An Encounter with Jesus

AN ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS
(A short story)

SRI LALIT KUMAR SHASTRI
(Translated from the original in Gujarati by S. KRISHNAN)

I am restlessly tossing about in the dark. The striped bed-spread on the cot is itching me. Even in darkness I can see the calendar with the Taj Mahal motif hanging in front of me fluttering in the wind. Since yesterday I am obsessed with fear and my heart is a-twitter.

I feel enmeshed in such a Vortex of emotions that many an edifice laboriously wrought by me would crack and crumble. I try to steady myself in the dark by clutching at a wall-peg, but my band slips and falls on the nape of my wife’s neck where she has tied her hair into a “bun”.

She wakes with a start: “Still not asleep? What’s there to think about?”

The echoes of nocturnal noises criss-cross in my room like a play of shadows. I feel like taking in a breath of fresh air. I get on to my feet but don’t feel like switching on the light. My wife seems to have gone to sleep–(her mild snore a tell-tale sign). The air in my room has a peculiar twang. I feel like running out but can’t!

I finally put on the light to escape from this feeling of oppressiveness. I see the calendar with the Taj Mahal motif fluttering.

Love...an edifice of love! Love embalmed for centuries in cool marble! Shah Jahan and Mumtaz. Me and my wife. Me and...!

I gaze at the corner of the room. With a little effort, I look up at a portrait of Jesus martyred on the Cross.

Jesus...the image of Jesus...the symbol of love! It’s an old story–of me and Rita, Rita and me. We have spent hours discussing of love and knowledge. I used to unravel before her the vista of the world’s knowledge. She would listen intently like an aesthete. Sometimes, in mock anger I would twit her: “I talk and talk but you remain mute as if you had no tongue!”

“I love listening to you. I speak to you in silence. Don’t you hear it?”

“I am hearing. I shall continue to hear.”

“The world’s first lovers–what words could they possibly have?”

“Perhaps they used to converse in the language of the eyes,” I said.

“Eyes are only an aid to express feelings. But I don’t need such an aid. I trust you can understand my feelings.”

“And I trust too that If there is anyone in the world who understands me most, it’s you….It’s you.”

“You want to tease me today?”

“That would mean teasing myself,” I told her.

Such then was our relationship. We have spent many hours of our lives together trying to bring into focus many a scattered idea. Our kinship was like the affinity of matching blood-groups–a kinship permeating our very life’s breath. I gaze at the sleeping figure of my wife. In her closed eyes lie asleep the desire for happiness. She is asleep but her body is awake! Sorrow grips my heart! My wife seems to assume the manifold form of Menaka in the many glances of my eyes! For a moment, I feel like acquiring the aspect of Rudra to destroy this “Menaka” to ashes.

My gaze again travels towards the portrait of Jesus. It seems as if he were mocking at me! I feel a mortal agony al the sight of blood of the martyred Jesus. My mind utters about like a kite whose wing has snapped. It is as if an answer were expected of me but I am unable to answer.

I stretch my hands towards the portrait of Jesus. There is faint noise and my wife wakes up.

“I hope you haven’t gone mad?” she says, sleepily rousing herself on to her feet.

I fall on the cot. My wife snatches at Jesus’s portrait and smashes it on the floor. She then switches off the light and comes to sleep beside me. Even in darkness I can hear someone’s mocking laughter! (I couldn’t prevent my wife from shattering the portrait of Jesus into pieces. Hence I began doubting the very reality of our existence.) It seems to me that Jesus has arisen once again incarnated in human form out of the shattered pieces that lie on the floor and he were telling me: “See! What a coward you have become! You can’t fight with yourown self and so find a scapegoat in your wife!  Are you afraid of losing your new job? I had faith that you would follow love, truth and non-violence. But….? Well, I’m going. I can’t stay with you any more...”

“No...no...Don’t go,” my heart cries out but the words get stuck in my throat and die out. Two tear-drops trickle down from my eyes on to the bed-spread.

“Are you asleep or awake?” My wife’s harsh voice jerks me to my senses.

And I recollect my wife’s ambitions–a mansion, two cars and a substantial hard cash with which to roam all over India (and be just indolent).

“I am awake,” I reply.

“You remember what I said?”

“Yes.” Like echoes in a mountain I try to resonate this word in my heart.

“So then tomorrow give clearance for this permit. A thousand rupees is no small sum. You can also get round the boss. This is just the beginning. Gradually everything will work out right. If you try to be too clever and spurn “Lakshmi” * now, you will only lose your new job.”

