”Ammalu, our Vijay asks,’Is it not time to share with your friends the secret of your youthfulness?’”
“What did you reply?”
”I told him, ‘Ammalu keeps me nagging throughout the day, which keeps me awake and active. He was happy with my answer. Then he asked, ‘what is the secret of Ammalu’s youthfulness?’ I replied, ‘ I keep her nagging throughout night and that keeps her young and elated’”
”Was he happy with your reply?”
“He was, but not his wife. She will call you soon”
”She has already called and asked me to keep you locked in your bedroom at night and keep the key with me”
” What about your nagging me throughout the day?”
”That is just to keep you young, as admitted by you and appreciated by Vijay”
”But without my nagging, how can you retain your youthfulness?”
” We, women have a hundred other ways, whereas you men have only one.”
Blog
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it is OK dad, my prank worked.
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
“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 writtenthanks and regardslakshmanan
———————————————————————————————————————Yes. You are indeed correct. Knock and the door will open, says the Christians. Closed doors also openwhen time comes. Thanks for this piece and the Wave indicating turbulence.GS -
An evening sky and an emotional prayer
The winter like an armed and masked bugler, is fast approaching Baltimore. The leaves of Maples, mulberries and a few other trees are fading and the green is changing to red, pink, golden yellow etc. The dried leaves fly off or fall down sadly and most of them silently, filling their bases with a brown breathless layer. Not long ago, those were bright, pleasing to eyes, dark green or blue in color, singing and dancing to the tune of the wind, chatting with bees and birds and now, lying on mud, shapeless, motionless, and lifeless. Shortly, all will get further disintegrated and turn into pieces and then to power and then will become part of the soil.
I had to use a winter-wrap this evening while going out for the walk. The moment I stepped on the foot path, bordering the high way, could see at a distance, a V -formation in the sky, by the tree-tops on both sides of the highway. The sun was setting behind the apex of it, away from me. And the golden rays were profusely propelling all over the sky, as if buckets- full of coloured water was splashed by an angry maiden. White cloud chips, poetically described as ‘meghasakalam’- pieces of clouds, are now hovering above my head and suddenly, before my eyes, all of them are turning golden as if they are very thin gold plates.. How so many pieces could be spread in such a short period, I wonder. Or could it be only reflection of the golden yellow leafage lining on my sides? I search my hands and chest to verify whether my body too has turned gold. No, it hasn’t. Real wonder, the far away sky is affected by the colors of the foliage on the earth but not me standing very much on her soil !.
”Wrong”, tells another voice from within, ”sky can influence the earth and not the other way”
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“If so, how the rivers and trees you destroy, affect the sky, weather?” questions the first voice.
I am confused, but this is not the time to muddle my mind. This is the time for enjoying the glory of the clouds. Inundated by the unexplainable glory of the sky and unmindful of the noise from the speeding cars on the adjacent highway, I raise my head and hands to the sky and pray,
“God, continue to light my eyes, brighten my mind and sharpen my brain, in whatever form I am reborn, as man, animal or bird, wherever I am reborn and whatever be the season so that this hunger to enjoy the sun, sky, moon and stars never ceases in me.
The great Samkara’s similar prayer rings in my ears:
“Narathwam devasthvam naga vana mrugathwam masakhatha,
Pasuthwam keetathwam bhavathu vihagathwadi janananam
Sada twadpadabja smarana paramananda lahari.
Vihaarasaktham che dhugdhaya miha kim thena vapusha”
Be it in a human form,
Be it in the form of Gods,
Be it in the form of animal,
That wanders the forests and hills,
Be it in the form of mosquito,
Be it in the form of a domestic animal,
Be it in the form of a worm,
Be it in the form of flying birds,
Or be it in any form whatsoever,
If always the mind is engaged in play of meditation in thy lotus like feet,
Which are the waves of supreme bliss, how does it matter what body we have? “