The First Anomaly
The sky shed its dark cloak as the first light of dawn lazily dissolved the night. A pale glow gently washed the eastern horizon in shades of pink and teal, and only the most radiant of stars now flickered their last on the dark western rim. Thin, wispy clouds in the sky glowed orange, while the verdant jungles and valleys below leaped out of the darkness and glowed a bright, angry green. Watching the unfolding magic of that dawn was Anandini, the oldest nun at Shanti Ashram. Barefoot on the dewy grass, Anandini stood alone on the lawn, her face tilted to the first light, a gentle smile spreading across her lips. Behind her, the birds had woken up and had begun calling and whistling, welcoming the new day with her.
If time had slowed at first light, it was racing ahead now. An hour passed by, and the morning sun had strengthened. The clock struck six, and the ashram’s morning bell clanged boisterously, echoing through the surrounding mountains and jungles. The inhabitants of the ashram finally began to stir. Many of the younger nuns now rushed to attend to their morning chores, while the older nuns came onto the lawn and laid their yoga mats on the dewy grass, preparing for their morning meditation. Old Anandini, though, dressed in a plain white cotton tunic, sat lazily on her rattan chair, observing the morning rush.
A former award-winning quantum physicist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, she’d retired decades ago and had taken refuge ever since at the beautiful Shanti Ashram. Presently, she was eighty-one years old, but she hardly looked a day older than sixty. She still had all her teeth, and her skin was mostly wrinkle-free. Her youthfulness carried over in her behavior. In her dealings with others at the ashram, she was always jovial, helpful, and friendly, and everyone loved her. Her habits also carried that same youthful energy. For the last twenty years, each morning, without fail, Anandini was the first one to wake up and greet the new day. By the time everyone else woke up, she was already in the garden, sitting in her chair, catching the morning sun, and beaming her radiant smile.
Vasudha, a mischievous young orphan, after grudgingly finishing her morning chores, happily rushed to the garden to meet Anandini. Wanting to play a trick, she tried to tiptoe behind Anandini and cup her eyes, but the tinkle of her anklet gave her away at the last moment.
“There you are!” Anandini turned around and caught Vasudha red-handed.
“How did you know I was here?” Vasudha replied with a playful frown on her face.
“I know the sound of swift mice!” Anandini replied with fondness in her voice.
“Maa, can I come with you today?” Vasudha lovingly put her hands around Anandini’s shoulder as she spoke.
“You only want to come with me so you can get away from your lessons!” The sun glistened in Anandini’s crystal brown eyes as she replied
“No, Maa, I must come with you. It is not every day I get to see the outside world.”
“What about your lessons then?”
“Please, Maa!” Vasudha pleaded with her large, expressive eyes as she spoke.
“Ok, fine, you can come along.” Anandini smiled; she always gave in to young Vasudha.
“Thank you! Thank you!” the young one’s expressive face erupted into an excited smile, and she rushed back to her room to get ready.
***
The driver announced in a soft voice, “We’ve reached, madam.” They had finally arrived at their destination—the Indian Institute of Technology in Palakkad. Anandini had been invited to give a talk at the prestigious institute. Getting out of the car, Vasudha observed that the campus consisted of several flat buildings that surrounded a large, central auditorium. And when Anandini got out of the car, she was excitedly welcomed by an expectant sea of professors and students, all of them holding several bouquets of fresh flowers. After the flurry of hellos and welcomes was over, Anandini and Vasudha were escorted to the main auditorium, where an even larger assemblage of students and alums stood up, clapping for the great Dr. Anandini. Vasudha was amazed at the adoration and adulation Anandini received; she never knew Maa was so famous.
As the applause quietened, Anandini was led to the stage, where she mainly spoke about her journey, her career, and the research project that earned her the country’s highest award.
An hour later, as the talk concluded, Anandini bid farewell to the audience, and the next speaker took the stage.
“Are we done, Maa?” Vasudha asked impatiently as they walked out of the auditorium.
“Yes. We are done,” Anandini replied.
It was that time of the year when summer was coming to an end and monsoon rains were not more than a week away. Outside the auditorium, the heat of the sun was extinguished by the grey clouds floating in the sky, and a soft breeze blew across the landscape.
“Let’s take a walk, Vasudha. Isn’t it beautiful here!” Anandini suggested. Vasudha eagerly approved as it was indeed a beautiful day to be out and about.
They took a path that wound around the auditorium and stretched to the far edge of the vast campus. As they walked, Vasudha asked Anandini about her life as a scientist. Anandini told her about the struggle from those early years of work. As a woman scientist, she had to face numerous obstacles put in her path. She told her about how she had to manage the family, but also give as much, and sometimes even more, of her energy to her research. Soon, they reached the edge of the campus, and the path curved around a beautiful lake.
“Maa, can I walk a bit more? I would like to see more of this place!”
