Category: A12– Everything under the Sun

” Ammalu, I am so happy that our friend Pattabhi’s life has taken a turn for good. He has become so God-loving and spiritual that he visits temple at least thrice in the morning and thrice in the evening”
“‘If the temple is opened during noon, I assure you, he will make another three visits”
“What a sudden change! I wish I could become like him”
” You can, I assure you. I will ask my mom to come here and you too will become a temple dove like your friend”
” Say so!  His mother in law has come from the village!”
”Remember one thing. If an old man visits temples frequently, either he has lost faith in himself or his mother in law has come to stay with him.”
“If a young man does so?”
“His wife has gone to her mom’s house and he visits the temple to thank God again and again”

Elders say when we get up from the bed in the morning, auspicious thoughts should enter our mind. It hardly happens, for me.
This morning, my mind was enjoying a train journey, long ago, in an unreserved compartment. As usual it was packed to its full capacity and but for the fresh air so generously entered the unreserved compartment, we would have swooned of suffocation.
A middle aged man, well dressed, was messing around, controlling the wailing kids and nagging old women, moving around authoritatively, regulating the rush inside the rusty compartment. He was at his best when he stood at the entrance and prevented the entry of others, at every stopping station. ”What do you people think? We had reserved our tickets two months before” That was his argument.
Suddenly a stark silence fell in the compartment and I noticed that our friend had disappeared and the TTE had arrived from the next compartment for checking the tickets. The imposer came back to his seat only after the TTE left.
”I was hiding in the bathroom as I didn’t have a valid ticket”, he said and asked,” why should I buy ticket when everyone is corrupt in this country?”
There was no need for him to tell me that he didn’t have a ticket and was hiding in the bathroom. Hadn’t he told me, I wouldn’t have known that he was an unauthorized traveler, controlling the entry and exit points as if he was assigned that job.
Do I compliment him for uttering truth or condemn him for traveling unauthorized? Such thoughts are unnecessary, especially at the early hours of the day. But thoughts don’t seek an entry pass or knock at our door, before gushing in.
Another incident which popped up in my mind this morning was the behavior of a classmate in Delhi, where we were undergoing a special training for senior officers conducted by a reputed teaching institute. On the very first day, raising from his seat often, that man disturbed the class by asking silly questions and the teacher, an experienced elderly man, patiently clarified every doubt instead of telling him that he could refer such and such a book instead of disturbing the class.
The teacher’s face waned and others too got vexed at the repeated interference of the insipid classmate. Seated in the last bench and hoping that I was the only Malayalam-literate in the group, I shouted, ”irikkada patti”. That was an impolite way asking him to occupy his seat. He sat down instantly and never ventured to ask more questions. Everyone was happy. I thought that it was my harsh voice that silenced him.
Later in that evening, he came to my guesthouse and regretted his action and added, “my wife was in the same class and I had to ask a few questions to impress her that I was not totally ignorant of the subject.”
While exiting, he remarked in chaste Malayalam, ” Sir, it was not proper for you to address me as ‘patti’ in the presence of my wife”
My father, while I was preparing for talk in the college literary debates used to warn me,” in the audience of a hundred uninterested men, there could be a single interested  person who knows the subject and who might ask you an intelligent question. Prepare your talk for him”.
I forgot my father’s advice in the class room of elite officers in Delhi. It is OK, dad, my prank worked.
Baltimore,
Jan 02, 2014
 
 
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“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
Alexander Graham  Bell
Don’t we often, instead of looking for the next option, waste time on brooding over what is lost irrecoverably? The loss hurts, harms, rattles, clouds our thinking and it needs some inner strength to wipe our tears and clear our vision. My previous generation had to face calamities after calamities, but most of them could get up from the ground, wiping their tears and clearing off the dust and mud and even  blood on their body and walk ahead.
My understanding is that it is their unflinching faith in God that helped them at their worst periods  to come out of the devastation. I was watching the Mahabharath serial in the  Star plus channel and every time I watch that serial or read that epic , I am awestruck at the courage of the characters in facing the thunderbolts of life. Our own problems are nothing before theirs.
”I have lost everything”, we say. We never lose everything. There is always something left, somewhere in the corner and if locate that floating log and hold on to it, somehow we can reach the shore and once we are there, to build another castle much bigger than the earlier one is a possibility.
Let us all be provided with a floating log by the Almighty if you have faith in Him or by another agency, it could be even your faith in
your own strength.
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Comments;
 
superb postings –
laxman manikkam
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very well written

lakshmanan
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August 12, 2013
 Subject: [Iyer123] Is this why kids are called Gods?

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Comments:

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Mahadevan Venkitasub​biar

18:29PM

This is what the Sages have been advising us to follow – to live only in the present. We should not allow the past to torment us nor permit anxiety about the future to deprive us of our peace of mind. Children have Godly qualities, as Shri Peirnkulam has  correctly put it. They live only in the present. No wonder, you find innocence writ at large in their faces!
V.Mahadevan
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Children are more resilient than the adults.They quickly forget things.They are pure in heart.That is why we say children are equivalent to god.
Venkataraman
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Dear Thiru Sivasubramanian
Nice and very touching. Yes , children r really great and endearing.
With warm regards,
Ur
R Sahasranaman [Naman][Bombay}
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‘It is my a Fate’
No, it was your mistake.
‘It is my Fate’ – Job is over. Any time we lose, just throw the ball in the court of ‘Fate’, ‘God’, ‘planet’ and such innumerable escape – routes and relax.
This is what most of us do. A sure remedy for the cuts, cracks and damages caused to our mind, by the loss.
But do we realize that by pushing the charred cloth beneath the cot, we are igniting a big fire, which might swallow us? How, you may ask.
No smoke without fire somewhere. If I have failed to clear the hurdle of a test, lost the possibility of better status and money by missing an advancement in my career or even if an accident or death occurred in the family, there should be one or more causes for that . By throwing the blame on Fate, Luck or other such unknown, unsure forces, I miss the opportunity of critically analyzing the cause or causes for my loss and prevent recurring damages.
I have observed that at least in 90 to 95 cases out a hundred, I was responsible, knowingly or unknowingly and only 5 to 10 % losses could be attributed to factors beyond my control. Reasons may be many, mainly ignorance, delayed action, shortage of men, money or other resources and so on. If I have the courage to own responsibility for the loss, study and analyze the causes, there is every possibility of my improving my action, next time. On the other hand, when I resign to Fate or God, the door for critical study and analysis are closed for ever. After the above exercise, if I am convinced that in no way I could have performed better and it was something beyond my control that ruined my chances and at that time and then alone, if I lift my hands up, head up, eyes up and say, ‘your will’. there is meaning in it. Otherwise there is every possibility of my losing faith in God, if the mistakes go rectified resulting repeated damage for which I throw the responsibility on God only to find that He is helpless.
Rational thinking goes a long way to avert disasters. And if the disasters still occur, ‘Pahavanae saranam’ in the words of my Venku chithammai paatty..
Thunjathu Acharayan, said the same in two lines:
‘Sakala karmarpanam Bavathu karomi jnAn
SamasthamaparAdam kshmaswa Jagalpathey!’
Or Coleridge:
‘Do thy duty that is best,
Leave unto the God the rest’
‘Do thy duty’ first, always.