Doing is Believing

         I pressed the 'Up' button for the lift again, as though the reminder would make it appear any quicker.

         "You're going to work today? But it is Ganesh Chaturthi - everybody prays to Ganesha, He is the Vignaharta

Remover of Obstacles

" The shocked accents were those of my next door neighbour. A trendy student most days, she suddenly transformed into traditional orthodoxy for this and few other festivals of note in the Hindu calendar. She was filling the narrow space in front of their apartment door with a blaze of decorative colour, the rangoli

a decorative pattern made originally with white flour, now also done in colour or with flower petals

that proclaimed their faith and ceremony.

         "Sheila, I was on duty last Sunday too. You do realise that hospitals work round the clock, you've seen me do holiday duty before."

         "Yes, but let those of other faiths work today, we Hindus should get time to celebrate our festivals."

         "So, we might, if there weren't such a plenitude of such festivals and if we weren't in the majority in the workforce."

         Another head popped into the corridor, her grandmother had decided to find out what was being debated so heatedly. The penchant to dig for nuggets of somebody else's personal information is ageless and classless.

         "Oh, it is you Doctorni,

Lady Doctor

" she could make the intended honorific slightly contemptuous, as though women had no right to aspire to such male-dominated professions. She dismissed my eccentricities with a loud sniff and unasked for solicitude.

         "I'm sure she must have already finished the prayers to the Lord, she wouldn't leave home on such a day with that undone."

         I usually never justify my beliefs, a polite smile being the sum of my responses, but the some niggling self-doubt made me try.

         "Actually, I was up since one AM with an emergency 'section'. Also, ever since the time I was called for a mass casualty right in the middle of an elaborate puja

prayer ritual

, I decided not to start something I wasn't sure I could finish."

         The two faces could have been mirror images - mouths agape and eyes widened white, only the words that came out of their mouths were different versions of their shock and disappointment in one they had previously considered sane.

         "You do not believe in God?"

         "I suppose you consider your work more important than God's work?"

         I fell back upon the rueful smile that should have been my only answer, added to it a despairing shrug of the shoulders and stepped into the lift that fortuitously appeared. The ride down from the fifteenth floor was long enough for me to ponder. Is doing something without the meditation or time to concentrate on the ritual the main thing? Is being dedicated to people's lives and troubles a neglect of faith? Is ritual the saving grace or is the heartfelt presence of something Higher sufficient to be called faith?

Festivals had long been taken over by social organizations in the name of preserving our culture, but the same attention grabbing, power squabbling and petty humanities never disappeared. Everybody wanted to be seen as bigger, better and somehow more faithful devotee. What did God think of it, if he ever thought of it? Ganesha was supposed to be the fount of wisdom, he should be able to gauge me ... should he not?

         I used the ride to sketch out a prayer.

         Dear God, Remover of all Obstacles, Lord of the Ganas, Oh Four shouldered one, Rider of the Mouse Vehicle

all names for The Elephant-headed God - Ganesha

, can you spare a moment for the pleas of one unused to prayer?

Last night I was desperate to snatch a few minutes of sleep, but those who were bringing you home for the festival today were so intent on 'sharing' their joy that I am bleary-eyed and dull today. They wound through the back lanes until the wee hours, accompanied by frenetic drum beating and ear-shattering off-key renditions of aartis

Songs written in praise of God

         May I ask you if your yearly visits to the abodes of your many devotees have always been attended by such noisy revelry? I seem to recall my grand-father bringing you home with only a couple of others to be your escort. Of course we had the felicity of welcoming a smaller You, requiring only one to raise You in his arms, one more to ring a small brass bell or sing the compositions written specially in your praise by poet saints of yore.

         Cannot a joyous occasion be celebrated with less disturbance to the ill, the infirm, the old, the infants, those asleep or even the unbelieving?

         Since when, oh, Lord, have you developed a taste for the garish loud mimicry of popular Bollywood numbers that spew from squawky amplifiers on carts that bear you home in triumph? The words are those that laud you but the tune panders only to the taste of those who cannot find the words themselves enough to enthrall.

         Lord, they gyrate in front of you; they throw themselves about, not in ecstasy of your advent, but in the steps of that latest dance number. They will disrupt the traffic for four of the next eleven days, making public transport a laughable thing, walking would be faster if legs could traverse the distances.

