The Soul of Truth

By Shaji Madathil

Set in verdant Kerala, on a backdrop of the magnificent culture and traditions of God's Own Country, this book has universal appeal as it attempts to untangle the puzzles that are life and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9789388271455

Shaji Madathil

SHAJI MADATHIL Senior software engineer at Qatar Airways, Shaji holds Masters Degrees in Commerce, History, Business Management, and Computer Science. He is the son of Madathil M Narayanan and N K Bhargavi, and the nephew of renowned artist M V Devan. Shaji is married to Sandhya Vijayan and they have a son, Akash. The Soul of Truth is the English translation of Shaji's debut Malayalam novel, "Pathirapaatille Thennilapakshikal". The Malayalam book was cited in the LIMCA Book of Records for the first 3D cover in Indian fiction. The book was well received and Shaji donated the entirety of his royalties from the book sales for the treatment of cancer patients. More info at his website: http://www.madathilshaji.com He can be contacted at [e-mail].

Book preview

friends.

The First Night

It’s 11:30 pm in Bahrain.

The obituary that you just read will appear in tomorrow’s papers. It is mine. I, Uthaman, am dead. A few hours ago, my heart abruptly gave up—exhausted perhaps with the incessant lub-dub as it paced in its cage for the thirty-nine years of my eventful life.

A life full of dreams and hopes, in search of perfection. Yes, that is what the world called me—Uthaman, The Perfect One.

Dead, but not gone. You could say I am now on parole— allowed forty-one more nights on this earth. Forty-one nights to be with the body from which I have just been released. Kindly stay with me as I embark on these final hours.

How beautifully does the Bhagavad Gita speak of the immortality of the soul:

"Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;

Never was the time, it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!

Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit forever;

Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems."

Here I am, a wraith, watching over my cold, still body in the mortuary of King Hamad Hospital in Bahrain. I am at peace. The frantic activity of a few hours back, when everyone tried hard to restrain me in my body, seems a distant memory now. Everything is still in this morgue. A cold, frozen stillness that seems eternal...

But I feel the tugs. I relive my memories—in my barren emptiness, the fallen leaves of my remembrances may nourish a future generation.

I hear the laments from far off...my family...my wife Radhika... soulful wails of pain and separation from my beloved village. As life slips away, rushing through the Vaitarani, that whirlpool of despair, the soul screams in silent anguish.

Echoing cries.

Thirty-nine years back, I had come forth from painful cries of separation. Let me take you there, to Choornikkara, my village, my first love…

It is impossible not to fall in love with my village. Nestled on the banks of the undulating Periyar river and bordered by majestic blue mountains, its lush green fields warmly embrace wide open skies. The white sand banks of the river glisten like gold in the bright sunlight. There is a railway bridge over the river, the speeding trains a fixture in our lives. This was my heaven for many, many years. The long and short days of my childhood and youth were spent in this place of love. Scratch the surface of the sand, and you might still find some of my long-forgotten footprints.

My home was at the edge of the fields. You walk along the mud path through the field to get to the white two-storey house, standing proud amongst swaying coconut palms. You could see it from far off, always a welcome sight. The open windows invited the sweet-smelling breeze blowing from the fields. We never needed fans; even at the height of summer, the soft breeze kept the rooms cool and soothing.

My mother had her room downstairs, towards the back of the house. That is where I was born, I’m told—on a night when moonlight flooded the earth, and the stars twinkled in wide-eyed expectation. The air was quiet and still, except for the occasional tweet from a nightingale. Nature seemed to be holding its breath, awaiting my arrival. Lanterns dimmed in the faraway houses.

It was nearly midnight.

My father was pacing the courtyard for hours, anxiously repeating prayers and shlokas. He was a firm believer in God and karma, and knew he was about to be tested: a healthy heir would be the answer to his prayers and a testament to his good life. Dear God, in your hands.

