Catch them young!

Catch them young!

There is a story of a Sufi saint who embraced Sufism at a very early age. When he was a child, his mother wanted some fuel to light the chulha to cook food and requested her 5 year old to get some firewood. The lad set out in the woods nearby and brought a large log of wood all the way dragging to his house. “Ammi, here is the wood’ When his mother saw it, she said, ‘My child, this is too big for the chulha’

‘I know Ammi but why bother to bring several small twigs and splinters, which would take more of your time. So I thought better to bring a big one at one go, so that you have enough firewood for the day’.

The mother laughed amusingly. ‘On the contrary, my child, besides the fact that it will take too long to burn, there will be too much smoke everywhere. Go and fetch smaller twigs so that they burn well, give enough fire for cooking and there is not much smoke’

 The mother was narrating the practicalities of life but left a thought trail in the child’s mind. As he went to fetch firewood he thought to himself, ‘Just like the twigs, I am also small now and so could easily be possible to draw closer to God and to more fully embrace the Divine Presence. Once I grow big then I will be like the fire log, full of smoke. Like the smoke I will be filled with negativities. Then I will have to first get rid of the smoke through repentance from sin, the purging of contemptible qualities and evil traits of character, and its only then that I will be able to ignite the fire within - connect with my true inner nature and the Lord’ No sooner did this realization dawn on the little child, he left the stack of wood at the doorstep of his house and left in search of God only to later emerge as a Sufi saint.

How true it is! Whatever we do in the childhood becomes the bedrock of our later life. I remember once while chatting with my sister, she happened to say that making rotis is so easy while it took very long to learn bhakris. She  reflected that as children we always used to vie for making chapatis and mom used to leave some flour for both of us .The rotis then used to end up in varied maps of India but what we learnt then , we never forgot in our later lives. We had no such opportunity with bhakris and so they continue to pose a challenge even today. Or for that matter , my mother in law who is known for wonderfully soft, delicate  & thin bhakris had told me how at the tender age of twelve, she had to cook for her father as her mother had died very early and there was no one else to cook in the house. Her father ungrudgingly used to eat whichever way the bhakri was made. The lessons learnt in those tender years helped her to graduate into the making the most lovely bhakris that I have ever eaten.

Then there was Saru – never attended college or lectures. At about two months before exams, she used to ask us the portion and then Saru was a regular fixture at the library. She used to literally start at page 1 and we all used to wonder how she would be managing all the subjects, in such a short time only to find her name topping the result sheet displayed on the notice board – a la the 3 Idiots fame Rancchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad ‘Rancho’.

As children, we were never allowed to spend summer or winter vacations without some definite activity. We could pursue anything – embroidery, crochet, reading books,  just anything in the afternoon (no going out in the sun). Only then were we allowed to go for playing in the evening.  We used to so much love to play carom or playing cards instead. All that was allowed only after we had invested some time in reading or such other activity. It helped us to mould ourselves into a value system that made me fearless towards any dogmas and as we grew up we developed a tendency to free thinking unfettered by any superstitious allegiance to any isms, political or religious. I could improve upon my handwriting and started writing in running script only due to these indulgences in vacation. We never realized the value then but now hold us in good steed.  

Then there was a demon called Mathematics in our tiny lives and later the same demon revisited our house when my children were growing up. The seers say that mother is ‘Pratham Guru’  but to tackle this demon I was fortunate to have two: Aai and Somankaka. The invincible riders in geometry, the cos, sin & tan of trigonometry and yes who can forget the derivatives & integration of the calculus….all these fangs of the multi-hooded cobra called Mathematics were demolished by these two gurus who worked so selflessly to enable me to overcome the numeric horror so much so that by the time I reached college I had in fact learnt to take over these challenges to a stage that more difficult the sum the greater the kick in solving it.. Then years rolled by and one day I saw the same fear in my daughter’s eyes. She was wailing that she could not manage Maths. It was then that I told her to approach Maths on a horse back like Jhansi ki Rani rather than a fearful mouse. ‘It is only then that you will be able to overcome the fear?’ I told her. (Self experience, you see) ‘But how to ride, Ma’ There was an astounded look in her eyes.  ‘You will see’ I had told her then and almost everyday we solved sums for two hours. She was in 6^th standard then and the same girl who wept in class as she could not answer the Maths teacher’s question then, bagged 98/100 in her Board exams.

As they say – it’s all in the mind. Powerful that it is, it can be the worst enemy as well as the best friend. Choice is yours.

Anagha Hunnurkar

September 24, 2011