Atheist for a Day

Jainism is one of the sects under the vast umbrella of Hindu religion. It began, like all sects do, as a reform movement and stayed under the umbrella unlike Buddhism which disappeared from India altogether and acquired its own persona in China and Japan. Bhagwan Mahavir preached self abnegation of an extreme variety as the only way to break out of the cycle of birth and death. It included not eating anything which moves or anything that grows below the ground. Some extremists, my parents among them, also believe that wearing clothes is a luxury which prolongs the cycle and delays the union of soul with the Prime Soul.

When I reached the rebellious teen age I refused to go to school in my birthday suit. Instead, with the help of other like minded teens I acquired the jeans of latest fashion, matching shirts without the collar and stylish jackets frayed at the right places. I even developed a taste for animals, killed and cooked by someone else of course. My parents tolerated the clothes but when my mother found out about the nefarious taste buds I had developed, the dam broke. The flow of her tears stopped only after my dear father put all my books and other belongings in a paper bag, handed them to me gruffly and pointed to the world beyond. My siblings cheered when I passed the gate without the slightest idea of where I was going. It must be my noble deeds in the past life that pointed out the direction. I turned left when I got to the main thoroughfare. After an hour of walking in the blowing dust and sweltering heat of the Indian summer at its height I reached the outskirts of town and found what seemed to me the salvation. A small sign on the gatepost said Swami Dharyanand’s Nastic Ashram – Retreat for Atheists. Retreat is what my exhausted body, perhaps soul as well, needed. I had no idea who Atheists were, what they did or what they believed or not believed in. Retreat is what attracted me. I opened the gate and trudged the small narrow walkway to the door of a small rather dilapidated bungalow. The door was open and there was no sign of activity from inside. “Hello, is any one in?” I said, in a soft voice so as not to disturb some one in meditation but attract notice otherwise.

After a few moment of suspense I heard some steps. An elderly lady dressed in a green cotton sari, her grey hair streaming behind her, appeared. “What can I do for you?”
“I have just been thrown out by my parents because I did not follow the basic tenets of our religion. I am looking for shelter in return for my labour,” I replied
“You have come to the right place. This is the home for people who do not believe in God and who do not practice any formal religion. You are welcome to join us and become part of our crusade. Make this humble cottage your home. We are one big family who share all the joys and sorrows, comforts and hardships like brothers and sisters. Most important, we share the goal of relieving the world of the blinkers of religion. It is a tough task but under the leadership of Swami Dharyanand, we are making steady progress.”
“I am so relieved I found you. I do hope I can help you in achieving the laudable goal. Please count me in as a disciple of the Swami,” I said while bowing down to touch her feet.
“No, no no,” she said stepping back. She added, I felt with unnecessary vehemence, “Only person you touch the feet of is the Swami and that too just to pick specks of dust to rub on your forehead so some of his wisdom can pass on to you.”

She led me to a large room in the back with wooden bunk beds at two levels. I guessed the room had twenty beds. Each bed had a thin mattress and a thinner blanket. Every thing in the room, walls, ceiling, beds, mattresses, blankets was green. The floor was concrete which was cracking in places. Most of the beds looked as if they had never been used. I put my paper bag on one nearest to the entrance. “Let me introduce you to the Swami now,” the lady said walking towards a side door. I obediently followed.

We entered a spacious bright room with a large open window on my left. With the exception of a small bright green door in the corner on the right, the other two walls had floor to ceiling shelves filled with books. Again, the ceiling and the exposed walls were painted bright green and the floor was concrete. There was a large mahogany desk in the middle of the room with a high backed chair placed precisely in the middle on the other side. On my side of the table were two low stools, presumably for the visitors.

“Wait a minute here,” the lady said before disappearing through the back door. I moved closer to examine the desk. There was a telephone on one side, a heap of files on the other. With a few exceptions the books on the shelves looked as if they had not been opened for centuries. The room did have a musty smell, now that I think of it. I was moving towards a bookshelf when the door opened and a handsome young man in a green long cotton shirt, green baggy pants and bare feet entered briskly. He was no more than twenty five, perhaps five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds, lustrous dark hair parted in the middle and clean shaven face more beige than brown. He stopped a few feet from me and stood erect waiting for me to make a move. The response of the lady when I greeted here crossed my mind. I bent down, touched his feet with fingers of both hands and then rubbed the fingers on my forehead. A heavenly smile flitted across the angelic face. He pointed to the stools and moved towards his chair.

