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It promised a busy day, as usual and Devag's way of life was no better. His crutches supported his limping body and Devag could just hobble to his tiny spot (that he presumed to own) next to the Ayappan temple - between the narrow corridors where the street urchins played cricket, and off the open terrain that always exhibited different genres in entertainment from mysterious fire-swallowing experts to puppet-shows and mask-dances. It was the wee hours of the morning and Devag moved at a snail's pace into his spot, hopping and hobbling with great effort and strength. His checkered-pajamas were tattered and his shabby baniyan looked darker and rugged as if it was never washed in an entire lifetime; while one sleeve of his pajamas covered his left-leg, the other dangled loosely half-way over his broken right-leg. His thick whiskers-n-beard were darker than black clouds and his forehead was smeared with sacred white-ash that showed up in contrast to the dark towel he wrapped around his ears and over the head. Alms was a way of life for Devag and he always thanked his stars for ending him in such a fortunate place that continuously flanked with Ayappan-devotees and God-feared people around, who believed in attaining moksha by helping the needy; Devag believed in this conviction that the combination of the devotees and the average crowd that thronged the open terrain was self sufficient for him not only to earn his bread-n-butter - but also facilitating for meager savings an ordinary soul can think of. With great difficulty, he stretched one of his arms into a khadhi bag, pulled out a rusted aluminum metallic bowl, looked at the sky with deep sense of concentration as if he prayed to God and started his regular catchy verse - "Help Devag, the man in desolation and melancholy. Ayappan shall bless you. Moksha is certain. Help Devag…" And it was not long before the temple bells roared the awakening of the daybreak. Vociferous vegetable vendors showed up the streets and the golden-warm-rays of the Sun painted the huts and mountains with the natural glow and beauty that a poet cannot afford to miss. As minutes ticked by, paises in different denominations soon started to trickle into Devag's bowl, but something seemed uncanny; to Devag the earnings didn't seem normal, he could almost swear that his usual earnings were more aggressive and to his contention, he could not believe a stranger in his profession standing right across a few yards from him, stealing a considerable deal of Devag's earnings. Humanity as it may seem, desires as it may seem, jealousy as it may seem, possession as it may seem - Devag was in no contest for this game. The so-engaged stranger was of a thin personality with dark glasses clouding his face and that yard-stick he used with his left hand to help him walk and move around, was self sufficient for Devag to understand that a blind man had disruptively barged into his profession. "And may I ask you young man, who lent you that lovely little place where you are standing?" exclaimed Devag. The air stood still and the response was unheard. "Do you mind me asking you again Sir, I am sure you are blind, but wouldn't believe you to be deaf too" "Oh! You were talking to me Sir?" continued the stranger. "My name is Karunashrya, but you can call me Karuna. Can you help me Sir, I have never known what this world is. I can hear voices and noises and I feel the ether around. And beyond this, it is my consciousness and my breath and soul. Help this blind man a few paises" and that sounded too philosophical to Devag. "Oh Come on! You can call me Devag, that's all right. But mind you, you are at no liberty to that place where you stand. I am a limp settled for ages and even the mountains and that ether you mentioned knows who Devag is. If my profession of alms is disturbed with your presence here, it only means that you have to leave this place of mine" "Devag, so you are of my own profession, only a little more matured at this place perhaps," acknowledged the blind. "And may I ask you Devag, who claims this place to be of their own? Nothing is ours brother. We come to this world empty and leave this world empty - between that, material things are possessed temporarily and discarded with death. And now, come on brother, let's share this temporary transient of life in a healthier way" Karuna's eloquence was too superior to anything that Devag had heard before. Though he could secretly admit the depth of philosophy in Karuna, nevertheless he didn't give up his lifetime possession that he had achieved for more than a decade. "Now please come to reality young man. While we even brawl over this matter, we are losing our earnings. The schoolteacher who used to lend me at least a quarter of a rupee just over-showed me now, thinking I was not in my usual senses," continued Devag and perhaps more aggressively than ever. "Listen Karuna, there is no need for dealing and wheeling about the matter. I've lived here for more than a decade and this whole area is of my possession. The last one-hour of your stay is nothing but an excuse to you. You shall leave this place, but forever. And yes, you can call me Devag and not brother." "Ah! So and one-hour of my stay is infinitesimally small as compared to one decade of your stay. So much so I think over brother…oh sorry Devag, I am tempted to say this - may I ask you what does one hour and one decade mean to anyone in this world? To me who has never known what a clock looks like, who is naïve of what sunrise and sunset means, time is just an abstract convention of understanding humans have created. We never know what this moment is all about in terms of time; and when this very moment is obscure in definition, how can I understand what one-hour and one-decade means?" smiled Karuna and interrogated "Can you enlighten me brother, as to what this time is all about? Is it a discovery or an invention? I fail to understand!" "Oh! Cut the crap!! I don't need any flavor of your philosophy or your ideals. By the way, if your maturity is of such high esteem, why at all beg for a few paises; after all in your science-of-life, you don't care for anything that's material. Then may I ask your highness to clear this place for I am a common man longing for pleasures of humanity"? "Yes brother, I would love to. Strange as it may seem, for life is a roller coaster of different shades. Even while I am elucidating the principles of philosophy, I am very much an integral part of Maya; thus brother, so-much-so that I argue with you - in all - I am still an exponent of Maya…I can do nothing, but live with it. After all it's my material body and mind that's talking to you" Devag was in the very crescendo of antagonism and was completely saturated to hear