Stories

Marguerite Theophil beautifully explains as to how stories can be our teachers. Authentic living is a very uncommon phenomenon in today’s world. Several traditional ‘teaching stories’ indirectly bring us to the awareness that we are not giving due attention to authentic living. Authentic living may not at all times get us what we want but it will surely benefit us in the long run. If we say to ourselves that there is no use in living an authentic life and begin to live an inauthentic life, then we will not only get an outward reputation of being unreliable but also damage our internal ways of being. 

Among different types of stories trickster stories are among the most effective devices in almost all cultures. A trickster is a person or an animal who tricks other people to get what he wants, in this process he doesn’t follow rules. The trickster can be clever or unintelligent; he often gets away being more clever than wise.

In the Mayan culture there is the rabbit who usually manages to outsmart animals larger than him. The story of the rabbit and the crab goes thus. Once a rabbit got together with a crab to grow some carrots. They worked in harmony right from selecting the seed to harvesting the crop. However there was a verbal tussle between them when it was time to divide the crop. The rabbit got a cunning idea of deceiving the crab with sweet talk. He told the crab, “We have two piles there, a big one and a little one. You can have the big one and I’ll take the small one.”

The crab saw that the big pile was only filled with the leafy tops and that the small pile that had actual carrots. The crab smartly said: “Thank you very much for that proposal my dear friend, but let’s divide the two piles in half. I’ll divide and you choose, or you divide and I’ll choose, as you prefer.” The rabbit was upset at this smart suggestion of the crab and disagreed with his proposition. The rabbit suggested a race from 20 paces afar. He said that the first one to get there would get the carrots and the other pile would be for the loser, the crab agreed to this proposal. They lined up at the starting point from where the race was to start.

No sooner did the race begin, the crab used his brain and seized the rabbits tail with his claws without the rabbit realizing it. The rabbit bolted like lightning and arrived at the carrot pile. He turned around with pride thinking that he had left the crab far behind. Meanwhile the crab opened his claws and quietly fell on top of the carrots. The rabbit was very happy at the thought that he had won. He called out, “Where are you, friend?” the crab responded from atop “I got here before you, so I get the carrots.” The rabbit was dumbstruck.

At the end of this tale, you are probably smiling understanding that the story teaches that inauthentic living brings its own impact. Stories do teach us many values but only when we turn them inward. In many traditions and cultures, humor is used while narrating stories so as to drive home a lesson. At the end of it all what matters is whether we have taken home the lesson and acted upon it or not. 

Marguerite Theophil takes this point further by illustrating it with another story from ancient China. There were two men who were in the worst moments of their life. They tried all different types of schemes but nothing seemed to work out. Finally to make it even more worse there came a time when they became homeless and hungry. They began wandering on the streets until they came across a monastery. Since it was close to lunchtime, the smell of the food lighted up their nostrils which made them feel desperate. 

They began discussing with each other as to who will ask what and what would come back as a reply. This, that and so many details; they carefully studied different situations and before the first one could tell him anything further he knocked on the door.

When a monk opened the door the one who knocked immediately said ‘My merciful Buddha bless you. I bring you greetings from the temple in my hometown, where I am a patron of the monastery belonging to your order.” On asking the second one, he replied saying that he was not a devout religious man. The monk told both of them to enter in. He took the second one and told him to join the other people in eating. Calling the first one the monk said “You can join us in the inner chamber; since you belong to our group; you know that today is a day of complete fasting. We pray and chant all day. We are so happy you chose to join us.”

This story has a lot of significance provided we do not stick to the humorous aspect of it. When we turn the story inward i.e. the story of the two men, we see that we too are always hungry. However this hunger is not always for food but also for attention, love, recognition, connectedness or wealth. At times we get so desperate that we lie or bend the truth to get what we want.

We need to identify the hunger that we have at this very moment. We need to examine all that we have done and also plan as to how we will ‘feed’ our hunger. At the same time we also need to be sensitive to the ‘hunger’ of others. There are so many in this world of ours who are craving for love, attention, peace and many other things.

Money

 

It’s a long time now from the time Narendra Modi made trash of our 85% cash. The politics of our country seems to have gone haywire. The ones who are the rulers are acting like they are the opposition while the opposite is happening with the opposition who are acting like the rulers. R. Prasannan says that we have been taught to believe that people in the government are like the good boys in the class. Being good boys the sit in the Parliament, debate bills, make laws and take decisions for the good of all in this country.

On the other hand are the bad boys who disrupt Parliament, go out during the sessions, go out into the streets, hold hartals, damage offices, block roads, close shops and do many things that trouble our everyday life. However according to R. Prasannan the roles have now been reversed where the bad boys are sitting tight for class while the good ones are bunking classes.

The P. M’s mind is that we go e- shopping and make less use of currency. It makes sense to a certain extent, but for the poor who are cardless are left clueless. As soon as the news was broken by our P. M, Indians began lining up at banks and at ATM’s. It was a sight to admire! It was like a ration shop scene where cash was rationed to poor people. It is funny to note that the rich are cashless while the poor are cardless. The question to ask here is: are all people belonging to different classes taken into consideration in the demonetization programme?

Soon the ATM’s ran out of currency and many ATM’s shutters were pulled and a note was put ‘ATM closed, out of currency’. All people including Modi, since then have been asking us to bear with him for 50 days, not to mention the many times he became emotional (as per what appeared in the newspapers) when he was addressing the poor. Hopefully the New Year will begin on a corruption and black money free note. 

The ones who have been severely affected due to this are the poor people who live from hand to mouth. The people selling vegetables, milk packets and other groceries were left without anything because the amount of the new note is too high for them to give change to the customers who came to them. The waiters and waitresses in all dhabas, hotels and other eateries must have surely faced customers who have told them that they didn’t have change.

Also, many people have had to skip their working hours so as to stand in the never ending queues so as to get money. Due to the problem of change common people get thrown out of the buses, hospitals and other public places. To add to this, the lucky few who managed to get the 2000 rupee notes feel like they have a cheque in their hand. According to me, the ones who made the most during this time were the oil supplying (petrol, diesel etc) companies who told the people to fill petrol worth 500 or 1000 rupees as they too were short of change.

This was actually the best moment for the opposition to strike. All legitimate forms of protest namely which opposition has been claiming for decades namely taking to the streets, shouting slogans from ATM queues, blocking roads, addressing street corner crowds, picketing banks, closing shops and sitting for a fast could have been done. All this would have brought the economy to a halt and the government on its knees. However nothing of this sort has taken place. To add to all this, if I’m not mistaken the P.M and the government can’t even be criticized. This is like the infallibility of the Pope.

The P.M has been making speeches to make known to people that things have been bad in our country and that this demonetization will soon clear off the mess created by black money. This is precisely the paradox i. e. he speaks outside the Parliament to people with wonderful language beyond description, but doesn’t even ‘make an explanatory statement in the Parliament, which is the highest forum of democracy’ says R. Prasannan. 

All hope that the best may come out of this situation.