UNKNOWN MERCY-Mr Pradhan

As I let his eyes shut I looked at his body what was once lively and blooming flowers will soon be sent to the bottom of the earth where no man rules.

It was early in the morning with a shock to see the call; ironically it was exactly the time for my every morning alarm to call me up so I don’t have anything on my mind, it was just emptiness with the dreams and the amazement.

“Miss rose, bura is no more, what do we have to do?” started the conversation and it goes on. As if the skies are weeping, the rain was steadily running down the air and the fragrance of the early morning brushes my mind as I started my little baby (scooty). Life is too short for some people and too long for some too yet the longer it is, the more to it and a few to some too.

I hopped to Lizzie and ran through the watery street where the mud had been washed away by the heavy rain the previous night and sing a little heartfelt song with the prick of the falling rain on my cheeks. Somehow I had this nostalgic feeling and wonders about life, my life and others life. I had known Mr. Pradhan for not as long as a month ago. I, of course may have seen him working by the side of some construction and he did smile at me once and that was the good gaze I ever get from him.

the lifeless body which gives a big turning point

His body was cold and useless, with his limbs rest on the side under his almost dirty blankets which may have not been washed for a long time. As my profession had it, I pulled over his body, rechecked for any sign of TPR and condition of what was once a living soul. Arranging for his body to be properly mannered before it attained its rigor mortis state is my duty; so I did it and starting to clean his bed to lay the body on the floor so that people could pay their last respect and as the tradition of my apatanni people do.

I covered his lifeless and body, took out the pillow and there was a thing which turn my mind completely aghast of my earlier depiction. A good sum of money which I thought he would never have; was hidden deep under the bed sheet and recently to his caretaker that he wanted to build a house while the money was just enough to pay some people household bills. He was never rich yet he believed he is. Believing does make a man worthy of his own life and make him rags to riches; for mind is the most powerful things that control man in his short life.

In between the bed sheet and his pillow was an old worn out photo which may have been taken more than 10 years ago and no wrinkles and worn out body were not shown as photograph reveals it all.. well, some people said that pictures are just a picture. It is and it will be but pictures are too a big picture of life we had and it often said it all. The two little girls and a masculine man posting before the big wall paper in the photo studio might have been his greatest memory of the little girls, their love and his life.

As I watched the photo seriously with a lot of things on my mind I suddenly became furious and burnt with rage over the little girls who now become a woman which Mr.Bura lost. He doesn’t know their whereabouts but all I can see was the love he had for them that remains the same over the last chapter of his life from the beginning. I can smell the joyous moment when the little girls were born. Now, he doesn’t have anyone and the sorrows of his body might be added with the pain of his memories which made him no longer be able to hold on! Beside the women who left their father I was angry over the fact that how can some people have so little respect of humanity.

I burnt with rage at the sight of this picture that i wouln't even wants a glimpse of it again

Amazing things happen in a short while. It did. A little colored rusted locked box was opened to be cleaned and there was this little over rusted tin box which may have been more than a double decade old. I opened it and saw several photos maybe more than twenty out of which only two are his singles photo. I was sad over it. An old 10 rupee note was kept at the bottom but I don’t know what it for was, who was it for or from whom had he received. All I can look was the photos of the Mr. Pradhan and his little girls, some of which are a passport size photos. Well, that had a girl in it and looks old enough to be a little brownish.

I had a tear in my eyes but I don’t want anyone to wipe that away because I knew that it was for Mr pradhan and the lost daughters and the undamaged memories of his family in him. I had my part on him and the Lord is good enough to take away his burdened life. There is a time for everything and that is the universal truth and what the bible tells us too but I don’t believe in the fact that there is a time for the love of a father to his daughter goes away.

the little rusted box which contain the never lost memories.

A neatly folded old Indian flag at the bottom of his trunk was taken out. The attendees gazed at each other and gave a quiet girgle over it. We were born of another woman, another tribe and we don’t have any similarities except that we both are human breathing under one roof. I smiled over it but other things cover my adventurous mind.  I don’t call myself a racist and that is the good part of me but I have a lot of people whom I don’t like to even stare at. While I call myself an anti-racist ironically the deep curse of Eden is still reigning in me. How can people ill-treat others and how can they destroy the little life of others when we all are human with the same discern in life. The flag was not worth even a 10 rupee to me but is worth a big hug for him which money can’t buy.

