A slight detour in the course of the day. The dining table - a center that I have made a compulsion at least for one meal, beckoned, and as the stipulator it meant being there when all else wait. My Father had a placement theory for this. Individuals facing which direction had meaning. The North for one , the South for another and on. Interesting. I must uncover this from his biography and reveal it to the EF, not to practice but to perhaps assuage at some time whether the sitting arrangements at the table concurred with the personality or position of the person occupying it.

The shape of the dining table being round at Prateeksha and where my Father had revealed his theory has now been replaced by one that is oblong. More long that ob ! And it is now at Jalsa, where the directions and positions have changed. So generally the head sits at the shorter side of the oblong and this is where they have graciously put me with respect. The chair too is different to the others, giving it a somewhat regal quality.. Ha ha .. But we all know that the lady of the house runs the command and no matter where she will sit, the command will be obeyed from there.

When the children come over, they find themselves at the lower half of the dining table, a place from where they feel they are not included in all the talk of the elders and the parents. This has at times caused some consternation with those that are younger in age. Apart from being given the impression that they are not important enough to be ‘higher up’, they are often teased of their ‘lower’ position by the immediate elder in the sibling. This has led to some anxious expressions and some moments of extreme grief among the younger lot, at times reducing them to tears of embarrassment. Moments at the dining table are sacred. We refer to the act of eating as ‘pet puja’. Paying homage or a prayer almost to the stomach. It is a cultural act of thanksgiving. Like saying grace before a meal. For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful for Christ’s sake, Amen ! Or ‘Bismillah’ in another faith before the first morsel.

It is a moment of joy and happiness. A glory to the superior being for providing us our sustenance. A sustenance without which we would all perish. A sustenance that we all eventually work for, live for, survive and struggle for. Anger and anguish and sadness have no place in the realm of our eating. We are not eating. We are in a sense paying obeisance to the act. This act that is the most important in our lives, must never be clouded by rancor and depressed emotion.

Such a state would be insulting to him or her that provided us ; that brought us together to relish and enjoy this gift from the Almighty. There needs to be an atmosphere of joyousness, of music and laughter and happiness. This pleases the God’s. This pleases our intestines too as does its digestion. Eat in anger and it could be ineffective to the system, wasted and bereft of any positivity. Happiness and good cheer will find the fruits of its value within us. So they say. And so may I believe must we all.

So when through unguarded sibling rivalry .. well not exactly rivalry .. sibling attention getting to one and not the other … and when the factor is rubbed in through playful superiority, the one lower down the line feels a pang of emotion. The ‘inferiority’ rubs in and travels all along the body right up to the eyes, which then through some strange body chemical reaction well up in size and develop a liquid, somewhat salty in taste, inside the confines of our eye openings. A few of these moisture laden drops of water filled bags, inadvertently then climb out of the eyelids and slide down the sides of the cheek, meeting up with the curvature of the lips drooping down in an expression depicting not the very best of times.

When this happens to the youngest on the table it is time to take notice and repair. So in an unguarded moment when the ‘lower’ has been teased by the ‘upper’ and there is the building up of the moisture in those innocent eyes, it is time for the eldest to take action. It is time to divert the emotion, to prevent further moisture making and inviting their attention to something that shall take them away from that ‘humiliating’ situation !!

It was on one such day that the change took place. The eldest took charge and offered the head of the table and the ornate chair to the ‘lowest’ and from then on the ‘lowest’ sits with pride and importance at the head chair and loves every bit of it.

Agastya now sits at the head of the table when he is in town. This is his pacifier, one that he seems most happy and important with. I take his position at the lowest end and all seems well with the God’s ..

Children … children … they get so easily diverted within seconds. Changed, forgotten and not a trace of any animosity. That is the child for you. Leave him with time and he shall grow up believing that the chair actually belonged to him and no other. The table is the same, the chairs too and the way we sit as well … but somewhere the positioning has been established or challenged with time.

Time is the villain …

And we have so little of it in ourselves ..

Amitabh Bachchan