(This review is continuation of Rohit Dewals point of view on Dept Of education presented as a short play. It is intended to get a Fast Forward peek into future of one of the characters... In case you have not read it I would suggest you please read it before proceeding.The play is about three friends who completed their engineering study and pursuing different goals in life: Divakar the main character in this part is an orphan who is extremely brilliant and has decided to go abroad for research)
So convinced that brain drain is better than brain in drain and that he could do serve his country by becoming the best no matter where he was, Divakar lands in United States.
Fast Forward: Ten Years.
It is drizzling slowly and he is sitting in the porch of his million-dollar house. He has everything and more of what he had dreamed of in India: A million dollar house with a swimming pool, a Merc, a caring and beautiful wife, adorable children and a reputation in the scientific world which will make even best in the field envious. He had worked hard and deserved every bit of it. However as he sat watching the raindrop fall, he couldn’t help but wonder what was it that lacked in his life. Despite this picture perfect success he was not happy.
The feeling was there ever since he landed here, but he thought may be once he gets settled in a good job it would be gone. He got the job, but it persisted, so he thought maybe he needed a companion and married, the feeling still kept lingering. Money! It is the financial insecurity in a foreign country that caused it. He worked hard and earned lots of it, but the damn feeling of something lack would just not go away. Not satisfied he plunged himself into research, building a solid reputation, but even that didn’t solve his problem.
Bingo! Now he understands, it is his conscience that’s been bothering him, he decided that he would donate money, adopt a village, built a school. He did all those and more. Would he able to do these have in been in India, Nah! That should solve the problem, he had done every possible thing and as he believed that every problem has a solution, he assumed that it wud take care of the stupid feeling. But stubborn it was, it persisted!
So he called his friend Tathatgat and Aditya back home, he told him about all his success and how well he had done in past 10 years. They were clearly impressed and congratulated him on his success and reinforced his belief that had he been in India he would not have been able to all these. But then what was it that was bothering him damn it! Unable to find peace as he sat watching the small drops fall, he decided to visit India once to see what it was like now.
India was just the same, a country of extremes where you could find the richest and the most poor, the most honest and most dishonest people, most advanced technology and most crude means of communication and transportation. He goes back to orphanage in which he grew up which now thanks to his donation had become quiet a site. He meets his old teacher who despite all the dollar funding he received from his student continued with his old job. Unable to contain himself, he bares out his heart to guruji and asks for guidance.
Guruji wordlessly picked up two empty chalk boxes and filled it with pebbles. He then asked Diwakar if the box was full. He agreed it was, so he picked up small pieces of chalks and poured into the box. He shook the box lightly and the chalk bits rolled in between the pebbles. He again asked Diwakar if the box was now full and he agreed it was.
Next Guruji collected all the chalk dust and poured it into the jar and of course the chalk dust filled up everything else. He asked Diwakar once more if the jar was full, and he responded with an emphatic yes this time.
Guruji then ordered two cups of Chai from nearby Tapri and poured the entire content into the box. Diwakar couldn’t control his laugh. Perplexed he asked what did all this signify.
Guruji then said: I want you to recognize that this box represents your life. The pebbles are the most important things in your life: your country, your God, your family, your children, your friends, your favorite passion things that even if everything else was lost and they remained, your life will still be full. If however even one of these is amiss, there will always remain a space an emptiness in your life. The chalks are other things that matter your job, your reputation, your house etc. The chalk dust is everything else – the least important materialistic stuff-your Mercedes, your swimming pool, your cell phone etc.
If you try to fill up the space with chalk dust, there will be no room for the chalks or the pebbles. And so in the space of your life, pay attention to things that are really important: the pebble stuff. Stay where you belong, believe in God! Take time for your elders and children, take care of your wife, do your favorite passion things meet and maintain old friends.
Take care of the pebbles first, they are the ones that really matter, Ensure that you have your priorities set right, rest all is just the dust.
Enlightened Diwakar finally found the answer he was looking for, but he could not help but ask what did the two cups of Tea signified? Guruji smiled and said “ I knew you would ask that, and that tea represents no matter how full the life of we Indians seem to be, we always manage to squeeze in our favorite Chai at any time of the day.”
(Diwakar finally returned to India where he started his own enterprise, got frustrated, but persisted and now successfully runs one of the most reputed small tractor manufacturing companies in India)