27
Bald Statistics from the
Deliriously Jibing
Melodrama
of a Bigger
World
It’s really
wonderful to see how majestically Hinduism has flowed like a subtle murmury
river over the distortionist terrain of time. In a divinely concordant way to
the social reality this vast spiritual stream has confluenced into the mighty
sea of ultimate reality. Numerous tributaries join the mainstream flowing though
the vale of peerless capacity to absorb the waters of different sources. Then
the unstinted mirth of the mighty mother-stream once again drifts apart to dyad,
triad... to myriad distributaries. The result: a divinely diversified spiritual
confluence on the seabed of ultimate reality.
What’s then the
hierarchy and organisation of this great religion? May be it is difficult to
arrive at one in the face of such a sweeping sway of this majestic form of
faith---the shankaracharyas of Sringeri, Badrinath, Puri, Dwarka and
Kanchi peeths; mahamandeleshwars of so many akharas; numerious ashram
heads; heads of the sects along with their followers; countless other institutions
in themselves: wandering ascetics, devotionally supercharged mendicants with a
harping ek-tara, opium-smoking seers lost in the hallucinated dreams of
multiplex reality, red-ochred sadhus wandering in the streets... the mysterious
friars….
For a little
distance there seems to be a hierarchy like the chief stream, but then again it’s
lost in the majestic mellow of multihued reality: a spirituality stimulating Hinduism
ever open like a universal institution, ready to accept anyone in its sprawling
campus. (Without demanding any sort of eligibility!) There’re so many Hindu
religioners who’ve never faced any organisational challenge to their individual
mode of religionhood. Thanks ye all the Gods in Hindu pantheon, whoever wants
to become a sadhu can do so without caring a rap about any formal
blending of religious rhyme and reason.
How it comes to be
so? Got something to do with the land of its origin? Yes, seems so. The changes
have mammothly mounted on it from the pre-historic times. So many religious,
social, cultural, ethnic and political upheavals brushed and bruised against
this land. Pre Vedic, Vedic and later-Vedic supernatural cults, deities and rituals
culminated in Brahmanism based upon immensely symbolised form of religiosity,
which further derived its strength from the rituals and occult formalities institutionalised
by the priestly class. Out of this spiritual muss a more mythically symbolic
concept of Bhagvatism emerged. It was firmly in faithful saddle of Vasudeva
Krishna, Naryana and Vishnu. Vaishnavism flowered on one branch of this tree;
Shaivism on another; Shaktism on still another. The gloriously uphill path of
evolution went on till it hit the plateau: Tantra, the occultism which believed
in supernatural powers. Superstition, black magic, witchcraft, rigidities in
religious evolution and the consequent social deformities followed.
At the same time,
Islam blossomed with its fresh energy and musky murmur in a sandy, barren Arab
world. Pastoral and semi-pastoral tribes called Afghanis were converted
to Islam. This new portraiture needed more canvas for a new civilizational picture.
Gateway to India Khyber Pass , and its keeper Hindushahi kingdom of Kabul India
How duplicated
history has become! Just as that marauder was able to assemble lakhs of Ghazis
for accumulation of wealth, today’s mentors (in the very same part of the
world––the so called champions of Islam) brainwash lakhs of innocent young
Muslims in their madarsas. What a death-like stagnation in that part of
the world! Even thousand years after Mahmud, they’re doing the same! What rust!
But, how evolving
and universally accepting Hinduism is! Those very antibodies were transformed
into cultural life-saviours. Indian Islam blossomed like a flower in all its
pearliness in the Hindu orchard.
A thousand year
ago, petty Hindu principalities of the Rajput chieftains, all divided by the
fragmented concept of clan loyalty (and religion concentrated in heaps of gold
in the temples) couldn’t face the Muslim onslaught. Presently, against the same
onslaught Hindustan as a nation is holding up
very bravely. Unfortunately, it has been termed as a glorious tale of Hindu
revivalism brought about by the propagators of Hindutva. This brave
brigade of Hindu nationalists is farcically trying to undo the history of
medieval temple desecrations by spewing verbal political venom and breaking a
mosque or two here and there. A mosque or two for hundreds of temples in
medieval times! While sanity says the destructive pages of past can only be
undone by constructive new ones. Do we need to further elaborate on ‘History
occurs first as a tragedy and secondly as a farce’?
