let alone beating them. Always show great affection towards them. Take care that they eat proper meals. If they fall sick, provide them with better treatment. In case we are abroad, still, we should not let them feel that we are away from them, talk to them on phone. Taking advantage of new technology, we should make video calls to them, seeing them and letting them see us.

Remember! In old age, parents act like children. Sometimes, extremely old parents wet and defecate in bed, usually causing the offspring to get deeply upset. But remember that it is obligatory for offspring to serve their parents even in this condition. Look! The mother also looks after her child and keeps him clean from dirt and filth especially in his childhood after urination and defecation. Therefore, even if they get extremely peevish [i.e. easily annoyed] and quarrelsome due to their old age and diseases, you still have to be patient, patient and nothing but patient with them, treating them with respect. Do not even say ‘uff’ to them, let alone being rude to them and shouting at them or else you may suffer a great loss, meeting doom in the world and in the Hereafter. Sometimes the one who hurts the feelings of his parents is humiliated and disgraced in the world and deserves torment of hellfire.

One rude to mother was engulfed in earth

There was a farmer living in a village. His mother and wife would often quarrel with each other. Many a time, his wife went to her parental home walking out on her husband but he would bring her back by flattering her. Last time, his wife said to him, ‘Either I or your mother will live in this home now.’

The farmer was mad for his wife, so he decided in his heart to get rid of his mother, which he thought was the only solution to the frequently breaking out quarrel. Therefore, using a pretext, he once took his mother to his sugar-cane farm. While cutting sugar-cane, he got an opportunity and turned upon his mother with his small axe drawn on her; but all of a sudden his feet were sunk into the ground. The small axe dropped from his hand and his mother fled to the village, shocked and shrieking. The earth gradually began to swallow him up. He continued to cry out in terror and to apologize to her, calling out ‘Mother! Mother!’ but she had gone far away. After a short while, people reached there and saw that he had been sunk up to his chest. They