The temple looked beautiful, silhouetted against the sun setting behind the hill. The cacophony caused by the evening aarati sent out a flurry of chirpy birds from the nearby trees flying towards the orange sky. A group of noisy children ran past me, towards the temple to make sure that they did not miss the evening prasaad, which was to follow as soon as the aarati would conclude. It was definitely not the best ambiance for a person who wanted to sit by himself peacefully, and take a break from the boisterous city life.
Restlessly I looked towards my watch. It was already 6 p.m. and my family was not yet back from its ritualistic visit to the Shiva-dham temple, which was located on top of the hill at a small village in the outskirts of Delhi.
This time they had coaxed me, or rather bribed me, into accompanying them to this place since dad was not in a condition to drive. He had a coronary angioplasty last week, and as per the doctor’s advice, he was supposed to have strict rest for at least a week. However, my dad was adamant about paying homage to the Lord Shiva for seeing him through the complicated surgery.
“Come on Ma… I don’t think it is advisable for dad to travel such a long distance in this condition,” I had tried putting a futile effort in avoiding this visit today morning.
“I cannot delay this trip more… I had promised my lord that I will pay him a visit at Shiva-dham if he brings me out of the surgery fine,” dad spoke in a husky voice with a hand on placed on his chest. It still hurt him there if he tried putting too much volume in his voice.
“Why can’t you simply thank this lord of yours in the temple in your room?” I snapped back, losing my patience. “I mean there must be at least twenty photos and idols of Shiva in our house!”
“Forgive him, oh lord,” uttered mom as she looked up towards the ceiling. “How many times have I told you Aadi… if you don’t believe in God, please keep those feelings to yourself!” I could sense that mom was getting agitated now. The next state she would enter was definitely ‘emotional’, and that was a state which I could never deal with in a woman. I looked away and turned towards dad. He looked at me with pleading eyes.
“What is all the fuss about,” entered Deepa, my elder sister.
“Aadi does not want to come with us to Shiva-dham!” mom complained to her.
Deepa looked at me. Her eyes said, ‘Oh no! Don’t tell me that you started the same old argument again’. My eyes said, ‘yes… I did!’
And why wouldn’t I? This patronage of Shiva-dham by my parents was getting out of hand with each passing day.
- We visited Shiva-dham when I passed my class 12th boards exams.
- We visited Shiva-dham when dad bought his new car.
- We visited Shiva-dham when mom sold her first policy as an LIC agent.
- We visited Shiva-dham when Deepa passed her MBA entrance exams.
- We visited Shiva-dham even when my distant cousin from Bhopal paid us a visit and her marriage got fixed with a top-notch Delhi High-Court lawyer!
If this habit would go on, I did not feel that the day was far off when we would be in Shiva-dham, thanking the lord for blessing Tommy (our pet dog) with a puppy.
“There is an awesome new Hypercity mall that has come up en route to the Shiva-dham,” Deepa said. “We could get your new watch from there… I have heard that there are plenty of International watch shops there.”
I looked at Deepa with suspicion… was she throwing bait at me to make me fall into the trap?
“I think that is a good idea… we will buy a very good watch for you,” said dad. He was one person whose words I could trust, and this bribe was good enough to make me drive my family to Shiva-dham.
***
So here I was… sitting at the foot of the hill housing the Shiva-dham, waiting for my family to come back so that we could make it in time to the Hypercity mall. I looked towards the temple. The sound of the aarati stopped… but the chirping sound of the birds didn’t who were now on their way back to the branches of their respective trees, where they were snuggly perched before the cacophony had begun.
Ten more minutes went by, but yet there was no sign of mom, dad or Deepa. I wondered how much more time they would spend in the temple. Hopefully they will at least get back some yummy prasaad for me.
“Could you please lend me a hand, son?” I heard a voice from behind me, the source of which was an old man with a walking stick in the grip of his right hand. His other hand was on my shoulder for getting support to walk on the uneven terrain.
“Where do you want to go?” asked I getting up on my feet and holding his hand tightly.
