There is hustle and bustle everywhere in the dining room and kitchen of a huge and enchanting bungalow located in the posh and high class society of Himayatnagar. The bungalow is named as Mr. Rajnandan’s Cottage. Women’s hasty and hurried voices are heard in the interiors of the cottage, some members of the family are seen hurriedly finishing their breakfast and leaving the splendid house for their daily routine. Some members are sitting at the dining table and eagerly waiting for their breakfast to be served. One of the elderly persons sitting at the dining table is Mr. Rajnandan, one of the most successful businessmen in the world of Jewlery. The fame of this successful business has spread all over the state. The existence of his business is seen in almost all the metropolitan cities of the state in the form of franchises of jewelry business. Rajnandan is of course a successful businessman but not like real successful businessmen who make the world of their business out of ash. Rajnandan is such a person who was born with silver spoon in his mouth. He is successful in the sense that he enhances and expands the inherited business of Jewelry from his father who too was a well known name of his time in jewelry business of Himayatnagar. The commendable business of Mr. Rajnandan is that he gives a state level recognition to his inherited business.
The interiors of the bungalow are really marvelous and heart stealing. It is skillfully and beautifully festooned with the world’s outstanding artifacts. Every artifact garnishing bungalow symbolizes the affluence of Rajnandan. Every tour overseas adds to the beautifying artifacts of this bungalow. Everything whether it may be a sofa or dining tables, curtains, statues, furniture and other interior elements reflect the aesthetic sense and love for thing of luxury and of beauty of Mr. Rajnandan. It is seen and observed that in most of the bungalows in high class society, special portion is reserved for the pious existence of the library. Sometimes it is done to pretend to be cultured, aristocratic and scholarly family. One thing which is strikingly observed about Rajnandan’s house is the absence of the library. One may find a lot of artifacts which release the smell of the riches of Rajnandan but no book lying here and there. It enhances the curiosity why is it so?
The answer of this is really shocking. Mr. Rajnandan is such a man who never loved books in his life. He spends thousands on the things of beauty and physical comfort but thinks hundred times to spend a single rupee on a book which beautifies one’s intellect. Mr. Rajnandan opines that spending money on books is wastage of money. Today’s read book is forgotten tomorrow and what gathers on it is a heap of detrimental dust. For him reading is worthless activity and idles away one’s time. If the time wasted in reading, the baffling of the so called philosophical writers, is spent on business skills, he says with a great emphasis that the country would regain its status of the most affluent country in the world and once again the golden smoke would be released from the each and every nook and corner of the country that would shine the world. He blames that the poverty is the gift of that so called intellectuals who bury them in the books wasting time in the library and just building castles in the air with imagination and doing nothing in reality. He hates all the intellectuals and their intellectual society engrossed in playing the game of emotions and befooling the world. He asserts that it is just because of the successful businessmen like him; the nation is sound in affluence otherwise these intellectuals (book worms), so called emotional fools, doing nothing would have eventually bankrupt the nation. He says that these intellectuals resemble to those speaking parrots who speak but does nothing.
Mr. Rajnandan is a son born with silver spoon in his mouth. Being born and brought up in a business family had natural apathy for education. The family believed that education makes man emotionally rich and practically tame. The family was fully aware that their business is nothing but an output of their practical potential. Yet the father of Mr. Rajnandan had admitted him in the school. Mr. Rajandan joined the school but did not amalgamate himself with academic conditions in the school. He found the books of Mathematics and Social Sciences to be incomprehensible. Being unable to read and understand the incomprehensible and dead concepts in the study books, he lost his animation in academics and told his father that he would cease going to school from tomorrow. Father too did not force him as he knew that the blood of a businessman flows in his body which would not survive with the oxygen of books. A failure in academics aroused an apathetic feeling in him for books. Thus he never touched a book thereafter and fully dedicated to his father’s business. At an early age of his life he started taking interest in his father’s jewelry shop and within a short span of time; with his business skills he took his father’s jewelry business to an unexpected height of success.
