'Have faith in God but tie your camel as well' so goes a famous Arabian proverb.
I have an interesting account in connection with this great saying. My little nephew once came to me stating that his study work was a big burden to him. He innocently quizzed me whether this responsibility of his can be shrugged off as his faith in completing his work was unshakeable even without putting in the necessary efforts to accomplish the task.
Well! That was a delicate subject indeed, that he had broached. I decided to handle this issue with care since impressions made on young minds will last forever.
“Yes!” I said, “There exists a proverb that faith can move mountains. But then my dear boy, don’t we need to create a machine first of all to accomplish that task? That effort on our part is necessary isn’t it?”
"Come on! Let us watch a movie, a real nice one," so saying I showed him the Poseidon Adventure. This movie, a 1972 thriller, is about a passenger ship headed to Greece from New York that turns upside down on New Year’s eve due to a tsunami. Sensing that the ship had been overturned, the hero of the movie with great difficulty convinces about 10 people in the ship to follow his path, which wasn’t easy, to safety. While most other members of the ship resigned to their fate, only the people who believed they could survive, escaped.
My nephew saw this movie with great intent. He was silent and lost in thought for several minutes. Then he asked me the inner meaning of the age-old proverb “Have faith in God but tie your camel.” I said that tying your camel means action on our part is necessary too.
"Now," I said, "Though we may struggle at times, we are given endless opportunities to fight out our own crisis and emerge successful in life. Shouldn’t we make use of them?” The next day, I saw my nephew diligently doing his school worksheets. Well! My little talk had worked on him.
Let us view the same incident in a bigger scenario. The pandemic has hit us all so hard. But the health sector has shown us that to come out of the crisis we need to maintain social distancing and use hand sanitisers and masks frequently. If we as a society work together diligently can’t we put an end to this raging pandemic?
Faith alone that everything is going to get alright soon will get us nowhere unless we take the necessary action and precaution. Responsibility is shown by each and every one of us in this regard counts, isn’t it?