Monday, March 24, 2008
Pongal Veg Cafe
Prologue: The Unwritten Autobiography
Living Dad
On happy sunny mornings, the fruit smiled its happy ripen optimistic face onto a warm little earth. The fruit was rare, and its flesh nutritious and rich in taste. It had rejoiced in its glory for a long time now, and it was proudly facing the sun, with an all-knowing expression. And, little did it know of the hungry farmer who, having no tools of his own, had tilled the rocky earth for a full decade with his bare hands that were bloody and worn out now. After years of painful toil, he had finally bore one full smile on his face as he had planted the sapling that now bore the rare fruit, and now, he lay there in his lonely hut hiding away from the sun that had long burnt his skin, receding into the darkness of a wild restful sleep.
And what I have really wanted to do for a while now, is to narrate, in plain simple words the tale of my father’s life.
EGO
Two young boys looked straight into the distance, as their knees bent forward, arms crouched at the feet, and the rest of the torso set itself into such a posture as it was so ready to pounce into the air any moment then, with all the mighty force that stayed hidden in the muscles that stayed wrapped within. The hot blood pumped vigorously with every breath of the lungs and every beat of the heart. Where in the distance their thirsty eyes restlessly looked, a hundred meters further from where they now crouched like hungry beasts, was a thin white line. The boys were furious, and their hearts raged with the desire to reach the line, as if there lay the key to the greatest thing that was ever sought by men who walked the earth. As a hundred pairs of eyes blinked wide into the day, with an excitement and thrill, the kind of which can only be caused by the definite uncertainty of an inevitable future, the gun shot up the unseen bullet that vanished into the dusty robe of humid air that wrapped the ground below, and it was as if the boys were what were really shot out into space, with immense energy and the deafening blast of a noise. Their feet now raced, step after step, leap after leap, and miles of a blurred irrelevant mass seemed to flow past them with an enormous turbulence. The nerves discharged heavily, the feet sucked up all the energy of the body and spat it out as they ran towards the great line of purpose and victory. In a span of time that felt too short for the watching eyes, and too long for the racing feet, the victor passed the line in a sweep when a roaring noise of applause emanated from people screaming their calories out of their throats vehemently. The victor stood there, past the line, his lungs still trying desperately to swallow as greedy a chunk of oxygen as the pores on the face permitted to let in. And, as he stood there, he wore a huge smile on his face and an enormous and warm ‘something’ filled his heart. The applause seeped through his ears and merrier he became.
The ego was a funny thing. There was the white line, and there was the race, and there was the enormously fulfilling sense of victory. There were the folks who were all part of the huge wheel in eternal motion. There were folks that strived to make a difference to the world, which was only a lesser goal, for what they really sought was the satiation of the self or the ego, as you would choose to call it. There were varieties of races, those of the feet, those of the skilled arms, those of hearts, of valor and courage, and those of the intellect. And, varied restless folks sought after the white lines in their own myriad manners, with the hope of stumbling upon the next stroke of victory, to feel that ‘something’ fill the hearts, to prove to themselves that they could race across in a world of hungry folks, and all the white line was but one infinitesimal dimensionless point of an object in the enormity and infinite vastness of the emptiness that is. The ego was a funny thing.
Binny
The Sea had taken her son away:
Aunt: Oh God! Binny had gone to the Church regularly. He has not intended evil to anyone. He fasted in deep faith and respect to you, for forty days now. And, is this what you give to him?
God:
Aunt: There is no God. You are not real. You let babies die. You do not mean anything. There is no reason we should look up to you and pray. (Cries aloud)
God: …
Uncle: Listen to me! This is how things are. And, that is reality. Nothing is permanent. You got that? Now, stay calm.
