On Remembering Faces..........

My husband and me are two very different people. He has the memory of en elephant when it comes to remembering faces and I take a longer time to register faces and may be once registered I try to remember them. There have been occasions when I've looked at a person and thought 'he/she looks a lot like 'so and so' only to find out that she/he is indeed the so and so I took him/her to be. If there are two similar looking people I have to see them together to make out who is who. So I was thrilled this morning when I met a person after nearly 15 years and in about 5 minutes after meeting her I actually remembered her as R's mother. Of course by then she had finished greeting me, enquiring after my children, wished me goodbye and gone ahead. Like a tube light her identity flashed in my mind only after she had gone some 50 metres ahead of me and I truly regretted at not having asked her about R. But then that's me.

That reminds me of another such situation. My husbands insists on a morning walk and will take no excuses from my side to give it a miss. during our walks we would often see a woman, in her late thirties perhaps, walk past us. My husband likes to boast on his ability to recognize faces even after a lapse of 50 years and relishes the fact that I cannot place a person whom I may have only slightly known. Take it from me that I am not that bad. Now coming back to this girl, I'd often see her looking at us and turning away.

"Do you recognize her?"-my husband.
"No, who is she" - me.
"SN's oldest daughter."

I then remembered. SN was a colleague of my husband who passed away leaving behind 4 children. His wife had preceded him. The oldest girl was married and the son in law was unemployed. The other three children were minors the youngest being just 6 years old. His only son was perhaps in the 9th or 10th standard. My husband's departmental colleagues took it upon themselves to support the family for the few months before his settlement dues could be cleared. Being children they did not realize that with the father no more and hardly any savings they could not make atrocious demands when others were paying for their upkeep. Finally when the question of the dead man's settlement came an uncle cropped up from nowhere and the unemployed son in law wanted to have a lion's share of the amount saying that he was their guardian. The director of my husband's department deputed him to take an appropriate decision after judging the merit of the situation. My husband can be very adamant when he feels upto it. He brushed aside the claims of the maternal uncle and the son in law and suggested that the provident fund and gratuity amount and other dues may be fixed with the company and the interest be given to the family till the youngest child turned 18. He was accused of foul play in connivance with vested interests in the department but he stuck to his decision. The maternal uncle and the son in law were terribly upset and threatened my husband of dire consequences. The children- all four of them came - home with their brother in law and expressed faith in him and requested my husband to sign the papers in his favor and when he refused the very girl who crossed us on the road had some very unpleasant things to say about my husband. I remembered getting upset and asking my husband to wash his hands off the whole thing. We then lost touch but the department stood by my husband's decision.

In a flash the whole story came to my mind and I wondered if the girl was still upset with us although 18 years had lapsed. We were soon to know the rest of the story.

On a Sunday morning the girl stopped us and asked if we remembered her. Having some time in hand my husband asked her how the family was doing.

"Not a day goes by when we do not think of you uncle" the girl said.

"My sisters finished college and are now married. The youngest one got married last year. My brother is now employed and plans to marry soon. My husband works as a pathologist and earns enough to support us. My son is in college and daughter in high school. Thanks to your intervention we were able to make do with the amount Tata Steel gave us as monthly interest and we had enough money left to get my sisters married. As for my uncles, they abandoned us when they learnt that no money was coming their way. Were it not for you, my uncles would have controlled our finances and left us paupers in no time. My husband was young and inexperienced as were the rest of us. We had said a lot of unpleasant things about you. My uncle had convinced us that you were out to swindle money and that at the end of it when my sister turned 18 we would get nothing. With time we realized what you had done was actually a favor. I was hesitant to talk to you after all that had happened. I could not restrain myself today. Our family is greatly obliged to you and we will remember you always."

We were speechless for sometime not knowing what to say. The girl then invited us to her house and we left after promising her that we would definitely do so in the near future.

A few days later my husband pointed to another man and said the he was the uncle who set the children against him. The uncle stayed in the neighborhood and had yet abandoned these children who had lost both parents within a span of three years. I just could not digest it.

"i think it was good he abandoned them"said my husband. "Had he been in touch he might have swindled the meagre amount these children got as interest."

And he was right. So what if he takes pride in being able to recognize faces!





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Happy Women's Day!!

