Jainism Abroad

Author(s): Pratap J Tolia
Publisher: Vardhaman Bharati International Foundation

Page 54

51
IV
NIGHTMARE OF NIGHT-EATING Before going to bed, I started telling a story, a true story, to the genuinely inquisitive Rochester host family :There was a boy named Rohan. He was a good student at his school, bright in his studies and sports too. His father Gurnomal was a kind-hearted person, a wholesale cloth merchant. Rohan was his only son. Both of them had so much love amongst them that they will not miss to see and talk to each other daily inspite of their different odd and adverse hours of their respective work. Rohan used to go to his school in the morning and used to return late in the evening after completion of his daily sports and games activities followed after his study hours. His kind, caring and extremely affectionate mother will pack and give him a sumptuous lunch packet not only while his going to the school in the morning, but will also go personally to his school during lunch hour with fresh, hot, nutritious food to feed him. This whole small family was too much affectionate to each other.
Rohan's father Gurnomal would also carry along with him his bulky lunch tiffin carrier for his heavy lunch to his Big Business shop-a big and bulky heavy weight with his large and abnormal belly that he was ! After his long long business working hours of the day, he will return home very late in the night. However, his loving and affectionate son Rohan, though tired, will wait for him and they all will have their daily last Dinner together in the night.
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In their fine home, they had a beautiful, decorated sleeping JHOOLA, a vast huge slowly swinging moving bed, a typical, noteworthy and nice arrangement of their worthy Sindhi tradition, as the "JHOOLE LAL" worshipping Sindhi family they were...! They were noble-hearted refugees from Sindh migrated from Pakistan after the bloody partition of India, and had settled here. The father, Mr. Gurnamal will many times recollect and narrate the tales of his horrible experience of those barborous days of devastating bloodshed to his neighbours, particularly to his close Doctor friend and neighbour next door. This kind loving Doctor neighbour was the friend, Philosopher and Guide to this straightforward family. Especially, he was guiding them of healthy life style habits.
One night an unusual tragic incident took place. Rohan had just returned from his school and sports practices. His loving mother, while preparing a special food item for Rohan that evening, served as usual a glass of fresh fruit juice to him and told, "My beloved lad! I am going to serve you tonight a nice new variety of food. I am preparing it. It will be ready soon before your dad arrives. In the meanwhile have this juice in between. I know my dear, you might be too much hungry and tired....." and she embarrassed him while handing him the juice glass.
"Never mind, Mummy! You carry on. Even otherwise, you know, unless daddy returns from the shop, where am ! going to dine alone ?"
Saying so, Rohan sat down on his study table to complete his school homework, after sipping the glass of juice offered
Here in the kitchen, his mother became busy on the cooking stove completing the already commenced new surprise recipe by adding and mixing the ingredients with the kitchen spoon. Electric current was coming and going in between. Suddenly the telephone bell sounded from the adjacent room and she rushed to it, leaving carelessly the ongoing recipe-vessel open and uncovered with a lid.
The telephone conversation went on a little long and here in the kitchen, exactly above the recipe vessel on the coiling, a small tiny, grey-green coloured lizard was moving slowly. All of a sudden, it fell down from the ceiling into the open, uncovered, boiling recipe vessel kept on the stove. The tiny grey-green coloured lizard mixed up so exactly in the food recipe under preparation that it remained un-noticed by the unaware mother when she returned from the phone and resumed her cooking of that item........
"Then....... Then what happened, uncle ?" asked the Rochester boy, who was attentively listening the story. Exactly at that very time Gurnomal returned home. Being too much hungry, he asked his wife for serving the dinner dish soon if ready. "Everything is ready, be seated, I am just serving it, but today I am going to serve Rohan first, since I have prepared a special surprise item for him........ "replied Rohan's enthusiastic mother!
Soon the dishes were served to both, the son and the husband, on the usual place of the swinging Bed-jhoola,