{"id":58806,"date":"2018-12-06T20:20:50","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T04:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=58806"},"modified":"2018-12-06T20:21:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T04:21:03","slug":"what-you-give-you-get-it-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/what-you-give-you-get-it-back\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Give, You Get It Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

My wife, Manasa\u2019s day started, as usual, with WhatsApp. She smiled as she saw the message from her cousin, Nalini, from Bangalore. Her daughter, Rupa\u2019s wedding was fixed for the Christmas vacation, so relatives and friends could attend, writes\u00a0Dr. Raghavendra Rao.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cManasa, we have reserved a room in Apsara Hotel with Wi-Fi, sauna and other conveniences. You must attend with Madhukar. Now, I bought several saris for relatives and have attached their photos in WhatsApp. You\u2019re special, so the first choice is yours. Select one. I will keep it for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manasa quickly opened the attachments and saw the sari photos. There was one, a double colored violet Mysore silk sari in a shade of red. The pallu<\/em>had golden swans. She was ecstatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep this one for me,\u201d she e-mailed back to her cousin.<\/p>\n

Rupa\u2019s wedding was performed on a grand scale in Bangalore. The groom came on a white horse, the bride in a palanquin accompanied by relatives, friends and Nadaswara<\/em>pipe players. Manasa thought the ceremony was worth attending.<\/p>\n

That evening, after the reception and dinner, Manasa opened her sari gift in the hotel room.<\/p>\n

\u201cMadhu, this sari does not look attractive, you know. The photograph of the sari looked more beautiful than what it looks like now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cManasa, easy now. Why don\u2019t you look in the daylight? Let\u2019s sleep, now it is quiet late.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Manasa didn\u2019t sleep well. She tossed and turned, perhaps thinking about the sari.<\/p>\n

The next morning, after breakfast, she chatted with her cousin. Tactfully, she led the conversation to the subject of saris. \u201cAre there any more left?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Manasa, I gave you the best one.\u00a0 It\u2019s the latest fashion. They say, Sridevi, the famous actress, wore that in a movie, not the same sari though. In sunlight it is violet, and under artificial light it is red.\u00a0 Your friends will envy you because they think you got two saris from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought you would say.\u201d Manasa did not like the sari. She carefully packed it and placed it in her travel suitcase.<\/p>\n

After the hubbub of the wedding ceremony quietened, my wife and I went on a pilgrimage to the Goddess Mahalaxmi\u2019s temple in Kolhapur.<\/p>\n

Thousands visit the Goddess every day, especially, women consider it a great privilege to offer a sari to Mahalaxmi. They believe they will gain much virtue in doing so.<\/p>\n

The priest places the sari for a second on the Goddess and offers the sari for hundreds of rupees to devotees at the sanctum. People may buy the sari from the priest. Women believe it is a great asset to possess such a sari. Later, the sari merchants in the town buy the left-over saris from the priests wholesale and sell them to pilgrims in their shops vouching that they were worn by Goddess Mahalaxmi.<\/p>\n

Manasa got a brilliant idea.<\/p>\n

She carried the sari in her purse. At the temple, she bought a bamboo plate with flowers, incense sticks, a coconut, and camphor. She picked the double colored sari and neatly adjusted it on the plate. She and I joined the serpentine line leading to the sanctum.<\/p>\n

That day, Deity Mahalaxmi was decorated with colorful flowers, and bejeweled in diamond ornaments which shone like thousands of stars under the oil lamps. The priests had clothed Mahalaxmi in a violet sari of rich silk fabric with raised patterns in gold threads. The fragrance of burning camphor and incense sticks was overwhelming. The priests chanted mesmerizing Vedic hymns.<\/p>\n

Manasa, with great reverence, handed over the bamboo plate with the sari to the priest with 1,000 rupees as dakshina<\/em>. The priest, chanting Sanskrit poems, covered the Goddess for a second with the sari that Manasa had given. Then he folded it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmma<\/em>(Mother), do you want to buy the sari for 20,000 rupees?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

We came out. Manasa was happy she had donated the sari to the Goddess and earned a lot of virtue. She thought the sari would be offered to poor people and thus she would reap some more virtue.<\/p>\n

After a couple of days, we returned to Bangalore. That evening, we were packing to catch the plane to Los Angeles when Manasa\u2019s Aunt, Nagamma, showed up. We hadn\u2019t met her for several years. After chatting for a few minutes, Nagamma said, \u201cManasa, here is a small gift for you. It is precious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAunty, there is no place in my suitcase. We\u2019re late already. Please, next time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old Nagamma was like a leech.<\/p>\n

It was hard to get rid of her. She opened a suitcase, shoved the packet in and tried to close the case. She couldn\u2019t. She sat on it, and being hefty, it worked. \u201cHa, ha,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

We hurried to Bangalore airport and caught the plane to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After a week of shaking off jetlag, Manasa opened the suitcases one by one. In one of them she found a small packet wrapped in Indian Express<\/em>newspaper. There was a note pinned to the paper packet.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear Manasa, I went on a tour bus to all the holy places. At Kolhapur, I found a precious gift for you. I haven\u2019t given you anything for several years. Enjoy it. Aunt Nagamma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manasa opened the packet, and there it was, a violet and red double colored silk sari with the pallu<\/em>of golden swans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife, Manasa\u2019s day started, as usual, with WhatsApp. She smiled as she saw the message from her cousin, Nalini, from Bangalore. Her daughter, Rupa\u2019s wedding was fixed for the Christmas vacation, so relatives and friends could attend, writes\u00a0Dr. Raghavendra Rao. \u201cManasa, we have reserved a room in Apsara Hotel with Wi-Fi, sauna and other…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1079,19,20],"tags":[2356,32,140,147],"class_list":["post-58806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-literature","category-topics","category-youth","tag-dr-raghavendra-rao","tag-fiction","tag-literature","tag-siliconeer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}