Sanjay Prasad Paudel
“Dear comrade,” said the leader, with the tone of great success. However, it was shrill and monotonous. For the first time in their history, the apes rose up in revolt against human beings at Guheswari Temple. It was primarily targeted against the president of the Pashupati Development Fund and its members.
Interestingly, when he started to speak, there was a pin-drop silence among them. They looked calm and civilized. Before and during the rebellion no such behaviors were marked. They could not stay in one place either on the branch of a tree or over the roof of the temple. But today, it was a historical day in their life and they would leap from apes to Homo sapiens.
“In the course of rebellion against the human beings we won the battle. Something is still left to be completed,” he continued. “Though, we knew the mystery which was kept hidden by the chairperson and his members that we could transform ourselves into Homo sapiens, the final anthropologic development of human being. We will shed our tail and remaining limbs so that we could stand on foot as human being.”
His speech roused other animals that gathered themselves on the courtyard of the temple. The environment turned chaotic, halting his speech for a few moments. Taking the benefit of the moments, some young rebels started measuring their tails to convince themselves that whether or not their size was decreasing. Some animals who joined recently were told during the rebellion that they must be given their real identification.
Among them, there were the Great Bulls, who were waiting for Mahadev in front of Pashupatinath temple to have some blessing and genetic information of their species. This is because in those days the poor farmers got fetus of male calves aborted and preferred the birth of only female calves. The baby ox was not given milk and after a few weeks of their birth, they are abandoned in the forest. And farmers got sufficient amount of milk from the cows and sold it in the market to make extra income.
But in the temple, a strange rumor was swirling. The Lord Mahadev abused the Great Bull in the absence of His spouse Parvati.
One by one, all the animals joined the gathering to listen to the speech of their leader, who had promised a real justice for the apes.
“When will we shed our tails and become Homo sapiens?” asked an old monkey.
“Calm down! The day will soon come. But at this precious moment, I am going to visit the priest of the Pashupatinath temple to settle down some political and economic issues. As you know that when we started the rebellion against human beings and the president of the Pashupati Development Fund, the priest was very crucial to give a logical conclusion the rebellion to our benefit. At that time when the president and his men were searching for us in order to kill and suppress the rebellion forever, the Bhatta and his men gave us political asylum. The political asylum proved highly beneficial to advance our cause.
Much of the time I spent my time there by listening to the discourse of Dr. Ramanand Swami and his asharm (hermitage). I had never taken note of such enlightening teaching. One of our fellow rebels who joined us from the beginning had been the honest and brilliant pupil of Dr. Ramanand Swami. We all know his contribution to our revolt against the president and his corrupt staff. He is here to my left. Please, welcome him!”
He stood up from the ground. The other members of the assembly welcomed him.
“Thank you all of you!” the pupil of Dr Swami said. He was very thin and shy and he spoke only a few words and took his seat.
“Now I will share one very mysterious thing that you must not tell human beings,” he continued. “One day while I was listening to Dr Swami’s sermon, he covered very secretive phenomenon. Contrary to our efforts to become Homo sapiens, the human beings were trying to transform themselves into God. Dr Swami and his disciples were practicing this. Even for a few moments, the experience was unique and beautiful. Dr Swami’s pupils called themselves Sanyasi in yellow clothes and were attaining salvation that ultimately would transform them into God. I have still an experience and this time I will get it.”
He looked around and said, “Do not share it any one! It must be secret! Okay, welcome our members who were taking part with the negotiation with the Bhatta!” The speech ended with great excitement among the apes. They thought that they had got true leader and won the rebellion against the president and his cronies.
The leader came to Pashupatinath Temple along with his other members although some of the members of his team were not from his clan and not as brilliant as him. The priest and Dr Swami welcomed them. They spent a few days and had a good negotiation with the Bhatta.
While returning to the temple Guheswari, the Bhatta of Pashupatinath temple said, “Dear friends! I came to know that you killed many humans to fulfill your mission. To atone for such sin, you should put on the yellow Sanyas clothes and offer the garland of Rudrakshas (the Holy seeds) to the Lord Pashupatinath. We have been practicing it since long before and you need not hesitate to practice asceticism.”
He further said: “By following asceticism, there will not be different between apes and humans. This will also bring an end to conflict between us.” One of the members, who always put on the garland of Holy seeds, put it off and offer the Holy garland to Pashupatinath. The priest said, “I have heard that there is the condition of the cows is poor. The farmers are exploiting the cows. So, I will give you buffalo calves and there will never be scarcity of milk again.”
The leader along with his members returned to Guheswari temple with excitement as they had achieved great success that they had not made before.
(The author is a free-lancer)
