UNTITLED

At last, someone assassinated him.
At last, the uneasy, perpetually punctuated sentence, ended with a gory full stop.
But it was no full stop. The journey stopped, but the road continued endlessly- with query marks all along it. The road still travels.
His childhood was commonplace. As a child he ate forbidden food. Visited forbidden places. Stole. Lied. But one day his soul spoke to him and he confessed it all before the world. Confession was his first experiment with truth. Truth was always a double edged weapon. Pointing finger at himself, he quarreled with himself in public.
He experimented with diet, with silence, with control of palate, with lifestyle. He experimented with education, with vocations, with social reforms, with transformation of hearts. The scientist in him was eternally patient. The artist in him, impatient.
His experiments failed. He slipped. Recovered. He didn’t hide his wounds. He didn’t hide his scars. The highbrow called him shameless.
He had a wife. All the world knew him. Some laughed at him. Some adored him. Others scorned him. But everyone knew him. But she preferred backstage. Took care of her old man. She became his mother. Caring, correcting, chastising. Actually, mother to everyone around. She passed away, and he wept. Alone. After the crowd around him went away.
Some say he had a girl friend- may be more than one. Actually, that does not make anyone lesser or greater. People did not like him this way. They decided what his image should be. They wanted a pious icon. They deified him. And deities are no longer allowed to be normal human beings. Later in his life he experimented with self-control. Stayed in company of young women. As gold stands the ordeal by fire. Puritans called him hypocrite; embarrassed admirers, an eccentric.
He had children. But his eccentricity was not hereditary. It was contagious. It was overwhelming. But not binding. He did not ask anyone to be his follower. Let each one walk in her or his own light. He insisted only on one thing. Truth. And purity. Purity of ends. Purity of means.
He reached out unto the last. He lighted the spark within those condemned to darkness. Held a mirror to them. He gave voice to the womenfolk, hitherto confined to mute submission within the four walls of domestic life. He gave them a sight that would look any power in its eyes. He enlisted them, and marched his way to dethrone despotism- domestic, social, or political. The firebrand called him dreamer.
He liked to touch the earth. He liked to clean toilets. He liked to care for the cattle. He liked to work on farms. He also liked to be one with kids. To laugh with them. To play with them. He laughed like frolicking stream. The dignified called him childish.
The respectable quarreled and came to him for conciliation, and went away angrily. He was frighteningly impartial. So everyone saw him partial to the opposite party. He punished only himself. For the lapses of others. He bore on himself all the arrows that the quarreling brothers shot at each other.
Nobody was happy. He too was sad like a bird with broken wings. The broken wings still hoped to reach out someone wounded worse. The wise called him indiscrete.
He prayed for help. Prayer was not asking. It was longing of his soul. Earlier his god spoke to him. Guided him in crises. From the depths of his own being. Innumerable thorny paths he had trodden after the beacon of this inner voice. The conservative called him mad.
Now the inner voice too became mute. Now no one really needed him. Now no one was comfortable with him. He became superfluous. Rather, a nuisance. A problem, perhaps asking for a drastic solution.
So at last, someone did take the inevitable step. Faced him. Bowed before him. And pulled the trigger. Thrice. Finished him. May be, politicians around too sighed relief.
That was the end of the restless sentence. Even its echo is lost in wilderness.
The sentence was silenced. Echo faded out. Slogans lingered, then got lost. His name ceased to be a political currency.
C'mon, something really wasn’t ok with the guy who said I am a Hindu, Christian, Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, AND Confucian. Pooh! Separatism is cool sexy. Chauvinism sells: my religion, my race, my blood, my lingo, my shit, my piss. Mob-monger's market mantra!
He said, there was enough in the world for man’s need but not for his greed. Surely, greed begat violence. Greed begat falsehood. Greed begat stealing, stealth, and possessiveness. Today, greed begets ecocide.
He had fads. Strict veg-ism. Abstinence for birth-control. Fasts. Silence. No to medicine and surgery. No to hi-tech. Perhaps there was a constant struggle deep down: willing spirit vs. weak flesh. His fads were great. What he did despite of them was much greater.
May be, he would have blessed the technology that saved life, harnessed solar energy, or gave pest-resistant crop.
He would have been appalled at the tech that a maniac could program to eliminate life on the planet @ 1000 gigalives/sec. He would have been equally horrified at the tech that gave us “the-morning-after pill.”
And he would have just shrugged off the tech that took you to the north pole, or the moon, or the Mars – just as he had shrugged off the Eiffel Tower!

The uneasy, perpetually punctuated sentence, forever unfolds new contexts and fresh meanings as you ponder over it.