He makes her feel like a better person.

When she sees him unexpectedly she always feels very happy, lucky,  and excited.

He accepts her for who she is, and always makes her feel loved.

He does not ask her to change something about herself because it goes against his interest, wishes, dreams,  religious beliefs or social status.

She always supports him in the things that are important to him.

He always makes an effort to get along with her friends even if he doesn’t like them.

She does not pressure him to dump a friend who is not doing anything wrong or harmful.

He does not pressure her to lie to her parents.

She often pressures him to stop smoking.

I am not bothered about body, body cell, or metabolism because I would like to dwell upon the external aspects which directly or indirectly give rise to anger. Most of my findings are based on the events which take place in our daily life.

A child is angry when the thing-a toy, a chocolate, or a book, etc- is snatched away from it, and consequently it reacts with shouts, cries, kicking, or lying flat on the floor.

A teenager can be angry for various reasons: parents or guardians trying to impose upon him or her, scarcity of money which deprives him or her from buying the things of choice, or adverse ideas and better intelligence of a rival.

An adult gets angry for infinite reasons: money, property, choice, love, language, superiority, authority, and many other reasons.

The most interesting angry person to me here is a lover who is married to a woman but after a few years he begins to love another woman. He is angry if his wife begins to question him on his late arrivals, his silence in the house, his neglect of the children etc. Of late I was in my friend’s office and he was there with his wife. I knew that he was in love with his young and beautiful secretary. His wife wanted him to accompany her to a party but he was trying to put forward one or the other excuses. Meanwhile, his girl friend reported on duty. She was late by two hours but my dear friend did not mind it at all. On the contrary, he was rather delighted. His accent changed and he began to shout at his wife. He gave a final excuse that he had a lot of work in the office and his girlfriend supported him.

Coming out of the office, I began to think seriously about anger and its causes. I have reached on only three conclusions and three basic causes: (1) Materials and matters related to materials, (2) Prestige and thoughts related to opinions and ideas, and (3) Love, not generally falling in the circumference of marriage and social norms.

It was his last day in the prison; he had spent seven years of rigorous imprisonment without any indication showing whether he was happy or sad. They knew that he had been driving the car that killed the young woman and he had never tried to defend himself.

His father, his mother, his brothers, and other family members visited him many times in the prison but he never uttered a word. They tried their best to persuade him to say something which could help in his early release but he decided to remain silent.

 The jailer of the Central Prison in New York had never seen a prisoner like him. When the older prisoners bullied him, he never defended himself. He had been beaten by the other prisoners on many occasions.

When he had been sent to the prison, he was twenty-two and now, while leaving the prison, he was thirty, but he looked older than forty because he had never tried to maintain himself, I mean, never combed hair, though the jailer and the fellow prisoners often requested him to have a haircut. He had a long beard and long hair, like those kept by the Hindu sadhus.

Throughout his tenure in the prison as a prisoner, he never felt that he wanted to leave the place. Some of the prisoners had seen him weeping late in nights. Sometimes he sang in such a mournful voice that most of the prisoners felt the impact of the voice which seemed to be emanating from a very deep well. He was a very good singer. When they requested him to sing, he never sang.

He got up and accompanied the constable who had called his name. He began to follow the constable who conveyed him to the office of the jailer. The jailer congratulated him on his freedom from the imprisonment and he gave a faint smile which remained mostly hidden behind his thick beard and the long hair that fell from his forehead and covered his eyes.

The jailer handed him his belongings and gave some money which he had earned working in the workshop of the prison. He did not pay much attention to the money and carelessly stuffed the currency notes in his front pocket. He began to look for something in his old clothes which the jailer had returned to him.

His face lit up when he found it. It was an old photograph of a strikingly beautiful woman. Her smiling face seemed to be so lively as if words would begin to flow any instant from her mouth.

He wiped the photo with the palm of his right hand, as if dust had settled there. A drop fell from his eyes. He folded his hands and bade goodbye to the jailer.

After about three hours, he was standing in front of a graveyard. He found his way through the graves. The silence in the place comforted him. He felt as if he had reached the place he had been looking for ages.

There was an old grave with a white headstone with the words “Here lies my beloved, Juliana, whose destiny caused her to leave this world at the early age of twenty-two”. He read his name below. He remembered that he had ordered the headstone and paid one thousand dollars to the undertaker for other expenses.

She was in her mother’s house that day. He was eager to leave his office in the afternoon.

“I will pick you in an hour, Juliana.”

“I will reach in front of the park at 6:00 pm.”

“Till then…”

She got dressed quickly and adorned herself in a pink dress. She knew he liked pink colour. Before their marriage, it was going to be their last date. How ecstatic she was! She began to walk towards the bus stand. She knew that from the following day, she would be travelling by car but in her single status she could not afford a taxi or a car.

It was getting dark. Suddenly, she saw that a few rogues were following her. She quickened her pace to reach the park whence she had to go with him in his car. She was unaware that the boys who were following her had some other plans.

Suddenly, one of them pulled her arm. The other three assisted him. They were carrying her to the station wagon that was parked at some distance. She knew that she was being forcibly taken away. She tried to protest but her power did not match those eight powerful hands which held her.

She rallied courage and bit one of the abductors on his wrist. The grip was released. That was the moment. She began to run towards the main gate of the park. She was running blindly.

The car was approaching from her right. She knew that if she cried for held, people would help her because it was a friendly neighbourhood and those rogues were not from that area.

She was running like a person possessed. Suddenly, she tripped and began to fall forward. It was too late. The collision was so powerful that she was flung about ten feet off the ground. The speeding car came to halt with a screech. She fell back on to the ground and her head hit the tarmac. The death did not take too long.

The driver of the car was sitting beside the dead body. A crowd of people had gathered around the driver and the dead body lying next to him. After about twenty minutes a police patrol car reached there.

He confessed that he had hit the woman and she had died on the spot. He had killed the woman whom he was going to marry the following morning.

He pulled an old shirt from the bag he was carrying. He cleaned the grave and arranged the flowers which he had bought after his release from the prison.

People say that they saw him there sitting beside the grave for two weeks. One morning he was found dead, lying next to the grave. His face was turned towards the grave and his right arm was lying across the grave.

Swami Anand was sitting beside his Guru Swami Vikram Acharya, next to the high throne-like padded chair which served as the seat of authority in that Ashram. It was a custom in the Ashram that the next to the highest Guru would acquire the highest seat. The staff in the Ashram had already begun to whisper that Anand would be their next Guru because he had served the Ashram and the Guru for nine years without any kind of selfishness.

There were thousands of people in the audiences who had come to listen to the words of Guru Vikram Acharya. It was said that Vikram Acharya had forsaken his father’s property worth millions of dollars and come to this Ashram in California where a large number of Indian and other Asian communities lived in perfect harmony.

Swami Anand was instructing the volunteers present on the stage. Vikram Acharya was about to begin his preaching. The highest swami did not belong to any religion or sect; he propagated the message of love and brotherhood; he was remote from the contemporary politics and the trends of time; he looked at humans as humans and he hardly ever asked the names of the people who were introduced to him.

“Names often take you away from your human aspect of life,” said Swami Vikram Acharya one day in reply to Anand’s question which Anand had asked out of curiosity because Vikram Acharya called everyone ‘Swami’ and he had never called him ‘Anand’.

“But Guru if we have no identity, it will be difficult to conduct the business of daily life smoothly…”

“No, swami, we have made it so and we have submerged ourselves so deeply in the worldly affairs that we are often possessed by the sense of ownership and this feeling of possessiveness alienates us from others,” said Vikram Acharya and smiled pleasantly.

“Guru, can everyone become like you?” said Anand.

“I have never tried to become. It is a misconception. It you try to become what you are not, you miss the life. I am, I think, made so. In the earlier years of my life I was digressed because my parents and elders tried to make me what I was not,” smiled Swami Vikram Acharya.

“Guru, you are a mysterious figure. It is very difficult to understand you…” said Anand and bowed in front of him.

Vikram Acharya put his hands on Anand’s shoulders and helped him stand up. He hugged Anand and said, “Certain things can be taught and knowledge can be transferred but, my son, the knowledge of life can’t be transferred; it has to be experienced and understood. I am sure that with the passing years, you will understand everything. You will see that the silence which is often hated by the people will become your best companion,” said Swami Vikram Acharya.

The reverie of thoughts was broken when Anand felt a tug on his left arm. He turned and saw a little girl standing there. She was weeping and pulling his arm.

“What happened, dear?” Anand bent on his knees in front of the girl.

“My mother, I can’t find her…” her sobs did not let her complete her sentence.

“Where are you from?”

“I came with my mother…”

“What is her name? What is your father’s name?”

“Meera, my mother’s name is Meera. I don’t know my father,” said the little girl very innocently.

Anand observed the little girl’s face very minutely. Something in her eyes and nose literally compelled him to dwell on the subject for a longer period of time. It was her mother’s name which affected him with a sense of agonizing pleasure.

………………..

“Yes, they have agreed to our marriage. Everything is settled Meera. I will be there by three in the afternoon tomorrow. Pack your things,” said Anand and disconnected the line.

