Yes, They Sustain the rest of Us!, by Parag Singla
In ancient times, there was a small village in India named Devapuri. The people of the village were very devout. Every evening, each family in the village would perform the yagna. Only then they would have their dinner and perform other house-hold activities.Saramishtha and Gopaldas was one such couple in the village. Their life was flowing smoothly like the water of Ganges in the planes.
One day, Gopaldas had gone to the fields for his daily work and Saramishtha was at home. In those days, it was a usual practice to have the toilets and restrooms in the area outside the house. This was done to keep the house hygienically clean. Saramishtha’s house was no exception. Saramishtha was lazily sitting in the verandah of the house chewing beattle leaves. Some grains were being dried in the sunlight right at the gate of the house blocking the passage way. Suddenly, she felt the urge to vomit the stuff being chewed. But there was no way to go out of the house without stepping over the wet grains. So, she looked for a place inside to spit but in vain.
In that fateful moment, her eyes went over the sacred hawan kunda where yagna was performed. Finding no other place and thinking that she would be able to clean it before her husband was back in the evening, she spit the chewed beatle levaes into the kunda. The day passed along. Gopaldas came back from work. It was only when Gopaldas was getting ready for daily puja did Saramishtha realize that she had forgotten to clean the hawan kunda. But it was too late. Afraid as she was of dire consequences, she had no option but to follow her husband to the kunda.
But as they looked into the kunda, their eyes remained wide open with utter surprise. There was a gold coin lying right at the spot were Saramishtha had spit. Realizing that there is no point in hiding the truth, she explained to her husband what had happened in the morning and confessed her mistake.
Greed is man’s one of biggest enemies. Pure at heart though this couple was, greed had cast its ugly shadow and they lost their sense of righteousness. It was thought of repeating the experiment the next day to see if another gold coin could be obtained. Everything was staged as the in previous day and Saramishtha spit into the kunda as planned. As expected, the spit turned into a gold coin again. The story of a hen which laid a golden egg every day had come true for them and they started utilizing it to the fullest. The clouds of the greed became darker and soon engulfed the rest of the village. The news of the spit turning into a gold coin spread like a wild fire. The most sacred place in each home became the dustbin which would produce a gold coin every day. Little did the villagers know that they were stepping on a gold mine underneath which lay a big volcano.
Everyone can see clearly when it is bright light. But fortunate are the ones who can see the right path even when the clouds of evil are cast all over the place. Devyani and Neelkantha was one such couple in the village. Despite constant pressure from other villagers, they maintained the purity of their of hawan kunda. Even in their dreams, they would not think of destroying its sanctity. But as the human nature is, to get approval of others in the wrongs that they do, the pressure from the villagers kept on increasing for them to follow the same that everyone else was doing. It became almost impossible for Devyani and Neelkantha to maintain their sanctity and still live in the village. One night they decided to leave the village for ever. With heavy heart, they collected all the essentials and started moving towards the north, climbing up the hill next to the village. So much was the pain of leaving their ancestral village that they did not have the courage to turn back and have a second look back. They kept on moving for hours until it was wee hours. They had come miles away from the village up the hill. Tired as they were, they decided to sit down. As they gathered the courage and decided to look back, to their utter surprise the whole village was on fire. There was nothing but the flames touching the sky, erupting from the volcano on which the gold mine lay!
Ever wondered what was it that prevented the volcano beneath the gold mine from exploding for such long? Aren’t we sitting on such a gold mine? And who are the few (yes, there are only a few) fortunate ones? Look around and there may be one sitting next to you!
Parag Singla is a PhD student at the Computer Science Department at University of Washington. You can reach him at parag@cs.washington.edu
Email This Post
Loading ...