Skip to main content

Gandhi in Ayodhya



It is sheer coincidence that three Muslims are being beaten up at Seoni in Madhya Pradesh when I run into Gandhi on the bank of the Sarayu at no other place than Ayodhya, the birthplace of Gandhi’s beloved deity. I thrust my phone into my pocket and stare at Bapu. He smiles at me. The smile is warped as if it is prised out forcefully from a heart that actually wants to weep.

“The Sarayu is a river of sorrows,” he says as he gestures to me to sit down beside him on a step of the ghat. The river reeks of filth more than sorrow. But I decide to say nothing. I wish to listen to the Mahatma. Or just sit beside him feeling his silence within my being.

“Hey, Ram!” He says softly with a sigh.

I wish to ask him if Ram is there in the same place as Bapu, wherever that is. Do they meet and talk? What about others like Krishna and Jesus and Muhammad? Do they all live in the same place or have they divided that place on religious lines? I can’t bring myself to ask anything of the sort. I look at the profile view of the Mahatma as he sits staring at the vacuum where once stood a Masjid. A Mandir will soon rise in the vacuum in yet another instance of history trying to avenge a past mistake. Or an alleged mistake.

“I wish I had Nehru’s sense of humour,” Bapu says still looking at the Sarayu, at something that was floating in the putrid water, something that looked like a corpse. “‘Bapu ji,’ Nehru told me the other day, ‘they killed you only once. I’m being killed again and again on a daily basis now. Killing me again and again has become the national pastime in that country.’ And Nehru laughed and turned to Jinnah saying, ‘They don’t hate you as much, lucky chap.’ Jinnah took a gulp of his favourite Jannat whisky and said, ‘You deserve it, man. Both of you were naive to imagine a single sickular nation of diverse religions and cultures and languages and what not.’ He said sickular, you know?” Bapu looks at me and I just nod gently not knowing what to say or do. I can’t bring myself to smile though I find Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s poaching on the Hindutva lexicon-turf quite funny.

“Was I wrong to advocate a unified nation of diverse beliefs and cultures?” Bapu asks looking at the floating corpse-like object in the Sarayu.

“Divisiveness is useful to create power blocs,” I venture trying to sound intelligent.

“Jinnah will share his Jannat with you if he hears that,” Bapu says. “He usually doesn’t share it with anyone except Jesus.”

“Jesus!” I gasp. “You mean you’re all together there in that place?”

Bapu turns to me and laughs lightly. “Do you think there is religion in heaven?” His smile appears naughty.

I imagine Hitler and Elie Wiesel raising a toast to each other at a dining table. My phone rang just then. The call is shelved to the top corner of the phone by the Internet screen which I had not closed when I ran into the Mahatma at the ghat. The image of the three young men at Seoni being lashed by the guardians of the trending nationalist morality begins to loom large between the wine cups of Hitler and Elie Wiesel. I answer the call ignoring Hitler, Wiesel and their cheers. When the call is over, I look at where Bapu had been sitting. In his place now sits the corpse that was floating in the Sarayu. The corpse gives me a faceless grin. The grin has a religion, I sense.

PS. Written for In[di]spire Edition 275: #GandhiReturns

Comments

  1. We will respect him, garland him, deify him; but will kill him again and again even if we meet him in our dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So Gandhi has not changed at all in your post... I thought a few decades of remaining embroiled in the politics of the Gods he would have become wiser. Anyway. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...

The Call of Islamic State

A year ago, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT) reported that about 4000 people from the West left their homes and countries to join the Islamic State (IS).  Many of them are women.  The reporters had made a special study of the women who joined the terrorist outfit and found that it was difficult to categorise which type of women were particularly drawn to IS. “While most of the girls are young, some as young as fifteen,” says the report,  “there are also mothers with young children who make the trip. Some of the girls have difficulties in school and are said to have an IQ below average,  but there are also women who are highly educated. It also appears that even though a relatively large portion of the girls had (or still have) a troubled childhood, there are some who come from families with no known problems with the authorities. Most of the girls come from religiously moderate Muslim families,  yet some converted to Islam a...

The Plague

When the world today is struggling with the pandemic of Covid-19, Albert Camus’s novel The Plague can offer some stimulating lessons. When a plague breaks out in the city of Oran, initially the political authorities fail to deal with it as a serious problem. The ordinary people also don’t view it as an epidemic that requires public action rather than as individual annoyances. The people of Oran are obsessed with their personal sufferings and inconveniences. Finally the authorities are forced to put Oran in quarantine. Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, delivers a sermon declaring the epidemic as God’s punishment for Oran’s sins. Months of suffering make people rise above their selfish notions and obsessions and join anti-plague efforts being carried out by people like Dr Rieux. Dr Rieux is an atheist but committed to service of humanity. He questions Father Paneloux’s religious views when a small boy is killed by the epidemic. The priest delivers another sermon on the necess...

Farewell to a Friend

This is a season of farewells for me.  I have lost count of the persons who have already left or are being hauled up before the firing line by the Orwellian Big Brother in the last quarter of the year.  The person, to whom we bid farewell today, however, had chosen to leave on his own.  He is going as the Principal of R K International School , Sarkaghat, Himachal Pradesh. Mr S K Sharma was a colleague and friend.  He belongs to the species of human beings whose company enriches you and whose departure creates a vacuum, notwithstanding the fact that Nature which abhors vacuum will fill it in its own unique ways.  Administration is an art for Mr Sharma, though he calls it a skill.  Management lessons, strategies and heuristics are only guidelines.  No one can manage people merely with the help of these guidelines.  People are not machines which can be controlled mechanically.  Machines work according to rules.  People do not d...

Jatayu: The Winged Warrior

Image by Gemini AI Jatayu is a vulture in Valmiki Ramayana. The choice of a vulture for a very noble mission on behalf of Rama is powerful poetic and moral decision. Vultures are scavengers, associated with death and decay. Yet Valmiki assigns to it one of the noblest tasks of sacrificing itself in defence of Sita. Your true worth lies in what you do, in your character, and not in your caste or even species. [In some versions, Jatayu is an eagle.] Jatayu is given a noble funeral after his death. Rama treats Jatayu like a noble kshatriya who sacrificed his life fighting for dharma against an evil force like Ravana. “You are blessed, O Jatayu!” Rama tells the dying bird. “Even in your last moments, you upheld dharma. You fought to save a woman in distress. Your sacrifice will not go in vain.” Jatayu sacrificed himself to save Sita from Ravana. He flew up into the clouds to stop Ravana’s flight with Sita. Jatayu was a friend of Dasharatha, Rama’s father. Now Rama calls him equal to ...