TRADITIONAL LORE AND PNG WISDOM (2): GEMS FROM THE MELPA MAN

I TOLD the cabbie to wait for me. I would spend about 15 minutes with my cousin and then he would drive me back to my workplace.

After 20 minutes, when I came out of the place where my cousin was, the cabbie was sitting beside his vehicle.

As we were walking towards it, the cabbie started talking.

For the next 15 minutes to my workplace, he was the one talking and did not give me any chance to talk.

It was clear. He was moved by the topic.

He told me that his father (who has since passed on) had said many things like that to him.

Here are a few lines that his father said to him:

NEVER GO AROUND WITH PEOPLE WHO STEAL … If you do, you would become a thief.

NEVER GO AROUND WITH PEOPLE WHO ABUSE THEIR WIVES … If you do, you will also turn out to be an abuser of your spouse.

NEVER GO AROUND WITH PEOPLE WHO GO TO COURT FOR EVERY LITTLE THING … If you do, you will also run to court for every little thing.

FORGIVE OTHERS OF THEIR WRONGS … If you do, you will live longer. (This is the second time in 10 years that I have heard this line.)

THE CUSCUS STORY

Here is something else the cabbie said (the last one before he left me):

“You know how many men and women ruin their homes because they bring rubbish into it – all the rubbish that the world has and offers?

“You know the cuscus that cracks the karuka nut? It is so clever. It does its eating far from where it lives. It does not bring the nuts or other rubbish to its abode. In doing so, its abode is free from rubbish and people who hunt it will never know where its abode is.

“They will see the rubbish of the nuts far from its hideout and do their hunting there thinking that the cuscus is somewhere close by.

“The cuscus does that for its survival – it does not bring rubbish into its abode.”

MY LESSON: “People too must be careful when they are meddling in the world and must ensure that the rubbish of the world must not get into their abode. Bad practices are the rubbish we see in the world and we must ensure that such practices do not get into our homes where cleanliness and hygiene in every sense must prevail.”