A Story Narrated by an Amateur by Shivang - HTML preview

CHAPTER 16

Utkarsh could see nothing around him. His eyes were full of tears.

Everything looked so hazy.

He for a moment failed to decide what he should do first. He experienced for the first time what

Mayank would tell him – mind reacts to the extremes of joys and pains in a similar way and the

tears express gratitude to almighty for both. More than three months after Mayank went

traceless; suddenly he got his mail.

He had casually switched on his laptop and logged on to check his mails as he had nothing

interesting to do on the Sunday morning. As he saw Mayank?s mail, his eyes betrayed him. He

thought to scream and tell his wife about it who was in the kitchen. He probably could not have

done it as his voice was choked. He quickly changed his mind and decided to call Ashish to

come over as soon as possible as he feared he might go to office even on Sunday but did not do

it. He thought he should first read the mail himself peacefully and then tell others about it. That

however seemed selfishness to him. After all, Ashish, Guddi and he were equally in pain not

even knowing where Mayank was and what he was doing. He had just shot a one line mail to

him three months back that he was fine and would be out of contact completely for three months.

He wiped his eyes so that he could see clearly. He took a print out of the mail, went to the

kitchen showing it to his wife. He told her that he would call Ashish and then only he would read

the mail. Guddi was impatient to read the mail but agreed to her husband?s idea that he would

read it out for all three when Ashish came. Ashish told him that he would be there in fifteen

minutes but barged in just in ten minutes. Before Utkarsh started to read the mail, Ashish

proposed that irrespective of whatever excuse Mayank offered in his mail, the three would not

forgive him for what he had done to them. All three pained hearts agreed in silence. The joy of

finally having Mayank however took over the resolve as Utkarsh read.

Dear Guddi, Uttu and Ashu,

No thanks and no sorry between friends. They say it but I never believe in that. I understand; the

stupid words are so insufficient that people believe they should not be told. But Uttu, Ashu,

Guddi…you know it that I owe you sorry not only for these three months but for millions of

moments where I have failed to be up to the mark of your love towards me.

My entire being is so

insufficient in front of your affection for me that I am always guilty and I treasure this guilt.

Between us, a sorry is not an issue. The core issue has always been honesty and transparency.

We all are one heart and will always remain so. At times, an action from me or anyone of you

may look like in incongruity with rest of us. It may feel to us that the erring activist owes a sorry

to the rest. But, we all know it very well that the guilt with the errant is not for doing something

which rest of us disapproved, but it is in that he or she should have shared it before doing it. The

transparency and honesty discounts a sorry. That?s why, between our hearts, there has been little

space for a sorry.

I am guilty of not being transparent and honest but I wish you all to believe that I have been

transparent. I myself was not sure of what action I would take in the three months that I have

been away. Remember Uttu, Ashu; I had told you the last time we were together that I was not

sure. Now, I have made decisions and now I know what I am doing and will do ahead, I am back

and telling you everything. Very soon, we all meet and everything will be as transparent as it has

always been between us. This however does not anyway mean that I am not saying sorry. But

right now, my joy of connecting to you all is so colossal that saying sorry and guilt is not coming

naturally to me. Saying it here will make it just greetings card sentimentality.

I have decided to say sorry when we all meet and Ashu will thrash me black and blue. I will say

it when Uttu will try to suffocate me in his angry hug. I will try to say it to Guddi but she will

force her hand on my lips and will forgive me. A woman always accepts love, never a sorry.

I have a lot to tell you. I also know that despite your anger against me, you all too want to know

every detail. But I am not telling you all. I will tell you part of it and rest you all will see when

we meet. I will share something which I said I was not sure of earlier and now I am. But first, I

have to say is that I am married and living with my wife in a village we mutually chose.

I have quit my career as a media man and I must say I am a full- fledged farmer now. My wife

has also quit her job as a banker and she is into lots of activities. So, I cannot truly describe her.

Women adapt faster to a new environment than men and she looks more in place than me. You

all will see it yourselves. I must say, women are the architect of life, good or bad. We men

basically build structures over their design, good or bad. I had heard from people that idiots

usually get good wives. It is considered God?s sense of justice. I endorse this as hundred percent

true. This kindles hope for Ashu too!

We married in a temple at Manali. It was not planned. I had never ever thought that I would

marry like this. The day we arrived here, we both decided this was the place where it should

happen. Utta knows it better that though I never have very strong ideas over any issue but I

always had about marriage. I have always hated the amount of pride and prejudice being part of

contemporary marriages. Marriage is about attainment of humility, celebration of tolerance and

establishment of supreme body-mind harmony among two beings who pledge to become one

single spirit of love and compassion. I never understood why marriages have come to become

part of a man?s pride, of worldly achievements. Why should it even be listed as a father?s duty?

