What is a sin
And who is a sinner?
The thought agitated their minds
Ever since they joined ashram
So the disciples sought advice of
The teacher & spiritual guru, the hermit.
The hermit pondered for a while
Then decided to send both disciples
For exposure to the material world
To learn the truth through experience…
Each one to his own erstwhile disciples
One of them was a powerful feudal lord
The other an ascetic in spirit and deed.
The chief characters in the saga…
A courtesan, the young feudal lord,
An ascetic, a king and pretty princess,
The two disciples and hermit himself
In the ensuing action and events
The saga materialized like as follows…
The princess had a crush on the feudal
With an earnest desire to marry him
But the feudal lord was ardently in love
With the beautiful and wise courtesan
The attached disciple attracted to princess
With a view to resolve it, the king sought
The intervention of the virtuoso ascetic
Who skillfully persuaded the courtesan
To part with company of the young feudal
But not without himself falling for
Her beauty and grace in the bargain.
In a swift development
Of the circumstances and events
The young feudal lord relinquished
His title, wealth and fortune
In favour of the disciple attached to him
Thus enabling him to marry the princess
And with this sacrifice, he won back love
And company of his beloved courtesan
The ascetic had to return to his ashram
With a deep sense of guilt and remorse.
At the end, first disciple held a view
With deep sense of gratitude for the feudal
That the ascetic had committed a grave sin
And shall be condemned as a sinner
But the other disciple was equally firm
That the ascetic was indeed a great soul
While the feudal lord was sinful
And actually a sinner.
The hermit concluded…
Look son, in this material universe
There is nothing like a sin or virtue
Everyone is a slave of circumstances
Accordingly their values and vision evolve
So also perception about the sin or virtue
In a given set of circumstances
What a sin is for one person’s eyes
May turn out to be virtue for the other
And reverse is also true, of course.
| (The theme is based on a famous Hindi novel “Chitralekha” by Shri Bhagwati Charan Verma in 1934. Two Bollywood movies were based on the novel with same name.) |
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