Athithi Devo Bhav

It was a boring Sunday afternoon and I having nothing better to do, put on the idiot box and started swapping the channels. There was nothing interesting on the TV and was about to turn it off when I heard the doorbell ring. I got up and opened the door assuming it would be my mother, who had gone to visit her friend that morning. However, an old man stared at me when I opened the door.

“Yes?” I asked him wondering who he was. He must have been around 65 to 70 years old. He looked at me without answering and we stood staring at each other for about half a minute.

“Can I come in?” he asked.
I was a bit surprised for people do not just stare at you and then decide that they need to get inside the house. I did not budge and asked him with an air of impatience “Whom do you want to meet?”

He kept mum. I looked at his frail body and took pity on him. It looked as if he was searching for some particular house and had somehow landed at my place. I live in a housing society in the metropolis of Pune. We have security guards manning the gates, who monitor every person entering our society. Therefore, it is very unusual to have strangers knocking your door and much stranger to have people wanting to enter your home without answering what or whom they wanted. But, it was an old man after all, and what harm could he do to a 21 year old me?

I stepped aside to let him in. Closing the door, I asked him to take a seat. I had a closer look at him. His face and hands were much wrinkled and his hair was completely white. He was clean shaven and his overall personality was very much striking. He was at least six feet tall and was very lean, but his shoulders hung low and he stooped a bit, giving an impression of short height. He was wearing a sparkling white shirt and black trousers and had a colourful cloth bag slung across his shoulders.  From his attire, I could guess that he belonged to respectable middle class family. I sat opposite to him on the sofa. I was quite confident that he was not a resident of my society as I had not seen him earlier.

“Are you lost? Are you searching for someone in particular?” I asked him.
He looked at me with the same timid expression before replying, “No”.
“What are you here for then?” I was now getting a bit impatient.
“I do not know” he replied.

I began wondering how the security guard had let him in. He kept looking at me for some more time. I began to suspect that he might be a victim of Alzheimer’s syndrome.
I was alone in the house and it was for the first time that I was confronted by such a situation. Here I had an old guest who did not know what he was here for, or rather did not want to answer.

As I was musing about what I should do, he asked, “Can you give me something to eat?”
It was now my turn to stare at him. So, my old guest was also hungry apart from being confused! It was out of reverence to old people that I got up to go to the kitchen; otherwise, in cities you cannot really trust people who behave in such a peculiar manner.
My mother had not cooked anything that morning so I got some biscuits from the shelf and put them on a plate. I went back to the living room and offered him the plate. He, instead of crunching on them, simply looked at the biscuits and did not even touch the plate. I kept holding the plate in front of him for about half a minute before he chose to reply,
“Do you have rice? I am not used to eating these.”

I had now lost my patience completely. I said, “I am sorry, there is nothing else to eat in the house.”
He looked as if he had not heard me. He did what he had done the best till now - kept mum.
“Do you know my parents? Are you here to meet them?’ I asked, now determined to be done with this fellow.
He did not reply, just kept staring at me.
“Are you deaf?” I asked, my anger boiling.
He shook his head in reply without taking his eyes off me.
“Then why are you here? What do you want? Answer my questions otherwise I will call the security guard”, I said threateningly.
“Why don’t you go to the kitchen and get me some curd rice. I am sure you have it” he said ignoring my remarks completely.

I was about to reply that I will not give him anything to eat even if I had something, partly because I was hurt on his refusal to eat the biscuits and also because of my suspicions of his motives. He did not look like a timid and helpless old man anymore.  But something about him, something in his eyes told me that I better go to the kitchen. As I made my way towards the kitchen, I felt sure that the old man had hypnotized me and I had better get rid of him. I was about to turn around and ask him to leave, but I saw a tiny flash in the kitchen. I went inside to check it out. It had probably come from a steel vessel kept on the dining table and I doubted it’s presence during my first trip to the kitchen. As I crept close to the dining table, I saw that it contained rice. I was surprised, as I did not remember mother having cooked rice either. I found myself opening the refrigerator and take out the curd.