He leaned back, his dark eyes penetrating through the skull into my innermost thoughts. After a long pause which unnerved me not a little, he said his first words to me in a soft sing song voice, “You wish to join our Ashram. That is good. We are always in need of followers in our fight to contain the spread of various religions. Younger the new converts the better. They have more energy and are more persuasive in discussions when they are in their teens and twenties. Tell me something about yourself.”
This was the first time in my life a stranger had asked me that. I hesitated for a long moment before venturing, “My name is Ravi, sir. I am just finishing grade 8. My parents are strict Jains and they expect me to be a strict vegetarian and go naked even in the winter. When I refused they booted me out of the house, in a manner of speaking sir, they do not really wear boots, only cloth slippers. I now want to work with you to save other kids from the rigours of such religions. All I need is food and shelter and I will devote all my energies to your, sorry sir, our cause.”

Swami’s eyes had not wavered for a moment. The pause now was longer than the earlier one and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. My eyes were focused on the table as if I were counting the specks of dust on its surface. At long last his soft voice played pleasantly on my ear drums, “I will accept you as a disciple although you are much too young to spread the Word by yourself. You will be in training for next two years. During this period you will help the staff in the maintenance of the Ashram. If you pass the test at the end of two years, you will become a deputy to the Junior Assistant Preacher.”
“Thank you very much, sir. What will be my responsibilities as the deputy to the junior assistant preacher, sir?”
“You will do what the JAP tells you to do. You might carry the bag of brochures in a back pack and hand him one when some one opens the door on his rounds. You may prompt him if he needs it during his spiel. You will do whatever helps him and whatever he asks you to do. When he determines that you are ready to preach, he will make that recommendation to the Assistant Preacher who will send it to the Preacher with his comments. Eventually, it will arrive at this desk for the final approval. If I am having a good day, you will win the promotion.”
I was impressed by the orderly process. I did have a slight problem though, “The place is very quiet, sir. Where is every body?”
“They are all out in the field converting the God fearing into blessed heathens. They should be back by the dinner time. Unless you have some serious questions, run along and help Sita Ma. She is in the garden.”

I made my way to the garden where Sita Ma was pulling carrots out of the ground. She showed me where the potatoes were and told me to dig a handful. Apples and pears were picked next. I helped her carry two buckets of produce to the kitchen. “The dinner will be ready in an hour. You can use this time to study the teachings of Swami Dharyanand,” she said pointing to a thick binder on a side table in the dining room. My tummy was protesting a little too much for me to read anything, leave alone something as important as Swami’s teachings. “Do you mind if I take a walk in the garden first?” I asked looking greedily at the fruit trees. “That is okay. Just watch the monkeys,” Sita Ma kindly consented.

I had barely munched through an apple and a pear when I heard some excited voices from the kitchen. I suppressed my inclination to join them; I could here the conversation while eating another perfectly ripe pear within my grasp and no one would be interested in the opinion of a raw recruit anyway. I could see Sita Ma in the kitchen listening attentively to two men and two women dressed in, you guessed it, green apparel. If I heard it correctly, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, one member of the group had an epiphany when they were passing a church, they did not say of what denomination. This individual stood in front of the building as if in a trance. Then shook his head gently from side to side and said, “Friends, I just heard from God. My place is with the Believers – those who believe in Father who is in Heaven. God has given me yet another opportunity to take my place in the pew. I pray you too, my friends, will see the light one day. Till then, goodbye.” With that he ran into the church and for all they know the repentant erstwhile atheist collapsed in front of the Cross, stream of tears making a mess of the dirt floor.

Sita Ma introduced me to other disciples but they showed little interest in me, perhaps they were starving too. The dinner was even more plain than any served by my mother. The only spice used was a touch of rock salt. The minimum amount of butter was used and chapattis were served dry – that is without a dollop of butter as my mother did. The conversation was all about the deserter, the Assistant Preacher who was Swamiji’s favourite disciple. When I remarked on Swamiji’s absence, Sita Ma told me that he cooked his own meals and had them by himself so that his meditations were not interrupted and the disciples could have uninhibited conversation. I had my own suspicion but I kept it to myself.

Life at the Ashram came to an abrupt end the next day. A short thin man appeared early in the morning followed by four hefty men who may have been the members of the national heavy weight wrestling team. The man was the owner of the building who had not been paid the rent for several months. He had obtained the evacuation order and had brought enough muscle to enforce it.

I picked up my paper bag and retraced the steps of the previous day. As a sign of reconciliation I took off the clothes I was wearing before entering the house. My mother was thrilled to see her reformed son and it wasn’t long before I was happily drinking mango juice and eating buttered chapattis with spiced curries, a bowl of assorted sweets within reach.