Wednesday, March 10, 2010

About Turn

I heard this little nugget from an old friend I caught up with yesterday. The story is about the Goddess of Wealth, Laxmi. It's a Marathi story, I hope the essence ain't lost with my translation. Here goes:

A devotee of Laxmi's prays long and hard for wealth, success and pots of it in front of a Laxmi statuette in his little home-temple. And lo and behold, Laxmi appears in his dream and tells him to forge ahead in whatever he's doing and she'll be behind his efforts all the way (mi tuzhya pathishi ahe!)

So the devotee wakes up, thanks her, and every single day prays even longer and harder in front of the statuette from then on. However, six months downstream, nothing much has changed in his life, and the guy gets frustrated. So he asks Laxmi again: why is she not fulfilling her promise?

He has a dream again that night, as Laxmi answers him: "I'd said that I'd be right behind you, my son. Why aren't you forging ahead, instead of facing me all the time with your prayers? See what happens when you turn your back on me- I'll follow you all the way!" (tu path tar dakhav mala; bagh ma kay hote!)

I loved the story. To make your dream real, you need to roll up your sleeves and turn your back on the Goddess of Wealth. She recommends it as well.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Interesting story. :)

Anonymous said...

That's so true....we have to work hard for our dreams..and not simply wait for some miracle to happen..

The Sleeping Ninja said...

I'm reminded of a friend from the past, who would quite be the antithesis of the motto of your story here.

A cricketer of considerable aptitude, he also indulged in table-tennis with us at the WIE Sports complex near Modern College (don't know what they call it these days).

His motto was 'why fight if you can lose easily'. In other words, move on quickly to the next if this one is a lost cause.

Funnily, his silly motto did make sense sometimes :)

The Sleeping Ninja said...
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