Good Friday and Jai Sri Ram

By Gemini

Today is Good Friday in the Christian calendar. Truth was nailed to the cross some 2000 years ago on this day by a governor of the Roman Empire who did want to know what truth was before he succumbed to the pressure of the Jewish priests and their right-wing mob to crucify Jesus.

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. The trial of Jesus was going on with a ferocious mob of right-wing Jews shouting murderous slogans outside the praetorium. Have you ever wondered why the slogans turn murderous whenever the right-wing gives them voice? I have, many times. And my answer is: religion belongs to the emotional half of the human brain, and in the case of too many people that half is unevolved.

Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question. Rather, Pilate doesn’t wait for an answer. He knows the answer probably. His problem is not an epistemological definition of truth. His problem is whose truth is to be given more weightage here now. There is Jesus’ truth on the one hand, and the murderous right-wing truth on the other.

There is the Roman justice on one side, and the right-wing mob pressure against justice on the other.

Pilate chose what any sensible politician would. And so Jesus was led to his Golgotha and nailed to his cross.

I can hear the prayers from my parish church as I sit in my library and type out this post. The Good Friday service in the church enacts Jesus’ trials by both the Roman governor and the murderous right-wing. And then Jesus’ excruciating climb to Golgotha carrying the massive cross. Simon of Cyrene, a passerby, is forced to help Jesus when Jesus falters too many times. The women sob all along. Veronica wipes Jesus’ face with whatever cloth she has with her.

On top of the skull-like Golgotha mound, Roman soldiers strip Jesus naked. They want his robe which was costly because it is a rare single-piece tunic – woven in one piece from top to bottom. Clothes were precious in those days anyway and a single-piece tunic was special. Even the blood-and-sweat-ridden robe of a traitor was not to be wasted. The soldiers decide not to cut this precious tunic into pieces which they could share as they usually did. So they sit and gamble. The winner of the gamble would take the whole tunic. “The winner takes it all,” as Abba sang. They also sang: “And the loser has to fall.”

The loser lies fallen on the cross. He called himself the truth until a few moments ago.

Is it the death of a god or a good man or truth itself that intoxicates the right-wing?

The prayers are still going on in my parish church. My house is just 300 metres away from the church and I can hear the prayers sitting at home. There is a Hindu temple too at about the same distance, in another direction, from my home. I hear Hindu prayers too occasionally. I am blessed with so many gods to care for me. 

What prompted me to write this post is not Good Friday. It is the release of Mahendra Hembram from the Keonjhar Jail in Odisha. Hembram was imprisoned 25 years ago for setting fire to a vehicle in which were sleeping Graham Staines and his two little sons. All the three were charred to death. Reason? Mahendra Hembram’s God didn’t like Graham Staines’ God. Or MH decided so.

Mahendra Hembram (MH) made a brief appearance in my novel – the only one of that genre I ever dared to write – BlackHole. Below is the extract concerned.

As MH came out of the jail, a bunch of VHP men extended him a heroic reception with a glorious garland. And they shouted Jai Sri Ram!

I had just posted my entry for today’s A-to-Z Challenge when the report about the reception extended to MH by VHP caught my eye in the morning newspaper that lay on my breakfast table. “Are even the upholders of Rama Rajya today guided by dharma in their use of technology and power?” I had just written in the post on Ravana’s Pushpak Vimana. The question rose within me again like a bubbly burp that follows a gulp of aerated drink. Gaseous spirituality!

The more I study Lord Rama, the more similarities I discover between Him and Jesus. Both suffered much for the sake of what one would call dharma and the other righteousness. Both were sent packing from the earth by people who claimed to be upholding dharma/righteousness.

Good Friday is the ultimate truth, it occurred to me. Golgotha’s cross and the Sarayu’s grief are one. And that’s when I decided to write this post – the only time in my entire blogging life I wrote two posts in succession within a couple of hours.

Jesus had to die on his cross. Rama had to walk into the Sarayu and vanish. Graham Staines had to be burnt alive – with his 10-year-old Philip and 6-year-old Timothy.

Good Fridays are destined to be with us as long as the right-wing is. And Mahendra Hembram will get the garlands.