THE TWO FACES OF GOD

JATINDRA MOHAN GANGULI

How grand, how marvellous, how artistic, the high buildings on either side of the wide, smooth road, on which rolled one behind another, from either side, automobiles of various designs and of many colours. I was walking up from the Victoria Terminus, Bombay, along the Mahatma Gandhi Road in the Fort. Once looking at the moving things on the road, once staring in wonder at the gorgeous display of varieties of multi-coloured, lovely articles on the shop windows, once bending the head up and straining the eyes at the balconies of the stories one above another of the sky-piercing buildings–I wondered how great, how bountiful, how kind, the Maker and the Giver of these things to man must be.

In fine dress, in fine spirit, men and women were moving or making purchases at the shops or entering restaurants, from where delicious, appetizing smell was coming. I came to Flora Fountain, where wide roads from so many sides met. Private mansions, commercial buildings, banks, hotels, cinemas, gorgeous shops–one after another on all sides. I moved on with others till I came to a crossing, where I had to wait for the road-signal to cross to the other side. On that side, some distance down, was a temple. I looked in and seeing some people enter went in. It was a beautiful temple of Mahavir. The floor was of glossy, white marble; the walls were painted light green on the outside and cream inside. On the top sparkled a golden spire. The image of Mahavir was red. It looked so life-like. Devotees were coming in, bowing most reverentially before the Deity, offering flowers and coins, taking charnamrita or a flower or a bit of a sweet as prasad from the pujari. I reflected how merciful God was and how generously responded to the call and prayer of the devotees, whose desires, needs and requirements He seemed to supply plentifully. I crossed the street and passed by a cinema house in front of which was a gay crowd looking eager and impatient to get in. I glanced at the posters showing the actors and actresses in exciting poses, which attracted the eyes and the mind of every passer-by. Some distance up was another cinema house, at the entrance of which was hung a plate announcing “House Full.” Little further up was a bus stand, where I waited for a bus to Dadar, where I was stopping. In a couple of minutes a bus came and I got in. I was not familiar with the many streets through which the bus passed, but I had the chance to see how big, how great Bombay was. I sat looking out through the window, unmindful of where I was to get down, till the bus came to a sea-side that I had not seen before. “This is Worli” the bus conductor told me. I had passed the crossing where I should have got down, but I didn’t mind. The open sea-side was refreshing. The afternoon sun glittered over the wavy sea. The bus stopped at the terminus and I had to get down.

I had not seen this side of Bombay. There were habitations here too: there were men, women and children too of the same human form, but so very different in appearance, in dress, in movements and activities. They wore no clothes, but covered parts of their body with pieces of cloth stitched and patched in parts, and soiled with dirt, greeze and smoke. On an unwide no-man’s land, along the embankment, were their hutments, consisting of low, small enclosures, made by canvas pieces or small joined tin sheets or even by dried sea weed. The dwellers here were also moving about as in Bombay proper, though there was less noise, less rush, less hustle, less excitement and enthusiasm. Outside the huts women were cooking. Something was boiling on an earthen pot. That was to be the meal for the night. Smoke was coming from the burning firewood. Bare-bodied children were playing about and looked as joyful as children playing in the parks in Bombay. A little while ago I had seen plenty in the Fort, plenty of imposing buildings, of cinema houses, of rich stores, of articles of fancy and luxury displayed in shop windows, of wide neat roads, of shining automobiles smoothly rolling over the roads, of well-fed, well-dressed men and women–plenty of everything that could attract eyes and raise desires. Here too was plenty, plenty of opposites–plenty of little huts touching one another, of smoked, dust-bearing, torn and patched pieces of canvas, of dirt and squalor, of narrow zig-zag foot tracks connecting the huts and leading to the single water tap in front of them, plenty of house-wives clothed in scraps of cloth, moving about, some collecting fuel for cooking, some standing round the water tap for their turn to fill their earthen jar. There were men, some attending to their rickety huts to make them firm, some were mending their fishing nets, some were making cheap wooden furniture for sale, some were repairing shoes which they had brought from shops in Bombay, some were washing clothes of customers, and so on. They were all at hard work which sustained their hard life.

