By P. Mohan Chandra

This is a story, but a real one.

There was a bloke by name Sachin. He was an Anglophile (who had unfathomable love for English and things associated with it). He was a very studious, hardworking, an altruistic and ‘no-nonsense’ guy. He had excellent communication skills and endeared himself to all by his pleasing manners and etiquette.

He never used to shirk from his responsibilities and even willingly accepted additional ones. He used to help all invariably at the drop of a hat. But, he was very bashful in nature, especially towards the fairer sex. He seldom used to accost women and gals, and always gave them a wide berth (by maintaining safe distance from them). Sometimes, whenever he encountered them accidentally, he was overcome by an “inferiority complex.”

Things, however, began to change gradually for the better. He realized his flaw and tried his part to be as sociable as possible with the opposite sex. He understood that women were no different from men and vibed with men without any social inhibitions.

One fine day, he came across a beautiful damsel, who bewitched him abysmally. He was deeply struck by her beauty, simplicity and wit. Hardly ever had he seen a damsel with a blend of beauty and intelligence; for, there goes an adage that “beauty and nonsense are closely related.”

He accosted her at an opportune moment and developed good friendship with her. He learned that her name was Deepa and she was very cordial, helpful and obedient by nature. She too was an Anglophile and had great love for English. Congenial interests brought them together and their friendship flourished and blossomed.

But, Sachin mistook Deepa’s cordial friendship for “love.” He felt (or was rather made to feel by his own misjudgment) that Deepa’s every gesture and expression was a reciprocation and acknowledgement of her love for him. But alas, how grossly mistaken he was!

One day, he gathered all his spunk and went up to Deepa to express his profound love for her. But, it was not as if he was totally optimistic that Deepa would accept his love. He had his own apprehensions (as does everyone in love) and prepared himself with a commixture of optimism and pessimism. He confessed his unfathomable love for her and sought hers. But, she spurned his love and thus broke an innocent heart.

Sachin became deeply depressed. Scarcely had he come into contact with any girl or woman. When he was showered with bounteous love and affection (misconstrued by Sachin, of course) by Deepa, he got carried away. He had never received so much warmth and cordiality from any woman. So, this led him to misconstrue her friendship and feelings for him as “love.”

However, when he reasoned in the solitude of his drawing room, he understood the hard reality that love is a feeling, which comes from the heart, naturally, intrinsically, and spontaneously, and it cannot be forced, coaxed or thrust upon someone. Gradually, he resigned to fate and came to terms with the reality.

Today – after 8 long traumatic years – he still longs for Deepa’s love, who, he hopes, will understand his unselfish and unrequited love, and return to him one day so that he can cherish her forever in the “heart of his hearts.”

Postscript: Names have been changed to sustain privacy and protect the true identity of individuals.

One morning Doctor Suleiman Alim looked up from the Business Section of the New York Times and saw his wife. He was hit solidly, as if it were a blast of hot air, with a feeling he could only think of as surprise.

He saw his wife every day, every morning she placed a cup of tea before him and muttered a question about toast, every night he slept next to her in their queen-size bed, a framed print of over-sized crimson flowers above the ornate mahogany headboard looking down on them. Sometimes they also made love in the dark, if that is what one could call it, for their performance, devoid of passion or ardor, was as routine to him as the perusal of the paper, or watching the Six-Thirty News on CBS, or taking his blood pressure pills after his one cup of tea in the morning.

But today he saw his wife as he hadn’t seen her before. He was observing her, in astonishment, with eyes that seemed not his own.

Her back was to him so he glimpsed only a part of her face. But it was the hair, and the way her loose silk shirt dipped into the hollow of her waist before gently swelling over her rounded hips that first wrested his attention. The hair gleamed with dancing lights, narrow beams sometimes and sometimes half-moons or crescents that would not hold still, the ends curved inwards, hugging her long white neck.

He cleared his throat. She stiffened. The face was turned away completely, the hair bristling as she tossed it back over her shoulder with a quick flip of her hand.

“Is there any more tea?” he said hoarsely, unable to soften the thorns that appeared to have strung themselves on his tongue.

She moved away from the sink and, leaning against the counter, faced him. Suleiman Alim felt his stomach convulse. Was he ill? Why didn’t he recognize her? Why did she look so, well, so different? Was his blood pressure elevated again? Was he dreaming?

“Another cup?” she asked in a voice that he barely remembered because they spoke so little to each other. Her long, black brows rose in surprise. This too he had forgotten, that her brows were long and could arch like the curved end of a bow.

Suleiman Alim was forty-five when he married Sabira. She was twenty-eight. His mother and sisters had arranged the match in Pakistan. Why not, he had thought after his mother sobbed on the phone that she and her husband were going to die without ever seeing the faces of grandchildren. In attempting to placate her he forgot that she already had grandchildren, six as a matter of fact, three from one daughter and three from the other. But he was the only son. His father’s line would end if he didn’t produce progeny. Unable to endure any longer his mother’s intractable hysteria and his father’s stony acceptance of what he repeatedly termed “fate’s harshness,” he relented. All right, he said, he would come to Lahore in two weeks and meet the woman they had found for him.

According to those who knew about such matters, Sabira was past her prime. But she didn’t look a day older than twenty, Suleiman Alim thought. Maybe she had seen so little of life and the world, her experience of living had been so nascent that her face still bore signs of girlish innocence. The stamp of virginity, Suleiman Alim thought with some satisfaction. Was she really twenty-eight? he later wondered somewhat apprehensively as he accepted the cup of tea she extended shyly toward him at their first meeting in her parents’ house. Had his mother and sisters lied in the fear that he might turn down someone so much younger than him? They were clever, his mother and sisters, and he didn’t always trust them.

