CHAPTER 16,17 Life of Pi
2013-09-07 11:38阅读：
CHAPTER 16
We are all born like Catholics, aren't
we¡ªin limbo, without religion, until some figure
introduces us to God? After that meeting the matter ends for most
of us. If there is a change, it is usually for the lesser rather
than the greater; many people seem to lose God along life's way.
That was not my case. The figure in question for me was an older
sister of Mother's, of a more traditional mind, who brought me to a
temple when I was a small baby. Auntie Rohini was delighted to meet
her newborn nephew and thought she would include Mother Goddess in
the delight. 'It will be his symbolic first outing,' she said. It's
a samskara!' Symbolic indeed. We were in Madurai; I was the fresh
veteran of a seven-hour train journey. No matter. Off we went on
this Hindu rite of passage, Mother carrying me, Auntie
propelling her
. I have no conscious memory of this first go-around in a temple,
but some smell of incense, some play of light and shadow, some
flame, some burst of colour, something of the
sultriness and mystery of the place must have stayed
with me. A germ of religious exaltation, no bigger
than a mustard seed, was
sown in me and left to germinate.
It has never stopped growing since that day.
I am a Hindu because of sculptured cones of red kumkum powder
and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets,
because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken
coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one's arrival
to God, because of the whine of the
reedy nadaswaram and the
beating of drums, because of the patter of bare
feet against stone floors down dark corridors pierced by
shafts of sunlight, because of the fragrance of
incense, because of flames of arati lamps circling in the darkness,
because of bhajans being sweetly sung, because
of elephants standing around to bless, because of colourful
murals telling colourful stories, because of
foreheads carrying, variously signified, the same word¡ªfaith. I
became loyal to these sense impressions even before I knew what
they meant or what they were for. It is my heart that commands me
so. I feel at home in a Hindu temple. I am aware of Presence, not
personal the way we usually feel presence, but something larger. My
heart still skips a beat when I catch sight of the murti, of God
Residing, in the inner sanctum of a temple.
Truly I am in a sacred cosmic
womb, a place where everything is born, and it
is my sweet luck to behold its living core. My
hands naturally come together in reverent
worship. I hunger for prasad, that
sugary offering to God that comes back to us as
a sanctified treat. My palms need to feel the heat of
a hallowed flame whose blessing I bring to my eyes and
forehead.
But religion is more than rite and ritual. There is what the
rite and ritual stand for. Here too I am a Hindu. The universe
makes sense to me through Hindu eyes. There is
Brahman, the world soul, the sustaining frame upon
which is woven, warp and weft, the cloth of being,
with all its decorative elements of space and time. There is
Brahman nirguna, without qualities, which lies
beyond understanding, beyond description, beyond approach; with our
poor words we sew a suit for it¡ªOne, Truth, Unity, Absolute,
Ultimate Reality, Ground of Being¡ªand try to make it fit, but
Brahman nirguna always bursts the seams. We are left speechless.
But there is also Brahman saguna, with
qualities, where the suit fits. Now we call it
Shiva, Krishna,
Shakti, Ganesha; we can
approach it with some understanding; we can discern
certain attributes¡ªloving, merciful, frightening;¡ªand we feel the
gentle pull of relationship. Brahman saguna is Brahman made
manifest to our limited senses, Brahman expressed not
only in gods but in humans, animals, trees, in a handful of earth,
for everything has a trace of the divine in it. The
truth of life is that Brahman is no different from
atman, the spiritual force within us, what you might
call the soul. The individual soul touches upon the world soul like
a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the
universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core
of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The
finite within the infinite, the infinite within the
finite. If you ask me how Brahman and atman relate precisely, I
would say in the same way the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
relate: mysteriously. But one thing is clear: atman seeks to
realize Brahman, to be united with the Absolute, and it travels in
this life on a pilgrimage where it is born and dies,
and is born again and dies again, and again, and again, until it
manages to shed the sheaths that imprison it here
below. The paths to liberation are numerous, but the bank along the
way is always the same, the Bank of Karma, where the
liberation account of each of us is credited or
debited depending on our actions.
This, in a holy nutshell, is Hinduism, and I have been a
Hindu all my life. With its notions in mind I see my place in the
universe.
But we should not cling! A plague upon
fundamentalists and
literalists! I am reminded of a story of Lord
Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the
milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They
come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst
roars and crackles, the beat of the music
gets ever faster¡ªthe girls dance and dance and dance with their
sweet lord, who has made himself so abundant as to be in the arms
of each and every girl. But the moment the girls become
possessive, the moment each one imagines that Krishna
is her partner alone, he vanishes. So it is that we should not be
jealous with God.
