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Moving On


The person you see on top is known as a toddy tapper. Found only in certain parts of India, mainly in the South, he climbs coconut trees to extract the sap from the flower, that he pours into the pot hanging from his waist. Once he collects it, it is left to ferment and the end result is a strong pungent alcohol the locals love.


Why am I saying this?


If the British had not conquered India, if they had not abolished the caste system that defined what jobs the people from each caste did, if they had not put an end to a practise that reeked of inequality, that man on top of the coconut tree, that would ave been me. Not that I am ashamed to have come from that position (here the position referring to my lowly caste and not to that on top of the coconut tree).


Just that yesterday when I talked to a friend of mine, he was lamenting on how different things would have been if only....The dots are his life story. The "How different things would have been if only" is everyone of our life story. It is perhaps impossible to go a day without ever asking ourselves that question. Sometimes we ask ourselves that question in amusement, sometimes in light hearted regret, but most of the times in regret. The well-acknowledged truth is that moving on was never easy, but the less well-acknowledged one was that brooding over regrets only led to more regrets. 


Guess it is time for me to stop wishing the British had never came to India. Even if it means I missed out on my chance to start my own business, my own Indian Heineken.

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