Authors: Jose Thekkumthala
When he realized what happened, Mathettan, the detective, asked the alive but unconscious body, “Did they not teach you how to properly commit suicide? What a shame on your university education!”
Mathettan’s wisecrack gave rise to wild uproar of laughter from the group of sleepy people gathered around Number-Eight, still hanging limp. This laughter replaced the loud wailing sounds of Thoma family. He then lowered the body and sprinkled water on her face and she jolted out of her semi-dead state, staring at everyone with unbelieving eyes.
Mathettan, a fifth grader, had absolute contempt for university education. He would use any occasion to put down the university education which he was not lucky enough to get. This occasion was one of them. He usually compared himself to the university crowd and claimed that he was smarter than them. He told many
Amballore citizens, “I am a fifth grader; but I am smarter than a university graduate.” He would sometimes paraphrase, “None is smarter than a fifth grader.”
Ann knelt on the floor and embraced her daughter and shed tears of happiness. “We will get you married, baby,” she told her daughter.
The very next Monday, Mathettan called Canada, and with Josh’s approval, did all the groundwork to sell ten cents of the land to make enough money to pay a dowry. Number-Eight finally got married to a goldsmith upon payment of the dowry in the form of gold. Thoma’s family had a big combined sigh of relief when she was sent off to the goldsmith’s home.
***
Josh was besieged by bitter experiences from family entanglements, the many trials and tribulations he had to endure there, and the sacrifices he had to make for his siblings, which largely went unrepaid, even in the form of a “thank you.” In this, he shared the same feelings of his brother George and sister Kareena, whose sacrifices to the family were met with angry words and criticisms from them, let alone being acknowledged with gratitude.
The two brothers and the sister generalized from their experience that human capacity for gratitude was very limited, very short-lived —if it existed at all. The help they extended to their younger siblings was unwarranted and yet remained unreciprocated.
Josh and Kareena had several conversations during his first return visit from Canada in 1981 on why gratitude was hard to find in the family. These discussions were preceded by many similar discussions and would be followed by many. Some others in the family, such as George, Rita, and Tim would occasionally join in these discussions, to give their cut on the ill feelings that younger siblings harbored. It was generally felt by all these people that the resentment originated because helping hand was not extended permanently. When all was said and done, the recipients’ focus was on some more things they could have received from the benefactor. The moment a helping hand was extended, people tended to lean towards taking things for granted and a habit of dependence was
formed. It would then be hard to shake off this dependence.
They discussed in detail on the intriguing topic of gratitude and its omnipresent absence. The issue of thankfulness—or rather, the lack of it— led to invigorated discussions.
Kareena quoted the first century philosopher Epictetus: “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but is grateful for those which he has.” She added that it was hard to find wisdom in the family for the reasons cited by this famous saying. “No wise man or woman in our family,” she announced. She then continued her commentary.
Kareena continued, “The recipients of the handout just needed to remember what they did not have, such as the very essential things that life needed. They just needed to remember in the first place how they got what they did not have. They needed to remember that their elder siblings stepped into where their parents should have been, parenting their children and giving support physically and morally. If they had responsible parents, we would not have to have toiled hard to support them, compromising our own lives. They needed to be grateful for what they got. They should not have bitten the hand that fed them.”
Josh said, “At the very basic minimum, what we did should not have resulted in hostility, a call of war. This happened probably because our siblings were lifted out of the quagmire of misery too soon to know what the rescue meant. If they had lived in despair so long as to have been irredeemably damaged and then a knight in shining armor appeared to carry them off on a horseback to a land of prosperity, they would have known what it meant to be saved from one’s destiny.”
George was a man of few words and he kept his feelings to himself.
Tim, Rita’s husband joined the conversation. He was a man of broad vision and someone quite different from Thoma’s children. He had been able to think differently and compassionately. His viewpoint encompassed the needy, and it resonated with the younger siblings’ demand to be looked after unconditionally and perpetually. When Tim married Rita, he was not given a dowry.
This ran against the widely held custom of giving and receiving dowries, a custom that resonated with the signs of times of the sixties. Even though he could have made life difficult for Rita’s family for not getting the dowry, he did not, since he was a man of understanding. He bit the bullet. Josh would later on step in and pay off the overdue dowry, to the immense relief of Rita.
Tim said, “Did they probably expect that you three had obligation to help them?”
Josh replied, “It is not as if the obligation to bring up the family rested on George, Kareena or me; it was the responsibility of their parents. However, answer to your question is probably yes, however misconstrued the reasoning from the recipients was. It was because of that misplaced expectation that they tended to look forward to continued generosity.
“The recipients wanted more and expected more. Generosity, by its very nature, generates expectations of repeated handouts. Built into the core of largesse is a trap that forces the giver to keep on giving come hell or high water. The beneficiary is not altogether at fault in having continued expectation, especially if the benefactor’s generosity was with no strings attached. The condition of unconditional help engenders unrestricted expectation. Hell would break loose if the helping hand disappeared one fine morning. Be that as it may, all that needed to be remembered was the wise man’s saying “I once cried when I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.”
Josh continued, “All that our siblings, who received our helping hand, had to remember was that once upon a time, they did not have feet. Now they have feet to stand on—and pair of covering shoes to boot! They even have land to stand on. They were drifters, living on the mercy of the landlords, for crying out loud.”
Rita had a theory. She was of the opinion that gratitude was not necessarily a human trait. She brought in the story of Adam and Eve, the very first parents, who were ungrateful for the paradise they were granted and then revolted, only to be booted out to eternal damnation.
