Growing Up
The boy was handsome and walked
with a spring in his steps. That was about his exteriors. It would take only a
few sympathetic words to wring out his insides. He probably wore his heart just
in his inner pocket.
He had lost his mother long
back and what he saw of his father’s making of his life was depressing. Life
was too loud for him. His father was more ambitious than his finances
permitted. Perhaps the steadying influence of his wife had had kept him bound. With
that gone, the father had become reckless.
The young lad looked for a
way out. He took it with both hands when he got an opening. He got a job in a
public religious institution known for its quite steadiness. Though he was in
an age of flirting and was of age too, he was really a baby. Girls meant much
less to him than even flowers. He liked to be where he was, in a place where
hardly any girl came. He had thought of married life for a fleeting moment but
dismissed it immediately. He had seen enough of his father’s relatives by
marriage that marriage became a dirty word for him.
One day the head-man’s
daughter from the parched village came to call the monks for prayers for rain.
The monks sent him instead with some blessed water. As he entered the temple,
it poured.
He looked up. Drops of water shone
on the girl’s face and on his too.
Both their eyes met and
recognized. She too had been a baby till now.
They grew up suddenly by a
giant leap.
Swami Sampurnananda,