2nd part
Turning to Naroo,
Dattprasad asked Naroo softly, “Whence you have started this
habit?” after stopping for a while he continued, “Naroo, you know
this is my profession. I have to help people in their religious
necessities. Whether you believe in it or not that is immaterial for
the society. They believe in all these rituals and so long as they
want it somebody or the other will have to perform it. Then why not I
do it. I have been doing this for all my life; all the priests have
been doing it for all these days. Your believing or not believing
makes no difference for them or for me then, why you create this
drama? For some long minutes there was no conversation in that room.
Every body was concentrating on the breakfast.
Naroo murmured, “I was
under the influence of that drink.”
“Whence have you
started this habit?”, repeated Dattprasad.
“My friends forced me
to have some yesterday. It was a birthday party and I could not say
no to them. After all we all work together in the same office, you
know.” He looking to his wife replied. Naroo's wife knew him so
well that could immediately make out that it was a white lie. She
kept quiet. And this is how the family of Naroo came to know of his
this habit.
“I hope you will never
ever again drink such a filthy stuff". Spoken Dattprasad in
anguish and questioned Naroo, “Is it the very first time that you
drank?” looking to Naroo Dattprasad told him that he has seen life
and world for more years than Naroo and he can understand a white
lie.
“Now you tell me my
intelligent son, can you tell me what is worst? Drinking or
performing rituals for the satisfaction of the simple people?”
Dattprasad had thrown a bold question to his son who always ridiculed
the practice. Then Dattprasad explained to Naroo.
“We all Brahmin always
know that these performances do not have any actual meaning but still
we do it because it is the need of the people. You see, human being
is a ceremony-minded creature. He needs to perform some ritual or the
other when he does anything. As we have social mannerisms there are
spiritual mannerisms. Showing respect to deities, showing respect to
our ancestors, showing respect to our land and the spirits of the
place or you may call it vastu devata are coming under the realm of
spiritual mannerisms. Do you understand?” He asked Naroo.
I remember, Dattprasad
continued, when you were in the gurukul to learn the ritual
practices, one boy uttered the sutras wrongly and on that you raised
your voice but instead of supporting you the teacher told you to keep
quiet. And you had come to me to complain about it. Do you remember
that?
Naroo nodded vehemently
looking straight in father’s eyes. “Yes I remember.”
“And ever since that
incidence you became a non-believer. Am I right?” said Dattprasad
smilingly. Naroo was serious and did not show any expressions on his
face. “So what of that?” Naroo blurted.
Your teacher was in a way
right and also wrong. Told Dattprassad right because, the correctness
of the sutra is immaterial. They do not have anything to do with the
performance. Even if you utter anything else as ordinary as blabber,
does not matter! The performance has no effect on anything or anybody
but the people for whom the performance is made. Do you understand
what I am saying? Asked father. This is a sort of psychological
treatment we give to people to pacify them. And that is why we
Brahmins did not change over to modern languages and continue the
practice in the lost language like Sanskrit! So that people would
never understand anything we utter in the name of a sutra or a
mantra! And so the mistake of the boy was not important. And so the
teacher was right! What is important for our profession is the
quickness and smoothness with which we perform the ceremony. It must
appear to be a perfect ceremony. Any floundering during the
proceedings and the performance suffers considerably. So, even if a
Brahmin makes any wrong utterance of the sutras or simply forgets the
in between sutras it does not matter so long as the performance is
working all right for the host! Do you remember, we Brahmins go in
pairs to perform any difficult puja. This is required to achieve that
smoothness of performance. Suppose a Brahmin goes alone and
unfortunately forgets a sutra or mantra then, that puja may appear
disturbed and the host is very particular about that. At such
eventualities next Brahmin shrewdly takes over the chanting of sutra
in whatever way but the continuousness is thereby maintained and the
host of the puja remains satisfied. My son, this are all tricks of
this trade. Duttprasad said in one breath all this and looking to
both Naroo and Naroo’s wife for appreciation he smiled. Naroo’s
wife was like a devotee for Dattprasad shastry. She was full of
appreciation for the way he explained the trick of the Brahmin trade
of performing pujas. Then after a pause Dattaprasad said, "and
he was wrong because as you pointed out rightly one must be perfect
in whatever he or she does! Those days of perfection are long past
gone, Naroo".
We just do things so that
we can make the living for ourselves. Nobody nowadays, understands
anything about these age-old sutras, even we do not! Who cares!
Completed Dattprasad. Hearing this justification of his father, wrong
doings in the name of a profession, Naroo showed the sign of being
completely frustrated. He began to look around showing disgust. He
actually did not want to make any argument with his father for two
reasons, firstly he knew any amount of talk with father will not
change his style of working and secondly he saw his wife was against
his all habits of always arguing and objecting to whatever his father
would do in the name of religion or rituals. As Naroo was not only
loving her but more than that had great respect for her, he did not
want to hurt her by doing any thing or commenting on what his father
had told.
Story continues in
this next post
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