Baba’s Solace

Fiction

Manohar didn’t go home after he left his office.  Instead he walked up the mountain where Baba lived.  Baba was said to have the powers to see one’s future and give appropriate counsel.

Yesterday Sunanda Pushkar proclaimed her love for her husband and today she is found dead in her bed.  Aam Aadmi Party’s law minister took the law into his hands and ordered the police to do something illegal, out of the natural earnestness of the new broom to sweep clean rather than malice.  Life is more complex than death.

But these were not the problems that really nagged Manohar.  His office was in turmoil.  People were just disappearing from the office day by day just like they disappeared during Stalin’s rule in Russia.  More than half of his colleagues had disappeared without a trace.  If Sunanda Pushkar can die laughing and without a warning, people can disappear equally mysteriously.  Yet… yet, something seemed uncanny to Manohar.   He needed Baba’s counsel and solace.

The climb was steep and arduous.  The way to solace is rugged.  And filled with the eerie screeching of crickets.  Wild animals might be lurking behind the bushes and thickets, inside the caves and beyond the rocks.  But Manohar was not scared.  He was ready to disappear if his office chose to perform the vanishing trick.

“What’s in your destiny, none can take away,” said Baba solemnly.  “What’s not in your destiny, none can give you.”

“What’s in my destiny?” asked Manohar.

“Why should your destiny be different from that of millions of people?” asked Baba maintaining the same solemnity.   “Seek not to be different from your fellow human beings.”

Babas are a solace indeed, thought Manohar as he climbed down the mountain.  Motivation gurus give you false hopes.  Babas give you your destiny.