“But she doesn’t look a day over twenty,” he protested when he was alone with them in the car later.

“Just listen to him!” The mother threw up her hands in an exaggerated gesture of despair, her voice squeaking in mock anger.

“So you want a wife who looks forty?” his sister asked sarcastically. “An old hag?”

Suleiman Alim didn’t want to marry an old hag of course. In his heart he was happy that kismet had presented him with a young wife. So he grunted agreement to the match.

Sometimes, after he married Sabira and had comfortably installed her in the white fifty-year-old colonial in Pleasant Hills, a little Connecticut town where he had been practicing medicine for nearly ten years, he wondered why she had married him. True, he was a doctor and that played into her decision no doubt. Doctors were the favorite choice of husband for every Pakistani family with unwed girls. The rare ones who clamored denial were only hypocrites.

But there had to be something else as well that motivated Sabira to accept him. His hair had begun to thin and there was the question of the age difference, after all. Could it be that she had told herself she might end up a spinster if she was too fussy? However, as time wore on, Suleiman Alim ceased to ponder that question and accepted that since she was twenty-eight when she married him and not some child bride, she could not have been forced.

Sabira was a woman of few words, he discovered. When he tried to draw her into conversation, she smiled with a slight upturning of the corners of her lips and made brief, cautious comments. Suleiman Alim sensed a fear in her, a quiet reticence that he attributed to the strangeness and newness of her surroundings. After all, Pleasant Hills was nothing like dusty, tumultuous, animated, sun-lit Lahore where centuries of history slapped your being like an everyday wind and where you were never alone, even when you shut yourself in your room and pulled down the shades. And Sabira, when she talked to him in those days, talked only of Lahore. Suleiman Alim had no experience of women, except what he had gleaned from the brief, rather unsatisfying forays into the phenomenon called ‘dating,’ and which had never led to intimacy, partly because he placed tremendous value on virginity. But he felt he understood Sabira. Since he wanted her to be happy, he gave her an allowance, which started off as twenty-five dollars a week and then, as their marriage began to show signs of an effortless familiarity he increased it to fifty. Finally, after a year had passed and she had shown herself to be a good wife he raised her allowance to two-hundred dollars a month. He did not want her to feel burdened, so he kept her out of the intricacies of a joint account and as for credit cards, they were a horror he certainly didn’t wish to submit her to.

But living with her did not change him as he had thought it would. He liked to read his paper in peace, undisturbed by conversation, and he continued to watch the news on television on his return from his clinic, also devoting as he had always done, a major portion of his time to the New York Times crossword puzzle. Unaware at first of his schedule, Sabira made the effort of sitting with him to give him an account of her day the first evening he returned to his routine. But he brushed her off, kindly, telling her as he would a child, “I have to watch the news first. We’ll talk later.” He was grateful she left him alone after that and didn’t complain or throw a tantrum. He had heard women were prone to tantrums when they felt ignored.

Their marriage fell into a routine. Lahore must have receded from her mind because she no longer made wistful comments about the city where, during his one-month stay, he had been plagued by diarrhea, mosquitoes, and noise. Every evening Sabira occupied herself with the chores in the house while he, stretched out on his comfortable Laz-e-Boy chair, his feet resting on an ottoman, read The New York Times, pored over the crossword puzzle and watched Dan Rather on CBS. Once or twice he noticed that she sat on the kitchen table and wrote in a notebook. The accounts, he thought, although what accounts, he couldn’t figure since he did all the shopping himself. Perhaps her own personal accounts. There was the sum of two-hundred dollars that she had the liberty to spend as she wished.

In the morning one day, when he came down to find Sabira putting away garbage in the garage, he saw on the kitchen counter a notebook with a flowered design on the cover. Red and white roses, perfectly shaped, entwined as if in an embrace. He was tempted to lift the cover and see what she had been putting in the notebook, but he heard her footsteps just as he moved closer to the counter. She was standing in the doorway and she knew, he could see, that her notebook had tempted him. After that he never saw her writing again.

Two years passed. His mother and sisters waited, and although not as obvious in his impatience as they were, he waited as well. But there was no sign of progeny. Medical tests yielded nothing definite. Both husband and wife seemed healthy. Time moved with reckless speed. The seasons in Pleasant Hills travelled their course with unwavering regularity. Raging fall colors were followed by a murky pre-winter period when everything became purple and then came the snow, faithful, falling fast, piling up in mounds everywhere, drowning the murkiness in swathes of chilly whiteness. Finally spring wafted over, slowly at first, seemingly hesitant of its reception as the ground heaved and swelled with the weight of dead leaves and melting snow, and then with flagrant ardor; suddenly nature began its coupling, intense, fervidly orgasmic, perpetual, unmindful of the petty uncertainty of human life.

Suleiman Alim watched Sabira recast herself with the movement of the seasons, but he perceived only the shadowy outward forms of these changes. Something deeper inside her, some inner core, was never apparent to him. Like the patient, considerate man he was, he left her alone.

His mother had begun sobbing on the phone again. His father sighed and wrote him letters in which he stressed the dogged acceptance of God’s will. One of the sisters came to visit him in the little Connecticut town and taking him aside one evening, suggested ‘drastic measures.’ A divorce. Remarriage. He cowered under her probing gaze.

“Don’t be absurd,” he stuttered. “I’ll be fifty soon.”

And he was fifty now. He suffered from hypertension and was on a regimen of an aspirin-a-day and Vasotec. His stomach leaned forward as if burdened with some great weight, his hair, except for a thin, peppery growth behind the ears and above the neck, had long disappeared, and the lines on his face had deepened into dark crevices. Today, he was conscious of how his body had betrayed him, leaving him unprepared for what he was feeling.

