AN ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS
(A
short story)
SRI
LALIT KUMAR SHASTRI
(Translated
from the original in Gujarati by S. KRISHNAN)
I
am restlessly tossing about in the dark. The striped bed-spread on the cot is itching me. Even in darkness I can see the calendar with the
Taj Mahal motif hanging in
front of me fluttering in the wind. Since yesterday I am obsessed with fear and
my heart is a-twitter.
I
feel enmeshed in such a Vortex of emotions that many an edifice laboriously
wrought by me would crack and crumble. I try to steady myself in the dark by
clutching at a wall-peg, but my band slips and falls on the nape of my wife’s
neck where she has tied her hair into a “bun”.
She
wakes with a start: “Still not asleep? What’s there to think about?”
The
echoes of nocturnal noises criss-cross in my room
like a play of shadows. I feel like taking in a breath
of fresh air. I get on to my feet but don’t feel like switching on the light.
My wife seems to have gone back to sleep–(her mild snore a tell-tale sign). The
air in my room has a peculiar twang. I feel like running out but can’t!
I
finally put on the light to escape from this feeling of oppressiveness. I see
the calendar with the Taj Mahal
motif fluttering.
Love...an
edifice of love! Love embalmed for centuries in cool marble! Shah
Jahan and Mumtaz. Me and my wife. Me and...!
I
gaze at the corner of the room. With a little effort, I look up at a portrait
of Jesus martyred on the Cross.
Jesus...the
image of Jesus...the symbol of love! It’s an old story–of me and Rita, Rita and
me. We have spent hours discussing of love and
knowledge. I used to unravel before her the vista of the world’s knowledge. She
would listen intently like an aesthete. Sometimes, in mock anger I would
twit her: “I talk and talk but you remain mute as if you had no tongue!”
“I
love listening to you. I speak to you in silence. Don’t you hear it?”
“I
am hearing. I shall continue to hear.”
“The
world’s first lovers–what words could they possibly have?”
“Perhaps
they used to converse in the language of the eyes,” I
said.
“Eyes
are only an aid to express feelings. But I don’t need such an aid. I trust you
can understand my feelings.”
“And
I trust too that If there is anyone in the world who
understands me most, it’s you….It’s you.”
“You
want to tease me today?”
“That
would mean teasing myself,” I told her.
Such
then was our relationship. We have spent many hours of
our lives together trying to bring into focus many a scattered idea. Our
kinship was like the affinity of matching blood-groups–a kinship permeating our
very life’s breath. I gaze at the sleeping figure of my wife. In her closed
eyes lie asleep the desire for happiness. She is asleep but her body is awake!
Sorrow grips my heart! My wife seems to assume the manifold form of Menaka in the many glances of my eyes! For a moment, I feel
like acquiring the aspect of Rudra to destroy this “Menaka” to ashes.
My
gaze again travels towards the portrait of Jesus. It seems as if he were
mocking at me! I feel a mortal agony al the sight of blood of the martyred
Jesus. My mind utters about like a kite whose wing has snapped. It is as if an answer were expected of me but I am unable to answer.
I
stretch my hands towards the portrait of Jesus. There is faint noise and my
wife wakes up.
“I
hope you haven’t gone mad?” she says, sleepily rousing herself on to her feet.
I
fall back on the cot. My wife snatches at Jesus’s
portrait and smashes it on the floor. She then switches off the light and comes
to sleep beside me. Even in darkness I can hear someone’s mocking laughter! (I
couldn’t prevent my wife from shattering the portrait of Jesus into pieces.
Hence I began doubting the very reality of our existence.) It seems to me that
Jesus has arisen once again incarnated in human form out of the shattered
pieces that lie on the floor and he were telling me:
“See! What a coward you have become! You can’t fight with your own self
and so find a scapegoat in your wife!
Are you afraid of losing your new job? I had faith that you would follow
love, truth and non-violence. But….? Well, I’m going.
I can’t stay with you any more...”
“No...no...Don’t go,” my heart cries out but the words get stuck
in my throat and die out. Two tear-drops trickle down from my eyes on to the
bed-spread.
“Are
you asleep or awake?” My wife’s harsh voice jerks me back to my senses.
And
I recollect my wife’s ambitions–a mansion, two cars and a substantial hard cash
with which to roam all over
“I
am awake,” I reply.
“You
remember what I said?”
“Yes.”
Like echoes in a mountain I try to resonate this word
in my heart.
“So
then tomorrow give clearance for this permit. A thousand rupees is no small
sum. You can also get round the boss. This is just the beginning. Gradually
everything will work out right. If you try to be too clever and spurn “Lakshmi”
* now, you will only lose your new job.”