The midnight train passed over the bridge with a long whistle, and my first cry pierced the stillness that followed. Disturbed, the nightingale fled. My father’s face broke into a smile, anxious to see his offspring, as Paaruamma emerged with a wriggling cloth-covered bundle. A boy—born under the star of Bharani in the Kumbha month. They say my father was suddenly petrified by my smallness and sheepishly declined as Paaruamma held me out for him to hold. An ardent student of astrology, perhaps his thoughts had already turned to the celestial calculations of my future. Nevertheless, my head of curly black hair and the little black mole at the side of my mouth, just like mother’s, endeared me to him very much. He felt an indescribable joy rising in him.

Later, I was laid snug against my mother. A sliver of moonlight came in through a gap in the curtains and kissed me on the cheek.

That silent night. My first day on this earth. With the smell of dreams and the stench of nightmares—always together, never apart. The harvested fields were bathed in moonlight, with the intoxicating perfume of mango blooms wafting in the air. Those far off, forgotten memories exhilarate me. Spirits must have glided about even on that night, clutching their castoff shells. Dead, yet drawn in by a new life.

I remember those deep conversations about life and death I used to have with Manu master—my friend and spiritual guru— at our favourite haunt, the golden sandbanks of the Periyar.

Manu master, a man haunted by disasters, and yet, never without a smile for others. He was my pillar of strength during those days of darkness when I was jobless and penniless. I was the younger one, and yet, here I am today: a cold, still body in an alien morgue, a helpless soul with unfulfilled desires.

My body. I had taken such good care of it. Washed it twice a day, kept it honed and shiny. My heart—the centre of my being—is now just a piece of dead flesh. Tossed about with disparate emotions, it had pulsed with the heights of happiness and the depths of despair. My loyal companion, from the time I was just a bundle of cells in my mother’s womb, that never rested even when I did, it finally took a permanent leave of absence when I least expected it. It was my fault though as with all my most precious possessions, I had taken my heart too much for granted.

But my face looks the same. I look as though I am sleeping. Or do I? How did I look when I slept? I realise I have no idea. I had never looked at a mirror while asleep. And nobody ever took a picture of me in a slumber. I feel a small smile coming on—do souls smile? Well, I suppose, my face looks as I imagine how it did when I slept. Except for the two tear tracks down the cheeks—the last remnants of the pain I had endured in my tortured struggle to keep body and soul together.

What about my mind? All my thoughts of thirty-nine years? A thousand dreams, a million memories? How can they suddenly turn into nothing? No, they are here. With me. In Uthaman’s soul. My thoughts still ebb and flow. A river ran through Uthaman’s life; still waters with hidden currents. His dreams were tinged with the glow of dawn and the gloom of dusk.

Will I leave anything of myself in this world? Halfway into the journey, my dreams lie in ruins. At life’s final count, all I have around me are a few muted sighs and a bare epitaph... What seemed so alive, so important, in no time turns into a void. The silent loss of many a wasted summer. Do we put off cherishing all that is precious till the last moment, only to realise we are never to enjoy them? Is everything a mirage? Haunting questions that define my death.

My death. . . .

Tucked away in one of the inside pages of the newspaper, most readers will pass over the obituary. People who know me might take the time to read the details, sigh over the death of a young man and turn the page. For the living, life is a continuum. But for me, it has reached a dead end. No turning back now.

Does death come calling out of the blue? Manu master had once said, Uthaman, life is a journey. We might take different paths, but all of us travel towards that same, ultimate destination—death. A journey. That interval between one breath and the next. With each step, wasn’t I dying, a little at a time, from the moment I was born? From the crib to the morgue, isn’t death our one constant companion? The silent shadow? Always with us—in joy and in despair, in sleep and in wakefulness, in health and in illness, a soft presence, an inaudible whisper: I am here with you.

Who is the new one?

How did he die?

Where is he going?

The mortuary staff always talk in hushed tones. Poor souls! Condemned to a life with the dead. Do they feel the cold? Do they dream in colour, or is there always this frozen smog overshadowing their hopes? I hope they leave the dead behind when they walk out into the bright sunlight after work. A few good men. With so little appreciation for the services they render.

