She was a very senior Indian Audit and Accounts
Service Officer. Her name was Shivangi Menon. Those days when she
qualified, very few girls appeared and
qualified for the Civil Services Examination. Those who were successful nourished a
secret desire to take aggressively compete with fellow officers. Superseding their
colleagues and going ahead of them was a profound tendency, a strange fire, and
a maddening urge with these young fiery women!!!
She too had nourished the same dreams. Being
a single child, she enjoyed both the love of a son and the care of a daughter from
her parents. Besides schooling her in a local Convent, her parents readily
agreed to whatever she said and pampered her absolutely by fulfilling all her
demands and aspirations. Little did they know that by doing so they were sowing
the seeds of egoism, conceit and vanity in their daughter.
During probation, she became friendly with an
Indian Administrative Service probationer Vikas Sharma, a happy-go-lucky,
flamboyant and impassioned young man. A strong lover of music both instrumental
and vocal, he also had a sweet tooth for delicious foods.
Soon both of them came very close and were seen
moving together along the serpentine roads of Mussorie during late nights trying to
discuss and explore future dreams of their life together. On weekends they
enjoyed booze and pop music in the Whispering Windows, a restaurant patronized
mostly by Westernized young. During moments of such dazedness, Shivangi opened
her heart to Vikas in the hope that he would sincerely respect her love, little
knowing that he belonged to a family where everything was weighed in terms of
money and riches. He however knew that
he was simply passing time with her and continued taking advantage of the openness
of Shivangi in the Academy.
After completion of training, both returned to
their homes. Vikas, in accordance with the wishes of his parents, proceeded
with his wedding procession to the house of the State Finance Minister to marry
his only daughter while Shivangi kept waiting and longing for him endlessly.
It was like an earthquake in the life of
Shivangi, tremors which she kept feeling continuously all her life. The
tremors would have subsided had she got a suitable match but neither she could
find anyone better in status compared to her nor even at par with her.
Frustrated, she finally decided not to enter into a matrimonial alliance all her life.
Shivangi tried her best to get herself out of
this shock but found it difficult. So she got lured to worldly pleasures,
chasing money and a hedonistic way of life. Gradually she started reading fiction
during her leisure besides indulging in drinking like a fish, listening to
Western music and even dancing with scintillating tunes in her solitude. Time
still fell heavy on her because neither smoking nor boozing helped.
When hope is lost in life, all elegance, grace,
glamour, and desire to show off is finished. One is overcome with a strange
sluggish attitude and inertness and the sense of inactivity overpowers. The
same happened with Shivangi. She started gaining weight day after day as layers
of fat gradually deposited on her body. All interest in life was lost for her
and the only thing that remained with her was to see days slip into nights and
nights turn into days.
Whatever the circumstances, life had to be lived.
Casual friends came in occasionally, passed time with her over cupfuls of wine, and left. She could find none among them who would extend to her a few words of
sincere warmth of love not to speak of owning her as a life partner. She had never imagined that life would take
such an unpleasant turn for her.
Meanwhile, she lost the solitary support of her mother who until then had
overshadowed her life in its true sense.
One day, while casually talking to the head clerk
of her office in whom she reposed faith, she was unable to hide her state of
utter desperation in life. In reply, the head clerk alluded to a topic that
astonished her to the core. He said, “Madam, I hope you remember a casual
worker who worked in this office long ago, Sadanand by name, a very gentle and good-natured man who had a spiritual
aura about him. Taking pity on his condition, he had been put on a casual job
by one of your predecessors. He worked for four to five years with sincerity and
then disappeared suddenly. After some time the Supreme Court in one of its
orders directed the Government to confirm all the casual employees and he was
one of them. Consequently, we began to search for him so that he too derives the
benefit of the windfall on the casual employees. It soon came to light that he
had withdrawn from active life and had become a Sadhu. He had established an
Ashram in a remote village which presents a wondrous spectacle. Thousands of
people visited him daily to seek his blessings. Through day and night, Bhajans
and Kirtans are sung by devotees. People say he has solved the problems of numerous
individuals with his spiritual healing touch. Lots of people with serious
ailments have been miraculously cured through his blessings. Surprisingly here
in this office, everyone took him as a simpleton and unworthy of anything
tangible!”
“Such things do happen. Human faces are usually
deceptive. Nobody knows what’s hidden inside this frail frame, both good and
bad! We all wear shoddy faces while the truth about us is known only to the
almighty God. There are many such people who are blessed with strange spiritual
powers but they do not display any traces of their exalted status from outside," responded Shivangi quickly.
From that day onwards Shivangi nourished a strong
desire to meet Swami Sadanand, though at the back of her mind was her own
official superiority which resulted in some reluctance too. It was a struggle
between her emotive behaviour and her reason.
"How would she go to meet and prostrate
herself before a person who was an ordinary casual worker in her
office?" she would ask herself. But soon her reason retorted, “He is no
longer your employee. He has renounced this world and become an ascetic. He is
now an illuminated soul closer to the truth.”
