Kamalesh was sitting in the balcony of his house,
watching the Sun go down. He liked sitting like this every evening; When the sky
would be blushing red as the Sun kissed her goodbye for the day. He loved the light
breeze, the blood-red light that slipped over the leaves of the coconut trees near
his house. The breeze seemed to come like a guest to him; it seemed to tell him the
wonders of what it had seen during its travels, and the tall coconut trees used to
exclaim at it by rustling their leaves. Ever since he had got his last medical report,
he had not really paid attention to the evening panorama; but today, he was drinking
it all in, because he knew, as he sighed softly and wrapped his shawl more snugly around himself, that night was eventually coming, and this might be a last.
Although the Sun could not be seen any longer, still, the blood-red glow in the sky contrasted deeply with the growing shadows, until a sudden darkness seemed to gain its place and come up, right up to a chair beside Kamalesh. Outside, at the garden, the darkness was taking on the sky too. The darkness which came up to Kamalesh had a peculiar characteristic; It seemed solid, as though it had a definite shape. But what shape it actually had was impossible to discern in the gloom. Yet, it could be sensed rather than seen, even in the gloom.
Kamalesh looked as though a long-awaited guest had finally come.
“So you came, ”he said calmly, as though he and the darkness knew each other for ages.
The darkness shifted, and suddenly, a Voice spoke.
“Yes, I had come, as you knew very well I would.” The voice sounded eerie, unearthly; it was devoid of any emotion, but it was not blank. It did not sound menacing. Kamalesh thought it sounded chilling.
“You should be happy. You are due a soul , ”Kamalesh said.
Out of the confines of the darkness, the Voice spoke again.
“What is happiness? How do you feel it?”
“Please don’t tell me you’re patronizing me.”
“Why should I?”
“So then why can’t you?”
“I’m not supposed to feel anything. You are. That is your destiny, not mine.”
Kamalesh frowned”Don’t you have one ?”
“Tell me, what is destiny ?”
“To fulfill a certain purpose, to attain a goal……”
“You’re right. Now you know what I do. I can’t choose my goal, because I don’t know the exact reason of why I do what I do, so I have no “destiny” to know of. He is indeed a Masterful Painter.”
Kamalesh was staggered now. This was entirely beyond what he had been taught ever.
“You-you d-don’t mean to say that He has any relation with you ?”
The Voice now laughed, a raw, uncanny laugh that made the hair on the back of Kamalesh’s neck tingle, and along with it, it seemed to terrify the trees beside, as indicated by their rustling. The laugh chilled the very marrow of Kamalesh’s bones; But he did not say anything. He just wrapped the shawl around him more tightly. The Voice stopped laughing, and it spoke.
“Oh, I forgot. You people see both of us as arch-enemies, don’t you? Forgive me, but the fault lies with you. Never before has any human asked me such a question, apart from those who already knew the answer. But yes, we do share a common relationship. We work in an eternal partnership. He is my best friend, and I am his best friend. Wihtout me, there is no he, without he, there is no me. And, without Us, there would be no You.”
Kamalesh still couldn’t understand.”What do you really mean?”
“It’s quite simple; He paints a magnificent masterpiece on a canvas, and then, I rub it clean for any more use. That’s my work. The rest, His.”
Kamalesh looked up eagerly.”Will I see Him when I come with you ?”
“And what exactly do you stand to gain by seeing him?”
“Well….”Kamalesh was quiet. It was an unusual question.
“ I’m curious. Every now and then, as I walk among you, I hear that you’re all crazy to see him. But what for? Neither can you work with him, for He works for you. Neither can you confide in Him, for He already knows you. Neither can you Understand Him. So what do you want to see Him for?”
“I just want to. Isn’t that enough ?”there was a hint of anger now in Kamlalesh’s voice.
“Well, it depends entirely on him. When I wipe out the canvas, He may choose to stare at it a bit before painting again.”
Kamalesh smiled at last. “He really is a Masterful painter.”, he said, as he looked up at the sky which was studded with stars and which twinkled at him like diamonds.
Suddenly, the Darkness beside him caught his attention again, and he looked at it very minutely, as though willing his eyes to penetrate the veil of darkness that shrouded the owner of the Voice. He gave up and asked, “Why can’t I see you? Why are you so dark?”
The Voice replied” You can’t see me, because you choose not to. I remain incomprehensible to you, because you choose to incomprehend me. Try to comprehend me, understand me, and you’ll see me. I’m just a manifestation of your fears of me, of what you think me to be.”
“ But why do you appear so vile and corrupt and dark?”
“Why do you think of me like that? What have I done that you think of me like that?”
“Oh, you have done nothing! Only you cleaned up the canvas for him! You tear fathers from families who need him desperately, sons from mother’s laps, you tear societies, you take away people when others need them the most!”