This mortuary has fifty cubicles. Most of them are occupied— the cubbyholes of death. The groans of the souls hanging around their bodies permeate the air around me, though none of the living seems to sense anything. The smell of incense is overpowering, striving to hold off the stench of the dead. The deep, constant hum of the freezer sounds like a death rattle. The mortuary workers are always busy. It is their job to arrange for the dispatch of the bodies to their places of final rest. Unclaimed bodies are sent to the nearby public cemetery to be buried according to local customs.

The souls wait to accompany their bodies, a last journey together, yet not together. Like a bird set out of its cage, but unlike the freed bird, yearning to be caged once more. I hope my papers will be ready soon—they will ensure my speedy return to the land of my ancestors.

My last moments . . . I remember the crushing chest pain that came over so suddenly at work this afternoon, a searing blow that had me crumpled and doubled up on the floor. The running footsteps, the anguished calls of my colleagues, the many hands trying to support me.

I had been feeling stressed lately. But then, I had always worried about the smallest of things.

I could feel something draining out of me—was it life or was it sweat? Did I see my father and mother? Didn’t their soft hands try to pull me up, their sad smiles urging me to try harder? And then blackness—intense pain and blackness. Lightning flashed in my brain. So many shadows. Were my ancestors standing watch?

I was floating through an empty landscape, weightless in the dark, and yet, moving with some purpose. I saw the yawning mouth of a cavern. Did I crawl into it? The floor was slimy with writhing, twisting unknowns. Were they many-headed serpents? I was frightened, but I kept going. The darkness was overpowering. How much longer? Suddenly, there it was. A glow—swirling green flames. Then, just as quickly, it was dark again. The silence was suffocating; the cave was closing in. Terrified, I turned and rapidly crawled back.

Now there was light at the mouth of the cavern—a soothing, cool radiance.

In that light, I saw Uthaman, my body, inert on a gurney. And I, the life that had sustained him, hovered over him.

I was surrounded by people—doctors, nurses, my best friend Haneef. There was much activity around my still body: a doctor pounding on my chest, a nurse blowing into my nose. Prolonged, sustained efforts and, then, helpless glances at each other. Uthaman, the man, lay still. Because, I—Uthaman, the soul—had left that body. I saw the doctor give an imperceptible shake of his head and press sympathetically on the bewildered Haneef’s shoulder.

The moment I was officially dead.

Suddenly, I rise up in the air—a shimmering streak of silver, twisting and turning. I speed upwards. I can see shadowy figures in front of me. I am in the company of other souls departing their bodies.

This is our world, the magical realm of swirling colours and utter silence. Vivid colours—green, red, blue, silver—bursting into brilliant flames. How am I seeing these? Do I have eyes? Disembodied, how are my senses so acute? Before I can deliberate, the other souls are sucked into the flames. The fire engulfs them.

I am left alone in front of a tunnel. I can catch glimpses of the world on the other side, with Vaitarani, the river of death, crossing it. A great boat comes riding the waves, with a gigantic, dark, shrouded boatman, and I see my companion spirits in the boat, on their final journey.

I want to join them, but I cannot. It’s not my time yet. I feel a force pushing me back to earth, to be with my body for another forty-one days, to partake in the final rituals, to make sure my abode of thirty-nine years is laid to rest with all due rites and ceremonies, that nothing is left to chance. This much was divined from the beginning; this is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.

The body is frozen solid. Deathly pale. An empty nest.

That final piercing chest pain!

That was certainly not the first time I had similar pains.

Your body and heart are weak. You need complete rest, Dr Rasheed had advised me firmly the last two occasions I visited him at the King Hamad Hospital. He even hinted it might be best if I went back home to my family.

But I didn’t take him seriously. Or rather, I chose to ignore him. How could I return? When a whole family depended on me. My Radhika, dreaming of a beautiful future—keenly awaiting my phone calls, and the day she and Vishnu, our son, could join me in Bahrain.

