Panditji
Prasad was a religious man, at least that’s the way he liked to project himself. For ever soaked in religious rantings and rituals, he was not only particular about his elaborate daily Puja each morning without fail, but also had each day of the week designated to individual Hindu gods and saints who were to be pleased in their own established ways. Hence Monday was reserved for Shiva, Tuesday’s for Hanuman and so on. As if this was not enough there were the full moon days and the moonless days ,the special days of nine nights twice every year when the gods choose to come on a tour of the world, demanding special rituals , all of which kept him on his toes .Prasad was thus a busy man spending most of his time and energy in appeasement of the gods. He also choose to wear the dhoti and kurta and in keeping with his ritualistic mind he fondly wore ten rings of different stones on his fingers and beads on his thick neck. To complete the picture was a red tilak on his large forehead. He was on the other side of forty was pot bellied, short and vain. Vain and proud of his religious beliefs, which he would propagate with enthusiasm whenever he could get an opportunity. Thus at the local Post office where he was the head clerk and where he was usually called as Panditji, he devoted more time in extolling the virtues of a religious living to his colleagues and even to customers, than in any meaningful office work.
So engrossed was he in his own little virtual world that while he had very little time for his wife Bina and two daughters Lata and Sita both now budding teenagers who went to the local high school , he nevertheless ruthlessly imposed his dogmas on them. The entire family was made to starve on auspicious days and forced to perform many of the rites which they did more out of fear of annoying him than any belief . His wife would sometime raise the issue only to be put down with a heavy hand. While the wife accepted and resigned to her fate, his daughter’s Lata and Sita, fed by TV about the changing world and inspired by the many stories of modernism yearned to get out of the suffocating environment created by a proud and overbearing father and his strange beliefs. Both looked for an opening.
Fortunately for Lata she did well at school to land in a college at Roorkee about forty miles from their home. It was the break she was looking for. And she made full use of it by transforming herself from the rustic simpleton to a racy bubbling nubile with hair cut in steps to shaped eyebrows and matching eye makeup in tight jeans and T shirt in no time. She was enjoying her new found freedom and her deliberate transformation was more of a reaction to the stringent ways imposed by her father at home. She went on to enjoy an occasional drink and a smoke and sometimes danced wildly at the parties and gatherings. Prasad’s daughter was out there to prove a point. And to complete the picture she also acquired a hulk Asif as her steady boyfriend with whom she soon started living. On occasional visits home she would be her sedate self, wear the common loose salwar kameez and cover her head with the dupatta while sitting on the floor while her father performed his Puja. Prasad was pleased. Lata lead a double life with ease. Her mother however was privy to her other life at Roorkee and warned her that she was playing with fire. Bina feared a catastrophe in the offing when she learnt about Asif and her daughter.
The younger daughter meanwhile being not so lucky to escape her prison ,as she choose to call her home, however managed to steal the heart of a man ten years elder to her and who was a neighbour and with whom she had already made elaborate plans to elope. In this case fortunately the man was named Shiva. The younger one too desired to prove a point.
The stage was set for expected fireworks which came like a wave on a rough sea . Lata and Asif decided to get married at the Registrars office with no religious rituals whatsoever as per Lara’s desire; she had already had enough of religion to last a whole life, to which Asif too agreed preferring not to stir a hornets nest at his home. Panditji was informed by his wife on the day of the registry. He could not believe his ears and was at his venomous best on his wife blaming her in no uncertain terms for the mishap. Locked himself up in the puja room decided to starve himself to death. The shock hit him too hard below the belt. His image built painstaking over the years of the holier than thou man of the gods had been smashed and shattered by his own daughter. The more he thought about it all the more distressed he felt, being certain to be ridiculed by all those who he castigated for being atheist and unfit to be God’s children. He seriously contemplated of running far far away from it all. Time heals. Panditji while swearing that he would never see his elder daughter’s face again returned to a normal existence except that now he spent far little time with his gods and spoke little.
The younger one moved by the obvious change in her father changed her plans of eloping with Shiva. On the contrary she told her mother to tell Panditji of her and Shiva’s intentions to get married with or without their blessings. Panditji quickly agreed. Thank God he told himself he is at least Shiva not an Asif or a Iqbal.
