The God of small things

I have asked myself if I believe in God, many times, at different junctures in my life, and the answer has been a resounding NO! Yet, the question recurs; which mean the answer is not correct. Nor is it entirely wrong; why else would I end up with the same answer, every time?

I would love to ask someone who knows, or, someone who I think knows it now. I would love to ask her if she has met Him(or Her), or whether "God" is an 'It' with two horns and one bushy tail (I am certain she will chide me for being blasphemous); whether it flies, crawls, dances(like "bhooter raja"), likes eating fruits(an educated assumption from the innumerable occasions that I have seen her offering fruits to Him/Her/It, even though the entire household ended up devouring them), likes that string of marigold perpetually around the neck, the aroma of incense sticks... likes sitting cross-legged in photo frames...... and continue badgering her with such questions till she gets fed up with me and retaliates with her "he is just like his father" statement that has been the white flag so often.

I would love to tell her now, at 27, that I think I have the answer. I would love to tell her that even when I was younger, I knew the answer, but age has endorsed it ever more (even though that is not always true... people often become stupid with age). To me, she is the one (despite all her prejudices) whom I have accepted as god. And the fact that I have seen her in flesh and blood does not qualify her as the stereotypical God, which, raises enough doubts in my mind regarding her "God" status that will live till I met her again.

It is my belief that God is defined by the thing a person turns to when he has reached the bottom... the cul-de-sac. Socrates and Galileo had their own definitions (that transgressed the definitions of others, because they did not consider 'death' as their cul-de-sac). Others have had others. I have mine too. It is the memory of something that gives strength. And I have always got it from those long bony fingers(veins overlying them) stroking my head, and that perpetual sad look in those eyes, always ruminating why I am so lean and why I do not eat more (even though I have added 40 pounds more since that last tangible stroke over my head).

Thamma has travelled with me in that broken brass photo frame behind shards of glass. I have tried to bring her out of it, but she seems comfortably ensconced in it. I converse with her only when I have reached my "cul-de-sac", but she seems ever attentive to my problems. She leans a little to the right and puckers her brow to listen to me. She is hard of hearing in the right ear (which is why she presents her left one to you). I do not know why her image appears in my mind whenever i attempt to pray. Be it among the cacophony of believers in the temple of Dakshineshwar, or among the monks in the prayer hall of Belur Math, the single room of Sharavati hostel (inevitably on the mornings of the semester exams), or my apartment at the university, under myriad times, situations, circumstances, and reasons to pray, her image has appeared in almost a matter-of-fact way. It has comforted me every time from my predicaments so habitually that now i almost expect her when i close my eyes for a selfish prayer.

It has been almost 8 years since she passed away. It had taken me a harrowing journey of 2 days from my engineering college in Shimoga to Kolkata to attend her funeral. Many men make pilgrimages to holy shrines or mosques to mark their respect for the almighty. I consider this journey to have had the same effect on me. Traveling in a general compartment across 5 states may be a weekly ritual for many in a country like ours, but for me it had taken a little more than my usual patient self. The journey from Shimoga to Bangalore, and Bangalore to Chennai were two 6 hour warm up sessions bracing me up for the long haul. At Chennai Central I bought a general ticket to Kolkata (because they were the only once available at such short notice, and my mind had no intention of bribing the TTE for a sleeper berth on a journey like this). As the train arrived from the car-shed I stepped into the general coach of the Corromandel Express. It would be wrong if i said i "stepped" in, because i did not! I clambered in and was involuntarily shoved in by a stream of humanity. My reflex told me to place myself on the first visible piece of wood in the compartment. I did so. It was a side window seat and would have been a not-so-uncomfortable one had not the following ensued.

Within a very short time, there were people on all the seats. Moments later, there were people settling down on berths and the floor. Eventually, I found myself trapped in approximately the center of the compartment, length-wise. The people on the upper wooden berths were opening their shoes and placing them over the fan grills. Others were lying prostrate on the luggage racks that ran along the side length of the coach. The men on the floor (seemingly monks.. clad in safron) were making logical huddles to demarcate their groups. The two doors of the coach were not visible anymore from where i sat, and neither were the rest-rooms. I forgot to mention that the single seat which i had occupied was now shared by another boy. A bulk of the passengers seemed to have come to Chennai from the north eastern parts of India on some bi-weekly assignment(masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths ) and were mostly travelling without a valid ticket. I could safely assume that they wouldn't have needed one, as no TTE in his senses would have dared to enter this coach demanding to see travel tickets.

The train started, with the usual jolt. A couple of shoes fell from the fan grill down on a passenger's lap. Expletives shot across the compartment, like misfired missiles and ricocheted from every corner. I found someone yelling at me to remove a bag which was not mine. A vendor outside made his last attempt to sell bananas. Those were the only fruits worth buying. This was the compartment of the poor. Hence, no 'sonpapdi','poori sabzi','biryani' vendors bothered to peep through the windows.

I have traveled the Corromandel Express a dozen times and more; but this was the only time i traveled like a common man, with my true fellow country men, humbled by the sudden death of my grandmother, and brought to the realization of how privileged i have been all my life to get the luxuries which are beyond so many. I realized that the only one perturbed in this microcosm of humanity was me,alone. The others were either playing cards, or yelling at friends, singing, fanning themselves with not-so-clean 'gamchas', oblivious of what augured as a painful journey to me.

We left Chennai Central at 5pm in the evening and reached Howrah at 1pm the next day. In that single day, I learned more about my country than those classes at Don Bosco had ever knocked in me. I ate two full bananas throughout the journey, drank half a pepsi bottle, and went to the rest-room, once. In that sojourn to the rest-room (yes it seemed like a journey indeed) i hopped over people's head, kept putting my feet on the wooden edges of the seats (there was no empty floor space for me to set my feet) and finally had to release myself from outside the door of the rest-room (not to mention the reason being the filth inside). Yes, it seems a macabre sight, but then, i wasn't on a fun trip.

I spent the entire night looking at my own reflection on the glass window, and the fog made by the hot air from my nostrils. Thamma's memory kept me company. It egged me to sit still for another hour in that half-seat. It convinced me that this was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the pain she had gone through to bring up her children, and my parents have gone through to bring me up. I do not remember if i wept, or even if I wept whether it was for her loss or the pain in my buttock. But i remember that night as if it was yesterday.. just like you ought to remember a pilgrimage, for you will do it perhaps only once in your life, and for good reason.

The pangs of her loss are perpetual, as are her memories. I have tried to keep those memories close to myself, revisit them, refresh them, and try not to forget them. So that in the final analysis i can prove to myself that my love for her was no less than her affection for me.