By R Swaminathan
Shopping, especially one done at the
festival time with bulging purses and after high pressure advertising
in the media, can be a delightful or disastrous experience. It brings
more delight when what you get costs you much less than at other
times. It becomes disastrous when the expenditure terribly
overshoots the budget. Those who refuse to see or ear advertisements
also yield to the pressure to do shopping, for instance, for storage
articles after an attack of their wooden almirah or furniture by
termites.
Whether you live in flats or houses,
the inferior country wood or plywood which is used to craft sexy
furniture, is terribly prone to attack by white ants. The damage is
always never known to you beforehand like the worst physical
affliction, namely, cancer. It is always too late when you discover
the worst is over, and a removal of the existing article/s is
inevitable and a replacement is immediately necessary. Thus a
compulsion arises to buy something when the discount sale is on.
You search the internet and newspapers
for the best offer in the town, visit showrooms, small and big, with
the entire family in tow (Children also claim at times they are
knowledgeable because they have tremendous exposure in the
neighbourhood and on the same TV channels which you watch with them).
Small shopkeepers don't seem to appeal to you much because you
realise that you have to think several times before you decide. The
replacement is going to be expensive, your mind tells you. So the
best showroom and manufacturer is the immediate target of your
shopping adventure.
You are not jolted so much by the
seller telling that it will take at least a week to deliver what you
want from the warehouse. That there is no delivery charge makes you
happy at once. You place an order with the help of ever ready plastic
money and come home singing your favourite tune.
Suddenly, dawns the realisation that it
will arrive only after a week. The place has to be cleaned up
immediately because you firmly believe that termites breed in
geometric progression and across your flat and even the whole
building.
Finding a carpenter for an odd job is
an impossible task these days. It is the better half's turn to tell
you now that you should pick up small skills like using a screwdriver
and hammer and break up the cupboard yourself. “Decide to do it
yourself.” But the sight of hundreds of termites in a small area
drives you crazy. Because the almirah has not been opened for a long
time, the entire place has been mercilessly spoilt. The advice comes
from the kitchen side, “You should have done something, before, as
a precaution.” “All this because teak wood is costly and they use
only country wood and plywood, using quick fix adhesive,” you curse
yourself.
The only redeeming feature is the
support you get from the family members who previously liked only
fashionable wooden articles. After seeing the army of termites they
feel it is better hereafter to go in for the strong and sturdy steel
stuff. They decide to tell neighbours that wooden stuff are well
polished but can be cruelly bad for you. They pass a resolution not
to go in for more clothes (at least for the time being), and finding
it difficult to stack them, they agree to part with old and worn out
ones by giving them to the near and needy. In the bundles rolling out
of the cupboard are those with dye washed out or sticking to others
as well as the ancient wear still kept there (though family members
have outgrown that size) just because there may be potential users.
Then occurs Vastra Vairagyam, a dispassionate detachment from
clothes.
Vairagyam kinds
There are various types of Vairagyam,
two of which are well known. Prasava Vairagyam is what a woman who is
about to give birth to a child feels: “Never again to conceive,
carry and deliver a baby.” But as time passes this disappears and
she is in the family way yet again. Masana Vairagyam is the
realisation at the cremation ground when someone dear passes away and
is about to be cremated: It is knowing the truth that one day all
must die and face the same end and why fight between us during this
short span of life?.
A third truth is Masiru Vairagyam: When
a man has a shave after a long time, say, a week or two, and has pain
and difficulty in removing the rough hair growth, he decides for a
minute that he should have a shave as frequently as possible.
Pariksha Vairagyam is what a student encounters when the question
paper is very tough and thinks that his problem is insurmountable.
Kadalar Vairagyam is the dispassion that one experiences after a
break-up in love or affair or after a marriage that goes on the
rocks.
Santana Vairagyam is known well to
those who have no children or those with unworthy children. Those
without kids have no issues and treat everybody's child as their own.
And those with wayward children wish their own are somebody's else.
They rationalise to themselves that there is no use having a unit in
which younger ones are not obedient children and one day each one has
to tread his path to the land of Dharma Raja all alone.
Vivaha Vairagyam comes to parents after
they marry off their son or daughter. A father of a girl feels his
duty on earth is over after the event is gone through. A father of a
boy is convinced on marriage that the son is in the safe hands of his
wife and her family who will be decision-makers in future _ he will
be least consulted on any matter.
KG or college Vairagyam hits one at the
face when he finds the doors of kindergarten (the most sought after
one) closed for his lovely kid and college vairagyam comes when there
is denial of admission in a leading professional or business school.
The victim screams: “What the hell one is going to do special in
that place? And after all, there are far better places elsewhere.
Others have fared better.”
Pitch Vairagyam is known to cricket
sportspersons and fans: defeat hugs you after a prestigious match
and you don't want to be crestfallen but show some bravado. You say
the pitch ditched your side. Vellai Illadhavan Vairagyam does not
need any vyakhyanam: it is the detachment of a person who misses the
bus in an interview for a job: he feels the right time has not come
for the right post or the Nine planets (as per horoscope ) are not
favourable to him at the moment. Realisations as such are many and
can't be listed comprehensively. It is better to leave it to an
individual's experience and imagination.
