Letter to God

My dear God,

My name is Ramya of class IV. Sorry, you are God and so you know who I am. Anyway let me tell you what I want to tell you.

You know today, Patti cried. Oh sorry I don’t know if you know English. But I know English only and so am writing to you in English. In case you don’t know English, please come in my English miss’s dream and she will explain this to you.

Now why I write to you, I will tell you. You know, Patti cried. I like Patti very much. So I also cried. But I don’t know why she cried.

In the morning, Patti was very cheerful. She wore a beautiful sari, had lots of flowers in her hair and drew a ‘Kolam’ in front of the new house that Appa has bought.

Yes, Appa bought a new flat that is very near Chennai. It is just twenty kms from Tambaram. And Tambaram is only thirty kms away from Chennai. So, Tambaram is near Chennai, flat is near Tambaram and so flat is near Chennai. You got it, right ?

No, she didn’t cry because of the house.  Appa and Thatha brought a ‘cow’ inside the house and some more ‘thathas’ who had naamam (or thiruman) all over their body told some mantras. And Thatha declared ‘House Warming’ was done.

After all the functions were over, Thatha and Patti were speaking to some other guests. And that was when two Thathas who had large naamams on their forehead, came.

They started saying,’ You did not welcome us properly’.

They were expecting Thatha and Patti to come rushing and say,’Welcome, Welcome’ thousand times. Patti’s eyesight is not good. Doctor has said that she had some disease called ‘cataract’.

She said she didn’t see the two thathas. See, I forgot to tell you. Last week when Patti was taking me to the bus stop, she was almost hit by an uncle on cycle. She didn’t see the cycle coming.

There were two ‘thathas’ right?

One of them said, “You asked me to come. But you didn’t welcome me when I came inside the house’, in a loud voice. Then the Pattis who had come along with the thathas also started to say the same thing. It was like uncles who shout at each other in front of some shop near my school. Mother has asked me not to go near that shop. The shop’s name starts with something like ‘TAS’.

In short I heard these:

1.  ‘You didn’t welcome us’.
2.  ‘You have become wealthy and so you didn’t welcome us’.
3.  ‘We should not have come’.
4. ‘We are going back’.
5.  ‘No respect for us’.

God, I have some doubts.

My teacher once said there was something called ‘Atma’ or soul inside the body and so the body was just like a shirt. So, if a person died, the body only is destroyed and not the atma. If that is so then why these Thathas were shouting for respect? Why don’t they know that respect is for the Atma or soul and not for the body?

Also I read a book by Stephen Hawking, in which he says ‘, Man is an insignificant object on an average planet powered be a dying star’. Just the other day, my science teacher said that a meteor the size of a football ground was enough to wipe out most of the living things on earth.

If these are true, then why do these Thathas who seem to know all about atmas, souls etc quarrel about respect to the body? I thought they knew about these as they were wearing namams on their foreheads.

1. Don’t thathas who were namams know that respect is something you earn and not you demand?
2. Don’t these thathas know that shouting like this, when we were going into our new house, will make us sad?
3. Don’t these thathas know that shouting like this, in front of strangers like plumber, watchman etc, is not done by good thathas ?

Please appear in my dream and reply. If you reply tonight, I will break one coconut in front of Lord Ganesh on my way to school.

Expecting your answer.

Yours’ Obediently,

Ramya, Class IV

Legend :

Namam – the markings on the forehead of a particular sect of hindus wgo worship Lord Vishnu in India. The markings are are of two colors – white and yellow / red. The white mark would resemble a parabola and the yellow / red mark would be drawn inside the parabola.

Thatha – Grandpa

Patti – Grandma