Is it Holy or Holy Sh**?

Would you allow your child to get exposed to a world of violence and hateful people or events? I know the unanimous answer and yes , me neither. We try our best to raise our kids in a healthy environment and want to inculcate a sense of righteous-ness in them. What better way to do it than telling them stories from our holy epics? We even get books meant for kids, in which, they have simplified the content to help the kids understand the ideas and events, isn't it? How many of us already have such books and how many books do we have? As many as we could get?

Is there a moment, when you are reading from such books, you pause to find a more suitable explanation or try to think of a better context and finally skip the part citing some reasons? Remember, I'm still talking about the books we call 'holy'. More often than not , I find myself entangled in the dichotomy of my own thoughts. Isn't it time we revised the entire 'holy' brigade?

This one time, I was reading stories from one such books to my son. I was telling him about the birth of Devavratha (Bheeshma Pitamaha) and I struggled a lot to find an alternate theory to avoid telling him that Mother Ganga cast six of her babies into the river before she was stopped. Since my small wonder is very good at quizzing( like all the other kids of his age) I found myself at shortage of excuses and somehow the real story slipped out of my mouth ( it's a miracle?!) and I can't , even today, forget the look of horror in his eyes, " Amma throws her own babies into the river?"  

There are many such stories from all the books we call holy and it's not restricted to one religion. Take a look at any holy book. Aren't they all appalling,ghastly and they all include violence of the highest order, malpractice, debauchery, fraud,lying, fighting over land-women-power-ego ( not necessarily in that order), violating the modesty of women, virgin girls giving birth, stupid people in charge of spreading religion, killing people in the name of religion and what not!

We dote on a man,who was very powerful, irrespective of his actions, he...(errr I'm looking for an alternative word for womanizing that doesn't offend people) did some cute things apparently other than stealing butter? And there's this man who used deceptive ways to win a battle but didn't even accept his wife at the end. So what was it he fought for? His ego? Brothers fought over empire, Saints were short tempered and cursed everyone who didn't respect them, Gods fought over to become numero uno, coward people led a naive and innocent man to Crucifixion and justified themselves saying he died for them and then built an entire army of blind people who still suffer from the sins of their ancestors. How do I tell my child ,these are 'holy' or is it why we say 'Holy Sh**' ???!! ( I think I found the best anecdote for 'Oxymoron' !!!!) 

The best thing is, when it's time for moral of the story  and he asks " What's the moral of this story, Amma?"  and this time I take a long pause, you can never be too careful , isn't it? Then I say  " Well, since what Ganga did was punishable and everyone was very upset with her, she received the biggest punishment of her life. Today, river Ganga is much beyond any use for human race" and I could see a smile brimming on his face. I put those books away right after that and changed the topic before he could even ask '' If Ganga is not of any use to us then isn't it a punishment for us?" !!!!!

What's in a gift?

Everyone likes presents, isn't it? It's not that people like to receive presents because they are free( please second me) but the emotion behind it. You feel cared, loved and remembered. I love it even more if it's from an old friend which assures you that you still are the same to them. It's beyond any emotion describable if it's hand made as it says it all. I love the handmade ones better than any expensive ones bought readily !

Back in college when all of us were broke everyday,we made it a point to save a little every month to buy b'day gifts with the money we pooled in. The efforts always mattered more than the ones wrapped up neatly. And now that we have easy money and convenient ways of shopping with varieties of items to confuse us enough, it hardly makes one feel special. We just don't have time or mood to pick up another task. But when someone does spend time and effort to make a gift , it does make it more special. Am I wrong? 

Handmade gifts always hold special place in my heart like these handmade cards, candles, book marks, paintings and any crafty thing. It doesn't have to look perfect but it does make the moment so perfect to savor forever. Before I got married, Eddie being my very very good friend knew that I always bought used books and he also knew I loved Harry Potter series. So he went around from one street to another just to buy all the volumes of HP series. Since all the books were not available with one particular vendor he really had to go around all day to buy me the entire series. The amount of trouble he took to make me happy did make me feel very very special !

I guess if you are not sure what to present, it's better to buy flowers than choosing expensive gifts. It doesn't come a long way if you are into buying extravagant articles. A friend of mine bought me a book (upon asking) on babies when I was expecting and I still have his customer's copy of the bank receipt which I happened to find inside the book. I find joy in preserving the little things and I'm sure most of the women are my type. It's not what you give but what you do, to get that,for your loved ones that matters more. Anyone agrees with me?