TIME TO MOVE ON
By
VIKRAM KARVE
Here is an apocryphal funny teaching story I heard somewhere.
Dear Reader, please read it slowly, then have a good laugh, carry the story with you and let it perambulate in your mind, and suddenly you will understand its true meaning and feel enlightened.
A distinguished man bought a lovely bungalow at a scenic place in a nearby hill-station.
From time to time he would take a break from his work and escape from the hectic life of the city and go to his bungalow in the hills to enjoy relaxed solitude.
He would always tell everyone that he was going away for a month but invariably he used to always return much earlier - sometimes within ten days and sometimes even earlier - within a week itself.
When asked the reason for his erratic behaviour, the distinguished man explained:
"I have kept a caretaker woman there to look after my house in the hills. She is very ugly, probably the ugliest and most repugnant woman in the world – she looks absolutely hideous and is so terribly revolting that just one look at her and you will feel like vomiting.
Whenever I go to live there, at first the ugly woman looks terribly repulsive and dreadfully ghastly.
But slowly, after three, four days, she doesn’t seem so horrible.
Then, as time passes, maybe after six, seven days, I start seeing some beauty in her.
The day I start seeing beauty in her is the day I flee from the hill-station and come back to the city – because that means enough is enough – I have lived away from the world too long - now even this utterly ugly and horrible woman has started looking beautiful – I may even fall in love with this horrendous woman – that is dangerous warning signal and I know that it is time to move on. So I pack up my bags and rush back to the city."
Please tell me, Dear Reader, what is the moral of this story?
VIKRAM KARVE
vikramkarve@sify.com
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve
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