Benito .Z. Swu
[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast Sunday, our local Senior pastor Rev. Dr. Hevukhu Achumi during the course of his regular Sunday morning devotional service sermon, sermonized at a particular point of time on the Scripture verses taken from the book of Mathew 25:14-30 (also Luke 19:13). This reminded me of the peanut,or better the peanut-butter which happened to be my favorite food in the butter category and the coated peanut in the nut category. To those who are partial to peanut butter or coated peanuts, I say, as often as you eat the delicious peanut butter or those ‘you just cannot eat one’ Haldiram or Bikaji coated peanuts, think about the sickly slave boy Craver who turned into one of the 20th century’s greatest scientist.George Washington Craver was born a slave in the United States but he somehow managed to get an education as a scientist. He said that the hunger of his heart was to discover the secrets of the universe. “But”, he said, “God said to me, ‘George’, that’s too big for you. I’ve got something more your size. You take a peanut and work on that.” And so he began to investigate what God had hidden in a peanut. He found over 330 different products that could be made from the peanut, revolutionizing the technology of his day. But he always remained a simple, Bible believing servant of God who relied upon Him to open his mind to the truth. Now, what drove George Craver to be what he was? I believe it was the drive to be the exception rather than the rule.
The drive to be the exception rather than the rule is in itself becoming a rule to very so many of today’s youths and that is very heartening. India is a very diverse and complex nation. However, she progressed very rapidly inspite of her so many handicaps due to her diversity only because of the resilience and the drive of the individual Indian youth to be the exception rather than the rule. Just as an example, we see so many success stories of so many individuals, born and brought up from the most congested and the largest and biggest slum of the world – the Dharavi slum in Mumbai. From rag pickers to the recycle managers, masons to massagers, plumbers to engineers, soldiers to doctors, barbers to technicians to menial and managerial jobs in industries and IT hubs – you name it, Dharavi slum has it all. How could someone, born and brought up from a single small makeshift room of a slum get the inspiration, the courage and the will to break out of the mould to compete against the much more advantageous and get success? Forget about the Scripture verse, they most probably are not even aware that a book called The Bible exists, but they certainly have lived the verse. I sincerely do believe these few verses is applicable to all aspects of our socio-eco-politi of our Naga society today.
Life, as is the natural process of healing and ageing is meant to be dynamic. But dynamism, of all the ‘ism’ is that one ‘ism’ which seems to be missing in our Naga society today. The more we change, the more we seem to remain the same. And that is not dynamism. We all together cannot shy away from the blame. More so the leaders of today. It is no real change when change comes because of fear. It will be like going in circles. As said by the senior most and respected lady editor of a Nagaland daily, it is not easy to make people understand that a state of flux is inimical to development and progress; and that this state of flux is not the same as being ‘socially fluid’, a term sociologists use to describe a dynamic society. I cannot but agree with her again when she commented that change is frightening to sections that aspire to power in Naga society which, in the foremost, is the political class which again can be a nationalist, regionalist, overground, underground and those in between.
Lastly, a tailpiece: Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of ours is doomed to failure. And even a failure will not take the form we imagine. “It will be interesting to see what happens” is a more realistic attitude toward future consequences than worry. Excitement, dejection, and irritation also assume a knowledge of results that we cannot possess.
