When I was young (and
proportionately foolish), I decided to take a phone connection. Those were the days of landline phones
monopolised by the government through the telecom. You apply for a connection and wait for ages
to get it. In the meanwhile you have to
bribe at least half a dozen people in the telecom department. My landlady came to know about my adventure
and said unequivocally, “You can’t take a phone connection here.” By ‘here’ she meant my rented house of which
she was the owner.
“Why?” I wondered aloud.
“The cable will block the
sunshine in the yard.”
She walked away without
saying another word and without daring to look into my eyes. I knew something was wrong somewhere. A little later I bought a bike, a sleek
Yamaha 100cc, the most popular bike in Shillong in those days. I parked it outside my rented house in the
remotest corner where it would hardly be noticed by anyone, not even by the
sun.
“You can’t park your bike
in this compound,” thundered my landlady.
“But it won’t disturb
anyone in that corner,” I said feeling pathetic.
One of my BEd teachers
who stayed a few doors away permitted me to park the bike in her yard. When that was settled came my landlady’s
order, “You have to vacate the house next month.”
“If it’s about the rent,
you can raise it,” I said. It was the
usual trick of landladies to ask the tenant to quit when they wanted to raise
the rent.
“You have to vacate, that’s
all.” That was how she ended my eight
years of uneventful relationship with her as a tenant.
Eventually, years later
in fact, I learnt that the landlady was innocent. There was a Catholic missionary who was
behind all the games. He wished to
domesticate me by shifting me to a place where his manipulation would be
easier. He made my life a hell in the
next five or six years until I quit Shillong unable to cope with the hell
created by the missionary.
The acts of inhumanity
perpetrated by the Catholic Church through centuries far outweigh its acts of
charity. Now the “official” religion of
India seems to be emulating the Catholic Church by persecuting or even killing
those who criticise it. However, it is
heartening to see more and more people protesting against such persecutions and
murders.
Why do religions depend
upon devious measures to smother criticism?
Isn’t it because they can never, never provide intellectually
satisfactory answers to criticism? And
most people are like my landlady, helpless, incapable of asking the simple
question: “Why should I do this?” People
are scared of religious leaders. Terror
has always sustained all religions. If
Hinduism was an exception, it is no more so.
"Terror has always sustained all religions" - Powerful statement this...
ReplyDeleteWhere rationality has no place, terror becomes inevitable sooner or later.
DeleteWhy they were disturbing you?
ReplyDeleteThat's very simple: I didn't live up to their expectations.
Delete