Nachiketa : Part 1 : The donation
Whether I will emerge as the hero of my own life, or if that interesting position will be taken up by my teacher Yama, only you can judge. I can start by simply telling you that my father, in a fit of anger, told me that I have been donated to Yama. You would be left wondering why Yama, the God of Death and the ultimate auditor of our accounts in this world, is dragged into this story. For all this to make sense, I have to start at the very beginning.
Let us start with my name — Nachiketa = na kinchit chiketaha (Sanskrit) = he who does not do anything. Generations to come after me will wonder why any parents would do this — let their child loose in the world with such a name. If they think a little deeper, they will realize that I don’t waste time in worldly pursuits. True to my name, I use my mind as the laboratory to seek answers to life’s persistent questions.
I hope you won’t judge my dad too harshly for donating me to Yama. Yugas later (I think they will call it eon in the future, rather than the more accurate term yuga), people will be cursing each other to go to hell, in fits of anger. If only they knew my story, they would realize that such words should not be spoken lightly. But then, please forgive my digressions. My father Udhalaka is a great learned man, but every great person will have little flaws that get magnified in the minds of critics. Udhalaka managed to retain a mixture of little anger, greed and deep attachments despite his stature as a learned sage. If I could rewind time, I would go back to the incident and probably be more careful about what I say.
It all started with the Yajna that dad was performing — it is called the Sarvavedas (Sarva = all, vedas = wealth) Yajna. Simply put, it is a ritual where one gives up and donates all of one’s wealth to the needy. Father’s desire was to use the Yajna as the bridge to reach heaven, thereby breaking every rule in the book for the ritual. The tradition expects you to donate all you have, and not seek anything in return. A tall order for anyone, but I thought dad would pull it off given his Vedic knowledge.
As it turned out, what he did try to pull off was a sham where he was donating old cows that can no longer be milked, keeping the good cows aside and hidden. Cows are considered as one of the foremost forms of wealth in our times. I scrambled to tell him something, actually anything to make him stop this travesty. The argument practically wrote itself in my mind — something along the lines of “Dad, please don’t donate these cows to the needy, they are useless and will bring you a bad name along with a Karmic debt that you cannot repay even in several lifetimes.” You are probably thinking “Nachiketa, very eloquent my friend, well put.” Not so fast, what really came out of my mouth was “Dad, whom will you donate me to?” I figured at least I can be a useful donation to someone, I can work at their place, making myself useful. My words were met with a stony silence till the third time, when he finally said “I donate you to Mrityu (Yama).”
As I made my preparations for what I thought was my final journey, little did I realize that this is just the end of the beginning, and not the beginning of the end.
Upcoming : Part 2 : The journey to meet Yama