         I saw a lady last evening, pleading that her child was waiting for her at her class, she needed to just get to the next road, but the procession took no heed, passing in slow majestic disdain of such mundane things. If she had sense, think those who pause at least to think, she should not have sent her child to tuition today!

         But, Lord, Swine Flu had already eaten a hole in scholastic schedules; this desperate parent wanted the child to catch up on lost time. She had even borrowed her neighbour’s car, the wise neighbour who reported sick to work rather than face milling crowds. Fate gave a tired smirk and shrugged her shoulders; she was not responsible for optimistic and idealistic fools. If all of the cynical city stayed home and let the roads be full of only revellers, would that be an act of faith?

         Lord, I went to work; I live a short walk away. But, I think I would have gone anyway, because, to me – work is worship. Was I wrong to choose that option? The patients I saw did not think so; one grateful mother clasped my hand in a quick squeeze of gratitude. I may not have saved lives in any miraculous way, but my presence soothed the anxieties of at least a few.

         Lord look through my eyes - that brave child leaning against another older woman, do you see her? Yes, she may be in her twenties, but she is a child too young for the burdens she bears. Why, Lord, you saw Yama

The God of the Underworld, who lassoes souls of the dying/dead

beckon her father fifteen days ago, now he has cocked a finger at her mother too. Her mother lies in the intensive care; she is declared brain-dead, heart and lungs kept alive by machines.

         This young child, alone now, is still firm, still upright, fueled by a wish to make that mother’s dream come true. She wished to donate her mother’s organs so others may live. Of all the gifts offered to you, Lord, is not this one shining beacon of example? Yet, she and her grand-mother struggled to get to the hospital, to say a last good-bye. No taxi was willing to ply on your day.

         Today, two people will get sight, two a new disease-free life. She rejoices that her mother gave the most precious gift of all. Is she any the less for not participating in the festivities? Am I the lesser for having been there to facilitate it, to make it as easy on her as possible? Someone had to be there.

         Lord, when coming or going, or even as you stand resplendent in your full glory; I understand the crowds that flock to see you. I marvel at the bright colours and rich silks, I gape at the mountains of sweetmeats and savoury delicacies piled for your consumption and for distribution to the devotees.

         The bright lights and the cacophony of sound, sorry, the musical celebration, continues. People pay obeisance to you and their fingers drip notes and coins into the collection box. They visit as many of your manifestations as they can, the blessings must multiply as they do.

         My eyes also see the family stretched out on the pavement as I head home, the weather makes their ragged attire comfortable if not conformable, as they lie spread-eagled in awkward sleeping postures. They 'feasted' on thin lentil gruel and sticky rice. It is their daily fare. I do not know what happens to that pile of eatables Lord, but if a little could find its way to them, or their like, it would be so good.

         The baby wails as yet another energetic drummer heralds another dawdling procession. The mother barely wakes as she clasps the child to her bosom and hushes it. At least the child has a full belly.

         Lord, can you not stay with us all year around, and look after unfortunates like these? They cannot afford to invite you into their homes, but if you were to place a benevolent hand on their heads, you might find you already reside in their minds and hearts.

         As you do in mine, dear Lord. Only you are always there, you do not come and go. I feel you in every throb of my heart. I thank you in the light; I thank you in the dark. I thank you for giving me the bounty of strong limbs and willing body, for a clear mind and gainful employment, for loving family and faithful friends.

         I feel no need to stand in man-built enclosures and rigid dictated postures to ‘see’ you. I make no use of ritual or rite to mark your presence in my life. I live that life with clear principles of good, with intent to help as many as I can, to give without any knowing that I gave – neither the recipient nor the onlooker.

         I am termed unbelieving Lord. I am assured that I have forsaken the right path, Lord. I was so sure that I have not. I was sure, until yesterday.

         Forgive me, but yesterday, I was tired and I needed sleep. But all night, the music blared from loud-speakers. None dares to complain of an ingression made in your name, Lord.

         Harsh thoughts arose, and if I had the supernatural power, I believe I would have been incited to violent destruction of property - at least of the sound system.

It made me wonder and question, it made me think less of those who would be so uncaring. It made me as rigid as those who term me an Unbeliever. Perhaps I deserved that harsh term if I could not find tolerance for all in my heart.

         So, Lord, I ask Forgiveness. Not for my ideas or beliefs, but for my intolerance. For thinking that only my way was the right way.

         Am I not your child too? Forgive me.

         PING.

         The lift opened and I was on my way to work, fresher and stronger.


Word count:1890

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