The Birth of Edward

Henry bid goodbye to his friends. Good men all of them. They have been worried about him for sometime now. He knew they were concerned but he himself could not put his finger onto what was wrong with him. There have been strange dreams. He had been alive in those dreams, alive in a different way. Sometimes his hand inadvertently moved to harder liquor than his standard ginger ale. He couldn’t for the love of God figure out why. Speaking of God, he was once a regular to the Church and yet recently the sermons irritated him.

Power, passion, glory once held no meaning for him. He was enamoured with the seeking of knowledge but now his gait was changing. He desired attention, he desired prominence. Somewhere things were no longer the same. He tossed and turned in his bed wondering where life was leading him. He no longer knew. Yet it felt exhilarating. There was something intoxicating in dabbling with the immoral. The succour received from the dark of the night filled him with an unknown pleasure. And even then everything felt like a dream, one from which there was no turning back.

The question was did he want to turn back?

He knew what was going on in the minds of his friends. They missed the innocent, almost child like Henry. Yes, he did too. But then, every child has to grow up one day? Don’t they? Oh, God, he was so confused. He loved the moments when he could retaliate, give it back. He felt miserable later as he had always believed that it was such a waste of energy but something pushed him to do it. He was also being lately unable to leave behind emotions while dealing with people. He was no longer detached from the people around him. Earlier he felt at peace with himself, these days he left alive in an animal sort of way.

He waved goodbye to his friends. As he brushed his teeth, he saw Edward for the first time. It was a fleeting glance but he could never forget that face staring back at him from the mirror.

That night, they say Edward was born.

(But stories can change. New ages require new endings and we shall wait for ours)

Satan, The Son of God and The Son of Man

When I look back, I often find that two distinct theological ideologies shaped my childhood beliefs. While liberal Bengali Hinduism encouraged me to seek for truth both inside and outside, the strict catholic missionary education made me read up The Bible in as much detail as a school going kid could. I went deeper and very early in my life I realized going deeper into anything could just leave you more confused but at the same time, it is intoxicating.

Mythologies followed next. Greek, Norse, African, the entire list. Patterns began emerging. I continued reading. The Mother Goddess and her oblivion through male dominion were clear and simple to follow like all great cons by men. Folk Tales followed. And somewhere when I just started getting into Folk Music I decided to put an abrupt end to it all.

Somehow, the concept of God always intrigued me. That had resulted in an academic paper letting go of other important matters. That is another story. The point is that spirituality has always been an important part of The Search.

A insisted a few nights back that we should have our own Ganpati in our house. Given that our sinful lives take a great toll on our mental peace, it seemed like an extremely awesome idea. But as we started preparing, I began to realize how far away the kid from Calcutta had come away from anything remotely Godly. In fact, post the nights outside Temple Lawns in the Rajasthan Village, the connection has just become weaker.

It was a difficult transition. The childhood memories of performing a Puja at home were hazy. None of us knew exactly what was to be done. We just knew we wanted to do it. It was like a calling. It always is.

Then Swati saved the day for us. An amazing woman, she deserves a separate post on her own. She invited us over to our house, helped us with our preparations, scolded us when we were slacking away and stopped the entire thing from becoming a good intentioned farce,

On Friday night, I returned to a dark home. The lights were out. Only a small lamp was lit in front of the idol and the surroundings seemed ethereal. And I sat and thought. About Good and Evil and God and Satan.

Suddenly it struck me; in Hindu Philosophy, the concept of Evil is extremely strange. While the religions arising out of the Middle East believe in the Opposite of Good being present in the universe as much as Good itself, The Indus religions believe in One Supreme Good and various manifestations of evil. Both have hell. Yet while Satan or Iblish rules Hell in one, A God is the Gatekeeper of another.

The forgotten ancients also grappled with this confusion. Was Loki Satan? Or Hades the Greek Yama?

I looked at myself. Sometimes being evil is just about stopping to be good for most parts of your life. When I was a kid, I thought ourselves to be images of God, the supreme being or whoever that dude up there is. The scriptures agreed – Tat Tvam Asi

The lights came on and the trance was broken.

Saturday was Visarjan. Standing chest deep in the dirty waters of Juhu with the idol on my head I felt a part of the Visarjan Microcosm, vibrant, euphoric and full of life. People around me were ecstatic. They led hard lives and yet for this one moment they were moving their bodies to an eclectic mixture of Bollywood music, Bhajans, political propaganda and drums.

Just then it dawned on me. We are sons of Man, unable to stick to the extremes of righteousness and that made us so unlike our Creator.

And while their children frolicked in the carcinogenic wastes and Swine Flu Scares, She and He had a hearty laugh upstairs.

(This post was originally 3 pages long. Had to cut it short)

The Words of Our Prophets…

…are written on subway walls. So says one of my favourite songs. Today something happened when I realized that I was wasting my time till now forgetting the songs that I had grown up on.

Basically I met this guy who had got some diploma from this Gujju place called Bhadrapur Institute of Management and has been trying to convince me that The Answer is there somewhere. I too believed in it when I was young. But then my travels taught me that there can be another way of life. This way taught you to make the most of now and leave the rest of the worries to when they actually become realities.

So this Bhadrapur dude has been able to convince me that my safe middle path is not the right one. One supposedly has to choose. But today as I was coming home I was as usual chatting up with my autowalah. After the usual banter about how awesome Mumbai is, he suddenly said, “But you always come home late from work. How would you actually know how great the city is and what it can offer.”

Since I had no answer, I let him talk and between his long discourse I just heard one thing, “Life is too precious to waste without living it fully. And to enjoy life is a responsibility. You would not want to leave this world without figuring out all that it has to offer.”

As I said, the words of our prophets…

Revelations

Most of my world changing revelations get shown to me when I am in the bath. The other day I had a discussion with someone on the meaning of our lives and the next day while brushing my eyes fell on the roll of toilet paper.

Did the tree ever think the meaning of its life would be reduced to….?