If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir (5 page)

'Why don't you tell me about your girlfriends?' he asked once.

'Girlfriends? I don't have any.'

'I don't believe you!'

'I'm telling you the truth, Uncle.'

'How can this be? You are young and expressive. You get good grades and the whole school knows you because of your astrology. Some girl must have a crush on you, or you must be attracted to someone.'

'But it's true; I don't have anyone.' I felt rather shy having this conversation with him.

'The religious texts say that until one is twenty-five years old, one should be a brahmachari.'

'This is old school. You must live your life, you must enjoy it. All our sages had consorts.'

'No, I think the ancient books have some truth to them. Besides, who has the time for a girlfriend? When will I do my reading, play chess, practise astrology or play the keyboard if I start devoting time to a girlfriend?'

'Oh, you are so uptight, Amit. Why are you so rigid? Loosen up a bit.'

'How will I spend time with you if I have a girlfriend?'

'You are all head and no heart. Never mind, one day you’ll fall head over heels for some girl and won't be able to live without her.'

'That will never happen, I know myself. I won't marry.'

'Your palm says it loud and clear. The line of marriage is pink, unbroken and strong. You will be married before you turn twenty-eight.'

'I don't think so.'

'What is wrong with you? You scare me with your ascetical and religious bent.'

You are all head and no heart.
This became his standard line. This was how many conversations would end when he was unable to discern an emotional side to me. The truth was that in spite of my trying, I couldn’t feel any attachment. I did not miss anything or anyone, not even Prof. Sharma. I tried mixing with friends, with other people, but I found little joy in these associations. I wasn't doing this deliberately; this was just the way I was. On this particular occasion when he spoke about my marriage with such conviction, I did wonder if he was right about my life. It was true that both my palm and my horoscope predicted marriage. Was I really in control of some preordained destiny? I thought about this for a while, and then decided I wasn’t going to let a certain line on my palm dictate my future for me. I was determined to write the script of my own life.

Engrossed in my thoughts and a little agitated, I left Prof. Sharma’s house without saying goodbye. When I reached home, I found my mother sitting by the altar reading a sacred text as usual. That evening, she was studying the
Bhagavata Purana
, the epic narrating the glories of Lord Krishna. Rather than giving her the usual peck, I just sat down near her.

'You know, Mum,' I said, 'I can be whatever you want me to be—a high-ranking official, businessman or professor. I only have one request: please do not force me or expect me to get married. I want to give my life to a spiritual cause. No one believes me when I tell them I will not get married.'

She could have easily brushed off my thoughts, dismissing my request  as a teenager’s idealism. Instead, she said, 'I believe you. You are free to lead your life the way you please. I will never bind you to something you don’t like, Amit. We can revisit this when you grow a bit older though. Who knows, you may have a change of heart. Why don't you want to marry, anyway?'

I replied, ‘I have seen more than three thousand horoscopes. Everyone has similar problems. What are they doing? They are born, they go to school and college, get a job, get married, have kids, go through the grind, become old and die. After hearing the problems of married people, I can categorize them into two types. The first involves people who are unable to make their marriage work. Though they have been married for quite a while, each day is a drag and they part ways eventually. Then you have the ones who are trying hard to make it work. Even for them, most days are tiring, but in between disagreements and confrontations, between the arguments and bickering, they also have good moments.

All in all, it's too much work. Most people get married because they feel the need to do so, but I don't. More importantly, marriage plays no role in my path.  Instead, I wish to do penance in the woods like the legendary Dhruva, like our sages of ancient times. I want to see if God really exists.'

'If?' she said in surprise. 'Why do you do various sadhanas now if you still doubt God's existence?'

'I do sadhana because I want to see him, Ma. I want to meet my creator. I believe he exists but how can I be sure until I see him?  I doubt his existence sometimes because if he really exists, why is there suffering and misery in the world? If there's one God, why are there so many religions? Why did he allow it?’

'Faith, child. Faith erases all questions.’

'I wish! Faith does not erase questions. It only ignores or discourages them.'

'I know I can't win this debate with you. I just know that God is real. He protects, provides and is watching over us.'

I wanted to continue but there was a knock on the front door. It was Prof. Sharma. He had come to check on me, thinking he had upset me. I was only too happy to see him again. He had brought mangoes as a peace offering.

For reasons I never quite understood, he loved me deeply. He had two photos of me in his wallet. Each time I got a passport picture clicked, he insisted on having one. The latest photo would go in his wallet and he would use the older one as a bookmark. He would make tea for me and serve it in an exquisite bone-china cup and saucer that he wouldn’t allow anyone else to touch.

I had nothing to offer him, yet every gesture of his was full of care and love for me. 'I'm at the twilight of my life, Amit,' he would often say after a drink. 'I won't be there to see you grow and conquer the world, or partake of your success. I wish I had not been born so early.'

His eyes would well up.

'But can you promise me something?'

'Yes, Uncle. Anything for you.'

'When I die, I would just like you to be by my side. I would like to hold your hand in mine and breathe my last.'
I assured him I would be there for him, without knowing if it would happen that way. It didn't. I gave him that reassurance because he was looking for it. But, thinking about his death, I didn't feel any pain of separation. Maybe he was right after all: I was all reason and he was all feeling.