The pride or sense of duty should only be in making your daughter and son a good human being.

The celebration of marriage may be a social thing.

Marriage was always a special thing for me. It also has to do with the fact that long ago, I had

realized that this world of humanity has many mismanaged contradictions but two things were

the most mismanaged. First is marriage and second is the conception of a child. I have personally

seen worst and nastiest of marriages, be it what we popularly term as love marriage or an

arranged one. Globally, the systems of marriages are flawed and the worst managed. And God

may forgive me for saying this but I really believe; most kids born in the history of humanity are

outcome of a casual sex between parents. I really wonder; how little thought goes over these two

most important issues of humanity. I am amazed how humanity has failed in evolving a

universally accepted and practically aesthetic system of such a beautiful and important life event

as marriage. When I look at it, I find it to my bewilderment that how humanity has created so

much utility and consumption for good life and living but failed miserably in making basic

things as good and beautiful. That?s why I say there is something majorly wrong with our mental

training that helped in creating a world order we all have lived in since ages.

Somehow, it seems to me that the general view that birth, death and marriages are beyond human

capacities; „made in heaven? psychology that have led to this casualness in approaching the three

most important events of humanity. That?s why there is so much chaos and mismanagement in

these three events. Amazing it is that we leave simple things; which we should do ourselves, to

God and take up all difficult tasks ourselves. Men would do the unthinkably onerous and difficult

tasks of challenging nature and God. Men would walk in space, climb Mount Everest without

oxygen, make its own clone and the list is endless. But they never spare few moments for

readying themselves for basic things like marriage, birth of their child and their own death. You

need to prepare and be in final readiness for marriages and birth. We all need to prepare hard and

be very timely in readiness for our deaths. Tragically, we humans are least prepared and in

readiness for the three most essential and basic events of life but spend all our time, energy and

resources in readying dispensable utilities and consumptions.

As I had told you Uttu, these are problems of a contemporary world order because of the

dominating male view. I am a male too and that?s why I understand the corruption of male

intelligence better. That?s why; I made good preparations for my marriage.

But, as you all know,

I am a stupid. The management of my marriage also had to bear the seal of my stupidity. But, I

am God?s blessed man. The almighty took pity on my stupidity and as his sense of justice always

ensures; he gave me a beautiful wife. She has gorgeous and magnificent artistry of shaping my

stupidities into a noble enterprise.

Before marriage, together, we penned down a constitution of our marriage for both of us to

follow. I wanted to accommodate only her views on the constitution as I did not want it to be

corrupted by my instinctive male attitude. She understands me so well. The constitution that we

have finalized is what she has said and I have only penned it down but what came out is what I

am dedicated to follow lifelong. The constitution reads as: The two rationally endowed people – a woman and a man; physically, mentally and spiritually

sound and mature; in decisive and total possession of love and compassion for each other and all;

otherwise resourceful and capable of free will and independence of body and mind; hereby

declare the aspiration and commitment for an assimilation; fully understanding and accepting the

utility and desirability of such a union called marriage to attain the higher purity and purposes of

life together; that otherwise is uncalled for. We as woman and man pledge and give ourselves to

become wife and husband in absolute humility and inclusive objectivity.

The constitution then goes on to list the seven pledges akin to saat phere: 1. The wife and husband shall strive and ensure, through thought and action that the roles

and aspirations of each, as woman and man, are supported and enhanced through

collective endeavors in best of meaning and spirit.

2. The wife shall support the husband with total dedication for his endeavors to augment

security, peace and organization in the marriage whereas; the husband shall devote

himself completely in his wife?s initiatives to enhance the quotient of sanity, civility and

beauty. In case of a conflict, the agenda with larger good shall prevail; otherwise,

preference shall be given to latter.

3. Conscious and copious efforts shall be made to design and devise platforms of

togetherness and common actions of wife-husband. Individualism needs space within

oneself so, there shall be very little physical space left for individual actions. Wife and

husband shall be together and do together all possible activities in all possible ways.

Togetherness and commonness is the essence o f marriage but it does not come naturally

to woman and man; necessitating endeavors aimed at its complete integration.

4. The wife and husband shall observe complete transparency in thought and action in

matters individual or common. Transparency shall always prevail even as time, space and

circumstances necessitate divergence of opinion and action. Wife and husband are

exclusive to each other because each one is the only person in front of whom; other can

be naked and still not ashamed but the happiest. Lack of transparency alone shall be the

ground for breach of trust in marriage.

