HOLY BASIL

Story By- Dr. Jaya Kumar.

Neha, our protagonist, always believes in God. She has a religious bent of mind, but, her first religion has always been humanity.
She has a strong faith in the rituals of every religion and has developed a spiritual thinking with reasoning and a logical approach.
Some faith is attached to values. Those values which we believe in since childhood. Values which are inherent to us as human beings.
One day, Neha was teaching moral ethics and education to her son Hari.
She gave a pause to her teachings. Before proceeding further, she wanted to share a personal experience with Hari.
Hari, is still a small boy, but is very sensible and sensitive towards everything happening around him. Both Neha and her husband Sohit believe that children should be inculcated with ethics and understanding of life correctly very early in life.
Neha and Sohit both personally feel that as parents, it is their duty and responsibility to share truths of life with Hari. A child should develop a strong and a fair sense of understanding and maturity to be able to correctly analyse situations and events happening around him. To emerge victorious in 'Examination of Life'.
Neha started narrating her story to Hari, which goes by the title: 'THE HOLY BASIL' .
This story is of the time when Hari was still a toddler. Neha, Sohit and Hari had gone to attend a wedding in Neha's paternal relations. The wedding ceremony was conducted well, but after a long and hectic set of rituals, everyone was extremely tired.
Early next morning, all the relatives who had come for the wedding, were sitting together at Neha's youngest paternal aunt Ranjana's house. Everyone was eager to have a hot cup of tea to refreshen themselves up.
Aunt Ranjana herself was feeling tired and lazy to make such a lot of tea for everyone present there.
At that hour, early in the morning, even her maid was fast asleep.
So, there was no help available but only relatives to render assistance. Ranjana herself, was not young any more. She was growing old. Rest everyone there, even the younger lot was feeling too lazy to act.
Now all eyes were on Neha, a person with un-ending energy who always used to be everyone's saviour in situations like this. But on careful analysis, it seemed like all of them in a way were misusing her innocence and true attachment towards everyone.
Neha herself was feeling tired and sleepy, but, it  never showed on her face.
She stood up smilingly and proceeded towards her aunt Ranjana's kitchen. Even though she never used to take tea herself, but, she would be preparing lots of tea-cups for everyone, she thought. All that because of her love for her loved ones which was Neha's philosophy of life. She should not break everyone's hope of having a good cup of tea, she thought.
She therefore, started preparing tea for all, happily. To make the tea taste even better and to bring a refreshing and a natural aroma to it, she took aunt Ranjana's permission to pluck a few leaves from the 'Holy Basil' plant growing in the courtyard of the house. The 'Holy Basil' plant was not only a herbal plant for Neha, but was her true faith of piousness and wellness.
A faith that her 'Tulsi Ma', as  she used to call it, the 'Holy Basil' would refreshen even the most tired body to soul. Basil leaves have a scientifically proven  medicinal power to energise and enliven human body.
As a self-defined rule Neha set for herself before plucking leaves from the basil plant, she sought permission from the plant itself, with folded hands, to allow her to take some leaves off it and she meant no disregard or harm to the plant.
This was a habit and a faith which Neha had followed since early childhood. All her relatives including her aunt Ranjana was aware of this habit and the true faith Neha had in her heart .
As Neha approached the holy basil plant, she saw that the plant was very young and small in size. Keeping this in mind, she plucked only one leaf from the plant after taking due permission of 'Holy Basil'.
She believed that even that one leaf was enough to bring the desired wonderful aroma into the tea she was preparing.
Neha, single-handedly, was also simultaneously arranging the tea cups, biscuits and some snacks everyone wished to have with tea.
She was putting her best effort for everyone to sit together and enjoy their hot cup of tea. But then something happened. Aunt Ranjana suddenly entered the kitchen where Neha was working and shouted at her scoldingly and said, "l think you have killed my basil plant and have plucked all its leaves just to add aroma and flavour to your tea to impress everyone".
Neha was shocked,  surprised and disappointed to hear those words coming from her aunt Ranjana, who knew Neha's attitude and sense of understanding from the day Neha was born.
Neha was hugely astonished and disheartened  as she was being confronted for the crime she has not even committed without any logic and reasoning.
Neha went almost numb for a few moments on hearing such words from her aunt whom she believed had wisdom befitting her age. Instead of giving any reaction to such words, Neha should prudence and just walked silently out of the kitchen. She was still holding the tray with tea for all and everything arranged nicely along with it.
Those words said by aunt that day made her lose all respect for her in the eyes of Neha. This was the story of 'The Holy Basil'.

Young Hari was listening to his mother's this story very carefully. He was surprised that her mother's eyes were not wet today event though there was another heart-break by a close relative.
Seeing Hari's apparent confusion hearing all that she said,
Neha shared with Hari, the moral of the story, based on her experience.
HUMAN VALUE IS ABOVE RELATIONS. EXPERIENCE IS NOT BOUND BY AGE. THE TRUTH SHALL ALWAYS EMERGE VICTORIOUS.
BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AND RESPECT THOSE WHO EARN IT WITH THEIR BEHAVIOUR AND ACTS.