“Yes, another cup,” he said, noisily folding the paper in his lap, his gaze faltering over Sabira’s face for a moment before he averted his eyes. If only he could hold a lock of her hair and slowly close his fist over it, feeling its tingling electricity, the lights dimmed as they disappeared inside the darkness of his curled fingers. “There isn’t any more tea left?”

Sabira turned away from him. The dupatta, diaphanous and pink, slipped from her shoulders. She raised a hand and adjusted it back on her shoulder.

“No,” the unfamiliar voice again. “I only made three cups and I’m having the last cup. I’ll make another pot if you really want more.” Her back to him, she began rinsing the teapot.

Suleiman Alim watched her. She was still lean, as lean as a teenager. Her hips moved slowly as she swished the water about in the pot. Sparks flew about in her hair as it caught the light from the sun filtering through the kitchen window, bright sunshine falling across her narrow shoulders and down to her feet. She was wearing sandals. She couldn’t wear closed shoes at home and she hated wearing socks. The bare heels like oval moons, the clear, white line of the shins. He wanted to get up and lift her feet and caress the smooth skin, the soft white, smooth skin.

“In five years you haven’t had more than one cup in the morning. What’s the matter today?” Sabira filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. Then, leaning against the sink, she looked at him directly.

She had a brazen look on her face. No, he thought, it was more like defiance. Her eyes, dark and almond-shaped, flashed. Her lips, full, ruddy from the lipstick she had worn the day before, curved in a malicious grin. Was she mocking him? Did she see in his face his fawning? Was he transparent to her in his longing for her?

“Well, a man’s entitled to change, isn’t he?” Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he tried to match the flippancy in her tone. His mature, professional self, so cocky always in its power to control his every move, seemed to be slipping away from the edges of his consciousness. He felt like a teenager. My queen, my beautiful beloved, a voice sang in his head as he helplessly grasped for sobriety. My tormenter, the voice continued insistently, my cruel one! What frivolous words were these that clouded his lucid perceptions. Surely this was a hitherto unknown side-effect of the Vasotec he had been taking all these years. If drugs could numb sexual desire, they could also make it keener, could they not? He knew better. But the voice pressed on. “Who does not understand love, what does that cruel one know of passion?” A line from a song he had once hummed when he was in high school in Lahore, jumped at him, clutching at his heart. Bewildered, he groped foolishly for the second line: “What does she know of the melody that is played upon the strings of the heart/. He had not known he still remembered the song; Talat Mahmud’s voice floated into his memory, paralyzing his thoughts. Surely he was going mad. She knows only how to torment and destroy/ Who was killed, and why, what does the blade know of that.”

“Is something wrong?” Sabira moved toward him with an anxious look on her face. “Did you forget your medication? You look very pale.” She placed a hand on his forehead. “God, you’re burning. You must be coming down with the flu. I think you should cancel your patients today and get some rest.”

“Will medicine help, or the poison given by the tormentor/ The ailing heart knows not what the cure is.” Like an obedient child he allowed her to speak protoctively, and covered her hand on his forehead with his own. She snatched her hand away quickly.

“Do you want some Tylenol?” she asked.

What happened next was like a dream. Suleiman Alim stumbled to his feet and tried to seize his wife, whimpering like a child making a demand for sweets. Sabira struggled within his embrace. The fragrance at the roots of her hair as he buried his face in it, travelled into his head and drove him to a frenzy of passion. It wasn’t just that he wanted her, that his muscles hardened painfully with longing as she wriggled within his grasp. There was something else. He felt he wasn’t the man he remembered himself to be, the physician who sat at a desk in an office and dispensed health and life to people. He was another man. A man whose body was not his, nor his mind, nor indeed the very actions of his hands. This is what possession must be, he told himself idly, the thought floating in a dimly-lit portion of his mind where some reason still seemed to lag.

“Have you gone out of your mind Suleiman?” Sabira freed herself from his hold. She took hurried steps toward the living room, away from the kitchen, her hair flying about her face in a wild dance, the dupatta swelling behind her in a swoosh.

He followed her leadenly, in a daze.

“Sabira, why do you run from me?” He stood in the entranceway to the living room and spoke in a pleading voice. His heart hammered against his ribs and he feared his blood pressure might rise dangerously. Take your pill before you continue this, the tiny voice of reason, having found its way past the cacophony of the singing voice, warned. He stood unmoving.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you Suleiman. Please try and calm yourself, your blood pressure …” Her voice trailed as she busied herself with the dried flower arrangement on the mantlepiece.

“Damn my blood pressure!” he thundered. Sabira recoiled as his voice rose. She grew pale. He stretched out his hands and continued in a milder tone. “Why do you run from me?”

“I’m not running from you. Why should I? Where do you think I’m running to?” She straightened a cushion on the sofa, moved toward the rattan chair and gave it a nudge.

Suleiman Alim was a boy again. His marbles had been stolen, swiped by a friend who had perhaps lost his in a game to another friend. He was desperate. What’s a day without marbles to shoot? He grunted, as if in pain.

“This is silly, Suleiman. You’ll be late for work. It’s past nine.” Sabira pointed to the large clock on the mantle. She sat down on the rattan chair, her eyes blazing, her voice even more unrecognizable.

He stared at her without comprehension, confused by her tone and her words. Did she have a lover? His blood froze. Yes, another man, a younger man. But who?

