Happy And Sad

Was on my morning walk around the park.

Taking in the world up, yawning and cracking its knuckles.

The scene carried from yesterday, the day before…

failing miserably to get me down.

All the same, breaths laboured, carefully counting,

for the toil to finish.

Saw him a few feet ahead crossing the road

and coming my way.

A small withered body on a pair of purposeful legs.

A rag picker, clutching an out-sized sack thrown over his shoulders.

Heads down on the sidewalk,

not eying for more, content with the bounty.

The early bird had got the worms.

I took out from my pocket

a couple of tenners kept handy.

What ever happened to those twenties in orange?

When he came alongside, stride not broken,

lost in thoughts,

it was ditto with thoughts too…in other minds.

I gently tapped on his bony shoulders.

A couple of fogged but alert eyes looked up

from under bushy brows.

Concerned and it was not the constabulary…

Wordlessly I shoved the notes, worn but good

into his knobbly hand

that had not lifted up a wee bit.

I walked away suffused with goodness.

Happy moments. Why, verry…

Looking at and back was distasteful, I thought.

A few paces ahead, heard someone sobbing.

Looked around and found none.

Finally, I could figure out.

Confined in my pocket,

it was the fifty…for losing out

to its mates, mere tenners.

End

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The Wedding Passbook

From Funny (funnnyfunny.com)

She married him today.

At the end of the wedding party, her mother gave her a newly opened bank savings passbook, with $1000 deposited in it.

She told her, “My dear daughter, take this passbook. Keep it as a record of your married life. Whenever something happy and memorable happens in your new life, put some money in. Write down what it’s about next to the amount. The more memorable the event is, the more money you can put in. I’ve done the first one for you today. Do the others with your husband. When you look back after years, you will know how much happiness you’ve both shared.”

She shared this with him after getting home.

Both of them thought it was a great idea and couldn’t wait to make the next deposit!

This is what the passbook looked like after a while:

7 Feb: $100, his first birthday celebration after marriage

1 Mar: $300, she gets a salary raise

20 Mar: $200, vacation to Bali 15 Apr: $2000, She’s pregnant!

1 Jun: $1000, He gets the big promotion and so on…

However, as the years went by, they began fighting and arguing over trivial things. They didn’t talk much. They regretted that they had married the most nasty person in the world…There was no more love.

One day she talked to her Mother. “Mom, we can’t stand it anymore. We have decided to divorce. I can’t imagine how I decided to marry this guy!”

Her mother replied, “Sure, that’s no big deal. Just do whatever you want, if you really can’t stand it. But before that, do one thing. Remember the savings passbook I gave you on your wedding day? Take out all money and spend it first. You shouldn’t keep any record of such a poor marriage.”

She agreed with her. So she went to the bank, and was waiting in the queue to cancel the account. While she was waiting, she took a look at the passbook record. She looked, and looked, and looked. Then the memory of all the previous joyful moments came back to her. Her eyes were filled with tears. She left and went home.

When she got home, she handed the passbook to him and asked him to spend the money before getting divorced.

So the next day, he went to the bank, and was waiting in the queue to cancel the account. While he was waiting, he took a look at the passbook record. He looked, and looked, and looked. Then the memory of all the previous joyful moments came back to him. His eyes were filled with tears. He left and went home. He gave the passbook back to her.

She found a new deposit of $5000. And a line next to the record: ”This is the day I realized how much I’ve loved you throughout all these years. How much happiness you’ve brought me.”

They hugged and cried, putting the passbook back into the safe.

“When you fall in any way, don’t see the place where you fell, instead see the place from where you slipped. Life is about correcting mistakes.”

End

When Life Gives You Lemons…

End

Source: WhatsApp

Kindness Knows No Home!

Source: A WhatsApp forward

**

It was the night of 30^th Dec. And it was cold out there.

They were returning from a party at a friend’s place. 

As they were hitting the main road, at the corner he caught sight of a homeless beggar squat on the pavement and pulling tight around himself a torn shawl, not entirely successful in holding off the shivering cold.

He slowed down and stopped the car a little distance ahead.

‘What happened? Why’re you stopping the car? Any problem?’ his wife got a wee bit tense.

‘No, nothing wrong with the car. Look there, an old man shivering in cold.’

‘So?’

‘We have a shawl with us in there. Let’s give it to him.’

‘What? That expensive stuff we bought for my mom?’

’Let me get it…what to do? There’s nothing else to spare…we’ll get another one for your mom.’

‘You know what? He is not going to use it, let me tell you. He’ll trade it in for some weed. They do it all the time.’

