A Conversation with the Clerk of Death

Chitraguptan was furious and it was uncharacteristic of him to be so. He felt his rage directed at his lord Yamaraj who he perfectly knew could read his mind. Yamaraj is not a person to be trifled with for he decides who lives on and who ceases to breath. Yet when Chitraguptan looked at his lord, Yamaraj looked away to avoid his gaze.

“My Lord, it is not proper for me, a lowly clerk to visit and collect the departed, I merely keep the numbers. You alone have the authority to release the souls from the prison of human flesh”

“Enough with the arguments Chitragupta, You shall do as I command. You will travel to the land of mortals and visit the Teacher in my place. You will release her from her mortal flesh and accompany her to my palace.” Yamaraj thundered at Chitraguptan keeping his eyes at some distant unseen event.

“Pardon me lord, I have served you from the beginning of time and never have you ordered me or anyone else in this task. It is your face every being that enters the afterlife sees first, it is by your judgment their life is valued. I an ill equipped for this purpose and I fear that I may fail her” Chitaguptan fiddled with his tomes nervously.

“We have all failed her in life, and I cannot fail her in death now. I fear I am inadequate in judging this soul. I fear her gaze may burn me and the weight of her sorrows is a burden that I am unable to vanquish. I ask you Chitragupta, not as your Lord and the God of Death but as friend, do me this favor and please visit the Lady” This time Yamaraj looked blankly at Chitraguptan.

“At once my Lord” Chitarguptan stood up, bowed low and walked towards the door. He held the handle, took a deep breath and opened it to enter into the room of the small nursing center where the Teacher waited for him.

A frail woman lay on a green cot covered by a green bed sheet. The bed itself made of equal parts iron and rust was a wonder by itself by not collapsing. Maybe the woman is so light that the bed did not realize that someone was lying on it. She had a wrinkled face deep with furrows of sorrow than of age, her grey and white hair tangled and spread on the pillow. She wore a pale blue hospital gown that settled on her body showing the bones that poke through her skin. A pungent odor of disinfectant, a sweet sickly smell of putrefaction and faint whiff of urine hung in the air. The single window on the wall was shut and spiders have made a permanent residence on the bars. A rusty fan did its best to complete every rotation while the new tube light illuminated every corner of the room. An old yellow ceramic flower vase held three plastic flowers coated with a layer of dust and specked with fat mosquitoes resting after draining what little blood the woman had. A half empty plastic bottle was on the small table next to the vase on which a glass was kept. The whole room looked like a cell of despair where people decide to move on to better things than life.

Chitraguptan looked around unsure of what he must do. He suppressed his urge to smack the mosquito that landed on the woman’s leathery hand and prepared to have its fill. It is not in his place to disturb the natural order of things, Chitraguptan remembered his Lords voice. He was startled when the woman lifted her other hand to shoo off the mosquito. Her eyes were still closed but he could see her lips mumble inaudibly.

‘….hmmm Teacher!’ Unsure of how to address his ward, Chitraguptan used the title his Lord mentioned.

The woman opened her milky hollow eyes and searched for the source of the voice. Chitraguptan did not have his Lords ability to read the mind of humans or to form a manifestation that would make them understand and follow him. He do not even have a prior experience in guiding a soul in afterlife, he is just a clerk to the God of Death.

  

‘Who is there? Is that you Kanna? Have you come to see me?’

The mere mention of the name sent Chitraguptan the keeper of records of everyone dead or alive in the planet searching for the person. Even though Chitraguptan is seen behind huge tomes of records, anyone who is close to the clerk knew that all the records are kept in his mind and the books are only a backup in case the keeper of the dead dies someday.

A sharp piercing pain was felt in his heart when he found the person of interest in the lands of the dead. It was a small boy sitting on the floor next to a bottomless bucket. His clothes were drenched and his hair pasted to his head likes a wet rag. Chitraguptan saw a younger version of the woman offering puja to some unseen idols with her back turned to the child. He was waving his hands frantically attempting to attract her attention and tried to call out. As he opened his mouth, water flowed out like an upturned tumbler. The image faded before his eyes and as the dripping child vanished, Chitraguptan saw that the woman’s eyes were fixed on him.

“You are not the one who I expected to see today. Where is he? Lord Dharmaraja, the dispenser of justice?’

“He will not come. I am Chitragupta, his voice and the keeper of records. I have come in his place to guide you in afterlife.’

“Even in death the Gods forsake me” Sadness crept in her voice, the milky eyes glistened with tears and her lips trembled. “Tell me O clerk, the keeper of all records, the one who sees all, am I so much of a cursed soul that even death himself have forsaken me? I had wished for his visit many times in this wretched life but he ignored me. Now this body fails me and rots within and I know that my time has come, yet here I am discarded by the living and the dead”

“It is not in my place to judge you ….Devi. I merely keep the records and my Lord himself will see you when we reach his abode” Chitraguptan did not want to enter into a conversation with the woman. His analytical mind must not show emotions of any kind, for him every action, a sin or otherwise is just a number on a balance sheet. He does not dwell or do well on unaccountable debates of any nature.

