“Dharti Per Bhoj” – The Excess Weight On Earth

“Dharti par bhoj hai!” An idiom in Hindi – this signifies that a particular “life-being” on earth is unwanted and is causing unnecessary strain on the earth. When uttered referring to a person, it represents an ultimate insult to that alive person. Usually whenever it is uttered it is attributed to a wicked person who is making life miserable for everyone else.

The biggest strength of an average Indian erstwhile was tolerance. <Irrelevant Trivia: This according to me was the primary reason that the fight for India’s freedom has been labelled as a “Struggle” rather than a “Revolution” – the label given to fight for freedom elsewhere in other countries like Russia, America, France etc. Our capacity for tolerance made the fight for freedom a struggle.> However, in modern era I notice that irrespective of whether a person is Indian or non-Indian, the level of tolerance has drastically fallen common to all humans alike. We get affected by the smallest slight. At an individual level, we either get deeply offended and feel sad inside or get ready to go into war mode for the slight. As families have disintegrated to become more and more nucleus and geographically spread across the globe, people have learnt to become fiercely independent and passionate of choosing their own path irrespective of family views. Ironically, “tolerance” for independent thinking family members has increased exponentially amongst other family members with a mindset that truly believes ” let each member choose his own direction, make own decisions and mistakes.” This is allowing each human to explore their own strength and weaknesses in a strongly materialistic world. Yet on the emotional front, the bonds formed with family members have weakened due to this very freedom offered by family members. I am sure many of readers may disagree with this view and may also claim that bonds are often strong also. I agree with that view also.

However, I assert that predominantly, the emotional bonds between family members are rendered weak for most people. It is this very reason that depression as a “disease” or many psychosomatic diseases are on the rise. The term “dharti per bhoj” rings in almost every human head often due to this. Lacking in emotional support, when there are a stream of affronts to a person’s psyche due to various reasons it becomes easy for each human person to start contemplating that “I am a bhoj(excess weight) on Dharti (earth).

Today, the modern human has more freedom to express oneself and also has access to put it across the world at large thanks to platform like twitter, facebook etc. On the flip side – all this technology and its noise has also made humans put in more filters or shades to avoid getting bogged down by so many messages or signals emanating from universe. Due to this, when one person may be expressing anguish or pain, the voice may get drowned/remain unheard either due to loud sounds of multitude problems faced by opposite individual or due to the unwitting placement of filters that disallowed your voice to reach him or her.

For most of the serious thinking humans, all this results in a internally warped sense that equated the absence of a listener with a feeling of being unwanted or useless – “Dharti per bhoj”. Indeed, this sense of being useless and an excess weight comes to the best of us now and then despite our being in a more secure environment. That’s why I said in an earlier statement that it keeps ringing.

Our usual answer to this internal ringing is to shrug it off and act in ways that allows us to be useful. This works for better part of our life. Owing to a fast lifestyle, more and more people are getting physically incapable of various acts at an early age(back-pain, knee pain etc). Then for several people often, various factors play to ensure repeated failure in one’s mission despite one’s best possible actions in pursuit of one’s dreams. A growing frustration at being incapable of physical acts that were possible earlier or the repeated failures shakes us up and makes us even more sensitive and intolerant to other persons comments and we start taking offense to the smallest of any sentence that looks like a slight to our physical or worldly capabilities. It is in these moments that the continuous ringing from the past (“dharti per bhoj”) starts ringing very loudly and can be cause of immense sadness and pain. Due to our lack of awareness, we may be in denial of this ringing and instead only sensing an acute sadness or pain. 

Without positive encouragement from family members who are busy fighting their own battle with their dreams, it is now left to each individual to be capable of curing oneself. I try to provide this entire picture vividly to just emphasise how each one of us may get affected and also to bring to your awareness that the frustration or gnawing anger directed at world may actually be the result of erroneous thinking that believes that “one must be in physical prime or alternatively should be earning enough money /be in a position of influence to be useful to the world”.

Let me narrate a short story anecdote– A full capacity bus was traversing through a deserted road in the wilderness during the night-time. That night thunder and lightening was intense and it kept on happening continuously around the bus. The bus passengers started getting anxious and finally made the driver to halt. Yet nature fury around did not cease. One of the passenger suggested – “There must be a divine will at play here which is probably seeking a life. Let us all one-by-one stand below the tree that is about 10 feet away from this bus and if lightning strikes the tree and that person, we have an answer and the rest can continue with the journey.”

Others equally anxious passengers started one by one agreeing that this may be so. And it was decided. It took time for the first person to muster courage, get up, alight the bus and stand near the tree. The lightning struck elsewhere and the first person sighed a relief before re-entering the bus. Soon one by one all passengers began following suit. Fortunately, every passenger managed to return to bus unscathed till there was no passenger left. However, there was no end to the lightning and thunder around. Each of the passenger while personally relieved at being left untouched by mother nature, by this time started believing that nature was indeed out for a specific someone’s life.  Each of the passengers now suddenly started looking at the poor hapless driver accusingly. They soon forced the driver to alight and walk towards the tree and stand underneath it. It is then that it happened!

The lighting with all it’s fury struck the bus and scorched the entire bus and all the passengers within. It was so strong that none were left alive save the driver standing under the tree ten feet away.

Due to trying circumstances, we may start thinking that we are not needed or our existence serves no purpose. However unfortunately our acceptance of this belief may be on an incorrect premise just like the story above. We may not be always aware but secretly, it might be our presence that may be protecting and serving others. Everything has a purpose and just because humans possess the ability to think does not mean that it can logically conclude that he or she (or any other being including the one troubling us) serves no purpose during a certain weak phase of life. Yes- the wicked needs to be destroyed but even their presence serves an important purpose of highlighting to us the values that one should adhere to live lives by.