BED TIME STORIES. 3 J K SIVAN
BE CLEAN IN AND OUT
It being a mid April evening the heat wave was horrible. Siva Thatha was as usual lying on his easy chair under the neem tree. Something must have happened. that is why, there were so many crows hovering over the top branch of the tree and their crawing was almost deafening . Otherwise there was silence everywhere. As usual there were children seated around Thatha waiting for his story
''Thatha I have to go home earlier this evening? ''said Sekar.
''Why sekhar?
I have to memorise five stanzas in Ramalinga Adigal Thiruvarutpa''. Our Tamil teacher Sarojini will ask us to recite it tomorrow. We dont know whom Sarojini teacher would pick up to recite the stanzas. She is a strict erson and will ask us to stand up on the bench or send us out of the class room if we could not recite without omission of any word in the stanzas. If all stanzas are recited without any omission she would usually give chocolates also.
'Dear children, It is good to memorise as many good devotional hymns as possible, it will help'' exclaimed Thatha.
''Thatha, how will it help ? We dont know the meaning or understand what thee stanzas stand for. We are only just mugging it up and memorising '' replied Sekhar.
It is good to learn such devotional hymns. I will tell you all a story of Venkoba Rao,. He was the grand father of Ragoththama Rao, a small boy, and they both lived in a hut on the banks of River Ganga. Venkoba Rao always asked the boy to read Gita slokas and the boy kept reading daily. One day he asked the old man ''Why are you asking me to read d Gita daily because I dont understand the meaning or dont kinow what it says. What is the use?'' he replied t the old man.
Old Venkoba did not reply as he was busy lighting the charcoal stove, a country oven of ancie nt days. He had near him an old brass vessel which had one or two small holes and looked utterlly black because it was used for a long time to store charcoal for his coal stove. Venkoba emptied the vessel of its charcoal pieces and handed the empty dirty, dark and black looking coal dust coated vessel to Raghu.
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''Raghu, take this , go and fetch Ganga water'.;
Raghu took the dark black coal stained vessel, dipped it in Ganga and filled it with Ganga water. By the time he reached the hut, the water leaked from the holed vessel and it became empty. The old man sent him again to get it filled with Ganga water. Five or six times Ragu thus had to run to the river and retirm with the empty vessel. The old man however sent him repeatedly. Ragu accordinglly shuttled between the River and their hut six or seven times with no water in the vessel. He shouted ''Thatha are you mad, what is the use or benefit in trying to get this leaky vessel filled with Ganga water. It is meaningless and an useless effort.
The old man replied : ''Ragoththama, why do you say it was useless and no benefit. Look at the vessel in your hand and tell me how is it now?''
Ragu looked at it and found the old black coal stained vessel had been thoroughly washed by the rushing Ganga water. It was free of its earlier dark and black coal stains and looked bright and clean in and out now after it was dipped many times in the River Ganga.
''Raghu, it is the answer to your question why you should read Gita every day, knowing its meaning or not?'' It purifies you in and out irrespective of your knowing or understanding the meaning as the Ganga River cleaned the coal dust and stain from the vessel in and out, turning it to look bright..
''Dear children, this story explains you why you should at this tender and young age learn to read and memorise various slokas and manthras. Later on you will know its meaning and you will find yourself at peace in and out purified by the contents of what you memorised. It will be handy to recall and enjoy the meaning. That is why our elders always wanted us to daily recite Vishnu Sahasranamam, Gita slokas, Ramayana and Thiruppavai, Prabhandam hymns etc., and never bothered about our knowing the meaning''
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