The Filter

Brahma emerged from yet another deep meditation and opened his multiple eyes. The eyes on his front face took a little while to focus and resolve to show Chitragupta, as the figure bowing in front of him. This act of delay in identification raised doubts in Chitragupta’s mind, as to whether he had lost the M P N S (most preferred person status) with Brahma. 

Sensing Chitragupta’s doubt, Brahma clarified, “I just now opened all my perception devices. Otherwise, I have trouble in concentrating on my meditation!” Surprised, Chitragupta asked, “Any mysterious issue encroaching into your thoughts to disturb meditation?” Chitragupta considered the long wait, in getting a response from Brahma, as an affirmative answer. He started to wonder what could be such an issue that prevented Brahma’s lips from uttering an immediate response!

As this unidentified issue started doing the merry-go-round in Chitragupta’s mind, Brahma was carefully choosing his words to reveal the issue playing spoil sport with his meditative efforts. For him, meditation, like breathing to living beings, was mandatory. The dilemma was how would Chitragupta feel about him when the issue gets revealed. It was unfair to make Chitragupta, to wait unduly for a long time. Brahma decided to go about it in a roundabout fashion and in the process to test Chitragupta’s acumen.

"Chitragupta, have you ever closely watched the behaviour of human beings on earth?"

"Oh, yes. On a few occasions, including our recent visit to earth, I did it from close, but uncomfortable quarters. Has this any connection to the current issue?"

" No. Chitragupta, but tell me what struck you as odd in the human behaviour?"

"Oh, nothing stood out really like a sore thumb. Am I missing something here?"

Brahma sensed Chitragupta's reluctance to readily engage in the discussion. He decided to go about it in another fashion.

" Chitragupta, what are the places on earth where you find a sizeable gathering of crowd?"

"There is no rhyme or reason for a crowd to gather at any given place and time. Has this anything to do with the issue worrying you?"

"Chitragupta, you are not getting the drift and catching the point. At least tell me, why they gather like that?"

"With all due respect, have I not answered this question in my previous reply!"

Still hoping to get an answer, Brahma pressed on," What will you do if you have an issue?"

Chitragupta politely replied, “I will solve it on my own."

Brahma heaved a sigh of relief as Chitragupta had unwittingly offered to help to solve the issue. Now that Chitragupta is onboard, Brahma said, “Why and how gods manage to keep their respective believers? And is there a finite count of believers at all times?"

Chitragupta’s expertise was in keeping ledgers involving simple additions and subtractions and totaling. To confuse the issue and to gain some time before answering these questions, he said " I cannot straight away come up with an answer. I have to brush up my understanding of exponentials, statistical inflation, conjecture theorems and timed-variable-depreciation. Over and above, I must have access to a supercomputing source."

Brahma got the feeling of stumbling through a dark tunnel, blindfolded. As usual Chitragupta had managed to eloquently complicate the issue to gain time. In comparison to Chitragupta's mathematical jargon, the basket of equations, he  used in Creation, appeared less complex. He wondered which of his heads should he scratch, shake or break. Definitely, Chitragupta has started to go in circles around him and the issue.

Chitragupta blinked his eyes, little more rapidly than usual, and started to mumble and jumble certain sounds in a very low tone. Brahma, however hard he tried, could not make out anything useful from the stream of sounds gurgling forth from Chitragupta’s mouth. Forced to wait, the thought of doing an express meditation appealed to him but shelved it as a futile attempt. 

Finally, Chitragupta started speaking his thoughts. “There is this dynamic interplay between supply and demand. Gods need it, believers supply it. When believers need it, gods are bound to reciprocate. As both involved parties are intelligent, there is an unwritten covenant that hints at a freedom-clause which in turn allows for taking deemed, appropriate action. The crux of the said covenant is, no specific guideline exists - implied or otherwise."

After hearing this preamble, Brahma started to hyper-ventilate. Unmindful of this, Chitragupta continued, "Gods have hit upon the idea of restricting the number of believers by resorting to a weeding technique."

"How?" asked Brahma.

"The process runs like this. You ask, I grant; you ask, I may grant; you ask, I will consider; you ask, I may consider; you ask I reject"

Brahma spoke, "Yes. Now I understand this vicious cycle, though it lacks clarity. Here you ‘refers to a believer’ and I ‘refers to a deity’ of the believer's choice. Am I correct?"

"Absolutely. This is how the gods filter the eligible/ineligible believers. I gave only the overview but there are many hidden sub-filters in place. For brevity’s sake, let me explain in simple terms: The gods have found out an easy way to reduce the rush of boon-seekers. Between them they have agreed upon a finite number of boons that can be granted. In addition, they have compiled a compendium of difficulties that can be visited upon the believers.  The devotee is submerged in woes and worries; many go out of breath and call it a day and some cling to their faith to face another day of woes and worries. This is how they narrow the field of eligible believers.”

“Chitragupta, you said both involved parties are intelligent. How then the believers outwitted the believed?”

"The earthlings are super-efficient, in reverse engineering of any process. They simply applied upgraded filters to exclude unsympathetic gods. Not to be out done, the believers have prepared a set tough question papers to weed out the unsympathetic to select more favourable ones. This keeps their faith going, for the time being, at least." 

Winding up his explanation, Chitragupta added, “Oh! I almost forgot to mention that both involved parties have found a common ground, in one respect. They blame it on Brahma’s syndrome.” 

Satisfied that he could sort out the issue, he turned to look at Brahma's face, who had already crossed the hallway mark in to a deep meditation. Wondering whether Brahma paid any attention to the comments made by gods and believers, Chitragupta quietly withdrew from the place, without disturbing the meditative environment.