“Now that you’ve the makings of a swami…”
“You want me to acquire the trappings of an asharam to make it big in the global business of pseudo spiritualism,”he interjected with a smile. “Well I’ll be going to the village where swamisof the daywouldn’t ever venturethough the yogis of yore all lived in the jungles. I shalltry to help the peasants to educate their kids; by the way what else serves the mankind better than educating the children of the underprivileged? It’s the educated children that make aware fathers to perpetuate cultured generations, and the more they are, the better it is for the world. Oh, why it didn’t occur to me before I destroyed all that money? If only we learn from nature; won’t all trees brave the vagaries of weather to bear their fruits to serve the species? But ravaged by the vicissitudes of life, how I had lost the opportunity to bestow the bounty to the needy; even otherwise, man is inexorably distancing himself more and more from the nature by dwelling in excuse me for the well-worn phrase, the concrete jungles.”
“I too have to share the blame for I only talked about charity and not empowerment.”
“Why worry over the spilt milk any way,” he said. “I’ll play my part in my village with what is left of my money; besides as life there is vitiated by caste prejudices and beset by religious superstitions, I shall try to open the village minds to rational thinking. But as a novelist, I see a bigger role for you on the rural stage for I feel there is a need for novels that enable the villagers to contemplate about their human condition. While the current fiction in the urban setting would seem another world for them to identify with, the novels set in the rural background don’t help them either for they are meant to showcase the village life for the urban world. If only you come and stay in my village for a while, you might conceive a novel or two that might make a difference to scores of village folks.”
“Why not, won’t I have your insights for inputs?”
“Before that, if you think it’s worth the trouble and helps the urban public, you may as well write about my life and times,” he said. “If what I hear about the publishing world is true, then all your effort might come to naught, but still, if you’re passionate about it, and are prepared to face the ordeal that getting published is, then go ahead forthwith for why deny the benefits of contemplating over my misled life for those who might die before I cease? If ever my memoir makes a difference to one person, then I can see some purpose in my meaningless life and should it find a place in the best-seller charts, well, who knows which books get there, all the better it is for you. But were you to fail to find a backer, let not frustration rule your head for strange are the ways of the publishing world, in deed the course of life in the world at large. That there could be many facets of life which defy its normality of character I had only realized from that Satish-Sarala episode; how strange that men and women should visualize a comfort zone for the fulfillment of their sexual fantasies with total strangers rather than with their intimate friends, and that’s one of the many imponderables of life. Maybe, had the poor guy swapped his spouse with one of his friend’s wife, it wouldn’t have been a swap for nope as it turned out to be for him, but then its nature that prevails. Well, now that I have left my past to you for its future care, let me nurse what is left of its future as best as I can.”