Rajnandan gets married and has two little sweet and handsome sons. Against his desire his sons are admitted in the school. He does so to respect his wife’s emotions. Years chase each other; his sons grow in years passing one examination after the other. Once, his elder son, Rajdeep, requests his mother for new books. She takes him to his father. On hearing the demand, he scolds both saying that he cannot afford to spend money on books and orders his wife either to borrow books from the neighbors or buy the second hand books which would charge him less. He gets ready to spend money on second hand books to please his wife. Realizing her husband’s opposition she goes to neighbor to lend books. The housewife of the neighbor feeling proud hurts the wife of Rajnandan saying, “you so called rich people can afford to spend a lot on the beautifying artifacts but feel troubled to spend pennies on books. Then what is the use of affluence which makes you beg to us?” The words of the neighboring housewife wound her ego so much and she determines that she would never beg to anyone. Realizing that money unnecessarily wasted on the education of his sons would not benefit his business, he decides to cease the education of his sons. Mother too feels helpless before an obstinate father who hates books. Every day Rajnandan takes his sons Rajveer and Rajdeep to his jewelry shop so that they can acquire business skills in their early age of their lives.
A year gets engulfed into the past with the birth of the next. Mr. Rajnandan moves the earth and the heaven to expand his business to its zenith. His sons too grow and with equal passion, support and strengthen his father’s hand in business. Mr. Rajnandan always takes care that his family should enjoy every thing of beauty and comfort. He purchases most costly cars for his family. He takes care everything should be costly and beautiful. In this way he tries to keep his family happy with all luxuries of the world. Time grows older and with that young Mr. Rajnandan too. Gradually, he withdraws himself from the business handing over its responsibility to his mature and able sons. He showers his affluence on all the things of luxuries but the thought of buying worth reading books never touches him. It is his conviction that real pleasure or essence of life lies in the things of beauty and luxuries and not in the gathered heap of dust on the books and dusty pages of the books.
He spends a lot on all these beautifying objects and comfort and to add to this he takes his entire family on foreign tours. He looks it as a source of comfort and sign of being rich. He enjoys every possible pleasure in the world yet in the deep corner of his mind, he feels that real pleasure is yet to be felt and enjoyed.
The changing times steal his youth and his artificial pleasure which he takes in his riches. Gradually his sons start taking possession of the things which he has purchased with his pain. His motorcars are used by his sons; the key of his treasury goes at the disposal of his sons. He feels very disappointed to see the things which he took pride in and claimed to be his own are slipping out of his hand. One day he falls ill, he stares at the costly artifacts in his bedroom. He feels that the time has stolen their beauty and they have sufficiently become pale, unpleasant and uninspiring. Having watched them regularly; he loses his pleasure in them. He gets fed up with this monotonous beauty. His mind aspires and desires for eternal beauty and he comes to the conclusion that it is in vain to find it in the comforts and luxuries of the costly and antique artifacts which reflects his affluence. His mind is at fire to find the eternal pleasure. One day when he is having chat with his wife, he tells her that he has earned a lot and he is proud of it. After hearing this self-boosting assertion of her husband, she ironically nods and says “What is the use of the affluence which deprives her sons from their education which teaches them to lead a balanced life. My sons have become extreme materialists playing with the emotions of people. For me they are murderers of people’s emotions. They exist at the cost of death of others. This is a success but a fake one. It gives me pleasure but feels it to be unpleasant.”
