BURIAL OF GOLD

JATINDRA MOHAN GANGULI

Bijoy’s father was not rich, but he was content with his income which was enough for the requirements of an anxiety-free life. He kept no servant in the house. All domestic works–dusting, cleaning, washing, sweeping, cooking, etc., were done by the members of the household, young and old, according to their age and capacity. “Your hands and legs are to be used and worked,” he used to tell them, they remain good and strong, and then you do not become helpless dependents on others. Not wealth, but self-reliant, simple life makes for happiness.”

In spite of being brought up like this, Bijoy was ambitious. He wished to be rich. He stared at his rich neighbour’s son going to school in a car while he walked the distance or went standing inside a crowded bus. He looked up also, when passing by, at his big house. So he looked at other rich people and their possessions. “I must also be rich”–that desire possessed him from boyhood. He passed his examinations and went from school to college, but his was not much in studies. His mind worked on finding ways means of making money and becoming rich, very rich. He from what he was given for tiffin, clothes and for books and

stationery to purchase lottery tickets and to spend on small speculations within his means. Whatever he got in that way he reinvested in such gambles and speculations.

With the death of his father the family broke up. The brothers separated, the eldest one taking the care of the old mother. Bijoy was devoted to the development of his business, which was not one but multifarious. Money came but he wanted more and more. He wanted to be rich, very rich.

So he became; he became very rich. He had more wealth than he knew what to do with. But he wanted to enjoy. From his boyhood he had dreamed and desired to enjoy as he saw wealthy people enjoying. Now he possessed the means to enjoy as he liked and desired. He built a big house; laid a fruit and flower, garden around it; fitted it with all kinds of gadgets; filled it with luxurious furniture; decorated it lavishly; and engaged a number of servants to serve him and to attend to the house. He had a number of costly motor cars. Best food and drink he had from different parts of the country. Whatever he desired, whatever he fancied, whatever came to his mind he did and had. There was nothing to halt, nothing to prevent him from satisfying his desires. Friends and admirers surrounded him. He gave to charities and received praise and applause for his generosity. He did as he liked and enjoyed as he pleased to be happy to the fullest as he wished.

Yet, however, at times in the night when he lay on his soft comfortable bed in his lavishly furnished room he felt uneasy in mind and lay awake and reflected. “Why, in spite of all that I have, in spite of all my desires and possible needs and requirements being satisfied to the fullest, I should not be happy as I should be? What could be missing, what must I have that I do not have, what should I do for complete enjoyment and satisfaction that I have not done?”

One night he felt a pain in the stomach, for which he stretched out his arm for a phial of medicine on the table by his bedside. The medicine relieved the pain only for a short time. Was the pain due to some wrong food, he wondered, or due to tasteful over-eating?

He had read that simple food was good for health, rich and heavy food caused pain and stomach upsets; but he had wanted, to eat well and enjoy. He was getting no sleep. He thought of taking a sleeping pill but remembered the bad after-effects of sleeping pills from which he had once suffered. The soft rubber cushion on which he lay, the foam pillow, the closed furniture-and-gadgets stuffed and unventilated air-conditioned room, they were not good, he had read in health magazines, but he had wanted to enjoy as rich people, he thought, enjoyed, and he did not wish to deprive himself of such luxuries.

Besides the pain and other physical discomforts he was mentally also very uneasy. Various fears, worries and anxieties were for sometime in his mind, which gave him no peace in the day and no sleep in the night. Day to day he could see and understand that the people who came to him were not good friends, were not sincere. They came because of his money, and so he had always to be watchful against them.

His sons and daughters were also making him unhappy. Their lazy habits, disinclination to work and effort, frivolous tendencies, aimless and irresponsible conduct and behaviour, were doing serious harm to their body and mind. They were weak in health, feeble in intellect, had no aim and aspiration in life to inspire and enthuse them to do, work and achieve anything good and great in life. “For this I am responsible. I brought them up in indulgence, plenty and luxury, and gave them no chance, impetus to develop their capabilities and stand strong and confident on their legs. This is why my father made us do and work. But I did not then understand. I desired wealth, I desired rich luxurious life.”

He had noticed of late that his sons were counting on getting legacies from their father and were calculating their respective shares. He could see also that they were impatient to get the legacies on his death.

That night as he lay on bed, with the ache still in the stomach, such thoughts were in his mind. “The gold for which I have been mad, what has it given me? Not happiness, not peace, but fears, worries and anxieties. I have no ease, no leisure. It has taken all my time, attention, energy, and labour. There is not a moment that I can call my own, not a moment when I am free and easy without fear, concern, worry and strain. I get no time, no mood to look around to see nature, its wonders, beauties and mysteries, to see the sky, the moon and the stars and to reflect where the world is moving and taking me. I gave all my time, attention and thought to gaining and acquiring wealth, gold and jewels, but I am not their master. I am their slave who gets no leave, no holiday. All the time I have to be alert and watchful to save and protect them from people, known and unknown, related or unrelated to me, who are eagerly waiting for the chance to seize my possessions on my death. Where is joy, where is happiness in possessing the riches that I have? And yet to acquire them how hard I had to labour. I even at times had to adopt means and to do things which I did not like and my conscience did not approve. This wealth now I must dispossess.”