She sat arrogantly, her hands clasped firmly in her lap, her back straight. In her eyes was a brightness he had never noticed before. Perhaps it had always been there and he had missed it simply because he had never watched her closely, never gazed into her eyes, never seen them shed a tear or gleam with joy. Her lips curled into a secretive smile.

“Finish reading your paper and I’ll make you another cup of tea,” she said, and that was when Suleiman Alim saw the notebook beside her, half hidden under the cascade of her dupatta, the flowers on its cover camouflaged like chameleons by the floral print on the tapestry of the sofa. Her hand caressed the notebook as she gazed up at him. The lover’s missives were in there, concealed artfully. He was sure.

In Suleiman Alim’s mind arose a fog that shrouded his eyes and his thoughts. She was lost to him. “Implore, strike your head against a stone, give up your life/ What does cold-hearted beauty know of the tormented heart?

Songs of love and loss mercilessly pounded his heart.

There was a bird, called Okpoko, whose head was odd and abnormally large. Other birds of the air frequently teased him and made disparaging remarks about his appearance. They did so with intent to hurt his feelings and to provoke him into a fight he could not win for they always teased him in league. The rapidity with which they hauled insults at him was inconceivable but he remained cool and refused to rage. The bird viewed himself as one who had been battle-tested and hardened by the canons of many years of verbal attacks from his fellow birds. Teasing and other abusive remarks were to him like mild ripples on the surface of the ocean.

Having failed to lure him into a fight that could spell his end they devised another strategy. A group of birds made representation to the eagle, the grand master of the bird’s kingdom and urged him to banish this bird from their abode to the desert. They cited his big head as a disgrace to them all.

The eagle, being a smart diplomat and an adept in conflict resolution assured them that he would study their request carefully and apply required executive action. After they have departed he summoned his secretary, the hawk and asked him to call for a plenary meeting of all the animals of the air and to have this said bird’s head as the only agenda for discussion. The eagle further informed his secretary that it will be asked to tell his colleagues why his head is extra large and his failure to offer an explanation will culminate in his being banished from the kingdom.

Both the Eagle and his secretary slated the meeting for Eke market day. The time for the meeting was fixed at 09:00 am, the time when hunters and traders will be busy at the market square. The sky is the wood for the birds but they decided to make the womb of the wood their venue for the meeting. All the birds attended except the dove, who was said to be recuperating from wing injury he sustained from the hunter’s trap while returning from familiarisation tour. From his nest he wished his colleagues a fruitful outcome in their deliberations.

The large headed bird was at the venue on time. He avoided eye contacts with other birds present and retired to the corner of the wood where he relaxed on a tree trump in a pensive mood. He behaved as if he had a premonition that the agenda of the meeting had something to do with his head. Hawk, the secretary was the first to arrive but left the venue for a site seeing at the waterfall not far away from the venue. He stood still and watched how the silvery waterfalls emptied into the shimmering river below. He was so enthralled by its beauty and purity that he forgot to return to the meeting venue.

The large headed bird was delegated by the eagle to go and fetch him. On their way back to the venue the hawk stopped to watch the spider’s web that hung like a gossamer silk between two branches of oil bean tree. The web strands were laden with dew drops that glittered in the early morning sunshine like miniature crystal tinsel. The hawk watched as the webs swayed to the music of the morning breeze and found it awesome. Okpoko reminded him that his exalted position as the honourable secretary should not be abused and urged him to leave for the venue.

On arrival at the venue, the hawk apologised to the eagle and his fellow birds for his lateness. The meeting was there and then declared open. The eagle flapped his wings three times to secure the attention of the birds. ”You big headed bird” said the eagle”you have been teased and provoked by your fellow birds due to your head which they say is abnormal in size. Could you please explain to all present why your head is extra large”. He continued: ”I must also add that should you fail to offer us an explanation, a resolution will passed empowering us to banish you from our kingdom” the eagle said in a tone that reflected the seriousness of the matter.

The large headed bird flashed a look at his fellow birds as if trying to gauge their thoughts. He then looked down soberly. Having observed that he was deeply touched by the question the eagle advised him to step aside from the meeting for three minutes in order to re-energise his spirit and to stage a comeback. The large headed bird left and returned with renewed vigour. ”I was not born with this big head you have been laughing at for years” pointing at his head with his right wing.” The Okpokos” he went on, were the first specie of birds to be created. When members of my family came into this world, there was no earth, not even to talk about trees to pitch on. When my father died I buried him in my head. My head is a silent cemetery where my father was laid to rest and I respect that part of my body deeply. I deserve the understanding of my fellow birds in this regard” he said in a tone full of emotion and with eyes pregnant with tears.

His defence attracted much sympathy as well as respect for being the first family of birds to be created. The eagle turned to the birds and said:”The floor is open for your reactions to Okpoko’s defence”. The secretary conferred with the other birds and told the eagle that they were deeply touched by Okpoko’s testimony and have unanimously resolved:

1)      To reverse our previous teasing attitudes toward Okpoko and

2)      To appoint Okpoko as the deputy grandmaster of the birds kingdom.

An offer he gladly accepted with a bow. The eagle then gave the resolution his imprimatur. After the eagles seal of approval the weaver bird moved for adjournment of the meeting. He was supported by the vulture and sparrow. The meeting stood adjourned and was slated for the next Eke market day at the same time and venue for the installation ceremony of Okpoko as the deputy grand master.

Lesson:

Interesting features one could glean from Okpoko’s case is the good administrative governance displayed by the grand master, the eagle. Sophisticated legal standard (devoid of jungle law) merged with admirable democratic principles. He created a conducive political space that allowed Okpoko to air his views. He also made the birds present to the meeting to be the judge and the jury while he presided over the political gathering. He neither imposed his will on the ruled nor danced to the music of the faction that wanted Okpoko to be banished.

