A Change of Heart

Bhagavad Gita

Colonel Pant lived diagonally opposite and one house up the street from me in South India for the past four years. Besides neighborhood concerns like the erratic water supply, the garbage disposal problem and so on, we would talk about Indian and world affairs and other things, with me injecting a little philosophy now and then. Several times he had brought me atta, canned cheese and other things that were issued to him and his family from the canteen but were in excess of needs. His wife, a dour and unfriendly woman who even refused prasadam when I once was distributing it to passersby on a festival day. Though she knew I was friendly with her husband, she would not even look my way as she went for her daily walk around the block. Though I thought her husband's gifts were certainly possible only with her approval, her unsmiling expression never changed.

Last week he and his family left, his having been transferred to northern India. Before going he came and handed over one last 'consignment' of groceries. As he was about to leave my place I told him that I wanted to also give him a present, a small gift, and showed him the Bhagavad Gita in English and in Hindi. He looked at both and said that he preferred the English one. After a few moments, thinking of his wife and his son – who I thought might be better in Hindi than English – I gave him the Hindi one too.

The next day he came from the house of a relative and fellow army officer nearby where he spent the night (having seen off the truck with his furniture and things the day before), to ask me to tell his newspaper delivery boy to stop delivery, then he paused and informed me that the day before, when he had brought the Gitas home, his wife eagerly took personal possession of the Hindi one, repeating the fact a second time.

Just then she also came, and for the first time ever (after a little prompting gesture from her husband), approached me – with a big smile on her face and her hands joined in "namaste" greeting,

Rasananda das

Author: admin

Share This Post On