LORD SHUDDHA

Shuddhartha or Lord Shuddha as now he is respectfully called was born on the 29th of February ,1935. He passed away today peacefully in his sleep after 73 glorious years spent in the service, enlightenment and enrichment of the people. Devotees across the country mourn this great loss to the nation in particular and to the world in general. At the moment there seems to be no one who is not singing paeans to this Great Sage ,as he was called with reverence. Some have even gone so far as to call him the 10098th avatar of Lord Vishnu. Some devotees do scoff at this notion , but that’s not the point. But however divided the views on this avatar stuff , people in general seemed to agree that there was no greater personification of sacrifice and abstinence , love and compassion. Perhaps this would be the right time to look back at this great man’s life and reflect on how it all came to be.
Lord Shuddha was born as Shuddhartha , to a father who was a multi millionare and whose zest for business could only be matched to his desire to have children. Lord Shuddha was born after his father had been in despair for a long time that he never might have children. As soon as he was born , the family Astrologer had proclaimed ..”This dude would turn out to be a complete loser or a total winner …..most probably the former ” . The last part was a totally unnecessary addition. A more worldly wise astrologer would have said “hmmm” and nodded his head approvingly . No body has seen that astrologer ever since.
Though he did make the astrologer disappear , the father had taken his prediction seriously. So he set about making his son a total winner. Unfortunately he thought the best way of doing it would be by not denying his son anything he might ask for. So the son grew up , as the cliché goes , in the lap of luxury. He had more pocket money in a day to spend than what most families made in an year. He had servants ready to serve him at his slightest signal . he had friends fawning on him . He had girls plotting against each other for him. And most importantly he had his father doting over him. The son grew up to be a spoilt rich kid ,infamous for his behavior and notorious for his pranks.
When he was 25 his father married him off to a beautiful girl who came from another multi millionaire family. After an year they had a son. The father having painfully noted the lack of talent of any sort in the son , made sure that he never had to run the business and worked the rest of his life ensuring that the his father in laws businesses were also integrated with his and that they would run themselves. After having done all this , as befits a dutiful and doting father , he passed away , leaving Shuddha a little sad but still a multi millionaire atleast two times over. Shuddha got over this soon and started living life as before. Anyone who would look at Shuddha and his family couldn’t help remarking on how lucky some dogs can get .
But something was not feeling right for Shuddha . Though he had everything , he felt a strange vaccum. A gap which he could not quite either place or touch , but it was there , growing everyday and demanding to be filled. Shuddha was perplexed by this. I mean he was really happy mooching off on his father ,he didn’t need that shit right now. But still , the harder he tried to ignore it , the more persistent in its demands it became. And it kept gnawing at him. Then suddenly it dawned on him one day ….”THE WORLD IS EVIL AND IT IS FULL OF GRIEF” ..thats it that was the epiphany.
Yes the world is evil, he thought . I mean , it was only the other day that he had given his wife a beating for something he could not remember. She was really hurt and bleeding . He had been evil but later he was overcome by grief for not having a reason to hit her. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
Once , when he was a teenager , he had beaten this guy up black and blue for eyeing the same girl that he had his eyes on. He thought that was evil. But later he was overcome by grief because the sex hadn’t been as great as he had thought it would be. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
Very recently , he had squished a bug in his drawing room . He thought this was evil. But he had felt grief later on that it had made a mess all over his expensive carpet. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
It was only yesterday , that he had slapped his butler , for not keeping his coffee warm enough . But he was overcome by grief when the butler made the same mistake a second time around , how many times do I have to slap this moron ,,he had thought. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
So after this epiphany , he decided . “I shall relinquish the world” he told himself
And relinquish he did . He gave up everything he had.
He wrote off all his properties to charitable organizations. All in one night .
And of course , he had overlooked to inform his wife of his decision or his actions.
Wasn’t he relinquishing the world after all?/ He reasoned . And whenever he felt a little guilty about doing this, he construed it as a further proof of the world being evil and full of grief.
He wanted to become a sanyasi and a sanyasi he would become , he told himself.
People welcomed him with , again as another cliché goes , open arms. They had known him as a glamorous heir to millions , they had known his notorious exploits , so popularity was never a problem for Shuddha.
First they had loved him for his glamour and his millions . Now they loved him for his glamour and lack of millions.
First they glanced over his fashionably dressed photos in page 3 , now they worshipped him in his saffron clad new avatar.
First they had called him a talentless moocher. Now they called him a great sacrificer.
“Oh what a great sacrifice..” ,they all said , “and what a bold decision . Even His wife did not know” , they all admiringly said.
In very little time , Shuddha had a huge following of disciples. He established an ashram and several charitable institutions . A lot of his time was spent administering these. He also traveled a lot rendering discourses.
People came in troves to listen to his speeches on family values , and respecting other human beings and love and compassion for all living things.
They said he was a great soul. Soon he became Lord Shuddha . – the Great Sage.
The one who had relinquished his property ,left his wife and would have nothing to do with his son but had brought so much joy and enlightenment to the world . And the world needed it . If anyone asked why , they would say , “because the world is full of evil and grief”
Obviously when such a great man passes away , there would be an outpouring of grief. People all over the nation mourned his death. They said that a greater man , would never walk the earth for a long time to come.

Of course , everybody forgot to ask about the wife and the kid.

But by a freaky coincidence of nature , the date of his death was the same as the date when the wife had turned insane 10 years ago due to poverty and the sheer strain of living life and when the kid had died in a mob fight 15 years ago.