Saturday, November 15, 2014

THE PASSING OF DEORAJ

I've had the pleasure to read A Perennial Stream and am, in fact, reading it a second time.  I find a second read of a book I have enjoyed gives even more pleasure the second time round.  You find yourself  either validating your opinion of characters or, occasionally changing them, and spotting things you missed the first time round.   I came away from my first read caring about Deoraj.  This second read has only cemented my admiration and affection for a man who I shall never meet but who, in many ways, reminds me of my own father.  He was also a kind, loyal man who always tried to do the right thing.  It's only with rereading the book that I noticed that there was a familiarity to Deoraj that I'd not recognized.

Anyway, I'm at the point in my second read where Deoraj dies.  My own father died younger than he should have and he, too, had a weak heart.  He died instantly after a heart attack.

There's a very touching tribute to Deoraj in the book and although I won't read about him any more in the physical sense, his spirit, kindness, and tenacity to always do no harm will flow down through the rest of A Perennial Stream....


'Deoraj Singh Bapna of the Bafna clan was fifty-seven years old when he passed away. Most first-generation success stories involve men who started with nothing and without the advantage of a good education or culture, were somewhat crude and almost uncouth. They didn’t think twice about using any means at their disposal, legal or illegal, brutal or not so brutal, to climb up the ladder. Deoraj was the exception. Despite starting with nothing, he set the highest standards of honesty, integrity, culture and compassion, which some even in his future generations found difficult to uphold, despite having all the advantages of money, power and influence. The amazing thing, however, was that there were others among his succeeding generations who were able to meet his high standards, inspired by the values he inculcated in his son and which were passed on from generation to generation.

Deoraj had a certain innocence and child-like quality about him which led most people to consider him naïve or simple-minded. In reality, it took a high degree of intelligence and strength of character for any man to start at the bottom and achieve what Deoraj did, without hurting anybody along the way and without compromising his self respect. His greatest attribute was his ever-willingness to walk away from success if it was not on his terms, a tradeoff only the very best of us can make.

A thousand people attended Deoraj’s funeral and they all agreed on one thing: in all of his thirty-eight years in Jaisalmer, Deoraj had never hurt a soul. The harsh hand that life dealt him over and over again had made him rebellious, but he was the gentlest rebel anyone had ever known.'

Just so you know, the Kindle edition of A Perennial Stream is now available on Amazon here:



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