God's Own Perfection!

God stepped back a bit and looked dispassionately at what he had just created. It had taken a week or so for him to create the universe. However the bulk of the time was consumed by one tiny speck, the speck which later came to be known as Earth. Supposedly so because the speck was his favourite place in the endless universe. To be inhabited by his favourite creations and creatures. He permitted himself a tiny smile as he looked at the mighty mountains, endless seas, vast lands. His smile widened as he looked deeper into the lifeforms created to help sustain the creation closest to his heart. The trees, plants, animals that infested the land, sea and mountains. A sense of satisfaction overcame him.

God being a selfless dude and who strongly belived in consumer feedback, he thought he must call the various inhabitants of earth and enquire if all is well and have all their needs been sufficiently addressed. He called up Mother Nature to speak on their behalf with a mind to improve upon the shortcomings, if any. The Mother reported that everything and everyone were perfectly happy with what was dished out. All except one. The Humans.

God was shocked to hear the feedback. He was under the impression that the Humans among all his other creations had been given the best deal and here they were the only group to have been less than satisfied with his actions! Being the first known example of a consumer centric organization, he asked Mother Nature to explain the shortcomings. The Mother explained that while the Humans are extremely happy with whatever has been served to/into them, the brains to be the most powerful of his creation, they still said something was missing. When prodded further, the Mother said the humans couldn't exactly say what is that he missed out on. Except that they spoke random gibberish of being left out on the icing on the cake, the jewel in the crown, the crowing glory and such vague and incomprehensible jargons.

God being God took the feedback and assured Mother Nature that he will look into it. And unlike the Politicians who later went on to replace God as the prima donnas on earth, he seemed pretty serious when he spoke the above words. To say God was taken aback by the feedback would be an understatement. Think however much he may, God could not just put his fingers on what was missing that the humans were pointing out at! Reviews and multiple reviews later he couldn't see anything that he had ignored or had escaped his attention. Hours of dhyanam and more of twisting and turning his mind didn't get him any closer to the solution. Having hit his wit's end, God decided to take a break and sleep over the matter on hand.

Sleep! Giving an issue some time off often leads to some clarity as the humans went on to say and practice later! With the arrival of dawn God saw the clarity which refused to reveal itself the whole evening and night. Alongwith the first rays of sunlight, God achieved enlightenment. God let out a loud laugh on the simple but beautiful solution for a problem which was seeming to overwhelm even him. He marvelled at the solution! The icing on the cake! The jewel in the crown! The crowing glory! 

Lo and behold! The small piece of creation that has completed God's work! The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle! The 'perfect' that helped God achieve 'perfection!

BANGANAPALLI MANGO!

The joy called death!

 " It is easier to manage a two year old child than an eighty two year old child!" Thus spake my well intentioned but nonetheless impatient son. This of course was during a fairly irritating occasion when I made him book a train ticket, cancel it within minutes, book an airline ticket, made him cancel that too within minutes again and finally threw a gigantic tantrum, gigantic by my standards, to book the airline tickets all over again. All this of course when he had already planned to drive me down the next day morning.

The above might have been a particularly cheesy episode but mostly I was pretty well behaved and easy enough to manage. I mean what did I want after all? To have a polite  conversation with my Son once a day. It riled me no ends when he did not grant me, his father even this basic courtesy. He pretended to be so busy that he would not pick up my calls even after my 59th attempt. And once he called back all I would tell him is not to pretend to be so busy with his meetings, tours, conferences etc that it was impossible to speak to me for a few seconds. And gave him a much deserved verbal lashing. (Somewhere between the 10th or 12th unattended call, I would give his phone a few minutes of respite and call his wife instead, my Daughter-in-law; nay my daughter and directed at her a barrage of 'advice' on how her husband must stop acting like a Mukesh Ambani or Ratan Tata and pick my calls.) 

He of course, was smart enough to get the message and started calling me everyday before I would. This too ended in a fiasco. He would invariably call me whenever I was busy! You know in activities that are the lifeline of a retired senior citizen like me. Reading Dinamalar or catching up on Sun News or having a longish and entertaining panchayat session with friends, having a meeting with Pattishwarar @ Perur. You get the drift. What all this resulted in was a dressing down for not picking my calls when I was free and instead calling me when I was busy!

It annoyed me no end that this Son of mine whom I had given birth to, raised him, spent my youth in trying to provide for him and so on would find a lot of my requests, suggestions, needs, wants, ideas, requirements nothing more than irritants from a pesky old man. (I must concede that I enjoyed seeing him annoyed and frustrated and put up with all this when he came back from tours and gave me an earful without crossing/able to cross the Lakshman Rekha of being a respectful son! There I said it!)

There were of course many an occasion when I broke this routine and made ISD calls to the US of A and subject my other son to the same attention. Things were going along in this fashion for a fairly decent period of time. So much so that the routine was now tending to bore me. I mean even for a man like me who had watched Sankarabharanam 32 times in 48 days, this was becoming too dull. So I decided to spice up the screenplay a bit, add a twist, dish up some mirch-masala as they would say in Bollywoodese! I decided to die!

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As I watched from my vantage location sitting comfortably next to my Pithrukkal in Sivalokam, I could see all hell had broken loose with my ex-associates on the good old earth. People who I thought did not give a damn about me, shed rivers as tears. Among the ones who did give a damn, the Daughter-in-law; nay daughter won the tear shedding stakes hands down. (The son ended up doing an RCB in this contest and had to be satisfied with a mere participation certificate)  Having discarded my mortal body during what is described as 'Covid times', the entire entourage of my last journey consisted of a grand number of 4 people, the Son and the daughter-in-law; nay the daughter, the family Sastrigal and the friendly neighborhood ambulance driver. In true T20 style, the entire action from my Death certificate to spraying my charred bones into the holy waters of Bhawani river was over in about three hours without any strategic time out. And in true IPL style the stands were empty here too. And unlike the IPL the fans couldn't catch up with the action vide any live coverage either.

Things moved rather rapidly from here onwards. The 13 days flew in a giffy. Before one could bat an eye, the antim karyam for peace to be upon my soul was done and dusted. Normalcy was being gradually restored. The mourning family who had given up on all worldly pleasures till the karyam was completed, breathed a sigh of relief. Food was back to normal. Onions and garlic etc doffing their hats to the normalcy. The panchakacham gave way to the shorts and track pants. Madisaru made way for chudidhar and nighty. Vibhuthi and Kungumam glowed again. Things were so normal that laughter and fun started making its screen presence felt. It felt good to watch the joy of normalcy coming back into the lives of my dear ones. I wished it to last. Last forever. So much so that I didn't want them to ever suffer the dark clouds of sorrow ever ever again. Not beyond the mandatory one year of mourning. That was the moment I decided to take things in my own hands to prevent this from dragging beyond the one year. I called up my wife and asked her to join me in Sivalokam!