It was with the spirit of iconoclasm that I wanted to retrieve the jewel that adorned the gifted necklace of God who was in the habit of whispering things I did not want to hear as I was more and more enchanted by his enigmatic influence. I wanted to register a case in the divine court with the plea that garrulousness with the kind of gibberish incomprehensible to man is a cosmic offence as he is trapped in his follies. There was no way I could get out of it. So I had no choice but to groan: ‘If you fail to bless me with the prerogative of your deliverance, sing the lullaby that will make me forget that I will have to unwind to be merged with you.’
I often chose to think in this manner in my attempt to relate to my god and invented ways to be in conflict with him only with the result that I was getting even closer to him. He seemed to be crouching in the most well chosen space of my antagonism to him as I considered his influence an intrusion into the kind of life I wanted to live. I could not grow out of it and was intrigued by the profound feeling of serenity I happened to experience contrary to the ways of hectic life. I had bagged a number of lifts and my responsibilities entailed a more vigorous life of action but the nature of passivity in his domain gave rise to an irresistible urge to retreat into what was infinitely mysterious. I had not so far suffered in the least as the people I had to deal with admired the professional edge of my engagements but deep down I knew there was an erosion of this pursuit. I took care so as not allow this sense of inertia to affect the way I worked but I felt disturbed when I continued to reap success in the professional arena despite my mysterious hangover.
But one thing that everybody including my few bosses told me was that I had grown mellow in the way I conducted my business and that effectively sealed the prospect of my rivals. That day when I heard this encomium I felt inclined to think that god was kind of supplying me with some management salve in an attempt to mollify his intervention. I resolved that I would mend my ways and improve my ties with the mysterious being. I felt my eyes moisten and thought about saying a few words of my gratefulness to him. No sooner did I reach home that I ran into some of my childhood friends who had turned up in a troop to give me a pleasant surprise. The night saw a great deal of conviviality with drinks and conversations and to my surprise, though not a pleasant one this time, there was no trace of the god who was a regular in my life in the atmosphere in quietude. But he was back in the morning when I got to the office with a different sort of hangover caused by the residual effect of the previous night’s inebriation. The prestigious contract for which I had been making the most of my resources for the last few months had been awarded to us. I felt as if my heart had missed a bit. The next few hours saw a great deal of euphoria among the colleagues but I only missed him a lot. I could again feel my eyes moisten though I had to conceal my impulsiveness in a practiced manner.
When I could take some time off from the wave of excitement, I confined myself to my chamber for some time and the image of the idol in my little shrine at the top of the house began to take shape before me. The nature of my opportunism did not escape my notice but I was bent on letting him know the way I was grateful to him.
I drove to the biggest showroom and bought a pretty expensive jewel for the necklace I had bought him earlier. They had the necklace studded with the jewel making it look like a heavenly gift. I felt smug that it went well with the idol having a sort of unusual prettiness about it. I got the team ready to work on the project and forgot everything else to give my life the impetus it needed to get to the top. Something down the line went awry and I began to sink down with the magnificence of the project wounding me forever. After I had recovered from what seemed to last for ages, I wanted to inspect the idol adorned with the bribe of the jewel. The spirit of an iconoclast has been aroused in me. But I ended up delving into the subtlety of his gibberish flooding my being with a sense of serenity and it helped me discern that the precious gift of the jewel seemed to have all the greed of my ambition and my lust for what he never wanted to give at the cost of his compassion. Now my Lord, my Krishna, is in my heart and my pure love for him is the jewel as he keeps whispering to me all the while.
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