Karma - A Bill To Pay

As a teacher, I always tell my students to be good and to do good because whatever we do, good and bad, comes back to us in some form, at some point in time. It’s like a bill presented to us at some later point in time. Although I must admit that the main purpose of telling this to the children is to make them better human beings – I mainly rely on proverbs, quotes, and theories propagated by karma and not on any personal experience.

Some of the well-known proverbs as we know are, “What goes around comes around,” or “As you sow, so shall you reap". These give us a basic understanding of how karma, the law of cause and effect, works. The word karma factually means ‘action’ of human beings in the course of their life. This is generally categorized as — good, bad, right or wrong either committed personally or collectively. Depending on the deed, we reap the fruit. The quality and taste of this fruit depend on the nature of our action or karma.

After many years, I understood how this cycle of karma works when I personally experienced the result of my own action. I understood the reality of what and how things come around in life.

My husband had a transferable job and we moved across the country very often. Since I couldn’t visit my hometown often to meet my parents, they visited me once in a while. When my mother used to visit me, I wanted to do everything for her that she used to do for me when I was unmarried. I wanted to look after her, cook for her and pamper her. This was the least I could do. One day I decided to make cheese pasta for her as she had never tried a continental dish in her entire life. Since I was running short of some ingredients like oregano and cheese, I baked only one dish for her. The aroma that escaped from the old-fashioned oven smuggled its way into the entire house. It was just so perfect. The cheese was beautifully bubbling over the pasta that was snuggling in the rich and creamy tomato bed. My mother could hardly wait as she sat eagerly at the dining table. I felt so proud of my pasta.

With all the excitement, I pulled the baking dish out and in the next moment, it was on the floor. It slipped out of my hand without warning. Half of the pasta was on the floor. At the same time my mother called out to ask what was taking so long, and I had no time to decide. I picked the pasta off the floor, put it back into the disheveled dish, set it right as much as I could and served it to her. She loved it but I lived in guilt that like tsunami drowned me every day deeper and deeper into the sea of agony. I felt terrible doing this to my mother.

After a few days, I was on duty in a place where one does not get food easily. One has to travel miles to buy food and the home was far. I was carrying lunch with me but after I reached, I noticed that food had spilled in the bag because of the bumpy journey. While I was trying to clean the lunch box, it slipped and most of the food fell into the basin. I stared aghast with disbelieving eyes. I knew that I had no choice. I picked up the food from the basin with a sinking heart. I thought I would later decide whether I would eat that or not. But after a few hours, I had no choice. The hunger got better of me and I ate everything but with a feeling of revulsion and disgust. At the same time, I told myself that I was being punished for the wrong I had done. I was eating the fruit of my sin.

I called my mother that day to tell her this, and not what I had done to her. I expected her to admonish me for what I had done as she is very particular about hygiene and cleanliness. Instead, she praised me for what I had done. She told me that I had respected food and deserved a pat on my back.

Then she told me something that changed my life. She told me that once she was visiting her sick sister who had been admitted to the hospital for surgery. She told me that the ‘kheer’ she had taken for her sister accidentally spilled when the box overturned on the table in the hospital waiting area. She said that she couldn’t waste the food that she had, so lovingly she made and got for her sister, so she spooned the 'kheer' back into the box and served it to her sister.

I didn’t tell her anything. I was too dazed by what she had just told me. This was it. I was too overwhelmed by the cycle of karma that had just rolled out like a film in front of my own eyes.

Karma is not just a quote or saying – it is something that teaches us a lesson. It is the cause and effect of what we do in life. It is a bill that we all have to pay for our actions. What goes around comes around, indeed.