A story of Villager this Deepavali

October 25, 2005

A TRUE STORY THIS DEEPAVALI

The learning that comes from books and from conventional

knowledge. The light that fires the imagination and kindles the brain to seek

its own answers. The beginning of true education. The beginning of real

knowledge.

Many years ago, a villager from Jamkhed, where the mantra of

paramedical training for village women caused a miracle of healthy births and

zero mortality rates, was asked to accompany Dr.Arole to Washington

DC. Dr. Arole was to be feted for his earth

changing experiment in rural self-development.

Dressed in a nine-yard sari, head covered, eyes bent to the

floor, the villager sat through the long speeches in accented English at the

formal event where the good doctor had taken her. At the end of it, he sent her

on stage to share her experience. She spoke briefly in Marathi. But she had the

audience listening all the same because she spoke with conviction. She said she

was a villager and as dazzled by the glittering chandeliers in the room, as by

the pomp and heraldry of the event. The chandeliers, she said, were bright and

lit the large hall as if it was night by day. " But, " she said, " In my village,

we have small lights. They also light up our lives. Though they cannot turn

night into day, they can do something more. They can do something a chandelier

or an electric light, however powerful, cannot ever do. "

Saying this, she pulled out from the folds of her sari, a

small, earthen diya and lit it. " With this " , she told the enrapt audience, " I

can light another lamp and spread light into another's life, and yet another.

Each lamp can light many others. " By the time she finished the hall was on

its feet clapping. Let us salute of the power of the little earthen lamps,

symbolic of learning, to dispel ignorance, sickness and negativity.

Shubh Deepavali

--

devishakti_india

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