AIM HIGH, ACHIEVE EXTRAORDINARY

Beginning:

Hi there; the picture with the moon and the man trying to ladder it depicts a deeper message of aiming high and achieving extraordinary. This closely relates to the story that my father used to narrate to me for explaining ‘achieving the highest by aiming high at it’. I still remember the story of King Bhagirath and his aim to provide Moksha to his ancestors by getting river Ganga from Swarga to patala loka. Daddy proudly call the story as “Bhagirath Prayatna”. This has been an inspirational story for me and got registered into my mind as “if you aim for the impossible you will achieve the extraordinary”. To refresh my memory, let me pen down the details of the herculean task what King Bhagirath aimed in his life, the story goes with King Sagara planning to perform Ashwamedha yagna. Indra steals the horse and places it near sage Kapila in paatala. Meanwhile, the 60,000 sons makes sage Kapila angry by insulting as they think that sage Kapila stole the horse.

This way the sage stares angrily and the 60,000 sons turn into ashes. Now King Sagara sends Anshuman, the grandson of king Sagara, who in turn requests sage Kapila for revival of 60,000 uncles. Sage Kapila informs Anshuman that it is only possible with River Ganga in heaven. Anshuman returns and tries to get River Ganga to patala loka but fails. Anshuman then passes on the responsibility to his son Dilipa who also conducts rigorous penance through his life without success. Further Bhagirath, the son of dilipa, inherits the responsibility to bring ganga to patala. He entrusted the throne to the ministers and then performed penances for decades which pleased lord Bramha. He asked lord Bramha to bring ganga to patala but ganga’s wave’s force was only withstanded by lord Shiva.

Therefore, Bhagirath performed harsh penance to please Shiva, and so he did. When Ganga was landing into patala, she had planned that when lord Shiva was not paying attention she would flow off directly to patala. But lord Shiva had known her plan and therefore imprisoned her into his hair. After many years, Bhagirath requested lord shiva to release her, shiva did so but only a part of ganga. Meanwhile when sage Jahnu was performing a yagna, ganga disrupted the sacrifice which made sage Jahnu furious and he swallowed ganga. Bhagirath again requested sage Jahnu to free her and therefore he did. This way ganga was also known as Jahnavi. Meanwhile, Bhagirath lead her to the ashes of his ancestors. Ganga flowed into the ancestor’s ashes. A few moments, later Bramha appeared and exclaimed that all the 60,000 ancestors were in heaven. This way Bhagirath was successful and ascended the throne. Due to this, ganga is also known as Bhagirathi.

Middle: With this inspirational story of mythology, I had created my own story of a young girl, who aimed to be an IPS officer. This girl was Ganga who can be compared to Bhagirata. She lived a little village in India. Her parents were very poor to provide her education in private school. She managed her primary and secondary school in government school at her village. She was very brilliant in studies and sports. Her aim to work hard to achieve the goal. She was determined what she wanted to do. Her parents were sad as they could not support her for her higher studies.

One day she saw an airplane flying and asked her mother who owns these planes and she randomly said, ‘the government’ and since then that’s what she wanted to be a part of. She used to study night and day and stood first in the SSLC board exams. After that she got into college, which was far away , but she didn’t miss a day. Despite getting 86%, she lost admission at the only college we had in our village by 1 mark and that’s when her father told me it was time for her to give up studying and become a farmer. At the age of 16, she was a full-fledged farmer but because of a dispute with her dad she decided to give revisit my dream of studying further. This challenge of her made her a graduate at the age of 18 years and was selected for civil service post. With a great struggle and hardship she was police commissioner at the age 22. Thus by this story I come to the conclusion that we need to chase that dream with so much passion, that there’s no other choice but for it to come true— and it does…

End: With this what we learn is that, we should always aim for the impossible and with the best efforts we will be able to achieve the impossible as like King Bhagirath could. This is also so much relevant and applicable in our lives as well.