5. Emotions shall rule most matters and decisions in marriage. Intelligence shall always be a

back up device; emotional intelligence shall prevail over intelligent emotions. Marriage is

an institution of heart and therefore, mind shall not be indulged; it will however be duly

consulted. Innocence shall be the ultimate wisdom of marriage; the wife and husband

shall strive to preserve and promote it through their efforts, individual as well as

common. The success of marriage is in continuous and copious enhancement of prosperity, defined in terms of the sense of collective well-being. Both wife and husband

pledge and accept that the benchmarks for this well-being shall be emotional fulfillment

and abundance of innocence.

6. There is a perfect acceptance to the fact between wife and husband that marriage is a

small heaven within this infinite universe which is full of conflict, contradiction and

resultant violence. The wife and husband therefore pledge and accept that in the heaven

of marriage, violence, both of thought and action, shall have no place. All conflicts and

contradictions shall therefore be brought up with utmost transparency and listed. The

wife and husband hereby agree that such listed issues shall be brought to bilateral

discussion only and that too when both are in best of the state of body and mind. Any of

the two, who shows first sign of violence of thought, will automatically lose his plea. The

concept of collective well-being will be the guiding prudence for resolution of conflicts

and contradictions. Non resolution will be preferred if a mutual resolution is not arrived

at. The final say however shall be of the wife as sanity falls in her side.

7. Love and compassion shall be the core virtue of wife-husband relationship. Even in the

worst of situations between wife and husband, in the long journey of married life; the

husband shall remain with his wife, in thought and action, as a Father-figure to her. The

wife shall, come what may, remain with her husband, in thought and action, as a Motherfigure

to him. Marriage can cease to be, love and compassion can never. The wifehusband

shall remain mother- father to each other, even in separation, till death lets them

apart.

I now tell you what I have been doing since I became sure of what I wanted to. My wife had

already decided to quit her job so that we had most of the moments together. I was sure that I did

not want to return to media but was not certain what next I can do. We both wanted to do

something as work is a sign of cultured person; but the trouble was that we wanted to do it

together. It was she who suggested we should go to a village and look for some simple but

honest work doing it together. We decided that we give it a try and for the next three years, we

would attempt in all seriousness to make the best out of our village experience. We would review

the situation after three years. So, here we are; in a village, making a start to our new life.

Initially, I must admit, I was worried whether we will be able to find something worth doing in

the village. I was more apprehensive about whether she would cope with the tough life in a

village. How wrong I was. Only in a month, I started wondering how many things I have the

options to do? And most amazingly, she has adapted so well to the life in village as if she

belonged to the place since ages. She revealed it to me that she had done a long stint with an

NGO in rural areas as part of her management studies.

We have pooled in some land and together we raise vegetables in it. We are being well supported

by people around us. My experience as a journalist has proved handy. I had personally seen a

President Medal winner farmer successfully managing four crops simultaneously from a land.

We are replicating the experience here and initial results are very encouraging. I am a lazy bone

but my wife is so full of energy. She has already organized some village women and formed a

self-help group. She is brilliant with organizational skills and her banking background has helped

her organize micro- financing support for the group. You all will be amazed how much she has

done in such a short time. She has earned admiration of half the village.

You ask anyone in the

village about Laptop Bahu and they will reach you to her. She carries her laptop all the time and

helps anyone get any information about anything under the Sun. She is already into a big project

and you all will be amazed how she goes about it to make her project a success. She is planning

to open a rural bank which will offer small loans to women enterprises.

Nominal interest would

be charged and taken only from the profits of the enterprise. She has devised a novel way of

garnering money for her bank. She has written all her relatives and friends to send in whatever

money they would have spent on her marriage and the gift for the bank. Her parents offered to

give her huge money which they said they had kept for her marriage but she has accepted only

one lakh rupees from them. My parents had little option but to send in a matching amount.

Already, six lakh rupees have been pledged to her but she wants to start the bank with ten lakh

rupees. When the villagers got to know about it, they came up with innovative ideas to pool in

the rest of the money. The youth club of the village announced that they would celebrate the

Durga Puja in Dusehra this year with simplicity and thus save rupees one lakh which they

pledged to the bank. A local politician also offered to give one lakh rupees. But she politely

refused the help. She has better ideas for creating the corpus. We are not in any haste. We do it

with a speed that suits us.

If you ask me how I find my new life, I would say I am amazed how much the rural areas have to

offer you, in all aspects of life. You will feel them only when you shed your inhibitions and

accept the bounties that are there to be accepted and enjoyed. I am amazed how much I have

found that interests me and prompts me to work on. I have already picked up something very

interesting. I got to know that over the period, we have lost many species and varieties of flora

and fauna. Only a century back, we had hundreds of delectable varieties of rice which we have

lost. There were at least 50 varieties of mangoes that were grown till only 50 years back but we

have lost all such species. In my village alone, there were more than 30

species of cows and

cattle which we have lost. Similar is the situation about fishes, local vegetables and fruits. I

found that still some of the lost species can be retrieved and some endangered ones can be saved.

