Are u what u eat?

Yesterday my daughter came and told me milk is not good food. I asked her who told her this and she said her friend who came to know after her mom attended some conference on today’s food habits. Well, I have grown up on milk and for me this idea that milk is not good could not be digested easily. With great difficulty I make my kids drink milk and feel happy that some wholesome food is going inside them, and now she is adamant that she is not going to take something that’s not good. Apparently, she has conveniently forgotten that potato chips and magi noodles also figured in the conference as junk food. Or maybe her friend ‘forgot’ to mention those ‘bad’ foods to her.

All these good food bad food talk made me think………..of days way back when we just didn’t bother about what we are eating, but unknowingly we were eating naturally good food. I remember how my grandmother used to step out to the yard with a knife and come back with a bunch of greens and tubes and stems and make delicious curries out of them, which we used to gulp down with our red rice, both for lunch and dinner. When did I really start worrying about calories and less rice and more wheat? It was a big surprise when last month my doctor advised me to be on a rice diet to curb my acidity while all the time I was super conscious to have more wheat than rice. He opened my eyes when he told your body structure is such that you need more rice and wheat doesn’t agree with you.

Life has become such that not only we have no time or space to grow our vegetables, but we don’t have time even to cut and cook vegetables. We would rather buy a ‘ready to eat’ pack from the supermarket, warn it and have it with our readymade parotta or chapathi. Sometimes I do wonder how or kids’ live will be when they grow up. We used to joke about having food tablets which will supply all we need for health without wasting time to eat. We teach out kids that at least one meal the family should eat together and that a family that eats together stays together happily.

After so much ‘food’ for my thoughts, my stomach is rumbling which reminds me that my breakfast is waiting and my milk is going cold.

Padmavyuha

Life has become a padmavyuha! The realisation dawned so late that I am already in it without knowing a way to get out. And those who have led me into this padmavyuha, are they having their last laugh? I dont know. Will I ever be able to get out of this or will I perish like poor Abhimanyu? I dont know that either.

So, now that I am inside this, what is my action plan? Behead as many opponents as possible before I fall .......... or just wait for that one swish of a sword which will end this forever for me? What is the right path? Or is there a right path? I wish I knew what was in Abhimanyu's mind when he rode into the padmavyuha, knowing well that he is ignorant of a way out. Did he think that his mighty uncles and the mightiest Krishna will rescue him, no matter what? But then, he was fighting for a noble cause. What am I doing here? Or for that matter, I didnt come in here on my own wish. Well.........actually I didnt know I was entering a trap like this.

Yes.....I can hear Krishna now. Something about Karma and the fruit of karma. I think the path ahead for me is the Gita. Maybe if I understand a bit of it, a way will be shown for me. But who will be my teacher? Like how Arjuna looked upto Krishna, whom should I turn to? I can only feel two little sets of hands.......holding and hugging me...........my answer to all my questions..........