Lessons from a crow

Every day morning I used to find a large number of twigs scattered in the front yard. I used to throw them away till it struck me odd for I was not sure as to where these were coming from. Then I realised that they were from a nest of a crow in one of the branches of the jamun tree in the front yard. These twigs were apparently  sourced from several places by the crow for its nest. Now what happened next was very interesting. The crow started to  lay eggs in its nest and during its absence, a koyal, the cuckoo surreptitiously laid eggs in the same nest. As they looked identical the crow didn't notice it but I think the crow knew it but accommodated the new entrants as she probably knew that the cuckoo was not competent enough to build a nest in its own. A first lesson.

After the eggs were hatched for a few weeks the mother crow  painstakingly fed the chicks may be for just a month or so till the young ones grew wings and started to flutter in an attempt to fly. Waiting for this very moment the mother crow abandoned the nest and the chicks never to return. The young ones after desperate wait for a day or so decided to take a chance and tried to fly from the nest out of sheer hunger. A  necessity for survival. Lesson no 2.

Most of them managed to fly an odd one couldn't and so fell down and hopped around for a day or two then managed to fly away.

The abandoned nest was not taken up by any other crow or bird. It was left to scatter in the wind and cease to exist in course of time. A few twigs were taken away by other crows to build their own nest. 

But remember no crow inherits a nest built by its parents. Each time a crow has to build it's own nest when it's time arrives to lay eggs, which it does. It neither inherits nor leaves behind an inheritance. 

That left me wondering as we humans spend a lifetime hoarding wealth to be inherited by the next generation without effort that makes them often lazy and incompetent to face the realities of life boldly as most of them do not learn skills for survival. Surely there is something to learn from a humble crow..

   twigs from the nest

 

 

Valliammal

"As soon as I married I moved  to Chennai with my husband from my village near Ginjee" Valliammal paused to look up after she deftly poked the slipper with a long needle to stitch the torn part.

"we rented a small house where we began our life in this big city." She stopped as a customer dropped by and collected his mended shoes. " How much" he queried, '70 rupees" she said and after the payment she carefully put the money in a small pouch and tucked it.

" Well we had four children three daughters and a son. I have married off all of them"

" We got this bunk made" as she showed her bunk behind her, a small rectangular roughly 6 ft to 3 ft.made with tin sheets,”The corporation tried to remove it but we went to court and got it stayed" she added.

And  Munusamy

" He passed away a few years back. I used to watch him closely for years as he worked so I decided to continue" No second thoughts she has to go on working to sustain her big family. Lesson 1 life has to go on no matter it takes downside all of a sudden.

How many hours do you work.

" I come by  10 in the morning and leave by 6 in the eve."

" Earn, well rs.150 or even 200. But due to corona it was tough for almost a year" she added but without a tinge of disappointment.

 Lesson 2, leave the past and move along.

How old are you now V.

She smiled looking up briefly from her work , " 70" I added helpfully. " Keep it that way" she shot back and added "I’m working isn't that enough" and went back to work.

Lesson 3, yes when your body is fit and you keep yourself engaged does it matter your old.

Can I take a pic of you I'm so happy that I met you maa.

" Really ok do " first time she appeared a bit shy.

" Here Valliammal your pic" she took a look at it and gave a broad toothless smile.

As she finished the job she took a brush and began to polish " No no ma no need" I said gently. She looked at me and as if to chide added " you can't wear a dirty looking slippers" and after polishing gave it to me.

Lesson 4 Dignity is important no matter what your status is.

I thanked Valliammal after settling her fee, very meager to the valuable lesson She taught me in course of twenty minutes.

 

All things great n small the Lord God made them all

 The story of a mosquito.

Once upon a time there lived a King and his kingdom was very prosperous. The first reason was he was wealthy, secondly he had no enemies in the borders threatening to invade. Now the happy king with his loving queen and obedient children ( waiting patiently for their turn instead of despatching their father hastily from the throne) had no worry except occasional bad stomach due to frequent heavy meals which he indulged in due to no other earth shaking events like war etc.

One day as he was happily snoring on his soft peacock bed a mosquito appeared (though the kingdom was faraway from Mambalam) and it's soft drone in ragamalika, near the king’s ear disturbed his sleep. He woke and cursed the mosquito and loudly complained to God as to why he created a creature like a mosquito in an otherwise perfect world.

The King forgot all about the good mosquito but the good Lord above had other plans. Suddenly a neighbouring king perhaps bored of no hostilities found that his soldiers were getting lazy of earning without any work( read killing) and consequent suffering from ailments like diabetes, blood pressure etc. decided to address the issue pronto as he also suspected that the army commander who was equally bored, was perhaps planning a coup. So the King decided to declare war on our happy Kings kingdom. Thus a war broke out just like that ( now that’s how most wars happen) and our hero king soon lost his kingdom ,wife etc en bloc. He fled the kingdom to save his life and found a safe spot in a jungle.

Not happy with capturing the kingdom minus the King the neighbouring king in his infinite wisdom despatched forth a formidable army to capture our hero.

