When Atheist Met God

Ra was angry with Shiva for making him wait. Ra plans his job to the T and does not like any deviations. He does not have the luxury like any software engineer of the day and keep moving the date. After all, his client, once woken up, will call the police on him. Yes, you read it right, call the police on him. Ra was a robber, and he was not any robber but the lead guy who plans all the heists. So, when Shiva was delaying the troupe, it was not rocket science to understand why Ra was angry. 

It was not the first time that Shiva was late. Every time they head for a heist Shiva was late. The reason was what got the goat of Ra. Shiva does this pooja before going on a job. Ra, any atheist hated this. It was not like others in his crew were atheists. But, Shiva felt they are surviving because of his pooja. Ra hated the idea, he wanted to take Shiva out. Ra did try to replace him. He learned finding an atheist robber was easy, but a trusted one was not.

After a wait of an hour, Shiva came. He brought Vibhuthi and was applying to each of his crew. As he got close to Ra, Shiva said, "Please let me apply this at least today, Ra..".

Stopping him mid-sentence, Ra said, "It's only Ra, nothing more, and I don't want any Vibhuthi. Let us go." 

They reached the house where they are going to rob. They were there early, not by accident, of course. Ra zeroed in that time after a thorough snooping and inquiries. As per their snooping, they found a police patrol comes to the shop near the street. The police come there to the old man's shop for some free tea and cigarettes. They had two options come in early or wait for them to leave. Ra's plan seems to work better if they come in early. Ra found a secluded dark place to hide before they get into action. 

Waiting there, Ra started to recollect his plans and why and how he zeroed in on this house. He recollected the TV news he heard.

"Reporter: They are all saying you are a Benami of MLA. 

Man: I am not Benami of anyone. I don't have a paisa on my name or my family's name. How could I be a Benami?

Reporter: The house you are living in is not affordable with your salary. Also, why should MLA visit your home as soon as the election campaign started?

Man: House I got on loan, the land was given to me by my distant uncle. MLA came to ask for our vote."

All the opposition parties used the interview in campaign speeches. The MLA was finding ways to keep this off the news. Reporters ran the interview a hundred times and had various debates. Only Ra tried to find the truth. To no one's surprise, that guy was MLA's Benami. The MLA kept all liquid cash for election in an old well behind the house. 

Ra did not need a reason to rob. All he needed was to find money and get close enough to get into action. Having one made it easy to convince the crew. Most of the time, he made up the reason. That day he does not have to. He felt good about the job and was ready to jump into action. Suddenly he heard a noise. It was coming from the other side of the wall. The crew started to get nervous, but they did not move and waited to see what happened next. Another stone came flying. Luckily it did not hit anyone. 

After a few minutes of silence, more stones started to come. This time close to where they were waiting. They ran and hid in a different corner to save themselves. After waiting an hour and not hearing anything, they decided to come out of hiding. 

Shiva was the first to speak. "The muhurta seems not auspicious. Let us drop this for today and plan it again."

Ra was angry when he heard about muhurta. "It was not muhurta or anything. It seems some teenagers threw stones for timepass. But I agree that we need to plan this for later. Now all of us are spooked, and we also lost time." 

They agreed and were ready to leave. But, they cannot all leave together as it might draw some attention. One after the other walked out of the place, as was always Ra was the last one to leave. Ra, bored waiting got up from where he was sitting and walked a little and suddenly there was a big noise. Ra before he could see what the sound was, started falling through a pit. He could not control his fall and stopped only after falling for a few seconds after he reached the end of the pit. 

After getting hold of his senses, Ra started to think of a way out. He picked his mobile to check for the network, but there was none. Ra looked around for anything that helps him get out of there. He could not find any. He patiently continued his search around. The pit was an old closed well. It was closed with only some sand, and it gave away, and Ra fell into it. Looking around, he felt the place almost seemed like a room. A little more looking around, Ra found something strange. A man was sitting opposite to where he was standing. 

Rubbing his eyes hard, he looked again. The man was looking as if he was waiting for someone. He walked carefully towards the man. The man gave a smile seeing Ra, the smile of the man felt like one seen when meeting a close friend after a while. Ra was confused, the man's face was not familiar. 

Ra ignored his smile and asked the man, "Who are you?"

"I am god", replied the man.

Ra started laughing hysterically. 

