Parents, Grandparents - Thank you

Nannubhai is 89 years old, despite looking a shade under 70. He has lived through some of  the most troubled times of the British rule in India during which he himself served three years in prison for simply being in a protest march. He narrated to me the day he was arrested, something I won’t forget in a hurry. On the morning of the arrest his sister had come running into the house shouting frantically that they had to leave as all the men were being taken away. Turning to his mother, he asked what he should do. She gave him a bucket and told him to go to the lake (around 2/3 miles away) and pretend he was on his way to the toilet. Little did she know that was to be the last time she would see her son in three years.

He went onto narrate the harrowing experiences of prison life itself. The stories of innocent men being beaten, having their food deliberately dropped onto the floor in front of their eyes and the hard labour that each one was forced to endure. This for being a nation lover at most - something which today we applaud. I could go on but I think you get the picture.

Nannubhai is just one of many. Many of his generation and even our parents have endured sacrifices that we cannot even begin to imagine. Yet I sometimes get the distinct impression that we’re too welled up in this notion of ‘careerism’ for us to really, truly understand what they went through for us. I mean imagine where would we be if our parents or grandparents hadn’t made the jump from Kenya/India or wherever to this country? And more importantly, would we have been able to do what they did for us? Imagine coming over to a foreign country, with a foreign language, a foreign culture, little in the shape of money and wealth and trying to make ends meet for your family. Incredible.

Very rarely do we sit down and interact with someone first hand on their struggles in life, particularly our seniors. The vivid difference between reading a story out of a book is that when you speak to someone about such issues, you not only hear the stories in words, you feel the emotion, the heartache and pain. At one stage during our conversation, Nannubhai himself had to take a moment to shed a tear. It is only then in that moment, that we can say that we know what it was like - beyond that we just don’t know.

Our seniors have served us well, they have striven for a better life for us and so the question we should ask now is just what difference are we willing to make for our children? What change will they see in the future which we will have contributed towards. This is our moment, this is our time to stamp our impact on this earth.

So today, let us take a moment to immerse ourselves in this spirit of “matru devo bhavah, pitru devo bhavah” (treat mother with respect, treat father with respect).  Because without the actions of our parents and grandparents we wouldn't be in the fortunate surroundings we find ourselves in today.