I don't know if it's just that I notice these things more because I'm always on the lookout for new blogging material...or whether the truckers here are getting more clever...
Any which way, I seem to notice a fair few interesting sayings on the trucks (well, two in two weeks is pretty nifty)
The latest one was:
Translation:
As you greet the rising sun, don't forget the setting sun.
That's pretty interesting.
As I understood it, it's just a reminder that as we look forward to the new age and new generation and acknowledge them, we should not forget that the foundations of society are built on the wisdom and experience of our elders. We tend to take them for granted and then abandon them when they become "inconvenient". While we're still better as a culture, as far as Indians go...there is still a rise in the number of people who are put in old age homes these days.
I understand if that happens when someone has no family but when the family members themselves send their elders to live away, I think it's criminal...
There have always been stories about Alaskan people setting off old people on ice floes (used as a plot device in the film North which starred a very young Elijah Wood) and I always wonder how people decide that it's time for someone to be abandoned? Who gives them that authority? What experience tells them that it's OK for old people to be treated like that?
[As an aside, a similar issue was addressed very interestingly in a film called Dor by Nagesh Kukunoor which deals with the story of a widow in Rajasthan. Unfortunately, these women are still treated poorly, even in this "modern age" in the rural areas...where widows lose all rights to humanity (almost, in a way). The movie calls for the protagonist to assert her freedom of will in a certain way and her mother in law opposes her decision, until the grand mother in law, herself a widow,...reminds the mother in law that the only reason she (MIL) has power to forbid and control her daughter in law is because she's not yet a widow. The grandmother asks the mother to imagine how she'd like being similarly powerless...quite well done, really]
So seriously...can people not imagine themselves in a similar situation before acting like heartless criminals?
Of course, while the ice floe thing is extreme, the voluntary incarceration of parents still annoys me.
"Walk a mile in another's shoes" is a very good idiom, which these progeny should follow first.
This reminds me of a story I once read in Tinkle Digest, a comic book, in the vein of a graphic novel.
In feudal Japan, a local lord decreed that all people over a certain age, shall be taken up a mountain nearby and be left there.
The story follows a mother and her two sons. When it's time to go up the mountain, the mother reminds them...and they unwillingly take her up the mountain. They try to talk her out of it but she reminds them that it's the law and their duty.
It is a tall mountain with a snowcap and in some ways, designed to do its work quickly.
When the sons start descending, a snow storm blows up and they get lost. They somehow find their way back to their mother, who is almost asleep due to the cold. Yet, she wakes and then guides them back down the mountain safely, having noticed certain shapes and dips in the land as they came up.
Once back at home,the sons decide to keep their mum in hiding.
Eventually, the local lord holds a contest. He is looking for smart young men to inculcate into his service and he sets a number of challenges which the boys win. They do this with the help of their mother. Eventually, when the Lord addresses them, he asks them to share their secret. Stricken with fear at first, they reveal all and it helps the Lord realise the error in his decree and the value of age, experience and wisdom.
Eventually, the boys are made courtiers and their mum serves as special advisor to the Lord, with the law standing repealed.
I really liked this story when I read it and it was suddenly recalled to me, as I read that saying on the truck.
Hopefully, the influx of good blog topics from trucks will continue...
Any which way, I seem to notice a fair few interesting sayings on the trucks (well, two in two weeks is pretty nifty)
The latest one was:
उगवत्या सुर्याला नमस्कार करतांना मावलत्या सुर्याला विसरू नका!
Translation:
As you greet the rising sun, don't forget the setting sun.
That's pretty interesting.
As I understood it, it's just a reminder that as we look forward to the new age and new generation and acknowledge them, we should not forget that the foundations of society are built on the wisdom and experience of our elders. We tend to take them for granted and then abandon them when they become "inconvenient". While we're still better as a culture, as far as Indians go...there is still a rise in the number of people who are put in old age homes these days.
I understand if that happens when someone has no family but when the family members themselves send their elders to live away, I think it's criminal...
There have always been stories about Alaskan people setting off old people on ice floes (used as a plot device in the film North which starred a very young Elijah Wood) and I always wonder how people decide that it's time for someone to be abandoned? Who gives them that authority? What experience tells them that it's OK for old people to be treated like that?
[As an aside, a similar issue was addressed very interestingly in a film called Dor by Nagesh Kukunoor which deals with the story of a widow in Rajasthan. Unfortunately, these women are still treated poorly, even in this "modern age" in the rural areas...where widows lose all rights to humanity (almost, in a way). The movie calls for the protagonist to assert her freedom of will in a certain way and her mother in law opposes her decision, until the grand mother in law, herself a widow,...reminds the mother in law that the only reason she (MIL) has power to forbid and control her daughter in law is because she's not yet a widow. The grandmother asks the mother to imagine how she'd like being similarly powerless...quite well done, really]
So seriously...can people not imagine themselves in a similar situation before acting like heartless criminals?
Of course, while the ice floe thing is extreme, the voluntary incarceration of parents still annoys me.
"Walk a mile in another's shoes" is a very good idiom, which these progeny should follow first.
This reminds me of a story I once read in Tinkle Digest, a comic book, in the vein of a graphic novel.
In feudal Japan, a local lord decreed that all people over a certain age, shall be taken up a mountain nearby and be left there.
The story follows a mother and her two sons. When it's time to go up the mountain, the mother reminds them...and they unwillingly take her up the mountain. They try to talk her out of it but she reminds them that it's the law and their duty.
It is a tall mountain with a snowcap and in some ways, designed to do its work quickly.
When the sons start descending, a snow storm blows up and they get lost. They somehow find their way back to their mother, who is almost asleep due to the cold. Yet, she wakes and then guides them back down the mountain safely, having noticed certain shapes and dips in the land as they came up.
Once back at home,the sons decide to keep their mum in hiding.
Eventually, the local lord holds a contest. He is looking for smart young men to inculcate into his service and he sets a number of challenges which the boys win. They do this with the help of their mother. Eventually, when the Lord addresses them, he asks them to share their secret. Stricken with fear at first, they reveal all and it helps the Lord realise the error in his decree and the value of age, experience and wisdom.
Eventually, the boys are made courtiers and their mum serves as special advisor to the Lord, with the law standing repealed.
I really liked this story when I read it and it was suddenly recalled to me, as I read that saying on the truck.
Hopefully, the influx of good blog topics from trucks will continue...
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