The Old Man and His God Read online

  By then we had reached Airport Road and it was time for me to get out of the car. But I wanted to say something to her before that.

  ‘Saroja you are dreaming of utopia. Your dream is an impossible one. If we want to be happy we have to change our attitude and not the world’s! The world is full of difficulties and unfulfilled desires just as the earth is full of dust and mud. If you want to keep your feet clean in this muddy world, there are only two solutions. Either cover the entire earth or wear a pair of sandals.’

  Saroja interrupted, ‘What a great thought. Who told you this?’

  By that time I was out of the car and closing the door behind me. I told her, ‘I was not fortunate enough to hear these lines from the guru himself as he was born 2,500 years before me. He was the Buddha.’

  ‘When did you become a Buddhist?’

  ‘Just now, in front of you.’

  17

  Sweet Hospitality

  Some years ago, my friend Suman came from the US to stay with me for a month. She had been living abroad for nearly twenty-five years. All her relatives and friends are in Bangalore and Dharwad, and the purpose of her visit was to catch up with all her friends. She had grownup children who were not interested in visiting India, but she had the freedom to spend as much time as she wanted in her country. She still felt strongly about having her roots in India, perhaps more so because she had been away for so long.

  Suman is very conscious of her health, and is always trying to keep her weight under control since she has a history of blood sugar and hypertension in her family. When I went to the US, I stayed with her once and saw her way of living. She diets, exercises, walks and meditates. She spends perhaps up to four hours a day on her fitness regime. When we were in school together she was on the plumper side and used to love eating sweets. Now, she hardly touches them. Knowing her love for them, I can understand the great effort she must be making to abstain from them. once I asked her how she managed to do it. She replied sadly, ‘It is so difficult. But I practice it. Sometimes I feel like having sweets, which is why we don’t keep any in the house.’

  When Suman was staying with me, I accompanied her on some of her visits to the houses of friends and relatives. In India, a guest is supposed to be treated like god. Traditionally, the best of everything is put aside for the guest. People will go out of their way to make the guest happy. I have noticed that this is more so in the small towns and villages.

  Once, I went with Suman to our friend Jaya’s house. Jaya was not keeping well, but had gone to great efforts to prepare many eatables for us. As soon as we arrived, she disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared after a while bearing two tall copper glasses and two plates of sweets. They were all traditional home-made sweets and I could see the copious quantities of ghee and sugar oozing out of them. Jaya was serving us with great warmth and it was getting awkward to say no. In such situations, it is expected that the guest should finish all that has been put on the plate. In fact, it can be perceived to be an insult if food is left uneaten by the guest.

  Suman was of course quite upset to see all the sweets being served. She could not afford to abandon her diet. Though it may be easy to stay off the food one has not seen in years, as soon as one is face to face with it, the food becomes irresistible. Temptation and Jaya’s coaxing got the better of her and Suman ended up eating all the sweets. By the time we finished those, Jaya arrived bearing a second round of sweets.

  ‘You must drink this payasa,’ she said, putting before us bowls filled to the brim with creamy appali payasa. ‘It took me most of the afternoon to prepare this and I made it just for you.’

  This time Suman was stronger and refused strictly. Since I was not on a diet, I finished my bowl, enjoying it immensely. It was indeed very good. Jaya was quite upset that Suman had refused the payasa.

  ‘Come on Suman, please have it. We are not as well off as you are now, but I prepared it with a lot of love. You will never get this in the US. Now that you are in India you must forget your diet. Get back to it when you return home.’

  By now Suman was in tears. Seeing her state, I told Jaya, ‘Don’t insist so much. You have made everything with a lot of affection, but let her decide what she wants to eat.’

  Jaya was unhappy that I had spoken for Suman. ‘If I insist she will have it. This is supposed to be good for health. I knew your grandfather, Suman, and he used to love this payasa. He was a friend of my grandfather’s and I remember him well. He was as thin as a stick, even though he used to eat everything, including sweets, and never dieted in his life.’

  ‘That is true. But my grandfather lived in a village and used to work in the paddy fields. He used to walk ten miles a day. That would have burned up all the calories he ate. My grandmother used to walk to the well and fetch water even in her old age. Theirs was a different way of life, our pattern of living has changed completely. Please understand.’

  Our visit to Jaya’s house ended on a sad note. And as Suman went visiting from house to house, the same story was repeated. At the end of her stay, Suman showed me the reading on the weighing scale. She had put on five kgs. She left India full of worries about how it would affect her health, and not the happy memories she had expected to take back with her.

  Her parting words got me thinking. She said, ‘People do not understand that hospitality does not mean serving rich food and large helpings. In all the houses I visited, they were upset that I refused to eat so much. For them it was a courtesy, but for me it is like poison. When I went to Delhi, I attended a wedding where they had a separate section with sugar-less food. I thought that was so considerate of the hosts. Nowadays everyone is conscious of one’s health and wants to eat healthy food. For me some kinds of food are silent killers and I have to avoid them. I wish my friends had understood this and not taken offence.’

  I listened to Suman and felt sad. She was correct. Hospitality means making a person feel at home, allowing her to relax and sharing whatever we have without making anyone uncomfortable. But we seem to have forgotten that. For us hospitality means preparing masses of food and piling up the guest’s plate with it. And if she refuses, we get annoyed and jump to conclusions.

  As I waved goodbye to Suman, I could only wish that Indian hospitality did not remind her always of a plate of sweets!

  18

  Friends Forever

  Radha and Rohini were my students through their college days. They were inseparable friends and I learnt they had studied together since the first year of school. I have rarely seen two friends who were so close to each other. They took all their classes together, attended lab with each other and were horrified when I suggested they take different lab partners as I was in favour of my students changing their lab partners every semester so they could learn to work with different kinds of people.

  Of the two Rohini was the quieter one. She was also very talented and could paint and embroider beautifully. In fact often she would stitch similar clothes for herself and Radha and people would think they were sisters. There was such perfect understanding between them that they never felt the need to make other friends. I would see them together and wonder what would happen to their friendship later in life and after they got married. As it turned out, Radha got married first, to Ramesh, a civil engineer, and moved to Delhi. Rohini married Suresh, a mechanical engineer and set up house in Bangalore itself. I would see her once in a while and ask her about Radha. Time passed and both had children.

  Meanwhile, I got more involved in my work with the foundation. In the course of that, I was planning to build an orphanage in the outskirts of the city. My funds were limited, so I was looking for someone who would take on the task of building the place at cheaper rates and yet do good work. Cheap is not always the best, is what I found out soon enough.

  One day, a man in his late thirties came to meet me. He gave me a wonderful quotation for the work. He had made out a detailed proposal and I was very impressed. So I asked him, ‘How will you do all this a