But this is not the only sin in me. I have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name and I guess, no punishment. What punishment awaits me it is to be discovered, for no such crime has ever happened in the annals of history.
It is dark here. There is not a ray of light guiding me. Nothing moves in this hole save my hand on the paper. I am alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. And now there is nothing here, save my one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before me the shadow of one head and it is so dark that I hardly can make out my hand. I must be hallucinating.
I am twenty-one years old. Five-ten, and this is a burden, for I have to bend while walking. I was born with a curse. I have always had thoughts which are forbidden. It has always given me wishes which men ought not to wish for. I know that I am evil, but there is no will in me and no power to resist it. Tell me does the snake bite itself to death just because it is poisonous. No it does not. So how can I commit murder, my own.
I try and restrict myself and not allow myself to give in to the temptations. Somehow every other person I know is good and wise. It is just me, who is a curse. As I look back upon the life I have lived, I would have been happy to be a nobody, than be a person who is an object of wrath.
I remember where I lived, earliest that I can remember. A home for the orphans, scores of them like me, who had been born in the same year. The sleeping halls were a long rows of beds upon which we lay thought of the dreams we had seen and tried to interpret them as rosily as possible. They said that we were loved by all and that we were meant to be a family. There was no worse crime than doing something which enraged the wardens and most of us, for better part of the year, spent our time in the cellar.
Later when I was sent to school, I was looked upon as if I had landed up naked. They worked on me with mercy and such superficial was it that my blood curdled and thickened. I was looked upon with such pity that most of the matrons were moved to tears whenever they worked on me. Ten years spent in protected confines, trying to lead life by the ringing of the bell. Getting up, eating, sleeping all regulated by the bell.
The prayers that we said were the most fake. “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers. Amen." Then we slept. The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.
It was not that the learning was too hard for me. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from others, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked upon me. So I fought against this curse. I tried to forget the lessons, but I could always remember them even after forgetting. I tried not to understand what the Teachers taught, but understood it before the Teachers had spoken.
It was not this but the deviancy I had shown which made them tired of me. It was the questions which I asked about the myths and the mysteries. I myself do not know why I asked what I asked, probably some force at work inside me, making me do it. And questions gave me no rest. I do not know why we seek what we do not know. But I could not resist it, just like any evil influence, impossible to be rid off. I asked myself for years why must we know what we want to know, but I had no answer.
I loved science, for it could answer some of those but philosophy was even dearer for it could answer anything provided one was willing to be blind and deaf.
They never took off the drapes for me to see the world and all I saw was what I imagined. And was it my fault that I imagined the cursed and evil? It was not my fault. Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Strange are the ways of evil. I defied everyone and now that they have had enough courage from standing in the corner, they pounce upon my back and hold me guilty of crimes, I have committed. But I wish to ask why do we do work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it. The evil of my crime is not for the human mind to probe. I do not remember a stage in human civilization when such a crime had been done. One of originality!!
And yet there is no shame in me and no regret. They say that I am a wretch and a traitor. Those who do not question know only the trivial side of love and faith, it is to question and charge them that we show faith and love. And I know in my heart-- strange are the ways of evil!--in my heart there is the first peace I have known in my twenty years.
“Shoonya”
Comments