The ongoing festival season is meant to be a time of introspection and updating the way we live our lives. While we are taught that the aim of life is to find our souls, we are also taught how to keep body and soul together in meaningful ways that affirm the gift of human birth. The story that I would like to retell on this theme is taken from the tradition of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the 19th century savant. This story picks up on the saint’s conviction that to be successful, we need to be grounded in several realities—physical, moral and spiritual.
Hari Narayan was a greatly learned young scholar. His wife had died of an illness and he did not know how to bring up his little daughter, Ruma. He missed his wife in a vague way, more particularly when it came to a tidy house, washed clothes and fresh, hot food. Feeling unable to cope, he decided to take his daughter to his wife’s parents who lived in a village across the Ganga.
It was the onset of monsoon and the sky was overcast when Hari and Ruma boarded a boat to take them across the river. They found themselves good seats on the benches along the sides and sailed off. Hari looked around him and finding nobody of note, began to talk to the passenger next to him.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man and looked to be a cultivator. Hari looked at him condescendingly and asked, “So have you read the Vedanta?”
“No, sir, I have not,” said the man with a smile.
“Really? What about the Samkhya?”
“And what may that be, sir?”
“My good fellow, it is philosophy. But surely you know the Patanjala?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea, sir.”
“You poor fellow. You don’t know anything. I have spent my life in study and I know these books backwards.”
“Congratulations on your learning, sir.”
Storm clouds had gathered meanwhile and a fierce wind began to blow. The boatmen tried their best to ride the wind but the boat tilted heavily to one side, throwing the passengers here and there. Finally, the captain called out, “Save yourselves! The boat is going under!”
People began jumping into the river in terror. Hari’s daughter clung to him in fear.
“I’m leaving now. Can you swim?” asked the cultivator, preparing to jump.
“No, I cannot,” stuttered Hari. The boat lurched violently just then, sending them all into the raging river. Hari struggled in the water, unable to save himself or Ruma, who went under almost at once.
“Ruma! Ruma!” called Hari in horror, kicking his arms and legs helplessly.
Suddenly, there was a strong hand on his shoulder and he felt himself being towed towards the riverbank. It was the cultivator, who had seen him drowning and saved him.
Hari felt small and wretched. His daughter was dead and he owed his life to the very man he had patronised and been so rude to. He folded his hands to his saviour, tears pouring down his face.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said in a low voice.
“I’m sorry about your daughter.”
“Why did you risk your life to save me when I was so rude to you?”
“We are all in the river of life together.
I don’t know the scriptures but I know how to swim. I just did my duty,” said the cultivator.
Hari was stunned by this reply. This was a philosophy of life indeed, a practical one based on right conduct or dharma.
He felt even smaller.
“What will you do now, sir?” asked the cultivator. Hari’s shoulders sagged in defeat.
“I don’t know,” he admitted sadly. “I have nothing and nobody to go back to.”
“Book learning has not helped you now, sir, if you will not be offended. Come back with me to my village and learn a few survival skills. You will feel stronger for it,” invited the cultivator.
“What is your name, my friend?” asked Hari.
“Manik,” said the man, and Hari accepted his kind invitation, deciding to visit his in-laws later.
Six months of strenuous village life sweated all the ghee and sugar off Hari’s city bones. Manik took him to the river and taught him how to swim. Soon, Hari grew unafraid of water. He thought sadly of Ruma. “Ah, little one, I failed you. What business had I to live by the Ganga and never learn to swim?”
A new, penitent tenderness bloomed in his hitherto self-absorbed heart.
“Child, forgive me. Wife, forgive me. I took you both for granted. And now you are both lost to me forever; so, I cannot even make up for it.” Such reproachful thoughts haunted Hari’s nights. He noticed that Manik did not leave him alone by day.
“He is trying to keep me busy,” realised Hari, with grateful incredulity. Hari felt smaller than ever and grieved even more pitifully that he had lost his opportunity to be a good householder.
Meanwhile, he found that he was making up for it under Manik’s tutelage. He learned to milk cows, drive cattle, mend holes in the thatch, and even learned to cook from Manik’s mother. One day by the river, Manik was offended when Hari offered him the money pouch that was tied around his waist and had survived the boat wreck.
“I felt bad about your child and wanted to help you, don’t reduce it to money,” he said.
“But my food…” faltered Hari.
“There’s enough for another mouth, don’t worry,” said Manik, appeased.
Hari went back with Manik, thanking God for the gradual turnaround in his circumstances.
“I was too useless to save either Ruma or myself. But I was given the chance to live on and make something of my life,” he thought soberly. “I won’t drown now.”