I know a woman here in Toronto who is very dear to my heart.
She was my foster mother. I call her Auntieji and she
likes that. She is Quebecoise. Though she has lived in Toronto for
over thirty years, her French-speaking mind still slips on occasion
on the understanding of English sounds. And so, when she first
heard of Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard 'Hairless
Christians', and that is what they were to her for many years. When
I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that
Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians,
just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are
bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to
God, are hat-wearing Muslims.
CHAPTER 17
First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the
impression made by the first. I owe to Hinduism the
original landscape of my religious imagination, those towns and
rivers, battlefields and forests, holy mountains and deep seas
where gods, saints, villains and ordinary people rub
shoulders, and, in doing so, define who and why we are. I first
heard of the tremendous, cosmic might of loving kindness in this
Hindu land. It was Lord Krishna speaking. I heard him, and I
followed him. And in his wisdom and perfect love, Lord Krishna led
me to meet one man.
I was fourteen years old¡ªand a well-content
Hindu on a holiday¡ªwhen I met Jesus Christ.
It was not often that Father took time off from the zoo, but
one of the times he did we went to Munnar, just over in Kerala.
Munnar is a small hill station surrounded by some of the highest
tea estates in the world. It was early May and the
monsoon hadn't come yet. The plains of Tamil Nadu were
beastly hot. We made it to Munnar after a winding,
five-hour car ride from Madurai. The coolness was as pleasing as
having mint in your mouth. We did the tourist thing. We visited a
Tata tea factory. We enjoyed a boat ride on a lake. We toured a
cattle-breeding centre. We fed salt to some Nilgiri tahrs¡ªa
species of wild goat¡ªin a national park. ('We have some in our
zoo. You should come to Pondicherry,' said Father to some
Swiss tourists.) Ravi and I went for walks in
the tea estates near town. It was all an excuse to keep our
lethargy a little busy. By late afternoon Father and
Mother were as settled in the tea room of our comfortable hotel as
two cats sunning themselves at a window. Mother read
while Father chatted with fellow guests.
There are three hills within Munnar. They don't bear
comparison with the tall hills¡ªmountains, you might call
them¡ªthat surround the town, but I noticed the first morning, as
we were having breakfast, that they did stand out in one way: on
each stood a Godhouse. The hill on the right, across the river from
the hotel, had a Hindu temple high on its side; the hill in the
middle, further away, held up a mosque; while the hill on the left
was crowned with a Christian church.
On our fourth day in Munnar, as the afternoon was coming to
an end, I stood on the hill on the left. Despite attending a
nominally Christian school, I had not yet been inside
a church¡ªand I wasn't about to dare the deed now. I knew very
little about the religion. It had a reputation for few gods and
great violence. But good schools. I walked around the church. It
was a building unremittingly unrevealing of what it
held inside, with thick, featureless walls pale blue
in colour and high, narrow windows impossible to look in through. A
fortress.
I came upon the rectory. The door was open. I
hid around a corner to look upon the scene. To the left of the door
was a small board with the words Parish Priest and Assistant Priest
on it. Next to each was a small sliding block. Both
the priest and his assistant were IN, the board
informed me in gold letters, which I could plainly see. One priest
was working in his office, his back turned to the bay windows,
while the other was seated on a bench at a round table in the large
vestibule that evidently functioned as a room for
receiving visitors. He sat facing the door and the windows, a book
in his hands, a Bible I presumed. He read a
little, looked up, read a little more, looked up again. It was done
in a way that was leisurely, yet alert and
composed. After some minutes, he closed the book and
put it aside. He folded his hands together on the table and sat
there, his expression serene, showing neither
expectation nor resignation.
The vestibule had clean, white walls; the table and benches
were of dark wood; and the priest was dressed in a white
cassock¡ªit was all neat, plain, simple. I was filled
with a sense of peace. But more than the setting, what arrested me
was my intuitive understanding that he was there¡ªopen, patient¡ªin
case someone, anyone, should want to talk to him; a problem of the
soul, a heaviness of the heart, a darkness of the conscience, he
would listen with love. He was a man whose profession it was to
love, and he would offer comfort and guidance to the best of his
ability.
I was moved. What I had before my eyes stole into my heart
and thrilled me.