Where does Islam
stand amidst these efforts of cutting the largest Hindu pie from the
nationalistic cake? Ok, leave Muslims to their fate. What about those Hindus
who’re eager to swim with this latest politico-religious tide, like our local
MLA of the rightist nationalist party, Ram Ratan?
He was desperately
wooing his political masters at the higher hierarchy. To enlarge the cultural
quotient (read it politico-religious) of his ministry, he had been successful
in inviting some influential national leaders of his party to a rally at the
district city. Nestled in his grandiose nationalistic thoughts he now required
the crutch of a religious guru to magnify the vim and vigour of his
patriotic ideology in the eyes of chief guests.
Ever since the
start of his political innings, with draughty acumen he was constantly trying
to cage-in the religiosity of the grand scion of spirituality in the state,
Sadhguru Parmanand. However, the old sage (people believed he’d completed the
century a good time back) was constantly ensuring that such political overtures
didn’t reach even the distal ends of his spirituality.
Baah, these
politicians! Like utility perfectionists they know which thing or person exactly
can be used for which specific purpose. It’s really commendable they never
forget the usable thousands among lakhs of political workers clouding around
them among the crores of voters. Desperately trying to enlarge his political
cut-out, the political radar of his searching senses recalled the visage of our
Sadhu. In the flash of a moment he was damn sure of the lame religioner’s
validity in the case. He was no common Sadhu among myriads of other sadhus
roaming in the state streets. He just couldn’t pass off as any other
nondescript mendicant roaming across the state.
“Sadhguru
Parmanand’s disciple!” his politically peckish senses buzzed with the phrase.
A politician never
sequesters hope from his ambition. Why not draw up another dredgy scheme?
Perhaps the old sage would listen to a former disciple of his and bless his
bent head with some boons before dying, he thought.
When the Sadhu
got to know about his new-found worth in the politician’s heart, he couldn’t
estimate the exact depth and essence of it. Till now he had been invited only
to satsangs, house inaugurations, mundans and other similar
mundanely trivial occasions. But when he told the whole thing to the tramps
they danced like never before. One of them in fact hugged him so energetically
and passionately that he got afraid. He couldn’t comprehend whether they were
rejoicing as his well-wishers or cherishing the unseen tragedy of which he’d no
inkling, while they saw it all clearly with their mischievous eyes. Well aware
of their open peccability, he removed himself from the scene of their
celebration to avoid any further severe jolt accruing from their ecstasies.
His perplexing
confusion might’ve run endlessly, hadn’t it been the tramps’ leader, who came
to him and said with surprisingly dreamy, serious eyes:
“Sadhu maharaj,
you’re great! I’d all the doubts about your worthiness of any sort. You know...
I... thought you’re fit for nothing, just like a beggar. But you’ve done what
we couldn’t do during the whole election campaign for that bastard. Know what? Grab
his attention. How could’u do that? He never invites small people like us. Well
done, man! Today I salute you. Now onwards, we’ll help you in every possible
way.”
There was a
dribblet of defeatist tone in his voice. This young ruffian, who purposelessly
dashed over all circumstances completely oblivious to any type of discrimination
between foul and fair, too nurtured an odd motive like political patronage! In India
Later when the
politician sent a car to take the intended middleman between the Sadhguru’s
highly holy religiosity and his political ambitions, with a heavy heart the ruffians
bade him bye. Earlier, they’d almost pleaded with him to leave an indelibly impressive
mark over the politician––for their sake at least, because he being a mendicant
didn’t need such things. Now, like orphaned children of the sage they kept on
looking at the car till the inevitable turns on the district road took it out
of their view. With a glum heart they drank to the success of their friend
(eerr... their own).
