the life divine

He was ancient and very weak. But he suddenly woke up from his sleep, got up from the bed and began walking with his spine bent as usual, the walking stick in his hand. He came to the middle of his room at my village home and then suddenly the walking stick fell from his hand and vanished, he stood tall, the bent in his spine no longer there. His white dhoti was shining and there was a radiance on his face. I felt uneasy with the vision. Suddenly the room vanished from view and as I was seeing a chariot driven by horses. I saw the charioteer release the horses and I knew no more.
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‘What sort of adventures?” asked my friend from Delhi when I told her that life was going good and that I was having adventures, almost daily. Just the day after my grandfather too had an adventure. He died.

I woke up in the morning and went to the Hall of my home at Bhopal.

My mother was crying, sitting at the edge of the deewan. My father, however, looked calm and composed. He gave me the news. It was as if I already knew. I didn’t cry because somewhere in my heart I felt that he needed it. We left for the village immediately.

My uncle and brother were sitting near him preventing flies from sitting on him. As I climbed up the stairs, my grandmother started crying. My uncle was crying silently as was my brother. My mother started crying again and my father, who hadn’t shed a single tear by then, melted. ‘Dono bhai subah subah hume doodh bana ke dete the,‘ he had remarked about Grandfather and his brother when we were cruising along in the car.

I noticed that my grandfather was not looking any different from what he looked like when I had talked to him just three days before his death. Only difference was that he was not coughing or struggling hard to make himself understood. There was a big clot near his left eye due to him meeting the deep just before he measured it.

I noticed that I was not crying. I don’t know why but I didn’t cry during my entire stay at the village. Others cried, even my younger brother, but I didn’t. If you are thinking that this is a sign of strength then let me correct you. It isn’t. I didn’t cry and it suffocated me. Something wanted to come out of me but it’s still in there even as I write this post.

His last rites were performed. I was amazed at the number of things Hindus have to do when a person dies. His clothes were changed after the body was bathed, symbolically though. Heads of my father, uncle, brother and me were shaven. Then at the scheduled time he was put on the arthi and taken to the village shamshaan. The chita was made and he was put on it. More logs were put on him and then began the last yagya of his life. Yes the last rites are a form of yagya. Although no mantras were chanted but the Gayatri system of rites suggests last rite mantras as well. Kapal kriya was done. It resembles the poornahuti to the yagya. We stood there for a long time. It was raining but the chitasthala had a tin shade. People were crying, me too, but only due to the smoke that was going in the eyes and working as irritant. Or was it just me thinking that it was smoke?

The next day we went to collect ashes and bones in a sack which was to be taken to Sangam later. The sack now had a man once living. Some other rites were performed. Then we came back home. We had Uthavana on the third day. We went to the village temple. I thought about why Hindus do or have to do these rites and social gatherings, mrityubhoj et cetera. I saw that my father and his brothers were busy in managing things. Even my little brother was busy looking at the people who had gathered. The females were busy preparing the food. I got my answer. The ancients really were wise. It gives the grieving family a psychological freedom from grief. It gives them something to live for. It might be taxing economically these days but it nevertheless succeeds in its actual purpose. I felt my head bow in honor of the ancients.

Life is mortal. I am not telling a new thing but at times such as this, this truth strikes big. My grandfather probably never realised this. Till the end of his days he was worried about my sister’s marriage, about grandmother’s health, about my uncle’s work and about other things. He was a perfect family man. This is why he was burnt and not buried. Very few people know that in Hindu tradition only family men are burnt. The sanyasis are buried.

That day I sat in the hall of the village home. The room where he spent most of his time in his last days. In the very last days all his daily chores were done in this room. The room had a vacant spot now. His bed had been removed and a dari was put there where my grandmother was sitting. She would cry everytime a visitor came: a conditioned response I thought. But I didn’t cry.

It rained all evening. The village dog was crying but I didn’t cry for the man. I didn’t cry for the man who had distributed home made sweets and kheer to the whole village when I was born about nineteen years ago.

As far as a touching story is concerned, it ended or should have ended when I left her. But the story didn’t end. I had many more bizzare days before I got over it. I wrote several poems. The days were highly productive for me as a poet. I produced nealy two poems a week and several four liners in urdu. I completely lost myself, screwed my CPI and went down in departmental ranking. And I take the complete blame. No one but I am resposible for all that happened to me. Things I did and things that happened convinced me that this certainly wasn’t love. It was far too mundane because I don’t know her as of yet and going by external beauty and calling the thing love is, I think, the worse you can do to the whole institution called love. This was infatuation or obsession. This was a crush. I don’t know what love is but I am sure this wasn’t it. I felt guilty somehow. One reason is the fact that I didn’t keep my word. There might be other reasons but I am not sure of them. All I know is that I felt strange.

I visited IITB for Mood Indigo in December and there we ( me and Anurag ) were spectacularly successful in events. They also had a love letter writing competition as a qualifying round in a crossover event. It was all that I could have taken at that time. I mean was this nature’s idea of a cruel joke or what? Anyway it was a team event. I dunno how a team writes a love letter so I requested Anurag to let me write the letter.That love letter was my first love letter in the true sense of the word ( for the actual first read this ). It had a poem I had written and I don’t need to tell to who was it addressed.

We came first in that round and obviously qualified. Later we won that competition. Gradually I got over the whole stuff and then I thought that having done all this, I should not lose her as a friend so I added her on Orkut and Yahoo Messenger and later on GTalk. So much for the first crush. I hope we are good friends and if we are not yet then we will be someday.