I have already involved myself on this project of reviving the lost species of flora and fauna and

saving the endangered ones. In this connection, I started meeting old people; many of them are

100 years old. You will be amazed, in my village and in five villages around us I have found 15

people who are 100 years of age or above. Six of them are in good shape. I have also listed 26

people who are 90 or above. Talking to them about the lost species, it struck to me that they too

are the endangered species of humanity. It clicked to me that I should write a book on them.

And, be sure I am writing it. This book will not contain their views on the secret of longevity.

This book will have ideas and mental picture of how life was when they were young and how it

is when we are in the same age. I and my wife cannot help but cry when I hear from the 100 year

olds how they lived their lives in utmost miseries. There were regular floods, famines, fire and

epidemics and they would lose everything, including their dear ones. But still, they survived and

prospered as there was love and compassion, camaraderie and brotherhood and above all, the

firm faith in the ultimate justice of the almighty, the unflinching trust that good things would

return in their lives. You put these with what our media shows in our popular soaps about our

contemporary families and society, you would feel what we have lost in the short but decisive

march of civilization.

My wife has been prompting me to work simultaneously on the lost traditional healing

techniques that were once so popular and very effective. These healing wisdoms include the

local system of herbal medicines, faith healing and tantric healing system.

I wonder, how much

and to what extent I can do these things. What I enjoy most is farming. And we have revived the

village theatre which my father says was very active and regular in his days. This will help me

learn music and dance. We have already found a Guru.

We are happy. We have been able to pick up what we wanted. We are together always and

learning new meanings of life. We have been successful in our journey to zero. Every new day in

our lives, a positive is added and enhances our satisfaction. But, the picture is still not perfect.

Now that we have done our primary sketches, we want to make the picture look perfect. You all

know what I am talking about.

Utta has been to my paternal village once. He knows it very well that it is just five-six hours

drive from your place. We could have chosen any village but she rightly pointed out that things

would be easy in our own village. I feel; we have taken the first good step towards a life that

should lead us to larger satisfaction and joy. But, she and I know it very well that we are missing

something very important.

Last week, I asked a 102 year old man in my village, who is still active, what he believed was the

true joy of life? You know what he said? He said, „enjoying a meal together with those whom

you love and call as your own is the real joy?. I asked him was he sure that life?s goodness was as

simple as he made it to be? He smiled and replied, „All good things in life are simple. The

trouble of humanity is that the goodness is so simple that most people believe it cannot be good

if it is this simple and available so easily; almost gratuitously?.

I and my wife desire to attain this simple joy of life. If we desire to have five plates instead of

two on our dining table, are we asking too much? In fact, we do not even have plates and dining

table. Our open kitchen does have space for five banana leaves on the ground and we have

enough banana trees in our garden. Not only we but the entire village wishes for that to happen

as my wife has told them that she would give them a big bhoj (party) the day our kitchen would

have five banana leaves instead of two. The old man has taught us the prayer which he says must

be said to the God thanking him for allowing the opportunity of having a meal together with our

loved ones. We have saved the prayer for the day of five banana leaves. So, now even the God is

waiting for this to happen.

Yours stupid,

Mayank.

Ten hours later, five large banana leaves waited for the start. Twenty households had already

sent in more than 28 different vegetable and fish dishes in small bowls for the guests as part of

the prevailing tradition of the village. Three households had sent in messages that their

contributions would take a few minutes more. A man was sent in to fetch some more banana

leaves to accommodate the new arrivals and eight different pickles and chutneys. God waited…

the prayers waited. All good things in life are simple...so bad that it takes time for them to

happen. The wait is worth it. But, let us not wait…

#####

Accept My Gratitude

Writing something is a daunting task as there is always a lurking apprehension of it not being in

utility for some readers. I however feel at ease, because of my faith in magnanimity of readers. I

am happily sure; you shall forgive if my efforts could not be up to your expectations. Thank you

so much for being with me and allowing me to share with you. Wish you an empowered life;

with the prosperity of the consciousness.

**

About The Author

People say, what conspire to make you what you finally become are always behind the veil of

intangibility. Someone called it „Intangible-Affectors?. Inquisitiveness was the soil, I was born

with and the seeds, these intangible-affectors planted in me made me somewhat analytical. My

long stint in media, in different capacities as journalist, as brand professional and strategic

planning, conspired too! However, I must say it with all innocence at my behest that the chief

conspirators of my making have been the loads of beautiful and multidimensional people, who

traversed along me, in my life journey so far.

The mutuality and innocence of love and compassion always prevailed and magically worked as