Laughing, he turned to the man and asked, "God?". 

The man nodded as to mean "Yes". 

Ra continued his laughter. After laughing for a while, Ra noticed something the man had not an iota of change in his expression. The confidence on the man's face was both confusing and unsettling to Ra. He got serious and asked the man, "Tell me, really, who are you? Where the hell am I?"

"I told you already I am god. You are at the crossroads between this world and the next."

Ra started checking his head. 

The man asked, "What are you searching for?".

"Head injury? How else can I find someone here at the bottom of the pit? That too, calling himself, the god?"

"Well, I understand your skepticism. Till you are convinced, let us assume I am your unconscious conscious waiting to take you out."

"Okay, I will ask you again. Who are you?"

"I am god. For you, I will be Shiva."

Ra convinced himself that he was hallucinating. He felt there should be some gas in the closed well that was causing this.

"Why do you hate me?" asked Shiva.

"I hate you? No, I don't hate you. I don't know you, to hate you."

"Fair. But why you keep telling everyone I am not real."

"You are not real."

"I am in front of you now. How real do I look to you?"

"You are not real. It is all just some dream or hallucination."

"Okay, why this hallucination? Why me?"

Ra had no answer. Why was he seeing a god, and why was that the god does not look like any of the pictures he saw of god before? 

"I know, it is a bit confusing. I wanted to wear my jewelry and come with my weapons. But the weather was hot, so wore this cotton shirt and cotton pants."

Ra replied, "I can understand" forgetting that he never asked the question to him.

Ra was ready to indulge with the man. It meant his atheistic credentials were under doubt. But he tried to recollect when was the first time he knew he was an atheist. 

It was not when his father sold him off at age five to bonded labor. It was not when he saw a nine-year-old girl who came holding her stomach in pain after going to meet the warden. It was not when he was arrested for stealing stale food out of hunger. When, when was it? He remembered then, it was when an 85-year-old brother asked to do last rites for his 90-year-old brother and the 90-year-old holding Ra's hand in the cemetery and begged him not to stop. God cannot let people die like this was what Ra felt that day. 

Ra, however, was not ready to open up. But he cannot keep quiet. There was nothing else for him to do there. He needs to indulge with Shiva-the god as long as he was in this world. So, he started having some fun.

"Why you came to me. There are so many waiting to meet you why don't you go there?"

"I too thought about it before coming here. That was when I was reminded of a story Vishnu told me. There was once a rakshasa, his name was Gantaa(Bell) rakshasa. His parents were killed by Vishnu for their atrocities. So, he took an oath never to hear Vishnu's name. He felt the best way to do that was by wearing a bell in his ear. The bell kept on ringing and he never heard Vishnu's name ever. He died and was happy he succeeded. To his unpleasant surprise, he was brought to Vaikuntham, the living abode of Vishnu. Rakshasa asked what happened? Vishnu replied, "All your life you wanted not to hear my name. But you kept repeating my name all the time."

"How?" asked the Rakshasa.

"You kept saying to yourself I don't want to hear Vishnu's name, I don't want to hear Vishnu's name. That is how you kept repeating my name all the time." Hope you understand why I was reminded of this story." said Shiva-the God.

"Are you saying I kept repeating you do not exist and called you here?"

"You tell me. Did you?"

"Shiva, see I was told you are somewhere in the sky looking at us. Behave a good boy otherwise, God is coming to punish you. I behaved well. Was a good boy and all. One day, a man robbed a person in front of my eyes. I was about to tell on him. But he showed me a knife and I got scared. That day I was waiting for you to punish him, nothing happened. A few days later I saw a man molesting a lady on the bus. I saw, but I was scared of the man. I again waited for "God" to do something, again nothing. That day I know you don't exist."

"You also did not do anything. Does that mean you also do not exist?" asked "Shiva-the god".

"I exist, I exist in fear. As a god, you are not supposed to have any fear. That is not all. Till that point, I was so-called "Good." After that, I know no god is looking after me I have to look after myself. So, I robbed people. Suddenly I have a lot of money. I can buy anything I want. I don't have to sleep on the roadside. I don't have to eat out of garbage bins. All was possible, the moment I accept the fact, you do not exist."

"So, you killed your morality and felt you actually killed me?"

"I don't have to kill you. You never existed. You are an imaginary carrot/stick held on our head to make us do something." 