Oppol, my widowed elder sister, and her two young daughters.

Appu Uncle, next time, could you bring me a box full of chocolates? The ones with the bright wrappers. That was Shalu, my older niece, during my last trip home. I would very much like a nice smelling perfume in a beautiful bottle. Malu, the more lady-like younger one had chirped in.

Instead, by now, they must know there will be no more chocolates or perfumes from me. That bitter, tear-stained truth must be all around them—pervasive as incense.

My younger sister, Sumathy, daydreaming of marriage and starting her own family.

Deepu, my dearest little brother.

Who will take care of them now? Who will give them the courage and strength to go through life? Here I am, the man of the house, their strength, lying cold and numb, awaiting my final six feet of earth.

The death of dreams and the sighs of the broken-hearted envelop my home today.

I could feel the presence of my ancestors in the past few days, even in my sleep. They were talking to me, urging me— about what I couldn’t be sure. But I had woken up many a time, baffled by weird nightmares and drenched in sweat. I had wondered if I had committed sins grave enough to bring on the wrath of my ancestors.

My parents—whom I’d lost in my youth—had also appeared in the dreams, their unfulfilled desires and regrets compounding my vague pains and frustrations, even while awake.

Appuetta, please come back. We can manage with what we’ve saved so far. Or you could try for a job here; I am sure you’ll find a good one. Please don’t neglect your health. You are the one most important to me, not money. I can’t imagine something bad happening to you. Please, Appuetta, come home. Radhika had been begging ever since she knew about the doctor’s concerns, but I’d chosen to ignore her as well.

Also, truth be told, I was too ensnared in the bewitching enchantments of life in the Gulf. Like a mistress, the Gulf keeps the expatriates who have flocked to her shore tethered close, and even while straining against her, we enjoy her hypnotic warmth.

I remember the ecstasy when I first arrived in the Gulf.

Things were getting messy at home. I was unemployed. My love life was in tatters—who would want to get their daughter married to an unemployed loser? Our doomed love story had been the talk of the village.

It was my good friend, Nooruddin, who had realised my troubles and arranged for the visa to Bahrain. That was always my asset: a few good, loyal friends. He was talented and trained in technology and made good use of it to flourish in the Gulf, and had no hesitation in helping me find a good job. It came as an answer to the heartfelt prayers of my family. It was a turning point in my life.

I can hear the early morning call to prayer from the mosque. It is also a warning to us—that it is almost time to return to our nothingness during daylight.

A sandstorm is brewing outside. The intense heat of the desert causes these dust storms. It could also mean a change of weather. Maybe we could hope for an unexpected rain, the harbinger of good times on this parched soil.

After this, forty more nights. As they run their course, I will probably drown in the tsunami of my memories, a wanderer in the wilderness that was my life. Tumultuous times before I finally depart…

I feel weaker. A sign that daylight is almost here, the time to be spent in silent entreaty for the return of the night.

Your days are our nights, and our days are your nights.

But we are allowed some concessions. We can be present even during the daytime for some rituals. And once gone, we are still allowed one day every year, to return to our loved ones.

There are some things that are eternal. They remain. They may change form and character, but they exist, indestructible.

I am the soul. The mind.

The knowledge, the culture, the essence of life are contained in me, and I exist.

"Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn." It is the soul that longs for moksha, not the body.

Tat Tvam Asi. Thou art that. The great enlightenment from the Upanishads. The Self—in its original, pure, primordial state—is identical with the Ultimate Reality that we call God. Or rather, God lives in us. And perpetuates life. The soul lives on.

Keep your thoughts young. It is not the number of years lived that counts, it is how you lived them.

The cubicle to my right holds a short, dark Arab. His face is mutilated. He died in a road traffic accident.

To my left is a young Sri Lankan. He fell to his death at a construction site.

Next to him is another Indian. He doesn’t have any family to speak of and will be buried at the public cemetery. He had committed suicide after a heated argument with his sponsor.