A girl and a boy, who loved each phenomenally, were on a motorcycle, speeding through the night.

Girl:”Slow down a little…I’m scared…”
Boy: “No, it’s so fun…”
Girl: “Please… It’s so scary…”
Boy: “Then say that you love me…”
Girl: “Fine… I love you…can you slow down now?”
Boy: “Give me a big hug…”
The girl gave him a big hug.
Girl: “Now can you slow down?”
Boy: “Can you take off my helmet and put it on? It’s uncomfortable and it’s bothering me while I ride.”

The next day, there was a story in the newspaper. A motorcycle had crashed into a building because its brakes were broken. There were two people on the motorcycle, of which one died, and the other had survived.

The guy knew that the brakes were broken. He didn’t want to let the girl know, because he knew that the girl would have got scared. Instead, he was told the last time that she loved him, got a hug from her, put his helmet on her so that she can live, and die himself.

By Ramdeen Kumar

Chandan put fingers into his ears trying to evade the noise from hitting his ear drums. It was a Diwali night. The entire city was lit up. Fire crackers were exploding everywhere. Chandan was lying on a dirty wooden bench in one corner of a Dhaba in which he worked, trying to fall off the world to sleep. Diwali – the festival of lights – brought joy and happiness for everyone – except him.

He was recalling that day, three years ago…

‘Chandan, you lazy bones, get up. Have you forgotten? Today is Diwali. You have to go with Babuji to the market and get all the stuff we need for the Puja and most important of all your precious firecrackers.’ Chandan’s mother Sujata said yanking off the quilt.

At the mention of crackers Chandan jumped off the bed and hugged his mother. He had already made a long list of different crackers – the ones which made the loudest noise. Of course he was sure to have a fight with his younger sister Anjali. She hated bombs. They scared her. She only liked sparklers, pencils, wires, Vishnu chakkars, and flower pots – all that sissy stuff. And Babuji would always support her. Invariably they would end up with Anjali getting a better deal. Anyway Chandan was determined to put up a spirited fight for his case.

By the time they returned from the market it was two in the afternoon and Chandan was famished. Mother had made his favourite halwa and kheer. He gobbled up two in a shot to the delight of his mother.

In the evening, at around six, as they were about to sit for Laxmi Puja they got a message. Ratan Shah, the owner of the cloth store where his father worked had suffered a stroke.

‘I’ll just go see him and come,’ Father told Chandan’s mother.

‘I’ll go with you. Let’s take Anjali along too. She will keep Sudha a company. Poor child must be going through hell.’

Sudha was Ratan Shah’s youngest daughter. She and Anjali were classmates.

“Okay then, Chandan you stay here. We’ll try to come back as quickly as possible.”

Those were to be his Babuji’s last words. While returning from the hospital his father moped collided head on with a truck. All three were killed on the spot.

On that fateful evening of the Festival of Lights, Chandan’s little world had gone completely dark.

Two weeks later Chandan’s Uncle Birju Chacha had come along wife and four kids in town, and plunked himself in Chandan’s house.

‘As soon as I came to know of the terrible tragedy I decided I’ll leave everything I have in the village and come to the city to take care of Chandan. After all, poor orphan, he has no one else to call his own,’ Birju Chacha went around telling everyone who cared to listen.

Chandan could stand neither Birju Chacha nor his wife and their brood. Chacha had always been the black sheep in his family. He was a good for nothing rogue and an incorrigible parasite. But Chandan had no choice. Birju Chacha and his family simply took over the entire house. Within six months Chandan’s status was that of a servant. The entire family delighted in torturing him. Whatever savings his father had as well as his mother’s jewellery were all siphoned off by his uncle and aunt. While his cousins lorded over him, Chandan had to do most of the work on the house as well as run errands for everyone. Unable to bear the torture Chandan ran away and boarding the first train he left Ahemadabad and came to Baroda. Here after roaming the streets for three months he managed to get a job in Bakshi’s Dhaba.

He would slog the whole day, serving water, food and cleaning tables. At night he was allowed to sleep in the Dhaba. The Dhaba had now become both, his work place as well as his home.

After that fateful Diwali Chandan had had to bear the ordeal of two more Diwalis. This was the third. While the world celebrated the Festival of Lights, Chandan mourned for his family and his little world of happiness which had been so cruelly destroyed.

‘Aah!’ Chandan got up with a start. Did he actually hear someone crying out in pain or was he imagining things?

‘Aah!’ he heard the sound again. He scrambled up and went out. An old man was lying sprawled on the ground. He must have been around seventy. He had white unkempt hair and an equally white straggly beard. He was wearing a white kurta and pajama. Chandan helped him up and made him sit on a wooden bench.

‘Th….thanks son,’ the old man said. He had a soft, gentle voice. Right opposite the Dhaba was Vimal Cinema Hall which was brightly lit up. As the lights fell on the old man’s face Chandan noticed that he was blind.

‘Uncle what are you doing all alone at this time of the night?’

‘Son, I am alone.’

‘Why? Where are your wife and children?’

‘I have no one. My two sons kicked me out of the house after my wife’s death two years ago.’

‘Where do you stay?’

‘You know the Jain temple near the main market?’

‘Yes.’

‘There is an ashram in its premises. I stay there with many others like me who have nowhere to go.’

‘But what are you doing at this hour so far away from your ashram?’

‘Son today is Diwali – the festival of joy and happiness, of brightness and radiance. How can I sit cooped up inside a room? I have come out to enjoy.’

‘But Baba, you can’t even see. What can you enjoy?’ Chandan blurted out realising too late that he had probably been too brutal.

