The thin line between duty and revenge

In Japan someone killed a Samurai’s master. Now it was the tradition to avenge one’s master’s death. The Samurai went after the murderer. It was not before two years of relentless pursuit that he laid his hands upon the criminal in a deep forest. The Samurai raised his sword to kill the person. Just before the strike the man spat on the Samurai’s face. Possibly he expected a quicker death in one stroke. He had tried to further aggravate the anger in the Samurai. The unexpected happened. The Samurai held his sword back and asked the man to take his sinned face off his eyes.

The murderer was surprised. Much relieved to be still alive, he but couldn’t check his curiosity. “Why did you spare my life?” he asked.

The Samurai was visibly trying to overcome his anger. “For two years I was following you to kill you. But there was no anger in that pursuit. There was no hate involved. I was just following the tradition of avenging my master’s death without bringing my ego in between. But when you spat on my face. You changed all that. You got me angry. You brought my ego into play. Now if I kill you it will appear like I killed you because of being angry after being spat upon. It won’t be an objective, egoless pursuit of my duty. I cannot kill you as an angry person. Please go away. For the time being. If I can detach this personal anger from the cause of my duty, your death, I will go after you again.”

Sometimes a doing, carrying the same effect as an act committed under a spell of anger and hate, can be beyond the germs of ego, hate and anger. It then becomes a duty. The challenge lies in finding where duty stops to turn into revenge or hateful reaction. Check your ego. Tame it within the limits of duty. This world will become a far better place and life more enjoyable. 

The Seeds of Rape

Long before we see the flower, the process starts at the roots. Fruits are the result of a long process that began with the seeds. The deeds or misdeeds are not sudden sprouts; they also carry their seeds, their incubation, their structural building and growth before the final appearance.

Another crime against women in India. It happens so many times that it doesn’t sound like news anymore. Harassment, molestation, eve-teasing, domestic violence, rape and murder. Te evil deeds. These don’t occur just randomly. They have their poisonous seeds. Their building processes. Long before they sprout with thorny branches, the soil is generated. It is a common social soil. It’s a cumulative shit that piles over generations. It takes a long time, this process of soil formation. Tradition and patriarchy rake it up over generations.  

The rapist only doesn’t carry the burden of culpability on his sick head. The social system that breeds such thorny seeds shares cumulative crime. A poisonous seed doesn’t land from another planet. It has its supportive forces. It has its environment.  

Rules of conduct and tradition certify your sociality and civility if you pander the taboo. Avoid women. Stay away. Only pour out your frustration through passable, ignorable acts of minor mistreatments. These are passable offenses.

Away from the skin-deep purification of the taboos, the beast lies in the mind. Tied with the ropes of patriarchal conventions. The ropes are strong, it takes some time to break and claim criminal freedom. Before that there is a long drawn out phase of passing remarks, molestation, eve-teasing, staring, criminal visualization in mind. The beast is struggling against the ropes. Ropes aren’t getting stronger. The beast is claiming power at a furious pace. The beast of skewed ideas in deprived brains has unlimited potential to grow strong and break the ropes. It is no longer satisfied with passing lewd remarks and brushing against the taboo in crowded buses. It wants more. It’s an untamed criminal now. It has got a helpless body to carry out its evil design.

A rape happens. And of course murder.

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The double-edged sword: Life and death

There was a gang of robbers in a forest. Its leader was a bloodthirsty soul. He took pleasure in robbing people of their wealth and possessions. It gave him strange, paranormal pleasure. He relished that look of fear in the victims’ eyes for losing the valuables. But he needed more pleasures from the victims. More than the fear of losing valuables, he was addicted to the fear in their eyes as his people hurt them, tortured them before the final kill. This fear of injury and blood in the victims’ eyes gave him even more satisfaction. His pleasure reached its peak when he saw the ultimate fear in their eyes, the fear of death as he went for the kill.

One day his band came across an old ascetic. The brigands hadn’t robbed and killed anyone for the past one week. They were thus thirsty for money and blood. A mendicant though won’t give them any valuable but the fear in his eyes while facing death was no less a possession for the gang leader’s evil soul. They tied the ascetic and a huge bandit raised his sword to behead him. Death was imminent. The outlaws expected an outpour of fear from the bearded old man. Their ears were ready to receive the very same plight of crying words, asking to be spared alive.

The head-bandit was looking at the old man’s face. His bloodthirsty soul was waiting water-mouthed at the spectacle of fear and cries in the face of death. But the old man was as serene as before. Totally unaffected. To break his calmness the leader even brought death an inch closer by ordering to count till ten. The beheader was to strike at the count of ten. The head bandit thought now it was impossible to escape fear as death approached in just ten steps.

One of the bandits started the count. With each count a smile surfaced on the old man’s lips. Before the final count the bandit leader stopped his striker. The old man kept on smiling.

“You are smiling. You have no fear of death!” the head-robber asked.

“I have experienced death and its pain. It’s not as scary as we make it. To stay alive can be more painful,” the ascetic replied.

“But the experience of death makes it even more fearsome,” the bandit frowned.

His ego had been puffed up over the years; swelling on peoples’ fears for their possessions, injuries and finally the life itself. It had been his driving force: a bloody calculation of his progress in life; a measurement of his devilish desire; the scale of his monstrosity which he took as excellence and superiority over fellow human beings.

Now the foundations of his treasure were breaking down. There was a challenge to his bloody conviction.

“I was a warrior one time. Was renowned for the power of my sword. I had enemies and unable to defeat me and inflict wounds on my body, they killed my family. I cried in pain over their death. Then I slaughtered them to the farthest known links of even distant most relatives,” smile had gone from his sagely face.

The bandits listened in rapt attention.

“I bathed in their blood. Laughed to the capacity of my lungs over their painful cries. I was trying to bury my pain under the pile of their bodies. Though I increased the number of my revenge killings, the pain inside but won’t go. I was thinking that I am removing my pain, I was but making it mountainous. Then I came across the wife of someone who had himself beheaded my wife and children. Killing her would have given me the maximum pleasure. I raised my sword to kill her. She was pregnant. Just a week or so from delivery,” he closed his eyes.

The bandits sat down. Laying their weapons by their side. It was an audience now.

“She was imploring me to kill her after she delivered the baby. She said she would consider it the kindest act done to her if I spared her life till the baby was born. She was in a way asking me to spare the baby. I told her that it won’t serve any purpose because in any case I will kill the newborn as well after her. But not in her womb or before her eyes, she asked this much favor. She was holding my legs. I was trying to shake her off but something stopped me. She was a mother. I remembered my own mother, the way she must have been killed. That left me shaking. I was ready to kill an enemy’s wife for revenge. But my hands were shaking to kill a mother,” tears were rolling down his bearded cheeks.  

The bandits were listening as if to a sermonizing seer.

“I decided to postpone my revenge for a week, thinking t will add to the pleasure in killing two lives. She gave birth to a girl after a week. The momentum of killings was still on my head. It still possessed me. I killed the mother. When I stabbed her I was shaken by the look in her eyes. She still carried the look of acknowledging my kindness in postponing my revenge. She had it all through the week. I had thought she was trying to save herself with that look. Trying to increase my pity to spare her and the child’s life. But I was wrong. She had fulfilled her promise that if I spared her life for a week she will consider it the kindest act done to her by anybody. That look on her face while dying showed it clearly. It robbed me of my hate. It killed the devil in me. And it condemned me to die each moment till I really die,” the old man looked into the sky.

There was pin-drop silence. One of the bandits even felt like offering some water to the old man. But he checked himself.

