Second Coming The Story of Nachiketa Installment 3

Today as Nachiketa sat on the bank of the river all those thoughts rushed through his mind like a vision of fleeting shapes of clouds. On his way he felt lonely and neglected. A while ago when he had left the cottage to reach the river-bank he was prancing like a young colt. Now he was walking with a ponderous gait, gazing at each pebble on the ground and sometimes kicking at the bigger ones vigorously.

When he reached the cottage he found his mother fatigued and busy. As usual she was making mistakes after mistakes and in rectifying them, was making blunders. His father was now seated near the sacrificial altar and repeating the words of the priest of the ceremony, while at the same time giving oblations and offerings of black sesame seeds and ghee to the altar of fire. Nachiketa tip-toed and sidled up to him,  and then very unobtrusively sat by him in subdued silence. The sound of the mantras was rising and falling with a steady rhythm. It filled the atmosphere with a vibrating energy. Nachiketa sat in rapt attention, watching his father’s actions, gestures and expressions. He had heard from the discussions he had listened to that this sacrifice was called ‘Kamya vishvajit’-one which would reward the sacrificer with the world of his desire. Only, he still could not make out  the nature of the world that his father desired. He wanted to ask, but knew what his father was going to say: “Stop asking questions!”

Poor and emaciated brahmins sat in a row on the right side. Each one was given something as a gift. Nachiketa watched in silent wonder. He would try to guess what the next gift would be. His mother had told him that almost everything that belonged to his father would be gifted away and that his father would be blessed and get the desired reward. Only, she did not know what reward he desired. Nachiketa was shocked out of his reverie when he heard a heart-rending cry from the cow-stead. It was his favourite cow Kapila, and sure enough, it was she being dragged to the courtyard where the ceremony was being held. Two hefty brahmins were pulling her towards the courtyard. The cow was resisting and kicking with all the fury she could muster. But soon her resistance gave way and she sank to the ground, foaming at the mouth with exhaustion and fatigue. Nachiketa got up in a split moment and rushed to her side. She had been old and sick for the last many days and he had been tending her. Surely, his father wasn’t going to push her out in this state! He stroked her forehead and though she was almost in a daze, she recognized his touch and responded weakly. Then she opened her eyes, as if to bid him farewell. Her silent look pierced his heart. True, he had understood silence. But the silence he had heard till then was benign, full of some unknown benediction and promise. This silence was totally unknown to him. This too was the silence of benediction, but so different! It simply said, “This is my lot, my little benefactor, and so be it! I must accept it. With all the gratitude I bless thee. Now let me go.”

In a flash, Nachiketa understood all this. There was the sound of something cracking at the back of his mind and then a deluge. One after another, all their emaciated cows, the whole herd of them, was led out of the stable. Their heart-rending cries drowned the steady chant of the mantras and seemed to make a mockery of it.

Nachiketa came back to his seat and sat there in stunned silence. He could hear nothing, not even silence. Within him there was chaos and din of voices. He had lost something else with the loss of that cow. He had lost his world of harmony. Nothing belonged to him then; not even his own inner world. His father would trample upon it at his will. His dreams of communion with his father were false. He had never been allowed to step into his father’s dominion, but one day he had hoped to take his father into the world that he had discovered-the world of the silent rivers, the skies, the forests, the night-sky.

But his father had shown him how vain he had been in cherishing this dream, because that was not the world that his father desired. Nachiketa could now see clearly what his father desired. He desired power, not strength. In one stroke he had demonstrated to him what power could do in a moment.