by BS Murthy
him an immense relief, he was seized with the desire to espy his wife in her reincarnated shape. However, he tried to control his emotions and sent a message of congratulations to the happy couple suggesting the baby's barasala be performed at Vanaprastham.
When Gautam's telegram was delivered to them at the Nithya Nursing Home, the happy parents were in seventh heaven.
"How she resembles my mother!" Suresh said for the nth time.
"We can expect guruji to get glued to her," Vidya repeated parrot-like.
"I hope after her barasala at Annavaram, Delhi would be on his radar," he wanted to believe what he said.
"Now I can see the change in him," she said fuelling his hopes further. "How he used to detach himself over the years!"
"Let's hope it's that way," he sighed in hope. "How I wish he lives with us."
Spending five more days in the nursing home with his wife and the newborn, Suresh drove them home that evening. Seeing the Gautam waiting in the portico for them, the couple couldn't comprehend their position. But, recovering their wits quickly, they jumped out of the car ecstatically. Even as Suresh bowed at his father's feet instantly, Vidya put the baby in the right hands, and followed suit.
"I had a premonition about Sneha's reincarnation," said Gautam without taking his eyes off the child.
"It could be so for all the resemblances," said the gratified parents.
"Now I'm sure it's she," said Gautam with finality.
"Glad you've come to share our joy," said Vidya.
"Let's go in," said Gautam, still looking at the child. "I've come to stay for good as it's my dharma to guide her to moksha."
The joyous yells of Suresh and Vidya that greeted his statement made Gautam realize he had come back to where he really belonged. And little Sneha opened her misty eyes as though impelled by an urge to see for herself the joyous welcome her reincarnation occasioned at M isty Nest.
Epilogue
Over time, with the assorted pursuits of the Prabhu clan, as they came to be known in time, M isty Nest became a beehive of activity.
Gautam, in his new avatar in New Delhi, came to be revered as Gautam guru for his erudition and piety. And to attune the old to the new world, he conceived a home for the aged. And to obliterate its past stigma, he chose their Mehrauli House, renamed Gautam Home, for its premises. While conducting dharmic discourse at Misty Nest, he tended the aged at 'Gautam Home' with equal felicity. Feeling equally at home in the opulent bungalow and the austere old-age home, he purveyed the activities of various charitable trusts set up by Suresh.
Suresh, in time, developed a passion for the educational reforms—he felt the need to help equip children to chart their future course on an even keel. He came to believe that the basic knowledge of psychology would help avoid human follies. So he began a crusade with the government to include human psychology in the school curriculum. And to demonstrate his commitment and prove his point, he pioneered the cause by
starting a couple of schools all by himself. And to get into the position of strength to influence the system, in time, he enlarged his industrial base as well. And not to lose sight of his past, he ordained that their establishments observed his mother's birthday as the Rededication Day.
Vidya Suresh, who soared to the kuchipudi heights with her graceful steps, in time, came to confine herself to tend fresh crops of talented dancers. With a sense of purpose, she ensures that M isty Nest remained a fulfilled home for her family and the students of her academy alike.
Sneha Prabhu, and Sripada Prabhu, her brother who followed her, got a proper passage into adolescence. After all, their childhood was a mixture of their grandfather's approbation and the reproaches of their parents. In time, they came to polish themselves as the jewels of the home, resplendent in their appeal and aptitude.
Gautam never ceased to believe that his granddaughter was the reincarnation of his wife and so did Suresh and Vidya. Just the same, they took care neither to burden the young soul with that revelation nor by being differential to her on that account. But, as she grew up, when Sneha began to exhibit the mannerisms of her grandmother, for Gautam and Suresh it was the vindication of their belief.
When all observed at length that she got morose on Sneha's birthdays and remained reflective on her death anniversaries, Vidya thought it was foolproof. And as the young child remained tranquil on her own birthdays, they came to believe that Sneha, during her sojourn in heaven, might have realized the futility of vanity in life. After her maturation, when the young Sneha desisted from entering the master bedroom, the elder's knew the relevance of the same to their reverence of the dead woman.
As if to spare Gautam the dilemma of interacting with a womanly Sneha, fate took him away from his earthly abode on her eighteenth birthday, but not before he contributed the "Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World' to the world of thought that Suresh recovered from his personal affects. And it read thus:
'One might approach this postulation as an addendum to evolution for it comes in the wake of the great works of the past. It would seem logical that any proposition about evolution cannot bypass the idea of creation, buttressed with religious belief by those closer to the beginnings of life. Just the same, though all religions propagate the word that God created the world, nevertheless their scriptures differ about the way He went about it. Given the religious assertion that God is the personification of perfection, one needs to reckon whether He would have created an imperfect world such as ours! Besides, how come His intellect that placed planets in the orbits failed to visualize a quake-free earth that is volcano-prone as well! The scriptures that picture Him as the All Merciful, however, prevaricate when it comes to the unjust 'species feeding upon species' way of His creation.
