Pilgrimage Of A Parasite
Sreenivasa Murthy Govindaraju

 



                                             

It was a full moon day.

He was at Kanyakumari, the 'Lands End' and the serene place of confluence of Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. The unique experience of the sight of simultaneous sunset and moonrise and the full moon drenching the sea with its silvery sheen and the waves splashing the silver on the other, did not deter him from the sole purpose of his visit.

He would immerse himself now at this confluence and would never return back!

Suicide?

No-It was not suicide. He called it only offering himself to the 'Ultimate' with a purified body and soul.

This was a different kind of full moon day for him. This was the day he was married a year back. Instead of being with his wife and an infant kid celebrating this first anniversary day, he was unable to swallow the fact that both were dead now and his life ended up in shackles. He resorted to this extreme step only to sanctify and absolve himself from this 'obnoxious' state!

It was still warm at this time of the night and tourists and pilgrims were at the 'Lands End' as though hoping that some miracle or the other would to happen soon. But nothing happened as such except moonshine becoming brighter and brighter.

He was watching for thinning of the crowd so as to complete his 'mission' successfully.

It was almost 10 PM and he noticed that he was out of sight.

He entered slowly into the vast sea; first ankle deep secondly knees deep, and finally chest deep. Suddenly he coughed with a sudden splash of water in his nostrils and felt breathless.

With suffocation, he turned his head backwards.

                                                                        **
  
It was a sunny January day and he was emerging out of the magistrate�s court with hands chained and with an unshaven chin. He was just sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment for being an accomplice in a murder of an affluent person for the sake of money.

A big crowd gathered outside the court building to watch with enthusiasm, the �notorious� criminal.

A blue jeep had entered the gate and stopped at the entrance. A posse of policemen surrounded the jeep and a couple of them opened the door. As the crowd started thrusting forward, the police pushed him towards the jeep. Amidst this entire din, a young woman carrying an infant ran up to him and sobbed.

She fell at the policemen�s feet and asked them to pardon him and let him go. It was his wife and he hugged and kissed her. She was not mindful of the court and its proceedings but only interested in her husband�s safety.



When he came to Delhi in search of a job, he appeared to be content with what gets and if he could get at all. He found a job and shortly there after fell in love with a girl and married her immediately. She came from a not so poverty-stricken family and to keep her happy, he started spending extravagantly with borrowed money. When he couldn�t repay his debts he searched for other means of income- he should have money- beg borrow or steal, he should have money. The easiest and simplest way-out was involvement with the criminal world, which had wrought large-scale changes in his lifestyle. He hoped that, to keep in sync with changing times and to live in luxury, he should look beyond the four walls of his house and start mingling with the criminal gangs and in political circles and the process began.

A kidnap of a child and demand of a ransom was the maiden venture and he was successful with an amount of two hundred thousand shared by three of a gang.

Once successful, and had his first brush of huge money and its aftermath luxuries it had a profound influence on his hitherto sedate lifestyle. It set the ball rolling. Brewing illicit liquor, card games with heavy stakes, land grabs, leading rowdy gangs, printing of counterfeit currency and with every new adventure came, the money. With it contacts with higher ups in political circles increased. He found out a short cut to it. All one had to do was to pick up a gun, adopt some inchoate political ideology, identify a few �popular grievances�, and set off on a spree of �political violence�-Killing, maiming or kidnapping according to personal preference or the dictates of profitability. This would bring him a political prominence and may be elevate him to a political berth one-day, he thought.

He was also successful as a mediator in a �land deal� and with a point of gun he could get again three hundred thousand. He was fast in all fronts with money pouring in and finally induced by a higher up, he was an accomplice for the murder of a political opponent, which had ended up in a conviction.

He was kept in a lock-up to be shifted to the prison later on to a different city. With in a week, he was successful in escaping from the lock-up.

He made discreet inquiries about welfare of his wife and child. He was shocked to learn that his wife burnt herself to death after throttling the neck of the child.

He was horrified and lost his senses- after all what he was doing to make extra money was only to keep his wife and the child happy. �Oh God what am I to do now�.

It was too late even for repentance. He cursed the day on which he was involved in nefarious activities. He should punish himself now to lead a normal life, but how?

Either he should surrender himself to the police or surrender to �God� to find peace and solace.

His mind now restless, he was forced to accept the existence of a supernatural power and find ways to appease Him. And for this at the outset he should purify himself, he thought, by taking a dip in a holy river, and where?

He found out the answer in no time!

�Triveni Sangam� the confluence of three pious rivers, Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswathi was the right place and to his advantage the �Kumbh Mela� was in progress. The police amidst the sea of humanity that throng the place each day during the �mela� would not notice him, he thought. He decided to take the first dip in the holy �Sangam�.

