I have been pondering over life (and death consequently) the past few months. Though I nurse a tendency to plunge into such deliberations often, my chaotic life largely keeps me away from any serious ascetic pursuit.
A recent illness and an enforced two-month home stay, with some help from those awful drugs, got me into researching the meaning of life. And inevitably, as it always happens, my mental gymnastics-- extrapolating the theory of relativity to the theory of life and so on -- dragged me into the forbidden territory of the philosophy of karma.
During my graduation, I had done a paper on Bhagvad Gita which has karma -- specifically nishkaamkarma -- as its central theme. Right from those days, I have had a healthy disbelief for karma as we are taught today.
While I never cease to wonder at nature and its laws, karma escapes me completely. My sisters, steeped into spirituality, try to convince me it is as scientific as everything else. But somehow, karma fails to impress me when I look around and think. I know I am not qualified but let me still present my agony.
If karma is taken as the simplistic theory of `as you sow, so shall you reap', why are the baddies of the world so happy in life? I know very few people who are good and have not suffered immeasurably. One sterling example would be a Gandhian who virtually ran the Mahavir International Centre near Dahanu. I got to know Manibhai Patel thanks to my social worker mother. The man was a gem of a person and epitomised nishkaamkarma in every way. All his life, he toiled for the tribals, took care of the ashram and radiated a peace and calm that I have yet to sense in anybody else. Having left his home at a tender age to work for society, he had the ashram as his family.
Blessed with a robust, hard-working body and an equanimous mind, he enjoyed good health till his late eighties. When Manidada fell sick, my faith in humanity, and later nature, was shattered beyond redemption. The man who held the place together for 50-60 years suddenly became an outcaste. He couldnt move nor talk clearly. This made it impossible for him to communicate. Each time he attempted to express himself, he would weep tears of frustration. For the next two years, I watched him shrink into a shadow of his former self. My heart sank each time I saw him. But he suffered silently and offered a smile whenever he was asked about his health. ``Saaru chhe,'' he would mumble valiantly.
The ashram took care of him as they would an inmate at a hospital. I could see he was aching for homely care and warmth as there was little else one could do for him. When he died five years ago, I received the news with tears and a sense of relief that he was now past the torture of living.
I want to know why should someone who has never hurt a fly suffer so much? I have seen my maternal grandparents, who were literally worshipped in their erstwhile village and were known for their angelic nature and austere lifestyle, face a similar fate. Both of them suffered the agony of ill-health for over a decade before giving in. These are but a few examples.
The believers tell me the good suffer so that they can achieve moksha -- or salvation. No more rebirths for them. They say they exhaust all their leftover karma in this birth.
But, salvation at what cost? What about the others who don't live so pure a life. Why do they get easy lives and easier deaths? So that they pay for ALL their karma in the next life? Why won't they suffer their karma, at least some, in this birth?
Each time I wrong someone, am I paying him back for what he did to me in one of my previous births or am I creating fresh karma?
If karma is as simplistic as this, how do you explain the positive and negative energies that charge the universe? You may have noticed sometimes you curse someone, the curse actually lands. Or, when someone wishes you ill, you do suffer. I have experienced the latter several times (though sadly, not the former!)
How come all the good people are paying for their sins of past births and the bad people are usually an arm's length away even from bad breath?
You may have seen people who pray to gods and godmen, people who wear healing stones, do pujas and yagnas, benefit. So, what happens to their retribution? Where do their bad karmas vanish? If gods get appeased and forgive you so easily, karma loses its sanctity. If bad karma can be absorbed by incense sticks and pujas, why bother to be good?
I have no answers but lots more questions. For some other time.

PS: Posting a comment by a friend, Durgesh Kasbekar from Canada, through my login as he couldnt get through. Some others too have written saying they dont have a blog but do have a comment. As Durgesh's comment seemed to add value, thought it needs to be posted.