He had known Meera for seven years. Anand, the son of an industrialist, the owner of three cotton mills in Surat, India, had come to America to pursue his studies. He successfully completed his M. B. A. in three years and then started his import and export office in California. He expanded his business and in one year he was able to establish six offices in different cities of California State.

Meera was the first person whom he had appointed to help in his first office. She had the responsibility of her blind mother. Her father had left them there and gone back to India. When Meera’s mother could see, she worked in a big company but after losing her eyesight, the financial condition of the family declined and things got worse. Her father went to India on the pretext that he would start a new business but he never came back. Meera was hardly seven at that time and her mother’s social money which she received in the first week of every month was the only income the mother and daughter had. However, the mother spent most of the money on her daughter’s education and as a result Meera completed her B. A. in Management Studies. She had been looking for a job when her eyes fell on an advertisement given by a newly established import and export house.

In the first two years, Anand and Meera worked very hard and the business began to expand. Anand’s father would send the goods from India and Anand, with the help of his marketing staff, sold the goods in various markets in America. In two years their profits touched three millions.

Anand and Meera did not realize when they had begun to like each other. It was unspoken, unexpressed, and quite unromantic progression of events.

One day, Anand said to Meera, “I think we should get married now?”

Meera was surprised, pleasantly surprised, but she did not say a word.

“I know I am unromantic and I have never asked you for a date and I have never shown any signs in this regard but I can assure you that we will be happy together because I know that you love me too,” said Anand in one go.

Meera blushed and bent her head low, hiding her eyes from him.

“Will you marry me, Meera?” he came closer.

“Yes…”

After that life began to fly and dreams were innumerable. They began to spend most of the evenings together. He visited her mother and she liked him too. Anand consulted a very famous eye-specialist and he agreed to treat her mother. Meera felt as if god had met her in Anand’s form.

……………..

They were going to marry the following day. Anand had returned from India two days before. His parents were happy that he was going to marry the girl of his choice. They did not interfere at all. They were to fly back to India after their marriage to meet his parents and the rest of the family.

In the evening, he had phoned that he would come to pick her and her mother the following morning at about 7:00 o’ clock.

Meera waited and that wait never ended. She tried to ask the staff and his parents in India but no one knew where Anand was.

After about a week, she found that she was carrying Anand’s baby. Her mother advised her to get rid of that unwanted baby and begin her life again but Meera was not ready. She wanted to raise the child and she hoped that one day she would find Anand.

………………………….

“Guria, what are you doing here?” a voice reached Anand’s ears and his head turned in the direction of the owner of the voice.

“Mummy, I came to this uncle to seek help. I thought I was lost,” the little girl embraced her mother who had bent down to plant a kiss on her lovely daughter’s forehead.

“Thank you very much, actually I was parking the car and she ran towards this place,” said Meera, looking at Swami Anand.

“Meera…is she your daughter?”

Hearing her name from the mouth of a bearded swami, clad in saffron gown was quite confusing and surprising. She left the little girl’s hand and looked at him attentively, “Anand…Anand…”.

She was about to rush to him but Anand stopped her with his raised right hand.

“Yes, Meera, I am Anand.”

“What are you doing here?”

“This is where I actually belong,” said Anand and smiled.

“And what about me, our daughter?” Meera had tears in her eyes.

“Our daughter?”

“Yes, she is your daughter, Guria,” said Meera, her tears flowing down rapidly.

Meanwhile, Guru Vikram Acharya had reached there. He was smiling.

“Anand, this life is quite mysterious. You have been rewarded by the divinity,” said the Guru.

“No, Guru, my place is here in this Ashram!” protested Anand.

“You were unconscious when we brought you here after your car fell over the cliff. It was a miracle that you were not dead. You opened your eyes and told me your story. You remember, I had advised you to go back to Meera and get married. You stayed with us for a few days and changed your mind. Now nine years have passed but I think forces have combined to send you back to your Meera and your daughter. Your work in this Ashram is over and I can say that everything happens for good. Your service to this Ashram is unforgettable and we all will miss you. If you stay here, you will break the hearts of two living souls and you know that it is against what I teach. You don’t need any god, any guru, and any ashram if you are a good human being and you are not hurting anyone in the society where you live. You belong to them. Go my son and start again. Life is waiting for you.”

Anand was reluctant but when he looked at Meera and his little daughter and read their eyes full of hope and love, he touched his Guru’s feet and said, “Guru, you will have to visit us in our new home.”

“No, Anand, I have thousands of children here and I have to look after them. God made you to look after Meera and Guria and you must respect the circumstances. You are a very fortunate person, Anand, and I am blessed that this beautiful task had to be performed through me.”

They had tears in their eyes when Meera and Anand, holding his daughter tightly to his bosom, walked out of the main gate of the Ashram. How beautifully perspectives change!