“Very True. And very Human. You people don’t ever see two sides of the same coin, do you? Tell me, do you ever see anything except the number on the thin blocks of metal you call currency? You don’t bother to see the other side. You never pay attention to it. Had it ever occurred to you that even fathers of needy family find themselves overburdened and wish for a better life often? Had it ever occurred to you that even you as a son wished to have another life when your parents took you to task severely? Had it ever occurred to you that people burdened with the task of guiding the society want solace, want another life? We only give them what they want. Tell me haven’t you yourself wanted another life ever? He can only paint another picture on the same canvas if the first one has been removed.”
Kamalesh was quiet. He knew the Truth; standing at this point of his life, he did not wish to find solace in deluding him into believing that he had indeed never thought of what the Voice had said. He knew that it was right. He knew that that was the Truth, whether he liked it or not.
Kamalesh’s eyes grew sad as he registered all this, and though what the Voice said, he felt a stabbing pain somewhere in his heart that he had to leave everything behind. The memories of sunlit days of his childhood, the rain-washed and sun-warmed youth of his, seemed to call to him from far away, and his heart felt heavy that he would have to leave all this behind; that he would never again see the leaves swirling in the light wind and falling to the ground on an autumn evening, the great Sun rising yet again far away as the first rays of it lit up the dark sky on a mid-summer evening, that the wind would never again blow a sweet-smelling flower into his lap as he sat at his verandah on fine spring evening; that those evenings like that of today would never again reflect his spirit and reveal the picture of his soul to him; that he would be going away, far away, where his soul might never see such wonders again; that he would never again walk about in a railway station and observe the daily waves of humanity passing through. He thought about this, and a long sigh escaped him.
The Voice seemed to notice his feelings. It spoke now, but almost soothingly, so that it grew more human. “Don’t be sad. Trust me, you shouldn’t be sad because He’s using you for a new picture again, but be glad that he wanted you to have these memories, these experiences . Trust me, He’s again going to do a masterpiece. I can’t make you happy; but at least you shouldn’t be that sad.”
Kamalesh made an effort to smile, but only looked as though he had a toothache. The Voice laughed , but this time it seemed more human.
It spoke then.” I know that you have trouble believing anything I have said to you today. But believe me, it’s really worth a second of eternity, a real honor to meet you. Humans….they don’t usually communicate with me. They are all eager for him, and never spares me a look. But you’re different. You don’t believe. Yet you listen. It’s so very rare of me to take humans like you. I’ve met only such few humans, who can see that nothing is divine, but everything is alive. That is the divinity of life. The fact does not lie in telling proudly that you’re divine; but that you’re human, you’re endowed with life. So many people realize that, but only when it’s too late. I can remember only few who saw that: a human sitting under a peepal tree and meditating about Truth; a human who drove the sheep about, and rejoiced in their life and of humanity and whom you people happily killed on a cross, and someone far back, who spoke of the divinity of Life to someone even on the battlefield, and who showed my true identity to him, which propelled him to fight whom he called his relatives.”
Kamalesh asked, “You know so much. Can you tell me what it means to be human?”
The Voice was quite for a while. Then it spoke, and its was now completely human.” To be a human means to love any human. To be a human means to put a cloth around a cold child sitting on the pavement. To be a human means to accept human emotions. To be a human means to see humanity in divinity. To be a human means to feel the tears escaping through the eyes at any tender emotion; to be a human means to feel sorry for a man who cannot see and to feel joy at the same time that he’s singing and begging for alms at some queue; that to realize that humans do have the ability to sing and feel the emotions even when he cannot feel the food in his stomach;that there lies the divinity of it, and the Humanity of it. That there is nothing as what you so fondly call God or Devil , but only us and you. Only Humanity and its two best friends.”
Kamalesh now smiled truly. The eastern horizon was now aglow with the sun rising. The early birds began to chirp, and the wind and rustling of the leaves of the coconut trees whispered something to Kamalesh, which he intently listened to. The Voice then spoke.
“He is calling……..do you hear him now?”
The first rays of sunlight hit Kamalesh’s face and lit up his verandah so that everything was now visible. Kamalesh looked beside himself and gasped, inspite of the situation. For he had seen who the Voice belonged to sitting at his side.
The One who had spoken to him now smiled at him and stood up. Kamalesh stood up. He nodded his assent. Then the One who had spoken to him again spoke.
“Do you see me?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Well, shall we go?”
Kamalesh smiled broadly now, as he felt the sunlight absorbing all his dark fears and prejudices. Then, the One stretched out his hand to him. Kamalesh took that hand, and stepped out from the confines of darkness within him to the light outside.
He had an important appointment to be kept.
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Somewhere far away, a baby cried out lustily.
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