Leaving Baggage Behind in 2024

Happy New Year, dear readers. May 2025 bring our land and all of us abundant good fortune—health, wealth, and happiness by the bushel.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

A new year, even if by an international and not Indian reckoning of time, is always a great calendar opportunity to make a fresh start with renewed hope and energy. Or so it seems to me.

In this regard, there is an old Indian story I like about leaving unwanted and unnecessary baggage behind. Two ascetics, one old and one young, came to a river bank. They saw a young woman flailing in the water. The young ascetic cast aside his vows of strict celibacy and, not looking at, let alone touching, a woman, a greater force called humanity gripped him. He dived in and saved the young woman from drowning. Since she was too weak to walk, he carried her in his arms to the village nearby and handed her over safely to those who could take care of her.

The two ascetics resumed their journey. They crossed the river by hitching a ride with an obliging boatman and walked miles into the countryside on the other bank. The older ascetic was visibly disturbed and kept shaking his head and muttering to himself all the way. Finally, as dusk fell and they halted under a tree for the night, he burst out at the young ascetic, "What you did was very wrong. How could you, an ascetic sworn, hold a woman like that?"