A BAD-HAIR DAY

 

Some days ought to be our ‘bad-hair days’!

Yesterday was one such day for me. Right from the time the day broke out to almost the time the night fell, it seemed my train was moving on a wrong track! Well, no head-on collision or any such things happened… Just that, I was finding it difficult to put it back on the right track.

By late evening, I simply let go… and decided to enjoy the fun of going through a bad-hair day!

I got good sleep. And, this morning, my train is back on track... i.e. the right one!

 

In life, our attachments and expectations can be varied… One of the expectations – rather our attachments to beliefs – is that ‘things have to move the way we want them to’. 

But, do they, always?

Obviously, they don’t.

So, when they don’t, we resist… we get upset, annoyed, irritated, frustrated even bitter, angry and violent.

Yes, the root cause is our failed expectations… and, our inability to come to terms with them… our inability to see the reality and let go.

Surely, my bad-hair day, yesterday, came out of some of my failed expectations: “This thing has to go that way; and that one has to go this way!”… Definitely, I must have been telling myself this and what was happening in reality must have been that “This thing was going that way… and that one was going this way!”

On a bad-hair day, buddy, it happens so! Just chill.

“One late afternoon, in a far away village, the fishermen had just returned after their daily catch. They were busy sorting the fish. Just then, a little kite swooped down from nowhere, picked a tiny fish by its beak, and shot up into the skies!

Immediately, a hundred crows emerged, all out of the blue, and started chasing the kite. Whichever direction the kite took, the crows followed, crying hysterically… 

The kite went right, crows followed her there… The kite went left, the crows followed her there, as well…

The kite zoomed high, the crows followed suit… The kite nose-dived into the sea, the crows did too!

The sky had turned into a crazy sight to behold! A hundred coal-black crows were hell-bent to get the ‘tiny fish’ which the kite was holding on to… The noise was deafening, the pursuit was relentless… 

A hundred crows after one little kite! Nay, one little fish!

After an hour-long chase, the kite had become breathless… It had no strength to continue. So, it decided to drop the fish, at once…

The moment the fish was dropped, the crows left the kite alone!

They now went after the rapidly falling fish!

The kite, almost dead by now, settled on the branch of a nearby tree. Sitting there, it watched with amusement the crazy sight of a hundred crows pursuing, blindly, the tiny fish! Then, with a long sigh of relief, it concluded:

“There go my miseries with that wretched fish!”

 

As I conclude this Post, I can feel the power of this Ramakrishna Paramahansa’s delightful parable. I can see the futility of my clingings, my desperations… my blind pursuits…

Unlike last morning, this morning, I am blissfully sitting on the branch of the tree...

The Tree of Wisdom!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Vivek D'Cunha