My God on this earth was my father and the temple was my School
I am Jyothi Bhushan. I come
from the dry land in North Karnataka called as Gulbarga. Some say that Gulbarga
was named after the Gulabs that were grown. But I see no roses there…. maybe it
was just Cul bur gee which was spelled by the English as Gulbarga….may be or maybe
not. It is the hottest town but it gave me a cool soothing space in my heart
when I went back to my school. There was a little banyan tree on the corner of
the road and is still there. I stood there when I saw two girls being dropped
in a scooter by their father. I went down the memory lane where my father used
to drop, me, my sister and my brother in one cycle; we got down at that very
point.
I turned and saw my father. I never thought
he had changed….. but under that banyan tree I realized that my father, the
strongest, had become an old man, and me the little girl had become a young
dynamic woman, heading a big project in a big MNC. This was all because of my
father who was committed to me, to bring me to the school. Tears rolled down my
cheeks with gratitude and even as I was wiping them, I heard Raji call me and
my father into the school. We walked through the little stair case which looked
very big to me then. But in reality, it was a very small. We started our
program and there was a session of acknowledging the parent where I went to my
father and bowed down and fell on his feet. That’s when I realized that, ‘My
God on this earth was my father and the temple was my school.’ I have nothing
to say…. In true sense I experienced what it is to be a daughter to a committed
father and among the children I saw the future of my country, indeed very big. In
spite of the school being very small, every child of that school had a genuine
smile, simply because it’s my word. I returned back home, truly as number one.
I was crazy of first rank and always stood first. And now I stand as the first
person in Gulbarga to own up the safety of every child and it feels great!
-Jyothi Bhushan
SIE -mphasiSan HP comp