A Silent Revolutionary...

It was a long pause though I had planned to be back soon…Not that I was away in thoughts, but with so many things happening around so fast, I was too lost to be certain about anything… So for a while I decided to leave morning newspapers intact on the table and the remote control of television untouched.

I took refuge in a good book.. For me, a good book is a book which did not preach, did not conclude, did not try to convince.. but just put across a thought… And my ‘good book’ was incidentally talking about the same thing .. it was talking about ‘Uncertainty of Certainty’ .. about the brittleness of any dogma which claims to be the true, the final, and the conclusive one.. And that was precisely what was bogging me down for a while.. the exclusive and fundamental approach which we are discovering ( or re-discovering..!!!!...) towards life, and its impact, not just on our lives but on society and world as a whole, is leaving us with very narrow, very stingy and very edgy passage to walk on.. The mathematics of emphatic right and emphatic wrong leaves no space for moderation..

If one considers the fundamental approach as an outcome of religious fervor then one needs to reconsider.. when we see an angry crowd beating a thief so much so that he dies, or a youngster committing suicide when he fails to make it to an entrance exam or when a girl gets rejection for a marriage proposal because she is too short or too dark ,when we see all this happening around us, we know how much, the fundamental approach has encroached our space..

The scales to measure good and bad, success and failure, happiness and unhappiness are benchmarked so irrefutably that even an iota of deviation is not tolerable…amidst such stern approach towards life, a wide terrain of uncharted possibilities, unsanctioned ethos and unendorsed ethics are getting lost.. we fail to realize that beyond the obvious and defined perceptive, there could exist a wisdom which still needs to be substantiated and verified .. or still more, a wisdom which may be too profound to be defined and delineated…

So while my ‘good book’ was still half way and my newspapers were still unfolded, I got my mind wandering back and forth to the person I knew had wisdom which , to me, looked like a reply to the dogmatic approach which had left us living like morally challenged individuals …

Wearing his long white beard and a spotless Payjama-kurta he manifested his designation, which was a mosque priest.. Though sixty years of endurance had left his face shrunk but the innocence of his face was untouched by time..

Sheru Lala , as he was lovingly called, though have many stories associated with him, each one of them equally astounding and inspiring, he himself was seemingly oblivion of his narrow fame..

The day when he came to attend my sister`s wedding, I expected him to carry a serious and stiff look on his face like all priests do and be surrounded by an heavy air of the knowledge he would have had about the truths of life and beyond.. but unlike my anticipation I saw a man with a soft smile and eagerness of a child .. his eyes were gleaming with joy.. the kind of joy which is Infectious. And Pure. And Untouched ..

With such outrageous absence of any somber and rude expression which any religious guru should have, he wouldn’t get qualified for the job I thought.. he looked more like a curious kid to me..

But meeting people like Sheru isn’t a thing which happens daily.. I realized it the day I asked my father about the injury marks Sheru had on his body.. I noticed few injuries on the back of his neck in starting.. and later, on his legs when he sat down and his white payjama was pulled up a little… but soon I discovered that he had injuries all over his body .. and he got those injuries for a ‘sin’ so chaste , it inspired..

Maheshwar is a town of temples.. situated on the bank of Narmada river, it is a small pilgrimage .. every street has its own temple and people are emotional about their heritage.. The heritage belonged to the town of Maheshwar and not to a religion.. at least Sheru`s wisdom decided so.. and he paid the price of his wisdom the day he was passing by a street having a beautiful temple.. The temple had a golden dome and was getting crowded for the evening Aarti ..

There was a big peepal tree next to the temple. The tree was tall and inhabited by hordes of pigeon .. The pigeon, like pigeon do, were putting shit all around.. and a lot of their offering was shown on the beautiful dome of the temple.. As Sheru noticed the filth on the dome while passing by the street, his reason and senses could direct him for only one act..: to transpose the pigeon`s offerings .. and he acted upon, what his senses asked him for… He climbed on the peepal tree.. and ended on the temple`s dome.. started cleaning the dome with his scarf .. For a person , as old as he was, climbing the tall peepal tree would take more than courage.. it took away his breath.. but the strength of his conviction enthused him for this act of unusual compassion.. And his innocence barred him from any cautious defence.. So while this mosque priest, wearing white kurta-payjama and having the checked scarf, sitting on the dome of the temple , cleaning it from pigeon shit did not realize that the world has defined such narrow definitions that people like him wouldn’t be pardoned for such monstrous encroachment of the boundaries.. he did not realize that molding oneself in the contours made by the society is mandatory .. that pigeons of the society have put shit all over and any efforts to clean the shit is rewarded with brutal defiance…

When Sheru was dragged on the road and beaten for ‘trying to damage the temple dome with communal malice’, the centuries of stingy values and shallow convictions were winning over a innocence which refused to give in to them .. though the ‘revolution’ was so quiet and un-intentional that it couldn’t even defend itself.. it couldn’t even stand up for itself …

Sheru, with his broken bones and bleeding wounds was feeling scared and ashamed for a crime he dint understand… he did not understand the reason for people to beat him even after 6 years of the incident, the day I happened to ask about his injuries…

With a blushing face and embarrassed grin he said shyly .. “ But I was cleaning the dome…”… he looked down and was lost.. Thinking of the day when he almost died.. I asked him if he would see another dirty temple dome what he would do.. !!.. I expected him to say that he wouldn’t even look that way.. but the answer he gave me was this..: “ I would first look around to see if there is anyone to beat me up..”…

He never gave up the idea of cleaning the temple.. !!!.. The magnitude of his un-intentional wisdom gave me the re-assurance… The re-assurance that there may not be any emphatic truth to be concluded about beliefs and ethos.. The re-assurance that there are always those silent revolutionaries who would challenge our narrow understandings, based on which we compartmentalize our lives.. The re-assurance that silent revolutionaries don’t even die easily.. They live on silently….