What
she says is true. It’s just a month since I am on this job, and the person with
whose recommendation I got the job, gave me some practical advice. “Pooshan,” he said, “you are new to this job. So you have to
put up with your colleagues officers whether or not you like their behaviour, and adjust yourself to others.”
The
desire for money has never awaken in me. I never gaze facinated at money in my hands. Whatever money comes to me,
I straightaway keep it in my pocket. My wife has tried over and over again to
change my nature but my clear conscience does not surrender to her.
I
have sometimes tried to adjust myself to my wife; make love to her in
darkness. I shudder to think: “What if an impractical man like me were
to be re-born in her womb? What if the foetus
cries out “no” to being born in this world of untruth and pretension?”
I
often try to comprehend the form of falsehood but it scorches me and every atom of my being
marshals to fight it. Nevertheless, I can’t flatly say “no” to
my wife because the wish to make her happy hovers in my mind.
“Did
you hear what I said? Do this job tomorrow itself and take the money you’ll get
in the transaction carefully. Don’t take marked notes. But don’t be scared.” My
wife’s voice begins to murmur again in the room.
“All right.” From the maze of my
mind comes forth the reply proferred without
thinking. I shake my mind back to awakenness but I
don’t have the strength to oppose my wife who is like a provoked serpent. I
give comforting answers to her.
When
I get up the next day after a sleepless night, the burden of my heart lies on
my eyes and my legs are weak.
As
I am getting ready for the office having dined, my wife says: “I will be going
to a movie for the first show. When I come home in the evening, let me have the
happy news of you having done the job and having got a thousand rupees.”
Walking
along the street on leaden feet, I begin thinking of my job which I have held
for just a month. It is temporary but likely to be made permanent. But...
I try to cast the truth out of my
being but my efforts leave me exhausted. I remember last night’s episode, the
words of Rita and my encounter with Jesus.
I
begin walking faster. It is as if I were marching
ahead in full battle array to fight an enemy named “Truth” (and thereby
safeguard my livelihood) and slowly “Truth”, like a helpless animal, begins to
slide away.
I
sit awaiting the man who wants clearance for a permit. Thereby I can retain my
job, please my wife and my boss too (who stands to gain a pile of money in this
transaction). He comes.
“What’s
your name?”
“M.
N. D’Souza.”
I
am shaken but try to regain composure. I get the permit papers ready and
coaxing myself into courage, walk into the cabin of my boss for his signature.
He signs without ado and says: “pooshan Mehta! You work pretty briskly. You will come up fast. I am
pleased with you.”
“Feeling
gratified, I come back to my table. In a short while if I and D’Souza walk into the family room of the restaurant beside the
office.
This
is the first time I have taken bribe and am feeling queasy. But before my sight
I see my wife and dangling sheafs of
money. I try to swallow my fear. At my back, I feel the presence of Jesus of yesternight but I try to ignore it. (I don’t even look
back.) I tell D’Souza “Come on! Hurry.”
As
D’Souza opens his purse, a raging fire of conflict
engulfs my eyes and heart. For, in a plastic folder of the purse is a portrait
of Jesus martyred on the Cross gazing at me steadily. My heart bleeds. The colour of blood trickling from Jesus’s
chest permeates my eyes with fury and I scream: “Mr. D’Souza!
Aren’t you ashamed of offering bribe, being a follower of Jesus? Get out! Clear
out of my sight this instant! You won’t get your permit.”
D’Souza is taken aback and
sits still. Collecting the papers, I rush back to the office to escape from the
curious onlookers and rest my head on the table. In a little
while D’Souza follows me and enters my boss’s cabin.
I
return home in the evening with the order terminating my services, in my
trouser pocket.
Reaching
home, I find it locked. I collect the keys from a neighbour
and open the door. Resting in a chair, I try to discover myself. (It’s me.) I
turn my gaze again towards the floor where the portrait of Jesus is lying
shattered in a thousand pieces. (Nobody has yet cleared it up.)
(Whenl my mother learnt of the deep love between me and Rita,
she threatened Rita: “If you don’t keep out of the way of my Pooshan I shall commit suicide.” It was after hearing
this, that one day, in
my absence, Rita placed this portrait of Jesus in my room, with “From Rita”
inscribed at the back. She then left for an unknown distant destination and I,
in deference to my mother’s wishes, marry again. All this I learnt from my
mother as she lay on her death-bed.)
I
wriggle out the portrait of Jesus from the midst of the glass-pieces. The form
that arises seems to clasp me and the shattered truth confronts me in a new
incarnation. Two tear-drops trickle down my eyes. But they are the tears of joy
and victory! As I gaze at the Taj Mahal
motif on the calendar fluttering in the wind, my Truth redeems its full
value. (The Rita of yester years seems to stare at me from the Taj Mahal motif.) Now I
have fear of nobody, of nobody because I have remained true to myself and have
not changed.
* Goddess of Wealth.