Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Rules of Teaching - 2

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I was saying the other day that husbands should never try to teach their wives, and vice versa.

This golden rule is valid in all spheres of life, in particular, driving.

Wives and husbands both should know how to drive their family car. But when the husband is around, the wife should not take the wheel but confine herself to backseat-driving thereby driving her husband nuts.

The importance of a sound knowledge of driving for the wife (as against the mere acquisition of a fake Hyderabadi driving license) is because it helps in emergencies.

This can be illustrated, as usual, by a reference to our timeless epics.

Kaikeyi accompanied her husband, Dasaratha, in his battle against the demon, Sambarasura (what a name!). And, during the battle, Sambarasura proved the better of the two...Dasaratha was a born loser, it looks: 


 



One of Sambarasura's arrows pierced the armor of Dasaratha in his coronary region and the right wheel of his chariot broke as well. Kaikeyi, who knew not only how to drive but also the  had the expertise of garage mechanics, took over and repaired the broken wheel at once (it appears chariots didn't come with a stepney wheel those days). And she drove the chariot away from the battle field to the nearest BNR Hospital who brought her hubby back to life.

...It is a different matter that Dasaratha made the cardinal mistake of granting her blank check (carte blanche) boons as a token of his gratitude...he should have simply given her a gift like a Jamdani sari and be done with it. With the result that he lost his son as well as life later on. There is a lesson here to all husbands who drive with their wives by them...

Again, Krishna took his wife Satyabhama along when he went to fight Narakausra, for reasons not yet clear (I mean the reasons for the battle...not for taking his wife along which was as normal a thing those days as driving to a picnic in Kolaghat). 

And one of Narakasura's arrows pierced Krishna's chest and he swooned (or pretended to). And his wife, Satyabhama (he had several already), took over the driver's seat and fought the demon and killed him. She knew not only driving, like Kaikeyi, but also warfare, unlike Kaikeyi it seems.

Krishna, again, was too much gratified and started praising Satyabhama sky-high, a thing to avoid always, in particular after your wife saves your life for selfish reasons. This boosted her ego so much that she sent her husband to Indra Loka asking him to steal the Parijata flower he had promised her. Like Hanumanjee of an earlier generation, Krishna brought a whole tree down to the earth...you can see the offshoots of that Parijata tree in the campus of IIT KGP near the Tech Market.

A corollary of Krishna's (or rather Satyabhama's) killing of Naraka was that he had to release a whale of 16,000 girls who had been imprisoned by Naraka for no fault of theirs. And they all wailed to Krishna what to do after he let them out of their secure prison life, for, no one would marry a girl who had been lounging in the prison of a demon that long (remember Sita!). Krishna then married all of them. Apparently, Satyabhama did not lodge even a token protest...she knew Krishna's harmless predilections, it seems.  

As I was saying, all this proves that wives should know driving.

Why they shouldn't, however, try to learn driving from their hubbies is for tomorrow...the power has conked off here and I have to sign off for now...


...Posted by Ishani

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