Something is wrong with me
My Grandfather was wont to deprecate himself a lot and would often blame himself for things that sometimes he was not even remotely connected with. This would always bemuse me. Till one day he narrated another very interested anecdote which for me did shed light on his psyche.
It was about Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian to the core, and no less a Mahatma than the Mahatma himself. The man who walked endlessly day on day, four times the circumference of the earth to collect to distribute amongst the landless, 4 million acres of land taken from landlords. No mean achievement, nay a gargantuan achievement in a country where land is scarce, where the system is feudal and status is tied and even measured in terms of ownership of land.
This peripatetic saint - Vinoba Bhave, and I say peripatetic, as I too am, like most of my English medium educated friends are bound by the limitations of western rationalism which would never comprehend Tapa - had walked to a mofussil town in UP.
My Grandfather was wont to deprecate himself a lot and would often blame himself for things that sometimes he was not even remotely connected with. This would always bemuse me. Till one day he narrated another very interested anecdote which for me did shed light on his psyche.
It was about Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian to the core, and no less a Mahatma than the Mahatma himself. The man who walked endlessly day on day, four times the circumference of the earth to collect to distribute amongst the landless, 4 million acres of land taken from landlords. No mean achievement, nay a gargantuan achievement in a country where land is scarce, where the system is feudal and status is tied and even measured in terms of ownership of land.
This peripatetic saint - Vinoba Bhave, and I say peripatetic, as I too am, like most of my English medium educated friends are bound by the limitations of western rationalism which would never comprehend Tapa - had walked to a mofussil town in UP.
Vinoba once reached a school and demanded to use the play ground of the school for holding his Bhoodan meeting. Overawed by Vinoba, the principal agreed. But it being a government school, just to be on the safe side, he called up the District Inspector of Schools (DIOS) for a formal approval. This “kaan me baat daalna” and that too post facto, is as you can see not a new phenomenon with bureaucrats, and is a pre-existing condition with them. The DIOS cited some fine print of the rule book denying use of government schools for political purposes and reprimanded the principle for allowing the saint the venue.
On learning that he had been equated with political parties, this saint imbued with righteous indignation stood under a tree and started slapping himself. Panicking, the DIOS reported the matter to his superior - my grandfather - who unlike the others was alien neither to Vinoba’s stature nor to his ways - who rushed to the venue of this melodrama. Sorry, Vinoba's tree of penance.
Vinobas was cursing and blaming himself, muttering, “there must be something wrong with me, that the DIOS equated my cause to a political one”. And he would not relent. It was quite a while before my grandfather, diminutive in stature to the Gandhian, but a man of significant erudition and indefatigable spirit himself, could finally calm the saint. Interestingly, he had to resort to slapping himself, as the deeply offended saint would not give in to anything less than his own remedy.
Vinoba was personification of Tapa which was inspiring Dana and even Tyaga. His Tapa was urging people to donate land. He was also a man who would internalize the blemishes external to him and try to heal them from within.
In a land that gave birth to him and many greater than him, how could we have thieves all around now.
In a land that gave birth to him and many greater than him, how could we have thieves all around now.
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