He got up. I thought he might slide his block over, but he
didn't. He retreated further into the
rectory, that's all, leaving the door between the
vestibule and the next room as open as the outside door. I noted
this, how both doors were wide open. Clearly, he and his colleague
were still available.
I walked away and I dared. I entered the church. My
stomach was in knots. I was terrified I would meet a
Christian who would shout at me, 'What are you doing here? How dare
you enter this sacred place, you defiler? Get out,
right now!'
There was no one. And little to be understood. I advanced and
observed the inner sanctum. There was a painting. Was this the
murti? Something about a human sacrifice. An
angry god who had to be appeased with blood. Dazed
women staring up in the air and fat babies with tiny wings flying
about. A charismatic bird. Which one was the god? To
the side of the sanctum was a painted wooden sculpture. The victim
again, bruised and bleeding in bold colours. I stared at his knees.
They were badly scraped. The pink skin was
peeled back and looked like the petals of a
flower, revealing kneecaps that were
fire-engine red. It was hard to connect this
torture scene with the priest in the
rectory.
The next day, at around the same time, I let myself
IN.
Catholics have a reputation for severity,
for judgment that comes down heavily. My experience with Father
Martin was not at all like that. He was very kind. He served me tea
and biscuits in a tea set that tinkled and
rattled at every touch; he treated me like a
grown-up; and he told me a story. Or rather, since Christians are
so fond of capital letters, a Story.
And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was
disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's
Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me,
'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen
today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black
buck. Last week two of them ate the camel. The
week before it was painted storks and grey
herons. And who's to say for sure who snacked
on our golden agouti? The situation has become
intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only
way the lions can atone for their sins is if I
feed you to them.'
'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to
do. Give me a moment to wash up.'
'Hallelujah, my son.'
'Hallelujah, Father.'
What a downright weird story. What peculiar
psychology.
I asked for another story, one that I might find more
satisfying. Surely this religion had more than one story in its
bag¡ªreligions abound with stories. But Father Martin made me
understand that the stories that came before it¡ªand there were
many¡ªwere simply prologue to the Christians.
Their religion had one Story, and to it they came back again and
again, over and over. It was story enough for them.
I was quiet that evening at the hotel.
That a god should put up with adversity,
I could understand. The gods of Hinduism face their fair share of
thieves, bullies, kidnappers and usurpers. What
is the Ramayana but the account of one long,
bad day for Rama? Adversity, yes. Reversals of
fortune, yes. Treachery, yes. But
humiliation? Death? I couldn't imagine Lord
Krishna consenting to be stripped naked,
whipped, mocked, dragged through the streets and, to top it off,
crucified¡ªand at the hands of mere humans, to
boot. I'd never heard of a Hindu god dying. Brahman Revealed did
not go for death. Devils and monsters did, as did mortals, by the
thousands and millions¡ªthat's what they were there for. Matter,
too, fell away. But divinity should not be
blighted by death. It's wrong. The world soul
cannot die, even in one contained part of it. It was wrong of this
Christian God to let His avatar die. That is
tantamount to letting a part of Himself die.
For if the Son is to die, it cannot be fake. If God on the Cross is
God shamming a human tragedy, it turns the
Passion of Christ into the Farce of Christ. The
death of the Son must be real. Father Martin assured me that it
was. But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The
Son must have the taste of death forever in His mouth. The
Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a
certain stench at the right hand of God the
Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon
Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is
beautiful, spoil what is perfect?
Love. That was Father Martin's answer.
And what about this Son's deportment?
There is the story of baby Krishna, wrongly accused by his friends
of eating a bit of dirt. His foster mother, Yashoda, comes up to
him with a wagging finger. 'You shouldn't eat
dirt, you naughty boy,' she scolds him. 'But I haven't,' says the
unchallenged lord of all and everything,
in sport disguised as a frightened human child.
'Tut! Tut! Open your mouth,' orders Yashoda. Krishna does as he is
told. He opens his mouth. Yashoda gasps. She sees in Krishna's
mouth the whole complete entire timeless universe, all the stars
and planets of space and the distance between them, all the lands
and seas of the earth and the life in them; she sees all the days
of yesterday and all the days of tomorrow; she sees all ideas and
all emotions, all pity and all hope, and the three
strands of matter; not a
pebble, candle, creature, village or galaxy is
missing, including herself and every bit of dirt in its
truthful place. 'My Lord, you can close your
mouth,' she says reverently.
