The teasing girl

Mindian · Sep 16, 2011

Dear Cheeniya sir,

I guess the title and Oj da's name caught my attention and I actually thought you had come up with a new post. But looks like many of your old ones have been revived , and kept you busy?

The title led me to believe that it would be humorous but the end really saddened me and I actually went "Ohhhhhhh...thats so sad". That was the power of your writing, surely.

To say that it was a wonderful post would only be an understatement. But you do know me by now...that I am struck dumb sometimes.:cheers

Srama · Sep 16, 2011

Dear Cheeniya sir,

wow!! How beautiful, poetic, lyrical and vivid in imagination this snippet is! Absoultely enjoyed it! I have to thank Oj-da for the last reply for I was drawn to it because I saw his name!

Your explanations make sense....but given the state of mind I am in right now, at the first read, I was reminded of Jonathan Livingston only doing his best for the sake of his love!! Now, i don't know why it appealed to me in that sense. Reading the responses, now I know you were also speaking of love only as in what God has for us. And would you be surprised if I said all along I had a butterfly in mind and was mildly surprised when you mentioned a dragon fly? Anything beautiful, fluttering among flowers is a butterfly in my world (am I that oblivious to other existence!) - the joy of just watching those beautiful insects is never tiring to me or to my kids! Yes, yes in my eagerness and involvement, I have stretched my imagination to the tiniest possible rocks being lifted by the fragile legs(?) of that butterfly I have imagined and I don't even want to get into the details of that beautiful little girl.....I want to take a brush and paint...now! And what surprises me is, I never felt sorry for that butterfly, for somewhere I knew and felt he was doing all this willingly...for he had many chances to escape!!

All that explanation was my attempt to tell you how beautiful your writing is! While you know that I enjoy almost all of your writings, this has touched me in ways I cannot explain! Wanting to paint is the deepest meditative state I can get into and this invoked that feeling!! I keep a "feel good book" (a book any of us in the family can pick up and read anytime and it contains things we have written down because they have touched us) and this is going to be in that book. Hopefully one day, my kids will read it and love it as much as I have!

And oh that bear story...simply beautiful....maybe will stay as my facebook status for a while

Cheeniya · Sep 16, 2011

My dear OJ
You do have the Midas touch. Your mere association with this thread of mine has brought two stalwarts of the site rushing here to read it. Both of them have admitted that they were drawn to this thread after seeing your name! I am eternally thankful to you for your kind words. You always seem to reserve your best words for me. And I feel so privileged about it.

When I wrote it, I never had any intention to moralise. I wrote it in my effort to take a different look at the problems that befell us from time to time. I just wanted to assure myself that my approach to such problems should not be in terms of "Why me?" but to make me feel like the Chosen One. That's what Moses did when he had to cross the wilderness of Paran. I wondered what difference would it make if we went about thanking God for the problems sent to us which made us stronger, better and sharper. Too many good things happening to us have always a tendency to spoil us.

I do not know if you have seen Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ". The final agonising hours of Jesus in that movie have a great relevance to my dragonfly. Both are cases of suffering for love.
Sri

Cheeniya · Sep 16, 2011

My dear Mindi
It is not what or who makes you to come to my threads that matters. What matters is that you came! Your words of appreciation are always special because of their underlying warmth.
Thank you Mindi.
Sri

Cheeniya · Sep 16, 2011

My dear Srama
Thank you for your beautiful FB and thank you dear OJ for making this possible!
You seem to be as great an admirer of Jonathan as I am! His is a story of great inspiration and God knows how many times I have mentioned him in my writings. Richard Bach has certainly elevated the dull seagulls to the pinnacle of God’s creations.

Believe me, I too thought of a butterfly to figure in my story but chose a dragonfly instead as I thought that the beauty of the butterfly would be a distracting factor. I feared that the readers would be overcome with great pity for the beautiful butterfly and miss the real import of what I had intended to convey. Beauty always has the tendency to distort the fact, the purpose. As I had figured out, the dragonfly turned out to be a better choice as the hero of my story.

“I want to take a brush and paint...now! And what surprises me is, I never felt sorry for that butterfly, for somewhere I knew and felt he was doing all this willingly...” I feel so gratified by this statement of yours. This was indeed the feeling I wished to create in my reader. Pity for the little insect would have defeated the very purpose of all I wished to convey through this story. I merely wanted to convey a different perspective of all our problems, big and small.

I am beholden to you for your appreciation. What greater reward can there be than hearing that my story will find a place in your family’s ‘feel good book’? I am touched Srama.
Sri

polymorphic · Sep 20, 2011

The bear story was hilarious!

Cheeniya · Sep 20, 2011

Dear Poly
That story is hilarious because it is not my own! I can make even the most hilarious stories dull and unfit for human consumption through my inept narration!
Sri

kelly1966 · Sep 20, 2011

Dear Cheeniya...
just stumbled on this wonderful post... and a few of your comments to FBs...
I'm really glad you didn't think of the butterfly ( i must confess I at first thought of it too) as you've rightly put its beauty is distracting.. the dragonfly is the poor cousin and maybe being the second fiddle always eager to please and get attention and hence can go to greater pains and yet feel that it could do more .. till the last breath..
the bear story is so apt..
Kerman

Cheeniya · Sep 20, 2011

Dear Kerman
"the dragonfly is the poor cousin and maybe being the second fiddle always eager to please and get attention and hence can go to greater pains and yet feel that it could do more .. till the last breath.."
That was a stunning analysis and very profound too. Throughout my life, I have observed that it is the less accomplished people who go to great lengths to make a mark in life. The well endowed ones become the 'also ran' category probably because of overconfidence or pride.
As an executive of State Bank in the 80's, whenever I faced a piquant situation, I always relied on mediocre employees to overcome the problem because they were the ones who always aspired to be branded as 'trouble shooters' The better qualified employees would consider such work as infra dig! This is my firm conviction that God's Purpose is better served by the lesser beings.
Thanks for a wonderful FB Kerman
Sri

navs23 · Sep 21, 2011

Dear Cheeniya Sir,
That's a very beautiful snippet. I am so glad to have visited this amazing snippet section(how did I miss it so long???). My first impression was that you were referring to a honey bee based on the description about the flower, garden and the analogy of a knife slicing through a honey(while I did have questions like how could the girl hold the honey bee by it's tail or not be attacked in defense). The dragon fly shows tremendous amount of patience no matter what the girl does and tries to please her, what a beautiful trait! I cannot imagine any other fly that would fall prey to the amusement of a human being and be quiet about it. I was able to derive a parallel from the story to that of the relationship between God and man and how a little trust and patience goes a long way be it a dragon fly or a man!