Dharma in Daily Life

Radhakrishan was once narrating a story to the fifth standard children. Once there was a hermit who lived on the fringe of the village and close to the forest. Hermit was resepcted as a truthful person. Then came a robber to steal from the merchant and the merchant ran into the forest and hid himself here. Hermit had seen him hide in the forest. Robber came to the hermit and asked if he had seen the merchant. What should the hermit tell the robber? What would be his dharma?

Radhakrishnan was a teacher par excellence. He was named so after Dr S.Radhakrishnan the late President of India by his father Saravanan. He used stories to enable his students to debate among themselves and learn from the debate.

Ramanujan and Shaktimaan were two close friends in that class. Raman said that hermit must tell the truth where as he always stood for the truth, where as Shakti said hermit must not expose the merchant to the robber as the robber may cause harm to the merchant. The opinion got divided in the class.

Radhakrishnan said dharma was not a straight forward yes or no answer to be understood as such as the story illustrated. Dharma was regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying right behaviour and social order. But then he said that our country always held dharma as the jewel of all treasures and this jewel has got lost. It is our duty to rediscover or find this treasure lost to new generations.

As Raman and Shakti walked back home together, they decided that when they grow up and have some savings in their bank, they would travel all over India and discover dharma, the treasure of India as their way of paying respect to their teacher Radhakrishnan.

Ramanujam and Shaktimaan had touched a quarter century by way of their age when Ramanujam brought the news of demise of their Radhakrishnan. That was when Shakti remembered about the promise, they had made to each other to find dharma. Then they decided that they will request for a two week leave and set out for the search.

There first stop was in the capital of the nation for they believed that capital would exemplify the character of the nation itself. They met a variety of people from all walks of life. The capital was just recovering from the arson and violence let loose between Hindus and Muslims. They had heard slogans like “goli maaro saalon ko” from responsible leaders. They were disappointed and left for Uttar Pradesh where both Ram and Krishna given birth.

While in the journey Ramanujan recalled an episode to Shakti that a great leader like Vajpayee had asked the then CM of Gujarat when the pogrom was let loose on the hapless minority “what happened to the raja dharma?” then Shakti retorted was that enough on the part of Vajpayee to merely ask. Don’t you think Vajpayee should have acted and perhaps taken the Gujarat CM to task. Hmm said Ramanujam and wondered aloud about the scholar PM Narasimha Rao who did nothing when he had the powers, when the Babri Masjid was broken down. Perhaps the Delhi situation Would not have occurred. Both the friends sighed in sadness.

Their visit to the birth place of Rama and Krishna was no more fruitful than their Delhi visit. The atmosphere was equally vitiated. The state itself was perpetuating violence. Further they found casteism at a peak. Dalit girls became something to played around with for the higher caste men. They heard about the Hathras incident and the inept action by the police. They became familiar with the term love jihad but wondered how can there be jihad if there was love in the first place? They got no answer from anyone.

As they travelled towards south, which was considered to be better than the north they heard about the lynching of the sadhus in a village in Maharashtra. In Bangalore this time Muslims went on an arson and looting spree when one of their icons received a derogatory post in the social media. In Tamilnadu, they just read that some 400 Dalits had converted to Islam due to harassment from the upper-class Hindus.

What was left but the god’s own country? Thought the friends. Will we discover the treasure? Asked Shakti sounding desolate. They were at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari the confluence of the seas and the ocean. As the distant sun was setting the sky became a soft orange mellow and it soothed their fraught nerves. They took a train that night and reached Cochin next day morning. A fellow traveller had mentioned about Kodungallur, a town about 40 kms away from Cochin. The town would spring a surprise, the traveller had remarked.

They reached the Kodungallur town and reached a spot near to the jetty. It was a historical place and there was a pillar that proudly claimed that this was the spot that St Thomas took his first step in the country in 52 AD. When they read back in history, the place was known as Muzuirpatnam, a flourishing port where the Greeks, Arabs, the Dutch came for trading.

When their taxi arrived at another destination, they came to a mosque arguably the first mosque to be set up in the south Asian region. Surprisingly they learnt that the mosque was set up by a Cheran King. The legend was that he had a dream that the moon was splitting and no one could explain the dream. Then some traders came and said perhaps a man called Mohammed could explain. The king passed on the rule to his relatives and set sail. He must have met Mohammed of which there was no historical record but converted to the Islam religion and at his behest the mosque was set up in 629 AD.

Further away about two kilometers they came across the ancient Bhagwati temple. A bit of interesting history was that the heroine Kannagi of Silapathikaram, a sangam Tamil classic was supposed to have surrendered her life to goddess Bhagwati here.

As they were moving towards Kochi, they were told of a Jewish synagogue yet again of the bygone eras. Mohamed Sayeed, the president of the mosque’s managing committee, explained that trade and commerce was the priority and people had no conflicts due to whom they worshipped.

Raman and Shakti wondered if what they witnessed in this town was one of dharma being followed by the local inhabitants. They concluded it was indeed so as they had witnessed communal strife in the rest of India and it was increasing. Peace had prevailed in this small town since eons. 

The end of their vacation was near and they were exhausted too by the non-stop travel. Yet they felt some cheer and hope in their life. Common people had shown that dharma could be practised in daily life. No need for gurus and ashrams, Satsang and preaching. They were returning back to their daily grind but with a renewed vigour that they can find the jewel of dharma in their daily life too.