The jo-bhi-hai-achha-hai attitude

So as recently as three months ago, I heard these stories and totally loved the moral that was behind them. They’re probably from some scriptures but I don’t know about that.

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Story I:

Once there were three rishi kumars (sons of a saint) who lived near a riverbank. They were very religious and did no harm to other living things. Every morning, they woke up early and came to the river to bathe. While they bathed, because of their righteous characters, their fresh clothes would hang all by themselves in the air without a line. This is how it had been. One day, while they were bathing in the river, a frog jumped out from the river and an eagle flying over saw the frog. As is the nature of a flying eagle, it dived down to catch its prey. The frog didn’t have a chance to jump back in the water. And all of a sudden, two sets of clothes that were hanging in the air, fell on the sandy riverbank. Three kumars looked at each other. As they came out and got dressed, they started talking about this strange incident. With quite a surprise, first one, whose clothes had fallen on sand, said, “I wonder what just happened.” Second one, surprised too, said the same thing. Third one asked them both, “so what were you thinking when the eagle attacked the frog?” The first one said, “I wished for the eagle to not attack the frog. Watching that poor frog struggle in the eagle’s claws was so sad.” The second one said, “I wished for the eagle to catch the frog. It had been circling the skies since so long, it must have been so hungry. I’m glad the eagle finally found some food in form of the frog.” They both then asked the third as to what he thought. Third one said, “it’s not for me to decide whether something is good or bad. I was just an observer of the incident and it was out of my control to stop the actions of either of them so I let the situation be and moved on with what I was doing.” All three of them now knew why the clothes of the third rishi kumar stayed hanging in the air without support.

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Story II:

Once upon a time, there lived a courtesan at the edge of a forest. Right across of her house, lived a sage. Everyday, completely different kinds of people visited both of these houses. The courtesan respected the sage for who he was and treated him so. The sage being the saatvik (of having pure nature) person he was, couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, and sometimes even detested her when he got tired of having her as a neighbor. Years and decades passed like this. The courtesan wished for her life to be like of the sage and the sage, along with trying to live his life normally, kept on thinking of the bad things in the courtesan’s life. When their lives came to an end, and they had to go to the better worlds, the sage was being taken to hell, and the courtesan to heaven. And the reasons happened to be, that the sage, still being the simple and pure person he was, could never stop thinking of the negatives in others’ lives and the courtesan, being the person who she was by profession, could only think of the positives in the lives of others around her.

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Both of these stories made me think. Think about how one should be thinking about others and not judging anyone. May be none of these principles/ways of life are practical and none of them could be applied in today’s life. I don’t know. It reminded me of a scene from Lagaan. These Hindi movies have so many levels. Don’t they? It reminded me of the scene where Bhuvan, Guran, Bagha, and Tipu are watching the match played by the English cricketers from behind the bushes, and trying to learn the game. Elizabeth finds them sneaking around, and walks over to meet them offering to teach them the rules. The fly-in-the-beard incident happens, and then introductions start between them. She says, “my name is Elizabeth.” To this, Bhuvan says “Eli aur ka? …naam lo to sasuri jeebh tedhi ho jaaye…”, and Guran adds, “achha naam hai, jo bhi hai achha hai (whatever it is, is good).” This is the dialog that stuck. That's where the title of the post comes from. I just couldn’t help, but kept going back to it at numerous incidents in life. And new year 2012 was around the corner. I stopped making resolutions since a few years but thought of developing this as a habit. Whether it will happen as often as I'd like or whether it will stick, I don't know. Lets see. Trying to apply the morals of the two stories above and this attitude to life. It’s hard, but not impossible. Practice, that too gradual, is definitely an option. Hoping this one sticks!