A rich inheritance!

We were a motley group of half a dozen people, all well past 70, visiting the Club after quite a while. A decade back, we used to be a permanent fixture of the Club in the evenings. We always occupied a strategic point so that no member could enter the Club without our noticing him. The very sight of us would bring a big smile on every face. The real joyous lot would be the bearers who knew that a fat tip would be in their hands when we called it a day. Our table would have a display of some excellent liquour and those who dropped in to pay their curtsies to us were sure to be offered a liberal portion of our proud possession. In short, we were the merry boys of a merry club! As we got higher and higher in the ‘spiritual’ ladder, bawdy jokes ensued from our mouths in a big torrent. The combined laughter of those around would drown even the barking match of the street dogs in the nearby lane!

Our present group was a lot different now much to the dismay of all concerned. Some of us had holy ash smeared all over our ever expanding forehead. A couple of us even had expensive Rudrakshas in a thick gold chain nestling in our massive chests. Our table had only our mobile phones to indicate that despite our advancing years, we were still be able to keep up with the times. Our initial chat related mostly to the latest features of our phones. One of the friends proudly displayed a recording of a panoramic view of the 108 Divya Kshetrams. One devout member looking at them even slapped his cheeks in utter reverence! My mind drifted back by a decade recollecting the same member showing us some amorous adventures of some borderline Bollywood stars recorded on his mobile!

If you think that all these changes in us have been brought about by some spiritual guru, you are mistaken! All of us have been forced into such a lowly existence because of an assortment of ailments from A to Z! All of us ordered for soft drinks, salted or sweetened, depending on the most predominant ailment we had. Being a Type II diabetic, I ordered for minty lime with a pinch of salt. The bearer who took all our orders had disappointment writ large on his face which slowly turned into a look of utter contempt. He probably knew that he was not going to be richer even by a dime at the end of the day. Wishing to see the back of us as quickly as possible with the fond hope that some revelers would occupy the table after we left, he produced the ordered potions with the speed of lightening! Little did he know that we were poised for a long chat into the night meeting after a fairly long time.

As the life sustaining soft drinks soothed our parched throats, the conversation got going. The cheek-slapping member was busy trying to select one of the pictures of the 108 Divya Kshetrams to be made as the Screen Saver on his mobile and so he was not into the conversation yet. The rest of us made a tentative beginning eulogizing the merits of the soft drinks that each of us was having. I took the conversation to the next level telling them that my salted beverage was necessitated by the sugar level in my blood. There were immediate questions on how long I had been suffering from diabetes, how did I notice it first, whether any other member of my family had diabetes and so on. Though there were other victims of sugar in the group, all of them turned their full attention to me by now. They knew that despite the fact that I was just a borderline case, I had a tendency to go the very root of the disease by gathering all the information from the net. But they were not interested in such information but only in the issue of who else had diabetes in my family from whom I could have possibly contracted it.

It was here that the conversation shifted to an entirely new dimension when one of the friends remarked that it was strange that we could not imbibe the good things from our ancestors but when it came to their physical ailments like sugar, we inherited them readily! Several examples of many good men populating this planet with the scum of the earth were mentioned around with one of our friends wryly remarking that while these people had no means to pass on their good image to their offspring, he had no doubt that their blood sugar was transferred to their progenies with the greatest ease! We all became very pensive at this phenomenon until a wiser member suggested that though there was no effort required in imbibing their sugar levels, a lot of effort would be needed to inherit their virtues. We all agreed with this view.

As we were winding up the show, a friend asked me how to recognize the initial symptoms of diabetes. I smiled and told him ‘It is elementary, my dear Watson! If the red ants in your house start targeting you in preference to others, make a beeline to a diabetologist!’

 

Dear kalpavriksham
Being a resident of Chennai all my life except during my professional career with SBI, I have always gone to the greatest Kalpavriksham of all in my times of distress. I refer to Karpagambal, the consort of Lord Kapaleeswara. She has never failed to offer succour in all my difficult times and these days, I continue to look to her for her benign grace whenever the usual downside of old age visits me. I perk up instantly seeing her flashing one of her radiant smiles at me and I am back to normal instantly.

When I posted this Rambling of mine yesterday, I was in two minds. I have been dealing with heavy subjects for quite sometime now and I was not sure whether the current post would strike the right chord with the readers. I just went ahead and posted it and who comes with the first FB? Kalpavriksham! I knew that it was not a mere coincidence. I took it as a blessing from Karpagam who has always stood by me. Thank you very much!

I am happy that during my long journey of seven plus decades, I have crossed several phases in my life. If I decide to write an autobiography, I may have to title it as 'My experiment with Untruth!' unlike Mahatma Gandhi. To succeed in a fierce professional set up, I had to employ all the four methods of Sama, Dana, Bheda and Danda in seeing my way through. But today, I do not have to go beyond Sama for my fulfilment. This is the greatness of twilight years when everyone is willing to give you more space than you need and treats you with dignity. This in turn gets reflected in our life style. We suddenly realise that we are revered for our age and to be deserving of that reverence, we start acting responsibly. This is a point from which there is no going back. There are a few who try to defy their age and act in a manner totally unbecoming of their age. They just end up as anachronistic disaster!

Thank you again for your positive FB kalpavriksham!
Sri

 

My dear Viji
Old friends are like history books. I have had a variety of them and each one has been a fascinating co-traveller who made my journey through life absolutely enjoyable. Being with them occasionally is like watching the son-et-lumière at the Red Fort! If you run a needle on the grooves of their foreheads, you can hear the fascinating tales of their lives! We all started on a level playing field but after running through 7 decades of life, we find ourselves in different locations. I am not unhappy at the position that I occupy compared to some of them who are ahead of me for I have other blessings to compensate!

In your signature, you advise us to store dreams in our heart. Dreams are for the young. We only have memories of all those dreams that we had when we were young. Some became reality while others dissolved into thin smoke. At this age, I find my unfulfilled dreams a fascinating subject to dwell on.
Sri

 

Dear kishoreg
Time changes everything only when we are flesh-bound. There is a Sufi concept of Eternal Now. Sufis believe that the human psyche is amphibian in nature which can exist both in terms of flesh and in terms of the spirit. When it exists in terms of flesh as it happens in most of us, we are prone to old age, decay and ultimate death. But spirit being eternal and deathless, if the human psyche learns to move away from its orientation to flesh and moor with the spirit, it becomes indestructible. At this stage, Time loses its relevance. There is no past, present or future and it is only Eternal Now. This is nicely summed up by Jalaluddin Rumi that the 'Sufi is the son of time present' Talking of the amphibian nature of our psyche, he says, At one time I am Eternal, at another time I am in Time!'

Sorry for this digression!
Sri