08 March, 2011

The oblivion of the small and the beautiful

Hasn't it been a while since a Postman knocked at your door? Or you went down and met your tailor to get your clothing stitched? Or that you've seen that bright entrepreneurial glee in the eyes of a small scale industrialist?

What has happened to the roadside Provision stores, to the Vegetable vendor who used to be a character to be pranked with, or the push cart kulfi waalas ?

Have you ever wondered how their lives have changed in a mere span of a decade here in India?

These are little people and their aspirations that the Monopolistic system has trampled and tread upon to give us this supposedly glorious world of today. A world, which values nothing but vicious personal gain; A system which approves you of the sanctity to tread on others to greedily move ahead; Move ahead as in: In this race, a rat-race; Each one is being raced down to the deepest levels of their values, and reducing every evolved emotion and relationship into a commodity.

Where are all the small, simple and beautiful things!
Small goes unnoticed: Everything ought to be grand and spectacular, beyond the saturation of our senses.
Simple is silly: Things have gotten super sophisticated beyond our realms of comprehension.
Beautiful is everything that carries a heavy price tag: Today's beauty has got our aesthetic sense go numb.
One such occupation....

When this is the framework you let people to thrive in, there is nothing but the sad, unattended funeral of heritage of occupations like weaving, carving, pottery, even farming, and various other small occupations, which form important segments of our evolution have demised, or are at least at the verge of oblivion from the known section of humanity.

A debate whether these have been displaced at the cost of modernization and development for the sake of the rest of us can be taken up, and we would eventually stand guilty.
Each of us can do a lot to avert this oblivion of our own small and the beautiful.


PS: As I am composing this post, I am contemplating of a contemporary Swadesi Movement for self sufficiency and most importantly self conservation of our society!
If you believe we can do it better together, then let's get together!

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