The apple principle

Srinagar, right now is full of apple trees laden with lush, ripe apples. So when I met dad in Delhi, as he came down from Srinagar, he got a whole batch of them, a crate full of bright red Malus domestica.(My favorite! :)) So, on returning, when I discovered that I was to be the sole gobbler of these 5 kilograms of apples, I was pretty overwhelmed. Well yes they are my favorite, but finishing the full crate was a bit too much. Mom suggested, ‘bake them, before they rot.’ As I sat on the table and peeled, sliced and arranged apples, I let my thoughts wander off to the far-flung places of the universe and to the very genesis of human-kind and the arcane mysteries surrounding ‘the apple’.

The apple is one of the most expressive fruits, according to me. You love someone, the person is the ‘apple of your eye’. Why is a man’s voice so harsh? Blame it on his Adam’s apple. Very sure about something? Its as sure as ‘God made green apples’. A spoilt brat is for sure a ‘rotten apple’. So if you ever have any trouble, expressing something, you will always have an apple within your reach.

Let me tell you a story. Something that occurred thousands of years ago, when God created the world in seven days. (Sorry Mr. Darwin, I’ll go with the old testament for now, but in my heart I am always for natural selection and survival of the fittest ;)). This event occurs after Adam and Eve have been created and forbidden to eat the fruits of the tree of knowledge (Any guesses to the fruit that the tree bore? yes, you are right, it was apples!)

It was a usual day in paradise, the sun was bright in the azure blue sky interspersed with fluffy white cotton clouds drifting lazily to the soft breeze that was blowing. Adam was sleeping under the shade of a huge tree. Eve was flicking a flower bud lazily. She got up and swung upside down from a tree and grabbed berries. She was looking for something to do. The sky was always blue, the stream always filled with clear water, the trees always laden with fruits and berries, the thrushes chirping the same tune over and over again. Always, everyday. She bent down and started gathering some berries that had fallen down, when she heard the ‘voice’.

The rest is the all too well known story of giving in to temptations, sins, punishments and Man’s fall from paradise into perdition. We say they are to blame for the sufferings of mankind, otherwise we all might still be living in paradise, without a care in the world.

But think of it, we all pray for happiness and consistence in our lives, but do we really want that?

When the serpent tempted Eve to bite into the luscious apple, what made Eve go, “F*#k eternal happiness, I just want that forbidden apple!”

I guess its in our nature. Despite knowing that there will be bad consequences, we give in to temptations. Who likes the same life without any perks or troughs? So when I hear Onerepublic crooning,  “my life is kinda boring, need something that I can confess…” , I feel the same way too! Being a goody two shoes and trying to stay ‘happy’ always and doing the right thing is just so…… UN-human! The pinpricks of conscience that we get on indulging in something forbidden, the guilty pleasures and the fleeting moments of thrill make the whole ‘sin and punishment’ deal drop out of the horizon. Of which, we are woefully reminded, when we have to deal with the consequences, that tends to come back with double force (no Newton’s third law here), smack at your face when you are least expecting it! 😦 I guess it is the fact that we know that it is short-lived and gets over in a heart-beat, that makes us cling to these snatches of elation even more.

So give us humans everlasting happiness, no sufferings and no tumults, we will kick that away any time, any day, and sink our teeth into that luscious forbidden apple without any qualms.

The forbidden fruit