Sweet Rice: A Segue Into Reality
My father-in-law recently told me a story that was very poignant and really made me think about how we structure our reality and what constitutes as normal in our lives.
The story is about a man who buries people for a living. He is a poor man, like so many of those around him, and his only sustenance comes when someone loses their parent/spouse/friend. It is a tough life with limited joys for him and his family. It is difficult for them to know when their next meal will be and what they will eat. His children, however, only know that whenever their father goes to bury someone during the day, they have sweet rice in the evening.
Days turn into months and the cycle continues. The family struggles until someone in their community dies and that day, the grave-digger’s family has sweet rice for dinner.
One day, the children see their father preparing to go bury someone but without any of his usual vigour. They worry but their minds are focused on the treat they will have that night. Night falls, and their father returns but there’s no fire in the hearth and no treat on the stove. The children, disappointed, go to their father to ask what has happened and he starts weeping. He starts weeping because it is none other than their mother whom he has buried that day.
This story came after a conversation we were having about tow-trucks that park at locations on the highway where there’s a high volume of accidents. This is so that they are the first ones on the scene and thus get the job. Initially, that was an extremely selfish practice in my mind… to wait for someone to hurt themselves so that one may fill their pocket wtih dollars. But after hearing this story, I realized that my norms have been defined by my experiences. Alhumdullilah, I have never had to worry about where my next meal will come from or where I’ll sleep at night. I have always been able to find well-paying jobs and when I haven’t, I’ve always had my parents to rely on. And so, I cannot possibly imagine the lifestyle of someone whose sustenance depends on the whims of nature and luck.
Without the grave-digger, how would we bury our dead? Without the tow-truck, our highways would become lined with smashed up vehicles. While we may abhorr the premise of their profession, its function is essential for our reality. We are willing to accept and enjoy the results of their works but unable, and generally unwilling to acknowledge their motivations. After all, all professions are selfishly motivated- whether it is a banker who sits atop piles of money or the grave-digger who buries him- their ultimate goal is survival. Their definitions of surivival may be defined by their circumstances and experiences, but they just want to live in relative comfort.
We don’t always know what motivates others around us and often treat their decisions with disdain and cynicism because they transcend our defintion of normal. Waiting for someone to die so that one may have sweet rice may not be our definition of normal, but that does not, and should not mean that it is any less normal than our everyday actions and expectations.