They say suicide is for cowards, a swift way out from the harsh realities of life. Easy to say, but doesn’t it take extraordinary courage to actually end one’s own life? How desperate must one be to take that final decision and how brave to stick with it to the very end?

Easy or not, people who commit suicide are judged very harshly. They, who willingly take the life that is not theirs to take, are never accepted into eternal life. Their fate is to wander forever, for they rejected the triumph that is life. The victory of one sperm over millions of others to jumpstart a life is a story of triumph. To extinguish that life is solely the right of the creator, never that of the creation. Unpardonable and unacceptable as per worldly and divine law.

All the bodies are in deep slumber, never to wake up again. The souls, released from the bodies, are restless as they wait for what’s to come; the unknown is scary, even for immortal souls.

The cold is unbearable. We prefer warmth, but our mortal bodies now need the cold. So, we stay here in these frozen cubicles with them, numb to discomfort, waiting for the next night.

The first of my allowed forty-one nights is almost over. I try to stay calm in the rushing torrent of troubled thoughts.

Till the coming night, let me rest for sometime in peace.

Here, high above the body of Uthaman.

I am you, you are me.

Dear God, in your hands.

The Second Night

My body, wrapped in white cloth, is now completely frozen. Icicles cling to my hair and chest. I feel the urge to get home as quickly as possible. But the formalities will take time. It might not happen today.

The legal department of the company must now be involved in urgent discussions and procedures to hasten the process of transfer. There will also be discussions about the amount of money owed to my family. The worth of fifteen years of hard work! It will be a hefty sum, and will surely help in ensuring some financial security to my flailing family.

The Shariat Court will decide the final sum. It is usually a straightforward process but, sometimes, it can get delayed due to unforeseen reasons.

In the fifteen years of my expatriate life, this will be my fourth journey back home, and the final one.

The first was five years after reaching the Gulf. Why did it take me five long years to go back? When I knew that my love was waiting back home? I have no clear answers. I only know that I wanted to feel worthy of her. To prove to one and all that I was successful and eligible to ask for my girl’s hand. And the seductive charms of the Gulf didn’t help. Five years in her luxurious embrace didn’t seem that long. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

How excited I was on that journey! To be back in my beloved home, brimming with dreams of proudly claiming Ruby, my girl, for myself. My love. My wife.

But when I got home the news that greeted me was shattering:—the shocking realisation that Ruby was no more mine. That she was now the wife of a stranger.

My world changed overnight. Stifling. I couldn’t bear to face friends or foes. The sympathy or the sniggers. I hid myself in my room, numb with disbelief. My glazed eyes wandering over to the wooden trunk in the corner, full of her love letters, quietly admonishing my callousness in abandoning her for so long.

Ruby and I belonged to each other, and only to each other. It was that confidence which made me evade the realities of life. The petite beauty who floored me in the eighth grade. The love that lasted so long through our childhood and youth that it blurred the lines between dreams and real life.

The love that walked moonlit gardens, embraced the thrill of chilly nights, shared the laughter of classrooms, wandered the corridors of the college campus and, finally, has reached this frozen moment in time.

How I loved her. Her simple beauty. A sprig of tulsi at the end of her long, lush hair—that was all the adornment she allowed herself. The elegance of her beautiful mind. She had brought beauty and brightness into my life.

My everlasting Spring. In my mind, the paths we walked were laden with flowers, the sky was always blue, the air filled with birdsong.

The beauty of nature appealed to her simple mind. Once when I plucked some flowers for her hair, she scolded me. Why, Appu? They belong to the plants and that is where I love to see them.

They look prettier on you. Can’t you see them smiling? I joked. Though for sure, no flower can match the beauty of your smile. The way she blushed. . . .

The remainder of that much awaited vacation became unbearable. Everything appeared strange and distressing. I couldn’t bear to walk along the lanes we had walked together. The paths looked unfamiliar. Ugly. Barren. No more smiling flowers to greet me.

