AN ATHEIST'S LETTER TO GOD

‘When I die, let my freeze corpse spoil and mingle among soil. Where is soul, I know not.’ Holy altar is a place for pure, aesthetic human to dong the bell, to bow and to preach life and religion. I eat food cooked in the hearth of fire, drink water, sleep on earth and breathe the air. I am still ignorant who created nature and me; i am unsure whether nature created me or I exist for nature. My people follow their own religion, but I have none, for I am not christened to particular God, but myself. An atheist though born by body in the realm of a religion, but can never finish his hymn by his heart. Heaven or hell, salvation or damnation is his negotiation of disbelief. His mind is materialised and grows in the quest, until he is lost in a trance. I am born to the womb of a Hindu mother, but my wisdom conceals not my atheistic morals since my tiny eyes unfold. Twenty years striving and sweating in this earth, my path has shown mine resurrection. I am reborn. A lunatic beggar gave my second birth.

In this globe, where knowledge and perception supersede every matter, I am therefore, bowed to my father, whose rationality and branches of wisdom spread far a wide. Since youth, he holds my fingers and walking by the streets, he let his product shift to mine. He is a peace loving reserved fellow, the quality only which resembles to me. The more I grow up, the less dependency shorten on him. I inherit his rationality to think myself and started giving a new dimension to his acumen. His authenticity and warmth of his anticipation touches my heart. His own religious context, which is a source from Swami Vivekananda that, ‘that is the pure and fulfilled religion, which adore the combination of all the good tenets from different existing religions.’ Somewhere in my heart, I feel it to be justified. But- father remains unaware of my rebirth. Asking him a question about a lunatic beggar, I remain undigested to his reply. The second, whom I remain in debt for wisdom, is my English teacher. A holy God-fearing person, with a white holy mark on his forehead is whom I believe to respect and sharing of enlightenment. Saints are selfish to him who in high mountains passes his whole life in quest of wisdom and die with it. A universal doctrine follower is he, who too, escaped my target of quest. And then, I submit myself to the unknown path of God. Twenty years of my meditation of atheism has been scattered into pieces by a simple, downtrodden lunatic beggar living under the roof of a dilapidated hut of   a watchman near my nest. The watchman left and the hut grew among shrubs and tall grasses. Rich become richer, poor remain constant. Clock stick never rotates for the poor.