What she says is true. It’s just a month since I am on this job, and the person with whose recommendation I got the job, gave me some practical advice. “Pooshan,” he said, “you are new to this job. So you have to put up withyour colleagues officers whether or not you like their behaviour, and adjust yourself to others.”

The desire for money has never awaken in me. I never gaze facinated at money in my hands. Whatever money comes to me, I straightaway keep it in my pocket. My wife has tried over and over again to change my nature but my clear conscience does not surrender to her.

I have sometimes tried to adjust myself to my wife; make love to her in darkness. I shudder to think: “What if an impractical man likeme were to be re-born in her womb? What  if the foetus cries out “no” to being born in this world of untruth and pretension?”

I often try to comprehend the form of falsehood but it  scorches me and every atom of my being marshals to fight it. Nevertheless, I can’t flatly say “no” to my wife because the wish to make her happy hovers in my mind.

“Did you hear what I said? Do this job tomorrow itself and take the money you’ll get in the transaction carefully. Don’t take marked notes. But don’t be scared.” My wife’s voice begins to murmur again in the room.

“All right.” From the maze of my mind comes forth the reply proferred without thinking. I shake my mind to awakenness but I don’t have the strength to oppose my wife who is like a provoked serpent. I give comforting answers to her.

When I get up the next day after a sleepless night, the burden of my heart lies on my eyes and my legs are weak.

As I am getting ready for the office having dined, my wife says: “I will be going to a movie for the first show. When I come home in the evening, let me have the happy news of you having done the job and having got a thousand rupees.”

Walking along the street on leaden feet, I begin thinking of my job which I have held for just a month. It is temporary but likely to be made permanent. But...

I try to cast the truth out of my being but my efforts leave me exhausted. I remember last night’s episode, the words of Rita and my encounter with Jesus.

I begin walking faster. It is as if I were marching ahead in full battle array to fight an enemy named “Truth” (and thereby safeguard my livelihood) and slowly “Truth”, like a helpless animal, begins to slide away.

I sit awaiting the man who wants clearance for a permit. Thereby I can retain my job, please my wife and my boss too (who stands to gain a pile of money in this transaction). He comes.

“What’s your name?”

“M. N. D’Souza.”

I am shaken but try to regain composure. I get the permit papers ready and coaxing myself into courage, walk into the cabin of my boss for his signature. He signs without ado and says: “pooshan Mehta! You work pretty briskly. You will come up fast. I am pleased with you.”

“Feeling gratified, I come to my table. In a short while if I and D’Souza walk into the family room of the restaurant beside the office.

This is the first time I have taken bribe and am feeling queasy. But before my sight I see my wife and dangling sheafs of money. I try to swallow my fear. At my , I feel the presence of Jesus of yesternight but I try to ignore it. (I don’t even look .) I tell D’Souza “Come on! Hurry.”

As D’Souza opens his purse, a raging fire of conflict engulfs my eyes and heart. For, in a plastic folder of the purse is a portrait of Jesus martyred on the Cross gazing at me steadily. My heart bleeds. Thecolour of blood trickling from Jesus’s chest permeates my eyes with fury and I scream: “Mr. D’Souza! Aren’t you ashamed of offering bribe, being a follower of Jesus? Get out! Clear out of my sight this instant! You won’t get your permit.”

D’Souza is taken aand sits still. Collecting the papers, I rush to the office to escape from the curious onlookers and rest my head on the table. In a little while D’Souza follows me and enters my boss’s cabin.

I return home in the evening with the order terminating my services, in my trouser pocket.

Reaching home, I find it locked. I collect the keys from a neighbour and open the door. Resting in a chair, I try to discover myself. (It’s me.) I turn my gaze again towards the floor where the portrait of Jesus is lying shattered in a thousand pieces. (Nobody has yet cleared it up.)

(Whenl my mother learnt of the deep love between me and Rita, she threatened Rita: “If you don’t keep out of the way of my Pooshan I shall commit suicide.” It was after hearing
this, that one day, in my absence, Rita placed this portrait of Jesus in my room, with “From Rita” inscribed at the . She then left for an unknown distant destination and I, in deference to my mother’s wishes, marry again. All this I learnt from my mother as she lay on her death-bed.)

I wriggle out the portrait of Jesus from the midst of the glass-pieces. The form that arises seems to clasp me and the shattered truth confronts me in a new incarnation. Two tear-drops trickle down my eyes. But they are the tears of joy and victory! As I gaze at the Taj Mahal motifon the calendar fluttering in the wind, my Truth redeems its full value. (The Rita of yester years seems to stare at me from the Taj Mahal motif.)Now I have fear of nobody, of nobody because I have remained true to myself and have not changed.

* Goddess of Wealth.