Skip to main content

Da


Short Story

“The threefold offspring of Prajapati, gods, men and demons lived with their father Prajapati as students of sacred knowledge.  Having completed their studentship the gods said, ‘Please instruct us, sir.’  To them he uttered the syllable da.”

Baba closed the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from which he was reading and looked at his listeners.  Thousands of faces were eagerly looking at him.  He was the source of their truths.  Their peace.  The very meaning of their existence.

“I’m going to speak to you today about the meaning that the men, demons and gods found in da,” Baba started his sermon. 

Men interpreted da as datta, give.  Baba preached about the vice of greed that had entered the hearts of people.  It is a cancer, said Baba, eating up our hearts.  Nobody wants to give anything.  All are out to grab.  We have become a grabbing civilisation…

The sermon on datta went on for an hour after which Baba retired to his air-conditioned office for an interval.  His manager was summoned.

“What are you doing to get the school shut down?” Baba asked.

“I have increased the workload of the teachers to 17 hours a day,” said the Manager.  “They are asked to go to the hostels at 5.30 in the morning to wake up the students, and then take normal classes till 2 in the afternoon after which they will look after the studies in the hostel, games in the fields, again studies in the hostels till 10.30 in the night.”

Vidya Devi Residential School had a 20-acre campus.  Baba had already bought up the entire land of about 1000 acres all around the school.   The school remained an eyesore in the middle of his empire. 

Finally he managed to convince the owner of the school, who was his devotee too, to donate the school to him.

The first thing that his Manager did on acquiring the school was to dismiss every employee who was on temporary appointment or probation.  The next thing was to change the colour of the buildings and walls.  Sooner than later the campus underwent a total metamorphosis.  It’s not just the colours that changed.  Tempers did.  Attitudes did.  People changed their colours.  Like miracles.  Miracles are an integral part of every religion whatever the colour.

“Yes, break them with work,” said Baba.  “The students are leaving faster than we imagined.  It’s the staff that remain a pain you know where.”

A fart escaped the Baba’s derriere. 

“It’s time for the next sermon,” the Manager reminded Baba.

“Ha, yes.”  The second meaning of da was dayadhvam, be compassionate.  The demons had given that meaning.  Baba was going to preach...

Note: This is a work of fiction.  No character is intended to resemble any real person, dead or alive.  If any resemblance is found by anyone, it is sheer coincidence   
Labels:

Comments

  1. Dwiti RApril 13, 2013 at 5:30 PM

    Interesting twist in the tale !

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaliniApril 13, 2013 at 7:53 PM

    Enjoyed it! You have a unique style of writing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 13, 2013 at 7:57 PM

      This uniqueness has got me into a whole lot of hell, Malini. But I love the whole affair called life anyway :)

      Delete
  3. UnknownApril 13, 2013 at 8:47 PM

    Thoroughly enjoyed the post , good one Matheikal :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. mandakolathurApril 14, 2013 at 8:33 AM

    As far as I see it, you are on a mission ...

    RE

    ReplyDelete
  5. umashankarApril 14, 2013 at 11:08 AM

    You have singularly unveiled the 'da' of the demons. But I guess he'd merrily fart his way to his desires.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 14, 2013 at 2:32 PM

      Indeed, Uma. Some people are incredibly wicked! They look incredible even in fiction.

      Delete
  6. AnonymousApril 14, 2013 at 12:56 PM

    Fact is stranger than fiction ... the demons and the devils are real, not the gods. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 14, 2013 at 2:33 PM

      True, fiction may look mere fabrication of the writer's imagination...

      Delete
  7. UnknownApril 14, 2013 at 4:29 PM

    what a twist

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2013 at 7:17 AM

      What appears solemn may turn out to be ridiculous!

      Delete
  8. Saru SinghalApril 14, 2013 at 8:37 PM

    I read in the news an actor was quoting babas to be the biggest con man. Interesting tale and has a lot to reality to it. Many will find resemblance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2013 at 7:17 AM

      Religion is merely a business, Saru. A very profitable one too.

      Delete
  9. wingsApril 15, 2013 at 8:00 PM

    I don't know why I remain a climber still. You are really a banyan tree sir. Not baba of course.
    dawn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalApril 15, 2013 at 9:28 PM

      I will never be a baba. Life offers me much entertainment without donning that garb.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
18 comments
Read more

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...
6 comments
Read more

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...
12 comments
Read more

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...
13 comments
Read more