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The colour of dirt..!

The incident which I am going to relate took place in the house of a doctor, an esteemed cancer surgeon, who was getting flat painted. "That," said the doctor to the painter as he took the man to his kitchen, "is the colour I want for my sitting room." "No problem sir," said the painter and the cancer surgeon left for work.

He returned home that evening and stared at the hall which had already been painted. "That is not the colour I want." he shouted with rage. "Doctor sahib that is the same colour of your kitchen," said the painter. "It is not," yelled the doctor, his tone rising a few decimals more than required, making his manservant who lived in the house to scoot to the bedroom, wondering whether his esteemed master would go off into one of his esteemed rages.

The painter wearily took a piece of cloth and dipped it into a bowl of water. He then scrubbed the kitchen wall. "Look," he told the doctor after the dirty kitchen wall had been cleaned off the dirt.

"Doctor sahib, can you see that they are the same colour now?" The doctor squinted at his kitchen wall and then stared at the colour of his sitting room.

"Yes," he said reluctantly, "they are, but I wanted the colour to be same as how it looked before you washed it." The painter looked at the brilliant cancer surgeon and there was sadness in his eyes. "What you wanted doctor was the colour of dirt!" This is not a fictitious story. I was there when it happened.

How like the doctor we all are. We have grown so used to the colour of dirt on our walls, on our streets, in our lives, we have grown so comfortable being covered with this thick layer of filth and muck that we dare not get it removed.

There had been anger and aggression in the eyes of the cancer surgeon when the poor painter had tried to give him a dirtless colour and the same rage fills us when someone tries to tell us that it is time we cleaned ourselves up. Cleaned ourselves of our dirty habits, of our old ways and started getting rid of the layers of dirt that have accumulated on us over the years.

We are, oh so comfortable with our dirt.
There's security in those layers of filth.

I don't blame you. If an esteemed cancer surgeon who's job it is to remove the dreaded tumours from our bodies, could not see the colour of his dirt then how much less is there a chance that we lesser mortals can identify the same? But a little bit of soap and water can make you see the difference.

Maybe that's what we need to do today. Look into yourself, into areas of your life that are thick with dirt, so thick that they have taken on themselves a colour that you have quite started liking. but that the world around you know is awful.

The colour of dirt could be dirty habits, a violent temper, intolerance, bitterness, sadness, fear of death or other habits that have started thickening around you, giving you a grimy look.

Its time you washed that dirt away. Now.

But once you've seen a dirt, don't for godsake be like that esteemed cancer surgeon who wanted the colour of dirt in his living room also. Wash away the dirt before you become too comfortable with it, and if the layer are too thick, there's God above who is waiting to wash you squeaky clean...!

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