One of those days during the Covid
lockdown. Lessons, they said, were there for those who would care to be mindful
– divine messages, cosmic tutorials, karmic exams. I had started visiting the
temple again, after having waged a bitter tussle in my mind with the demons of
reason which were trying to topple my faith. Faith and Reason, Science and
Spirituality, two pairs of irreconcilables, forever at each other’s throat. My
faith in a kind God, whom I could worship as a benevolent father had flown out
of the window, the same night my wife Varshita’s soul left her tormented corpus
and started its ascent to the heavens above. Untimely, unjust, cruel, unfair.
And they told me, supposedly to comfort me, that God tests those who are closest
to Him, those who trust Him the most. Just for fun. Child’s play. Think of Job,
think of Harishchandra, think of the Pandavas, blah blah blah… I heard without
listening, looked into their eyes without seeing who they were. Frozen. Like the
last movie I and my wife had seen on a very cold evening when the mercury had
dipped to -12o C, a couple of weeks before she passed away. Three
weeks before she lay frozen in the coffin for people to pay their respects and
bid her a final goodbye. I recall that she never failed to wish people ‘Bon
voyage’ when she knew that they would be travelling, and likewise, she
always cherished such wishes which others gave her. Perhaps, that movie had been
chosen wantonly by her – ‘Venkat, I want to see that movie, Frozen 2, no
matter what.’
Well, out of the reverie now readers….I
made a mental note of the things I would have to do that afternoon – buy a rose
for the wife’s framed photograph, buy grapes and bananas, buy some Marie
biscuits and feed the stray dogs en route to the Lord Hanuman temple. I had, I
thought, partly managed to vanquish the demons of reason and had started
believing in God’s mercy and kindness again. Partly. I purchased a rose, then a
dozen bananas, and walked down to look for someone selling grapes. I had
forgotten to check how much cash I had left in my purse. I saw an old man with a
dozen bunches of grapes in a basket sitting and staring into space on the
pavement. I asked him to weigh a kilo of green grapes for me, and he did so and
emptied the same into my cloth bag.
’70 rupye zaale’ (70 rupees), he said in
Marathi.
I dipped into my purse and out came a
10-INR note. I had to pay him 80 INR.
‘Paishe naheet mazyakade.
Tumhi angoor parat gyaa.
Mee paishe geoon yetho.’ (I am short of cash. You take back
the grapes. I shall return with the money).
He however insisted that I must take the
grapes home and not bother about the payment for now. He told me that he would
be leaving in 10 minutes, as his son was hospitalised, and he had to go see him.
‘Tumhee nehmeeche graahak saheb. Teva angoor aani nantar dyaa paishe.’ He gave a
tired toothless smile, which concealed a lot of pain, sorry, sorrow and anguish,
at once detectable to a person like me who had been trying to smile and conceal
my pain.
I took the grapes, ran home, reached in 4
minutes, and hastened back with 500 INR in 4 minutes, just to see him pack up
and about to leave.
‘Kaaka, he gyaa,’ (Uncle, please take
these), I said, proferring the 500 INR note.
‘Kai, tumhee
pann, Ghai kashaala?’ (Come on, what was the hurry?)
It was a roasting 38oC that
day, a sharp contrast to the night Varshita had passed away in the month of
January in Trondheim.
‘Sutte paishe naheeth mazyaakade,’ (I do
not have change), he said, wrinkling his forehead and looking at the sweat
dripping from my forehead.
‘Sutte nako
malaa. Tumhee tumchya mulgaasaathi, zaataana, fal
geyoon jaa,’ (I do not need change, you buy fruits for your son with the
remainder of the money). So saying, I glanced at his bewildered face, and
quickly turned and walked away, giving him no time to debate with me. I had to
feed the stray dogs after all.
I had seen and served God, in the guise
of a trusting, old, wizened man, who was being a responsible father and a good
human being. The stray dogs I fed came and lay down at my feet and continued to
look into my thoughtful eyes, as if they could read what was going on in my
mind. It seemed as if Varshita’s soul energies were communicating with me
through them.
I did not have to visit the mace-touting,
mountain-bearing, monkey God in his abode that evening. I came back home, took a
bath and sat down to write this piece…