In the name of God

In the name of God
Renuka Narayanan

When Markandeya turned sixteen and was told he would have to die, did he lie down quietly, weeping? Or did he meditate with such painful force and focus that God had no choice but to appear and save him? Who was that God? Say Shiva, if you like, but I think it was Markandeya’s own will to live that got him out of trouble.

Likewise, an earthquake may be an Act of God, but look how humans have to mop up. Seeing so many deaths brings back our own personal sorrows. Remember the tears we shed, the intense hugs we exchanged after funerals, swearing to long-lost relatives and friends, to keep in touch? But life’s insistent rhythms seized us again and we’ve always been too busy to keep graveside or cremation ground promises. However, there is a name the elders have for the fear of death that we all feel when our ranks have recently been thinned: shamshaan gyan, the understanding born of the cremation ground. It consists of a strong revelatory flash of insight: how pitifully fragile our lives really are.

At times of calamity, it’s very hard to justify the existence of Divinity. The face of Truth seems hidden and hidden and hidden. If there is a kindly, loving God, why do such horrible things happen? Maybe we should make ourselves remember that calamities are not new to the human race. Life goes on, pitilessly. There were always earthquakes, floods, fires, famines, wars and killing fields. But belief in Divinity has also endured, side by side, right from the dawn of remembered time, when the Vedic people sang to ‘‘Pushan, lonely traveller, guard our cattle and kin from disaster, keep the wolf from our path, lead us to broad and lovely acres by sweet-flowing rivers’’.

It’s as if humanity clings stubbornly to the idea of God despite the most frightful devastation, because a world without God is too bleak and horrible to contemplate. But everything else has to come from us. That’s why there’s so much fuss made, don’t you think, about ‘‘God-in-us’’? If we are not good to each other, who will be? God? But God seems trapped inside US and if not let out by us, will simply not exist.

All religions say this in their own way and it is in times of trouble that such beliefs are tested. For the only hope we really have left, to cling to, is that when things go wrong, something will go eventually go right and we must help each other all we can until then.

Prayers for strength and luck can gently help. Prayers almost always do. But who will kiss and make it better, meanwhile?

There really seems no other answer to that, again, but ‘‘God-in-us’’. The armed forces (bless them), the Ramakrishna Mission, the RSS (credit where credit is due: they have a fantastic track record of disaster service), are all pitching in, as they always do. I’ve spotted beloved veteran Tamil actress Manorama making heart-rending appeals for Gujarat on Sun TV: ‘‘These are our own people, how can we in Tamil Nadu sleep in peace if we don’t do something?’’ I’m sure other regional channels have similar messages.

Innumerable NGOs, whose relief work is now directed by Sushma Iyengar, have been working already for some years in the region. The Voluntary Health Association of India just called to say that the painters, musicians and dancers of Delhi want to get up a fund-raiser. The way the world has rushed to help is deeply touching. What contribution does that leave for us, ordinary people, to make, after writing cheques and donating supplies and possibly a spot of shram daan? For God’s sake, let’s be nicer to each other while we’re alive, before it is the turn of others to learn shamshaan gyan from our passing.