Again her emotive behaviour outpoured its own resentment,
“What would people say? Such a senior officer and bowing down before an
ordinary worker, a peon of yesterday!”
Her reason came once again to her rescue, “Let
people say what they say! Even Lord Rama didn’t escape the taunts of people!”
This fight between head and heart continued
for quite some time till one day her reason was the winner and she decided to
visit Swami Sadanand.
The next day, dressed in a simple khadi saree she
reached Sadanand’s Ashram. She experienced a wonderful feeling of the liberation of
spirit and ananda as she took
the first step towards freedom from the shackles of life.
How much was she bound by the chains of worldly affairs! Though she was highly educated and intelligent yet she was
unable to liberate herself from the ordinary fetters of life. In a life of
loneliness and solitude with no one around to take care of her, she often
wondered about her life's purpose. She drew a fat salary and owned a
decent bungalow where she was scared to live alone. It was in fact the
insecurities of her life that had overwhelmed her to the core. It is because of
loneliness that she shifted to a small flat and rented out her big house in
order to escape the insecurity on one hand and make some money on the other.
The rent she paid for the flat was less than half compared to earnings from the
house. Whenever she went on official tours she invariably ensured that the
bills are paid by her hosts. Like other officers, she too overbilled her
expenditures and claimed in her TA bills amounts far above what was
expended by her. Sometimes you could see her fighting with the caretakers on
petty expenditures.
It was beyond comprehension why she was so much
after money and stingy in her spending. For whom was she collecting all her
money and who was there to benefit from her huge savings? She could not be
called a miser because she lavishly spent on her foreign liquor, expensive
Cigarettes and Cigars. In fact, she had become addicted to certain habituations
that she could not shed away, so she continued with these things like the
sorrow that she had nurtured in her heart!
But now things were shaping up. Her visits to the
Ashram of Swami Sadanand became a routine for her. Swami Ji had also come to
know about her through common sources, so he extended due respect and
compassion to her and stressed upon her to make amends for her current behaviour
come what may. He sincerely desired that her life is saved from going
inordinately wasteful like that. Shivangi involved herself fervently in the affairs
of the Ashram. She made it a routine to be there every Friday evening without
fail after office hours and returned home on Sunday evening. She also took a keen
interest in the maintenance and upkeep of the Ashram and became its integral
part.
Time marched on and years slipped by. Shivangi attained the age of superannuation
and retired from her service. Strange enough, the office presented a deserted
look after she was gone which is rarely noticed in offices. Everyone missed her
cheerful and carefree attitude, lively conversations full of confidence with
her employees, attending farewell parties and extending lots of affection and
love to all.
After retirement, she engaged herself almost
full-time in the affairs of the Ashram. In spite of this, she did not seem to
realize the true purpose of her life. The more stress she lay on her mind
to get awakened to the truth of life, the more agony did she experience. Swami
Ji tried his best to take her nearer to the realities of existence but the
knots she had developed in her mind did not wear away. She continued to be
feeling a vacuum inside her and was far from the absolute truth.
After some time she permanently shifted to the
Ashram. Occasionally she fell into deep introspection thinking about
her past life and her wasted career. In her desperateness, she would sometimes
open her briefcase and examine her possessions, papers representing her
savings in fidelity bonds and equity shares, bank deposits, and the ownership of
immobile properties. She would often laugh looking at them, thinking about her
inability to live a successful life and would question herself about the purpose
of the riches she had accumulated throughout her life. What was this all? Did
she do all this for eating two chapatis, a few helpings of vegetables and a
bowlful of Dal? What good was this money for and what has her status ultimately
bestowed on her? Just nothing! Everything seemed to be of no use to her now. A
soft smile passed like a mild lightening over her lips and vanished as fast as
it had come.
Exasperated, one day she called her advocate and
told him, “Mr. Narang, I want to make my Will!”
“Okay, madam! Everything will be done as you
desire!”
Shivangi opened all her papers before Mr Nararang
and asked him, “Can you tell me about the market value of these assets?”
“I am a lawyer, madam, not an assessor. I cannot
make a correct assessment of their value, however, I can give you a tentatively
estimated value!”
“Okay, tell me what your estimate is? ”
Narang checked the papers one by one, made some
rough calculations on his calculator and said after some time, “I guess it is a
property worth about a crore!”
“It is okay; now draft for me complete papers of my Will as per law and get it registered in a court of law.”
“In whose name, madam? Who is going to be your heir? ”Narang asked.
“In the name of Swami Sadanand Trust! It has to
be mentioned here that in the event of my death, this property shall stand
transferred in the name of the said trust. I will pay whatever expenses are
incurred on writing and registering the Will. Besides, I want a copy of Will to
be sent to Swami Ji as well.”
The advocate looked with amazement at her but
noticed a wonderful feeling of peace and contentment on her face. For the first
time, Shivangi felt light without any encumbrances and at peace with herself.
That night she had such a peaceful sleep as
experienced never before!
*****
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