It always been of heroes, one or the other way - the books, the movies...news, everything, but this is about simple Japa, his thoughts and experiences! One like many in the world, one who thinks; finds his own simple solutions.

 The funniest thing is, he got his name changed to “Japalavya” because some astrologer told him, his original name starting with “S” was ill-fated, and should changed to something which started with J. Even though his beliefs in all these were minimal, the consultation fees turned to be, way beyond his expectation.

Later, when he caught up with the forlorn cycles and foreseeable turns in life, he decided to change his name to Japalavya. And more over, he always enjoyed when girls called him by his name

“Japa love ya! “

Rich and Poor - How it all started!

In the veranda, Japa sat gazing at the waving trees, the wind made them whirl to her tunes. He recalled those young days when he used to make kite out of old news papers; it was one of the main activity for, his gang during summer vacation.

The take off of these kites normally took place in between, the enormous paddy fields near his house, one guy will hold the kite in hand and the other one holds the string. The guy with the string facing the wind will start jogging, gradually loosing the string and kite catching up with the wind, flying high up.

             He spends the retired life in his house in town, one of the last "nallukettu" (a typical old Kerala house build with a open courtyard in middle the house) which survives. He now looks forward on spending all the time he got, with his grand daughter who has come for summer vacation and he loves communing with her.

 
"achacha, what are you thinking?"

He turned back to see Nita, with some books in her hand.

"Where have you been all day?"

"I went to get these books with achan: why, did you miss me?" asked Nita.

With a smile on Japa’s face” come here, tell me did you have your lunch?”

“yes I had with achan , we also went to achan’s office.”

“achachaa” she continued ““I met  some hapless kids today; they didn’t even have anything to eat, wore shabby torn cloths, begging for food.”

“So what did you do,” asked Japa.

“I asked achan to give some money to them.”

“and” asked Japa.

“he said, giving money doesn’t help them; there will be people like this always.” Nita said with skepticism.

“But achacha, why are they different?” she continued

“why they don’t even have money for food,  but we have enough money for everything,

“what made the difference?”

            He remembered the conversation he had with a wise man, long back, when he had this “change the world “ attitude, in his mid twenties.

“ok, let me tell you, but first come and sit near me” said Japa.

                                    *                      *                      *

             Long ago when earth was green and healthy; things were different. The air had the sweetness of the fruits grown near by, people greeted each other with love, and they shared whatever they got from farms. Then earth was for everyone, to live, to explore; all were equal. They feared nature and lived in harmony.

            Von was a little boy, and he loved oranges, as a boy he always liked to play in the farms and never got tired of oranges, he would sit, on huge pile of orange and eat them the whole day.

 As he grow, he had to work, so he didn’t get time to spend enjoying oranges, he hated to work. His father got him married to a beautiful girl from the other town, he had kids and they all worked in the farm day and night.

            When his father died, he inherited the biggest orange farm of whole area. He then started slacking on his duties. He became more indolent and started spending more time in enjoying oranges.

Time passed by and once, the drought stuck them; orange produce from the farm that year, was lot less. Von was worried over this and disturbed. His wife who noticed this, decided to talk to Mr. Von who now spend his days idle on oranges, and find out what the problem was.

Von said “ this year, the orange produce is very less.”

“yes, I know; but what can we do about it? “ she said.

“if this situation goes on, I don’t thing we will have enough oranges to survive, till next season.” said Von.

“but we have neighbors and friends, they will help us” she replied.

“no they wont, I dont want to work on their farms, why is this happening to me, I own the biggest orange farm, then why?” he exclaimed.

His wife understood the distressfulness situation and asked him, “do you thing the orange produce we have, will be enough for our family to survive this season?”

Von said “survive! We can live lavishly on it."

Hearing this, wife said, “Then what’s the problem here?”

Von was puzzled.

She said” you just need to stop sharing it with others, what you own is yours! That’s it.!”

Next day Mr. Von built a big fence around his farm, disuniting and defending it from others.

That was the end and the very beginning, the world never rested since then!

* * *

achacha - grandfather!
achan - father

                                Posted originally on saneesh@prathamam.org