God was sitting a trillion miles away in the dark, winding the cogs of the Great Clock of the universe, and the infinite hands of the Great Clock ticked slowly and painfully. Her hands that were holding onto the great rusted lever were aching and the blood that had seeped out of Her tender skin through the billion years had dried up long back. But, the ticking should not stop, and so She sat there through all the years and worked faithfully on the great lever. She was meticulously working towards something, something that She has now wanted for billions of years, a purpose that was not conceivable by any amounts of ingenious leaps of the human imagination. It was a grand scheme of things, and the earth that was just a stone in an arbitrary spot in a practically infinite universe, did not have much of a place in it. On the scale of Her activity, what we on earth did were menial and to a large extent arbitrary. All the events that ever occurred on the stone were soon to fade away into another random fluctuation, which will not find even an insignificant place in the scheme of things that She worked towards. We were not part of God’s purpose. And, that we had notions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘meaning’ and ‘direction’, ‘achievement’ and ‘loss’ did not amount much to Her. For She had her own purpose to work towards, and She kept winding her Great Clock, for She had a place to go. She did not have a death and so she suffered the greatest pain that is there to existence – immortality. And, we never know, if She would get there ever.
But, She was Graceful and Kind. She did take a little care to leave her mighty slaves, mysterious forces of evolution to take care of things here. And, so we are all here today. And, so am I here. Through her slaves, she gave us instincts, hunger, joy, pain. She gave us an intellect. And, above everything, she gave us the force and the power of love. For it was the best cure for pain. God was lonely, and she took care we were not. She made sure a mother’s love was the most immense, because she knew everybody had a mother. Love was naturally and gradually built through evolution, and we all had people to care for, and people who care for us - parents, relatives and friends. And we are not alone. Though we lived a life that traced an arbitrary course that was of no relevance to God’s purpose, thanks to Her Grace, we do live a life that is characterized by love, joy and pain. It is not permanent and so it is indeed something to cherish. When we suffer, She is not around, for She has her own work to do, to get to the place She wants to go, and She probably did not know how we suffered. But, the love She had once left behind, and that which has grown over the course of evolution is still with us, and that is what will keep us going. And, She knew that would take care of us all. Oh God! You are the greatest mother of all!
Farewell
Yeh kaisi aatish, naa dhooan naa lapt koi !
phir bhi yeh aashiyaan jhulsta jaa raha hai !
socha naa thaa ki bichhdeyenge hum aissey,
magar ab dil yeh hakeekat samjhtaa jaa raha hai ...
For the Urdu-illiterate like me, here is a very inaccurate attempt to capture it in English:
What kind of fire is it ! There is neither smoke nor flame,
But still our home is burning away !
Never thought we will depart away so soon,
But now the heart is sinking-in the reality ...
Holy Cow
Here we art,
The good little milkmen,
Not too many of us,
Barely five to ten.
This is our little stable,
And Thee! Our Holy cow!
Strong and much able,
Thanks to hay from the mow.
We milketh Thee all day,
We milketh Thee all night,
Through the Sun and
Through the stars,
And we worship Thee.
Our Holy Cow!!
Glorified art Thou.
Sophisticated Thy Work.
Unto Thee we bow,
And Thee we milk.
Thy Stable ain’t so cosy;
Thy Milk though, so costly!
The customers so many
And we milkmen so few!
Thou hast precious milk
That fills monstrous bowls,
So many of them,
Count till infinity.
We haveth a strategy for success –
To Milketh Thee for eternity.
Thou art a tough one.
And, we giveth our souls
To milk Thy well,
And fill our bowls.
We eat Thy crap.
And lose our sleep
To milk Thy well,
Few dollars, to reap!
Thou art a Holy Cow,
Holy Shit, Thou hast.
We cleaneth it all day,
We cleaneth it all night.
Holy cow, Thou art.
Holy crap, Thou hast.
Thou ain’t a Bull,
Though Thou haveth Bull shit.
Thou art insane
And Thou goes out of Thy memory
Glorified art Thou.
Sophisticated Thy Work.
Unto Thee we bow,
Oh! Dear Holy Cow!!