"Is that all God is for?"

"What else is your value? No one can see you. No one can touch you. But every stupid believes you. All for what, to create an illusion of order."

"Is order so bad?"

"Order, where is the order? There is no order when my father sold me off. When a 9-year-old girl's lost her innocence for chocolate. There is no order when a 90-year-old begs you to set him to fire alive." 

Without Ra realizing it, he got his deepest secrets out. He felt helpless and naked. He turned to him to see if he felt any guilt for his mistakes. But no, the man still had the same confident look.

"I knew it already. You don't exist. You are the same as the stone they pray."

"I am stone and do not exist, let us say. You were there, you exist, you are not a stone. What did you do?"

"I am powerless. I had no choice."

"No, you had many choices. You chose the easy one."

"I cannot believe this. How can I save the girl? I don't know he was going to do that."

"Yes, you don't know. But what you did after you knew. Do you think the girl was the last? You could have saved many after. You could have save that old man, you could have asked him to share your food. Who knows, he could have turned out healthy and helped you."

"Don't turn the tables on me. I don't know him, I don't know his problem."

"When you don't know how do you know what I did was wrong or what I did not do was not right?"

"Are you saying you know all this and kept quiet. It was a 9-year-old girl?"

"I am not here to prove to you I exist. If I wanted to prove I would have given you 12 fingers like in Bruce Almighty or made you walk on water. I came here to see which world I should take you to."

"Are you saying I will die here, you are going to take me hell or heaven based on how I do?"

"There is no hell or heaven if there is no god. Why do you worry?"

"I am not worried. I am ready to go to hell."

"Again, there is no hell or heaven. All hell and heaven are in you. If you are saying you are ready for hell means you feel you are doing something wrong."

"You should be on TV. You can get a lot of stupid followers and can sell your speeches and blessings for money."

"Is that your problem? Someone making money out of me?"

"Maybe."

"You too are making money out of me, saying to yourselves I don't exist."

"Here we go with the logic again. Nothing is straight with you."

"What do you want straight from me?"

"Tell me I am right and you don't exist. Tell me you are only an imagination, I am feeling now."

"Yes, I do not exist. I am just an image you created to keep yourself busy."

"Come on, start with the, "But". 

"Yes. There is a but. There is always but. But, you are wrong on many other things. You have free will, you used it for your convenience and blamed it on me. I cannot promise your free will get you everything you want. But it gives you an option to do right or wrong. Some die doing the right thing some the wrong thing. God is nowhere in this as God expects you to do the right thing all the time."

"Why?"

"Why you ask? Because you are all my children. A father when sending his son to an exam expects him to get a 100 all the time. If he fails, he will be disappointed. God will turn angry when he feels his kid has no hope."

"Don't do these spiritual speeches with me. I know you don't exist that is the end of it. Your sentiments and hopes are nothing for me. When I have seen so much dark in the world."

"As I told you, I did not come here to prove I exist. I want you to believe you exist and whatever you do have consequences. I ask you to check them and check them closely. Fear of failure, fear of hunger, or fear of death should not stop you from doing something right."

"In the real world, this won't work. Everyone for themselves."

"Then why are people giving money for Anna Dhanams or education trusts of temples. "

"Out of guilt. To wash off their sins. "

"Don't you think you should be allowed to change, do something to correct yourself?"

"Paying money to you solves all the problems? And do some other mistake and pay you some more money."

"I did not say that. I asked you a simple question, should people be given a chance to change."

"Yes."

"So, now what will you do?"

"Don't tell me I have to believe in you and put some money in hundi after every burglary I do."

"You have a silly sense of humor. If given chance what will you tell your father? Do to that warden that night or how do you save that old man. They might be alive or dead, but there are many more like them that need you."

"Why me? Why not you?"

"I will do what I do. That doesn't mean you don't do anything."

"Enough with your speeches man. Which world is that waiting for me?"

"One you want, Rama." said the god.

"I hate the name Rama", Ra tried to tell and the god was no longer there. He wanted to search around the well but lost consciousness. When he woke up he was in jail.

P.S: Parvati asked Shiva, he was not ready to take your advice. Why did you let him back in the world? What if he goes back robbing and living like an atheist. Shiva replied I have hope in him. But how asked Parvati he did not agree to any of what you try to say to him. I have hope because he is my son and the father always expects his son to come up good.