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When fathers and sons fight

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Sai R Vaidyanathan

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Holi is celebrated every year to commemorate Prahalad’s emerging alive out of an immolation ordered by his father Hiranyakashyap.

Demon king Hiranyakashyap wanted that he should be worshipped in his realm, but his son Prahalad turned out to be Lord Vishnu’s devotee.

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Differences between them grew to such a level that Hiranyakashyap decided to get Prahalad killed.

He told his sister Holika to sit on a pile of wood with Prahalad on her lap. The pile would then be set alight. Holika agreed to the plan as she had a fire-proof ‘dupatta’.

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But by Lord Vishnu’s grace, the wind shifted the protective garment from Holika to Prahalad. So she was consumed by the fire and Prahalad survived.

Hiranyakashyap was later killed by Vishnu’s Narasimha incarnation.

Point of no return

After becoming the Buddha, Siddhartha once returned to his hometown Kapilavastu. By that time, his father Suddhodana had grown old. So he wanted Siddhartha to become king. But Siddhartha refused. Later, Siddhartha went about gathering alms in the kingdom. So Suddhodana confronted him saying he doesn’t need to beg as he has descended from kings.

Siddhartha replied, “Father, you have been born in the lineage of kings but I have descended from the Buddhas of old. Like me, they too used to seek alms.”

The best bargain

Mehta Kalu was keen that his son, who was then married and had two sons of his own, should engage in some profitable pursuit. So he gave his son, Guru Nanak, a suitable sum of money and told him to go to a wholesale market in Chuhrkana.

Guru Nanak followed the advice but on his way back, he saw a group of holy men who had not eaten for several days.

So he left all that he had procured from the market at the disposal of the holy men and returned home empty-handed.

When Mehta Kalu saw this, he became angry. Guru Nanak replied that he had been told to strike a good bargain and he couldn’t think of a better deal than this.

Two ways to perfection

Once, brothers Ganesh and Kartikeya began fighting over a fruit. Seeing this, Lord Shiva set them a task to decide its recipient.

“The first to unravel the secret of the universe gets the fruit,” Shiva said.

Even before the race started, Ganesh knew he would end up as the loser — he was heavily built and had a mouse as his mount. In contrast, Kartikeya was fit and had a peacock to take him around.

So Ganesh put on his thinking cap. As his parents were the parents of the universe, he circumambulated them and got the fruit.

When Kartikeya returned after making a round of the universe, he was shocked to be the loser.

Shiva explained the verdict to him, “I, Shiva, and your mother Shakti make up the universe. By just knowing us, Ganesh came to know it all. Ordinary seekers don’t have a life long enough to probe it all like you just did.”

In anger, Kartikeya left his home in Mount Kailash and landed at a mount in Palani in South India.

The author can be contacted at author.sai@gmail.com

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