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The FIFA world cup just reminds me of something. Goals happen even when Goalkeepers stand defending the goal posts. I am one pesky devil…

Concluded

I understand now why the term is ‘crush’. It crushes the hell out of you. Makes you go haywire. Your life becomes one big mayhem and only pandemonium exists. This somewhat fat, bearded boy, who ascended from the girl-poor IIT Kanpur hostel room became someone completely different. Anurag was right. How could I do it? Me? Even I was taken over by disbelief but in any case I had done it. Over the next few days, I became oblivious of the outside world. For me nothing existed except me and those foolish fantasies. I realise it now, human mind is brilliant. Even the mind of jackasses like me ( human jackasses ). It can build up on things in such a way that sometimes one might be confused about what is real and what is surreal. My fantasies grabbed me and I lost track of studies and stuff. No I am not blaming it on anybody except me. I should have followed what I had said to her but I didn’t do it. My blogging tempo was on a high and I posted a review on my visit to IITD where I happened to mention a bit about this incident. I also commented on a post about Rendezvous on phoenix’s blog. She visited my blog and read my post and she turned out to be a friend of the girl I had tried to give the chocolate to. I am not joking or making up stuff. I was surprised myself at this coincidence. She made the lady read my blog and somewhere in my comments back to phoenix I mentioned that her friend owed me a chocolate.

Anyway Phoenix commented back that the girl was visiting IITK for Antaragni which is IITK’s culfest. As if fantasies were not enough, now she was coming to my place. I was mad as mad can be. I became totally different person. I see it now. People turn foolish during such times and do things completely alien to them. In any case there, I changed a lot. For example, my wardrobe, which earlier had just baggy pants and some T’s now had Jeans. The shaving thing, which used to occur once in what a month or so now happened more regularly. There were many other changes. The effect was more or less like the Kuchh to hua hai song from Kal ho na ho. My mother was very happy to see me change ( we had mid term break before Antaragni ) though she didn’t knew the reason then.

Antaragni approached and I failed my own words. The vow to remain unknown was off to no-man’s land. Anurag was in hospitality cell and I made him promise to tell me about the IITD contingent as soon as the details arrived. He never told me though. The fest date came and it began. Working in three cells I had very less time but luckily I had enough time to roam in SAC ( Student Activity Center ) and on the first or probably the second day I saw her. We crossed at the control room which as the name suggests controls most of the activity during Antaragni. I don’t know whether she saw me but I saw her. Then this other time I was entering SAC when she was standing nearby and as I passed ( essentially gutless and I was amazed at this. At IITD things happened by themselves. I believe I know the reason now. I had fantasized so much that I was somehow feeling guilty of turning wrong to my own words. I couldn’t think straight about her or anything for that matter. I had no courage now to go to her and in that way I was fullfilling my words. I know this is rubbish but I thought this way back then ) someone just called her by name.

I turned into my worst nightmare. No, this stuff is nothing serious but at that time I was feeling strange. I walked in to the hospitality desk, found the IITD registration data and got what I required. In doing so I breached the promise I had made, to me and to her. It ofcourse didn’t matter to her ( or atleast I think so ) but I sank down with everything I did next. So what did I do?

Well another chocolate was the most obvious thing. I took a Kit Kat and put it in an envelope. I put her name on it and left it on the control desk. On a small corner of the envelope I left this remark : A chocolate to remember. Yeah it sounds foolish but you act foolishly at such times. I left it at the control desk and notified a very good friend of mine at control desk about what was going on. How much I hate this now! Manipulating things and people for gains like this. Most unlike me because I am least involved with girls ( but no I am not a fairy ). I didn’t know what to expect and after all this I went back to work.

On the last day of Antaragni, when I was busy doing stuff in Convocation Ground where KK’s live show was to be held shortly then, I got a call from a guy who asked for some details about hindi competitions ( I was in that cell also ). He said he wanted to meet me outside SAC so I said that I will be right there. When I was halfway through, I found all this fishy but I went nonetheless. When I reached the SAC gate I saw two guys standing with the ‘your-balls-are-mine’ look on their faces. It hit me then. They looked at me as a butcher looks at the chicken before killing. And my mouth slipped again, ” By any means, you have no plans of beating me up? ” They smiled back. “No, just come.”

And they took me to where the entire ( well most of the ) IITD contingent was. There she was, sitting in the center and as I reached there, they vacated another chair and mad eme sit next to her. I looked everywhere except at her.

“You have given a chocolate to our very chococlaty sweet friend,” said one of the guys. “May I ask why?”

“I don’t know. It just occurred to me so I gave it to her.”

“A chocolate to remember. Hmmm,” said another and I felt as if the whole world was laughing at me. Well they were atleast. “How will she remember it when she would just eat it?”

“The feelings matter not the chocolate itself.” So I am this spiritual teacher or philosopher now.

“Ohhhhhhhh…but why did you give a chocolate to her? Why not me?”

What kind of a question is this? It’s my chocolate and I can do whatever I like to do with it. But anyway I slipped my hand in my bag, grabbed a chocolate and gave it to the person who asked the question. I don’t remember what their reaction was. I was not feeling anyhting at all or may be I was feeling too much. I told them that I had work so I needed to go. They left me and I started to walk away when the guys who had called me place came and apologised for what had just happened. I said it was okay and started again when she came to me and said something which broke my heart ( now this is one common line used zillions of times but I couldn’t think of anything else so my heart simply broke at that point ).

“Arvind, I can’t take this chocolate.”

“Why?”

“Because I already owe you one.”

What could have I said after all this?

“Owe this one as well,” and I left.

To be concluded