World at odds (WAO)

Once there was a god fearing brahmin, A man whose knowledge commanded respect from all, One who knew the sanskrit shalokas from all the four Vedas.. He was the local purohit..Rich didnt visit his temple because the gods of his temple didnt wear fancy clothes, Nor did he pretend to foretell their future, Hence he had two curses to carry..He was poor and he was from an upper caste..It has always been easy to survive in this country if u r poor and u r from a lower caste..Being from an upper caste meant he could not beg even though his son and wife hadnt had food for last three days...The brahmin envied the lower caste beggar on the opposite road..He had a regular supply of alms from people who passed by the temple..He also suffered from that one virtue which is fatal for poor : Self-Respect, a poor with no self-respect has much higher chances of not dying of hunger..He can beg, he can borrow, He can steal...Not the brahmin, He had self respect. May God never bless a poor man with Self-Respect, Its the most luxurious of virtues, Only rich afford it. Once there was terrible outbreak of cholera in the village...and bad-luck has often special affection for those who afford it the least..As the fate had it..Old brahmin's only son got affected by the disease...He had no money to buy food let alone treatment...Cholera promised to swallow his only son if he didnt collect enough money for the food and the pills..His wife begged him to borrow he didnt..His friends advised him to steal..He couldnt..He couldnt sleep well that night..he gave a look at his son...He had grown frail and was still shivering from fever...He remembered how he had celeberated his birth..How he had thought that he would teach his son all the vedas and he would be a Raj-Purohit one day..His son was his will to live, his son was proof of the fact that there was more to life than misery..his son was emodiment of his happiness..While all this was going through his mind, His son suddenly opened his eyes for a second, Looked at his father, Said "Baba", smiled and closed his eyes again, something in him snapped, Next morning when his wife woke up he was no where in the kutiya..He had left, First time in his life he had gone outside without his janeyu..She wondered where he had gone, Then suddenly outside on the road she saw something and her feet froze, tears rolled down her cheeks, The brahmin was sititng beside the low-caste beggar and begging along-side, Ppl stopped by astonished, few of them dropped some grains and coins, Some of them laughed aloud, a few upper caste rich spat at him, frowned and asked the brahmin-sabha to expell him from hindu religion for degrading his caste and profession, He sat still, Never uttered a word, didnt answer back, He came back home with grains and some money, Looked at his son, touched his forehead and Said " Son, Now u will live Long "

Dedicated to "Meraj Faizabadi's Brilliant poetry"
Dedicated to "All poor upper-Caste, Whose cause never would be taken-Up"
Dedicated to "Brilliant Reservation system which places caste over poverty"

Labels: Manthan