One gets what one deserves
A beautiful parable in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna where through a simple story the master teaches us a profound truth. The parable is based on the everyday life in a village, a household where matriarchy rules in the form of a domineering mother in law, who has several daughters in law. It is the mother in law who is the decision maker in every affair. She dispenses what every daughter in law gets to eat as food, esp. during the lunch. She has an earthen pot which measures the quantity of rice that each daughter in law should get. Goes without saying that the measure of the earthen pot is not adequate to fill the stomach of the daughters in law and they are not quite happy about it. However the daughter in law in a typical rural household of eighteenth or nineteenth century had no voice of her own to protest. So she had to forebear the ignominy of the autocracy that would deprive her of every possible enjoyments. Here in the story our daughters in law are helpless but then deliver