MEETING WITH MAHASHAKTI

A Tragedy Foreseen

I heard noises and got up to check what was happening.I had taken it for sure that the old man might have beaten his wife.
However, a terrible shock awaited me outdoors. As I stepped outdoors, I was puzzled to see the landlord's wife wailing the same way as I had seen them in my previous night's nightmarish vision.
Large genuine tears were falling from the landlord's little cruel eyes.His wife was a most pathetic creature and her heart-rending cries were drawing the crowds from the nearby places in the locality.

A vast number of people had gathered and their size seemed to be increasing.The landlord's only son Prabhat was dead..!He had been to the sea beach at Puri with his friends. His maternal uncle who was a taxi driver was bringing the dead body to Bhubaneswar.People were moved to tears and I too couldn't resist my mine.I had heard mother saying to someone confidentially a year ago that Prabhat was not destined to live after he had completed his 21st year.We had teased mother at that time for all the "superstitious things" she loved to tell us.Now what we had mocked at had come true...!"Mother how can someone predict the future so accurately....?Param was at his table installed outside in the veranda. He had said to me laughingly:"Now you have joined her...Ha...ha...ha..!" Mother was furious:"You and your brother...! What do you know except bookish things and your idiotic science..?And look at that boy(me)...! He is beginning to realise his ignorance...What do they teach children at schools..?All the useless foolish things..! Things that pave the path for their entry into a sea of misery and helplessness in future..!I wish I could knock some sense into your brainless authorities..." Mother loved me a lot.She had expressed her contentment with me when she sometimes found me turning the pages of the Bhagavad Gita.She never showed any dissatisfaction with me being unemployed but was deeply anxious to see me married.She argued that fortune would smile on me only when I became married.Her logic was strange but true.

Prabhat had been doing software engineering at a private college in the city.He had passed intermediate science exam most laudably.My mother and brother were in tears.Nobody knew how to console the bereaved parents. Prabhat was only twenty one...!When everybody was in mourning,I was absorbed in my own world trying to probe how one could be shown a future catastrophe.I was as grieved as intrigued as well. "How can such a thing happen...?" I asked myself with unequalled curiosity.I prayed to Mother Kali to help me know how.

When the boy's body arrived,it was too hard to stand there to watch the proceedings.All hell had broken loose. As Prabhat was friendly and loving with the people, everyone was crying. Some stout-hearted men and women were successfully keeping the boy's parents under control. It looked as if, if let loose, both of them would die.I wanted to take one last look at the boy's body. He was wearing a red shirt but his vest was exposed.It was black and bore the letters in gold POPULAR...! I felt the ground beneath my feet crumbling...! I said to myself,"How true...!The future is predictable..?But how...?" Later I got a very very strong and logical answer to the question why the past,the present and the future were knowable.

Very soon it got windy and rain poured out like hell.Instead of cremating the body,they had buried it in the local cremation ground. The day that reminded rainy passed uneventfully for me.The next morning I was sitting outside on a huge mound of hardened cement created from several bags of cement being stacked there since when nobody knew.I was brushing my teeth with a twig I had broken from a mango tree inside the landlord's garden. At that point of time I felt I was seeing Mother Kali running with wild jubilation round the mound on which I had taken my seat."O Mother....!How lucky I am...?" The next moment she disappeared from there.When I was wondering what had happened, I sprang to feet hearing from within me:"I will drink blood...!Yes human blood?" I was at a loss. I very correctly thought that the Goddess was asking for human blood to give me some precious answers, to reveal some secrets of the universe to me.I thought I had to pay the price for the knowledge I yearned for. In spite of this, I ignored her. I talked to my mother, my brother,my friends and in fact whoever came my way.The purpose was to avoid her panicking demand.When night came, I decided to have a good sleep,but not even the slightest bit of sleep was obtainable.I saw the most dangerous things-things beyond my wildest possible imagination. Eventually when the night was approaching its end,I sighted the Goddess in her full glory holding a shining sword and wearing a string of skulls pointing out to me a banana leaf with cooked white rice on it.There was a pit in the middle of the rice.I could clearly hear her voice:"There..!Some human blood...!"
She went on repeating her demand and I refused to listen to her. When it became unbearable for me, I said to her:"O holy Mother..You can kill me and fulfill your need. "
After a short while I heard her most charming and kindest voice:"My child I don't want my children's blood. I am here to kill and devour the dishonest and cruel demons who operate in the guise of human beings.."

I felt soothed but I was still unable to sleep at night. But I clung on to my hope of getting answers to all my questions about death, birth, sin,hell, heaven, knowing the future etc.My questions were numberless and she had assured me of giving me very clear,logical and perfect answers..But I was still in doubt as to getting acceptable answers.I believed in the words of the Goddess because I remembered an incident that had happened in my childhood.