have narrowed down only to the material of the car seat. Have we reduced ourselves only to meager differences. The dark road, where not many people go, is left so unexplored. May be most of us know where that road goes, but then too, what's the use when you don't explore it deep.
          This road in our lives is the road to social welfare, upliftment, betterment of the backwards. How many of us take a turn, drive an extra mile, burn an extra litre of the fuel to that area. What use is our car, our fuel ( read our knowledge, our skills) if we can't use it for the people who need it(apart from one's own self). We sit in our classes, jotting down the notes, listening, not listening, to the teacher, filling our notebooks semester after semester, and don't make any use of it. If self interest is the only motive that help us push the pedal, How about widening the definition of being selfish. How about taking the road, make use of your knowledge, help the cause. And if the road turns out to be rough, to be non supportive, you can always turn your vehicle. At least you would've tried...

Comments

  1. I am stumped. and at loss of words, had a similar epiphany after reading Jean Dreze works, you should read it too, makes you realise how much there is in the world to give and how we all are stuck in our very own traffic jams.!!

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    Replies
    1. what. you should've told me before, i could've got it patented... :D thanks tanya.

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