Showing posts with label anas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anas. Show all posts

Thursday, 12 September 2013

Perfect sense

Growing up in RRF, Amma tried all the ways that she knew that could impart the values that could mold her son into a knowledgeable individual. One of the ways that she carried off her duty was reading aloud the proverbs and quotations printed on the daily leaf of a Tamil calendar. This calendar had daily chart of good and bad astronomical times together with daily saying of the day. The leaf of the calendar is torn daily and viola, another gem comes out.
Mother read me about JFK's 'Ask what your country has done for you...' long before I knew about American foreign policy, about 'turning the other cheek' from Gandhi and Jesus, and Socrates' call to think critically and question intelligently. I would then in turn rebut with some wise crack ridiculing the sayings but must helped in thinking outside the box.
In the growing and trying age of teenage, quotations were a big deal. Teachers' autograph on annual school magazine were treated as gems. LHS' 'plough hard while sluggards sleep' and 'cows may come and cows may go but this bull stays here forever' were inscribed permanently at my reading corner!
The Gen-Y may have missed all these while they were growing up.  Like they say, a poor man and unhappy man are philosophical men. Our parents, from the doldrums, have many gems that they have learnt in the course of trailing the pebble-stoned path of life.
Anas, a fellow Free, had complied some of life lessons from his parents that make perfect sense today, even at the time of 4G and Google!

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”*