My husband and me are two very different people. He has the memory of en elephant when it comes to remembering faces and I take a longer time to register faces and may be once registered I try to remember them. There have been occasions when I've looked at a person and thought 'he/she looks a lot like 'so and so' only to find out that she/he is indeed the so and so I took him/her to be. If there are two similar looking people I have to see them together to make out who is who. So I was thrilled this morning when I met a person after nearly 15 years and in about 5 minutes after meeting her I actually remembered her as R's mother. Of course by then she had finished greeting me, enquiring after my children, wished me goodbye and gone ahead. Like a tube light her identity flashed in my mind only after she had gone some 50 metres ahead of me and I truly regretted at not having asked her about R. But then that's me.

(To be continued later since I remember that I have something more interesting to share.)


We had a very good programme about 'Feminism in Oriya Short Stories' in our college and we were entertained to an inspirational as well as humorous lecture by Dr. Satya Priya Mahalik who has received several awards for his contribution to Oriya literature. I wish to share a story recounted by him.

A wise ruler of a small estate in Orissa lost a battle against a more powerful emperor and was taken captive. The emperor had given orders for beheading him the following day when he thought that man was going to die anyway so why not ask him a question that had been bothering him. If he answered the question the he would set him free and if he didn't then beheading him would be justified and no one would blame him. So he sent word for the captive king to be brought and asked him to explain how women could be made happy. The question naturally baffled the captive king who was himself unmarried and had not dealt with a wife. He then asked the emperor if there was a specific reason for asking him the question. The emperor replied that however hard he tried his queen was never satisfied or happy. So he was willing to set his captive free and return his kingdom if he came up with a satisfactory answer.

The captive king asked to be released on parole for a year during which time he would seek out people from different walks of life and try to get an answer to the question. He would return in a year's time and would gladly accept punishment if his solution was unacceptable to the queen.

The king saw no harm in granting the man a parole of one year because finding a means to please his queen was far more important.

The captive king travelled across the entire length and breadth of the country and met all kinds of people but none gave him a satisfactory answer. While some said gold and silver would please the queen others suggested that silks and chiffons of the best variety would do the job. While some felt that travelling to exotic destinations would brighten up her spirits others said a court jester could be hired to lighten her mood. But none of these solutions seemed good enough. Finally an old hag living all by hersl in a dense forest came up with a solution. But there was a condition attached.

"In case my solution appeals to the queen and you are set free, you will have to marry me."

Now our captive king was young and had his whole life before him. The thought of marrying this wrinkled old woman was not very attractive but the lease of life promised by the emperor was. He therefore agreed.

He went an conveyed the solution to the emperor. The emperor was impressed. But he had to confirm if the solution offered was acceptable to the queen.

" Oh my beloved queen" said the emperor. " would you be happy if I allowed you to use your wisdom discretion and decide things for yourself instead of trying to impose my will on you? In other words would independence to exercise your will make you happy?"

" Would you really let me do so?" the queen could not believe what she heard. " If you grant me the freedom to act independently and decide things for myself I'd be overjoyed and will give you no reason to complain."

The emperor was glad to have found a solution to his problem and set his captive free. But there was more trouble in store for the king since he had to marry the old hag as per his agreement with her. Being an upright and honest king he went back to the old hag and offered to marry her. His subjectes were upset by his choice but they had no option but to attend the wdding and pretend to be happy.

On the night of the wedding the king entered his nuptial chamber and found a beautiful young girl sitting on the bed. He was pleasantly surprised and asked her how this miracle had taken place. She replied that she had been granted a boon and could change forms twice a day. She could be an old hag or a young woman for 12 hours and get tranformed into the other form for the remaining 12 hours.

"Oh king!" she asked "tell me whether you want me to be a beautiful woman by night and an old hag during the day or if you would prefer to have it the other way around.'

The king was in a fix. Having a beautiful wife during the day would boost his public image but having to spend the night with an old hag would affect his married life. Then a solution flashed in his mind. Taking cue from the solution he offered the emperor the king said-

"My dear queen and my beloved wife, I leave it to you to use your intelligence wisdom and logic and decide for yourself what form you would wish to take and when. As for me, I am okay with both arrangements ."

The queen then decided to remain beautiful and charming right through the 24 hours of a day and our king was rewarded not only with a lease of life but a beautiful and intelligent wife to lead it with.

If only women of today are left to deal with life's situations in their own way we may not even have the need to celebrate a women's day to clamor for it. Mutual trust is all that is required.

Happy Women's Day to all of you.