A travel in the
cosy confines of a car! His heart like a frog leapt exuberantly from the anciently
tattered religiosity to the modern materialistic rationalism. The leader sitting
by his side used all the clichés and conventions of a wooing exercise. At any
cost, today he didn’t want to come back empty handed. The hawk was eyeing the
spiritual sapphires in the old sage’s kitty to sell them at highest prices in
the political market. Today he was more optimistic than on other occasions.
“At least the Sadhguru’ll listen to his former disciple and
grace the occasion by his presence on the day of rally. The oldie’s very name
is worshipable to some of the big leaders. If only his deaf, old ears listen to
my cry, then the road from MLA to MP won’t be that long and tough,” he was
goffering his thoughts in order to get an optimistic floriform.
In the initial
phase of the journey, the Sadhguru’s runaway-disciple’s whole penanced
self was profusely thanking the Gods for giving such a fructification in lieu
of lifelong ruff and gruff of a hard asceticism. But then after this full-hearted
initial euphoria, his heart started to plant its feet narrowly. After all he’d
run away from the ashram about three-and-a-half decades ago. And that
too with a retrenching rebuff to the holy man’s guruship.
“Even after best
of my tellings he won’t recognise me,” he thought, mulling over his basic
repository of rebellious instincts against the holy sage. “Who knows the oldie
may’ve still enough life left in him to hit me for my running away?” like a
harsh teacher the Sadhguru’s esteemed sheen of yore changed to a stick-bearing
punitive reformer.
His suspiciously
throbbing thoughts, speeding with the car, came to a sudden halt as the car
came to a screeching halt at the gates of his once ashram. His painstakingly
unflagging spirit fell into the shivering cold waters of uncertainty. He was
afraid. Afraid like a criminal who’d once escaped scot-free after barbaric
beheading of his guru’s spiritual bud, which the sage was so
piously trying to blossom inside the disciple.
“The old ghost’ll
beat me with this!” even his first guru’s gift, the crutch, seemed to
stare at him with a beguiling eerie.
He couldn’t
recognise the hermitage. The sprawling space was dotted with trees, cropped
fields and vegetable plots. The grass, reed and bamboo thatches of earlier had
been concentrated in a few hundred yards of brick and mortar structure surrounded
by a high-walled and well-manicured lawn. Aha, how easy it was to jump out of
the hermitage at that time; even easier than entering it! Caught between the reality
and illusions, the Sadhguru’s visage was brainstormingly etched in his
mind. The Sadhguru’s lofty stone sculpture above the main gate had the
enigmatic beauty and smile of some divine revelation. It appeared
extraordinarily larger than life. While crossing the gate the disciple thought
it might fall over his head as a punishment.
Lurching across the
marble tiled verandah, the metal end of his crutch falling on the smooth stone
produced a fearful echo, whose treacherous periodicity ended in his fearfully
throbbing heart.
“He’s made such
huge fortune with that poor spirituality of his! How? It was a sin to run away
from here,” he felt himself walking through a jail’s corridor leading to a gallowy
cellar.
To his tired,
worn-out, bulging, big eyes the sum and substance of each and everybody passing
by him (‘Are they his new-age disciples?’ he thought) appeared suffused with
importance, influence, status, wealth, power....
Desperately trying
to keep his eyes above scotomy, he stopped. “No, I can’t go to meet him!” he
almost pleaded.
The surefooted and
sure-headed politician nudged him on and like a scapegoat he had to move ahead.
The legendarily
long-living Sadhguru now had hugely cut on his public discourses and
meetings. In this evening-twilight era of his religiosity, for most of the time
he kept his body horizontally spread out on a velvety carpet on the floor; as
if he was no longer interested in the vertical effort of our body against the
ultimate leveler––the death. But then spirit and soul have no dimensions
either, hence such discriminations like standing, sitting or lying no longer
existed for the old sage. His soul had gone immune to the deception and
camouflage of each and every physical cell in his old body.