One day when the poor tired ex king was sleeping in the jungle he woke up with a start as he was bitten by a, Yes your right, the real hero of the story, a MOSQUITO! As the fugitive king woke up he saw at a distance armed men apparently come to capture him. The ex King realising the danger quickly escaped to a nearby mountain and hid in a cave.

In safety he pondered about the narrow escape and thanked the mosquito err god above or both. The ex king then realised that the every creature in this planet has a right to exist for its own sake and we have no right to question the relevance of it's existence, if so, Mosquitoes also may ask what's the relevance of human beings ( sounds more sensible). With due apologies to Shri Mukur Lakshminarasimha chariar from his Thiruppavai lectures Vol I. Pub.Vanathi Publications , Chennai.

Desert blooms to Life!

 

                                                                   Bloom in desert

With Lock down in town I took a short walk recently in the morning close to my home in Chennai, T. Nagar. suddenly I chanced upon this plant in full bloom in the middle of the median. In the eerie silence with hardly a few people in sight it completely lifted my spirit. The plant seem to say that this too shall pass and the city will spring back to life soon..

 Here's a beautiful story in Bhagavatam that says who Jeevan( atma) is. 

Once upon a time there lived a King Chitraketu. Though  he had many wives but had no children. So Narada and Sage Angiras adviced the king to do a yagna to a devata Dwashta. The king accordingly performed the said yaga and the yagna prasaddam was given to his eldest wife who conceived and gave birth to a boy.  The other wives got jealous and poisoned the child to death. Both the king and the queen were devastated. Seeing this sage Narada beseeched the Jeevan of the boy to come back into the body make his parents happy again and enjoy rest of his life as the ruler of the the  kingdom. 

The Jivan in turn gave the following reply that is the essence of what or who Jeevan is;

Due to karma I have been thrashed around in various forms as deva, human and animal so in which birth were these two my parents?

One becomes a parent, relatives, friends, enemies for reason of attachment due to desire..

Just as humans are relating with each other thro. gold n other means jeevan is going around such persons..

For a long time human seem to be having a lasting relationship with gold. But the gold is sold that relationship is broken. Therefore how long each material object has relationship with that person is only till the time it belongs to him. So even if Jevan has a relationship with a parent it's not permanent. Only Jeevan is permanent. So Jeevan does not think I'm his etc. Jeevan is attached to the body till the body lasts after that Jeevan loses its attachment, and is free. This Jeevan does not change he's always the same. Jeevan is the basis for every body that comes into existence. Jeevan is swamprakasa roopan, a ruler with powers who with muggunaas creates the world as himself. So Jeevan does not have any favourite, nor favourite of anyone or any ones  friend r enemy. He only watches the good n bad action done by the body, as a witness, as a bystander.

So Jeevan, does not enjoy good or bad, nor enjoy kingdom. Nothing affects him nor pain or suffering. So he does not care about worries of the body. Therefore there is no relationship between Jeevan and the body. They are separate.

So saying to sage Narada, the Jeevan left.

Ack. Translated from article by  K.Jayaraman, Jeevan unarthiya Nilai,  Shriramakrishna Vijayam, March 2021.

 

All things great n small the Lord God made them all

 The story of a mosquito.

Once upon a time there lived a King and his kingdom was very prosperous. The first reason was he was wealthy, secondly he had no enemies in the borders threatening to invade. Now the happy king with his loving queen and obedient children ( waiting patiently for their turn instead of despatching their father hastily from the throne) had no worry except occasional bad stomach due to frequent heavy meals which he indulged in due to no other earth shaking events like war etc.

One day as he was happily snoring on his soft peacock bed a mosquito appeared (though the kingdom was faraway from Mambalam) and it's soft drone in ragamalika, near the king’s ear disturbed his sleep. He woke and cursed the mosquito and loudly complained to God as to why he created a creature like a mosquito in such a perfect wonderful world.

The King forgot all about the good mosquito but the good Lord above had other plans. Suddenly a neighbouring king perhaps bored of no hostilities found that his soldiers were getting lazy of earning without any work( read killing) and consequent suffering from ailments like diabetes, blood pressure etc. decided to address the issue pronto as he also suspected that the army commander who was equally bored, was perhaps planning a coup. So the King decided to declare war on our happy Kings kingdom. Thus a war broke out just like that ( now that’s how most wars happen) and our hero king soon lost his kingdom ,wife etc en bloc. He fled the kingdom to save his life and found a safe spot in a jungle.

Not happy with capturing the kingdom minus the King the neighbouring king in his infinite wisdom dispatched forth a formidable army to capture our hero.

One day when the poor tired ex king was sleeping in the jungle he woke up with a start as he was bitten by a, Yes your right, the real hero of the story, a mosquito! As the fugitive king woke up he saw at a distance armed men apparently come to capture him. The ex King realising the danger quickly escaped to a nearby mountain and hid in a cave.

In safety he pondered about the narrow escape and thanked the mosquito err god above or both. The ex king then realised that the every creature in this planet has a right to exist for its own sake and we have no right to question the relevance of it's existence, if so, Mosquitoes also may ask what's the relevance of human beings ( sounds more sensible). With due apologies to Shri Mukur Lakshminarasimha chariar from his Thiruppavai lectures Vol I. Pub.Vanathi Publications , Chennai.