“Son, who says I can’t enjoy? I can’t see with my eyes, but I can hear, I can smell, I can breathe and above all I can feel the festive spirit which is all pervasive. The sound of the bursting crackers, the smell of the mouth watering sweets, screaming, shouting and merrymaking of the children, the brilliance of the millions of tiny lamps reflecting the light of love, of knowledge, of happiness… You want me to miss all this? Diwali is the festival of festivals. It tells us about sharing love and spreading joy and happiness. That is why I go out in the streets. See my pockets are bulging with small packets. These contain sweets. The entire year I saved every penny. And on Diwali, using whatever savings I have, I buy sweets. I go around in the streets and distribute these sweets to people who are less fortunate than me.’

Chandan stared at the old man in amazement. For three years he had been wallowing in self pity, cursing Diwali, cursing God and cursing fate. He was young, healthy and he had his entire life ahead of him. He had so much to look forward to. Yet he had made his present wretched and miserable by weeping over the past.

In stark contrast to him was this old and feeble man. He was blind, frail and almost at the end of his long and tortured life. He had nothing going for him. Yet he was out there doing his little but to spread happiness and joy.

The old man got up.

‘Ok son, thanks for your help. Take this,’ he thrust a sweet packet in Chandan’s hands. ‘Let Goddess Lakshmi’s blessings always be with you.’

The old man hobbled off on his mission. His words kept echoing in Chandan’s mind. So much that thereafter he never felt sad again.

In 29 A.D. Srong-Tsan-Gampo of Yarlung dynasty ascended the throne at Lhasa and the behest of his two queens (one from Nepal and other from China) introduced Buddhism in Tibet. However, it was under his great grandson Khrisong Detson that Tibet became Buddhist. Padma Sambhava, a Tantric Buddhist living in Udayna in North West India, was invited to Tibet in 747 A.D. and it was his association with King Detson that led to the spread of Buddhism in his land. He is today a revered as a saint in Tibetan community and known as Guru Rinpoche, the Precious Gem. This is the story of how it happened.

In Lhasa in 751 A.D. there lived a cobbler, Tongstan by name. He had a tiny room in a basement, the one window of which looked out on to the street. Through it one could only see the feet of those who passed by, but Tongstan recognized the people by their boots. He had lived long in the place and had many acquaintances. There was hardly a pair of boots in the neighbourhood that had not been once or twice through his hands, so he often saw his own hand work through the window.

Tongstan had always been a good man, but in his old age he began to think more about his soul and God. While he still worked for a master, his wife had died, leaving him with a three-year-old son. None of his elder children had lived; they had all died in infancy. At first Tongstan thought of sending his little son to his sister in the country, but then he felt sorry to part with the boy, thinking: ‘It would be hard for my little boy to have to grow up in a strange family. I will keep him with me.’

In order to earn more money, Tongstan left his master and began to work on his own. But he had no luck with his child. No sooner had the boy reached an age when he could help his father and be a support, he then he fell ill, and after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died. Tongstan could no longer hold his remorse and gave way to despair so great an overwhelming that he murmured against God. In his grief he prayed again and again that he too may die, reproaching God for having taken the only son, whom he loved so much, his only son, while he, old as he was, remained alive.

One day, Gyatsho Tshering, an old man from Tongstan’s native village who had become a monk, called in on his way from the Samye monastery. Tongstan opened his heart to him and told him of his sorrow.

‘I no longer even wish to live, holy man,’ he said. ‘All I ask of God is that I may soon die. I am now without any hope in the world.’

The old monk replied: ‘You have no right to say such things, my friends. Birth and death is part of life. So is suffering. You problem is that you wish to live for your own happiness.’

‘What else should one live for?’ asked Tongstan.

‘For Nirvana,’ said the monk. ‘Sorrow, suffering, dissatisfaction, and all other forms of unpleasantness are inherent in life. By giving up our craving for desire, personal gratification and self living, we can attain Nirvana.’

Tongstan was silent awhile, and then asked: ‘But how can one attain Nirvana?’

Gyatsho Tshering replied; “How one may attain Nirvana has been shown to us by Buddha. He preached his message of compassion and through happiness many centuries back. Follow his teachings and you shall be more content.’

The boot maker bowed humbly and asked from where he could obtain the teachings of Buddha.

“The teachings of Buddha are contained in the scriptures. If you want I will come to you for the next few days and teach you on the message of Buddha.”

“That will be most kind of you Holy Gyatsho Tshering,” said Tongstan.

And so began the education of Tongstan. At first they met only on holidays, but having once started Tongstan found his heart so light that he wanted his friend to come everyday. Sometimes he got so absorbed in the discussions that the oil in his lamp would go off out before he could think of bidding his friend goodbye. Before, when he went to bed he used to lie with a heavy heart moaning as he thought of his son; but now he only found peace and contentment.

From that time Tongstan’s whole life changed. He became peaceful and calm. The more he discussed the teachings of Buddha, the better he understood life and the clearer and happier he felt in his mind.

Now Tongstan was also the boot maker of the king of Tibet, Khrisong Detson, who lived in his majestic Khriste Marpo (the Red Palace). Tongstan frequently went to the king to make or mend his shoes. This had brought him quiet close to the king and he frequently shared his grief and sorrow with him.

One day the king asked him: ‘Tongstan, you lost your only son sometimes back and had lost all desire to live. Now I notice your sorrow seems to have lessened and you are at peace with yourself. What has brought about this miracle?’

‘My Lord,’ replied the shoemaker, ‘It is the teachings of the Buddha. He has taught me the meaning of life.’

