The Krishna Love (Wattpad India Awards Winner)

Chapter 43 - The Essence of All Religions

Raj looked at his watch—it was six past forty in the morning—only twenty minutes were left for the beginning of first lecture. What he hated the most was to skip lectures. He had made a promise to himself that he will graduate with good grades, and then go for an MBA degree. Every now and then he reminded himself of this promise; yet he was late, which inferred he was failing to keep up with his goal.

He finally reached his college, and he was late. Damn! Why in the world you didn't walk a bit faster, he scolded himself. But it was done, he has to wait until the second lecture. He caught sight of Ravi, and a smirk ruled his face. Ravi was busy in his cell phone, sitting on a campus bench. Has this guy ever attended even one lecture?

"Hey, what are you doing there?" Raj shouted enough to snap Ravi out of his cellphone.

Before Ravi could beckoned Raj to come sit with him, Raj started heading there by himself. He plumped down on the bench and fixed his eyes on what Ravi was doing: he was reading something, it was ebook, something written in Sanskrit and English. It was Bhagavad Gita; Ravi was quite inspired by those words Sid has spoken to him last night.

When Raj realized it, a grimace made its way up on his face. Many times Raj has told Ravi to read Bible, but he never did it, and now he was reading Bhagavad Gita? 

Inimical feelings triggered in Raj's mind. He thought about those terrible circumstances that he had been through five years ago, which dragged his mind back to those horrible days of the past:

Scaling on the stairs hurriedly, Raj was out of breath; but little it did matter to him if he equates it with pain inflicted upon him by the almighty destiny. He could've taken the elevator, but it was busy and wasting time for that wasn't a great deal. Actually his dad met with a deadly accident, that's the reason why he wanted to see him asap.

As Raj set foot in room no. 564, where his dad was kept (or rather waiting for the operation). He had a brain fog and his heart crumbled to see his dad lying on a bed, battling against the imminent death.

Oxygen mask put on his dad's face, connected to the ventilator, Nasogastric and Endrotracheal tubes were doing their work. Raj felt his breath caught his throat like a gelid wind and froze the windpipe. How dreadful it would be for someone to catch sight of one's dad lying on a hospital bed, almost lifeless?

"Mom! Will he be okay?" Raj mumbled under his choked throat. Each word ripped his throat raw.

"We need to pay one million rupees before getting started with three consecutive operations," she replied.

This was the time, when Raj figured out the curse of not having bank balance or medical insurance, because his family believed in the philosophy of "tomorrow will never come." His dad, Mr Sharma, taught him since childhood to live in the moment; he had heard a story about his grandfather quite often.

Mr Sharma's father was an extremely wealthy man, all his life he accumulated money. In fact he was the richest person in their town. One fine day, Mr Sharma asked his father to help poor people of their town.

"After so much struggle I became rich, those poor people don't want to work, they only want money to drink alcohol," Raj's grandfather said. Mr Sharma believed it to be simply an excuse, just to avoid spending money.

One day Grandfather died with a sudden heart attack. Was he able to take all the wealth with him after death? No. Then what was the point of accumulating so much wealth?

Mr Sharma was never like his miser father. He always helped needy people, and he really never believed in savings. You came with empty hand, you will go with empty hands, he often quoted this dictum to his family.