He sinks himself in despair after knowing how low he stands in his wife’s esteem. He thinks that he has earned a lot but he has lost more than what he has earned in his life. His feel of frustration is at apex. Once, a distant kinsman comes to enquire his health. While departing, he unknowingly forgets a book at the bed of Mr. Rajnandan. Initially he unnotices it deliberately and keeps it untouched as his inherent hatred for books tries to block the outlay of his search for real pleasure. But after some time, he undesirably picks it up, stares at the black and white world in it and ceases his staring at it with the last full stop in the book. After reading the book, he feels rejuvenated. He gets up from his bed, packs his bag and takes some money from his own source. He tells his wife and family that he is going on some mission and will take a long time to return. He leaves his family and affluence back, he reaches to a new city where he joins Vrudha Ashram named Anand Ashram. He spends hours in chatting and playing different games of amusement with old and senior citizens un-entertained and unnoticed by their blood relations. His obsession for eternal pleasure or real pleasure becomes his passion now. He joins a nearby library and he spends hours in reading spiritual and religious books. The money which he has brought with him uses it for buying new books and rare books which are not available in the library. His reading makes him so happy and gives him the peace of mind which he looks for. One day, when the sun is going to his bed, he takes a pen looking at vanishing beauty of the sun and starts writing. It proves to be an unpredictable and impossible thing that his pen writes such a book of wisdom which steals the intellect of the world. His pen gives birth to many successful books one after the other expanding the roots of his philosophy across the nation. The world takes the note of it. The many countries bestow upon him the greatest honors. He emerges as a worldly honored figure. The life at Anand Ashram and the wisdom of books makes him selfless person. He starts a self financed charitable trust with the commendable mission to reach to the rarest and distant part of the nation where the children are deprived of education and unable to pay for books. Through his self-financed charitable trust, he provides libraries to the senior citizens and old people living in Wrudha Ashram across the nation. He starts libraries in every nook and corner of the nation so that every child hungry for knowledge can easily reach to it and get the key to lead a sound, balanced and successful life, amalgamation of spiritual and material life.
The smell of his philanthropic mission crosses the frontiers of the nation and showering on him most covetous prizes and honour. Getting charmed with the charisma of Mr. Rajnandan, a delegation of most senior politicians of ruling political party reaches to him with a request and proposal that their party and of course the nation wants him to accept the honor of being the President of the nation. They further add that the nation wants to utilize his vision and his passion for the betterment of the nation. He feels happy that his mission is being loved and appreciated. Very humbly he refuses to accept it. He admits that it is his honor and greatness of the nation. He very candidly puts his philosophical argument that he has just come out of the charm, greed, and shining of material world and he does not wish to go back to it which deprives him and all the ignorant people who deprive themselves from the real pleasure of life by falling prey to the charm of material things in life. He expresses his fear and doubts that the hallow and charm of this greatest post would lead him back to that world where people remain starved for real food of their life.
He requests and appeals the delegations that if at all they want to honor him, then honor his last wish. Raising their eyebrows they humbly question him, “What is that?” Mr. Rajnandan says that he had made a great mistake in his life that he had kept himself and his family untouched from the books which teach the mankind the ways to be happy and real essence of human life. He humbly requests them that if possible they should take care that the bag of every learning child in the nation should have spiritual and religious books of the world. Let him study both. Presence of spiritual books along with the academics should be the part of the curriculum. If possible establish and start libraries in every distant nook and corner of the nation where the readers will get both material and spiritual enrichment. If it happened, he is sure that the coming generation will be a balanced generation and won’t need to make extra efforts to find real pleasure in life i.e. peace of mind. The delegation gets enormously overwhelmed by this sacrificing, philosophical and philanthropic approach of Mr. Rajnandan. They become happy and leave the Anand Ashram of Mr. Rajnandan as if they have found the essence of life and a way to the success of the nation.
The next day all political parties meet and seriously consider the request of Mr. Rajnandan. They make a special provision in the nation’s budget for starting libraries in every nook and corner of the nation. Unanimously they change the curriculum of all streams of education. They take care that the bag of every child going to school or a boy taking higher studies in senior institutes and universities should mark the presence of spiritual and religious books in it which would pave the way of balanced life for him and generations to come. When Mr. Rajnandan comes to know about the stand of the government he feels happy and takes out that book of the distant kinsman from the drawer stares at it for a while, kisses it and says “You made me happy gave me the real essence of life.” The next morning he gets up and continues his mission with new inspiration and passion.