The simple act of capping the bottle required many things in my universe to be aligned first. It needed, among other things, the late physicist Dr Richard Feynman’s wisdom, the National Education Policy, and a bit of tulsi to come together. This totally trivial but completely satisfying one morning.
As the first rays of the sun glinted off the silk cotton tree in front of my window, I started my work on a document about the National Education Policy. A reviewer had mentioned that it had to be reformed such that children learnt for life rather than learnt just to pass examinations. After an hour’s immersion, I reached absently for my water bottle and knocked it down instead. Thankfully, it was a steel bottle.
During the coffee break, my husband and I traded news. I read out some headlines, not at all offended that he wasn’t listening to me. In reply, he read out tweets, aware that I may not be listening to him. But that day, I was listening. The tweet attributed to the author of ‘Surely You’re Joking, Dr Feynman!’ went like this, “don’t get frightened by not knowing things. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not sure of anything. There are many things I don’t know anything about. It doesn’t frighten me.”
With that thought brewing in my head, I got some tulsi leaves from the balcony believing that possibly, tulsi leaves in our drinking water would boost our immunity. I also plucked the flowering heads and stuck them in a little bottle with a hinged cap, that graced our dining table. Next to it was an empty beer bottle which had been used as a vase for several years. My daughter had used it as a water bottle during her product design course days, and was meant to, but had not yet, set right the faulty hinged cap. I did not have the heart to throw it out. Looking at the two bottles together, it struck me, that while I had no expertise in mechanical matters, I did have a schooling that had taught me something for life—how to copy. So, without being frightened of breaking the glass, or cutting an artery, I studied the little bottle with a functioning cap, priced off the hinge of the beer bottle, and put it back exactly how I had done with the little one. Success! Now, I drink tulsi-infused water from a beer bottle and feel like I’m clinking glasses with Dr Feynman!