Nadappathu Narayanan Cheyal

Earlier today an elderly gentleman called me up and told me he wanted to pay me a courtesy visit. I said "Sure, let's meet in the park 100 feet away from my house."

I told a friend about this meeting and expressed my apprehension that the gentleman would talk about what his children are doing, where he worked, enquire about my family - lot of what's and no iota of any why - absolutely not show capacity for abstract thinking. My friend smirked at me - indicating she thought I was too negative. And. I truly had never spoken with the gentleman earlier nor had heard of him before.

We, the gentleman and I, met at around 5PM. He is an extrovert and talked non-stop. Apart from what I had earlier predicted, he also mentioned about a serious accident he had met with and quoted umpteen proverbs and mentioned many cliches.

"Nadappathu Narayanan Cheyal" was the last proverb he quoted. Meaning even that we walk (or that whatever happens) is an act of God. I asked him "which act then is ours?" trying to provoke a discussion on freewill.
He beat a hasty retreat and said goodbye and left.

I wish I had been wrong in my guess about how the conversation would go.

Conscience

We usually come across the expression "acting as per one's conscience" or (in Tamil) "manasaatchikku virodama nadakka koodaathu". I thought some people violated this and acted against their conscience, rather that most negative acts were in violation of the perpetrator's conscience. 

I recently realized that I was wrong. Negative acts often are perpetrated in perfect sync with one's conscience. 

This happens when our conscience, i.e., our value system, itself is "corrupted". Examples being that violating women is ok, cruelty to animals is ok, if I have a pressing need then taking away your stuff for my need is ok, robbing rich to pay poor paul is ok, if my family is in trouble even murder is justified (as in the movie Drishyam) etc. 

With the above in our conscience and if we perpetrate any such acts, would we consider that we violated our conscience? Did Vijay Salgaoncar, in Drishyam, believe that he violated his conscience?

The issue is that we think that all of us share a common conscience and we assume what is abhorrent to me is abhorrent to you as well. Hence if you (or me or anyone) didn't violate your conscience then you didn't do anything wrong.

So strange.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

When the milkman came to deliver today, a gentleman in shoddy and kinda dirty dress was passing by. 

The milkman asked me in hushed tones whether the gentleman had a mental problem, explaining to me that he, the milkman, had noticed the gentleman often and that the latter didn't talk much and dressed himself in an unkempt fashion. I told the milkman that my mother uses the same definition to describe me. 

The milkman burst into laughter. For some reason, he didn't take me to be mentally challenged.

Incidentally the other day, when I knocked on a door, the lady of the house opened the door and handed me their garbage bag - she had mistaken me for the garbage man. 

I was taken back to a discussion I had had with a friend about 8 or 9 years back. She was talking about a classmate of hers in her boarding school many decades back, incidentally the classmate was from the same village as me, who used to dress in ridiculous looking clothes and was constantly tormented by all his classmates. Apparently only my friend helped that fellow through a difficult time in school. I remember asking her the same question - my dress is kinda similar to that fellow's but no one has tormented me on account of my dress. 

There, then, is something beyond poor dress that makes a man seem deranged and provokes people to torment him. What is that thing?

Perhaps it's how he carries himself. Maybe his demeanor indicates that he is a normal man who is dressed poorly and is quite different from another man who is challenged and hence perhaps dressed poorly.

It's an interesting bit of coincidence that the lady's (the one who handed me the garbage bag) husband is also from the same village as me.

Note:
Before you rush to a rash conclusion, note that there are many people in our village who do dress well.

Additional Reading:
http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2017/07/men-in-tears.html

Evolution And Vishnu

A friend sent me this:

"Mom, I am a genetic scientist. I am working in the US on  the evolution of man. Theory of evolution. Charles Darwin, have you heard of him? " Vasu asked.

          His Mother sat next to him,  smiled and said, "I know about Darwin, Vasu. But Have you heard of Dashavatar? The ten avatars of Vishnu?" 

Vasu replied yes. 

          "Ok! Then let me tell you what you and your Darwin don't know.

        Listen carefully- 

        The first avatar was the Matsya avatar, it means the fish. That is because life began in the water. Is that not right?" 

          Vasu began to listen with a little more attention.

            She continued, "Then came the Kurma Avatar, which means the tortoise, because life moved from the water to the land. The amphibian! So the Tortoise denoted the evolution from sea to land.

            Third avatar was Varaha, the wild boar, which meant the wild animals with not much intellect, you call them the Dinosaurs, correct?" Vasu nodded wide eyed.

            "The fourth avatar was Narasimha, half man and half animal, the evolution from wild animals to intelligent beings.

            Fifth, the Vaman avatar, the midget or dwarf, who could grow really tall. Do you know why that is? Because, there were two kinds of humans, Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens won that battle." 

            Vasu could see that his Mother was in full flow and he was stupefied.

          "The Sixth avatar was Parshuram, the man who wielded the axe, the man who was a cave and forest dweller. Angry, and not social.

          The seventh avatar was Ram, the first rational thinking social being, who practised and laid out the laws of society and the basis of human relationships.

          The Eighth avatar was Balarama, a true farmer who showed  value of agriculture in the life.

          The Ninth avatar was Krishna, the statesman, the politician, the diplomat, the Ambassador, the sutile interpreter, the lover who played the game of society and taught how to live and thrive in the adhaarmic social structure.

          And finally, my boy, will come Kalki, the man you are working on. The man who will be genetically supreme."

            Vasu looked at his Mother speechless. "This is amazing Mom, how did you .... ? This makes sense!"

          She said, "Yes it does, son! We Indians knew some amazing things, but just didn't know how to pass it on scientifically. So we made them into mythological stories.  Mythology creates faith and makes man sensible. It is just the way you look at it - Religious or Scientific. Your call."

That's evolution explained from Hindu religion. yet it's all about Vishnu (no Shiva).

Now, what does this story, told by mother to son, prove?

1. That the ten avatars of God existed? No, where is this proved?
2. That the Gods knew about evolution? No, if God's existence or His avatars aren't proved, where is the question of His knowing about evolution? Of course God being  omniscient, He knows everything including evolution. You dontd need the Dashavatar story, as told by the mother, to prove it.
3. That our Rishis knew about evolution and they created the story of the Dashavatars which follows the same path as organisms did in evolution? Maybe so or maybe it's just an accident. Even then how fish evolved into tortoise is not explained.

Addional reading:

Nice article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3049057/