SUBHASHITHUM from manusmriti

yatra näryastu püjyante ramante tatra devatäù
yatretästu na püjyante sarvästaträphaläù kriyäù

Where women are respected, the Gods rejoice there.
Where they (women) aren't respected, there all actions are fruitless.
From Manusmriti

yatra - where
naaryaH - women
poojyante - are respected
ramante - rejoice
tatra - there
devataaH - gods
yatra - where
etaaH - they (women)
na - not
poojyante - respected
sarvaaH - all
tatra - there
aphalaaH - fruitlesskriyaaH - actions

Mini was not one of the beautiful girls where beauty is measured like a commodity. She did not have angular features, a sharp nose, chiseled eyes or a set of pearl teeth. She was wheat complexioned to put it mildly with an expressive nose - broad and rather earthly. To match it she had a broad face having strength and form. The best feature were her eyes gleaning with understanding, listening eyes which immediately made anyone talking to her relaxed and loosen his defenses.

But all these charms were lost on Shailender, her husband who married her when she was just eighteen and out of her college. Mini, the eldest of two daughters of the Sharmas, devout Brahmins who had brought her up with all the right values and given her off in marriage to the eligible groom Shailender.

Shailender looked a picture perfect gentleman when he came to see Mini in the formal girl viewing ceremony. Everybody congratulated Mini for obtaining such a handsome match. Shailender talked softly, courtesly and had the best of manners. Mini felt proud as well as humble to be so home grown in front of her sophisticated husband.

Soon Shailender took her to the Middle East where he held a job fetching good money. Mini was sent off by all her relation and friends with great warmth and she went with great excitement as though going to her dream castle. As their married life advanced and the days passed to months, Mini started getting a strange feeling of being caged. Mini was free spirited, quick to laugh and cry as the situation demanded. She had the ability to get along even with strangers as long lost friends She generally liked people and liked to share with them their good and bad. Shailender, on the other hand was a stand off. He enjoyed putting on airs and looking at people condensingly. He admonished Mini for just going and speaking off her mind. He told her that it was not the done thing in civilized places. Mini with her humility accepted her husband’s word and started curbing herself. Very soon she was losing her bouncy self and started looking pinched and drawn.

However things started taking a turn when a small life started pulsating within her. She warmed to the idea of a child as caring and nurturing came naturally to her. When she felt almost sure about it she hesitatingly revealed to Shailender about the baby within her. She thought this would make him warm, humane and jump with joy. However he heard it matter of fact and told `Let us get you checked’. Mini took his reaction stoically thinking every man is made his way - things will change when the little one arrives

In couple of months when she started feeling uneasy Shailender booked an appointment with the local gynecologist and took her on the appointed day with great aplomb. As soon as her pregnancy was confirmed the first thing he asked the doctor was, can’t we get an ultrasound test done and find the gender of the fetus. The doctor refused saying that law did not permit it. This upset him to no end He became restless and agitated. She heard him speak in hushed tones to his people in India behind closed doors. She felt scared to even approach him. She wondered what is making him so upset. Even in good times communication between them was minimum. The long hours he spent in the office left hardly anytime for intimacy. After few days when she was resting after finishing the house hold work, Shailendar’s phone came. He told her `In a few hours you have to catch a plane to India, my parents have called you ‘. She asked `Is anybody sick?’ `No ‘ he said curtly `My parents want to see you.’

An obedient bahu that Mini was, she packed her suitcase carefully being her first long stay in in-law’s house She was in fact happy and excited to get back home.

The plane landed at Delhi. Her brother in-law had come from Meerut to take her home. Her in-law’s received her at home without much fanfare. The next day itself she was taken to a gynecologist She felt there was a hushed urgency in all their actions. The lady doctor who was looking of suspicious credentials ordered a scan. Her brother in law returned from the counter with the results having a down cast look. What is that she wondered? Is anything wrong with her? She was taken home. Then her in-laws revealed to her with an affected concern. `Beti the report says the fetus is a girl child. We feel it will be best to get it aborted. The doctor has fixed the abortion for tomorrow’. So it was an order, she thought without asking her consent at all in a matter so close to her. She felt the whole world crumbling and falling down. Are they asking her to murder her yet to be born infant’ It is like killing a child and a would be mother. If someone had this way killed her mother and Shailender’s mother would they have been born? How can they be so cruel, inhuman and do such a heinous act? She felt that she was both the mother and father to the child in her and felt a ferocious will to protect her daughter, give her a chance to be born, live and grow. Quietly she packed her bags and left stealthily at night to her parents place. Her parents were supportive. Shailender fumed and fretted when he came to know his docile wife had crossed path to protect the baby. However he could not do anything to bring her back as he well knew that if the real reason was he may have to face a scandal .

As Mini gave birth to a beautiful bonny baby girl, there Shailender’s mother succumbed to a long-standing asthma and left the world. With the passing of his mother Shailender and the family, parched of female ministrations felt heavy pangs of grief and a life bereft of any mirth and flavor.

Pinky, Mini’s baby was three month old. True to her name she was pink and healthy full of life. Mini was tending her in the courtyard when she felt a long shadow crossing the baby. She looked up to find Shailender standing with a sheepish grin. Gone was the condensing all knowing look. There was a more humane Shailender with love and affection oozing out of his eyes looking adoringly at his pinky. He had realized the world; as well his life cannot have any meaning without women.