anything further. While he admitted his possessive chunk of desire, he also realized that the blind-man after all had every right to stand there and beg for alms. Realizing the gravity of time that had elapsed, Devag decided to momentarily switch over to his daily routine - "Help Devag, the man in desolation and melancholy. Ayappan shall bless you. Moksha is certain. Help Devag…" "Ah Ha!" cried the blind-man. "Ayappan shall bless everyone brother. If Ayappan really had mercy on us, would he have ended us here? God today has become a catalyst to all human problems. In the wildest of our ignorance, God has been a puppet of human consolation, a stigmata to the essence of humanity, a vehicle to attain Moksha if I may call it" and ended up in a roaring burst of laughter that indicated an ominous attitude on one end whilst demonstrating a deep sense of philosophy on the other. Devag felt offended, but was reluctant to any further intervention. Even while his imploring continued, his companion did not engage himself in more than making life a parody in itself. His viewpoints were a blend of profound sense of mockery and philosophy that showed-up an inexplicable and unfathomable underlying character, Devag had never experienced before. As the evening rose, the twilight interspersed the street lamps and the open terrain blossomed with sensational energy circling in and out of it. The spherical lamps and streamers from all corners of the terrain illumined the area with a classic ambience the circus men couldn't have asked more for. A troop of men got down a truck and started to run all over the terrain floating a velvet carpet that encapsulated the terrain and led until the entrance of it where Karuna and Devag stood busy in their profession. The whole troop of men were glistening, clad in glossy-soft armors on their bare chest; their faces were painted in fluorescent yellow, blue and orange, their legs were protected with silk dhoti that was tied in an amusing manner and their heads sunk inside tall inflated cylindrical multi-coloured hats that shone like stars with the dazzle of twilight reflecting and streaming out in the air. These men seemed like a circular train of multicoloured lights as they ran one behind the other in a rhythmic fashion - that signaled the crowd of the mysterious shows that could ignite the moment. Soon silver sticks were dipped in gasoline solutions and were lit with red-and-green fire that shimmered across the body of the stick and flickered with voluminous smoke jetting allover the terrain. The men started to let out weird shouts and slogans and started to gobble the flickers of fire and blow them out with heavy breaths all over. Some of them threw the sticks of fire high up in the air, that zoomed like fireworks and some others aimed at swallowing them directly from above. There were screeches and squeals from all around that cheered the performers in watching the mystical play. Even as Devag watched the show and his companion showed no signs of excitement, a tall fellow from the troop tied two sharp and long knives below his arms and holding the stick-of-fire in his mouth, started to somersault and hop with his head-over-heels, taking on hop-after-hop right till the entrance of the terrain and ran into the pathway where Devag and his companion stood; a spark of fire that jetted from his mouth touched a fuse wire of the electric-pole below which Karuna stood and even while the fuse could catch the spark, Karuna stepped aside with a shiver that ran through his body and retreated a few steps back - only to observe that the fuse snuffed out. "Rouge! Rascal!" yelled Devag. "Catch hold of this scoundrel for if he were really blind, then how could he have sensed the fuse lit with fire?" and it wasn't too late for Karuna to realize his foolhardy attitude; and before the maddening crowd could feed on him, Karuna ran helter-skelter. A performer from the troop literally penetrated a fire-stick into Karuna's leg, while a few others caught hold of him, bashed him in the best spirits and stole him away from the place. "Crush him to pulp. He speaks of high ideals and this gibberish disguise of his has revealed his true colours. He was too good to be true; at last what an adventure this man is!!" The majority of the crowd followed the performers into the terrain while a few others went behind the so-called blind man of the day, not sparing a single bone of his. A couple of hours later the troop of artists cleared the place for they had rendered massive entertainment throughout the evening. The lamps and streamers were switched off and the temple gate was closed for the day. A couple of street vendors hooted away disappearing behind the terrain and all the little shops around made the end of their day and pulled the shutters down. The air was quiet and highway insects shrilled in the background. It was a hard day for Devag. He looked mysteriously around and slipped behind a pavement; he hopped into a muddy valley below the main road, slid himself through a thorny-fence, escaped behind the shrubbery bushes and jumped into a compound wall. He threw the crutches into a stoned rack, with great difficulty removed the gunny-knot he had tied around his right thigh along with his leg, and let out a cry - "Ahh!". Having unwrapped his towel, he removed his artificial whiskers and beard, washed his sacred ash, wore a neatly ironed shirt and a woolen trouser, a pair of bi-focal lenses and walked away swiftly towards the other end of the lane near a coconut groove; he unlocked the bicycle parked under a coconut tree and sped away with a great relief he had never felt before. "The rascal! He would have screwed my whole lifetime profession. I always knew playing blind was a risk, though I must admit he was too professional to be doubted; thank my stars for I choose to be a limp; though I balance the pain of my tied-leg with those regular breaks where I rest on the ground once in a while - the profession has saved me many years for now," he murmured with a smile in his thought. "But thinking on the contrary, perhaps it's time I realized the adverse effects; maybe I'll put an end to all this, open a small teashop with the savings and lead a relaxed life of peace and harmony" he whispered and sped away as fast as he could. GLOSSARY:
Ayappan: A Hindu God that is mostly worshipped in South India
Baniyan: An inner wear, above which a shirt is worn (generally)
Moksha: A Sanskrit term for being one with God
Khadhi: Traditional Indian clothing made of cotton, worn mostly during pre-independence days
Paise: One hundredth of a Rupee, the Indian currency
Maya: Illusion (the notion that the material world is an illusion is a strong belief in some Hindu philosophies)
Sreesha Belakavaadi
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