Fire Flies Among Us

In the time when the poetry does flow

Like a firefly briefly shall one glow.

They glow for short and live a life extraordinary

We, humans, live long in a life ordinary.

Few among us glow like a firefly but live long

This a tribute lyrical, for one to make it a song.

FireFly

His life can be summed as one of a firefly. I met him when I was doing the post-graduation at a rural management institute. Life was one ‘Anand’ in the company of his. Short in his height but long in his might, he had one persuasive skill and a strong will to go along with. He joined the health service provided by the extraordinary milk union famously known as AMUL. He learned the ropes and moved on to drier pasture in Bikaner where he set up a health service modeled on the one, he had worked with, yet again with a milk union there. Ordinary mortals would be satisfied but not him. He started spinning a charkha metamorphically in that he built a bridge between the media and the development that was happening in the hinterland. It was this time we once again connected and I wrote a few articles on developmental issues and was delighted to find them published in mainstream newspapers and on top got paid for them too. Yet again firefly-like burning, for him, was not enough. He moved to Majuli islands in Assam and took on the mafia there about whom he wrote in the news media. Alas! the mafia literally buried him in the sand. Oh! Gosh, what a tragic end to the human who glowed like a firefly and his name was Ajay Ghosh.

Human

The human story could be about me or the ordinary billions who live like me. Let me be brief about my own story of nothingness. Born in a middle class with aspirations in the middle region. Lived long enough to have crossed sixty and occupying myself with some writing which makes me glow in short verses. I make up the middle rung of the pyramid with the bleeding heart for those at the bottom. As I write this, farmers are protesting in the bitter winter, amid the polluting air, sure death. But as they would say death is what with life ends. Better go protesting and make your point. The only thing I could say in consolation for my own story is that life-long I worked with rural communities, fulfilling the objects of my alma-mater where I met the firefly, Ajay. But to think that nearly 810 million people are living a subsistence life on government doles during the COVID times one does wonder what has one done with life.

Fire fly and a human.

Both Ajay and I crossed our path due to some extraordinary efforts of a human who glowed like a firefly in his long career. As he told his own story once, he was not born to bring about the revolution that he had started. He too was born in a middle-class family and aspired for a good education and career that took him to the USA on a government scholarship. He returned to serve in India to fulfill the bond he had made with the government and languishing at Anand, an irony of sorts.

Life can change before one can wink and that was what happened when a farmer leader known as Tribhuvandas met him with a few others. They had heard he was an engineer and approached him if he could use his skill to repair the dairy plant they had purchased. Those farmers too were protesting for they were not getting sufficient prices for the milk they were producing. This was in 1947. Nothing has changed in the last 73 years till 2020. He decided to postpone his move to Bombay where he had landed a job. He never knew that time that he would never leave the town called Anand. He found his bearing and ‘Anand’ in that town. He repaired the plant and ran it for a while when the farmers suggested he work for them, manage and build the plant to process the milk. Rest was history as they say. I am sure you have guessed his name. indeed, I am talking about Dr. Kurien, Father of Milk Revolution. The flagship brand called AMUL is still flying high and glowing like a firefly.