Monday, January 5, 2009

astronomy for all

As is the norm, every day my daughter would ask me to narrate to her a new story. I did come across a small story from our puranas and i narrated it to her, the gist of the contents are as follows..
"Dhruv a small boy of about 5 years, yearns to sit on the lap of his father. But his step mother who doesn't like that idea as she wants her own son to inherit his father's lap tells him that he is not very fortunate since he is not born to her. Frustrated Dhruv goes to his actual mother and asks her what to do. She tells him to go find out Lord Narayana and He would grant him all the boons. Dhruv ultimately realizes Lord Narayana and the Lord would grant him many boons one of which is that Dhruv would become a star and live forever ".
Last week my daughter came up to me and asked for the Pole star to be shown in the sky. I just came from office with all the mess i read on the internet and my initial answer to her was, please don't bother me "i am tired". But she wouldn't listen. Then i had to go upstairs and i look at the sky for the first time in years. I don't know which star is which. As all children think, my daughter thought i am a great guy. In order not to disappoint her i told her the sky is not pretty clear and we can't see. She wasn't convinced. She looked up and said there are so many stars out there, you can't show me the pole star. Then i did what all people of my ilk would do, took resort to google and searched for the pole star. It said, it is some distance from the big dipper. Now i had to show her the big dipper and why it is called big dipper.. then explain to her where the pole star is. While all this happened, i lost my patience and shouted at her "enough is enough it is getting cold.. go and study".
Latter in the night i started introspecting. I realized i never studied anything expecting one day my kids would come to me for answers. All along i studied for myself, for my own satisfaction. Look at me, i cannot spend enough time with my daughter peacefully, fully listen to her questions, and affectionately answer them. My desire was to be right about the facts but what that poor girl wanted was to be right about feelings. I don't want another life, but should my karmic actions force me to have one, i would rather be a small-time villager.