Growing Like Leptomorph

In our tryst with destiny, we are filled with anticipation, eagerly waiting for the day we shall redeem our pledge. We have a dream and our heads are held high endeavoring to prove ourselves amidst all odds. We have promises to keep, miles to go, miles and miles to go before we sleep as the great poet Robert Frost beautifully penned in his immortal work ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’ Youthful mind couldn’t stop thinking how we, Zou, as a community will rise above all peers. Hoping this to happen overnight would be just a utopian dream. I wished we had a few great people. Of course, with God’s grace and mercy we may get a few of them in a year or two. However what is in our hand is not the grace or mercy but to utilize our potential which itself is gifted to us by God. The more we make use of it, the better we will be. We got to make strategies, draw our plan of actions and execute them with all the resources at our reach. This will take time, may be for a number of years. Things don’t matter as long as we’re on the right track struggling to follow the strategy. We ought not to forget the wise saying, ‘Rome was not built in a day’. We will build the great Zou community. In the days of Nehemiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed and being rebuilt, the workers held the sword in one hand and with the other hand they built. At the same time there were guards who would sound the trumpet (Nehemiah 4) and who can be called intercessors. So the soldiers (who were also builders), together with the intercessors, held off- the enemy and fulfilled God’s purposes. Everyone was a builder. We are like all these Israelites, builders. Each man is responsible to this great community in the making. We will layer down the bricks one above the other, one by one with the dream that we will one day see a kingdom of ourselves. Now we must keep our cool and be diligent, have the guts to constantly follow this great strategy which will be the way, the truth and the lifeline towards redeeming our pledge of a great Zou community. Illustration: The Running Bamboo (Leptomorph). Running bamboos (also called leptomorphs) are the vigorous spreaders .They are the most significant, eye-catching, and the most beautiful and useful of all the temperate bamboos. They are mostly found in cool climate countries like Japan and China although they can be grown in any temperate region. One special feature about this bamboo type is that they (the shoot) grow underground. The time people know they grew, they are already indestructible. The rhizome of this bamboo travels underground to emerge at a distance from the existing culms. Each joint or node of this spreading underground stem bears a single bud and some of them sprout to grow and become a new bamboo culm. They spread out randomly, sending out underground runners (or rhizomes) which, in many cases, shoot up from the ground (and grow as another bamboo stem) a great distance from the original plant. The rhizome will travel quite far and often grow over a hundred meters underground. The buds in each nodes of the running shoot sprouts as baby bamboo. Then they started growing higher and higher until they become tall mature bamboos. This time they stand everywhere like bushes over a vast track of land. They even spread over an entire mountainside. With its far-ranging network of growth beneath the ground, all shoots are linked together and nourish each other and propagate apparently without end – without end, that is, even when bamboo flowers. One more point to be noted is that running bamboos seldom spread in situations where they do not receive necessary moisture and light during the growing months. However, they will spread rapidly when conditions permit. Strategy: Lesson from Leptomorphs. It can be concluded with this introduction that we need a high percentage of literacy. First things first, our first and foremost kick starter should be to have a good number of graduates in professional as well as non professional lines. Needless to say, this could be achieved only if we concentrate at the grassroots levels – primary and junior schools, high schools and higher secondary schools. Ideas along with actions should come out as to how our rural and semi-urban educational institutions be elevated. If education is a hard fight in village areas, we should take the guts to move down to valleys for better education. The people should on the contrary be given awareness for this exodus given the fact that our government and institutions failed. Great civilizations were built where people gathered in large numbers. We need to move out of our cocooned smaller villages and live in bigger settlements. Larger human settlement has the advantage of better collective efforts as in running educational institutions and other things like that which can benefit the individuals more than what they get from staying solitary. With each addition of high school and college graduates we are growing but obscured like leptomorphs. Our shoots should grow longer with each passing time. As long as the shoot grows, baby bamboos will naturally shoot out from the nodes in large numbers. We should spread far and wide so that we dominate more when grown indestructible. What if the shoots grow wide enough but never bud and grow? Meanwhile it is natural that each joint or node of this spreading underground stem bears a bud and sprout to grow and becomes a new bamboo culm. Similarly, it is for sure a number of officer sprouts and grows as long as there is a growth of Zou literacy. The number of officers to be produced is directly proportional to the number of graduates we will have. The last and most important point to be remembered is that leptomorphs seldom spread in situations where they do not receive necessary light and moisture during the growing months and that they spread rapidly when conditions permit. Our educated population is disproportionate to the number of officers we have. This is not entirely the fault of the social system and its leaders. Everybody is responsible for his or her well being. However, the community one lives in has much to do with his total development. There are instances where a family donned its community and mingle with another community with the notion that they developed more in the later. Seniors, who are leaders of the community, have high responsibility in building a peaceful environment. The social system should be in proper shape. Social condition should be such that folks think everything is in order with well coordinated social fabric. It should be remembered that larger gatherings as in churches and social meets create in each individual a positive attitude and broadmindedness which can be hardly acquired in smaller, confined socialization. People from churches which have big church buildings and large membership naturally has a mindset more mature than those from small and fragmented churches. The former is quite essential for development both to individual and collective perspective as a whole. We should always strive for larger social platform. Buddy reading and other types of study groupings are essential to literally moisturize the growing rhizomes. Sharing important notes we’ve learnt from our own desks will be an extremely beneficial added advantage. We’ve experimented on this and we know it works. Appreciations came in from all corners in praise of the study forum established by the Zou Sangnaupang Pawlpi, Delhi branch. This is a good example made by the Zous in Delhi which is worth initiated anywhere we live. This is one good way by which we can nurture our shoots to bud and sprout and grow to spread over a vast area. And then we will arise, arise and arise. The world will only come to know that we’ve been growing since then. The stems will grow and the leaf top will rise up to the sky. When our neighbors know we have grown high and large, we would by then have been indestructible. The LDC and Assistants we have reached today will grow and beget top officers like the IRS, IPS and IAS. The mere physicians today will produce famous MS and MDs. The engineers who could hardly scratch the surface today will engineer big engineers and technocrats who will travel worldwide to build the world. We will read about an athletic sportsperson in the latest update of Sportstar who hails from a place none other than a place where the Zous settle in unison and in tranquility. We will reach the top in every line. And that is our pledge, the dream of the day when Zou as a people and a leading community be invincible. The strategy is simple – Give me a good number of educated young minds, I will give you a good number of great men and women who must boost your confidence to survive, to live and to lead in this reckless land of ours. May God bless these words which proceeded from the unpolluted mind of a village boy who loves his people.