Feel Appropriately

I remember an old folk story according to which there was a poor illiterate farmer who never prayed in his life. Somebody had told him that God will appear before a fervent faithful only once in his lifetime. The farmer thought it to be true and patiently waited without ever praying until he got old.  When he was old, he turned his head upwards and prayed, “Oh God, now you may show up.” As he thought God would do, God appeared before him. He was convinced that he will get any one thing he asks for.

“Why did you call me?” God asked him.

“Grant me everything I wish.” 

The farmer presented his long mended cunning demand, without any hesitation. “You will feel whatever you wish,” answered God and then disappeared behind the clouds, without even waiting for a note of gratitude. By the time he realized that he was only permitted to feel what he wish and he has been cheated by his own crookedness, God had disappeared. However, he opted to accept the boon and began living aware of God presence always. The story continued saying that he lived happily all his life. He never wanted anything more.

This story came to my mind when I happened to read the story of a farmer by name Dashrath Majhi, who lived in a remote village in Bihar. His wife died without any treatment, because the nearest town with a Doctor was 70 km away from their village. Well, that could have been a far shorter distance, if not for a hill in between the village and the town. Dashrath did not want anyone else to suffer the same fate any more. So he did the unthinkable: Dashrath Manjhi's claim to fame has been the herculean task of single-handedly carving a 360-foot-long (110 m), 25-foot-high (7.6 m) and 30-foot-wide (9.1 m) road by cutting the mountain of Gehlour hills with a hammer, chisel and nails working day and night for 22 years from 1960 to 1982. This passage reduced the distance between Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya district from 70 km to just 7 km.

I assume that this man could be the centre of the folk story I was reminded here. Without such a feeling of God presence, I’m sure that he could not have finished this road. With such an empowering feeling of God presence, nothing is impossible. Perhaps, he would have been the happiest man in the village because he only could make everybody in the village happy, in spite of religious, political, sexual, caste, age, language and cultural indifferences.

Joseph Mattappally