Without 'Metron'
Pablo came to New York the way men come to deserts, because they were told there was water.
From Oaxaca. No letters in his head, but fire in his hands and a song for every chilli he toasted.
He cooked on Roosevelt Avenue. Two shifts. The kind of work that bends your back but feeds a hundred mouths.
The owner called it opportunity. Pablo called it a promise. Three thousand dollars a month.
One thousand dollars to Mexico. One thousand dollars for a bunk in Jackson Heights with three other cooks, bus fare, and the leftovers at half past eleven.
One thousand dollars to the bank. Every month. For fifteen years. Sometimes more from the tips pool.
He never spoke of it. Not to the men in the room. Not to the owner who got rich off his mole. Not even to himself. It was not about hope. It was his poverty that made him to save for a future that he didn't see.
He wore two sets of clothes. Kept a bus ticket in his pocket for three days because waste felt like a sin.
At fifty he looked seventy. Forearms mapped with burns, each one a story he never told.
Customers came back for the flavour of home. They praised the owner. They tipped the servers. No one ever saw the man who stood over the flame and whispered to the sauce.
And then one Monday, Pablo died suddenly between the freezer and the prep table. Quiet. Like a man who had given everything and had nothing left to give. On following Tuesday, there was a "Now Hiring" noticeboard outside the restaurant.
For a week people said, "Now the food is not the same." By week two they learned to live with the ache.
After a week, his son Mateo arrived. Twenty-one. Teeth still white. Heart still full of his father.
The owner told him about the bank where Pablo’s wages went. After the formalities, the bank transferred two hundred thousand dollars to Mateo’s new account. Fifteen years of silence turned into numbers. Mateo held it and wept, because he understood at last what it had cost.
So he tried to live the life his father never had.
He hired yellow cabs for a full day just to feel the wind through the windows. He bought his girlfriend expensive dresses, silk and sequins and things that shone because his father had lived in the dark.
He flew to Miami and Vegas. He drank, dined, and danced. He tipped servers one hundred dollars on a forty-dollar cheque because generosity felt like gratitude.
In a hotel in California he told her, "My dad built this." She held his hand and said he must have been a good man.
In sixty days the money was gone.
Not wasted. Spent. Trying to touch joy. Trying to be big enough to carry the weight of that love.
He joined his father's restaurant. Washed dishes in the same sink and hummed the same songs.
Then he took two hundred dollars from the till. Not to steal. Because grief was heavy and rent was due and he was only human. They sacked him.
Now he sits on the kerb outside the restaurant.
Cardboard on his knees:
Son of Pablo the cook
who made lovely dishes for you
Homeless. Need help.
People pass with bags of that same mole. Some pause. Some remember. Some do not.
The city moves on. That is what cities do.
Pablo spent fifteen years feeding strangers so his son could have sixty days of light.
Mateo spent sixty days trying to live large enough for both of them, and learned that love does not fit in a bank account.
The universe did not answer. It never does.
But somewhere a pot is still simmering.
And somewhere a son is still telling the story.
And the mole.
It is still on the menu.
Authentic.
Made with hands that remember Pablo.
"Either Pablo and Mateo succeeded in their brief encounter with money, or both failed.
One did not understand the movement of money. The other understood, but moved too fast.
One suppressed every desire for goods and services. The other consumed them all too quickly, never having learned what measure, or 'metron' meant.'
The workers at the restaurant discussed this for many months. Over rice and beans, over the same stove Pablo used and during lean hours when they had no customer.
Some said Pablo was wise. Some said Mateo was free. Most agreed on one thing: the money was never theirs. It was rent. Paid in advance, for a life they were never meant to keep. The cooks at the restaurant kept discussing Mateo and Pablo to know what was wrong and what was right. They never knew it .The sky too remained indifferent. It never told them who was wrong or who was right .
( Avtar Mota )
PS
(1)
'Metron'
Metron, the Greek term for "measure," meant far more than just counting in ancient Greece. It was the idea of the right proportion, the due limit, the balance that keeps things from falling into excess or deficiency. Philosophers like Aristotle used 'metron' to describe virtue: courage is the 'metron' between cowardice and recklessness, generosity is the 'metron' between stinginess and waste. For the Greeks, the cosmos itself ran on 'metron' ; even the sun had a measure it could not overstep. To lack 'metron' was to be out of rhythm with life, with justice, with yourself.
The concept of 'Metron', shows up all through the Bhadavad Gita as "Yukta" and "Samata". Sri Krishna keeps telling Arjuna to act with measure: not in excess, not in deficiency. In Chapter 6.16, He says Yoga is not for one who eats too much or too little, sleeps too much or too little: "Yuktāhāra-vihārasya yukta-ceṣṭasya. " That’s Metron_in practice. In Chapter 2.48 , He teaches "Samatvam yoga ucyate": "equanimity is called Yoga." Don’t be attached to results, don’t swing between elation and despair. Maintain balance in action, in desire, in duty. So in the Bhagavad Gita, 'Metron' becomes Dharma lived with moderation or away from extremes .
(2)
Review of the story by my American friend
Mota has written a modern parable that cuts deeper than any moral fable. In "Without Metron", whatever we choose to call it ; Pablo and Mateo are not simply men, but two philosophies of time made flesh. Fifteen years of restraint against sixty days of release. Neither is condemned, neither is glorified. That refusal to judge is where the story’s power lies.
What elevates this piece is Mota’s quiet command of Metron. The Greeks called it measure: the due proportion between excess and denial. Mota dramatises it rather than preaches it. In doing so he echoes the Bhagavad Gita’s 'Yukta' and 'Samatā' ; Krishna’s call for balanced action, neither too much nor too little, equanimity amid duty. By setting two extremes against one another, Mota shows how labour without measure becomes rent, and life without measure becomes consumption.
The final image is stillness: the mole remains on the menu, the sky remains indifferent. It doesn't answer who was right or who was wrong. In that silence, Mota forces us to measure ourselves.
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