Thursday, 23 January 2014

Two bears in the stomach



This story happened in a recent period, on a day I still remember. This is not a messy story of heroes and villains; not a fanciful description of fairies and magic world. This is real, a flesh and blood happening; a conversation between a grandpa and his grandchild. As we all aware, Grandpas are full of wisdom. They have their own way to impart it into their descendents. Children should grow learning from Grandparents otherwise they will miss the wisdom to live.

The Child in our story, like all other children around the world had many doubts about life and its needs. He had only doubts that were never answered. One of the irritating things about this life was hunger. He felt hungry often. He felt hungry when he woke up from sleep; he felt hungry after playing with his friends; and he felt hungry and hungry so that he could not continue with any work from morn till the end of the day without a break for a snack. He dreamed of a life without hunger.

Like a great philosopher unwinding the mysterious knots of life, he meditated on hunger and its causes. He was sure that a cause preceded an effect. Hunger was an effect; the cause was a mystery for him. Though he spent many days meditating on the subject, he was not enlightened about the cause. So he deiced to approach his grandpa with the question.

His grandpa was his father’s father, a man with white beard, bald head, shining eyes and wrinkled skin. He knew many things, many mysteries and knew how to convey them in simple manner to his grandchildren. Children felt often that there is nothing hidden from him. But they had heard their father speaking different at many times. Grandpa was not worried about it. He seemed to be sure of the truth he spoke.

The boy approached the Grandpa with his big question on life: “What is the cause of hunger?”

The grandpa smiled at him and his question. Then he assumed a serious appearance. He thought for a while before he started to speak.

“There are two bears in your stomach. They constantly fight with each other. Their fight causes hunger” said the Grandpa to his Grandchild. “The first bear”, he continued, “is covetousness, treachery, falsehood, cruelty, murder, jealousy, despair, frustration, intolerance and other characteristics that can be grouped together. The second bear is kindness, generosity, truthfulness, happiness, hope, lovingness, sympathy, tolerance and other characteristics that can be grouped together.”

The Grandpa attributed evil to the first bear and good to the second bear. He shortened his list of evil for the sake of the boy. They boy may not be familiar with names of other evils that man practice.

The boy had one more doubt. The Grandpa was ready to answer more questions.

“Who is the victor?”

“The one you feed”, answered the Grandpa.

Professor Jacob Abraham

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