bitter gourd tales

Fred Jordan Mikhail T. Carnice

The Weekly Sillimanian

July 4, 2007

Many have an aversion to this vegetable. And no matter how effective media advertising is-vehemently chanting "makulay ang buhay, sa sinabawang gulay"-its reputation might be tarnished by one innocent wrinkled thing: the bitter gourd or ampalaya in our native tongue.

Bitter is one of the four basic sensations in our mouth that is often characterized by an acrid taste. And ampalaya (Momordica charantia) is one juicy vegetable filled with lots of quinine, the natural substance that makes it bitter. With that information, I wonder, "Does quinine run in human veins too?"

If that is the case, wherein this pungent gist could be found in one's body, I must say these Bitter Gourd People are in great numbers walking around the campus today. Ampalaya's striking appearance is what usually teases and detests the eyes. As for the Gourd People, instead of witnessing crumpled looks on the outside, what is really dishevelled are their soul and mind. Though it is hard to explain the truth behind this claim, most of their kind looks exceedingly good; no excess frills! Hiding their true nature while projecting an air of pride is a bitter man's professional lifestyle. The advent of unique personalities of the world had indeed created, if not changed, a new definition for the word "bitter."

I have landed into diverse roles ever since I stepped into Dumaguete City. I've evaluated the people around that were once (and are currently) part of my on-the-rush routine and there's no denying they exist in packs, waiting lasciviously for their next victim. They assess mistakes of other people as a stylized form of mockery, they bloat around by the slightest catch of ignorance, they stare into strangers' faces like they are useless bunch of illiterates.

One may ask: "Why, of all the available pursuit of leisure to get into, be gruesomely bad?" Psychologists may explain accounts of extreme obsessive compulsiveness, slight schizophrenia, and other mental relations of the body's problematic neurons, but actually there's this term even the most futile layman could instantly comprehend: they are just - knowingly or unknowingly - plain jealous.

Green-eyed, covetous, desirous, insecure, all of these names just boil down to a piece of information that these are fuelled by anger. Everyone should take into consideration this quote from Albert Einstein: "Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools."

And what great fools it is to be! To go bursting forth onto your fellowmen, surging loud profanities or simply inflicting insults at someone's back. These acts of the utmost wantonness only show incivility. From anger to bitterness, then bitterness to whatnot-the cycle is endless. Just like the plant, it is heedless of anything that it clings to for the sake of its own selfish objectives, bearing bitter fruits.

No, this is not in lieu of this year's nutrition month, nor a campaign against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) advocating on vegetarianism. This is an open forum for one's self to weigh up the bitterness inside And if fates do not stop weaving your destiny into letting you bump against these gourds, just treat them as what they truly are: wrinkly, bad-tasting, and rough-in short, ugly. For ugly things are not worth your precious time, the surest solution to such encounters is to yield to it.

Yield then pull out the gourd's roots.