“You go ahead, I will sit here for a while. My leg hurts.”
Anandini sat down by the lake, letting her legs dangle in its black waters while Vasudha smiled and walked on, savoring the rare excursion.
A while later, when Vasudha had disappeared and the skies had clouded over once again, Anandini suddenly noticed a blurry apparition dancing on the waves of the lake. For a moment, she wondered if it was a mirage, a trick played on her by the black waters of the lake reflecting the diffuse light. She shifted her head and tried to get a better view, but the figure continued dancing in a soft blur. Suddenly, the sun jumped out from behind the clouds, and the lake surface once again shimmered in the bright sunshine. Now, Anandini saw the apparition clearly. It was the God of death himself, Yama, who gazed back at her with blazing red eyes. She observed his complexion was ashen grey, like the storm clouds pregnant with rain, and he was adorned in a fluid silken garment, dyed in the deepest indigo, dazzling in the breeze. Yama smiled gently at Anandini, and she smiled back—she felt no fear of the God of death, but only an overwhelming, boundless joy.
She whispered to the specter of Yama, “I knew you would come one day; I have been waiting a long time.”
“Well, you’re in luck then. It’s time to go, child,” replied Yama, his words resounding like thunder.
Even as a child, somewhere deep within her, Anandini always felt an acute sense of incompleteness. Growing up, working, competing, and getting married, she had all but forgotten that feeling. However, when she had children and they grew up, having their own children, those feelings of incompleteness came back to her. After she’d retired and had found refuge at Shanti Ashram, she learnt all about suffering and samsara—that relentless cycle of life. It was then she understood what that feeling of incompleteness meant and that completion could only be achieved by truly letting go of everything and striving for moksha—that final release from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
So now, by the side of that lake, when she saw Yama, a figment of her imagination, she knew she’d reached that moment of dissolution and was ready to let go entirely. She prepared herself for Moksha. She closed her eyes and lit a sacrificial fire, a grand Yagna, in her mind to burn away those last ardent desires and achieve liberation. Glowing golden and orange, the sacred fire grew large, illuminating every corner of her soul, its cleansing flames licked the sky of her consciousness. In her mind, seated before that fire, she held in her many hands several boxes, each containing the last vestiges of her desires.
She opened the first box, an ivory box, and took out a large lemon-yellow envelope. The envelope held all her love for her mother. She held the envelope a while longer, feeling the warmth of the memories of her mother, before putting it into the fire. The flames burned bright yellow as the envelope, with all its contents, burned to ashes.
She opened the second box, a copper box, and took out a blue colored envelope that held her love for her children. She felt once again the pain of childbirth, the warmth of her children’s hugs, and the smell of their tiny heads. A moment later, she dropped the envelope into the fire, burning away all those memories. The fire raged and burned tall, burning a bright blue.
She then opened the third box, a brass box, and took out a blood-red envelope. It held her attachment to the flesh, of sensual love, of passion, and her sexuality. Her heart beat harder as she held the envelope over the fire. For a moment, she lingered, for a moment she held back, not wanting to let go. But the memories of a thousand lifetimes weighed on her, and she flung the envelope into the fire. The fire now burned red, turning into a writhing firestorm.
And finally, she opened the last box, a wooden box, that held a green envelope, which contained all the things she loved to eat and drink, and the taste and smell of warm food came back to her. She felt once again the satiation of a sumptuous meal. She tasted wine once again in her mouth, the warm liquid coursing down her throat. This green envelope was the hardest to put into the fire. She held on and on, until in a final moment, the envelope slipped from her hand and fell into that all-consuming fire.
With all her desires now burning in that fire, its flames rose so high that they filled the seven heavens. The powerful and effulgent golden light of that fire permeated through Anandini, annihilating all darkness. Only light remained now, pure and endless. And in the light of that immaculate fire, now sat a young and youthful Anandini, naked, her brown skin shining as burnished bronze, her form taut, her skin smooth, her face shining with the soft light of a hundred moons. In a final act of dissolution, she stood up and stepped into the ever-cleansing flames, extinguishing all her samsara once and for all.
Dr. Anandini had entered a state of Mahasamadhi. She left her mortal body willfully.
Vasudha, who was on the other side of the lake, saw Anandini’s body slump forward. Sensing something amiss, she ran and ran until she reached her. She shook and called out to her and held her face in her hands and pleaded with her to open her eyes, but Anandini had long left that plane of existence.
***
At that very moment, as Anandini experienced the ecstasy of dissolution, Lata, an ordinary assistant professor at IIT Palakkad, sat at her desk in her corner office, reading the divorce papers her ex-husband Daniel had sent. But as Lata pondered her fate—her eyes brimming with tears, her heart twisting with pain and hurt—the bank of computers in her office, tirelessly logging the ceaseless flow of experimental data, unknowingly inscribed into their silicon hearts, an anomaly—one without precedent, one that would alter the course of human history.