A word about Dr. Satya Priya Mahalik. He is the 10th and youngest child in his family the other nine being his older sisters. He says that he has no hesitation in admitting that he helps his wife out in housework and takes pride in fact that he can do everything from cooking to cleaning. We need more husbands like you Dr. Mahalik!!

I began the post to say something else but ended up doing a woman's day post. The earlier part in italics has been deliberately left to be continued later.

On Spiritual Gurus and Swamijis.........

This post has been selected for BlogAdda's Spicy Saturday Picks. Thank you BlogAdda for the recognition.

Of late we have been tortured with non stop information about 3 godmen and their activities. TV channels never seem to have enough of sensational news and the hype they create. Sickening is the word and I truly long for the good old days when DD I was all we had and the remote was unheard of. As it is I watch very little TV with my husband monopolising TV time and deciding to switch channels every 2 minutes. Thank God for the computer and the fact that he doesn't come anywhere near it unless there is something particular that I want him to read/see like my grandchildren's photograph or a particularly good piece forwarded by my friends. But I digress. Let me come to the point.



We all seem to blame these Swamijis for whatever they are accused of doing. Like for instance we are outraged that Kalki Bhagavan charges 5 lakhs to bless a person or that Bhimananda was supplying girls to important people in and around Delhi. It was Premananda some years back and Nithyananda now. It is time we stopped blaming these godmen and tried to do some introspection. Like the corrupt bribe taking government officials these godmen flourish only due to public support. The person who offers to give Kalki Swamy 5 lakhs to be blessed by him certainly did not get that kind of money by fair means. He seeks the blessing of the swamy not for spiritual upliftment but for success in all his money grabbing endeavors. Correct me if I am wrong.


I wonder why most of these godmen get involved in sex scanadals? Take for instance Swami Nithyananda. Whether the video that was telecast happened to be authentic or morphed is not my question. However, this could not have been done without the support of insiders and it was probably done with the sole intention of extracting money from him. When the man did not yield, the video was put up for public viewing. If the intention was good there were umpteen other ways of bringing him to book other than whipping up public sentiments and increasing the viewership of the news channels. What was the government doing all this while when foreign money was being pumped into the Ashram? That money corrupts is common knowledge. But what are the measures taken to ensure proper channelizing of funds that are being thus collected? What is the purpose served by burning the Ashram and destroying property?



A few years back I was on my way to Chennai. The news of the head of the Kanchi mutt being arrested on murder charges was doing the rounds and I expressed my anguish at the turn of events to a co passenger. He spoke of another Ashram, no less popular, as being used for every conceivable illegal activity and being controlled by the so called devotees who pump in money and therefore have a say in how it should be run. According to him, the very purpose of running an ashram for spiritual upliftment of the masses had taken a beating.



It took several years of penance and meditation for our sages to come up with what we now sum up as Hindu philosophy. They led a restricted life and shunned wordly pleasures. There can be no short cuts to success. Yet we see ashrams coming up over night and each one seems more opulent than the other. Westerners are influenced enough to participate in programmes conducted by them. But not all of those insiders who witness the accumalation of easy money are saints. Some have devious minds and want their pound of flesh so to say. I do not emphasize or overrule the possibility of these godmen - I don't mean anyone in particular - being tempted to lead double lives. They are after all human. My only suggestion is for them to restrict the flow of money and to be as transparent as possible in their dealings. Excessive flow of money causes trouble in ways unforseeable. 'Hasty climbers are soon to fall' claims a popular adage. I feel inclined to believe it when I see the rise and fall of such self proclaimed gurus.



Finally, I do not understand why a person needs to look for god in their fellow human beings and seek enlightenment through them. We all have our own inner voice directing us towards appropriate behavior and should that not suffice? In our own way we too are responsible for propping up these swamijis. Suranga speaks of the joy of giving in her latest post. I agree with every word that she says. One can give food for the hungry and clothes for the needy in a quiet, unassuming way and feel uplifted. One can spend a quiet afternoon in an old age home or orphanage and feel enlightened. Were it not for public support it would never be possible for self styled gurus and swamijis to flourish. It is time we seriously thought of channelizing our time, money and energy for the upliftment of society. Upliftment of the soul will automatically follow.


One last word - this post is not aimed at anyone in particular. Just my anguish over the kind of message we give the world that looks upto India for spiritual guidance and leadership. I do not want my country to be made a laughing stock by sensationalizing such negativities instead of dealing with them in a firm and objective manner. That's all.