Ebriatedly
immersed in the fluid of God’s strategic triad––creation, preservation and
destruction––he was now breathing and living in a samadhi. Whenever he
opened his eyes, they opened with a feeble gaze more symbolic (like an abstract
personification of the utmost reality) than anything materially and physically
substantive. With mystical perdurability he stared into some farthest star
without coming across any costly, neat and clean shrine-wall around him. And
seeing him sitting in that posture one would’ve wondered which type of inextinguishable
lamp was still enlightening this frail body.
The deft
politician told the Sadhguru’s personal attendants that a former disciple
of his wanted to meet him. At that time the Sadhu was praying to the
core of his soul to hear ‘no’ from their mouths. But after giving a searching
stare at him they said ‘yes’.
They were led into
a room redolent with ineffaceable calm and serenity. In a corner an incense
burner was placed on a brass stand. Windows to the world were shut with saffron
silk curtains. By the wall facing the door, the altar covered with a gold-embroidered
cloth welcomed the visitors with its religious ornamentation. It was the seat
of the spiritual king, the Sadhguru’s
guru. On it was placed a big, framed
portrait of a young man with handsome features. A lamp was burning under the
lifefully searching gaze of the holy figure in the portrait; customary oblations
of laddoos, sugar balls, puffed rice,
fruits and flowers were placed before the ashram
head’s guru.
In a liliaceously
respectful tone the attendant disturbed the old sage’s silent conversation with
God, “Guruji, this former disciple wants to meet you.”
The old sage, in
communion with God and honestly chanting the timeless tenets of his faith, was
lying in complete geometrical harmony with the ultimate horizontal vector; his
eyes closed, head straight and hands clasped over chest. Like a breathless
immortal entity his soul lay entombed inside his aeonic old body. Even a searching
stare at his bust won’t have enabled the onlooker to see the cycle of life in
him. But at the same time this wrinkled old body seemed lifefully drenched in
celestial percolation and perfusion.
The sage didn’t
respond to the attendant’s voice. The latter stood silently without even a
slightest trace of perturbation on his face. The politician nodded at him to
speak again. He in turn stared at the visitor with a redsear look as if he’d
suggested a blasphemy against the Sadhguru engaged in a mysterious
eschatatology. But then such nonclichéd response by the holy senses is beyond
the understanding of our super-pampered senses whose first instinct is to
clutch the scattered material straws. So, there’s minimum of action-reaction
time in our case. While, in case of pious senses who’re ever engaged in
drafting the doctrine of reality such instinctive parameters are beyond the
present plane of our understanding.
As if to pass
time, the politician stared at the ochre-cloth bound Bhagavata Gita, which the preacher had taken with him to numerous
religious gatherings on his mission to unfold the divine verses’ meaning for
the masses.
“Ooooom...” after
a couple of minutes the Sadhguru’s lips parted a bit, and the sound came
like a brook at the foot of a mountain to prove life in those big lofty boulders.
His former
disciple was praying that the old sage would never speak again. The sound made
his heart defensively cramped in a corner.
The sage opened
his eyes and looked above as if asking the Almighty a permission to attend the
visitors.
“Who...”
slowly-slowly, without any aid he got into a sitting position.
From some hazy
angle his eyes could still see our dim, disillusioned world of unreal
appearances. Ram Ratan ran to fell into his feet.
“Oh, you young
one... why do’u torture your soul so much!” such ageless voices never die, at
least not before the body.
His voice had
acquired an old petalous floriform whose abstract exclamations conveyed
meanings of epical proportions.
“For a good cause
this time, gurudev!” the
politician bent down and kissed the holy feet. “This former disciple of yours
was eager to meet you, so I...” he stood up and indicated to the former pupil to
touch the feet of his former guru.
Niggling thoughts
of uncertainty were eating each and every neuron of the runaway disciple’s
brain. His mind was buzzing with clamorous hysteria. All this storm inside him
resulted in a noisy stomping by his crutch. And to make it worse, he had to take
a few noisy steps to reach the holy feet. His body was shaking as he crutched
ahead.
The old sage didn’t
raise his head. He was just satisfied to dimly see that part of world which his
drooping head allowed. Around the wrinkled corners of his lips a smile surfaced
as his gift and its bearer reached him. In his long, long corridors of memory the
sound (like a peregrinatory perfume) moved more effectively than the visuals.
