After a gap of almost a year, I return to continue my story. There is an element in my personality that craves structure and order. I hate to leave a job unfinished. It may be a pointless project, devoid of meaning but having once embarked on the mission of my own accord, I feel compelled to see it through.
There is this story in the Puranas, where the Devas and the Asuras, in a rare collaborative venture, churn the ocean to extract Amrit (nectar that confers immortality). The serpent Vasuki volunteers service as the rope and the mountain Mandaramalai is used as the ladle around which Vasuki is wound. After much churning, Vasuki tires and starts to spew poison. Lord Shiva swallows the poison so as to save the world from its deleterious effects. His consort, Goddess Parvati rushes to help and holds His throat to prevent the poison from spreading to the rest of His body. This story can be read at a deep, allegorical level but I will not stop to explore the hidden meaning. Other brothers or sisters who are well versed in Puranic lore and commentary may step in to fill the breach, if they so desire.
It is sufficient and salutary for me to reflect on the Divine glory of Neelakandan's (another appellation for Lord Shiva; neela - blue colour from poison, kandam - throat) supreme sacrifice in taking on the burden of the world, as I proceed, in my infinitesimal way, to do the opposite. Unlike the gracious Lord, I cannot hold it in; I must save myself by spitting it out. And so, devotees, I seek your continued indulgence, as I purge my system of the virus of verbosity and prattle on...
The next character in this narrative is an elderly man – a householder and long-time ashram resident. This senior, let me call him X2, lived in Amritapuri with his wife and son. Their lives, swirling around seva (service) and sadhana (spiritual practice), were structured on the same broad lines as those of other householder residents, with one interesting twist from my perspective – their son, twenty-something years old, was mentally retarded. (In the past, I have been reluctant to use the ‘R’ word because it is too stark and also strikes too close to home. However, of late I find euphemisms such as ‘developmentally challenged’, ‘alternately enabled’ or other clever coinage unequal to the task of covering up the grim realities of life.)
We started off with some generalities, but pretty soon our conversation circled in on a shared concern – the disabilities of our respective children. The conditions, though medically different, were similar in impact. Both children had significantly impaired development, but his son was stable, requiring no treatment while my daughter was unstable and needed medication. Speaking to him seemed surreal, almost like being in a time machine. My past and future were both mirrored in his present; the past, in miniature, and perhaps a shade superficially, but the future in a fuller sense.
He was stranded several rungs below me on the socio-economic ladder, and in that sense he reflected my past, the economic mediocrity I had migrated out of, not by dint of effort or any special talent of my own, but mere chance. I took in this little image in my rear-view mirror, savoring my great escape from the serpentine coils of lower middle-class toil into the talons of upper middle-class obscurity. For the moment, I was a mouse, saved by an eagle, from being swallowed by a snake. I felt relief and exhilaration, as I soared through the sky, securely transported in the eagle's talons. My euphoria peaked in a palace in the sky - the eagle's nest where I was deposited, which I took to be home!
My flight from the past had landed in the present. Time passed quickly and the wonder faded. A decade in mouse-years was a single night in eagle-time. I found that my lofty new perch was not so comfortable after all. I was destined to be breakfast. I let out a silent scream in pain, as the eagle's sharp beak ripped my tender flesh and ego to shreds. At the present time, breakfast is still being served, and I am still screaming.
Then my attention drifted away from the smallish rear-view image, and vaulted over the excruciating pain of the present, to the bigger picture of the future that bore down through the front windscreen. X2's son, in the present was my daughter in the future, with some adjustments for health and mental capacity. And although I did not think so at the time, being more optimistic then than I am now, about the outlook for my daughter, it is increasingly clear that the adjustments referred to above will push my daughter below his son, on the health-and-ability axis. To my mind, the subtle symmetry between our situations was quite striking. Excess wealth on my side is balanced by better health on his side. He was my holographic negative, exposed on the tousled tissue of time.
Om Amriteshwaryai Namah
