***********************************************************************************************************
Today is Sri Krishna Janmashtami (Vaishnava). I am told it is the 5240th Birthday of Lord Krishna (wow!).
Thinking of Krishna one thinks of his miracles...from the parting of the river Yamuna, to his lifting of the hillock Govardhangiri on his li'l finger, to his dancing on the hood of the venomous serpent Kaliya, to his exhibition of his Universal Form to his mom and later to his B-i-L...
With awe.
I guess no religion worth its name is devoid of miracles. Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine. And many more till his resurrection, and several miracles after his crucifixion. Indeed the Roman Catholic Church demands at least three miracles, two during lifetime and one after death, if a saintly person is found fit to be duly beatified before canonization.
Even the agnostic Buddha is credited (much against his will) with many miracles.
And Sai and other Babas thrive on the miracles they are credited with.
Every student of science rebuffs miracles but winks at them saying that the very life on earth is a miracle.
Einstein is supposed to have said something like:
"There is no miracle...of course everything is a miracle"
Vedanta says that our very existence is the greatest miracle...next to our awareness of it and our love for it (even after death).
In my own long life I have never seen miracles in the sense of things impossible. But I have seen many that were highly improbable and classed as strange coincidences.
************************************************************************************************************
Thinking of Krishna one thinks of his miracles...from the parting of the river Yamuna, to his lifting of the hillock Govardhangiri on his li'l finger, to his dancing on the hood of the venomous serpent Kaliya, to his exhibition of his Universal Form to his mom and later to his B-i-L...
With awe.
I guess no religion worth its name is devoid of miracles. Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine. And many more till his resurrection, and several miracles after his crucifixion. Indeed the Roman Catholic Church demands at least three miracles, two during lifetime and one after death, if a saintly person is found fit to be duly beatified before canonization.
Even the agnostic Buddha is credited (much against his will) with many miracles.
And Sai and other Babas thrive on the miracles they are credited with.
Every student of science rebuffs miracles but winks at them saying that the very life on earth is a miracle.
Einstein is supposed to have said something like:
"There is no miracle...of course everything is a miracle"
Vedanta says that our very existence is the greatest miracle...next to our awareness of it and our love for it (even after death).
In my own long life I have never seen miracles in the sense of things impossible. But I have seen many that were highly improbable and classed as strange coincidences.
In 1954, while I was a kid of 11 at Muthukur, I had a touch of fever. And I was taken to our local doctor Easwara Reddy who was a friend of my HM Father. And Reddy Garu was happy with my fever...for, just that morning there arrived in his clinic the brand new antibiotic strips of Sulphadiazine. And found in me a ready guinea pig. And handed my Father a huge number of tablets, to be pushed into me, 3 in the morning, 3 at noon, and 3 in the evening.
Which, Father did.
By 9 PM that night my fever came down but I was groaning with excruciating pain in my groins and painful passage of tiny droplets of urine every 5 minutes. I was crying hoarse and thought I was going to die. And, lo and behold, who arrives utterly announced, by the Nellore-Muthukur last bus, but my MBBS Uncle (doing his MD then) carrying his trademark medicine bag!
And he looked at me and the tablets and said that Reddy Garu had forgotten to read the small print in the 'literature' which said that any patient on Sulphadiazine had to be told to drink jugs of water to avoid crystallization of sulpha in the bladder. And opened his Santa Claus Bag and fished out a bottle of Alkasol that would dissolve the damned alpha. And within minutes of the first dose going in, I slept like a log.
Then again, on the Vijaya Dashami day of 1971, I found myself stranded on the platform of the Howrah Station in Cal waiting to board the Howrah-Madras Mail to attend a promised marriage of one of my friends. The journey had legs on rail, road and river. And I found I had just enough money in my pocket (no wallets then) for the fares to and fro and stay. No extras even for tea and biscuits and fags for all of 5 days and nights that the trip incurred.
And was wishing how nice it would have been if I but had another Rs 100 note.
And the train arrived on the platform and I was about to board, cursing my fate. And suddenly there was a pat on my shoulder and I turned round to find my friend NP unannounced on the platform of the hoary station.
And, just as the train was about to coo, NP pushed a Rs 100 note into my pocket and left as suddenly as he appeared.
To this day I made it a point not to return his 100 Rupees to NP since I felt that it belonged to Lord Krishna.
Not that I returned it to Lord Krishna though ;)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
This morning I lay down on my bed thinking of miracles and fell sleep. And I had this real dream...not a fake one:
I was traveling in my old Maruti car with my entire family...not leaving Rukmini behind.
As we reached Punjagutta, I found that the whole of Hyderabad turned into a Sahara Desert.
And as I was driving, I found by the wayside a cot on which an old man was selling ladies' money purses that looked cute. And I got down and bought a purse for Ishani. As I handed it to her, the old man got up and attached a sticker to my windscreen that had the name of his outlet as an ad.
When I asked him how much I should pay, he smiled and said that the purse costing Rs 20 was his gift to li'l Ishani but he would be happy if I paid his sticker price which he quoted at Rs 2.
I always carry a huge number of coins of Rs 1, 2 and 5 in my pant pocket...Ishani loves to play with them. As I was trying to take a coin or two out, I found that all my coins turned into quarters, dimes and cents with George Washington frowning from them.
I took out a quarter from my handful and gave it to the old man who grinned and blessed all of us.
As we were driving ahead, Ishani started complaining of thirst and we found that we forgot to carry water with us.
And suddenly I found the sky overcast and white clouds flying by us at arm's height. And I stopped my car and opened the window and stretched my hand to pick a large bit of cloud. With the intention of squeezing it and getting a few drops of water. But found that it turned into a tiny ball of dry cotton in my fist.
And Ishani started crying.
And I drove on and found by the wayside, all of a sudden, a Bar selling drinks. I rushed into it and asked the bartender to give me a bottle of water. And he shook his head saying there is no water in his outlet.
So I bought instead, a bottle of Champagne.
As I was carrying it back to the car, lo and behold, it turned into a bottle of Kinley's Mineral Water!
************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment