Krishna’s interruption of Abhimanyu’s
learning whilst he had been in his mother’s womb, which went on to play such a
pivotal role in his life 16 years hence, has triggered many folktales across
India.
According to one such tale, Abhimanyu was
actually a demon whose true qualities would have come to the surface had he
survived the war. Krishna was aware of this, and through this action, had
ensured his death in the war itself.
Another story calls out Abhimanyu as the son
of the moon who was cursed to live on earth as a mortal. The moon eventually repented
and begged Krishna for forgiveness by finding a way to return his son in the
sixteenth year of his mortal life itself, which is what had led Krishna to only
partially reveal the strategy of the Chakravyuha to Subhadra on that fateful
day.
According to a South Indian folk tradition,
the reason for Krishna desiring Abhimanyu’s death was because Abhimanyu had
been capable of killing the entire Kauravas all alone and that would have made it
impossible for the Pandava brothers, who had taken vows of killing the individual
Kauravas.
The last & most sinister reading is that Krishna had always known how much Arjuna loved his son. Only the death of his son at the hands of his teacher would goad Arjuna to take the war more personally and fight more intensely.
Despite his heroic exploits, when it comes
to folklore, there is a cynicism associated with Abhimanyu. The
source of folklore may be hearsay, but the life of Abhimanyu serves as a
classic example of the adage, “Beware of half-knowledge”!
As part of the
routine methods enabling the jail inmates to discover a mental self-retribution
for their crimes whilst behind bars, the Maulana of the jail had exposed them
to holy texts and discussions. The iota of guilt that had seeped into father’s
mind since Operation Atanka had only grown inside him like a cancerous tumour when
he had read and understood the Quran in its true light. Reflections on the
early teachings of Mullah Omar had made him realize the differences in
interpretations of the same text by varied individuals as per their mental lens
and meaningful misreading of the verses.
By his early
20’s, it had taken him a re-reading of the Quran a few times over to
internalize the real advocacy of Islam based on the principles of morality
& justice. Introspection on his early life & experiences had made him
rebut his misplaced assumptions of HeJ as an entitled Islamic executioner in
the wake of the newly-found Islam-propagated use of reason, argument &
prayer for resolving problems. As time progressed, discussions with other
inmates on the Quranic teachings of collective force as a way of combating
mischief-mongers only when reasoning had failed made him question his earlier khilafat beliefs of a single Muslim rule.
Meanwhile, the
HeJ had approached mother to induct me into their ways but father had voiced
his strong resistance and had reflected on his own upbringing to clarify that
he would respect my choice of my future only after I attained a more mature age
to be able to make the right choices.
Given the
limited evidence against him & good behavior in jail, after spending 15
years in prison, father was released on parole last month.
When I had met
him for the very first time, my portrait of him based on his past seemed very disconnected
from the transformed person he had come to be. The HeJ however, had seemed
intent on his return to the old ways. After release from prison, on frequent
insistence, father had met Shezad on a few occasions to clarify his resistant
stand, but the group had not intended to let even a ‘lost asset’ get away.
Father was
being sucked into the terror whirlpool… Sensing a lost champion of their
mission, last week, HeJ abducted both my mother’s and directed father to anchor
a suicide-bombing mission in return for their safety.
I met father
near the site intended for the Operation today. With an explosive backpack, few
circuit boards & wires attached below his army-styled vest concealed under
an overcoat, I sensed the look of cautious optimism in his eyes – assured of
the well-being of his family, he had come to accept the fact that the only way
out of the swirling whirlpool that had come to haunt him time & again, was
to be sucked into it completely, once & for all.
Losing any
sense of time, he took my hands in his own and sat me down to tell me how he
had never intended things to turn up the way they had, how detrimental his
half-knowledge had been & how he hoped I would make rightful choices for my
future, how I should follow the right path of the Quran in life… how he had
wanted to spend more time with me and my mother, how I should take care of both
my mother’s as my own…
It was a
hurried knock on the door seeking him that had broken our reverie!
My emotional
bonding with him had only been of less than a month in person, but had been
built mentally over the past 15 years through the eyes of my mother. As the
tears in my right eye rolled over my cheek to fall on his feet, I could feel
the lump in my throat when I bid him “Khuda Hafiz”! My teary eyes continued to
be fixated on his steps… I observed him carefully as he walked to the door.
I knew that
time was running out but suppressed the urge to check my watch. I took a deep
breath and started counting in reverse under my breath. "Ten, nine, eight,
seven..."
x---------- The End ----------x
No comments:
Post a Comment