He appeared to be hale and hearty, though looking a bit old. Might be even in his nineties.
He was having his meal in the restaurant in a very relaxed manner.
I took the seat opposite to him which was vacant.
It was '#Onam feast' in the restaurant. Since my family was away, I had decided to enjoy the feast in the restaurant. The ambience was quite, with a light music at the back ground. Families were sitting around and enjoying themselves. Communities have shifted from the dwelling places to restaurants, I thought.
As the server put the leaf before me and I started sprinkling the water and cleaning it up for the serving to start, he was looking at me with a twinkle in his eyes. Smiling eyes.
I smiled back. Had a feeling of having known him for a long time.
“New to this place?”, I asked.
“No I come now and then”, he said.
“Have we met earlier?”
“Might be”.
“Where do you come from?”
“I was there in the north. Shifted down south with my family, long ago. Now keep going places, seeing people and enjoying”.
“Nice that at your age, you are able to move around alone”.
“Loneliness is a state of mind. When people are there around, nature is there communicating to us various things always, where is loneliness? Sometimes people even when surrounded by their kith and kin are lost in their own reveries, personal ambitions and cut off from others. Only they are lonely”.
The server had started putting various items on the leaf and I had started savoring one by one.
I was reminded of people being caught up within their mobile web, even when travelling in crowded busses or trains. There was a time when travelling was to see various places, watch people, etc. Might be the old gentleman belonged to that genre.
“Where do you stay?” I asked.
“Earlier we had settled in the north. But later moved down south”.
“Why?”.
“It is a repetition in history. When someone comes and wants to stay in a part of your land, you allow it by grace, then they slowly take over the entire place and you will be forced to move out”.
“Yes I remember #Tagore’s poem somewhere on these lines I said”.
“Which poem?” he asked.
I tried to recollect. “It starts somewhat like this, ‘they came in the morning and said that they will stay in a corner’
“He slowly started reciting the entire poem:
‘When it was day they came into my house and said, “We shall only take the smallest room here.”
They said, “We shall help you in the worship of your God and humbly accept only our own share of his grace”; and then they took their seat in a corner and they sat quiet and meek.
But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred shine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offerings from God’s altar.’
I think you meant that poem in #Githanjali”, he said.
I was quite beside myself. Not only about his memory, but the grace with which he rendered those lines. As if Tagore himself had presented before me.
“Amazing that you remember those lines so accurately” I said.
“Once someone has realized, then it is difficult to forget” he said. There was a bit of sorrow in his voice, or I thought so.
“It is the same law, whether inner or the outer”, he said.
“I do not quite get it”.
“One has to be guarded as to whom he is letting in. If they are of good merit, they will enrich you by making you stronger and remain with you. If they are inimical forces, they will slowly occupy the entire space and kick you out or the better elements, and completely subjugate you, in the long run”.
“This is a perpetual conflict between the inner forces as well as various races”, I said.
“Yes. It is a yin yang game. The victors always write the history. But truth always has the knack of coming back”.
“But how did you get caught in such a game?”.
“The lad who came and sought a quarter of our land looked very meek, mild and amiable. But we saw his real self only after he was let in. Slowly he grabbed all our possessions and sent us south. Only I could get a lien to go back to our ancestral place, once in a while”.
“Oh. Pitiable. Then how did you find a new place?”.
“Actually, our entire clan moved down south. Then one of the decedents of that lad taking pity on our plight, showed us a new landscape in the forests. It had not been inhabited by humans so far and was therefore rich. It was rather full of snakes. Only we had to toil a bit to make it ‘God’s own country’ ”.
Actually, I had forgotten to savour the delicious and varieties of food. I was just taking them mechanically. Had got glued to his narration. Now and then the server would come and keep on filling something or the other on our leaves.
“I am reminded about the #Vamana avathara and #Mahabali”, I said.
He kept on looking deep into my eyes for some time. Either he had moisture in his eyes, or I at least though so.
“Do you know how much that young lad’s descendants had to suffer?” he asked.
“Which lad?”
“That vamana”.
“Who were his descendants?”.
“Oh all the avatars that came later”.
“You mean #Parasurama, #Rama and #Krishna?”.
“Yes yes. One had to behead his own mother, at the command of his father. He conquered all the kings, but could never reign and could not get peace and left to the forest. Then Rama, was sent to the forests by his own father’s vow, his wife was stolen away, even after getting her back, he never had peace of mind, sent her heavy with his own children to the forests and went down himself into the sarayu. Krishna, right at the moment of birth was separated from his mother, was hunted by his maternal uncle right from his boyhood, even after killing his tormentor could not reign. His best friends, the valiant pandavas also were exiled and after the bloody war to reclaim a land which neither belonged to them legitimately nor to their cousins, nothing survived. Nothing survived - neither dharma nor artha, only the stench of kama was left there with the blood that was let in the battle. Krishna himself had a lonely death. A fatal arrow pierced his feet. Remember that with a feet his ancestor had taken over an entire kingdom earlier”.
