AND THE LIGHT RETURNS!
God is on board his favorite chariot, "Divine Mission." It is long after his last visit to the earth. He dons a divine smile on his glowing lips, while sharply looking at the eyes of his company. He wears special sunglasses fit for the earth.
Now his order reaches the pilot, "Let's go to the first world."
The chariot takes off with a bang. God's tour is on again, like in earlier times, in search of values like honesty and truth and such. After fifty years, this tour is long overdue. Normally, his tour of earth is scheduled for every twenty years. But recently, he has been postponing it a number of times due to indisposed health and old age.
God is now more than two thousand years old. His exact date of birth is not known. As it is said around, his birth certificate was the only one that Noah's ark failed to carry - or else maybe it was gulped down by a shark in vengeance. One never knows for sure.
Now, his ears filled with divine music, he recalls his last trip that was filled with sad images of the erosion of values - an eighty percent decline, as he had recorded in his laptop. He is sure that this degeneration of the "divine values" of his subjects on earth is a feature that happens in tandem. So, he is also sure of what he will find on this tour - a one hundred percent decline.
This means a clear and full stop of the old order and value system, leading to the possibility of new values and order (which he hatefully refers to as "Degenerated Values.") This visit to earth is thus of towering significance, as he is about to witness a trying time of changing values in his empire.
God has a polarized views of the condition of earth - light meaning the existence of a strong value system and darkness meaning the erosion of values. He believes in his heart that the values can be polarized by these two - by the values of Darkness and by the values of Light. He is certain to find that darkness has almost completely gripped the earth over the years. Light seems to be a distant dream.
But he needs to have a closer watch on those changes, as he can not be left behind by the clutches of the so-called new order. And as such, he has had a severe bend of mind to undertake this tour despite his old age and his other perennial problems.
In the first world, it has been a week full of wonders, of gross decadence. The bizarre competes with the death of his sense of logical conclusion, as he notices that the President of a state has won a second time against the palpable but repulsive public opinion all over the state and the world.
Money rules the roost in all its forms and colors. The phenomenon of oppression has had a change - the oppression of the rich over the poor has changed to its reverse, as terrorism, led by the organized poor cripples the richest, as the solid towers are transformed to debris. But then the rich bounce back in vengeance. The collision continues.
Terrorism rides the horse called peace. Mankind looks confused at sure ruin. God scratches his scalp in a vigorous search of a way out. Blood oozes out of his scalp, but a way out doesn't. He is sure of only one thing - his created empire has undergone a radical change, now with a set of values that he can not recognize. It has become an empire over which the monarch has completely lost control. Now exasperated, God looks at the second world scene, looking more towards the individual lives of ordinary people, as it is often believed that the citadel of values is found in the heart of the less privileged people.
Here too, hatred looms larger than anything else, throttling the growth.
In utter disgust, God decides to shorten his tour by skipping the entire second world.
"Let's go to the third world," he orders.
Divine Light reaches a lesser-known country in Asia. After a night, he opens a few newspapers and marks the items of interest:
a. A District Judge buys a set of diamond studded glasses to wear at the cost of $42000, the cost of which has been settled by public money, when his monthly pay is only $1700.
b. A huge sized scam has been identified; in which old and used coffin boxes are used as new ones in the Army for carrying corpses to the burial ground. The involvement of top officers cannot be ruled out.
c. A huge sized scam has been identified involving fake Legal Stamp papers, which has cheated the government out of revenue to the tune of millions of dollars. The beneficiaries are highly placed networked criminals having connections with top cops at the level of the Commissioner of Police and the Joint Commissioner of Police.
d. A world class Pop singer has been arrested on the charge of organizing and smuggling out thousands of people in an illegal manner for the purpose of earning huge amounts of money.
e. A famous music director has been arrested on a charge of hiring a professional killer to remove a rival in his profession.
f. The Prime Minister has been arrested for bribing opposition leaders to evade a "No Confidence" motion.
g.A huge business empire has cracked in two, as the two brothers, the present owners, are at loggerheads over "ownership issues," just six months after death of their father.
h. The dacoit, who was in prison a number of times for killing at least twenty-five men, has become the Member of Parliament responsible making important decisions regarding public life.
i. A highly respected priest is arrested on charge of murder.
God has convinced himself that all those elements found in the first world countries are prevailing even in the third world countries. When the leaders of society are affected, how will common men be left behind?
God retires into utter desperation," Oh, God! It's really complete darkness and gloom!"
In frustration, he decides to return to heaven. "There is no hope here! Let's pack up!" he orders.
But then his eyes are attracted to the news telecast on a local TV channel. In a public reception, a woman is introduced as the Gold Award winner for showing exceptional strength of character. She is introduced as a poor rag picker, homeless, the mother of four little children and the wife of an ailing husband. One day she found a plastic packet containing cash of $17500 (Quite a large amount for the person who survives by earning five dollars a day, on the average.) She went straight to a police station and handed over the packet to the Officer in Charge, saying, "Sir, kindly search for the owner of this packet and hand over the same. It belongs to him."
The Chief Minister of the state, who is present at this award giving ceremony, hands over the award with a lot of promises for the future, with a few drops of tears in his eyes. In his speech, he says that he is having the best moment of his life saluting a character of the rarest of the rare. A CEO of world level NGO says that, for opening a bank account for her, bank rules have been changed, since a homeless does not have the right to open an account. All the other dignitaries are full of praises of her values.
In her reply, she sobs and says humbly with folded hands," I am a small human being among all the big people like you. I would like to tell you that it is the will of God who does everything."
A reporter asks her, "If you have another occasion of same type, what would you do then?"
She firmly replies, "I'd do the same thing - return the packet"
God nods his head in wonder as a flash of light returns, tearing the stubborn darkness apart.
He welcomes the light as it puts an end to the darkness of his mind too.
by Partha Pratim Majumder