GOD IS STILL SILENT

Seeing this helplessness of pappu and unending struggle between immunity and impunity “God is still silent”

Charu Krishna Tailang

There is a big Golden Shower Tree at our doorstep which blesses us with it’s abundant rain of flowers in every spring season but we never considered or recognized it’s blessings, although it smiles at every morning when we open our windows usually closed due to pollution of bus terminus at the roadside.

First time in our 15 years of quarantined lifestyle beside nature in this pseudo – magacity of Kalyan, we heard the real tweets of sparrows and read the facebook of a canine who are quasi-permanent inhabitants of this big tree and our roof-shed near the window.

On this sunday every human movement was completely at stand still and roads were deserted in the contrast face off between eremophobia and xenophobia where everyone is equivocally in forceful isolation of fear of invisible threat, it’s unrepairable loss and dire consequences.

Everyone is asked to follow the instructions of authoritarian and keep social-distancing but in this current virtual world of social media everyone is already much distanced but this is human nature that sapiens are not in the habit of listening to anyone and they are independent and free to do anything as per their own ceribrum.

Usually on every sunday we awake with the sound of sarmons of mass prayer in church or chants of lord at makeshift temple of bus terminus but this day everything was missing and we were efficiently able to experience the pleasure of every tweets and comments of nature which were inaudible due to high decibel of human noise.

In this unexpected and never before mis-silence, we went to the terrace and felt an energizing and pleasent breeze in this much-heated afternoon.

In this undisturbed hostile environment but naturally rich, we tried to locate that mosque which is identified to us by it’s sounds of Azaan but in this natural atmosphere of concrete forest, we were not able to find it. But in the seek of God we could see the mountain range of Malangarh, perhaps which are not even visible in dense monsoon with this much clarity in evening.

The forcibly imposed silence of discomfort was broken suddenly at 5pm when a small child of migrant workers of garage situated exactly opposite to us named as pappu came forward at doorstep and started to bang an utensil with spoon, perhaps because of his hunger and quest which was unrested due to not getting any labour work to his father in this lockdown since last night, who comes back usually at this time with daily earnings.

But pappu surprisingly seen that everybody in neighbourhood was started to banging the utensils with and like him.

He was very excited and mesmerized to match the steps of rithm and making the sound.

Then church started to ring the bells and mosque given a long Azaan but God was still silent and kept mum to see that the people are found a new voice of their own Gods and now pappu is nowhere, as he lost his resonance of quest in this noise of “Bhakts and their Gods”.

A nearby “Neem ka ped” then remembered it’s author and poet Rahi Masoom Raza with a strong blow of wind and tribute and salute to him with bowed branches in voice of:

मुंह की बात सुने हर कोई।

दिल के दर्द को जाने कौन।।

आवाज के बाजारों में,

खामोशी पहचाने कौन..!

After a great event of conch blowing bandwagon and propaganda in which everyone was making a high decibel noise with larger energy through banging the utensils, pappu was exhausted due to total consumption of his remaining energy and his struggle of hunger was also get evaporated due to this herd-following.

When a high atmospheric pressure with this irritating silence has been dominated on pappu then he went to a deep sleep with the help of his mother’s lap.

In the wee hours of the night when everyone was asleep with an equivocal victorious satisfaction against an unseen enemy, pappu’s father came back with unfortunate enough empty hands and decided to step-out for a long journey on the foot to seeking food for their survival towards the north, from where he once migrated for work to fulfil his aspirations and ambitious dreams.

He walked whole night carrying pappu on his shoulders with some essentials in the hands of pappu’s mother. Although they were not alone in this journey, indeed there was a long herd in dark and no-one was known to each other but everyone had same goal to get feed.

Without human intervention climate was also getting pleasent and almost all pollutants get removed.

So, the energizing breeze and seducing smell of forest pampered to pappu for taking a deep unprecedented sleep first time at a man-height.

An exhaustive and tired morning for this herd and a lazy morning for pappu get electrified by the chants of “Jai shri Ram” and pappu awaken surprisingly with widespread eyes and seen an ocean of walking human including his mother who were following him in the quest of hunger.

The chanting herd stopped at a place where food was distributed by them who unfortunately snatched his father’s right to earn livelihood.

After a short spell of overpowered struggle pappu’s father got some food for his family but unwillingly lost his dignity and self-respect which was earned by him through bone-teasing hard work in the metropolis as a migrant worker. Pappu could feel this guilt of begging in the eyes of his father but for their survival it was worthless for them.

Some distributors of the food announced that today our loving Lord Rama will get occupied his long awaited home in Ayodhya and the ‘Pranpratishtha’ of the deity will be celebrated by our godfathers in a ceremony.

Pappu’s eyes got widespread and brighten with a devine light and his ceribrum was full of enthusiasm to find delicacies as prasadam of the ceremonial function.

He with his father in a huge herd was stepping-up faster and furious in the aspiration of getting relief from the House of God.

After a long battle on foot when they reached at doorstep of the House of God, the authorities stopped them to enter because of imposed lockdown and social-distancing norms under the preventive measures of pandemic spread in all over the nation.

Pappu was not able to understand that what type of protection have these godfathers, by which they are able to stop his god to meet his father and are unaffected by this pandemic also.

Seeing this helplessness of pappu and unending struggle between immunity and impunity “God is still silent”.

#CharuKrishnaTailang is a trained graduate teacher (TGT) at Central Railway School, Kalyan.