Surely This Story Exists Somewhere
Ross went to the grocery store today after his discrete mathematics post-midterm-midterm, and brought home a paper bag full of fresh, delicious food. He had to run out the door because he was late for a class, and it fell to me to put these things away. I decided to carefully pour the new brown basmati rice he’d bought from the bulk bins into the bag that contained the remains of our old brown basmati rice, because it had the advantage of being resealable.
In the natural course of events, half a cup full of beautiful tinkly rice grains had soon spilled all over the floor.
On another day I might have sighed over the loss and gone for the vacuum cleaner, but
1) I just cleaned the kitchen on Sunday. The number of hairs on the floor is still minimal. (What? People shed a lot.)
2) I’m Chinese. Every grain of rice is precious.
3) Brown basmati rice is especially precious. It’s not only delicious, but (comparatively) expensive.
4) As I was staring down at the rice on the floor, I half-remembered a fairytale I read a long time ago, about a girl who had to undergo several trials in order to… I don’t know. Get the prince? Escape a dungeon? Win enough points for a new camera? Something like that. And one of the trials involved picking up every single grain of rice (or possibly wheat) that had spilled out of a huge bag, so it was a good thing she’d made friends with the birds (or maybe it was the ants), because they helped her out with their tiny beaks/very large numbers and in the end she snagged the guy/escaped/became a professional portrait photographer. You can see that I basically don’t remember this story at all. But it was a charming enough thought to have flitting about my head as I collected (without the aid of magical animals) each grain of what would someday soon be turned into a sweetly steaming bowl of brown rice to go with our famous dal.
P.S. Happy Birthday, Barb! Kisses to you!
November 13th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
She was the princess fallen from Grace. She did not appreciate the things she had till they were taken away from her. Like all fairy tales, she learnt her lesson, managed to pick up all the rice grains except one which had fallen into a tiny hole. Her fingers were too big to reach and tears flowed. The handsome prince took pity on her and changed himself into a worm, wriggled himself into the hole and pushed the tiny rice grain out for her. Out of joy and gratefulness, she picked the worm up, kiss it. LO AND BEHOLD! Right before her eyes the worm turned into a handsome prince. You know the rest of the story.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and all the best wishes from the Sethi-Moey family.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Oh hi Barb and HAPPY BIRTHDAY from us and the kids!! Your birthday is so close to Gabriel’s mum’s bday which is on 14 Nov…
Hope you have a great time.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Sorry, forget to mention that the Birthday greetings was for Barb.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:43 am
Thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes. I miss my extended family in
Singapore and will have to let Ross and Meera give you my hugs and kisses when they see you in December.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
My birthday greetings to Barb as well. We wait for the hugs and kisses,via Meera and Ross of course.
As I read your item 2 above (in which you state, “I’m Chinese. Every grain of rice is precious”) I was reminded of what Gabriel said to Asher that same evening. Asher was watching, with much pleasure, the first song and dance from the movie Lagaan, and Gabriel said to him, “you must watch this as you are Indian.”
I suppose, mcp that I am, I have always, in an involuntary and unthinking act, labelled you Indian and Asher Chinese. But it is with delight and pride that I am reminded of the full heritage of the both of you.