He picked up the shawl from the seat behind and got down.

Went up to the man, draped the shawl around the startled man fearing worse. Stepped back to have a look. With a wave of has hand, left him behind and returned to the car.

They came home in silence.

On 31^st night once again there was a party they attended more or less in the same area.

Later they took the same route on the way back home.

The homeless beggar was at his spot.

‘See, what I told you, I can’t see the shawl,’ observed the wife.

He stopped the car and both of them got down.

‘What Baba, where’s the shawl we gave you yesterday? Bought yourself some ganja with it, eh?’ the wife said mockingly.

A bony arm stuck out pointing to a figure crouching on the pavement some distance away, shrouded in what appeared to be the shawl.

His voice was tremulous: ‘One leg, polio affected. Draws unwelcome attention from passers-by. She is without clothes even to cover herself properly. At least I have this for myself.’

They returned to their car without a word. She was sure there was another shawl in the bedroom closet.

End

When Best Is Not Good Enough

vide T R Subramanian

End

Good Reasons To Be…

…doing the right thing!

A story from Africa vide V Narayanan

**

At the time of the great King Obatala:

Three people came to him dragging a young man with them and said to him:

‘O King!! This man has murdered our father.’

Obatala: ‘Why did you kill their father?’ 

Young man: ‘I’m a goatherd. My goat ate from their father’s farm, and he threw a stone at my goat and it died; so I also took the stone and threw it at their father and he also died.’

Obatala: ‘Because of this, I pass judgment, on charge of murder, by sentencing you to death.’

The Young man said: ‘Oh King, I ask for 3 days before you execute the judgment. My late father left me some wealth and I have a sister to take care of. If you kill me now, the wealth and my sister will have no guardian.’

Obatala: ‘Who will stand for your bail?’ 

The Young man looking into the crowd, pointed at Lamurudu.

Obatala asked: ‘Do you agree to stand for him, Lamurudu?’

Lamurudu answered, ‘Beeni (yes).’

Obatala enquired further: ‘You agree to stand for someone you don’t know, and if he doesn’t return you’ll receive his penalty.’

Lamurudu answered: ‘I accept.’

The Young man left; but after two days and into the third day, there was still no sign of the Young man. 

Everyone was afraid and sorry for Lamurudu who had accepted to receive the penalty of death if the man failed to return.

Just before it was time for meting out the punishment to the poor Lamurudu, the goat herdsman  appeared looking very exhausted and he stood before King Obatala. 

The Young man spoke up: ‘I have handed the wealth and the welfare of my sister to my uncle and I am back to receive the penalty. You may execute the penalty now.’

In great shock and surprise, Obatala said: ‘And why did you return after having a chance to escape the death penalty?’ 

Young man: ‘It would then appear humanity has lost integrity and the ability to fulfill promises kept.’

Obatala turned and looked at Lamurudu and asked him:  ‘And why did you stand for him?’

Lamurudu responded: ‘It would then appear humanity has lost the will to do good to others.’ 

These words and events moved the complainant  brothers who had  wanted justice for their father’s death very deeply and they decided to forgive the young goat herdsman. 

A furious Obatala asked: ‘Why?!!’

They said: ‘It would then appear as though forgiveness has lost place in the heart of humanity.’

End

A Very Short Story By Osho For Kids

Vide Jaishankar Ramachandran

There was this man who had no means of earning a living. He went out every morning into the village and sought biksha (alms) from the houses therein.

So it was this morning too as he stepped out with his joli (actually a piece of cloth folded like a pouch to hold small stuff). It held at its bottom some grains of rice put in by his wife. There was a reason for it. The householder offering biksha would be satisfied on seeing the rice he/she was not being fooled, safe in the thought someone else too saw it fit to offer it to him.

As he began his morning round, he saw a cloud of dust kicked up at a distance and also heard the rumble of wheels on the road.  It was the Raja’s chariot, royal flag with the insignia fluttering atop. He was at once delighted. Finally today was his chance to seek alms from the Raja himself. So far he was always thrown out whenever he tried to gain admittance to the palace. He thought furiously about what he would ask of the Raja…this, no, that…

In a few moments, the chariot reached the point where the man was standing and, what more, it conveniently stopped by his side. Providentially his job was made easier now.

Just as he was ready to get going on his act, to his utter surprise, the Raja himself sought him out and held out a joli, his, in front of the man!

Raja: ‘Today I decided to ask and receive something from the first man I meet. It’s you. Please give me something you have!’

