Afore Script: typically “scavengers” refer to animals who live off other dead animals. They too serve a purpose. But I want to talk about scavenging as burrowing through dirt or garbage, to retrieve something useful.
One of my early, yet strong, memory of impact of literature on my mind was reading a description in a Tennessee Williams’ play. Tennessee always wrote about “marginal” characters, people living on the fringes of society. I have forgotten which play it was, but he describes a scene where a poor, decrepit couple are sitting on a heap of left-overs & trash, dumped on the outskirts of the town. And this couple, out of desperation, driven by acute hunger, are scouring the heap of trash & finding small nibbles of food, in the trash dump, & picking that out & eating!!! I was a college student, in my teens, but that image I have carried for 50+ years. To me, that is a nadir of human existence, where humanity can fall!!
That was an American playwright’s visual but India affords us similar sights. Abject poverty & hunger driving people to stoop to any level to feed themselves. So what if it is out of a dustbin or a community trashcan? While it is sad & hurtful to see, we may at the most pay something to the scavengers to go & eat or have a cup of tea. Or most often, shake our heads sagely, then ignore & carry on with our lives!!! Yet when I think more, I am intrigued by the mindset epitomized by the scavengers of searching for something good & converting adversity into opportunity, which is admirable . This blog is on this positive mindset of the scavenging profession, which we can learn from. Finding something useful in a pile of dirt.
Had heard a motivational speaker tell a story of a scavenger which opened my eyes, yet again. There is this small, young girl who has a gunny sack over her back. She is going from one garbage dump to another, in a large housing society. She stops at every garbage can, rummaging inside to see if there is anything worth salvaging, something which is still useful. Every stop she picks out plastic, metal, caps & cans which have been thrown away. And merrily puts those into her gunny sack & moves forward.
All of us have seen such garbage pickers early morning on streets. Roadside dogs, suspicious of this stranger, bark & try to drive her away. The small girl shoos them away if they come too close. And then steadfastly continues her collection! The dogs follow her for a distance & when she turns the corner, return to their “galli”. But the strays of the other lane, start the barking & pursuing. The girl carries on her work. The motivational guru concludes,” कुत्ते भोंकते रहे, लेकिन लड़कीने ७ गलिया घुम के 18 रुपये कमा लिये” (Dogs continued to bark, but the girl visited 7 lanes & earned 18 Rs)
To me this story has 2 major learnings: No work is bad if you are focused; there is wealth hidden in the most unlikely places, if you search diligently. And, there will always be detractors….the barking dogs… you must still continue to do what is right by you.
So, I am writing this blog, to extoll the benefits of scavenging. We all must be scavengers in our own right. We must learn to search for good things, useful things everywhere. In people whom we meet, & discard in a jiffy. In relationships which we feel are turned sour. Wherever we are, office, family, friends, acquaintances search for the hidden good. Don’t give up on any place or anyone. Maybe you need to dig deeper, search more, shift thru the dirt yet again. There is hidden value all around you. It will come forth only if your search is diligent & thorough.
People are always a mixed bundle. Like a prospector in a gold mine, we can’t hit gold immediately. We have to sift thru much dirt, clean many many loads of mud & sand. The diamond miner should be our role model. Enter deep. Dig hard. Clean, clean, clean. And then you find the diamond hidden all around you!!!
Look at gold miners : long before any gold can be mined, significant exploration & development needs to take place to extract the gold efficiently, safely & responsibly. It can typically take years before a gold mine is ready to produce material that can be refined into bullion. Do we give so much time to our relationships? People are always a mixed package. Do we have the patience of a miner? are we searching enough? Do we give up too easily?? Our “searching” mindset must be as powerful as the miners‘… Our tools for digging must be sharp. And we must have patience & the faith that the gold is there… around the next interaction, the next project, the next … Our searching mindset must be on continuously like the miner’s headlamp when he is exploring in the mine.
In interactions with people, recollect the jigsaw puzzles you played as children. Each piece is uniquely shaped. Some have corners. Some have sharp edges. But when you find the right piece & its correct placement, it fits beautifully together. And reveals a new picture!!! People in our lives are similar. All are unique. But when they come together & fit in, a beautiful picture emerges.
People in your life add that color & diversity. Give it time & effort. The solutions are all in the jigsaw set itself. You don’t have to throw out any pieces. Or break or re-shape pieces for the solution. Stick with it & the pieces will fall in place. Remember you may not know how your piece fits in, but someone else’s picture would be incomplete without you.
Let me end with another parable. The Greek poet Archilocus pointed out The fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one important thing.
There are two types of people in the world: foxes & hedgehogs. This dichotomy describes contrasting cognitive styles, ways of viewing the world. If you adopt fox-like thinking you rely on multiple pieces of information to form your view on an issue, & think about it from different angles. The fox is always exploring & moving around. But if you have a hedgehog mindset, you develop your world views & predictions with a central, overarching principle in mind. Focus & depth. Point to learn for us, people will be different. Blend & get the best from all around you. Learn from all. Search for paydirt, even if it is in dumping yard.
To end: Be a Scavenger. Ignore the barking dogs. Move forward. Remain focused on your goal. Search for the good everywhere. Don’t worry if you get dirty : vikas
Vikasblog 