Its Time to Sing the Song Alisha !

Alisha is my addition only. I came to know about Alisha sometime back through Harish Bijoor and his writings. He wrote a piece in one of my book, " Come Alsiha, its time to dance" . Hairsh and me are good friends and we know each other for almost six years now. He is a great brand guru and gives talks on branding where ever he goes and writes columns in the newspaper also. I had once invited him to IIMIndore also.
But now why did I write about Alisha and time to sing a song is directly has no bearing to my friends. It has something to do with my grand father. i think I spoke about my grand father in detail to Manaswini in recent past. Now he is at the last leg of life. A life full of activities, action, adventure and fun! thats what he tells me. As a little child, he lost his mother quite early. People say that his step brother who was almost 15-20 years senior to him poisoned his mother. Anyway this is only dramatic. The adventure has to follow then on. He grew up in an era when freedom fighters were the celebrated heroes and he joined the bandwagon leaving a young wife and little children on the back. he was in the jail as he fought against the British as well as the king of Nayagarh as the head of Prajamandal Movement. India got independence but the new India forgot him and he came out of the jail at a latter stage.
His next innings was more with social work and cooperative movement in the area. he was awarded several times by central and state government and he is the guy who made cheese cake of nayagarh very popular throughout the state. He developed a so called supply chain network by using state road transport corporation buses and made the cheeses cake available throughout the state. There was no information technology at that time, but he could develop a system by which people at 500 kms distance can get fresh cheese cakes of the previous night available to them.
Often in the evening of life, he would come and be nostalgic about his past. So also each one of us will do that when we grow old. he talked about inclusive growth. I had a chance to travel with him to some of the villages that he had adopted and could be suprised to see that there are villages where all the houses are pucca houses. On enquiry, he will tell me how he changed the engagement of the people from daily wage earners into people who started with handloom and ended with powerloom business. There are clusters of powerlooms and all these people are extremely rich. He told me when they needed bank finance, my grand father had given his property as mortgage.

He is not keeping well and I am with him these days. I was also disturbed due do some uncalled for developments at IIMIndore and then my decision to leave that place. My family was disturbed because i decided to quit in a very short notice. I have never put my own problems known to my family members. while I was passing through these difficulties my grandpa fell sick and I had to travel to my home town. But now I am at peace within myself and also i am enjoying my stay with him. Job, career and recognition has taken a back seat at this point of time. During these days of his life, he is so jovial. He wanted me to sing a song some days back. This was a number i use to sing during my school days to pray God. Now I dont sing at all.
Let me give the lines to you also, " Dhalidia saaraa, dharanire aaji, tumari ashish dhaaraa, andhara rate, kantaka pathe, dia alokara ishara". This says, 'Bestow me all, on the earth, your blessings, in the dark nights, on thorn filled roads, show me the sign of light". Though he has very less energy left with him, but he was murmuring the song with me while I was singing the song with him.
This is life, Alisha, after such a long journey, filled with happiness and sorrow, pain and agony, success and failure, at 93 he is signing the song of life and praying for showing the eternal light for his last journey. Through him, I becoming dead and through him, I am living for centuries and going to a stage which is making me content and pure for forgiving all those who have sinned against me.
Alisha, I am happy, I am blessed and I have forgotten all the pain and I have forgiven all those sinners to me,
Alisha, I am singing the song of life, come and sing with me.