It is December by month and winter is in high tide. The beggar is anonymous; unknown to the fact of the arrival. Not even time welcome the beggar. It is only when I walk outdoor to close the main gate which lay wide open, that I encounter the beggar with my naked eyes standing opposite the gate with a little cracked silver dish and with a pale smile, the beggar look at me. The same join hands and bows at me. Only then, I join a title and murmurs, ‘lunatic beggar.’ The lunatic beggar has an ugliest face with blonde, thick, rusted long hair which is cut short and yellow teeth cuts out of broad, rough lips.  Short in stature and for the attire, the lunatic has worn faded, tattered sari raised till elbow, a rat eaten shawl covering the trunk, all in dust and bare footed. It is ten days past, I have been watching the tramp every daybreak till sunset. The tramp’s ways and modes, behaviour and pattern are the most interesting subject to study rather than prescribed syllabus. Only one per cent of mystery of this world is simplified and rest ninety-nine per cent still hold pride in them. This lunatic stand within the ninety-nine per cent leading a life of pride being smart enough to know that none can conquer the same. In daylight, she lays straight in the dust under the sun with her hands lay stretch and her limbs straight. Her palm is bruised and red; her feet are old with boils. Facing the clear blue sky, she becomes a temporary abode of other world. Time is accompanied by dogs of my lane who never behold how to welcome a stranger. They bark and grin at the tramp and leave defeated when their throat ache. The lunatic tramp has no identity, no mother tongue, no lease, neither religion nor God, except gender differentiate the tramp from me. Every time, she sees me, repeat her respect with joint hands and bows, placing her little dish at the bare street and often I find my main gate lay wide open through which cattle have entry towards the kitchen garden. With dilemma in my mind, I close the gate. In the midnight, I am awaken by jerk at her sore voice as she sings aloud with terrible rhythm, although her hymn echoes certain pain, sorrow and saddest past, which she might have gone through. The wintry night passes by her song and I develop addiction to her daily midnight rhythm which makes me lost in a dreamland, where I see myself fastened with a rope against a tall banyan tree and a witch is merrymaking, singing a pale song and boiling water in a huge cauldron upon huge fire, in no doubt, to consume me to fill her appetite. But gradually, her song turns to miserable crying and it halts after some couple of minutes, as she remain defeated against tire and boredom. One afternoon after my lunch, I come out under the sun only when I catch hold of the beggar inside my lawn. I observe her carefully to encounter that, she is picking up a bucket of water from the well and washing her small dish. She repeats the same for several times till she crossed twenty rounds, and more fascinating is that, each time does she fill her dish with water, she march on to her nest opening the gate wide open and she waters down the end of a small electric wire, which is fixed from soil to electric post. Again she marches back to the well and fills her dish with water and thus, carries on the same. When she is on her nest watering the post, cattle roaming nearby, get a free pass to my lawn and hover upon the vegetables in the kitchen garden. There is no way, that I can teach her to close the gate and stop wastage of water. I simply work on my patience and close the gate laid open by her every time and every day. December ends and the New Year follow. My friends celebrate the New Year and I accompanied them. The same night of the first day of January, we sit around the fire to merrymaking. Then, we are to select our New Year resolution. Every friend of mine has chosen theirs own. Some bachelors opined they would shun love, while few said they would cut short smoking and wine, and others resolved they would gift moon to theirs beloved. When it is my round, I tried to figure out long for the one, but nothing came to my mind. At eleventh hour, the lunatic beggar appears opposite the gate and reprises her respect to me with pale smile. I guess she wishes me New Year. My friends tease me and scuff at the beggar. She leaves the spot laughing. Suddenly, I hit my New Year resolution and I share to my friends. Friends laugh till belly ache flattering me and when defeated at last within, they pat my back encouraging and leave. Next afternoon, I wait at my window watching the gate. After a long interval, the lunatic beggar march towards the gate. I jerk myself to free, clear my throat and appear outside, before she could have touched the gate. Seeing me, she halts on the spot, lowers her head, place the dish in the street and joining hands, she bows at me. I tremble and unable to thrust my voice out. My cold eyes cannot show anger and my temper seems cold. I hesitate and fear provokes me. I question myself why I am unable to expose myself. I replies myself may be because she has not touched the gate yet. During my baffle, I am lost within myself. In this battlefield, confrontation is not a history. It is something new. I am not inbound by duty. I decide my own, what is wise. She stands on her spot in my mercy. I have power and she has none. No sooner did she step forward and touch the gate, I choose a path and shoot her dead.

Two roads welcome me. The one where leaves are fresh fallen and the other road, which has number of foot prints left by and I choose the latter which has made all the difference. I throw a simple question to my father and my English teacher that, which road Swami Vivekananda would have preferred if he had been in my place. The question is treated casually by them. I have no other option left. Choosing a path, I still float in the sea of catch 22. I wonder from two worlds. The lunatic beggar comes to my lawn every time only to wash her dish. Perhaps, she does not know what she does; perhaps she never realises, whom she is confronting with or what is called Water. Was I selfish, or I have made Justice, I ask Swami Vivekananda. Should I have embraced her or I have chosen the right path? Forgive them for they know not what they do is apt for her. But my rationality favours that tolerance has limit too. The act which can disturb others should not be led, but she was innocent. I might have offered sufferings to my religion, which could have been shunned by extreme patience level, but religion is made by us. Division is framed by us. Or I might have deviated from the best tenets that make a perfect religion. I question myself, is bearing the offence the best part of a perfect religion? But for sure I have violated the rules of humanity. Sometimes, heart is better than mind. This might be the crime that has given me a penalty and my place in heaven has been replaced by someone else’s good, for I hurt my God…

I open my eyes early dawn. It is the first day of January of the New Year. I walk to my gate dozy and open the lock from it. Casually, I see the street right and left. People are swarming in the fresh air. And then, my eyes shift to a small shed, where once the watchman of our lane used to live. My heart beat hard and fast and everything before me appear as a dark stage. I murmur, ‘O my God!’ All was a play in my dream last night. I realise, I have walked far away in the familiar path that I chose and the path gradually led me towards God and it is proved by my lips. Choosing the trodden road has shown me the way to God and I am bound to submit, ‘every atheist has God in them.’ She had accompanied me near to God. The dream is a diamond in my heart. But when I behold that the road that I chose had done me a justice against the injury I gave her, I feel miserable in this world more than the worst lunatic beggar breathing in this earth; I still feel, I have found no answer. Perhaps, she has disappeared with the answer.