ON LIFE

‘Let us speak something on life!’, I was shocked to hear this as I never heard such words from mouth of a person who’d otherwise open it to eat spicy, hot & junk food, drink water, hot steaming tea & cold drink which is no less hazardous than insecticides, snore to sleep happily & kill others’ sleep, read aloud something written only on hotel menu card & speak sheer ‘humbug’. Even if Miss World is passing by us while we’re enjoying our ‘onion-bhajia’ at Anand Bhuvan he’d concentrate on the bhajia, to hell will Miss World. Or for him ‘living’ is eating right & sleeping tight. Five minutes before the exams when everybody is mugging up the most important answers, praying respective gods & goddess to seek their blessings, rehearsing copy pulling from their various hide-outs etc. This guy would be invariably seen at the college canteen sipping his tea at ease as if whole day is free ahead. Well, if he passes every time in the exams then no problem but he’s studying to make schools, colleges, & universities rich by paying fees for his never ending supplementary exams. He’d vowed to not to pass in first attempt in any paper at any cost & he’s unruffled by any results. Perhaps God has forgotten to embed ‘tension wrinkle’ onto his forehead I always doubted.

Years later in the same ‘Anand Bhuvan’, ‘What’s it?’ I said with ice cooled voice sipping hot steaming tea, with him & for him I’ve learnt to live ahead take no tension. ‘I plan to have a baby girl’ he spoke leaning on the table moving close to me, perhaps ensuring I only listen him. ‘But that is you & your wife to decide, what can I say on this? Further having girl or boy is not in our scope’ I was trying hard clutching laughter within my teeth at the same time trying to keep my face as dumb as I could. ‘No no not like that, I’m planning to adopt a girl child’ he made it rather crystal clear. I was stumped, stunned and aghast I just kept looking at him. Not far from then I heard he then really adopted a girl child.

Just like he kept giving me shocks by announcing he quitting his permanent government job, starting his own hardware shop, visiting pilgrimage places barefooted, taking police head on for their allegedly misbehavior with someone he doesn’t even know yet witnessed the episode. Last I heard of him was he was testing waters to join politics. So far I’d enough of his experience, yet joining politics was not our cup of tea. Yet, I chose to keep quiet. He got elected from his ward, I congratulated him. He was same as he used to be some thirty five years back. ‘Lets’ have tea & how about ‘onion-bhajia?’. He said with twinkling eyes. He spoke none yet took ‘U’ turn towards our ever fresh ‘Anand Bhuvan’. As I was readying for another shock from him I noticed a small saffron coloured spot on his nose just below forehead where otherwise bridge of spectacles rest. ‘What is that tikka?’ I was getting restless. He spoke none till he ate the last of onion-bhajia from his plate unnecessarily stretching my patience. ‘Life is full of paradox, whatever we achieve; in the last is something we can’t take along with us. I’m going the spiritual way’ he spoke all this in one breath chilled voice. I broke the wooden chair of ‘Anand Bhuvan’ that day & got myself hurt in the hips as the shock he gave came to me like an earthquake. ‘Soon he’s going to Himalayas’ I ate my words before they passed through lips.

It was tremendous metamorphosis even he’d put butterfly to shame. For one day he reached my home in the Sunday afternoon with long beard mixture of his black-gray hairs, long saffron shirt & saffron dhoti. Multiple rosaries of various size & shaped ‘Rudraksh’ dangling in his neck & tied with his wrist where once upon a time he used to tie his wristwatch. My wife immediately went inside to get a coin to offer him as visibly she’d not recognized him even a bit. When I reintroduced him to her she was about to faint. As he was the one who actually got us close in the college & even arranged all those things like car of our common friend to kidnap my then fiancée, selection of distant temple, the Pooja items including Brahmin for our run away wedding & even had spent a night along with me in the police lock-up post our marriage. As my father in law was a senior police officer & I dared to kidnap his only daughter & marry her.

‘He’s wasting away’ I spoke to my wife who was almost sunk & shocked like me while looking at him walk away from our home in his wooden slippers. He’d definitely washed our brains during his stay of two hours on spirituality, took nothing we offered but only glass full of hot milk without sugar. ‘You must learn to control your organs. Why eat spicy & hot food while we can fill our stomach with normal cooked food at home without onion & garlic?’ I’d got used to his shocks; rather I became so confident now days that I was dreaming of catching live wire of 440 volts in bare hands like a rotten wooden stick. We discussed ourselves & decided to do something.

His home was almost converted into temple we’d to gulp our saliva to acclimatize ourselves with the drastic change. Bells were dangling with brass chains every feet of the ceiling, touching to the ceiling there were hundreds of frames of various deities each decorated with sandalwood garlands with incense sticks burning converting the white ceiling to black with its soot. The whole family was clad in saffron clothes. ‘They pray round the clock’ their visibly irritated neighbour whispered into my ears. It took us long & lot to convince them all. Lastly they agreed.

We bade them farewell on the cruise boat while they’d departed for the world tour for ninety days. We’d financed their tour just a small gift from us; somehow we were trying our bit to partially pay our respects for his deed in uniting us. While they were out we refurnished their home.

‘It is sin to convert a temple to house…’ the Masson talking to his helper I overheard & ignored.

By
Vijay Yelmelwar