'Ordo Ab Chaos'- Order Out of Chaos

About two months back my family suffered an unfortunate loss in the form of death of my grandmother. This event also brought with it the responsibility for me to go to our ancestral village in Rajasthan and carry out the last rituals while my parents conducted the same at our domicile. Though there are a plethora of experiences that I amassed during this visit, the one that stands out above all and instigated my dead writing instincts to resurface was a feast that we held for the village on the final day of the rituals. I have visited my village quite a few times in the past but never before did the onus of work fall on my shoulders as it did this time in the absence of both my father and my uncle. I practically knew no one over there and how the work got done there is another story all together. However I would limit my narrative to the feast for the time being. Having just completed my MBA and having attended a subject called Services Marketing in this farce of a degree, I thought of associating the conduct of this feast as a service (which it actually was in its truest sense), the only difference being- this was unpaid. The back end process i.e. the cooking and delivery till the point of service is a monotonous one, but it’s the front end process i.e interaction with the customers (in this case the villagers), is a matter of great study. These were some of the acts that could successfully be converted to rules in this kind of a set up.

· Sand is an essential ingredient of food items and the presence of the same in eatables should not raise eyebrows, but the absence should. Nature provides us with food and hence in reverence to it we should consume a part of it

· People will come in groups of four and six and will insist on eating in one plate. They sit in circles with great detail to the circumference of the eating plate ensuring that their heads, when converged, cover the plate in toto

· People sit on the ground for ease of operations. They have the liberty to sit at any place in the service arena and they are well rehearsed to ensure that in a peak delivery period they maximize the area usage by sitting in intersecting circles (representing venn diagrams)

· The service people represent a motley collection, majority of whom are temporary in nature and often emerge from amongst the customers themselves

· Eating plates perform multiple functions. After having food in them, they can be used for washing ones hands in

· Kids are god’s gifts. But they are also Devil’s workmen

· Food servers wearing a clean white outfit encourage the feasters to display their talents in designing outfits by smearing food items on the same

· People with weak backs should not attempt to show their philanthropic overtures by attempting to serve food. All servers have got professional training on acrobatics and form a secret sect of highly motivated and physically fit people

· Used plates should be left where the feast was taken. The trickiest task on the floor is that of the person who has to pick these plates up and carry them to the cleaners. For some arcane reasons this task is also considered to be the holiest and the noblest on the floor and keeping in mind the purpose of this feast, I was assigned to do this very task.

· People are most supportive to the person who is doing the task mentioned in the above point. The venn diagrams move in incoherent patterns seeing this person approaching, kids get a sudden urge to run past this individual and invariably a thorn hidden in the sand will find its way to the soles of this bare foot individual. My childhood interests in Yoga helped me a lot in carrying out this sophisticated act

I warn my few readers not to get swayed by the simplicity of the rules and consider the actual service delivery to be childs play. When all the above mentioned commandments work in tandem the effect is quite exhilarating. However, the miracle is in the success of the entire operation amidst all this confusion. The feast canopy is nothing less then the floor of any national stock exchange when it comes to matching noise and confusion and yet amidst all this an entire village of over 1500 people manage to satisfactorily enjoy the feast.
While I was in my higher secondary school I had read a narrative by a freedom fighter in which he said that we humans have a great ability to accept any situation and adapt to it with great efficiency with a short gestation period of complains and cribbing. This very syndrome was experienced by me on that hot and sultry day of may in my village as I stood witness to what the early Masons call “ Ordo ab Chao” , order out of total chaos. Very few things in life could match the feeling of contentment when wave after wave of people pass through this process and while going leave you with heartfelt blessings calling you a part of them even though you have never lived with them over a week ever. Complete order out of chaos.