Kareena quoted from the teachings of Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism. “To know you have enough is to be rich,” he said once.
Kareena opined, “Even though beneficiaries had been forced to believe that help was limitless by the very nature of generosity, they should not at least have crossed the limits of basic human decency. Basic human decency mandates not to bite the hand that feeds you. Crossing this line meant entering the realm of greed.”
Kareena continued, “They just needed to have remembered in the first place that to have had enough was to have been rich; to have received something while they had nothing was good enough to feel rich.”
Tim deliberately raised objections to the arguments put forward by Kareena and Josh, to make the conversation more comprehensive and also to enliven the discussion. He invoked the principles that underlie civilized living and the give-and-take policies that fortified structures of family and society at large. The thoughts of give and take were broadly incorporated in the democratic policies such as taxation, so that one section of society would not starve to death while the other section would grow richer. To support each other is the basic backbone of a civilized society, Tim argued.
Tim said, “Charity begins at home. This means that helping siblings in the same family is the corner stone of building an equitable society.”
George, the silent man in the crowd, suddenly jumped into the conversation. He said, “This principle of intersibling support is well and good, provided parents don’t take advantage of the situation and act irresponsibly, such as producing uncountable number of children. Parents should not be under the expectation that they can wash their hands of their responsibility to bring up their own children. Sibling help or not, it is primarily the responsibility of parents to bring up their children. Bringing up the younger siblings overburdens the elder siblings who should have as good a chance to grow up as the younger ones. Many elder siblings in an average family forfeit their privileges—such as education—in order to bring up the younger ones. Look at me, for example! I had to forsake my
education to bring up my younger siblings. The younger ones get the handouts and they grow and prosper. This set of unbalanced responsibilities argues against charity at home. However, charity at home within reasonable limits is an appropriate ground rule.”
Everyone was amazed that the silent man became vocal and gave a piece of his mind at last! They wished he talked more.
Kareena said, “Why is it that some people, by virtue of the order in which they were born, are saddled with responsibilities whereas some others, by the same coin, get a free pass in life? The entire give-and-take philosophy has to address this unfairness.”
Rita opined that the ones who are required to give are given a lot to start with. She mentioned that whatever one was bound to give was in proportion to what he had received and therefore was fair. “Man is a social animal, and to survive with all the privileges that go with it, he should be willing to give per his ability to give to one per his need to receive,” Rita said, quoting from Marx.
Some in the group were surprised to find a similarity between the Marxist principle of give and take and the parable of talents mentioned in the New Testament. This parable talked about a master going on a trip and meeting three servants prior to his departure. He gave five talents, two talents, and one talent to three different servants. When he returned, the servant who received five returned ten, the one who received two returned four, and the one who received one had buried his talent, complaining that he received way too little and hence decided to generate nothing in return. He was thrown into darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The bottom line of the parable was to give per one’s ability and as for the recipient, not to be preoccupied with what little one got, because what was expected of him to return would be proportionately small. “Give per your ability and receive per your need—that is the principle of give-and-take,” Rita commented.
The issues related to capitalism, socialism, and the principles of accountability came up. Capitalism was held up as what would bring out the best in an individual and give free rein to individual
choices. The restrictive measures of communism, on the other hand, brought out a half-developed human being. “Is the objective of life to live for others or to live the best life one could possibly have, by exercising free will?” Josh asked the group. “I think that everyone should strive to have the best life possible and fight off the encumbrances that inconveniently saddle him, taking him away from his goals,” he added.
Tim responded, “There are many sources that praise the act of giving. Marxist principle is one. It predicts an equitable society based upon the principle of giving. The parable of talents reminds one that if he has been given more, then he should expect to give it back in the same coin. The hero Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, an ancient form of democracy that brought about equity. Not that I support the act of stealing.
“Indian mythology, at least in the story of lord Krishna and his friend Kuchela, states that even if you give very little, provided that is all what you have, you will be rewarded immensely. Kuchela gave only a tiny bundle of rice to lord Krishna as a gift, but the lord recognized that such tiny bundle is all what his friend could afford and therefore, he rewarded him extravagantly. The bottom line is to give per your ability and you will be rewarded for it.”
Kareena said, “I don’t think that there is dispute about charity being a noble enterprise. It sure is. What is at the heart of the discussion is not the need for giving, but why some people are forced to give— even to their own detriment. Take the case of George and myself. George could not get a higher education when he was young, because he had to enter the workforce to help out Father in supporting our siblings. As for me, I could have saved all the money that I sent home and this would have given me enough to meet my needs. If social structure dictates that elder siblings need to take care of the younger ones, then it is a totally wrong concept. It flies in the face of the fairness underlying equal opportunity to be extended indiscriminately to all the children in the family. The disproportionate set of responsibilities allocated across the spectrum of siblings smacks of injustice and should even be called criminal. Parents should be sensible enough not to let this happen.”
She continued, “After experiencing the unfairness of this situation in our own home, I long ago decided not to get married and bear children, so that I will not be responsible for my children to undergo the same fate as me. I was therefore able to break the cycle of injustice done to elder siblings.”
When Kareena revealed her decision long ago not to get married, it was shocking news to all in the family. Everybody in the family, especially Rita and Tim, tried to persuade her to change her mind. But she was determined and hence lived unmarried all her life. She also was aware what a large number of children did to Thoma and Ann, such as all but destroying their lives through insurmountable responsibilities and overwhelming struggles. This also was reason why she decided not to get married. She also did not want Mother Earth to be overburdened with countless children. She declined a number of good marriage proposals that came her way when she was young.