I was lost completely. Never ever thought that #karma could have caught up even with avatars.
Then after summoning some energy, I asked him, “when avatars or godheads do something for the wellbeing of others, how does karma catch up?”.
He smiled.
“#Dharma and #karma are two faces of the same coin. It works in the same way for everyone. Its value would increase or decrease depending upon the person who uses it and the occasion”.
Now, I was a bit baffled. How could a coin have different value depending upon the person and occasion? He perhaps read my mind.
“See, when your loved ones gift you something, you attach greater value to it. Hard earned money is worthier than something got by deceit or by chance. Then when you get something when you are in dire need, it is of the greatest value. Money in the coffers without any spending is an utter waste and has no value”.
Oh, how I had overlooked such a fundamental economic principle, I felt. I was a bit ashamed of my earlier doubt.
“#Manushyas, #Asuras and #Devas were all born out of the same #Kashyapa, as per our own puranas. Why only they, everything that is alive, including birds and animals".
What nonsense, I thought.
“Because, Kashyapa himself was born out of the mind of Brahma”, he continued.
“All of us are essentially mental beings. What we wanted to be, we are and what we want to be, we become”.
Now that was a bit rich. I could not gather.
“Have you read the book, ‘Phantoms in the Brain by #V.S.Ramachandran’?”.
“No”, I muttered.
“He has demonstrated what #Shankara proclaimed a thousand years ago ‘Body is the creation of the mind’”.
“The same Shankara also has said, Asuras, Manushyas and Devas are all only humans and it denotes only their different tendencies”.
“I am reminded about reading somewhere that Socrates said that people with a lot of avariciousness for wealth will get reborn as mules or such animals and those who torment others will get born as eagles, kites, etc”.
“Yes, exactly”, he said. “Also the animals in the #Panchatantra, do you think are animals speaking and thinking? They are animals in human form”.
“It is quite an unending cycle, then”, I said.
“Yes. We are all caught up in this web. Action creates opposite reactions and the yin yang continues”.
“Is it a misery or a game?”.
“It will depend upon our station in life. For some it is a misery. Some take it in their stride. Some who are favourably placed get drowned in the mirth. Some alone are gifted with the possibility to contemplate”.
“But when the law of karma is so inexorable, what worth is there in contemplation?”, I ventured.
“There is a story in the #Upanishads. The Asuras, Devas and Manushyas went to their #Guru and asked for upadesha to contemplate and meditate upon. He separately told each of them secretly a letter and asked them to come back if they have found the key. Later each of them came back and told him they have found the key. What was that, he asked. The Deva said, ‘you told me ‘#Dha’, which means #Dhamana. I have to be self-controlled. Yes, said the Guru. When you get power in your hands, you should use it with wisdom and restrain. Asura came and said he was also told ‘Dha’ but he understood that as ‘#Dhaya’. True said the Guru. Your asuric or demonic form is due to your mercilessness and anger. Its remedy lies in being merciful to all beings. Then came the manushya. He was in doubt. He said, ‘Guru, you had told me also ‘Dha’, but I thought it is ‘#Dhana’. Yes, said the Guru. By habit, you want to amass wealth. You are the only one among all living beings who hoards wealth, whether you need it or not. You create an imbalance in the entire nature’s law, which is to flow. So your salvation lies in creating a tendency to give away what you possess. Ever remember that you are not the owner of anything on this earth. You are only the custodian. You are to only pass it on. The river loses its virility if it stays in one place. So does wealth.”
I had finished my lunch. The bill was on my table. I had been completely lost.
“Then the Guru told his disciples. It is not enough if you have got the key. Now you have to enter. Practice it”.
I felt as if a rishi was coming and sitting before me in the modern attire.
He completed his meal, went and washed his hands and came back to bid me good bye.
“How do we come out of this web?”, I asked.
“See the goat or a cow tied to a tree with a rope? It keeps grazing, lying and waiting. If you go round and round the tree, grazing and doing whatever is possible, the rope may snap due to your effort or by the wear and tear. Or if you are able, you can break yourself free. Then you need not be bothered about the butcher”, he said with a twinkle in his eyes and left.
I went and washed my hands, came back, paid my bill and asked the waiter, “What about his bill. I shall pay that also”.
“He is our owner sir”, he said. He keeps dropping in once in a while.
“Where does he live?”.
‘We do not know’ said the waiter.