Would it not then make a case for viewing with suspicion the religious assertion that the world was His creation? That was what many Hindu seers of yore were obviously at, going by their advocacy that the species of the world was the result of an evolutionary process. One such theory of evolution in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad readsthus— ’He had no pleasure either: so when alone one has no pleasure. He desired a companion. He became as large as a woman and man embracing. He made that self split (pat-) into two: from that husband (pati) and wife (patni) came to be . 1 She realized: 'How can he couple with me when he begot me from himself? Ah, I must hide!' She became a cow, the other a bull, and so he coupled with her. From that cattle were born. She became a mare, the other a stallion; she became a she-donkey, the other a he-donkey: and so he coupled with her. From that solid-hoofed animals were born...' (Excerpted from, The
Upanisads, by Valerie J. Roebuck published by Penguin Books India). This could as well be man's first thesis on evolution.
Well, Spencer, Lamarck, Darwin and others of our times could have breached the religious idea of creation with the collective force of pure reasoning. But would their standard of evolution thus erected on the land of religion stand up to logic? After all, the three millennia or more of anthropological data that modern man is in possession fails to indicate an iota of variation in the existing species not to speak of the evolution of the new! That being the case, could it be then the world came into being on its own, as it were! Well if it were so, the question that arises is, wouldn't have the first men made their progeny privy to that story? But that didn't happen either, as we don't even have hearsay to go by about our origins. Besides, the religious routes of creation shown by the later generations all led us into blind alleys. Thus, far removed from our beginnings, we had to figure it out ourselves as to how we came into being.
After all, it's that quest for his origins that lead men to the theories of evolution. Nevertheless, won't that be like putting the cart before the horse, for earth is the only planet known to nourish life? Would it not be imperative to try to assess whether the way the earth itself came into being would have had a bearing on the evolution of its species? It would seem there could be but mere space in the beginning—infinite and empty.
At some stage, its gathering cosmic charge, having become boundless, would have disintegrated into infinite number of nebulous stars of vast proportions. Needless to say, these stars, in spite of being nebulous, would have acquired a definitive magnetic moment of immense intensity of their own. And the attendant magnetic field could have kept the residual cosmic charge around them at bay. In time, the interplay of magnetic moments would have fragmented the residual nebulous energy around these stars into their planets. In the end, it could be the powerful magnetic thrust the stars would have exerted on each other, that caused their cosmic drift along with their planetary formations in tow.
It was in that altered station, far removed from the cosmic bosom that an intense centripetal force would have come to exert on the sun and its planets in their nebulous state. Over the years, this phenomenon would have tended to compact their nebulous energy into spherical formations. This in turn would have brought to bear the centrifugal forces on the sun and its planets that tended them to shed some of their heat energy. That in turn would have occasioned the peripheral cooling of the planets. In time, all the expelled nebulous heat would have galvanized itself as the moon to turn into the satellite of the earth. It would appear that the concept of astrology could be but the appreciation of thiscosmic phenomenon.
Be that as it may, where to begin to find out what could have helped the mother earth to bring beings into being? Well would not it be in order to assume that the spread-split-steady syndrome that was behind the formation of the solar system would have been at work in the evolution of the species as well? Would not the procreative process, the feature of perpetuation of the species subscribe to this? Of course, since neither custom stales nor age alters the procreative process of the species, we might reckon that it is in that process must lay the cluesto the originsof beings.
Well, the world in its beginnings would have been but wilderness of earth, water and air—the gross elements of nature—that would have been evolved owing to the altered cosmic equations. The day and night phenomenon on the earth would have perpetually subjected these elements to some annealing stress—while days would have warmed them by the sunrays, nights could have gripped them in their cold embrace. However, the landmass, once it got solidified to some depth, would have rested on its laurels but for the jerk of an earthquake or a jolt by a volcano. On the other hand, air and water, given their volatile state, would have been perpetually stressed and strained by the day
night syndrome. Thus, the constant impingement of heat and cold on air and water, both containing oxygen and hydrogen, would have come to impact upon the chemistry of them both in the climatic laboratory. In the end, it would have been the atmospheric disturbances like cyclones and hurricanes that would have brought about the fusion between the much strained water molecules and the turbulent atoms of the air.
The outcome of this fusion could have altered the molecular structure of countless water particles in a way to originate the organisms - 0, that we might call onams. As the seas played the mother to this earthly union, onams could have embraced their waters, though in time many might have made their way into the sister rivers as well. But the cyclonic and such atmospheric convulsions that fathered them would have been ever tending many of them into the atmosphere. Likewise, the ocean tides and the flooding rivers would have displaced many an onam onto the ground around. Anyway, it did not hurt them. Being fundamental organisms, the onams would have been unicellular in construct and microscopic in size, without digestive mechanism of note. Besides, their micro construct would have only needed minuscule diet for self-sustenance. Thus irrespective of their station they would have come to survive on their self-secretions in a unitary and conflict free environment. That was how the onams would have come into being and came to exist as such. Thus, we might reckon that the instinct of the species to prey upon their fellow species would have certainly been a non-onamic character.
