When Nature speaks!!

I was 24 years old when I decided I should leave the city and move to the countryside. It puzzled all my family but none of my few friends.

I had quit my job as a salesman … I had become a Sales Manager by the time I quit. Strange disturbances in my life and my quest to understand their cause introduced me into the world of astrology and led me to research theology. Youthful impatience and ignorance finally forced me into taking the decision to leave behind the “thoughtless, heartless & uncaring “family of  parents and sibling.

The “thoughtless” family, not able to cope up with my quixotic bursts of activity, supported my relocation to our native village, about 300 km away.

I was provided with a few acres of paddy field. The planting season arrived and the canals filled with water from the nearby dam, a hundred kilometers away.

I had employed an “assistant” with an entire lifetime of experience in agriculture to carry out my directives – I would not know a paddy field from a sugarcane field then!!

My assistant prepared the nursery for the paddy crop. He filled the nursery plot with water and ran the bullocks with their plough over the patch for 2 days until the clay and the water blended to the consistency of thick chocolate. He employed a dozen women to sieve the nursery bed with their fingers to a depth of nearly a foot to pull out any weed legumes. He then yoked a large plank of wood to the bullocks and ran the plank all over the nursery. 

“The nursery is now ready”, he said . It appeared perfectly flat with exactly 2 inches of water standing over the entire surface. It was incredible!! The Nursery covered an expanse of nearly half an acre and it was absolutely flat!! I had seen 100 square feet rooms being constructed with flooring which reminded me of “ undulation”. And here was 22000 square feet of fluid earth and it was perfectly flat!!

I felt the disturbance in my thoughts settle; I was on the threshold of rediscovering a forgotten civilization with its ancient knowledge, technology and wisdom!!

“What next?” I asked and my assistant said,” Let us get the seeds ready!” He purchased a bag of good paddy and winnowed it over and over again in the strong wind current to remove any other seeds or earth which may have been packed with the paddy. He then dried the seed-paddy until it flowed out of the winnow with a sound that had a metallic ring to it. Again, he had done a amazing job!! I had never seen such a clean and glowing bag of paddy in my 24 years.

And all the Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology which I had studied with passion in school and college made more sense than ever before. So now the nursery and the seed were ready and there was plenty of water and the required fertilizers had already been stocked. I was glad that I had chosen my “assistant “well. My new avatar as an agriculturist was going to be a great success!!

The next day was auspicious and we made our way to the nursery and I sat at the edge while my assistant deftly sprinkled the seed-grain evenly over the half acre plot which had a clear 2 inches of water. It was all over in less than an hour.

We returned the next day morning to drain the water and expose the soaked seed to sunlight. That evening we filled the nursery again to the 2 inches of water and drained it the very next morning. This flooding and draining continued for 3 days and then the nursery was allowed to dry.

When we returned on the fifth day, I was greatly excited to see that the seeds had started to germinate and they were all displaying their short shoots, pale green in color. Still, the skeptic in me prompted a look at my assistant and seeing satisfaction writ widely on his face, I once again felt the disturbance in my mind settle-down. I had rediscovered an ancient civilization that co-existed with nature!!

On our subsequent visit the next day, I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the germinated shoots sporting a bright green color, in contrast to the pale green of the majority. By now, I had gotten over my disturbing thoughts and had also relegated my skepticism to the back seat. I asked my assistant

“How come, some of the paddy seeds are more potent than the others?” He replied,” The bright green shoots are not paddy, they are weeds!!”

I could feel the disturbance creeping into my mind again, and the skepticism moved over to the front seat again- the driver’s seat this time.

He continued to explain,” During our careful sieving of the nursery, there were bound to be lapses and the leguminous roots of the weeds which have always been in the soil have taken advantage of the ploughing and watering and loosening of the soil to make their presence felt and are now growing to multiply. Left unattended, they will take over the entire nursery and there will be no paddy left, so they will have to be removed”

Shaken, I then told him to start the de-weeding immediately, since I did not want the fertilizer to be used up by the weeds. It was a great consolation that I was now taking decisions and I now wanted to arrest the weed invasion.

My assistant counseled patience. He said,” The weeds have just started to show themselves. Allow time for the late-comers also. We will wait for 2 more days and by then all the weeds will show themselves. That will be the right time to de-weed. If corrective action is taken in haste, the late comers will hide between the shoots of paddy and cause extensive damage further down!! Do not worry about the lost fertilizer, it is a part of the de-weeding cost.”

Chastised again, I meekly and thankfully followed his advice and we had a healthy harvest at the end of the season. I grew more proficient as the years rolled by but my first experience was never lost on me. Many years passed with a plethora of experiences but I pondered over my first experience again and again and suddenly one day, found the experience to be a revelation!!

We see honest people around us grumble,” I have never done a bad deed intentionally and I do not know why I suffer. See him, the fraudster and his affluent life… that is the way to live … honesty never pays!!”

One day, pondering over the dilemma of the honest man, it suddenly struck me that I had witnessed the answer.

Yes, the sincere deweeding and cleaning of the paddy seed was the initiative and drive of the honest man in wedding himself firmly to his lofty ideals.

The unwitting lapses in his efforts are the weed-legumes which have still remained in his life, waiting to create havoc.

The enterprise of the honest man to fulfill his worldly responsibilities is the sowing of the grains in the nursery and the enrichment with fertilizer.

During such enterprise and the anxiety to rush to see the result, the weeds take the lead… the inexperienced man mistakes them to be the fruits of his efforts and ends up holding a bunch of useless weeds.

It has been his folly all along but he ends up blaming the result as a act of a

graceless God! He should have been patient and consistent in continuing to invest in the de-weeding until he has ensured the safety of his enterprise.

Going forward, he should also realize that a wrong act is very potent in its result, more potent than the result of a noble act! There is no need to lament about this! We are able to do the de-weeding only because the weed grows faster than the grain! If the grain grew faster or even as fast as the weed, think of the consequences!

There is more to be learnt! The grain of rice is the honest man and the legume of weed is the dishonest man. We can identify the dishonest from the honest by the pace of their growth. This will provide us with a criterion to deweed them from our lives and from society.

“It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven” makes more sense in this context.

When Nature speaks, we become mute!!