A Cup of Tea

Vasudevan Tachoth

Description

Vasudevan, as I know him, travelled a lot in search of wisdom and knowledge after completing his formal education. He traversed the ocean of spirituality and religious philosophy which guided him throughout his endeavours. Being a keen observer, Vasudevan Tachoth
picked up fourteen different life incidents and developed them into fine thought provoking short stories and retold them in his own words.
For this, he strung together all the fourteen sweet flowers to form a fine garland. The quintessence of human relation and its ripples and tides are his theme. He dexterously sketched the characters of all the stories and smartly treated the themes to effectuate the portrayal of human relation. With the skill of a trained psychologist, he takes us through different life situations and shows us what we often overlooked in this transient life. He believes in the scope of perfect human relation which we often think is a herculean task. But the author shows us a practical way to understand others’ feelings and he
also teaches us how to look into ourselves at the same time .

Sujets

• Indian
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781543771312
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

A CUP OF TEA
COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES
VASUDEVAN TACHOTH


Copyright © 2022 by Vasudevan Tachoth.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-5437-7130-5

eBook
978-1-5437-7131-2
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore
CONTENTS
1.The Desert Rose
2.The Rising of Tommy
3.My Grandpa’s Morris Minor
4.The Tale Told by a Bone
5.By Taking the Watch for Granted
6.The Destiny
7.The Enlightenment
8.Relationships and Contradictions
9.The Vow
10.When Virtue Dies
11.Somarasam—the Heavenly Drink
12.The New Ruler
13.A Cup of Tea
14.One’s Devotion to His Teacher

 
VASUDEVAN TACHOTH
A resident of Pattambi, Palakkad District, he actively contributed to publications and social media even as a student. He has many poems and short stories to his credit. His write-ups on science and technology were published even in international magazines. He owns Narayani Institute of Fundamental Research based at Coimbatore as well.
 
My mother, though an illiterate village woman,
Always upheld in life the convention
Of the land of Kerala.
By thy virtuous deeds,
I could climb high the ladders of life.
Nothing other than thyself will fill thy space.
I humbly dedicate this little book to the sacred feet of my mother.
THE DESERT ROSE
-1-
Kanta Rani, a smart girl of less than ten years old, was bringing home sheep and goats from the scattered little pastures of the burning Rajasthan desert. She had set out at six in the morning to graze her herd. She heaved a deep sigh as she brought the herd home.
By this time, a chauffeur approached the gate of her little house, with a smile on his face, uttering, “Ram ram sa [a polite way of addressing an unknown person in Rajasthani tradition].” She prayer-handily reciprocated his salutation.
“ Gudiy a [an affectionate way of saying ‘my little daughter’], could you please tell me where the common well of this village is located?” the chauffeur asked.
Kanta Rani’s mother heard the conversation between her daughter and the chauffeur outside their house, which had a circle-shaped clay wall and an umbrella-shaped thatched roof. The house had clean and beautiful surroundings as well. The mother came out of the house with her head and face partially covered with the loose tip of her sari, a mark of women’s conventional reticence, and inquired her daughter about the matter.
“I am coming from a faraway village, my sister. Since we set out early in the morning, my horse and I are too thirsty. It would be very kind of you if you could tell me where the common well of this village is,” the chauffeur said. He must have asked this question as he knew that there was only one well in most of the Rajasthan villages, including that of his own.
“You will not get water if you go now because the laborer and the camel that draw water from the well must be resting by now. By the time the reservoir is filled with sufficient amount of water to cover the entire village, they both will be exhausted, because they start at five in the morning. Not only that, he habitually eats his lunch by ten in the morning. So he must be in deep sleep by now.”
When she said it, a dismal look appeared on the chauffeur’s face; he affectionately ran his hand all across the back of his horse.
Having seen what the chauffeur did, Kanta guided him to the vessels that she used for pouring water for her animals. At the same time, her mother poured out cold water into a clay cup from a clay pot and brought it to him, as she believed in the principle Atithi Devo Bhava .
Soon after, Kanta’s father came home from the farm as well. The chauffeur and Kanta’s father engaged in a long chat as if they were friends. They both discussed many topics at length, including the village well, farming, filling their granary with food grains, and so on and so forth. They would dig the well further down whenever it went dry. Because of repeated digging, the well was one thousand feet deep by then. They drew water from this deep well using a camel with a bucket made of camel leather from five to nine in the morning and four to sunset in the evening. They did hard labor to sow seeds in the field from four o’clock till nine o’clock in the morning and from four o’clock in the afternoon till sunset if they get a timely rain. They would reap their crops after ninety days and fill their granary with food grains for the succeeding year.
The temperature outside went up. Kanta Rani’s mother was all set to serve lunch by then. A chocky, indigenous little table was brought with a big broad copper tray on it and placed in front of the chauffeur. She brought fresh chapati made of pearl millet, ghee, and crushed jaggery. It was customary in Rajasthan villages that the menfolk of the family and guests eat from one plate. And thus they, too, started eating while the discussion went on. After lunch, they laid a rope-braided coat under the khejri tree ( Prosopis cineraria ) in their yard for the chauffeur to rest on.
The chauffeur took four hours to reach Kanta Rani’s village, and he would travel almost five more hours to reach the big village, which was his final destination. By big village, they mean the town, where the construction work of the hospital building was going on. As the work progressed, they wanted to construct a garden around the hospital, and the chauffeur took up the responsibility. He acquainted with Kanta Rani’s family on his way to the garden site, carrying a cartful of garden plants.
It was just when the chauffeur thought of a means to reciprocate the hospitality that Kanta Rani’s family extended to him that Kanta Rani, a jiggle box, came to know from her mother that the guest was a mally (gardener) and that his horse cart was full of garden plants. She came to the chauffeur, who was resting under the khejri tree.
“ Mally kakka , do you have rose plants in your cart?” she asked him.
“Yes, baby, I do have a few,” he replied.
“Would you mind giving me one?” she continued.
With a smile, he unrolled the bundle of the wet sack and took out a rose plant of the best quality for her and said, “I myself will plant it for you. It is hard for rose to survive in a desert, but if it survived, it will grow beyond our expectations.”
He looked for an ideal place to plant the rose, for he knew it should not get the evening sun. He finally found a suitable place a little far off the house that never got the evening sun but the shade of a tree instead. He planted the rose in a fresh pit filled with sand and crushed sheep dung. Then the traveler explained how to water and nurture the rose plant.
Kanta Rani was inspired by the poem she studied in her second grade, and since then, an ardent wish for a rose plant began budding in her tender heart.