Many of us have played “Secret Santa” at work. It is fun and always a huge success in setting the scene for Christmas. If you have played it you will be familiar with the rules – each participant’s name is written on a piece of paper and collected in a box. The box then makes its rounds among those that have joined in the game so that a name is picked by each. This name will get a Christmas gift (a monetary value to which has been pre-set) from the one who picked the name out of the box. Identity of the “giver” the Secret Santa is kept secret.

We had a table set up in the cafeteria at our workplace and each “Secret Santa” gift was dropped off here. After a pot-luck lunch, we sat around the table and tried to guess the name of the giver of one’s gift. A lot of laughter and many guesses later each secret Santa’s identity could be revealed if not guessed already.

I remember the year I received a Secret Santa gift from a member of our staff who had just been hired, so we didn’t really know each other. I opened the small envelope and drew out a card. It had a picture of a woman with the most wonderful smile drawing water out of a well. Mystified I opened the card to learn my Secret Santa had donated, on my behalf, the sum of money to this charitable organization that dug wells in remote places around the world to make drinking water accessible to people living there. This was the most inspirational gift I had ever received. What made her choose this one? She said she guessed this would be something close to my heart.  The gift of water, clean and pure, for all on this planet. Yes, I champion this cause.

Why shouldn’t water be important? It is said the human body is made up of approximately 64% water, it can be more or less, depending on gender, age, health, and weight.

Water is needed for survival – as simple as that. Yet, we use this precious gift without a second thought at times wasting it indiscriminately. In my hometown in India we had a tap on our street that made it convenient for those without running water to fill up. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the tap would be broken and there would be a constant flow of that precious commodity – all day and night – running into the street forming large puddles. Left untended this would become a hazard until workers mended the tap.

During particularly long and dry summers water supply in our town would be strictly rationed. During those times the well in our garden, most old homes had one, would become a meeting place for our father invited neighbours to come and fill up. This well was kept scrupulously clean for just such an emergency.

We hear reports of droughts and see images of cattle being herded from place to place in search of water because wells can and do run dry. There are many different reasons for a drought the most simple being – we are cutting down trees faster than we can plant thus effectively stopping nature’s eco-system. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But there it is at its grassroots level.

The desert, as we know, is an arid place. So, wherever oases and water-holes have sprung up providing precious source of water they are of immense value. In ancient times, we are told, these drinking holes or wells were heavily guarded and whoever came to slake their thirst would be questioned before being allowed to drink from it.

Rain falls on the earth, the earth drinks it up, trees and plants drink it up only to release it later. Each drop of rain has one million tiny water droplets. Imagine that!

The second most important ingredient for all to survive is air. It’s free for now but for how long? I wonder.

Air supplies energy to all beings, conducts sound, helps in pollination, and the list goes on. We have managed to pollute the very air we breathe in the form of behemoth aircrafts with our demands for faster service, fast cars, idling engines, the indiscriminate use of pesticide, and so many other things impossible to list all.

The wind has been harnessed through the use of wind turbines. This produces power but the price is higher than conventional electricity.  And the noise is tremendous. If we had these machines close to our backyard I would not hear the school bell ringing in the distance and children’s excited shouts as they are let out during recess. The wind carries these beautiful sounds to my ears and I treasure them.

As we strive to satisfy the constant demands from a burgeoning population for bigger and faster consumer products, I suppose the gifts of water and air will start to lose their natural wonder.

How do we fulfill the role of a good steward? How do we preserve these gifts for the next generation? Not easy, I know.

But we can take a page out of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. The boy Santiago needed to be the wind for a few hours and he achieved his ambition. It’s about faith in one’s belief to create their personal legend, to strive to be better than what we were before. Then everything around us becomes better. I am sure we can live up to this challenge.

 

Keep Well…..Keep Smiling

 Purabi Das

 

           

 

 

Purabi Das is an emerging writer and poet living in Pickering. Some of Purabi’s short stories have been featured on www.commuterlit.com . Purabi was recently featured at Open Mic organized by Writer’s Community of Durham Region where she read an excerpt from her novel.  Visit Purabi on www.facebook.com/purabisinhadas.