“Please help me sit there.” He pointed his walking stick towards the rock next to the one on which I was seated.
“Sure,” I said helping him. Once seated, the old man looked kept staring at the temple while heaving deep breaths. I looked towards his face to make sure that he was alright. The old man smiled at me.
“Who are you, son? What are you doing here?”
“I am… err… Aaditya,” said I, not sure if I should be revealing my true identity to a stranger, but ultimately deciding that the man was too old to appear dangerous. “My parents and sister are up there, and I am waiting for them,” I pointed towards the temple.
“Why aren’t you with them? It is a lovely temple…”
I wasn’t usually comfortable to answering this question. I, being an atheist, was well aware about the reactions I was capable of getting once I let people know that I did not believe in God and never visited temples or any religious places. “Just like that,” said I.
“How is that possible? There must be some reason…” nagged the old man. I shook my head to disagree and impatiently looked at my watch again – it was 6:30 p.m. now. In another one and half hours the mall would shut down.
“You are an atheist, aren’t you my son?” the old man caught me off guard me with this sudden statement.
“Yeah, it’s kind of obvious… isn’t it? Still, how did you know?” I asked nonchalantly.
“I know everything, my son… because I am GOD!” he uttered these words with utmost conviction.
I looked at him in awe. “Ha! Ha! That is funny,” I jeered at him.
“No son… I am saying the truth. I really am God.”
I looked away from him and got up to take a few steps up the hill. With anticipation I kept looking towards the temple, thinking aloud, “Where on earth is my family… aren’t they a bit too late?”
“Look at me son,” I heard the old man’s voice from behind me. Turning around I discovered an eerie sight. The self proclaimed God was floating on air – about two feet above the rock on which he was sitting a moment ago.
“Whoa! Whoa! Old man… take it easy!” I exclaimed. “Stop freaking me out… will you?”
“Now do you believe me, son?” he said holding on to his aerial position.
“Frankly speaking, I do not. I mean, doing some silly magic to scare or impress people is totally uncalled for,” I said with a stern voice. “David Blaine puts up a better performance than this one!”
The old man was taken aback. Slowly he came down and his expression changed into a sorrowful one. I felt a little bad about shouting on an elderly chap, but nonetheless this behavior wasn’t very apt too.
“Who is David Blaine? Is he God too?” the old man asked as soon as he retained his original posture.
“He is a famous street magician!” I answered irately. “You do not seem to have that much knowledge being a God, I must say,” I said under my breath.
“I heard that!” I was surprised at his hearing prowess, taking his age into consideration. “Anyways… let us have a chat until your family is back from the temple,” he said patting on the surface of the rock beside him. Nonchalantly I went and sat beside him, as I did not have any better way to kill time.
“So… why don’t you visit temples? Wouldn’t you have liked to be with your family up there, rather than sitting here alone?”
“Firstly, I do not believe in God or the money-extracting priests inside the temple. Secondly, have you seen the queue of devotees outside this Shiva-dham?” I asked. “To top it all, the uphill climb to this temple is not worth the trouble.”
“But that is how I test my devotees…”
“Did you just say ‘My’ devotees?” I exclaimed. “Aren’t we done with the magic show and your pretentious Godly identity?”
“But son… I really am….”
“Okay, okay….” I interrupted him. “Just to make you happy, for a moment I will believe that you really are God,” said I with my fingers signaling flying quotation marks around “God”.
The old man smiled and nodded.
“Now Mr. God… would you mind answering a few questions?” I mocked him. He repeated his nod and his smile.
“First of all I would like to know, what proof do you have of your existence?”
“Do you see that long queue of devotees outside the temple?” he pointed up the hill. “Isn’t that proof enough to establish my existence?”
“No… not at all,” I retorted. “Those people have pain and suffering in their lives. They have come here because they have nowhere else to go.”
“Not every one of them has problems… some come here selflessly too,” replied ‘God’.
“Huh! That’s what you think…” I scoffed him. “If they do not have problems, then they have come here either to prevent them by bribing you, or thank you for getting rid of their problems.”
