CHAPTER 2.DOOM DIVINE

Doom draws fears and illusions inside the human spirit little do they know that even doom can guide to paths undiscovered. Ma Durga stood there, so did Amrit. The light of Ma was so powerful that Amrit could barely see what was behind her. He knew what he wanted, he wanted to touch her feet again. He bent down and lowering his head focussed on her feet. Every particle of Ma vaporised and she was gone again. What was behind her was now visible, an awful sight. A huge hall which was much narrower to be called a hall stretched like a tunnel. It had similar hospital beds like his nursing home but they were all rusted and looked very ancient with a bronze tinge. The place had a subtle gloominess in its air. On the beds lay patients with some familiar faces.He was unable to remember where he had seen them.He slowly recollected, those were the patients he had encountered during his clinical practice of 20 years and some of them he remembered from his clinical work during medical school days too, what was common among them was they had all succumbed to death due to their diseases. How were they alive? Does death kill? Or does it make us pass through one phase to another, phase of learning.

As he walked past them beads of sweat rolled down on his back and coloured his shirt, gave him a chill and made terror run down into his spine and head. Those faces scared him. Could he look beyond his fears, could he look beyond death? He gathered courage and stopped, turned towards a patient and walked towards her. He quickly recollected who she was, he had treated her for chronic liver disease 8 years back in the city hospital, the time when the idea of setting up his own nursing home had not been conceived too and he had a job." I'm sorry, I could not save you!", he said in a gentle voice." Oh! Come on Doc! You did your best and applied your best medical skills and judgement, you know what after I died and left my body I got an opportunity to just look inside my body.. I want to tell you things which may be of helpful to you",she replied. A subtle calm soothing peaceful bliss hit his mind, his mind was all cleared of feelings of fear and he stood there eager to learn.The patient gradually told what pathophysiological abnormality she had seen in her body, what the doctors couldn't see and the diagnostic tests couln't gauge. After completing,she and her bed vanished. Amrit now went to every patient and interected with them one by one, all of them revealed the details which were not seen and the things that had went wrong, one by one the dead enlightened him and one by one each of them vanished.The hall was clear now, he was all alone there now, in his mind a 100 stories, a 100 new teachings, a 100 souls of the universe, trying to explain him that beyond death there was an eternal power.

Back upstairs he completed some paper work related to the syringes and medical equipments he had ordered. After finishing he went to the pharmacy of his nursing home to tally some new arrivals of medicines. It was a long tiresome day. Driving back home the faces of all the patients he had seen in the basement projected in his flow of thoughts and penetrated his soul. Why had they come to teach him? Wait what? They taught him? Amrit had always believed that it was his hardwork and passion for the subject which had made him a doctor, maybe there was something more. The art of being a doctor was important but beyond that there was this subtle drive to learn with letting ego exit the mind. What was ego? An imaginary world of pride and delusional confidence just because he was able to achieve certain skills. Who was he? A small instrument of Ma Durga, if he did achieve,it was hers and not his, then why the ego and why the fake pride? He stopped his car, he had reached home. It was already 11 pm and his children and parents were already asleep. Meera was awake, dressed in a simple white salwar kamiz she looked gorgeous and pristine. As they dined for dinner, silence spoke a million words as an empty relationship was suddenly finding depths. Looking at Meera from the other end of the table he observed a chandan tilak( a religious mark made up of sandalwood paste) on her forehead, as if glistening and twinkling between her eyes." You visited the temple today?", he asked.

"No..why what happened?"

"I thought since you have the tilak on your forehead... so you must have visited"

"What are you talking about Amrit? There's no tilak on my forehead!"

Amrit stretched his arms to get the glass of water, as he sipped the water he could not help but look at his own reflection in the water, his face which had the same tilak on his forehead now. Sai Baba, the great mystique and teacher from Shirdi, Maharashtra who had left his body back in 1918 stood there in his calm demeanor, wearing white robes, face covered with grey beard, eyes scintillating purity and holding wood. A background of a starry sky and mountains coloured with nothing but waterfalls, infinite waterfalls all across. Sitting down Sai Baba lights the wood. The woods begin to convert into ashes and the fire inside Amrit more red, Sai begins to fade away, Amrit runs towards the fire but Sai is gone now, what remains is the ashes. The ashes magically convert into powdered sandalwood, Amrit's tears fall into it out of devotion, he feels Sai Baba within.

Meera is looking intently at Amrit. Amrit gets up."Are you alright? You never stay so long in bed", Meera said. Amrit sees his surroundings, a ground made of cool mud dried enough to be levelled as the surface , over it a plain matress on which he lay. The ceiling...there was no ceiling..The sun emanating radiance, it is indeed late. He also sees a hand pump at a distance and near it a coutyard with cows feeding. What age is it? Where is he? Why is his wife wearing a traditional maharashrtrian saree and why is he dressed in a dhoti? So confused he is that he is unable to speak a word. Moments before he was with Meera having dinner at home, how did he land into a place that looked like an altogether different age.Meera continued in her playful voice,"It is not good for the only Vaidya(hindi term for doctor used in ancient times) of Shirdi to sleep for so long". What ? He was in Shirdi? How? His eyes became moist. The place had changed the time had changed but he was still a doctor. A doctor, he wondered. He never understood, whether by his work he was healing the patients or was he healing himself...This thought flow became concrete by the next statement of his wife, "Sai Baba is unwell...you need to got to Dwarkamai to see him..its urgent..please hurry.."

(To be continued.....)