Decades back, after entering into service, there was a desire to go on a pilgrimage to the holy temple of Tirupati. A friend advised me to pay a visit to the Sri Kalyana Venkateswara Swamy Temple at Srinivasamangapuram also, located about 12 km away from Tirupati town. He cautioned that the last bus from Srinivasamangapuram would leave at 7 PM, so as not to get stranded in that remote village. Having completed the pilgrimage at Tirumala, I returned to my hotel room in Tirupati town by afternoon. As plenty of time was there at my disposal, I ventured by a local town bus to Srinivasamangapuram. After a brief journey of about 45 minutes, the bus came to the final destination. I alighted and surveyed the desolate village, saw the temple (small with no boundaries or walls), at a distance and walked in that direction.
The time was around 4 PM, the temple was closed, and a notice board stated that evening worship time was between 5 PM to 8 PM. One more hour to go, no human being to be seen in the vicinity, a few goats roaming around and several monkeys playing on the neem trees were the only signs of activity. There was nothing to do except to enjoy the splendid isolation and quietness, so I sat on the footsteps of the temple.
The God inside and the human being sitting outside, experiencing enchanted aloneness amidst supreme silence. This then seemed to be the ethereal realm of solitude, bathed in simple silence, nothing to seek, nothing to yearn for. Even a small physical movement of mine would have disturbed the enthralling sublimity of the moment.
Sitting on the granite footsteps of the temple, touching the silence, tasting the flavour of silence, immersing in silence, it was an unusual tryst with divinity. The sharp and continuous ringing of a bicycle jolted me from the bliss. A priest had arrived on a bicycle. I stood up, and fragments of silence that had enveloped me fell off my body, effortlessly and instantly. I followed the priest into the temple. He quietly proceeded to light the oil lamps. Just the three of us — God, the priest and myself — wrapped in quietness, different from the ethereal silence experienced a few minutes back.
Chiming bells announced the arrival of more devotees, monkeys also trooped inside, curious to see what the human beings were doing. Quietness vanished, as incantations and exclamations of the devotees rose in crescendo.
Time which seemed to have stopped till now, seemed to be flowing again, as it was nearing 7 PM. Darkness had set in, there seemed to be no electricity in the village, a flicker of oil lamps here and there were the only traces of light. Waiting for the bus like me were a few rustic villagers. Out of the darkness, an old lady and a young boy were coming to join those of us waiting for the bus. The boy shyly asked me if I was going to Tirupati town and if I could take the lady along. I agreed thinking that the boy wanted me to pay the old lady’s bus fare. What an arrogant thought for me, who had only moments before experienced the joy of bliss and silence. The lady seemed very old, perhaps over 75 years in age, her wrinkled frail body, and dangling breasts were draped in a simple dark saree, loosely covering her frame. The long-awaited bus came and a few of us got inside. As was the custom, the old lady boarded through the front entrance and the menfolk through the rear entrance. The bus commenced its journey to Tirupati town.
When the conductor came, I paid for two tickets and pointed to the old lady sitting in the front as the other passenger. The fare was just one rupee per passenger in those days. After a few moments, loud noises of some argument from the front of the bus were heard. I saw the old lady and the conductor having a heated argument and the conductor was pointing his finger at me! The conductor then shouted at me that the lady was objecting to why he collected her bus fare from me! Soon she turned to me and with folded hands pleaded “Son, please take back your one rupee, otherwise I will have to be reborn in this world to repay this one rupee!” The mind instantly recoiled, as if it had received a resounding slap. It was an arrogant thought that made me think that the old lady and the young boy wanted me to pay her bus fare. But here she was standing, despite her apparent poverty, wanting to repay even that small infinitesimal amount, wanting to ensure that no karmic debts are left behind.
My first teacher of karma, explaining the kindergarten lessons, about karma, in the darkness of the night, the classroom an old town bus, the classmates – a few rustic villagers. My classmates were yelling at the old lady to sit down, after all, it was only a rupee. The teacher of karma would not entertain such a demand. Throughout the journey, our eyes met repeatedly, and she kept renewing her plea to accept that one rupee. I sat in shameful silence, my arrogance completely reduced to smithereens. In an instant, all the lessons she taught me initiated me into the incomprehensible subject of karma, the intriguing topic of rebirth, and that life is all about karmic repayments and settlement of all kinds of debts.
The bus reached its final destination and the few passengers were hurrying to get out. The teacher and the pupil looked at each other’s faces, perhaps for the last time, in this lifetime. There was another vain plea not to create a new karmic account. The reluctant pupil and the disappointed teacher melted into the darkness and took their different return paths.
Back in the hotel room, it was a sleepless night, as the mind was trying hard to grapple with the trigonometry of karma. The great stock exchange of karma, functions nonstop, determining the course of individuals, families, communities, as also nations. Everybody is just an agent of karma. Our stories of a lifetime are filled with tales of helping strangers, backstabbing friends, deceitful enemies, stepping in and out of events, and creating and dissolving bonds and ties. Karmic settlements very often spill out beyond a lifetime, stretching perhaps over many lives and through various life forms.
That old lady in the bus was scrupulously maintaining vigil over every action of hers, a karmic diligence, a sort of extreme simplicity. Life seems problematic to the vast majority due to constant karmic interference that involves people in all kinds of tangles and knots. Wriggling out unscathed is the great karmic challenge, it cannot be outsourced to any god or godman. The patient in the hospital, the soldier on the battlefield, the prisoner in jail, farmers toiling in the hot sun, construction workers braving the sun and heat on the roads, building multistoried apartments and office blocks, everyone engaged in burning away their karmic burdens. Perhaps, one human lifetime may not suffice to erase a karmic burden, hence rebirths.
Many repeated visits to Srinivasamangapuram, spread across decades, have not helped me to locate my first karma teacher. Who knows where and how she has been reborn? But I keep anticipating a lady to hand over to me a one-rupee coin as settlement of an old karmic debt.
The writer is a retired officer of the IRS and the former director-general of the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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