Having thus emerged from the nebulous state of non-being, the onamic state of being would have been one of stagnant being. However, as nature could have caused more and more of them to come into being, in time, there could have been the onamic clusters in their trillions all over. At some stage, nature itself might have come to grips with its own waywardness, exemplified by the regulation of the seasons. And all that would have changed the character of the prevailing environment itself, affecting the climatic conditions conducive for furthering the onamic generation. As nature would have ceased to occasion their propagation, the onams could have been compelled to self-generate so as to remain in being. This could as well be the harbinger of the evolutionary process that could have led to the emergence of the species.
But how come the unicellular onams could have multiplied into a wide variety multicellular species? And then, wherefrom did the plant life emerge? Well the ebbs would have retrieved into the high seas some onams that the tides could have washed ashore. Likewise, the receding river waters would have salvaged some of its onams from the riverbanks that the floods inundated. This great escape would have exposed such of those water onams to an amphibious experience of being. None the less, owing to this recurring phenomenon, many in their millions would have been periodically left stranded in the unfamiliar environs of the beachheads and riverbanks. In time, the stimuli of their clustered existence would have induced in the onams of the world the instinct to spread. This in turn would have imbibed in them the urge to split. The very instinct for the individual spread would have insensibly led to the collective onamic surge. Needless to stress, this could have been achieved with each yielding space to the other in order to gain the same for the stability of the self. This could well be the harbinger of life on earth, though in its rudimentary form. What is more, this characteristic of yielding to gain seems to have shaped the nature of beings during their evolutionary period and beyond. However, with their imbibed instinct to stay in air, the atmospheric onams would have had a free access to the world at large and thus would have been less urged to spread. Thus, the atmospheric onams would not have come to feel the need to split at that stage.
As the earthly onams began to gain in size, they would have needed extra secretions for sustenance that the system was unaccustomed to generate. Besides, their state of growth would have undermined the onamic sense of safety their unicellular
compactness provided. Understandably, all this would have ensured that the systemic pulls and pressures came to bear upon the onamic growth. This, in turn, could have forced their survival instinct to cap further growth. Thus, at that state of growth, there could have been duality of purpose in the enlarged onamic organisms—the acquired habit to grow in order to gain and the innate need to remain small so as to survive. Naturally, this clash of interests would have induced fission in the system that could have lead to the eventual rupture of the mechanism itself. It was thus, the onams could have split into two and that would have ushered in the second stage of evolution. Understandably, the coming into being of two organisms—plunams—in place of one, would have enabled the agenda of unrestrained onamic growth. Dictated by the inherited urge, the plunams would have pursued the old onamic agenda of growth till the need arose for yet another plunamic parting of ways. This phenomenon of onamic split would have in time led to the plunamic proliferation of exponential proportions on the ground as well as in waters. In the process, though being unicellular, the plunams would have begun to experience a vague sense of biological difference amongst them. However, the atmospheric onams would have been some way away from the plunamic state of evolution on the earth.
None the less, it appears, in spite of the plunamic evolution, the onamic urge for surge remained unsullied. And abetted by habit, it would have indeed turned into a plunamic obsession. In turn, all this might have enabled the plunamic organisms to gain some sense of memory. It is but natural that the urge to grow and the need to split would have impacted on the plunamic memory to impart a sense of separation to it. Thus, it could have been only time before the plunams would have seen
the means to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable—that was by splitting within their body itself so as to augment their individual growth! Thus, the plunams would have started splitting within themselves into two organisms—qunams. Thus, in a continuing process, the emerging qunams in the individual plunamic bosoms would have split in turn, to cause the cellular multiplication within the plunamic bodies. Hence, the evolution of the qunams in the plunamic frames at once would have enabled the overall organic growth of the latter. This qunamic state of being could be called the third stage of evolution of beings that was probably the first triumph of something of a mind over matter.
In time, the lack of cohesion amongst the individual qunams of the enlarged plunams would have ruined the plan in the making. Obviously, at some point of time in the growing process, the organic self-secretions would not have sufficed to sustain the overall plunamic health, not to speak of the qunamic growth. Driven by the imbibed onamic urge to survive, the individual qunams in the plunamic bosoms could have begun to feed on their weaker cousins. Incidentally, this altered nature of intake would have occasioned the need for the plunams to develop some digestive system of their own. However, this unexpected turn of events would have pitted the stronger qunams against the not so strong of a given plunam. To begin with, the lesser breed would have made a common cause to ward off the stronger elements amongst them. The emergence thus of qunamic sub-groups within the plunamic frames would have caused the functional imbalance in their body organisms. This in turn would have led to the schism in the plunamic systems that would have caused the eventual split, though of a different kind.
Whereas the original onamic split that brought about the plunams into being was for the functional growth, the plunamic split that followed, on the relative qunamic strength, was for the systemic survival. Thus would have come into being plunams stratified by their relative strengths. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of the relatively stronger qunams in a given plunamic organism feeding on their weaker cousins would have continued thus occasioning the perennial parting of ways. And this in turn would
