Fear not what is not real, never was and never will be.
Crash at
Almost giving myself a headache by trying to think if I was having a dream because kehtey hain subah ka sapna sach ho jata hai. …. Hmmm nope can’t remember . . . yup perfect song for
What’s on right after that dreadful Aahat advert? –
Yash Chopra – there are two things which are certain about you on judgement day.
I am on bak-bak roll and you are reading this and if you got this far into it, I am sure it’s because you agree. Let’s get together and write to Yash Chopra and ask him to make a movie about a realistic guy and a girl who wears orange saris. See how he fares with that!
(--this is a very fragmented read - I am not sure if I will be rewriting it yet)
I was reading Osho's Books I Have Loved list when I came across his mention of Nikolas Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek. Zorba the Greek is a familiar phrase since it was successfully adapted into a movie as well as a musical. I have only heard the name but have never explored it - the book or the movie. So I did what anyone with a question would do it - wiki it!
The wiki entry includes a dialog, which made me think of my grandfather. Here it is:
We must both have been hungry because we constantly led the conversation round to food.
"What is your favorite dish, grandad?"
"All of them, my son. It's a great sin to say this is good and that is bad."
"Why? Can't we make a choice?"
"No, of course we can't."
"Why not?"
"Because there are people who are hungry." I was silent, ashamed. My heart had never been able to reach that height of nobility and compassion.
My grandfather was very particular about his eating habits quite akin to people of his generation. He followed a rigid time schedule; he only ate a defined amount; he never wasted food. I grew up around my grandparents and adopted their simple food habits.
From what I have noticed, food had very spiritual connotations for our ancestors. A meal on your table was considered a blessing from the almighty. An example is the Christian tradition of offering Grace to God before partaking their food. Similarly, in Hindu religion, everything you eat is a blessing of Goddess Annapurna, an extension of the Almighty. The Vedas divide food into three categories: Sattavic, Rajasic and Tamasic foods. Ayurveda asserts that what you intake has huge impact on not just your health but also your mental and emotional demeanor.
An animated mini-film used to be shown on Doordarshan; the story goes like this - Once Sri Krishna visits the exiled Pandavas and Draupadi in the jungle. However, the Pandavas have nothing to offer their guest except one grain of wheat. Sri Krishna partakes that one-grain and says that it was plenty to relinquish his hunger. I think the intention of that mini-film was to assert the value of food to people who had access to television in their house. (In early 80s India, having television was considered a luxury.) It was meant to spread the word about not wasting food!
A relative experience I had was during college via a Muslim friend. He had gone through a very traumatic experience of loosing his fiancée to an accident and had found solace in the Quran. That year he decided to do the Ramadan fasting. I asked him what the reason for fasting was - he said that per the Quran, God wants us to understand how the poor feel going to bed hungry. I said - but you don't go to bed hungry! You break your fast with dates and eat heartily. I never got any response; I had offended him – and honestly that was not the intention. However, I wondered about the concept; it is truly one of the noblest ones in this context. To experience the pangs of hunger first hand … Without getting into statistics of it all, we are well aware that malnutrition and hunger (first and foremost byproducts of poverty) have been one of the saddest afflictions to human culture. Majority of the human population goes hungry everyday. I decided to do a 72 hour water fast. I assure you, going to bed hungry is one of the most difficult things to do. To think that there are so many children out there who fall asleep on empty stomach! Even now I have a prayer come out when I am served with food that I enjoy. Thank you God and please bless someone else along with me who has been denied.
This experiment made me value food and even if I want to complain, I have mentally trained myself to hold back. I also learned that my starving myself would be an insult to God's blessing.