Mysteriously lost in something, he listened to each guilty, afraid and
trembling tap of the wood. Once again a cosmically meaningful smile spread
across the wrinkles on his face as if those three-and-a-half stickably
disarrayed and standoffish sounds fully conveyed to him the long and wordy tale
of woes stretching across three-and-a-half decades.
Lilliputian soul
of the renegade pupil encaged in the big bulk of his body tremblingly bent down
to touch the feet of light, old lithesome body still holding onto the mountainously
perfusive pergola of a sage-soul.
While bending
down, his physical self in a flip-flop alliance with the soul, the crutch fell
down. He almost fell into the old sage’s lap. When he raised his head, he
couldn’t mutter even a single word. His eyes glazed red, stared fearfully into
the God’s gray visage dimly lit in the Sadhguru’s narrowly-open wide
eyes. The old sage gave him an unmeaningfully pious look. We can’t fathom its
essence just in emotional or sentimental terms of the humans. Like poornam
in Sanskrit it personified both ‘full’ and ‘zero’.
Unable to face the
sage’s purity, the disciple dropped his look onto the worldly-liliaceous-lucre
of the floral carpet below. But then the metred colours of teachership are
immortal. With a nicely natural gesture the guru’s frail fingers
caressed the disciple’s saggy, over-wrought hair. How forgiving!
“I hope you’ve
enjoyed your chosen path, son,” he said it very, very lightly, almost like the
flutter of a rose petal.
Fluidity of his
pious emotions told it that the sage wasn’t concerned about the time’s
intervening chuckle-fest during these three-and-a-half decades.
“Oh, you poor
little boy of God. Seem a bit tired. Have some rest now...” with a blessing
sigh he gave a little nudge to the fearful visitor’s shoulder.
“O.K. what brings
you today to your former guru?” he understood the runaway disciple’s
plight, so came straight to the point.
The Sadhguru’s
tone was suffused with a monumental largesse. But the lock, stock and barrel of
the former disciple’s vocabulary was jammed in the presence of former guru’s
crystal pure piousness.
“Gurudev he’s
come to put a request for your holy presence on the occasion of that rally,” the
politician’s puckish voice once again put the proposal.
“Again... I’m too
old to bear the intoxication of this strong cocktail of religion and politics.”
“No... no we just
want your blessings gurudev.”
“I’m just a human
like you. Ask for His blessings.”
“Gurudev
you’re the symbol of His blessings on earth. Politics of this endangered
country needs guidance of dharma to fight against adharma.”
“Do’u know what adharma
means, little kid of God?”
“Yes... ummn...
the enemies of this country!”
“Muslims, you’ll
say. Oh, you people of today! Adharma means hate, not loving your fellow
human beings, hijacking God’s stage for political benefits, dividing the society.”
“But they too do
it. We have been forced to retaliate!”
“Don’t find
enemies around, angry son. Look within! You’ll find one,” the old sage raised
his sane finger at the brattish politician sitting on the carpeted floor.
In complete
compatibility with caution the politician held his tongue.
The master sage turned
his head towards the runaway disciple. “Once I accepted you as a disciple. At
least in this life I can’t retract from my guruhood for you. So I’ll
pray for the safety of your soul because your asceticism has now entered even
more grave territories,” the words flew like the serenity of gently flowing
water.
Sadhguru Parmanand
closed his eyes and in holy synchronism with the rhythmic periodicity of cosmic
time retained his former position. The politician felt a pinchy pull at his
collar. He instantaneously got the message to depart from the scene. Once again
prostrating with their dejected heads before the holy man’s abandonely spread
out naked feet they took to their heels.
While on the way
back, the politician vented out his drossy ire at the stonily dazed lame
mendicant.
“Why were’u making
castles in thin air on that election day?” ‘I’m Parmanand’s disciple’... my
foot!”
“B... But he’s too
old. His senses don’t work properly. How can one convince such a fellow?”