“Yes it is not in your place to judge me. Neither you, nor all your Lords shall be. I have lived a virtuous life, I am devoted to the Gods, prayed to them all my life and my rewards are a dead husband, a dead son, and a family that shunned me like a leper.” The sadness in the voice dispensed and her voice steeled. “I prayed not for wealth, not for health or comfort, I prayed for peace and the joy of motherhood, and what have you given me oh Lords?’

A middle aged man dressed in a white dhoti and shirt lay on a bed not much different than this one appeared before Chitraguptan. His frame was frail with yellow pasty skin and the hairless scalp and face glistened with beads of sweat. Each breath was a torture to him and his eyes pleaded for it to stop. A young woman sat by his bed holding his thin arm. Tears flowed freely from her eyes and the unkempt hair flew in the fans murderous pace. Her lips kept repeating the words ‘please’ again and again. She looked at the man’s face and the straight line displayed in the machines connected to him and finally at Chitraguptan. Her skin wrinkled, hair grayed and the rheumy eyes obscured by cataract. She lay in the green cot staring at him and a very humanly chill passed down the spine of the clerk to the God of death as he could still hear the distant screams of the man in mortal peril

“Teacher, I am not a God and I cannot speak for them. Everything in the universe happens for a reason and sometimes it takes time for mortals to understand the great picture” resorting to the most plain answer avoiding her eyes Chitraguptan dragged the plastic chair from the corner and sat down near the bed.

“What part of the greater picture had to take away my husband after our joyful yet lonely life of two decades? He unlike many never smoked, drank or had any vice yet he suffered horribly with the pain of cancer until your Lords mercy took him away from me”

“I am so sorry that your husband passed away in such a manner but the Lords design is never at fault. Your husband’s time in this world was over and he was needed elsewhere”

“But he need not had to suffer all that pain. There are millions of people who immerse themselves in all the vices this world can offer and they live and die in peace while he died a slow painful death an organ at a time. In the end I secretly wished that he would pass away at the night so that his screams will stop.” Chitraguptan noticed a thin line of blood slowly flow down her nostril and leave a red smear on her cheek when she wiped her eyes with her wrist.

“My torture did not end there. You sent another one to my life with false promise of joy and companionship and yet again failed to answer my prayers. My womb remained barren and all my wish of a baby unfulfilled. In my desperation I even allowed …..’Oh Rama….”

Chitraguptan saw a middle aged man tie the thali to a young woman while the lady who now sported the first lines of grey in her head watched from afar. Her face was gaunt, lips pressed together and eyes severe. The event manager came to her with a bill and she held out a bundle of notes. The new couple walked out of the register office into a car and once inside it, the man rolled down the tinted windows. A little child who had an uncanny resemblance to the lady looked out of it and at her. The car started and went down the lane raising dust and scattering a murder of crows. The lady screamed hysterically with her arms raised above her head and ran behind the car. After a few steps she tripped and fell face first into the road. A cool breeze began to blow and the first drops of the rain hit the parched earth. The lady lay where she fell and sobbed loudly for some time and then she pushed herself up from the ground gazing at the car which was by then a speck in the horizon.

The rain began in earnest and the wind howled its protest against the cruel world. A discarded newspaper fluttered in the wind and got tangled in the folds of her sari. She picked the paper up and looked into it. A smile of gratitude spread on her cracked lips and she looked heavenwards thanking the Gods in the top of her voice and walked away. Chiraguptan noticed the trail of blood she left behind as she walked. The blood droplets hissed as they struck the ground and vaporized into a red mist. He bowed and took the crumbled piece of newspaper that fell from the cold dead hands of the woman in the hospital gown. It was an advertisement of an in vitro fertilization and birth care center, a place where little men play God.

“It is time clerk, let us go meet your Lord” Chitraguptan stared at the vibrant lady who stood beside him. Her face was radiant yet pleasant as the infant sun of the new dawn. She was clad in an ethereal white sari that defined pureness and her feet were hidden among its folds. She glided out of the room with dignity and strength that would shame the Gods. She moved as a maid of purpose and at that moment, Chitraguptan knew why Yamaraj wanted him to be here at this moment. This was the day the Gods lost their last devotee on the mortal world.

Dedicated to the memory of Mrs Bhavani Amma (1941-2017)

Lady, Wife, Mother Extraordinaire.

1) https://www.thequint.com/news/india/bhavani-amma-kerelas-oldest-mom-passes-away-13-years-after-she-gave-birth

2)http://www.sify.com/news/at-66-her-quest-for-motherhood-is-still-on-news-national-jegqBAieefgsi.html

3)http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/baby-born-through-ivf-drowned/article3177323.ece

4) http://www.thehindu.com/2004/05/05/stories/2004050508360400.htm