Well, the man just stood there in a daze for he had nothing on his person to give. Also he had only known about receiving all along. Here was the Raja of the land standing before him asking him for alms!

‘Come on, you must have something…what about the joli you’re carrying? Surely…’

He remembered he had some rice grains left in there by his wife. So he put his hand into the joli and managed to collect a handful.Then he thought it was too much. He dropped half of it back into the joli. Then again he felt he was still giving away a lot more than he should. So some more grains dropped back into the joli.

Becoming impatient, the Raja ordered him to expedite.

The man finally parted with one grain, just one.

The Raja without a demur thanked him for it and drove away.

The man was sad at what had happened. Not only he did not receive any dhaan from the Raja, he had to give away a grain of his own.

He completed his usual round and returned home.

‘Why, what happened, you look distraught?’ the wife asked him as she relieved him of the joli.

‘You know I lost a grain today…’

Wife said: ‘Why, you’re joli feels full…in fact today you seem to have collected far more than usual and you’re sad for losing a grain?’

‘But I lost a grain…’

As she ran her hands through the collected grain, she suddenly whooped in glee:

‘Look, what we got here…a grain of gold!!’

The man cried inconsolably leaving his wife nonplussed.

End

Sometimes It Pays To Pay…

no attention to…

Women in the village were heading to the river for a bath.

As they were crossing a field, there upon a ridge laid a sadhu reclining with his head on a brick for height. 

One of the women exclaimed, ‘Hey this sadhu is a maha gyani. Let us do pranam and seek his blessings.’

And so they did and as they went river-wards, one of the women remarked loudly: ‘You say he’s a maha gyani, yet he needed the comfort of a pillow!’

After finishing their bath, they returned the same away.

They saw the same sadhu now lying with his head resting on bare ground – he had thrown away the brick.

As they passed by, seeing this, another woman remarked: ‘You say he’s a maha gyani, yet he has an ego that gets pricked?’

The sadhu burst laughing. He got up to get back the brick lying some feet away! The lesson he had learnt early on had come back to him: ‘Let the world say what it wants, do yours.’

End

Based on a pravachan by Shri Vittaldas Maharaj

In Celebration Of Life…

Forwarding few lines that I enjoyed reading, lightly edited subjectively:

Sometimes I feel I want to go back in time… Not to change things, but to feel a couple of things twice…

Sometimes I wish I was a baby for a while… Not to be walked in the pram but to see my mother’s smile!

Some times I wish I could go back to school… Not to become a child but to spend  more time with those friends I never met after school!

Sometimes I wish I could be back in college… Not to be a rebel but to really understand what I studied!

Sometimes I wish I was a fresher at my work… Not to do less work but to recall the joy of making myself useful and being paid for it!

Sometimes I wish I could marry again all over… Not to change the partner but to enjoy her companionship more deeply!

Sometimes I wish my kids were younger…. Not because they grew fast but to tell them more stories…

Sometimes I wish I was more expressive…Not to pursue prose or poetry but to to say thanks to my kith and kin.

Sometimes I feel I still had some more time to live… Not to have a longer life but to know and do things differently…

Since the times that are gone can never come back, let’s enjoy the moments as we live them from now on, to the fullest…doing what we could and celebrate our everyday life*

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

Unlike The Elephant In The Room, Donkeys Roam Free

Watch out! I have already lost a couple to these Donkeys:-(

Vide T R Subramanian

**

“A donkey was tied to a tree. One night a ghost cut the rope and released the donkey.

The donkey went and destroyed the crops in a farmer’s land. Infuriated, the farmer’s wife shot the donkey and killed it.

The donkey’s owner was devastated at the loss. In reply, he shot dead the farmer’s wife.

Angered by his wife’s death, the farmer took a sickle and killed the donkey’s owner.

The wife of the donkey’s owner got so angry that she and her sons set the farmer’s house on fire.

The farmer, looking at his house turned into ashes, went ahead and killed both the wife and children of that donkey’s owner.

Finally, when the farmer was full of regret, he asked the ghost as to why did it kill them all?

The ghost replied, “I killed nobody. I just released a donkey that was tied to a rope. It is all of you who released the devil within you which resulted into everything bad that happened.”

Today the media has become like the ghost. It keeps releasing donkeys on a daily basis. 

The people foolishly take a stance and argue with one another endlessly. They end up ruining relationships, even when they know that their opinion is of little or no consequence. 

Be responsible and do not react to every donkey released by media and preserve your relationship with your friends and relatives. They are too precious to lose over the donkeys released by the crooked media and politicians.“

End