Next thing I remember was offering curd rice to the old man in the living room. He looked at it hungrily and began to eat. As he was about to put the second morsel into his mouth, he had a coughing fit. I rushed in the kitchen to get some water. I poured some water in a glass and hurried back to the living room.

And lo behold! The old man was gone, disappeared! I stood rooted at the spot unable to grasp the situation. There lay on the coffee table the plate with unfinished curd rice. I saw that the main door was slightly ajar. I remembered having closed the door. Had he gone out while I was in the kitchen? I must have been away only for 30 seconds and I could not imagine the old man suddenly becoming agile enough to be able to slip out through the main door within such a short span. I went and opened the door wide. There was no one nearby.
As I turned to look inside, the old man’s cotton bag caught my eyes. It lay on the chair exactly where he had been seated. Had he forgotten it or had he left it behind on purpose?
I opened the bag to look at its contents. It contained only one thing. It had in it a tiny idol of Lord Krishna holding a flute in his typical cross-legged style.

I kept the idol back in the bag and taking it with me; I made my way out of the house. After locking the house, I headed straight to the security guard’s cabin.
“Did you see an old man come to my house with this bag?” I asked him pointing at the bag.
“No chote Saab” he replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Are you sure” I asked him.
“Yes absolutely. I have never left my place” he replied.
I also described the old man and asked him whether he had seen him anywhere nearby. He assured me that no such old man had come in the society or was a resident of our society.

I walked back towards my building and searched around, but he was nowhere to be found.  After anxious 15 minutes, I gave up my futile search and returned home.  As I was opening the door, I half expected to find him sitting inside and finishing his curd rice. I kept his bag back where I had found it and searched the whole house, thinking that he was hiding somewhere inside the house, but I was only being a paranoid for the whole house was empty except for me.

I sat on the sofa with palms on my head and tried to make sense of the whole thing. I could hear the sound emanating from the TV, for while all of this had happened, I had not turned it off. I picked up the remote to put the TV off and doorbell rang again giving me a sense of déjà vu. This time I was so sure that it would be him at the door, that I sprang up and hastily opened the door. However, it was my mother and not him. I was so expectant to see the old man, that on not finding him, I was lost into a train of thoughts and even forgot to step aside to allow my mother to enter. My mother’s voice cut across my thoughts; “Hey …what’s up with you? Step aside.”
“Uh…oh yeah…sorry” I said stepping aside.

“Were you expecting some one else?” my mother asked as she entered.
I did not reply. She was about to keep her purse and bag on the coffee table that she noticed the curd rice.
“What’s that?” she asked pointing at it.
“Curd rice” I said without thinking, for I was really disturbed by the whole episode.
“I know. I can see that. Where did you get it from?” she asked.
“There was rice on the table and curd in the refrigerator.” I replied.
“Rice!” she exclaimed. “But I have not cooked rice. There is no rice in the kitchen!”
“Come then, follow me” I said and holding her by the hand, took her to the kitchen. I showed her the vessel containing rice.
She was surprised and kept saying that it was impossible as she had not cooked rice at all.
“You must have forgotten about it” I said, trying to be rational.
“No. How could I forget what I had cooked and what I had not” she sounded a bit angry.
I walked back towards the living room and she followed me. This time she saw the old man’s bag and asked “Whose bag is that?”
I explained everything to her in detail. “Oh. So that was why you were surprised to find me at the door” she muttered.
“But who was this old man?” she asked.
“I do not know. I told you that already. Everything seems so strange” I replied.

Both of us kept quiet, thinking over this unusual experience of mine. The TV, which I had twice failed to turn off, was mumbling something about Indian civilisation and its culture.
I looked up and noticed that it was national geographic channel, airing a documentary on Indian way of life.

The anchor of the show was speaking “Indians pay so much respect even to guests that they think of them to be an incarnation of god himself. Athithi Devo Bhav is an old Sanskrit saying. It means a guest is like god himself. What a noble thought! It really goes on to show how noble and cultured these people are….they stand true to the word Aryan…meaning the ‘noble one’ and this country is in a true sense Arya varta or land of the nobles…Indians are also very fond of……”

I turned off the TV and looked at my mother. She too was looking at me. We had the same puzzled expression on our faces.