Thursday, September 25, 2008

25/09/2008

“ April 8,2003

So the latest volume of my spiritual recordings begins on this new kind of diary. What is it that has compelled me to repeat what I think I have stressed all along?
I feel I am the centre of the whole universe. What are all the events of the past and present worth except that I feel cognisant of them and am affected or influenced by them. My past flashes before me in strong kaleidoscopic images. The memories of Dickensian childhood and youth clash with the romantic visions of my amorous experiences that have become the very stuff of life for me. How do I pass through alternate experiences- sometimes living the past totally and at others being able to look at it in the manner of a disinterested observer analysing the thoughts and feelings of some other person.
The world-view has become radically different from what it used to be. It seems the Darwinian law of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest is the ultimate and final one and compassion, pity, recognition of the rights of others are concepts that are merely tolerated as a symbol of our advancement towards civilisation. It seems to me that there is never a conflict between justice and justice- it is always one between justice and injustice or one injustice against another. This is the conflict that rages eternally in the human soul and war is a large scale manifestation of it.
How glibly do we pass from professing high moral ideals to the mundane task of doing all we can to protect and promote our self interest? With the bard I feel compelled to exclaim “ What a piece of work is man?” ”
Above is the last scribbling of a 77 years old man, who died about a fortnight after. He was a non-entity, an unknown person among the seven billion of the species. A teacher all his life, a retired Principal of a college, without any provision of pension for sustenance in old age, the scribbler was my father, Late Sh. Om Prakash Mital. I mention about pension as it was a subject he passionately felt was unfair, needed to be addressed by society, as his many letters to 'The Statesman', his must newspaper, would bear testimony to. Today, on this day of Shradh, I pay my tributes to that great soul, my dear father and my forefathers and start this new journey.