“If not the Sadhguru
himself, then his lame, beggary disciple will do. Be ready for that rally day!”
he gave the progress-lorn ascetic a cold repulsive stare.
On the appointed
day, the car once again arrived to fetch the religioner desperately trying to
play a political mummer. He was happy to a fine degree and significantly aware
of the occasion’s importance, otherwise why should seriously sarcastic and
loudly idiotic hooligans start giving a subtly respectful look to him.
This morning they
were in too much hurry to catch even their own breath. The wanton had been
festively festooned with politico-religiously palatable flags, placards and
banners. Its owners, having laboriously worked out a burgeoning roster, were attired
to the best of their capacities. As is the legendary, long custom with
political rallies they had cramped the vehicle to its full capacity to make it
distinctly visible in the political crowd.
With an applauding
political appetite the group swarmed the mound. Today these young tramps
appeared engaged in an apostasy to their socially-contrarian law of unmitigated
decadence.
Where were the old
watchman and his old dog at this time? For sure, not in their hut. Not even
around the pond’s edges in the south. Most probably, they’d trudged along the
solitary path’s solace running across the vast farmlands to the south, where
many solitary places with their welcoming signboards patiently waited as the
saviours of solitary souls.
The rallyists, and
the tramps in particular, knew that the religioner was their trump-card who
could take them as close to the dais as possible. So, the most important cog in
their itsy-bitsy itinerary was a resolve to stick around the Sadhu like
a pack of filthy flies around a peccantly dross and damp lump of jaggery.
The politician’s
man had brought a bagful of make-up provisions for the Sadhguru’s
disciple. It included a new mushy and muslined, shining saffron robe (in order
to frabbishly reflect the unfaithful, disloyal and unpatriotic sheen of the
green), a pair of sandalwood sandals, packets of fresh sandalwood paste and
vermilion, prominent rosaries, an offensively shining trident and many other
things needed to bestow him the appearance of a typical scion of Hinduism.
Pedantically, the
religioner took an hour to adorn all these things. Like a bridegroom going to
lead the marriage party his heart was excitedly throbbing, At last when he
emerged from the hut, with oodles of ‘being important’ attitude, he looked like
a perfectly made-up bride for the occasion. He was grinning with a plenilunar
aura. The crowd clapped, blew whistles, laughed in subtly satirical manners and
shouted slogans for Ram Ratan’s immortality.
Showing a
wonderful piece of patience they reached the car; their footsteps matching his.
It was no parodying and satirizing timepass like in the past. As the car’s door
was opened for him, he felt a soul-satisfying sensation. Even the most mystical
experience in his life would’ve failed to match this one. It seemed as if the divinity
had opened its gate for him.
Till now his
beggarly begirding mendicancy had seen him lumbering on foot, in carts, in
roadways buses and railways… without a ticket, which the ticket checkers didn’t
mind, because he was holding out his whole, big beggary self as a travel voucher
for a free travel throughout the length and breadth of the land of his religion.
Some of them even seemed to look scornfully at him, as if to say:
“Apart from your
big body bulk, your heavy free ticket is also worth stamping a surcharge!”
With a pleasure-soaking
sigh he found himself in the soft seat. He hadn’t yet completely comprehended
how it felt when he found someone sitting by him. It was the head hoodlum.
Showing eccentrically frivolous agility he’d sneaked in as the religioner’s
residual tuft of now extinct human tail. He smiled gingerly which graduated into
an excuse-seeking giggle. The religioner responded with a belittling and penetratingly
curt, wry smile. Caught in the fragilely lingering, defeatist thoughts, the
young ruffian turned away his face. Beneath this apparent look of revengeful
snub (for all their risible, disrespecting monstrosities) in the real heart of
his hearts, the religioner in fact felt relieved that someone from the old
world was with him on this journey to a new world. He patted his young friend’s
shoulder with assurance, authority and beneficence.
When the car
started they raised an uproarious slogan which sounded like a dreadnaught cry.