 

 

mother & Cricket in times of Pongal

Before cricket became business and is now played year round, till about 80s Test matches  used to be played between countries once in four or five years. Test matches were always a five day affair.Foreign teams came to India, usually just after the monsoon as it was not conducive for white skin to tolerate summer or so it was thought. 

For Madras generally during Pongal holidays the cricket Test took place. In 1966-67 West Indies cricket team came visiting India under the captaincy of Sir Garfield Sobers one of the greatest all rounders the cricket world had ever produced. India was captained by the stylish Nawab of Pataudi. The Madras Test match was played full five days ending in a draw.

 

It was a big surprise when my father got me and my brother Rs.15 season gallery ticket. What was more exciting to a teenager than watching the match on all days from stands with screaming fans. I don’t remember having slept all those days. Both of us used to get up by 4 in the morning and get ready by 5 am and pick up the lunch bag and start running for about 3 kms from our home to the T.Nagar bus terminus. A bus no.13 packed to the brim will start by 6 am and reach the venue in an hour with the whole lot of people in the bus discussing various finer aspects of the game. After a few hours wait at the gates in a serpentine restless crowd the gates will be opened by 9 and then it was utter chaos. The crowd a few thousands will start running towards the stands to get the best view. Once you climb and sit on those dangerous tilted planks tied to casuarina poles there was no way you could get down till the end of the day. It was estimated that about 50 thousands are so nonstop screaming spectators were present on all days. We used to have separate score cards and note down carefully every run scored and ball bowled. I can’t even believe for the life of me as to how I had so much patience and interest. I used to memorise the batsmen line up on both sides and their previous innings at Madras and so on. That time, I vividly remember India winning the toss n batting with opener Farooq Engineer n Dileep Sardesai. The former was electric scoring almost every ball esp his dancing down the wicket strokes sth like 93 or so before lunch while the latter with just 13 was holding fort at the other end. The fearsome Wess Hall n Griffith were sending down bouncers n beamers to dislodge the intemperate batsmen with spinner Gibbs doing all his best to tease the dead pitch to life. 

It was Bishen Bedi's debut n  perhaps Chandu Borde's last series. Borde scored a beautiful century.

For the Windies it was the batting of stylish short Rohan Khannaiah's 61 r so in the first innings who always fell down while hitting a pull shot. The icing was Sobers hitting outstanding strokes all round the wicket at will. He scored 95 in the first innings and in his second  innings along with Griffith he stood like a colossus between India and victory, scoring 70 odd runs. Ajit Wadeker probably his first series scored an attractive 60 or so in the second innings.

 

Of course there were other interesting sidelights. There was lots of gossip floating around, some of them turned out to be true. For instance about the actress Sharmila Tagore and the Nawab which did later result in the marriage. But there was also gossip in the stands and shouting about a certain actress linked to the famous West Indian all rounder. In fact on the very first day a certain newspaper carried a big ad of a particular brand of soap with the particular actress, very suggestively. The spectators had brought the paper and kept shouting at the cricketer on the ground showing the ad. It was so embarrassing after some time the man changed his fielding position and never fielded on our side of the ground!

 

However I almost missed another hero behind the scene. Every day when I and my brother had to leave by the first bus @six o'clock to the stadium my mother, god alone knows when she used to get up, cooked and prepared rice three varieties n packed in leaves separately for both so we don't fight about it. As it was festival she did not want us to miss the good food. She did not once complain about it. Wasn’t she tired over worked and wanted us to be more responsible. Nothing entered our heads except our own world and interests which we spun around ourselves like a cocoon and lived in it. It took me years( as a parent naturally) to suddenly realise how much she gave(up) for her kids and how much we took mother for granted. Probably it was the story of every parent who raised a family with untold sacrifices without any expectation. I often narrate these episodes to my two kids to make them understand and so that they would be sensitive to people around them and not take them for granted. But they too are in their own cocoons. Perhaps much later they will also repeat a similar episode to their kids or better still, blog about it!

 

 

*A brief history of balm oil*

Balm oil the ultimate oil of all citizens of Bharat more so of Tamil Nadu in the last four decades has phenomenal history of rise to dizzying heights and no fall. So it's important for us to examine it's genesis n it's historic march across the length n breath of the sub continent.

In the early 80s due to sudden shortage of cooking oil in India, not that it was aplenty earlier but the govt babus finally woke up to the fact of it's shortage and more due to the potential gold mine this would provide decided to import Palm oil from Malaysia that was producing it in excess n had not much use of it.

Now when ship loads of P oil landed the entire well oiled  supply chain went gung ho and as expected contributed its own versions to the mother oil so as to make it probably more agreeable to the desi palate. So when the desi customers finally consumed it there was not much palm in it as the oil was made indigenous to their satisfaction. To elaborate further if a consumer bought 1 litre of P oil and sent it to a good lab for test it probably will have a variety of desi oils so as to make it more agreeable to the local consumer. Now this edible swadeshi concoction having undergone a thorough makeover after its arrival at Bharat naturally acquired a more agreeable desi name ie. Balm oil, the oil for all seasons.