In the open, a little away from the huts, was a tree round the base of which was a stone and clay platform, over which were some stone images, some white, some painted red. Going closer I found some wild flowers and some leaves over the deities. Two women with children came and poured water over them, knelt down and touched the platform with their forehead, and then stood up, folded their hands and went away. I had seen devotees in the Bombay temple too, but the looks and the expression on the faces of those devotees were different from the expression on the faces of the women here. I didn’t hear, I didn’t know what those in Bombay softly uttered when kneeling or standing with folded hands before their deity, but their faces seemed to show lack of satisfaction with their life and desire for more than what they had possessed. They offered coins, sweets and fruits, and flowers and garlands to seek the deity’s blessings for the fulfilment of their longings. But here the faces of the women who had come to pour a little water on their deities were pale and dry but expressed no dissatisfaction, no want, no desire. They stared at the stone images deeply and earnestly, as if they saw living gods within them, gods who returned their stare and accepted the water poured over them. No more than that the women thought of and wished for when for a minute they closed their eyes to perceive their god within them. Did these devotees know that their undressed, undecorated god who received no more than some wild flowers and a pot of cold water poured over them, and had to be content with only bare faithful devotion of the devotees, had little to give to the faithful besides the peaceful unagitation of mind that resigns to whatever comes to life, whatever falls to lot, whatever days and nights in their rotation bring?...I reflected.

Turning back I walked along the sea-side and coming to a bend sat on a stone, looking away over the western sky from where the sun had just sunk down. On my left I could see the tall buildings of Bombay; on my right I saw the hutments by the coast at Worli. By the side of the Image of the Deity in the Bombay temple stood in my mind the Deity under the tree in Worli. They appeared to be the two murties of God, one richly-carved and shaped and installed in a gorgeous temple, and lavishly worshipped and recipient of rich offerings. The other in natural stony form, unchiselled and unshaped by skilful hand, uninstalled on marble altar, but placed only on hard, rough and cold platform, not within the carved walls and the high dome of a temple but under the shelter of a tree, uncovered from the open sky. And the simple Deity here looked cold and stiff, emotionless and desireless like the devotees who come and go without uttering mantras and prayers. The Bombay God looked full and fresh and satisfied with the offerings He received. He was God of plenty, who gave plenty to His worshippers. The Worli God was God of want and scarcity of distress and poverty. He sat uncovered under uncovered sky sympathetically with His worshippers who were similarly uncovered and who similarly lived under uncovered sky. Himself in want of what the Bombay God had and received He gave in plenty want, distress, hard toil, scanty remuneration to the hutment dwellers.

The fading bright red above the horizon the waves reflected to me, but that glow did not break the dull depression that had spread in my mind. Did God have two faces, two hearts to feel and two different hands to give? Over a moving wave rose a Figure, strange but real. Over its head was a bright halo resembling the glittering ring of gold, which I had seen over the Image in the Bombay temple. And its face too resembled the shapely, well-cut face of that Deity. Then the Figure turned and the halo was gone. I saw another face, depressed and wrinkled, poor and famished. The Figure turned again and again, revealing the two faces one after another. Which of the two faces I should look to and speak to in prayer–I wondered and reflected, as I stood up and took the road to Dadar. One would raise desires and kindle hopes and longings, and lead to illusions, disappointments and discontent. The other would reveal facts of life, its wants, sorrows and inevitables, and then point to ways of over-coming them by resignation and contentment. One smiled and tempted; the other was stern but truthful and sincere. More and more I felt drawn to the latter and more and more peace and quiet came to mind, the peace and quiet that I had sought in vain here and there in temples and holy places.

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