
Kerala Village
In this materialistic era where artificiality and selfishness has over powered our moral values and customs, there are instances which highlight how people still believe and practice such morality in real life. A recent experience of mine made me think morality and humanity has been washed off in our so called modern society.
Well, Kerala has always known for its rich culture, traditions and hospitality, but with the changing trend this so called ‘God’s Own Country’ seems losing out its cultural heritage slowly. In the race for livelihood the city goers in Kerala have some how forgotten the values of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (which means that the whole world is a single family).
Amidst the rat-race of daily life people have programmed themselves to be least bothered with what is happening around them. For instance on the city roads if untowardly any ill-fated guy meets up with an accident, it’s upon his luck if anyone really stops, putting his work at stake to help the victim. Well this is a normal scene nowadays, which has pointed fingers over how artificial people have become and how soon they have forgotten their values.
But, in my case I feel quite lucky enough to be living in a Kerala village where people still are rooted to their values and culture to a great extinct. Now, what I am going to share with you is a personal experience which forced me to sit and think that the decision to relocate to a village rather than a city was a wise decision of my parents.
It was a Sunday morning and I was going to the near-by market on my Hero Honda motorbike. As I was about to reach the market a stray dog suddenly jumped in front of my bike. As we all knows stray dogs are known for their menace, and its the same in my village. Many riders end up in mishaps with these road side dogs and that day it was my turn. Though I tried my level best to avoid the accident, as the elders say, “what has to happen will happen”.
The collision was not so fierce, but I got severe injuries on my ankles and knees, it all happened in fraction of seconds and as it was over, the culprit dog smartly fled the scene of accident. It was a Sunday morning, even though village roads hardly have any traffic, and on Sundays the streets usually remain deserted.
After the mishap, it was at first a bit difficult for me to understand what had happened, as soon as I tried to lift my bike which was lying about 5 feet away in pain, one of the passers-by spotted me lying on the road injured. Soon they stopped and lifted me up and my bike. Soon few more other passers-by gathered and everyone was doing their best to make me feel comfortable and that genuine concern was very well clear in their eyes.
I was for a minute taken aback by the way they were concerned about my condition, it made me think of the values and helpfulness that still exists in our villages. By experiencing this I felt really happy to find that, the village people in Kerala are still unfazed by the artificial and self-centred lifestyle, which the people living in city have adopted.