‘You know Tongstan, I too have heard of the many wonders of the Buddha. But I have never understood the full meaning of his teachings. I still get confused between our earlier beliefs when we followed the Shamanistic religion and worshipped our local Gods and these teachings of Buddha. Very recently a man from Udayana in north-west Aryadesh has come to my court. His name is Padma Sambhava. He too speaks of the many wonders of Buddha… Why don’t you bring your monk friend to me so that we may all learn something more?’

‘Of course, You’re Majesty. I shall do as you bid.’

And so Gyatsho Tshering was brought to the king and there again began a long series of discussions between this Tibetan monk, Padma Sambhava, the king and the shoemaker. As king Khrisong Detson knew how to read, he also began studying the Buddhist scriptures. Meanwhile, Gyatsho Tshering, the old Tibetan monk, Fell sick and died.

His death had a profound effect on the king. He relapsed into sorrow and began wondering about the meaning of life. Not able to contain himself any longer, he one day asked Padma Sambhava what is happiness and how it could be obtained.

‘There is no absolute happiness Your Load,’ replied Padma Sambhava. ‘Indeed, Dukh or suffering is inherent in our lives. It is due to our craving for individual satisfaction; it can be stopped by stopping this craving; and this can only be done by taking a middle path as propounded by Buddha.’

‘And what is this middle path?’ asked the king.

‘This, My Lord,’ replied Padma Sambhava ‘Is following a course between self – indulgence and extreme asceticism; and leading a moral and well ordered life.’

Khrisong Detson thought about this for some time. After a long silence he asked: ‘How can one follow this middle path?’

‘My Lord, it is right views, right resolve, right Speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right recollection and right meditation.’

The King remained quiet for a long time. The more he thought about this path, the more he liked the idea.

‘Did Buddha preach this?’ he asked.

‘Yes, My Lord,’ replied Padma Sambhava. ‘That is why we call him Tathagata. It means he who has attained enlightenment.’

‘He certainly was a great man, Padma Sambhava,’ said the king. ‘Did he say anything about suffering?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ replied the man from Aryadesh.

‘What?’

‘That birth is suffering, aging is suffering, disease is suffering, death is suffering, every wish unfulfilled is suffering-in short all the five components of individuality is suffering.’

The more Detson contemplated on these answers, the more merit he began seeing in the teachings of Buddha. He brooded about these answers for many days. Then one day he asked Padma Sambhava as to what is the best way to avoid these sufferings.

‘This is called the Noble Truth of Stopping of Suffering, My Lord,’ he replied. ‘It is the completing of that thirst, so that no passion remains. It means completely leaving this thirst, being free from it, giving no place to it.’

However, despite these long talks with Padma Sambhava, Khrisong Detson was still not completely convinced of the merits of Buddha’s teachings compared to his own beliefs of local Gods. So one day he asked his Indian friends: ‘Holy man, you also know something of occult sciences. Why can’t you ask your Buddha to come and speak to me the truth about life?’

Padma Sambhava contemplated the king’s question for a long time. ‘Very well, Your Highness. I will today do something. I am sure Buddha will grant your wish and come to you in person.’

That night as Detson was gloomily contemplating about life, he laid his head upon both his arms and, before he was aware of it, he fell asleep.

‘King Detson!’ he suddenly heard a voice, as if someone had breathed the words above his ear.

He started from his sleep. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked.

He turned around and looked at the door; no one was there. He called again. Then he heard quite distinctly: ‘King Detson, king Detson! Go to your friend, the shoemaker’s room tomorrow. Ask him to leave you alone for a day and look out for me, for I shall come. But be sure to be alone.’

So the next morning Detson rose well before daylight and after eating some food quietly went to the room of his friend, Tongstan. There he told Tongstan that he wishes to spend the whole day alone in his room for contemplation. Much shocked and confused, Tongstan left the king alone. He himself went to spend the day in the monastery of Samye.

So Detson sat by the window, looking out into the street, and whenever any one passed the window, he would crane his neck to see who was passing by. A porter passed in torn clothes; then a water carrier. Some children playfully ran past the window. Presently an old army soldier came near the window, spade in hand. Detson knew him by name was Tsering Wangyal and the he began clearing the snow in front of the window.

‘I must be growing crazy,’ said Khrishong Detson, laughing at his fancy. ‘Tsering Wangyal comes to clear away the snow, and I am imagining it is Buddha coming to visit me. I am a fool.’

Yet after he had waited for sometime he felt drawn to look out of the window again. He saw that Tsering Wangyal had leaned his spade against the wall and was either resting he or trying to get warm. The man was old and broken down, and had evidently not enough strength even to clear away the snow.

‘What if I called him in and gave him some tea?’ thought Detson.

He slowly rose and putting the samovar on the table, made tea. Then he tapped the window with his fingers. Tsering Wangyal turned and came to the window. Detson beckoned to him to come in went himself to open the door.

‘Come in,’ he said, ‘and warm yourself a bit. I’m sure you must be cold.’

Seeing the king, Wangyal was shocked. ‘My king,’ he said. ‘What brings you to this humble abode?’

‘Hush,’ whispered the king. ‘I am here to meet someone. But let that not disturb you. Come, my friend, first have some tea with me.’

‘You are a very kind man,’ Wangyal answered. ‘My bones do ache to be sure but then I am an old man.’ He started shaking off the snow, and lest he should leave marks on the floor, began wiping the sole of his shoes. But as he did so he tottered and fell.

Detson rushed to lift him and gently put him in a chair. Filling two tumblers, he passed one to his visitor, and pouring his own into the saucer, began to blow on it.

But while Wangyal drank his tea, Detson kept looking into the street.

