Coat of Arms

Coat of Arms

Two decades ago I worked for a Scottish Company as a senior Installation Engineer for their projects. I had presented a small statue of Krishna  (Venugopal) in sandalwood to my Glaswegian counterpart. He reciprocated by presenting a porcelain plaque on which was printed the Coat of Arms of the city of Glasgow which looks like this:

 

Let me explain the insignia:

There’s the tree that never grew

There’s the bird that never flew

 There’s the fish that never swam

There’s the bell that never rang

You can read the history behind it from the net.

As I was reminiscing by looking at it again, I couldn’t help grinning by replacing the tree, the bird, the fish, and the bell with real life characters. As my wife was passing by I was quick to wipe my grin, because she always secretively thought I was a crackpot laughing when alone. She doesn’t realize the comedy scenes I watch on our English news channels and some stupid panelists calling themselves as experts are real ticklers.

I reproduce the thought in my mind. I thought of the PM who never fought an election. I thought of an MP who never attended a session. I thought of a nominated MP who never spoke in a debate. I thought of a cabinet minister who never attended a cabinet meeting….

There are many more like a journalist who doesn’t read , a general who never fought a war, a writer who never wrote a book, a singer who never sang, a commoner who was never frisked in an air-port, a teacher who never taught, an actor who never acted and so on.

In daily life we come across a cobbler who never mended a shoe, a barber who never dressed the hair, a tailor who never stitched, a baker who never baked, a cook who never cooked, a soldier who never fought, a physician who never used a syringe, a farmer who never tilled a land, an athlete who never ran, a teacher who never taught and so on.

That’s what PM Narendra Modi and yours truly advocate – attaining skills with proper education in all fields including legislation, education, tourism etc. Was this achieved through caste system in erstwhile Bharat. I mean varna by action not birth

Jai Bharat