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About 150 years ago, the Autocrat of the Boston Boarding House Breakfast Table said:

"I will say, by the way, that it is a rule that I have always followed, to tell my worst thoughts to my minister (clergyman), and my best thoughts to the young people I talk with."

A sound policy from a born-talker.

I had been rather instinctively following precisely the same policy ever since I happened to be surrounded by bright young students for 40 years at KGP.

And, now young Bloggees.

I don't visit temples, churches or mosques often. But I keep lodging my complaints about the indignities and inequities of the human condition to my Inner Ishwar. That Chap is an infinite thermodynamic sink and sponge that absorbs every insult but doles out small mercies.

It is certainly more fetching to the soul to raise an understanding smile than a prize-winning cabbage. And unlike the cabbages that rot, those smiles never fade from memory.

In 1977 when I met Moorthy Doctor in a remote small town in Tamilnadu to propose my sister in marriage to him, he was a young MBBS of 28 launching his career as a GP from a small cubicle in its Bazaar Road.

30 years later, he was elected as President of the Indian Medical Association of Tamilnadu. A rare feat indeed.

I have been following the secret of his success. It is just what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a century and half ago. Moorthy Doctor is a very religious man, but once he sits in his chamber, he oozes charm. A patient entering his chamber is at once met by a winning smile: that cures 25% of the ills. Once he employs his healing touch that takes the pulse, another 25% is cured. A Rs 2/- shot and a couple of tablets cure the rest. A thorough understanding of Medicine as well as Human Nature. A vanishing breed of GPs.

And when he performed his daughter's wedding, the whole town of all religions, castes, creeds and sexes were there loaded with gifts.

A Positive Outlook.

Let me substantiate.

In the one-page Foreword he generously wrote for my latest booklet, this is the score of his 'good' words:

1. 'Nice': 4 times

2. 'Great': 3 times

3. 'Love': 3 times

4. 'Enjoy': 2 times

5. 'Appreciate': 2 times

6. 'Real': 2 times

7. 'Work': 2 times

8. 'Fruit': 2 times

And many positive words once each and no negative word at all.

And that was a Foreword written after going through the entire soft copy of the booklet word by word for, say, 3 hours at least.

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Today marks the start of the 6-month-long festive season in AP.

It is the day of 'Vara Laxmi Puja'. This is essentially a Puja of womenfolks asking for long life, health and wealth of their husbands and kids. It is celebrated by women of all castes.

For Pujas of this sort, one usually invites the Brahmin Pundit to act as the Master of Ceremonies, chanting the Sanskrit mantras and instructing how to proceed: now deep, now dhoop, now bananas, now flowers, now coconut; and finally: now the Rs 116/- fees.

Our household has two resident Brahmin Pundits. My son is well-versed, sort of, in Sanskrit that he had till Class VIII. But he can read only Devnagari script but not the Telugu script in which all mantra-books are available in AP.

So, the other Brahmin, myself, is invited to perform a triple role: 1. Nominal Head of the Household (the Real Power-Center is Ishani, our 8-month-old resident Laxmi), 2. Husband of my wife who is one of the two Pujarinis; and 3. Amateur Pundit.

My son had the impossible task of holding his irrepressible daughter in his lap for an hour; she was the most enthusiastic Pujarini keen to participate in all the rituals.

At the end of the successful Puja, my daughter-in-law ceremonially paid me my Fees of Rs. 116/- which I promptly put in the kiddy-bank of her daughter.

Bottom Line:

Income: Rs 116/-

Outgo: Rs 116/-

Balance: A house aglow with happiness.

Long Live Idol Worship!!!


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