Paradox of cleanliness

The other day listening to the gospel about what causes a person to be defiled, I remembered Fr Paul Vadakkumpadan speaking of cleanliness.  He was speaking of it in the context of our travels, especially by train.  Very often vendors pass by selling boiled groundnuts.  Passengers buy these groundnuts and then chat away with co-passengers happily peeling the groundnuts and munching on the nuts.  But the peels are just dropped on the floor!  They are left there till someone comes sweeping the floor.  And usually it is the poor people, those with disability and children who come along with a small broom or piece of rag.  As soon as the passengers see them, they fold their legs upon the seat, so as not be touched by 'those' cleaners.

That's where Fr Paul says the paradox lies: Those who dirty the place are considered clean and those who clean the place as dirty.

Indian hotcakes!

The other day I was in the saloon getting a haircut. Just outside the barber's shop there was a couple preparing and selling bhajjis (sort of fried edible things quite common all over the country, I guess). What surprised me was that there was never a moment of rest, neither for the woman preparing it, nor for the man, packing and selling it. It was literally selling like 'hotcakes'!

As if this was not enough, something else also happened. The ladle which the lady was using to cull out the fried bhajjis slipped and fell on the ground - the same ground with all the dust and mud and every other imaginable (and unimaginable) filth - those who know Kothavalasa or for that matter any town market area will not have to imagine hard. I took it for granted that she would wash it or at least shake it well or use a piece of cloth to wipe it before using it. I was proved totally and confidently wrong. She just picked it up and as though NOTHING happened she inserted the ladle back in the boiling oil and continued her cooking!

Perhaps it all adds to the taste of the bhajjis!