Being good is never a waste. It goes to one person then to another and then to the many people it can go. Being a good citizen either is never and will never be a waste. People may not know the love we have for the country but there will be at least one who sees the light and love in us as a good thing can never really be hidden.

A father’s love may not be the coochie coochie sweet little doodle type of love but it remains in the heart and soul of a father and the memories will cling to his heart however old it may be. The color of love will not change and the pain that follows the heart may be healed but will leave a scar.

Life they said is short but with many indefinable miseries, I don’t believe that can be applied to all and I don’t buy that 100 percent. With many un worn clothes which some even looks like new are taken out his trunk, life may have put a curse on him that he don’t have the time to take it with him. He may have worn it but to my astonishment all he can do now is to take it to the under six feet along his lifeless body. I was in deep thought every minute. Life is really too short not to be generous, to frown and sorrowed over what happen. Life comes and goes; sorrows and sadness too will come and go. Nothing really last forever. The best thing is to smile over everything and enjoy even the tiniest pieces of our journey of life with God. Mr. Pradhan never complained to me about his sickness and I believe he sees the tiny light at the end of the dark deep end of a tunnel.

He had it all. A little scrapple house with a wooden wall built for him by the ABA (Apatanni Baptist Association, rehabilitation department) was all he had. No families are known till his burial service even though he was born of a human and I feel how unfair life is to some people like Mr. Pradhan. Of physically he had none or lost, but of Christ he had it all and that was the best part of his life. Had it not been through Christ, I would never even know that he was once alive. No one, really no one had he, on his sick bed were often the nurse and many church members who feel pity for him attended. He was fed by his family in the body of Christ and not a family of hid blood. The bond was strong and never once became loose till his death bed. 

the little scrapple house

My expectation was some concerning church leaders to attend to his cold body but to my amazement after going to his camp again after my duty was done are a lot of people sitting outside the little home, many countless woman sitting near his body singing a heavenly song. Well, I did imagine it as an angels attending to the lifeless body because most of them were unknown to me. We often measure God’s unlimited richness and power from our own limited expectation and I made a mistake too. Mr. Pradhan got me turned around completely. 

angels come in all forms and size.

Under the running rain and loud beating of the roof; I have faith in myself that no one will cry for him. They didn’t but they wept for him. Not a one or two but many. Had he been just as he was as before, he would have never seen another woman of different caste, tribe and culture weeping him beside an officer attending his last devotional service; Christ made miracle, some seen and unseen. The amazing mercy that had set us free in still the mercy that sets us free and join us together. The tears of the women who had never been closed to him was worth more than a million in a world where we have to earn the tears and struggle to win over the heart of people. The ongoing unknown  faces crowd to pay their last respect was my set up that miracles happen unknowingly and knowingly.

the unknown little crowd

He was baptized and had the baptism certificate inside the plastic which we would have thrown away. He maintained it as a file along with the other ID card from the church. The plastic looks like a wrapping cover of some shop own clothes and it drastically looked cheap but was the seal of his bond with Christ. There is a saying that not to trust the book by its cover, I made mistake again. The cover was cheap but the content will be the things that made the angels rejoice in heaven. Letting the angels rejoiced in heaven is not a hard task. I don’t know whether Mr. pradhan uses god for his “Emergency only” but I am sure in myself and have faith in him that he let God rule his life.

Angels come in all forms and size, what if Mr. Pradhan in an angel sent down from heaven to see whether we are doing our best. I doubt that I might not be measured to the highest point but I guess I may gain a few more points to tell at the feet of Jesus. Show mercy if it is not the time to show too. The known and unknown mercy are all counted.

I don’t know much about him, he knows me neither except the fact that I am the nurse who gave him some intravenous fluid once or twice. I know just a pinch of his life but he made a complete turning point in different matters in my life. He may have never been a hero to his daughters and the people who had seen him but he is a hero to me, an unknown hero that i never expect. I will never see him again but he will live on in my memories. Thank you Mr. Pradhan.