The maverick guru—Paglot Baba—heard the visitor brag and rant at the same time. It was apparent that the visitor was an achiever in corporate life, though extremely restless and paranoid, as a split personality. Despite his achievements, he had a string of complaints about life.
‘Let’s play a game,’ Baba spoke when the visitor stopped. He went inside the room and returned with a revolver as he announced, ‘This is a classic .38 Smith & Wesson.’ Everyone was intrigued as to what Baba was up to.
Putting a bullet in the cartridge cylinder, he twirled and closed it. ‘It’s ready now. Behind my back, I’m called Paglot, a madman. I need to maintain my reputation, right? Let’s play Russian roulette. Let me start. I’ll place the gun against my temple and pull the trigger. If it goes off, boom, I’m gone and the game is over. If not, it’ll be your turn.’
The room became heavy with indescribable dread. There were spiritual aspirants with a mystical bent of mind, and here was the guru behaving bizarrely instead of the sermon they expected. Agreed, he was called an eccentric guru for his unorthodox approach. However, this was stretching it too far.
‘Please, stop!’ The visitor shouted as Baba kept the muzzle of the revolver against his temple. The visitor was now sweating profusely. ‘This is sheer insanity,’ he put into words the thought that permeated every other mind in the room.
‘Why is this insane and not what you do, day in and day out?’ Baba asked as he placed the gun on the table. ‘You live your life on the edge, and I’m not using it as a positive term for being enterprising but what you do by risking your health, friends, family, and what you call mental peace. That’s what you are doing while chasing mirages that you feel constitute your life while disregarding and sacrificing everything of value. Despite that, you complain about life being unfair. Isn’t that similar to playing Russian roulette every day of your life? Your life borders on schizophrenia, yet I’m the one who’s dubbed a madman.’
It was the ashen-faced visitor’s uncontrollable sobs that broke the eerie silence as he kept repeating, ‘Oh god, now I understand…’
We are either one of the stupefied spectators or the visitor but there’s no denying that we too live our lives on the edge. Every single day is a dangerous game: living beyond our means, getting into meaningless relationships while putting important ones at stake, chucking our dreams by toeing the line and doing what others expect, taking decisions that we know could even jeopardise what we cherish. Each such decision is akin to pulling the trigger while playing Russian roulette. We’re simply lucky if the gun hasn’t fired so far.
Wonder how long we can continue to cling on to our luck? Ask yourself!