My village too had changed, and I could no longer recognise its new face. The hillocks were flattened, and monstrous blocks of apartments had risen from their remains. I hoped to find solace on the golden sands of the river. But she too was dying, choked by the plastic and garbage thrown into her by a callous generation. Her tinkling laugh was replaced by gasping moans.

My childhood and youth were spent on those beautiful banks. Day-long cricket matches. Swimming with my friends. Eyes always flying to the temple steps, to check if Ruby was there, praying. She truly was a divine vision—long, damp hair knotted at the end, the sandal paste on her forehead, her big, twinkling eyes playing hide-and-seek with mine.

Her home was right across the temple. An old, proud house with two spreading Golden Rain trees in front, with open fields behind. The Periyar flowed by its side. After the monsoons, sometimes the river flooded. Shaking the tree blossoms into the roaring waters was a favourite pastime of ours.

Ruby’s letters! How did I miss the anguish in them? Her pleading not to abandon her to an uncertain future? I had everything planned—a job, and then our marriage; I just got the timing wrong. How could I forget the glistening eyes lighting up with desperate hope when she bade me goodbye? Why did I wait so long to return to her?

The riverbank was abandoned. A few cattle were grazing in the distance.

Sitting on the broken steps by the river, I searched for answers.

We had loved with such abandon.

Our love knew no limits. She was mine. I was hers. How could so much love be betrayed?

Looking back, it seemed unpardonable that I had expected Ruby to stand up to her father for five long years, waiting for a dream. But in my mind, we could never be separated, and for me, those five years had gone in a flash.

The torment she must have gone through when she bowed her head for the mangalasutra as another man claimed her for himself, as she walked beside that stranger in her green wedding sari!

My poor Ruby. You knew only to love and trust. How you must have suffered.

She was the one who taught me to dream. Now, all the dreams lie in tatters! It was my fault. Only mine!

My elder sister had attended the wedding, although I did not need her description to picture Ruby in her green sari. Green was her favourite colour. Once when I had presented her with a traditional Kerala sari with a green border, she had hugged it to herself and whispered, My wedding sari.

Ruby belonged to a Nair family that had seen better days. Her father was a rebel Communist who had eloped with her Christian mother. There were always snide rumours about her family, and Ruby suffered much due to that. But I was her rock, shielding her from the gossipmongers. I was also a friend and mentor to her younger brother, Robin, now matured into a promising young man and a principled activist himself. When we met, Robin tried to smile, a dead, watery smile.

Appuettan! When did you arrive?

Two days back.

How long will you be here?

Three weeks.

After an awkward silence, he blurted: Ruby Chechi still talks about you. She tried her best to resist my father’s attempts to get her married to another man. But with our financial problems and past history, he wasn’t ready to wait so long for you to come back. She had no other option but to obey him. Please don’t hate her.

Robin took both my hands in his, weeping silently. I couldn’t say anything. How could I? When it was my own callousness that had caused all this heartache?

When Robin walked away dejectedly, my mind was in a whirl. The reality that I had lost Ruby forever hit me like a hard punch.

To love and lose is a pain forever.

Poets sing of the tomb hidden under fallen memories of every lover. It is true! I am the silent guardian of the monument to my love.

Years have passed. But she remains, always, with me. I can’t forget her. My village and school and river and college and temple and everything about my past remind me of her. Her face. Her words. Her smile. She was an inseparable part of me.

Love is grief. Dripping with sweetness, it can smother you with its intensity. A bittersweet, painful ecstasy. An unsolvable puzzle.

It started raining suddenly. I stumbled along in that rain, thankful that my tears washed away with the water. I passed her house. The emptiness filled me with dread. I couldn’t stay in my village any longer. I cancelled the rest of my leave and returned to Bahrain the very next day. A journey I would rather forget.

The second homecoming was for my wedding to Radhika. Our families had arranged everything. She was from my own village.

I vaguely remembered her as a sweet little kid in school uniform.

On our wedding day, when she stepped up to my side, I saw that she had grown into a real beauty.

But even that stunning beauty couldn’t stop my mind from wandering in search of