Is there a heaven ?

“Appa, is there a heaven ?”, I saw my ten year old by my side.

I was deep into changing code that was broken. I was about to tell ‘there is no such thing’. But then ‘how do I know it does not exist?’. There are many moments in life which are heavenly.

When I was a kid and everyone at home were on their siesta, my friend tip toes and calls me out for a game of cricket. Or when I was old enough reading ‘War and Peace’ sitting in the balcony with a cyclone brewing in the sea few miles away and the air is chill with drizzles. Or when I first got hold of a tape of Ilaiyaraja’s ‘How to name it’ and was immersed listening to the violin fusing western and Carnatic moving back and forth? Or the countless hours with friends going late into the night, in the hostel room discussing everything from Engineering to Science to Movies ? Or when I walked aimlessly with the girl I love when everything around looks like a backdrop straight from a Manirathnam’s movie. Or when I woke up to find my little boy wrapping his legs around me, his unblemished innocence.

‘Heavens exist’ I said.

‘So how does it look ? does everyone get what they want ? ’

What if everyone gets what they want ? That question sounded absurd to me. Does any one know what they want ? We are figuring this out all the time. Even if we know what we want, if all of it is fulfilled in a jiffy, then it will be disgusting living that? It drives away even the possibility that we can have a meaning in this living.

‘If you get everything you want, you will be a zombie’ I said

He laughed. He had to deal with a lot of zombies in his life, in the games he play. He kills them. Sometimes he displays fear as well thinking of them swooping into his imaginary house.

‘So does it mean there is no such thing as heaven?’

‘What happens when you are at school and half way through they ask you to go home because of a beloved leader coming to your city?’

‘Oh, I will feel very happy’

‘Well then I would say you were in heaven in that moment’.

‘What happens as you board your bus to go home, they come back and say that the leader’s visit is cancelled and hence the school is on’

‘Oh I will hate it’.

‘Yes, now you begin to get what heaven is. It is not a place where you exist happily ever after. It is right here what you are going through.’ I said

‘But Appa, from what you say, you are not permanently in heaven. You are in hell and then in heaven and back to hell, right ?’

‘Yes absolutely. When you play with your friends, you are in heaven. When you have to wake up to go to school, you go out of it.’ I said.

‘But heaven is a place where you are permanently happy’, he was not leaving me.

‘Yes, but then if you play all the time with your friends, will it be interesting ?’

‘No’

‘So, you end up playing a little, going to school, go for a swim, play a piano or catch up reading your favourite story books, right?’

‘Yes’.

‘Tomorrow as you grow up, talking to your best friend or travelling to a place and watching the sunset may tickle you. It constantly changes. Heaven keeps changing’ I said.

He was silent.

‘You are all the time chasing heavens. Sometimes you find them. But they are all momentary. As you grow old, you slow down. You start getting to know that the heaven is in just sitting in a place and not unnecessarily chasing things’.

…he was no more listening. I know it is a bit too much for a kid. But it was heaven to talk to him this way.