By: Bennet Paes
Many, many years ago when God sent an angel and took my little sister away from
us, it was heart-breaking to see my mother sob bitterly for days together. My
father weathered the agony with less visible emotions, but hastened to
commemorate the loss by placing an angel at the head of my sister’s marble
tombstone. That was like asking the Lord: “Let the angel keep a watch”. But
what was really thought- provoking was an old woman by my mother’s side
consoling her diligently with these words: “Zaun, Devachich khoxi zali”.
Over the years, those seemingly wise words, uttered in sheer submission to the
will of God, helped me tide over many more family losses. But never did they
strike me so eerily until another day of reckoning came to pass. This time it
was an angel that swooped down on a taxi-cab that had just rammed into a
lamp-post, instantly killing the driver and another occupant. Mysteriously
enough, two others who survived were the very ones that had persuaded this
occupant to join them on a journey that was destined to be fatal. Later, they
recounted the harrowing loss of their loved classmate at the medical school,
and unwittingly shattered the lives of three more. My son of 23 years was that
classmate and gone forever, leaving behind his distressed mother and a sister
to share in my sorrow.
Does God send angels to kill? That was the most baffling question that drove me
searching for answers and deep into despair. The words that had once eased my
mother’s grief and aroused my imagination, tried hard to weed me out of a
grudging rationale. The seven-year grooming that I had proudly received in a
Jesuit boarding school came down hard to make inroads into a confused state of
mind. All that failed, because it bit me where it hurt most. So I went on my
way to proclaim to the world the bitterness, the likes of which transforms
innocent men into irrational beings. Consequently, what spewed out of my pen
was vicious venom:
“ This thing called ‘God’ is only an illusion. Man has taught man to perceive
it as lord almighty, all-loving and all-merciful. However, events unfold one
after another to portray it differently. To my mind, ‘God’ is only a happening.
It is neither animate nor inanimate, and it is devoid of conscience. It has no
power to discern good from evil. It delivers reward or punishment with no
relevance to goodness or badness. It rides roughshod on the very life it caused
to create. Period.”
Call it Marxism, Maoism, or whatever ‘ism’ that characterizes a radical
departure from conventional beliefs. That was the strain of my thoughts
spinning in a groove of utter hopelessness. It took a while and it took its
toll, before events began to take a full circle. Another angel, another
mission? Yes, but this time to teach, not to tear. To restore sanity and show
me the way. To reconcile, not to rebel. To revere, not to revile. To
acknowledge that rewards and reverses are but two sides of the same coin. To
grasp the sanctity of the words uttered by that old woman, and to discover that
they were born out of an unfailing dedication to the ‘Lord’s Prayer’– a prayer
by which men of all faiths concede to their maker: “Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven”.
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