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Dipankar Chatterji returned to Sanaki Baba's tent the next day. He had been thinking of death and almost nothing but death since the meaningless disaster of the stampede. "Does it matter, Baba?" he asked.
"Yes." The kind face looked down at a pair of rosaries, and the small eyes blinked as if in amusement.
Dipankar had bought these rosaries, one for himself and one for his secular and rather cynical brother Amit. He had asked Sanaki Baba to bless them before he left the Mela.
Sanaki Baba took them in his cupped hands, and said, "What form, what power are you most attracted to? Rama? Or Krishna, or Siva, or Shakti, or Om itself?"
Now Sanaki Baba was waiting for his answer.
Dipankar thought, Om is too abstract for me; Shakti too mysterious; Siva is too fierce and Rama too righteous. Krishna is the one for me.
"Krishna," he said. The answer seemed to please Sanaki Baba, but he merely repeated the name.
Then he said, taking both Dipankar's hands in his own: "Now say after me, O God, today--"
"Oh God, today--"
"On the bank of the Ganges at Brahmpur--"
"On the bank of the Ganges at Brahmpur--"
"On the auspicious occasion of the Pul Mela--"
"On the occasion of the Pul Mela," amended Dipankar.
"On the auspicious occasion of the Pul Mela," insisted Sanaki Baba gently.
"On the auspicious occasion of the Pul Mela--"
"At the hands of my guru--"
"But are you my guru?" asked Dipankar, suddenly skeptical.
Sanaki Baba laughed. "At the hands of Sanaki Baba, then," he said.
"At the hands of Sanaki Baba--"
"I take this, the symbol of all your names--"
"I take this, the symbol of all your names--"
"By which may all my sorrows be removed."
"By which may all my sorrows be removed."
"Om Krishna, Om Krishna, Om Krishna."
"Om Krishna, Om Krishna, Om Krishna."
"Everyone has tragedy," Sanaki Baba said. "But Krishna had joy. The secret of life is acceptance. Accept happiness, accept sorrow; accept success, accept failure; accept fame, accept disgrace; accept doubt, even accept the impression of certainty. Now, when are you leaving?"
"Today. Baba, how do you explain all this?" Dipankar pointed to the distant smoke from a huge funeral pyre, where hundreds of unidentified bodies were being burned. "Is it all the sport of the universe, the games of God? Are they fortunate because they died in this auspicious spot on this auspicious festival?"
"Do you want an interim answer?"
"Yes," said Dipankar.
"I think there was a flaw in the administrative arrangements," replied the guru blandly.
-- Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
 
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