SUBASHITHUM - PANCHATANTRA 1

mantre tIrthe dvije deve daivadnye bheSaje gurau.
yaadRRishI bhaavanaa yasya
siddhirbhavati tädåçé





In mantras, in holy places, in twice born, in divine sprits, in future tellers, in medicine, in the teacher, who so ever, however is the attitude thus is the result.


from the panchatantra -

mantre - in mantras
tirthe - in holy places
dvije - in the twice born
deve - in divine spirits
daivadnye - in future tellers
bheSaje - in medicine
gurau - in the teacher
yasya - whosoever's
yaadRRishI bhaavanaa - however the attitude
siddhirbhavati taadRRishI - thus is the result

Ratnapuri was a non-descript village along the borders of Orissa and Bihar. Most of the three score inhabitants of the village made their living tilling the land and doing various crafts required for living. There was a potter `chandu’ who made very functional pots and mud vessels for the village folk. Then there was a carpenter `Lakshman Singh’ who deftly made all the wooden tools right from the plough to till the land, benches, chairs to house frames and roofs - all that can be moulded from the sal and deodar wood surrounding the village. And there was a priest to solemnize marriages and other auspicious as well in auspicious occasions of life like birth and death. There was a blacksmith, a cobbler and chamaras for cleaning It was in such a self-sufficient village that Sukhdev was plying his trade of fortune telling.

Everyday morning, by eight `0’ clock he spread his wares below the most handsome Peepal tree in the village choupal. He very carefully carried the cage holding his precious assistants chinky and minku, the two parrots who had been his co- partners in fortune telling for the last one decade. He was the 3rd generation in his family plying this trade. His father and grandfather had spent their entire life under the very same Peepul tree and had performed their job like a religion. Sukhdev as a toddler had sat there and watched his grand father telling fortune to the eager customers. The cases were as diverse as the people. The priorities changed as per the person seeking fortune. The young men used to come furtively to find when they would find the lass of their choice. The bashful young women would in turn seek the time of the arrival of their suitors. The middle aged always worried about the crops and the money they would get from the trades they ply. As he watched his father and grandfather working, his insights too into fortune telling increased. When his turn came he had already perfected the art. The parrots caught from the wild were carefully domesticated and trained with care and diligence. After a while they almost used to behave like humans understanding every gesture and every tone of command. They deftly used to move among the fortune cards spread in front of them and pick the right one for each seeker. It was an inexplicable mix of factors which played in unison helping the bird to pick the right card. Getting the correct cue from the birds was more an act of minds matching minds The supreme mind seemed to feed into the mind of the man and the bird to come up with the correct answer. It was many times a wonder to Sukhdev himself how the prediction foretold by him became true in toto.

He always started his day burning incense and calling out to his gods to give him the strength to tell fortune correctly and not to disappoint the ones who come to him with great faith and hope. The gods indeed used to work in unison with his intention. However as days passed his village as well as other villages around were changing ever so perceptibly. The village young men were one by one going to the towns to seek their fortunes, leaving only the old and disabled in the village. Sukhdev failed to understand this .His roots were so deep in the village that he could never even dream of leaving the soil were he was born and his fore fathers lived. But his customers were falling steadily. At last it came to the pitiable state that days on end he would be staring vacantly at chinky and minky and they back at him. It was getting a pain to reach back home everyday and meet his dear wife Shalanki and little son Pappu with an empty hand and down cast face. Slowly the hunger started gnawing in to their vitals. They had eaten virtually into all their resources. The good rug of dadaji, the silver lotta and the old clock, his mothers gold ear drops - everything had reached the pawn shop to feed their hunger Now the house was looking forlorn stripped of all its ornamentation, only the skeletal frames of Shalanki and Pappu ever waiting in the door step for his return.

It was a custom of the fortune tellers will never see their own fortune. It was strictly service to the ones who would come seeking to be told. In desperation Shalanki, his soft spoken wife one day wailed `You have shown light and new hope to so many who had come to you, why don’t you find your own fortune.’ This idea at first sounded appaling to Sukhdev. How can he ever see his own fortune, it had never been done by his fore fathers. After much pondering , spending a sleepless night trying to decide the matter, finally next day in the morning he took his one and half year old Pappu on his shoulder to the chauppal under the Peepal tree for the first time. He prayed to the gods seeking their pardon for seeking his own fortune, spread the cards ever so carefully in front of the cage and asked his Pappu to lead chinku and minku out of the cage. `Yes it was his son doing it not him’. Pappu, a chip of the old block led the birds as though he knew the job all along The birds tip toed and deftly picked two cards and kept them in front. Sukhdev opened the cards with his heart fluttering. As soon as he opened them, his face broke into a smile He could see the rising sun in one card and other depicted a group of birds flying back. He very well knew what they meant. They meant good times are round the corner. This prediction filled his mind and body with new enthusiasm. He went back home with a triumpant look as though things had already looked up as he knew within his heart that his predictions would not go wrong. His wife Shalanki was bewildered at his enthusiasm. Nothing at all seem to change for quite some time - The same old search for pennies to fill their stomachs.

However with the arrival of the next new moon the things started changing. One day, mid afternoon from nowhere a jeep and four-truck loads of people arrived to the empty survey site close to the village. Men and families got down in droves, enthusiastically pitched their tents and started the living process. The talk was that the place was having some rich black metal. What did they called it? - `yes bauxite’. With the arrival of men Suhkdev’s business picked up in no time. Soon he started going home with his pouches cling clanging with coins. All the valuables from the pawn shop returned back home. Hi wife now wore a beaming smile and a rounded face and soon by another year Papua had a brother Chintu at home. Sukhdev ever confident and forthright was plying his trade happily. His fortitude was now paying dividends.