“This is all we can do
for you..” said that kind lady, and stretched out a coarse cloth
containing a 'good-measure' of freshly harvested 'pigoen pea'...!
'Good measure' is a fuzzy
logic, when too much of quantifying spoils the 'grace' and beauty of
a gesture... But for patrons of hard logic, it must be a litre...
She hailed from a very
humble village, and this year their crop in the small piece of land
was 'toor-daal' (I guess, that is what 'educated-gentlemen' mean by
'pigeon pea')... She had a kid of school going age, and the
'measure' of their poverty was visible when the longer-drooping one
leg of his half-trousers ensured a 'catch of attention' that
tailoring was 'home-made' (stitching charges saved!).
That kid used to ask me
'doubts' in his school lessons, often, and the mom did not know 'how
to repay' for the help... It is their timidity accentuated by sheer
poverty that magnified the insignificant small tips I gave to that
kid when he struggled with a few English words here and there, or got
stuck at an 'equation' which seemed 'unequal' at the problematic
levels that the teacher dictated it as 'home-work'!
It was a week end and the
mom and son felt, 'let us go to the village' to meet their family..
The family squeezed their stomach a little further to 'fund' the cost
of school education of their kid, the first hero to see 'literacy'! I
was amazed at the 'amount' of sacrifice the parents, the in-laws, etc
of that lady decided upon, when they told her, “you go and take
care of that kid, and let him become a 'matric' and let us see if
education might lift us out of this poverty” (“Matric system”
.. I chuckled, when I had seen 'seer' paav-seer, chataak, tolaa etc
as a kid!... Education too might have become 'Matric' from
rustic!)..
That is when I thanked my
'stars' (the employer-concern's customer concerns were depicted using
a 'Star' as the emblem, and they added the caption 'You have a future
under this Star'. And one of the major parameters to decide a
'good-staff' was a copy-paste knowledge of what the five pronged star
'stood' for, in its emblem, irrespective of whether we stood-for its
customers or not! A copy-paste of HR concepts would only end up
thus!)... I thanked my 'stars' that I managed to compromise for a
not-so-good accommodation, when I landed into a 'job' at a small
town, and staying at a lodge till-I-find a suitable accommodation on
monthly rent was going to be costly-for-me!
Thus, while a bachelor,
the earliest find was just a room of some 8 by 8 feet... One wall
was originally a compound wall with random rubbles... (the ones used
for 'foundation' below ground level... Architecturally, 'RR's
–random rubbles-- are supposed to be more-strong, since they lock
into each other, and the bonding is like a made-for-each-other
couples, rare among thousands!).. To me, it looked like a wonderful
tool to scratch my back, like those donkeys do when the itch is
too-good, and hands wont reach the back!).. The roof was of plain
corrugated tin... so rain makes all possible kinds of orchestrated
music, with larger drops taking shorter jumps, to give tweet-effects!
The rent was 'within
poverty range'.. and that is how, this mom and son pair took courage
to consult their 'neighbour', for the school lessons-help!
The aroma of
freshly-harvested dal, took me by surprise! Never before had I
enjoyed such unique fragrance!.. I felt a 'deep' reverence towards
that lady! It was a total contrast between our attitude of 'offer
and acceptance' (contract-law terms.. please!).. She felt
embarrassed about a 'dal' as some compensatory allowance for
'knowledge' that was beyond their reach for generations! I felt deep
gratitude for gifting me mother-earths love and affection uncorrupted
by manures from chemicals and pesticides garnished over it!...
I decided to reciprocate
their gesture of this aromatic daal... I further slow-boiled a
large-measure (this time, the 'measure' relates to cooked-stuff, on a
meal-plate, not the container-dabba !)..
I pounded red chillies, a
bit gently, ending the smack with a gentle grind-effect, so that the
thin membrane of that chilli gets elongated a little (as a kid, I had
seen other kids place a 10 paise coin on the rails, just before a
train rides over the rails, and after the train has zoomed past, the
ten paise coin enlarges its circle, and leaves only traces of
markings that it was once-upon-a-time, called 10 paise.. like the
4th carbon copy of a pencil scribbling!)... such chilli flakes
(mirchi ki Bhukni, if I am not wrong about Hindification), sprinkled
over steaming dal, on a porcelain plate, arrests the escape of dal's
aroma, while garnishing it with that 'freshly released aroma of a
chilli'...
Another half of the 'large
measure' of cooked dal, I treated it with 'green chilli' but the
crushing/pounding, almost similar... The dal notices the contrast of
a young-spouse's scolding, and his mother's scolding (chilli's are
suppose to taste-hot..!)...
The other items like
Bishop's weeds, cumin etc... roasted on ghee smear, the turmeric
spray of color, NaCl.. etc.. made the dal multi-designed in
appearance and appeal... I timed their breakfast, and made that
'presto' appearance to present two small plates (actually, it was the
saucer, with no extra plates with me to do any
'styled-presentation'!)...
When I saw that small
plant yielding green colored 'Kashmiri-Mirchi' at our front-yard, I
was reminded of this incident, and relived that 'love-for-a-contrast'
stage of life!
Meditative practices do
not offer any 'spicy' contrasts to appease our ever-taste-chasing
mind , and therefore the 'sessions' look like a life-time-prisoner's
diet thrice a day, 30 years, confined to a dark cell, spells of
silence, and a rice-gruel to eat, whose taste presents a
thoroughly-familiar-feel, even by its memory, or a sight from a
distance, at the hands of that jailer! Once this 'contrast-seeking'
gets subdued, the core of all this drama, the nothingness, takes over
all the entertainment programs, leaving us with eternally-lasting
data-base of joy-data!.. Then on, the outside contrasts are like
optional-pickles, even trickles would do!
Drastically yours,
psn (16th January, 2015)
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