In search of perfection

My mother says I have always been the difficult-to-please type. As a child, I remember sitting patiently on the kitchen floor and awaiting t...

My mother says I have always been the difficult-to-please type. As a child, I remember sitting patiently on the kitchen floor and awaiting the perfect-round dosa! It seems, to break my stubbornness, others would deliberately create imperfections in every dosa. I would reject them and look on unperturbed even as the hot ones got devoured by the other family members. I used to hold out and, in every situation, I am supposed to have blinked last.

I don’t know when I lost the obsession for round dosas. Possibly it was after I picked up the ladle myself! But my search for the flawless has haunted me in different spheres at different points in life. As a young woman, I used to untiringly try and match the money in hand with the most exquisite clothes and accessories in the market. I had the reputation of being a kanjoos merely because I never succeeded in this impossible effort. I wonder if I would ever have zeroed in on a husband if I had not been born into a society where the family had the main say in fixing marriages.

Now I am well into the middle age and the fancy for things has begun to fade. My current fixation is on meeting the perfect human. I have undoubtedly met lots of nice persons over the years but none yet who is blemish-free. And that, of course, includes me. But there must be, I reasoned, somebody in this vast body of humanity, who would wholly match up to my definition of a complete person.

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Yesterday my neighbour’s child came over. She was entering a ‘Sankshiptha-Ramayana’ (concise epic) recitation contest. She wanted my father to explain the stanzas so that she could learn them meaningfully. I think I was destined to be around then, just so that my lifetime thirst could be quenched. Father explained, ‘‘The tapasvi Valmiki questioned Narada so: Who in the entire world is good natured, brave, a follower of dharma, dutiful, truthful and unshakable in keeping his vow? Who is the one with character, who works for the welfare of all? Who is learned, competent and good looking? Who is the one with self-control, who has defeated anger, is intelligent, and free from jealousy? Who is the one whom even the devas fear to face in battle? I very much want to know if you happen to know such a person. O Maharishi Narada, in the course of your wanderings in the three worlds, have you met any man who fits my description?’’

In reply Narada told him the story of one Prince Rama, born in the illustrious line of the Ikshvakus. I felt as if I had been hit by a thunderbolt. It was as though I myself was the questioner and the answer was revealed to me from a verse that I was familiar with all along. I finally understood my thirst. In my quest for the perfect, I had but been seeking Him.