There is the story of Vishnu
incarnated as Vamana the
dwarf. He asks of demon king Bali only as much
land as he can cover in three strides. Bali
laughs at this runt of a
suitor and his puny
request. He consents. Immediately Vishnu takes on his full cosmic
size. With one stride he covers the earth, with the second the
heavens, and with the third he boots Bali into the
netherworld.
Even Rama, that most human of avatars,
who had to be reminded of his divinity when he grew
long-faced over the struggle to get Sita, his
wife, back from Ravana, evil king of Lanka, was no
slouch. No spindly cross
would have kept him down. When push came to
shove, he transcended his
limited human frame with strength no man could
have and weapons no man could handle.
That is God as God should be. With shine and power and might.
Such as can rescue and save and put down evil.
This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers
from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is
heckled and harassed, who
has to put up with followers who don't get it and opponents who
don't respect Him¡ªwhat kind of a god is that? It's a god on too
human a scale, that's what. There are miracles, yes, mostly of a
medical nature, a few to satisfy hungry stomachs; at best a storm
is tempered, water is briefly walked upon. If
that is magic, it is minor magic, on the order of card tricks. Any
Hindu god can do a hundred times better. This Son is a god who
spent most of His time telling stories, talking. This Son is a god
who walked, a pedestrian god¡ªand in a hot
place, at that¡ªwith a stride like any human stride, the
sandal reaching just above the rocks along the
way; and when He splurged on transportation, it
was a regular donkey. This Son is a god who died in three hours,
with moans, gasps and laments. What kind of a
god is that? What is there to inspire in this Son?
Love, said Father Martin.
And this Son appears only once, long ago, far away? Among an
obscure tribe in a backwater of West Asia on
the confines of a long-vanished empire? Is done
away with before He has a single grey hair on His head? Leaves not
a single descendant, only scattered, partial
testimony, His complete works
doodles in the dirt? Wait a minute. This is
more than Brahman with a serious case of stage fright. This is
Brahman selfish. This is Brahman ungenerous and unfair. This is
Brahman practically unmanifest. If Brahman is to have only one son,
He must be as abundant as Krishna with the
milkmaids, no? What could justify such divine
stinginess?
Love, repeated Father Martin.
I'll stick to my Krishna, thank you very much. I find his
divinity utterly compelling. You can keep your
sweaty, chatty Son to yourself.
That was how I met that troublesome rabbi
of long ago: with disbelief and annoyance.
I had tea with Father Martin three days in a
row. Each time, as teacup rattled against
saucer, as spoon tinkled against edge of cup, I
asked questions.
The answer was always the same.
He bothered me, this Son. Every day I burned with greater
indignation against Him, found more
flaws to Him.
He's petulant! It's morning in Bethany
and God is hungry, God wants His breakfast. He comes to a
fig tree. It's not the season for figs, so the
tree has no figs. God is peeved. The Son
mutters, 'May you never bear fruit again,' and instantly the fig
tree withers. So says Matthew, backed up by
Mark.
I ask you, is it the fig tree's fault that it's not the
season for figs? What kind of a thing is that to do to an innocent
fig tree, wither it instantly?
I couldn't get Him out of my head. Still can't. I spent three
solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I
could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I
wanted to leave Him.
On our last day, a few hours before we were to leave Munnar,
I hurried up the hill on the left. It strikes me now as a typically
Christian scene. Christianity is a religion in
a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic
level, that's creation in a frenzy. To one born
in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay
race run over many centuries, with innumerable
generations passing along the baton, the quick
resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows
placidly like the Ganges,
then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush
hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow,
as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime,
expresses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved.
Christianity stretches back through the ages,
but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.
I booted up that hill. Though Father Martin was not IN¡ªalas,
his block was slid over¡ªthank God he was in.
Short of breath I said, 'Father, I would like to be a
Christian, please.'
He smiled. 'You already are, Piscine¡ªin your heart. Whoever
meets Christ in good faith is a Christian. Here in Munnar you met
Christ.'
He patted me on the head. It was more of a
thump, actually. His hand went BOOM BOOM BOOM on my
head.
I thought I would explode with joy.
'When you come back, we'll have tea again, my
son.'
'Yes, Father.'
It was a good smile he gave me. The smile of
Christ.
I entered the church, without fear this time, for it was now
my house too. I offered prayers to Christ, who is alive. Then I
raced down the hill on the left and raced up the hill on the
right¡ªto offer thanks to Lord Krishna for having put Jesus of
Nazareth, whose humanity I found so compelling, in my
way.