He had his head and chin clean shaved and entered the sandy banks of the rivers and mixed up freely with the pilgrims, preachers, saints and the omnipresent criminal gangs who assemble there to bathe in the rivers.

He reached the �Sangam�, and dipped in the holy waters at the confluence, reverberating with the ringing Sanskrit verses emanating from a rather stentorian priest, whom he had engaged and paid heavily.

He stepped out of the �Sangam� and reached the sandy shores. He thought he was the most pious person on earth now. And it was the time to prostrate before �God� and to seek His blessings not to enter his past life again.

Perhaps the only Deity who has the �power� to forgive and bless him was Lord Balaji of Tirumala, and without a second thought, he boarded the train to reach there.

Fifty hours later, he was standing before �Lord Balaji�.

� Oh God, bless me- I will never enter that filthy life again� He was honest to the core.

He came down the hill in the night in a taxi, had his dinner in a roadside restaurant and locked himself in a hotel room. He had to plan his next course of action. The southern part of the country would be safer.

In the early hours of the next day he boarded a bus bound for Bangalore and at the Chittoor bus station he purchased three newspapers to know whether something was reported about his missing from the lock-up. He found no news about him. But he was stupefied to read in one paper that a taxi driver at Tirumala was arrested for trying to exchange a counterfeit currency note and the police were on the hunt for the gang behind. He started sweating from the temples and his lips were dried up. He was impatient for the bus to resume its journey. It however started and speeding away to Bangalore. Sitting at the window side seat he recalled the day with delight when he bribed the police on duty with the fake currency for his escape from the lock up and got rid of the hand chains and paying the priest heavily at the �Sangam�. He was wondering as to what would have had happened to them. He was also wondering as to what would have happened to the fake currency he exchanged at Tirumala and a same currency bundle he had dropped in the �Hundi� in premises of the temple. He was confident that he would never be caught on this count as he was far away on the move from a northern part of the country.

He alighted at Bangalore bus station and didn�t waste his time. He immediately got into a moving bus proceeding to Madura.

The next day morning he went to the Meenakshi temple just a few yards away from the hotel where he stayed. He was immensely pleased to be in the very temple of Meenakshi, the lovely consort of Lord Shiva who is a forgiver all sins.

�Goddess, forgive me. I had deceived innocent people and also the �God� in His own abode. I am ready for any punishment you impose on me, but forgive me. I will never repeat, I swear�.

With a sigh of relief he came out of the temple and after lunch he confined himself locked inside the room. Late at night someone had knocked the door and with half mind he opened it. There was a person standing opposite to him with a glee in his face. With in the next few minutes there was a twenty-year old girl in his room. It was a long time that he had a company of a woman and he welcomed it. She left the room in the wee hours.

Early in the morning he boarded a bus bound for Trichy. He went to the landmark of Trichy - The Rock Fort. He climbed the steps leading to the temple of Ganapati on top and after a further climb he was at the Shiva temple.

He prostrated before Shiva, �Oh Lord, I am an unpardonable sinner. Only yesterday I had the �Darhan� of your consort at Madura and in Her very own presence and watchful eyes I committed an unpardonable sin. I don�t have the cheek to beg of you for your forgiveness. I am crooked human being not permitted to live on this Mother earth. But this time don�t forgive me, I am offering myself to you�.


He was sincere. He was uncertain of freedom of movements. He might be arrested soon and subconsciously he reached a level of depression. Self-confidence dipped, as the roller coaster pace of life became increasingly unmanageable and vulnerable state left him to believe that suicide was the only way out.

The next day was a full moon day.
 
                                                                          **

He was at Kanyakumari, the 'Lands End' with a sole purpose of drowning into the sea and not to return forever.

He entered slowly into the vast sea; first ankle deep secondly knees deep, and finally chest deep. Suddenly he coughed with a sudden splash of water in his nostrils and felt breathless with suffocation.

In spite of the suffocation, the unique sight of the full moon drenching the sea with its silvery sheen and the waves splashing the silver on the other made him change his mind.

He turned his head backwards.

He could see the V shaped country spread out like a glittering mat on which a billion humans like him live.

�Nobody is a born criminal for sure, and I am no exception. After all who is patronized by my death. If not me it would be someone else over there. All of us are a gang of thieves and criminals and finding an honest person is looking for the proverbial pin in the haystack. This is a beautiful world with moonshine and starlight with trees, flowers, birds and other things beautiful that one can see and enjoy.
I am very happy and proud to be born as a human being, and yes, I forever will be�.

He returned to the shore and proceeded towards the town and to his hotel, not even turning his head towards the Rock Memorial of Swami Vivekananda.

                                                       ____________________________


 

 

Copyright © 2001 Sreenivasa Murthy Govindaraju
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"