Venkatanaatha's antics

V asks his parents about Maaya. He asks them about how to cleanse both inner and outer layers of the body. He questions religious speakers on topics like Aham Brahmasmi and Aajanmapurusha. He questions his parents about doing yearly funeral ceremonies to the departed. Most of his questions are unanswerable due to the deep theosophies involved and his parents are at a loss to answer him.

One day when V is in the living room and mom is in the kitchen, a beggar comes and asks for some rice. V promptly gives the rice to the beggar. When Gopika comes, she asks him about the jewelry that was in the rice bowl. But V is not aware of the jewelry in the rice bowl. So he says that the beggar was destined to have the jewelry. But mom is not convinced.

When mom and son are still arguing about the matter, the beggar returns to the house to return back the jewelry and mom is overjoyed about the honesty. However V informs the beggar that they will not take it back as they had vowed not to take anything from others. His mom is shocked and is forced not to take it although the beggar insists. Finally V convinces the beggar that the jewelry is actually his and not their own now that it was given to him. Finally beggar relents and takes the jewelry with him but Gopika is not happy about this and complains to TB that they are not bringing up V appropriately as he cannot lead life like this.