523. Fighting Solitude with Coffee!

"Want some coffee?" asked Mala.

"You know I had coffee only a few minutes back!" said Nathan, somewhat surprised. "There was a time when you would be annoyed, if I asked for coffee, and complain 'how many times in a day should I make coffee for you?' But now, you are asking me whether I want to have coffee!" he added.

"Those days, we had children growing up, whose needs I had to take care of. The household chores would be unending. I would have felt fatigued and shown my annoyance some times."

Nathan was quiet for a while. He then asked Mala, "Shall we go for a movie?"

"Only last week, we had been to a movie. Nowadays, we have a lot of movies on the TV. Movie on demand! I don't have the desire to go to a theatre to watch a movie. But, if you want to see a movie, then we can go" said Mala.

"No. I don't have any such desire. I asked you only for your sake."

After a few minutes, Mala came to the living room with a cup of coffee in her hand and handed it to Nathan.

"I told you I don't need coffee" said Nathan, even as he received the cup from Mala's hands. "Perhaps, you wanted to drink coffee!"

"No. But, I felt bored by sitting idle. So, I prepared fresh decoction and made some coffee."

"Usually, doing routine chores will be boring. But you say, you did some work to overcome boredom!" said Nathan, smiling, enjoying his own 'humour.'

"Yes. Sometimes, getting fatigued by doing some work is better than sitting idle, pined by thoughts that cause both mental and physical fatigue."

The smile on Nathan's face vanished immediately.

"What can we do? Our daughter has settled down in the U.S and our son in Australia. They call us whenever they have time. We can be happy for a few minutes talking to them. After the call, we could extend the happiness for some more time, by talking about what we talked to them! At other times, we just have to sit idle, gazing at the ceiling or the wall or at the idiot box. We soon get mentally fatigued" said Nathan.

"But, we don't have to be like this. I don't have any relatives from my side, but you have many relatives. But, you didn't allow any of them to get close to you. Eventually, we have lost touch with almost all of them. If we had been close with our relatives, they would be visiting us now and then and we would be visiting them too. We would also have been talking to them over phone occasionally" said Mala, in an accusing tone.

"My relatives were not well-to-do people. They were much below me in economic status. I thought that if I allowed them to get close to me, they would ask me for financial help or other favours or otherwise take advantage of my position and power to get things done for them. That was why I kept away from all of them. Only now, when we feel empty, do I realize that I should have maintained good relationship with them. If I try to reach out to my relatives now, they don't show any interest" said Nathan, feeling remorseful.

"We have received the invitation for the marriage of your father's brother's daughter' son, being held next week. Though the wedding is held at a far off place, we will attend that wedding. We will get a chance to meet some of our relatives, interact with them and get close to them."

Thirukkural
Section 2

Materialism

Chapter 53
Assessing Before Acting

Verse 523 (in Tamil):

aLavu aLAvu illAdhAn vAzhkkai kuLavu aLAk
kOdu inRi nIr niRaindhaRRu.

Meaning:

The life of a person who doesn't have intimate relationship with his kin will be like a tank full of water, but with no bund.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'kAppi kudikkalAmA' by the same author.)

Verse 524 (Soon)
Verse 522