Smelling all foul and fair it went sailing over smallest of stormy waves in the
pond. Vibrating with the resonating strings of mischief buzzing with titillation
in its owners’ hearts the contrived vehicle, politically loaded with jostling
and jeering crowd, ran behind the speeding car.
Where was the
first disciple? Was he among the voyeuristically shouting followers in the jugar?
No, he wasn’t there. He was left behind at the almost desecrated mound to
bring the house in order. The votaries of clichéd bad behaviour had totally
disordered his beautifully and devotionally looked after culturescape. But as
was his nature, today too he didn’t complain––even in their absence!
His painstakingly
nurtured flower bed, which till this morning was basking in the pink of floral
health, had been brutally assaulted by the bloodbathing baddies. Most of the
flowers were gone. But it wasn’t the reason his heart silently suffered, because
it was convinced of a flower’s fate in His scheme of things––either a little
fragrance to the nostrils fed up with mundane air or a courteous garland felicitating
a neck above good, responsible shoulders. But the above flowery essence had
been blindly sucked into a percussive perdition, as they made a wanton song and
dance about preparing a politically periapt garland for the Sadhu.
Plucking hands are
the ones which define the character of the deed in this matter. The bad one
breaks the flower with an uprooting jerk without caring for the plant’s whole
existence. So, even if it’s done on a pious occasion the deed turns barbaric.
It is just like devil quaffing morals for God’s fallibility. Such a hand isn’t
aware of the distinction among a flower full blossomed, semi-bloomed or even a
bud. While a good one does it with dead-right diagnosis. It wispily, gently,
airily lifts the perfectly blossomed essence of beauty and goodness, without
the deed even coming to the knowledge of lifeful plant tissues linking the
flower to mother earth.
Much to Bhagte’s
bad luck all the hands aquilinely swooping at his flowers were of the former
type. There was a glint of sorrowful waters in his eyes. This little vignette
of his flowery devotion had been destroyed. Flowers, buds and plants all bore
the same treatment. Seeing their deed one would’ve easily estimated that the
perpetrators’ diseased misdemeanor had gone immune to all social medications.
After tearfully
staring at his soul’s floral pilgrimage for a considerable time, once in a
rarewhile his voiceless emotions churned out an audible reaction:
“Swines!” he said
it aloud.
It isn’t that the hands
of the latter type hadn’t touched his flowers. On a full moon night, a soft
hand had silently plucked the best blossomed dew-laden flower with the grace of
an angel and touched its lifeful petals to his lifelessly sewn-up lips.
There was no
alternative for Bhagte than to once again go for his flowery effort. And far
away from the noise he once again started with his little effort to bring life
back to the decimated flower bed.
There in the rally,
terrifying brute power of human dispassions and raw emotions of the mob were
dangerously peaking towards a deafening crescendo. Crammed to the gills,
delirious jangling of throats struck like an eye-blinding storm from dusty
deserts.
The religioner’s
senses went numb. He found himself in an interface with the chaotically
confused concept of the shouting, screaming, jibing and hypnotized humanity. He
felt himself to be a beetle-brained little insect caught in the buzzing conundrum
of big honeycombs of bumble-bees. Without seeing anything his big eyes ogled at
everything. His big, hairy ears cupped out in four directions without catching
a particular sound. It was simply beyond all his precogitations. He didn’t
remember whom he was introduced to; who touched his feet; whom he blessed. Many
times he was garlanded but he didn’t smell the flowery fragrance around his
neck. Dizzying smell of human passions was simply too powerful. They say a rose
by any other name smells just as sweet. But here it wasn’t so. It would’ve
smelt good only under a political name.
The
religio-political stage had been decorated with taste-teasing colours. Highly
decorated puffy effigy, the symbol of Indian revivalism and patriotic pride,
was sitting in an ascetic armchair. Around him the bursting furor unfolded.
