Yes, rules are not the same for everyone

 

29/06/2021

Yes, rules are not the same for everyone

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In this creation rules are different for each one of us because we are all at different stages of evolution. 

you and I can together do a similar mistake but we should not expect the repercussion of the same to be similar.

I may be punished more than you, because at my level of consciousness I am not permitted to do such karmas. A class  10 student will not be given leniency in comparison to class 2 student in many ways. As the class 10 person is expected to adhere to certain dharma (rule) because of his evolution from class 2 to class 10.

I will explain this to you with a very personal anecdote.

I have a friend in Hyderabad. She is born to rich parents and married to an ambitious guy, who used the resources (legal, illegal) to multiply their wealth by another 100 times, and he is still at it. They have a college going daughter.

She has been calling me for some time, but I have been avoiding her calls because all she does even on the ph.  is flaunt her wealth, her husband’s financial success and her child’s achievements. There is no meaningful discussion or learning. It is not that I envy her but I value my time and I spend it judiciously, never in gossip but only to read, pray, cook, serve or write.  I don’t spend my time on people who cannot inspire or motivate me. 

When she called me last week, I answered the call. 

So, she started with her personal success story in her practice and then went on to share about her husband’s new business venture and then about how her daughter cracked the toughest entrance made it to the best college in the world etc etc…I too got carried away (sangat ka asar) and shared some fake success stories about me and my family. I knew I was exaggerating but I reasoned to myself that it is justified, as the friend  too was exaggerating and flaunting something which isn’t THE REALITY. 

Both of us faked in hyperbole as much as we could and at the end of it, I got tired lying and said goodbye to her on the pretext of another important call in waiting.

After speaking to certain people if we don’t end up feeling charged, motivated and energised instead feel drained and low then believe me we are not in  the company of right people.

30 minutes after I hung up the ph., I received another  ph. call, it was bad news in reference to the exaggerations I made about me and my family’s success. I felt terribly guilty for projecting false happiness, false achievement thereby bringing ill luck to the family.

But In the next 60 minutes help poured in from all the corners and we could together mitigate the problem in the next 24 hours.  

I had a silent conversation and reflection within about why and how things went wrong. the friend who boasts on a daily basis about her family falsely is not affected and here I am being punished within few minutes of projecting untruth. 

That’s when I realised that RULES CANNOT BE THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. 

In her journey at her level of evolution and consciousness mistakes are permitted but not at the stage where I am. I knowingly willingly projected something which dint exist and I had to pay a price for it, hope my bad karma is squared up. 

Nature is a great leveller, let us not do mistakes because someone else is doing and remaining unpunished. 

The balancing game is played by nature with a lot of accuracy and precision. Have faith and move forward. Cut out all the negative influences if you can, or at least try to remain unaffected by them because what is right for them may  be wrong for you as RULES ARE NOT THE SAME FOR EVEYRONE. 

Sabkha time ayega.

A Book in hand!

 

29/6/2021

A Book in hand is any day better than a dollar in the wallet

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They thrill your mind, move your heart, take you deeper into the oceans, farther into the skies,  unknown territories, into complex human minds. 

 It is collecting, arranging and rearranging them is another pleasure of its kind.

On a dull rainy evening, she plays Jenga with her collection, stacks them up according to shape, size, and colour one at a time. In between, she flips the pages, inserts her nose deep inside the pages and gasps out Maa how chocolaty and woody they smell; Biblisom is a kind of drug addiction, I guess, for the nerds.

When I was looking for a table to put the laptop on, she instantly created one by stacking books in two rows. Books are a handy tool for her psychic recreation and sometimes physically too.

With no visitors and outings, this lockdown brought entertainment to our doorstep through books.

We had longer evening sessions of spending time on the library couch after her classes. 

While she avoided her school books, I delved deep into her social studies books of classes 9 and 10.; The newfound obsession with geography made me play with maps in my head, on paper, the walls, in the dreams everywhere.

If I cannot travel the world physically, there is always an alternative to it, Social studies books to youtube to google earth. This lockdown, they handheld me into the remotest corners of this globe.

I visited all the seas and zoos, from the Arctic bears, bearded seals, wolfs to Antarctica penguins and killer whales. Sometimes into desserts, other times into space, circled Saturn and mars, empathised with pluto for getting downgraded as a dwarf planet. I visited space stations, hydel power stations, watched the mechanics and making of Brahmos missiles.

Now I am so obsessed with maps that I ordered a  world map wallpaper to cover one of the walls inside the house.

The man mocked me for not being a good student in school, for reading geography basics in the mid-'40s, which gave me the much-awaited impetus to yell at him, yes Ji!

 "I have to see all this on youtube because you don't take me anywhere because you are not a travel freak, now don't be a dominating husband, stop taunting me and do not curb my freedom of travelling the world via the maps, at least."