‘Who are you expecting, My Lord?’ asked the visitor after some time. ‘If I am an intrusion I may be permitted to leave.’

‘Pray do not be cruel,’ said Detson. ‘It is true I am expecting someone. But that does not mean you should leave.’ And so saying Detson poured more tea into the visitor’s tumbler.

They sat in the silence for a long time. Then Wangyal Tsering got up and said: ‘Thank you, Your Majesty. You have given me food and comfort both for soul and body. You are much more than a king. You are a noble man.’

Slowly Tsering walked to the door and while out blessed his host. Detson again began looking out of the window, waiting for Buddha and thinking about him and his doings. His head was full of his preaching.

Two town- people went by; then a baker carrying a basket. Then a woman came up in peasant made shoes. She passed the window, but stopped by the wall. Detson glanced up at her through the window and saw that she was poorly dressed and had a baby in her arms. Detson heard the baby crying and the woman to soothe it. He rose, and going out of the door, called her.

‘Why do you stand out there with the baby in the cold? Come inside. You can wrap him up better in a warm place. Come this way.’

The woman was surprised bit she followed him inside the room. He took her near the stove and said: ‘Sit down, my dear and warm yourself. Also please feed the baby.’

‘Haven’t any milk. I have eaten nothing myself since early morning,’ said the woman, but still she took the baby to her breast.

Detson shook his head. He brought out a tumbler and some bread. Into it he poured some cabbage soup and said: ‘Eat my dear and I’ll mind the baby.’

The woman began eating while Detson put the baby on the bed and sat down beside it. He chucked and chucked, and soon the baby was laughing. He drove his finger straight at the baby’s mouth and then quickly drew it back, and he did this again and again. This made the baby laugh all the more and Detson felt quite pleased.

The woman sat eating and talking, and told him who she was, and where she had been.

When she had finished eating she got up to go. Detson sighed.

‘Haven’t you any warmer clothing?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I cannot afford anything better.’ Then the woman came to the bed and took the child. Detson picked up his long cloak which he had earlier hung on a nail on the wall and gave it to her.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘It will do to wrap him up.’

The woman looked at the cloak, then at her host, and taking it, burst into tears. While leaving she thanked and blessed him.

After the woman left, Detson ate some cabbage soup, and again began waiting. Presently he saw an old woman, who vended apples, just in the front of his window. She had a large basket, but there did not seem to be many apples in it; she had evidently sold most of the stock. She placed the basket on the ground in order to rest and while she was looking further towards the street, a boy in a tattered cap ran up, snatched an apple out of the basket and tried to slip away. But the old woman noticed it and caught the boy by the sleeve. The boy screamed and the old woman began scolding and beating him. Detson rushed out and heard the boy saying, ‘I did not take it. What are you beating me for? Let me go.’

Detson separated them. He took the boy by the hand and said, ‘Let him go, mother. Forgive him. He is just a child.’

‘I’ll teach him a lesson so that he won’t forget far a year! He is a rascal!’

‘Let him go, mother. He won’t do it again. Please let him go.’

The old Woman let him go but Detson stopped him before he could go much farther.

‘Ask for the lady’s forgiveness,’ he said. ‘And don’t do it another time. I saw you stealing the apple.’

The Boy began to cry and to beg pardon.

‘That’s right. And now here’s an apple for you,’ and Detson took an apple from the basket and gave it to the boy, saying, ‘I will pay you, mother.’

‘You will spoil them that way, the young rascal,’ said the old woman. ‘He ought to be beaten so that he would remember it for a week.’

‘Oh, mother,’ said Detson, ‘that’s the simple way-but it’s not the correct way. If he should be beaten for stealing an apple, what should be done to us for our sins?’

The old woman was silent.

‘We should forgive,” dear mother,” said Detson, “or else we shall not be forgiven. And we should forgiven a thoughtless youngster most of all.’

‘It’s true enough.’ she said. ‘But they are getting terribly spoilt.’

‘Then we must show them better ways,’ Detson replied.

Soon enough the old woman was about to move and as she picked her basket, the boy sprang forward to her, saying. ‘Let me carry it for you, mother. I’m going that way.’

The old woman nodded her head, and as they moved away, she blessed Detson but quite forgot to ask him to pay for the apple.

When they were out of sight, Detson returned to his room to a gain await the arrival of Buddha. But no one came and presently it was evening. Feeling tired, he lay down to rest. As he was about to go to sleep he seemed to hear footsteps, as though someone was moving behind him. Detson turned around, and it seemed to him as if people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out. And a voice whispered in his ear: ‘King Detson, king Detson! Don’t you know me?’

‘Who is it?’ muttered Detson.

‘It is I,’ said the voice. And out of the dark stepped Tsering Wangyal, who smiled and vanishing like a cloud was seen no more.

‘It is I,’ said another voice after a few moments. And out of the darkness stepped the woman with the baby in her arms, and the woman smiled and the baby laughed, and they too vanished.

‘It is I,’ said a third voice and this time Detson saw the old apple woman and the boy stepping out of the darkness and smiling. They too vanished quickly like the others.

And Detson felt good. He understood that Buddha had visited him through these people and had shown him the right way to live. He understood that only by following his message can he and his people attain enlightenment. He understood that by the Buddha visiting him he was blessed and that it was now his duty to spread his message throughout his kingdom.

King Detson called Padma Sambhava the next morning and after narrating him his experiences of the previous day said: ‘My friend, you are truly a remarkable man. I waited for the Buddha and he came. He told me the meaning of life. I am blessed. From now onwards I will call you Guru Padma Sambhava. As for me, I will devote the remainder of my life in spreading the message of Buddha.’