The naked man

He walked on the road, head held high about 45 years of age. Thin body, thin hands and legs, White hair and beard. Deep set eyes in a shrunk face.....Both his palms tightly held together, trying to cover his private parts. On a chill winter morning, on the smog covered roads of Mumbai I saw this man walking......stark naked! He was completely oblivious to the crowd around him, not acknowledging the fact that he was walking naked on a busy by lane of Mumbai. The crowd around him too was oblivious to him. People walked past him as if he was invisible. They were all rushing somewhere...The naked man did not care about the crowd on the road. The people on the road did not bother about the naked man. For their conscience, he was invisible. I was disturbed by that sight. Still thinking......Who should be ashamed? The naked man on the road or all of us called 'the society'? He may be a destitute who could not afford to buy new clothes or he may be mentally ill and so has shed his clothes. Some months back, a perfectly normal married young women walked the streets of Gujarat in her undergarments. She too walked with her head held high, completely oblivious of the crowd around her? Who went naked? The women or the society of which she is a part? We are all living in a society which has become naked. It has shed all its clothes. The fabric of care, compassion, concern, responsibility for its fellow members....

An ode to the Taj Mahal

"What is love, I do not know. But that by its power, a king gave away his throne".

So apt. So touching. I remember the first time I visited the Taj Mahal, on the marble steps of the tomb a friend recited a few lines which have remained etched in my memory....

"Thousand years from now
When I shall be all but dust and sand,
At the sound of your voice
I will rise again."

Rabindranath Tagore has described Taj as a tear drop on the cheeks of time...God bless their true love