I completed my pilgrimage of char Dham in these two months, circled Kailash Parvathi, trekked to Kedarnath Ji, wandered in the bylanes of Banaras eating puchka and chat, sitting on the ghats watching Ganga aarti, ending the day with a Banarsi paan. Mind it, All this I did without asking for your help!

To which the daughter said,  Dad, you purposefully provoke and make her violent. You should see her happiness while reading and watching history movies; she becomes too analytical and starts acting like Sangamitra, Razia sultana; sometimes enters strait of malacca to understand its importance, she makes strategies to curb Chinese aggression in the south china sea. She speaks to Modi about foreign policy as if he is listening to her..lol.

Mom is crazily happy in her world of current affairs and 10th class social studies books.

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The daughter and I are now partners in the crime of reading the books,  we shouldn't be at this stage, but who cares for "what should we read when" rules, as long as what we are  reading is  titillating, stimulating, oxygenating, rewiring and brightening the inside of our heads,

 it's perfectly ok!

She may not crack the Medical entrance for not reading the right books at the right time, I may miss some work, but some misses here and there will help us get some straight hits in the future. I am convinced.

Let us not try to arrange and organise our future sitting in the present, leave some work to the creation. Life is not over in a day week, or in passing an exam or cracking a code; every thought, action and decision has its repercussions. 

My learning: Keep the intent clean and remain engaged with the pains and pleasures of life. Be a little empathetic, be a little giving, be a little caring, be a little helping and leave the rest to creation.

looking for commonalities between now and then.

 Looking for commonalities between now and then 

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I can write a 1000-word essay on this fruit and its associated yaadein, but the anticipation of peeling and savouring its unique taste right now is too strong to resist.

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Childhood:

Every year, for a fleeting period in late May, we were blessed with the presence of this extraordinary fruit. It's not just a regular fruit, mind you. It's a fruit plucked, cut, and sold by the same person, ensuring it travels from the countryside to our hands almost on the same day. Once opened, its short shelf life adds a sense of urgency to the vendors (harvesters), who are always in a race against time to cut, sell, and return to their villages by night. If they brought the whole fruit, they would stay back for the night, but with peeled fruit, they left for their homes in the evening with whatever was left in the basket.

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These days, the transaction model has evolved; some intermediaries bring the whole fruit to urban vendors, or in some cases, the urban vendors venture to villages to procure the fruit. 

This fruit never has regular buyers around the stall/cart as it is not mainstream. 

The customers are primarily passengers from speeding cars on the highways where the vendors park their carts on the roadsides, and transit tourists near the bus junctions/auto stops.

The fruit enters and disappears from the market within a 15 to 20-day window, leaving the market long before word-of-mouth publicity reaches the neighbourhoods.

People getting off buses or waiting for autos consume them as a thirst quencher and coolant in the hot summers. The juicy flesh is also very hydrating and filling.

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As a child, I yearned for this fruit, and a friend's father(Laxman Rao uncle) used to send it to my house exclusively for me.

 That uncle has passed away, and I've lost touch with Swapna, but the memory of Laxman Rao uncle and the fruit he shared with me every summer remains etched in my heart.

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I recall the teacher Aunty from Rajmundry and her children, Pandu, Sunita, and Luther, because we shared this fruit on the verandah of their government-provided quarter. Hailing from Rajmundry, they had a wealth of stories about this fruit. 

On summer evenings, we would gather in a circle, savouring the fruit peeled and served by their father.

 He would return from work, summon us all from our play in the large playground of my house, and serve us the fresh, juicy Munjalu. 

One of the rituals that brought us together was this fruit and the long jump and high jump practice we did in our playground. 

Maybe Pandu's father involved me in the fruit-eating process to return the favour of keeping their children engaged until they returned from work in the evenings.

 They lived in government accommodation, a row house facing our bungalow. Both uncle and aunty were government employees. I hope they are alive and in good health.

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During my only summer visit to my aunt's (Mamis) parents' home, we were served an abundance of this fruit fresh in the afternoons. The boys in the family and the farm help would bring home the harvest of one tree per day, and every person involved in serving, explaining, and discussing is so fresh in my mind. 

Those afternoons of that particular summer are so dear to me. I visited that village once, but the love and warmth showered will be remembered forever. 

 Unfortunately, most elders associated with this recollection are no longer there.

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Sharing food with the community was a regular feature of my growing-up days. No one ate anything in isolation; anything excess or exotic was always shared, which left a treasure of memories.

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Now:

Every summer, while the vendor cuts open fruit for me, I indulge in a chat with him to learn about his association with this fruit.

I love listening to the stories, intent on looking for commonalities between now and then. I seldom find any.

I ensure my household and drivers are fed a good portion of it to serve my nostalgia. I want them to taste it and weave stories around it for their posterity.

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Please share your stories of Ice Apple/Thati Munjalu, palmyra palm, or whatever it is called in your region.