Once, there were floods in our region. From the roof, you could see animals, furniture, utensils and many other unidentifiable objects floating down the streets. When the flood waters ebbed after some days and we entered our house, the most terrible thing was to see my books dead. They were swollen exactly like corpses and lay soiled and defaced. I put them in the sunlight, hoping to dry them, but the pages just curled in the heat. And they stank. Left with the memory of what they had been, I couldn’t bear looking at them anymore. I didn’t want to sell them to the scrap dealer, for you don’t sell love. On a sunny day devoid of wind, I took them to the terrace and cremated them. All of them. Then I picked myself up and moved on.

Meanwhile, my parents decided to build a room on the first floor of the house so that we would have shelter should such a situation arise again in the future. The vendor who supplied us the building material was a man in his mid-thirties called Parvesh Singla. The first time I visited his shop, we had a casual conversation and connected immediately. After that, we began meeting frequently.

Like Prof. Sharma, he cared about me deeply. Once again, I could not quite comprehend why. I was unable to understand why a successful businessman like him hung out with a teenager like me.
I asked, 'Why do you spend so much of your time with me? You buy books and pens for me, you take me out for dinners. Why?'

‘I don't know what draws me to you, but you have this pull, Amit. You seem to have no confusion of any sort. And I always wanted a brother like you.'

I sat there thinking he was being sentimental like Prof. Sharma. I also felt guilty because I didn't feel any attachment for him. For me, he was a good human being I cared about, and we had common interests. We discussed philosophical issues and shared business ideas with each other. Astute at creating wealth, Parvesh had built multiple sources of income for himself.

On one occasion, he said, 'I earn from my businesses but I grow my wealth through stocks.’

'Wow! Will you teach me how to invest in stocks? I have money left over from my astrological readings, and would like to invest somewhere.'

'Yes, I’ll teach you, but remember you can only gain if you are prepared to lose.'
              He showed me how he picked stocks. He only invested in the primary market—in IPOs—as he believed they were safer.

'Never love your stocks. Never forget that you buy them to make a profit. Once you have reached a profitable position, exit. If they betray you and you are making a loss, exit. Your goal is to make more profits than losses.'

I took a plunge in the financial world. I read voraciously, studying all the financial publications I could get my hands on. Over the next few months, I started buying stocks through sub-brokers. I also enjoyed and actively traded in the secondary markets; they were faster, riskier, more fun. 90 per cent of my savings were now invested in shares. Stock trading was dangerous and exciting. I could lose all my savings or multiply them with little effort. Whenever stock prices shot up, I was delighted, and whenever they went down, I felt a sense of loss. I enjoyed riding this roller coaster of emotions.

I passed class ten at the age of fifteen, scored 80 per cent and secured a place in the college of my choice. I chose to study commerce because, after my interest in the occult, it was business that fascinated me. I liked business because I liked challenge. On the one hand, I had seen the staid work routine of my parents, who went to work and came back at the same time every day. On the other, I saw Parvesh's exciting rise in the world of commerce. His thrilling account of the ups and downs of his business was more fascinating than Prof. Sharma reminiscing about his college days. It was just a matter of temperament and, given mine, I was more inclined towards the former. 

Seeing my passion for business, everyone around me thought I was obsessed about money. I did enjoy entrepreneurship and making money, and financial independence was certainly a good thing. Yet, there was a deeper reason why I focused on business and continued with astrology even though I’d understood it wasn’t going to give me the answers I sought. By now, I knew without the shadow of a doubt that I wanted to give up the material world and walk the spiritual path. My hunger for God was stronger than anything else within me. Innumerable times, I'd thought of renouncing the world and going to the Himalayas to do austere penance. It was the soft eyes of my mother and her loving voice that always held me back. I didn’t think she would be able to bear the separation. Worldly activities helped me curb my inner desire and pull on. I did not know how else to channelize my energies or distract myself.

Whatever I tried my hand at though, I mastered almost effortlessly. Soon, it would cease to challenge me. Whether it was learning chess or playing a musical instrument, singing Vedic hymns or practising astrology, each activity stopped stimulating me after a while. I wanted a task to really engage me, test me, surprise me, but everything felt so easy.

Looking for something new, I decided to enroll in an advanced computer course at a private institution. At the end of the orientation on the first day, a young man wearing a turban and rather shabby clothes came up to me. I actually thought he was a motor mechanic because there were small stains that looked like oil or grease smears on his clothes.

Introducing himself as Harpreet Singh, he posed a question on the Bhagavadgita.

I don’t know why he asked me a religious question. I normally applied a tilak on my forehead, but hadn’t done so that day. I was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, which is what I normally wore. He had no idea I practised astrology or that I had studied many religious texts, yet he chose to ask me a question on the Bhagavadgita in a computer centre.  Anyhow, the question was not outside my field of knowledge.

As I finished answering him, he suddenly asked, 'Where did you learn English?'

'How weird!' I thought. Rather than focusing on my answer, he only saw the language I used. Anyway, we chatted for a while. I told him I was doing that advanced computer course in order to build an application for the financial markets.