Reflecting like this he drowsed unto sleep late in the night. When he woke the sun was up. There was a soft knock at the door. It was his servant who attended him in the morning. He sent him away. The family was up and his breakfast was brought. He asked the bearer to leave the tray on the table and go. His mind was full of the thoughts and reflections he had in the night. Then there were telephone rings and callers who had appointments with him. He called and told his Secretary that he was not to be disturbed, and closed the door behind him. He took his bath and drank a glass of cold water and then took out from the iron safe documents, bank books and account books and sat at the table to make an assessment of his money and properties. He would rid himself of them and be free, he had decided. But what would he do with them, he asked himself. He had given to the poor and to charitable institutions and had noticed that the result was contrary to what he had expected. The poor to whom he gave became poorer and felt his needs and wants more than before. When what he had received from him was gone, the poor man felt his old wants, to which he was used, more acutely than before, because of the temporary relief that he had experienced. The discontented poor man now became more dependent on charity and felt the bitterness of disappointment when help and charity did not come. In the charitable institutions he had seen that only a small fraction of the endowments went to the service of the poor and the sick while a large fraction was spent in other ways.

So he thought that he would reconvert his properties and possessions into gold with which they were acquired, and then put the gold back to where it was. “Gold has made man mad. It has been the cause of all mischief, troubles, quarrels, fights and wars. It has made man greedy, jealous, unscrupulous, mean, possessive, discontent and unhappy. Like a loaf of bread thrown between two dogs playing happily in the morning that immediately makes them snarl and fight over it, gold makes two men at peace with each other fight over it when gold comes between them.”

What he had read in history, what he observed all around, what he had seen and experienced in his own life–they all led him to realize that gold was the cause of human unhappiness, cause of strife, envy and enmity, mistrust and misunderstanding between man and man. It caused physical and mental disease and suffering and gave no rest, no peace. “Indeed, for this reason God had buried gold deep under ground, out of the view of man. He placed man on the surface of the earth, and, on the surface of the earth. He made all that man required–air, water, food, covers for the body and means for his shelter. Whatever man requires for his well-being, for his joy and happiness. He has provided over the earth. Whatever is not for him, not for his good, He kept away deep underneath the earth. But man in his folly dug the earth, brought out hot gas and coal which polluted the good air. He had made for him to breathe. Man went deeper and dug out gold and diamond, the glitter of which dazzled his eyes. They were not for him to eat, not for him to handle, but lust seized man and he lost the good sense God had given him. He became crazy, greedy, ferocious, mean, cruel, possessive, miserable and unhappy.”

For days he worked to convert his properties and possessions into gold, and till the conversion was done he attended to no calls, no appointments, no business. The day when the conversion was complete he felt light and easy and had good sleep in the night. Early the next morning he got up and put the gold in a bag and walked out with it. The house and the neighbourhood were asleep. With light steps he strode off, heartily inhaling the cool, fresh air or early dawn. A street dog barked but was quiet when it recognized him. On he went, out of the town, to the hills a few miles away where he went sometimes for a diversion when in indifferent mood. Through the forests surrounding the hills he went deep to the other side of a hill. Soft rays of the rising sun coming through the leaves and branches of trees spread and formed bright patches here and there on the ground. It was so quiet and peaceful, except for the warble of some birds on the trees and the rustle of a thin breeze coming down from the hills. He stood still for a while looking up to the serene blue sky, and then moving forward saw a deep pit in front of him. He looked down into it but could not see the bottom. He laid the bag of gold on the ground and knelt down by its side. Looking up to Heavens he said “I shall put it back where in Thy infinite wisdom Thou had kept it.”

He lifted the gold from the ground and bending his head reverentially placed his forehead on it for a minute and then stretching out his arms over the pit said “Holy earth to earth retumest” and let go the gold into the pit.

Down and down it went: there was no sound, no stir, no shake. Then a serene yellowish gleam flashed up from the pit for a little moment before his meditative eyes and in that flash all the dark, the gloom, the sorrow, the worry, the fear in his mind melted away. It was the blessing gold had sent him, he understood. He stood up and covered the mouth of the pit with earth and rubble and beat the ground with a slab of stone to level the surface. He felt so light and breathed freely as he turned his steps back. His treasures were gone; with them were gone his troubles, discontent, unpeace and restlessness. Also were gone the people whom his wealth had attracted. What stayed was the perception of a fullness of joy and ease, satisfaction and happiness that he had not known before, and the few who loved him truly and who were to stay and abide with him through the days and nights of life.

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