Journey of a dark kid to become a green parent

Journey of a dark kid to become a green parent

Changes are so obvious in one’s personality when you consider various phases of life from birth to death. If I look back in my life, I certainly can see lot of changes in me too.

I was very influenced by my dad before high school. His body language, his ideologies, his restrictions towards money and wealth, his fears, his sense of humor, his love for family and friends, the level of trust he had gained from people, the level of trust he had on the society, his patience, his way of bringing up kids etc etc etc. (If I tell more on my dad, I become emotional and I won’t be able to talk anything but my dad in this blog. I will stop now.). So I was going to become my dad. People started calling me with his name. I was worried.

I got a chance to work on it, when our parents decided to live in our village to look after their business and left us back in Mysore to continue education.  Changes started more evident from my high school days. That’s when I started reading outside my academics. I was curious about outside world. Am still curious now. I started meeting more and more strangers. Few became very good friends of mine on the way. I started reading novels, business/leaders, politics/politicians, sports, entertainment, and economy and so on. I wanted to gain as much knowledge as possible to create my way of life. I wanted to explore my life in my own way. I was trying hard to find definitions myself on each shades of life. I was desperately trying to come out of my dad’s influence.

But on the other side, without my knowledge, my mom’s influence on religious beliefs and customs had taken over me like a virus. I was hanging between self gained ideologies and mom’s gifted religious beliefs. That was a terrible time. More I tried to distance myself from gods, the more fear used to occupy me. I was totally lost in the war of thoughts and I was helpless. I was fully accustomed to creeds, confessions, fear and beliefs. Like others, I too had a list of good and bad based on society’s mindset. This had created a strong concrete fence around me. The knowledge and ideologies I was gaining from reading books was helpless. I was lacking will power. I was inferior. That was the state of me till 2010.

I lost my job in 2010, moved with my friends in Bangalore, went through a terrible break up with my girl friend. I was jobless, hurt, and sober, less confident, bankrupt and dependant on my friends for few months. On top of it, the beliefs on gods started filling more fear. I was coming to a conclusion that only god/s can save me. I started visiting all types of temples every day. I was trusting more on gods and gradually losing confident on my capabilities. I was waiting for a miracle to happen. I was frustrated and pathetic.

I knew time had come to act on it. I started to question myself. I started analyzing people who are in same path as mine. Many are doing good but rest are still struggling in spite of their strong beliefs towards gods and in spite of doing so called good things. So these beliefs on religion and gods didn’t make sense to me for the first time. But I was not strong enough to leave my 25years of beliefs in one day and start new life from very next day. I was jobless too. I didn’t want to take risks at all. What if I am wrong? Fear again.

So I charted a plan of 2-3 years, to gradually to come out of beliefs on religion. But I had to choose someone to follow. I chose Basavanna’s ideologies and chose Nature as my god. Both of them are obvious choices for me for two strong reasons.

1. Basavanna was an Indian philosopher, statesman, Kannada poet and a social reformer who was lived in Karnataka, India between 1134–1196. He fought against the practice of the caste system, which discriminated against people based on their birth, gender and other rituals in Hinduism. He spread social awareness through his poetry, popularly known as Vachanaas. Basavanna used Ishtalinga, an image of the Śiva Liṅga, to eradicate untouchability, to establish equality among all human beings and as a means to attain spiritual enlightenment. He created a model Parliament called the Anubhava Mantapa, which not only gave equal representation to men and women but also had representatives from different socio-economic backgrounds.
2. Choosing Nature as my god was more logical. I always wanted a god you can see, touch, feel, talk to and who is actually taking care of all living beings in the universe. So I made a pact with Nature. I take care of you and you take care of me. Win-win agreement. I started using bi-cycle, very limited usage of plastics, payment made to organizations of environmentalists. If I need to say in one sentence, I was becoming more environment friendly. I considered myself a profound child of nature which anyway is so true and we all are.

It worked. By 2012, I declared myself as free man from earlier beliefs on religion and gods. I was free from beliefs on good and bad. I was more confident; less worried and had more clarity on life than ever. I started going to places where life was taking and started doing things I desired to do. No restrictions at all. All I had to do is, I should take care that my acts won’t hurt Mother Nature any way or I should have a workaround to compensate her loss. I kept as simple as possible. For example, if I buy a car, I need to make sure of its limited usage and plant more trees. It was that simple to me. And I made sure that certain percentage of my savings being spent on charity and community works. This cleared any left around guilt feeling in me.

I appeared to be slowly developing a strong bonding with nature. My parents adopted two saplings planted by our land developer in front our house. After I got job in Mysore (my home town) and started living with my parents, brother and wife, I developed a comfortable attachment with those two plants. I enjoyed looking them growing. We planted two more saplings but of different kind, in front of our house. I adopted new plants and became their caretaker. I protected them from animals and summer sun, made sure they get watered daily in summer, and nurtured with natural fertilizer in timely manner.  This followed for 2 years. I felt proud and was happy to see their growth. Now both of them have grown considerably. I felt like am a parent to both of them. I talk to them, share all moments with them. Now they no longer need my care anymore. I can only sit back and watch their growth like a proud parent. They are now taking care of us with shades and good air. I started enjoying their company. They are my first kids.

With no more expectation from them, I didn’t know what else to do. I was becoming lazy. So I decided to plant and adopt more trees. Now am a proud parent for 15 trees which are at different growth levels and many flower plants around our home.

Being jobless for few months in 2010 is best thing happened to me till date. My journey as green parent will continue…

With Love,

RD