What India Can Learn from Bharat!

Standing by the side of my car, I was feeling quite frustrated. Here I was, rushing to a music concert in Chennai, with family in tow. We had started from Pondicherry well within time. The plan was to cruise through Chennai’s traffic infested roads before the evening rush hour kicked in, have a snack or two at our favorite joint and then troop in to the hall and settle down to an evening of soulful ghazals, to be rendered by an artiste of national repute. But our car was not possibly enthused by the idea. It had revolted in the middle of the highway, with no help in sight. For close to half an hour, we kept signaling to the vehicles whizzing past us to render some help, but to no avail.
Eventually, a skinny guy on a mud splattered moped stopped and asked us what the trouble was. He gave my son a lift to a workshop about three kilometers away. He then came back, with a mechanic in tow, on his shining bike, complete with a tool box and accessories. Within an hour, after a defective part had been replaced, we were off to our rendezvous with fine arts, our hearts full of gratitude to the Good Samaritan. We missed the snacks but arrived in time for the performance.
In today’s internet savvy world, life has become fast paced. There is a virtual disconnect between the real world and the virtual world. Fortunately, Bharat still lives on! Its age old values of athithi devo bhava still persist!!
I fondly recollect the earlier days, when a Bajaj Priya scooter was always there to serve the family’s needs. We were then located at Chandigarh. Often, wife and I would undertake a short trip to some nearby place, like Pinjore, Nahan, Kasauli, Shimla, Ludhinana, Jalandhar and Amritsar etc. It was a pleasure to feel the wind in our faces. The lush green farms rushing past the road were always in a welcoming mode. During winters, farms growing mustard turned a bright yellow and the rhythmic sound of a tube-well operating in the fields got mingled with that of the birds happily chirping along.
If we had to stay somewhere for the night, there was no issue at all. All we had to do was to enter a village at dusk time. We would invariably be welcomed with open arms into homes of perfect strangers. The hosts would not only feed us well but also insist upon our staying the night. We could only leave the next morning, and that too only after a hearty breakfast of yummy paronthas and a big glass of lassi to boot. We always carried back heart -warming tales of hospitality.
On one such trip to Nahan, our scooter had a puncture in the middle of nowhere. We realized that even the stepney did not have enough air, and we were truly grounded in our isolated glory. We locked the scooter, left it on the road side, and walked up to the nearest village, a small sleepy hamlet of about 20 odd families. We were directed to the house of the Sarpanch, the village headman, who alone had a scooter in that area. It turned out that he also owned a Bajaj Priya scooter! After offering us a warm glass of fresh cow’s milk, the Sarpanch insisted that we take his stepney and continue our journey. He advised us to give our stepney for repair to the sole mechanic in the area in a small town about 20 kms down the road, in the direction which we were taking. On our way back from Nahan, we could pick up our repaired stepney, and return the borrowed one to the Sarpanch on our way back to Chandigarh!
We were astounded to see the faith and trust the Sarpanch reposed in us. On his insistence, we took his advice and proceeded to Nahan. We had a nice quiet time there, soaking in the pristine beauty of nature sitting by the side of the lake in the centre of the town. In the evening, when we came back to return the borrowed stepney, we were treated with another glass of milk before being allowed to leave. The Sarpanch himself was not at home at the time, so we conveyed our profuse thanks to the family, and left with deep emotions tugging at our heart strings.
Similarly, in villages of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, we have had very pleasant experiences. Whatever food the family was having, we were invariably offered a share of it. Despite a language barrier, communication was never a problem. We were offered all assistance to happily continue our journey through the countryside.
We from the city believe ourselves to be cultured and educated. But the learning we have had from those living in our villages has taught us many values in life. On the physical plane of our existence, those living in villages are our food providers. On the psychological plane, their ability to welcome and trust perfect strangers to their homes and hearth, their eagerness to help strangers in distress and the sheer warmth of their hospitality is noteworthy and something to emulate.
Life is relatively simpler in the villages, and one lives in the lap of nature. May be, that is how they cultivate better values to live life by. But it would not be wrong to say that our age old traditional values are still being preserved in our villages. These are what “India” can re-learn from “Bharat”!