“The baby girl was my punishment for the revenge killings. I tried to kill it but my hands gave in. The game of death had possessed me. It had gripped me with such force that I was not living. I was already dead. I was roaming around as a dark agent of death. I was not living, I was already dead. I died long before my body will die. I went mad with repulsion. I hated my bloodied hands. Leaving the girl under the care of a friend and paying him for her upkeep till her marriage I ran away. I was running after my death. But even death seemed to have discarded me. It laughed sinisterly from a distance. I tried to kill myself. But I was so weak that even self-injury won’t come. So I roamed around. Neither accepted by death, nor by life. A ghost. Years of roaming around have left me detached both from life and death. As I take a step forward I don’t know if it is meant for life or death. This melting of difference between life and death has at least removed the scars of blood from my soul. I can sleep for a few hours. Peacefully. And I can smile. Death thus has lost any meaning to me. So has life. Nobody can restore life for me. That’s impossible. With so much blood on my soul. But if you give me death, I will consider it as a favor,” the old man seemed to implore the bandits to come and strike.

What was there for the bandit-head to feast on? This old man didn’t possess any valuable. More importantly he did not even have the fear of death. What will he take away from this killing? The food, this game of death, appeared stale, meaningless. He asked his group to throw their weapons. He had tears in eyes. He knew it was easier to continue the life like before and some day die at the hands of some more ferocious robbers or soldiers. That would be the fine end to it. And exciting. But to live differently to die another way was almost impossible. In fact that would be the real punishment. This old man had meted out the punishment to himself by dying every moment, dying while life thrived abundantly in the forest around him, leaving him alone, not touching him in any manner. So he decided to change. Not for a better life. Not for lesser punishment either. But for a prolonged death, recalling all his sins. Drawing sips of death instead of life for years before death claimed a body whose soul had escaped long time back.

Helping others;helping yourself: same same

Two monks, one young and the other old, were crossing a stream. A beautiful woman was also standing on the bank. Lines of worry on her beautiful face. Her mind calculating the risk. The steam appeared daunting to her elegant, feminine self.

The old monk looked at her. He understood that she needed help to cross the stream. His training to be kind brought the idea of helping her in his mind. But the mere thought of touching a woman shook him up. He got goose-bumps. His rules of celibacy forbade him from touching a woman. So chanting mantras to clear his mind he moved onto cross the stream.

Reaching the other end he was horrified to see the spectacle behind him. The young monk was crossing the stream. The woman was sitting on his shoulders. The older monk was gripped by scores of emotions. He felt jealous of the younger monk. For taking the initiative basically. Of becoming someone he always wanting to but denied himself from being. He then forced his jealousy into anger for breaking the code of monastic conduct. He was seething with helpless anger. The thought of touching a beautiful woman was gnawing at his heart. He was again denying some basic instinct like he had throughout his life.

The younger monk helped the woman down. She thanked and smiled. He bowed and followed his religiosity to the extent of keeping a straight face and moved away peacefully. They monks moved towards their hermitage.

They had been walking for hours. It was evening when they neared their place of penance. The check-dam of old man’s thoughts broke. Finally he burst out.

“You touched a woman. You have broken the code of conduct. I will complain against you once we reach,” he was still wondering whether he was jealous of the young monk or was it plain anger over the rules book.

The young monk smiled. He put a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“I left her on the river bank itself after helping her. You are still carrying her in your mind,” he said politely.

The older monk was ashamed. He tried to put her out of mind as they walked. The younger monk meanwhile walked with a rested mind, appreciating the marvels of nature in the forest.

The message is clear. The things that ought to simply be done, should just be done. Otherwise their shadows linger in the mind. They grow heavier with the passage of time. This invisible weight is heavier than the stones we see around. Simple, harmless acts of appreciation, of enjoyment, of helping somebody cross a stream are better done and closed with a full stop. It’s better for a healthy mind.

A missed chance of being good will definitely cast a shadow on your mind. A forced or even missed chance to be bad, on the other hand, will hardly leave an imprint on your conscience for later reflections. Only goodness has a legacy and a future. Badness is just a bad example and repentance sometime. To do good is instinctive for a human being, another matter that we stifle the urge most of the time. To do bad, on the other hand, is not instinctive. It is wrongly reflective, a miscalculation, a tragic bypass of the instinct of goodness.