- Tuesday, 17 December 2024
An Open Letter To Son
Chandra Kumar Phuyal
Dear son !
Five years ago, when you stepped on this earth, we felt as if one more sun began to shine in our life illuminating our world.
While drenched with tears of contentment about your arrival, your parents were equally anxious as to what if a hovering dark cloud covers the sun anytime soon before it begins to deliver. Along with the unsurpassed pleasure, your arrival has also shouldered me plenty of responsibilities for landing you in a safe and bright future penetrating thick berries of numerous impediments and challenges on
your journey.
Pathetic
Dear son, at the moment when you came into our lives, the situation of the country was pathetic as it was badly bogged down into a quagmire of the consequence of long-lasting political instability breeding huge amounts of recession, inflation, scarcity, corruption, unemployment, and other deformities like discrimination, nepotism, favouritism, and prejudice in all spheres of the society across the country and there was a huge impact of that on your parents too.
All the country's political, economic, social, and other indicators were running on negative trends like never before that have continued to deteriorate with little sign of improvement anytime soon.
The growing number of natural disasters, pandemics, the impacts of global warming, and environmental pollution was a matter of grave concern which may still stand as a giant mountain on your path to your future progress as well.
While our unity, nationality, and integrity have continued to weaken as our government has indirectly been running on remote control, we have badly failed to protect our priceless natural properties and boundaries from neighbours' continuous encroachment from all sides adding insult to our injury. However, with the recently-formed seven-party coalition government in place, eventually, a ray of hope for getting things better soon has now been immersed but its deliveries are yet to be seen and judged.
Dear son, as the fascinating rose blossoms among the thrones and a lotus on the dirty mud, you should, however, accept the challenge and continue to spread the fragrance by blossoming even amidst the odds without being dispirited and keep navigating your journey relentlessly being a solution to all the problems, instead.
Of course, as your duties and responsibilities keep growing with time, you should keep equipping yourself with quality life skills and education that will be your key to excelling in the unemployment-ridden world of throat-cutting competition. The more you spend on studies and research, the wider you can make your horizon further strengthen you in your mission of obtaining success and happiness.
Thus, you shouldn’t believe in building a castle in the air nor should you fall prey to false pledges of transforming the country into Singapore or Switzerland overnight that are just a source of leaders' cheap popularity.
But, you have to take the initiative yourself as part of your responsibility for building yourself, society, and the nation of your dreams based on ground reality and practicality rather than blaming others.
As such, you should keep learning the true values of your religion, language, culture, custom, tradition, and civilization which are the basic elements for the foundation of your identity. As your identity is the key to your success in life, preserving, developing, and promoting the elements should be your primary concern.
So, this is the main reason why your parents would prefer you to celebrate your birthday by conducting the Astachiranjiwi Pooja and Swasti-Santi at home or temple for your longevity, good health, prosperity, success, and happiness in the presence of your friends and relatives rather than cutting cakes and throwing big parties in the star hotels that only promotes a western culture badly dominating ours as widely realized these days.
Dear son, you may now be upset and unsatisfied with not following your friends' popular trends of a birthday celebration for a while but when you grow enough to understand, you will surely appreciate this idea.
Moreover, you should understand the fact that in the meantime while your friends celebrate their birthdays by cutting cakes and throwing greasy parties, many children are dying of hunger and scarcity. Almost 15,000 children under 5 die every day, mostly from treatable diseases and other preventable causes globally as per an official figure while conflict, poverty, inequality, discrimination, and distance have continued denying millions of children their rights.
Sadly many children of your age haven't seen schools yet and many of them get dropped off their studies halfway due to many reasons, mainly poverty. So, don't you think it would be a better idea to donate as much as you can to some of the needy ones around you as a part of your humanitarian responsibility instead of wasting your money in the name of birthday parties?
Follow Rules
Dear son, you must adhere to the rules and regulations while you carry on with your jobs and activities. In the meantime, ethics, discipline, etiquette, and morality must be kept at top of your priority at each step of your life.
Your culture of listening more than speaking, respecting dissimilar opinions while expressing yours, respecting elders while loving youngsters and extending hands to the needy ones, and standing accountable for each of your activities is much esteemed in life so you should always keep them as the secret of your successful life.
Dear son, always be yourself and be proud to be what you are in life. May you be a great person rather than a big one in life! May you achieve your full potential in everything you undertake!
Your ever-loving and caring father,
(The author is a freelancer.)
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