“But, doesn’t that mean that I solve the pain and suffering of the people in this earth?” ‘God’ said in his defense.
“But who creates them at the first place?” I put forth my point for debate.
I looked at the face of ‘God’. I could make out from his expressions that he was losing his grip on this debate. To put the spine of the discussion off-track, he threw a volley of questions at my end, but I had my answers ready.
‘God’: “Then how do you explain the creation of the earth and the whole universe?”
My answer: “The ‘Big Bang’ theory!”
‘God’: “Who created the trees, flowers and fruits?”
My answer: “Germination of seeds, photosynthesis and pollination!”
‘God’: “How do you explain the creation of life, human beings?”
My answer: “Now, I do not have time to explain facts about the-birds-and-the-bees to you!”
I saw ‘God’ slapping his forehead hard. I had defeated him, but I wanted more pleasure out of his defeat. To pester him further, I asked him, “How come you do not mention the earthquakes, storms and tsunamis when you talk about your deeds?”
‘God’ was speechless.
“In fact, I suspect that you deliberately make things go wrong in this world and screw up our lives so that you get to show off your power, and get attention from everybody,” I cornered ‘God’. “You really do not deserve the attention or importance that you gather from us… why can’t you do your acts of goodness selflessly, without expecting people to queue up outside your temples to thank you or beg of you?” That was the final nail.
‘God’ went into a somber state. I put my hand around the old man, and we looked at the sun disappearing over the horizon. Darkness prevailed.
“I am just curious to know one thing,” I asked the old man. “If you really are God… then why did you come to meet me out of all the people?”
“Hmm…” mumbled the old man. I still had my arm around his shoulder.
“Wouldn’t you have had been received and attended to more graciously and royally by one of your firm believers?” I expressed my curiosity.
“I came here to thank you…”
“Thank me! For what? I do not even believe in your existence,” I exclaimed.
“That is the sole reason why I wanted to thank you. It is people like you, atheists, who do not come running to me for every petty or even big problem,” he explained. “You solve your problems yourself since you do not believe that I exist.”
I listened on… “This really takes a whole lot of workload off me! So, I thought that I needed to spare some time to personally thank you…” I heard his voice looming away from me. I could not see him in the darkness but I realized that my arm which was around his shoulder was floating in air, and I no longer felt him.
“Take care my child… my blessing will always be with you… I am not as selfish as you think!” and that was the last of what I heard from him.
***
I took a couple of minutes to recollect myself before I saw dad and Deepa walking towards me from the hill. Mom was following them at a distance.
“What took you guys so long? Are you alright, dad?” I asked running towards dad.
“You would not believe what had happened in the temple,” exclaimed dad as he leaned on me to walk him to the car.
The moment all of us settled inside the car and hit the road, Deepa’s narration began. “As soon as the priest finished the aarti, smoke filled up the entire temple!” she exclaimed. Mom nodded vigorously in agreement. “And after 5-10 minutes when the smoke cleared off, the idol of the God had vanished! Can you believe that?” Deepa added.
“You guys must have been dreaming,” I mocked Deepa.
“Don’t believe me if you do not want to,” she snapped at me.
“She is saying the truth, Aadi…” dad reiterated Deepa’s experience. “A special puja had to be performed, and only then did God reappear in the temple. That is why we got delayed… we could not leave the temple until the special puja got over!”
I could not believe what they were saying.
Were they stating the truth? Did the statue of the God disappear because God had taken a break and come down to meet me? Did I actually meet God today, or was it all a dream?
I shook my head in sheer disbelief and drove the car faster towards Hypercity Mall. I needed to get there before they closed down the shops. I had no intentions of returning home without buying a brand new watch for me today!
*****
Footnotes:
aarati: Worship by singing and chanting aloud the praise of a God or a Goddess. (as found here. Also spelled as aarti, arathi, aarthi, etc.)
prasaad: Is the sacred offering to the deity returned to the dev otee after the worship as part of the deity’s grace. (as found here. Also spelled prasad or prasada)
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