Highly charged topgallants made pathologically dangerous speeches. Almost
demonically possessed, they thundered louder than the loudspeakers for the
country’s safety and pride. Struggling tooth and nail with their ruffled nerves
they let loose an errhine toot giving a clarion call to all real Hindus to go
gung-ho ‘Har-Har Mahadev’ after the evil-designing and unfaithful
minority; urged the masses to start thinking out-of-box from the regular,
coward run-of-the-mill matters. In fictional narrative splendid baggage of
history was dumped upon the mob’s dazed senses. There were soul-splitting
implorations to get on with a missiled mission of Hindutva for the
safety of motherland.
What an assault?
Toplofty leaders from the party’s national leadership adopted long and winding
wordy road to lay bare the minority’s redsear, disloyal intentions. The
mendicant was completely lost of his existence. This political exorcism was
many, many times hypnotizing than any form of occultism.
“There’re
recurring twilight eras in every religion’s history! Unfortunately, for Hinduism
it’s the start of death-chiming evening-twilight! Start of a long drawn-out
dark night! Get up, you shiny patriots and see through the dark night by
blazing your mind, body and wealth in fire for the sake of this country!” the
politico-religious legist thundered.
The religioner
couldn’t comprehend for how long this hoopla went on. His young friends had
braved the mob to reach the dais. From here they could see the forehead furrows
and questioning, arched eyebrows of the politicians on an assault. Enjoying
each and every moment of it, their wildest energies found many outlets in
myriads of ways.
“If Islamic
sectarianism doesn’t spare even their own brothers among Bohras, Ahmedias,
Shias and Sunnies, then how can you feel safe?” one of the politicians preached
pedagogically.
While the
politico-religious rhythmists were recalling the long and sorrowful tale of
Hinduism’s teething troubles, time too seemed to forget its clockness and abandoned
its tradition’s outdated taste. So, timelessness was echoing in the confused
corners of this evil’s theatrical extravaganza.
Finally when the
rally was over, a horrific chaos was let loose! Like stormy sea waves trying to
gobble up the halcyon nest, human swarms stormed around the dais. The religioner’s
senses sent horrifically worried messages for the dear life. A stampede occurred.
People spread out in four directions as if a mighty misguiding force had
overpowered them. The disorder here appeared to chuck up all the universal laws
of orderliness. Each and everybody was astraying in every possible direction.
Nobody seemed to be sure where the vehicle he came by was parked. Saving life
was the first priority. Reaching home––by whatever means one could come
across––was the second.
For a moment the Sadhu
thought the stage’d definitely break under the impact of squeezing force from
all sides. Standing on the edge of a precipice dangerously hanging over the
death-vale, he prayed to all his Gods for dear life. Then he looked around and
found himself all alone on the stage. His eyes told he was thinking, ‘I have
been made a scapegoat to be sacrificed at this altar of politics!’
“How could all of
them reach the safety of their cars?” surprise sauntered across the pores of
his afraid skin. “And that too without my knowledge!!”
Then the picture
of Ram Ratan, grinning with an eclectic mix of political optimism, flashed in
his mind. Before fleeing from the scene, the politician had blasted above the noise:
“Thank you maharaj! I hope we’ll get time to build a
temple for you!”
After that the sanyasi saw nothing of him. He knew his
only chance of survival was to remain where he was. And like an old head
sulking over still older shoulders he kept his balance on the safe spot.
There’s no
gainsaying in repeating the politicians’ ways. But, one thing needs mention.
How masterly they managed an escape route! Great’re the ways of these people!
Even the deadliest of a stampede finds itself helpless before them and mutely
surrenders a safe path after the explosion.
For a long, long
time he remained standing there. After the storm had subsided he found himself
a worthless part of garbage left behind by the mob. At last his heart pounded
with life as he saw the trampers coming with a mini-storm. Disrobed of all his
political grandstanding he was now ready to bear all the gruffy gruels of their
cruel jokes. Head scamp’s taunting noise was distinctly prominent. Now it was
his turn to take revenge for that momentary look of icy eccentricity and
disdain which the godhead threw at him just after getting into the car. The
ascetic’s heart sank to abyss under the impact of this lurid farce which was
growing weirder and weirder with each passing second.
“I
hope you now beg for a jolting ride on our wanton, guruji!” he mimicked like the politician.
