March 2020 was just getting warmer. Covid fear and rumors were just beginning to surface and people with masks on road were getting mixed looks – indifferent and amused.

Sundar Iyengar’s home was comfortable and humid. His surname was just there as a tag to a third-generation migrant family in Mumbai. Not a bosom friend, yet I felt warm when he was around.

“ You should listen to my son, dude!” Sundar smacked his lips , cleaning  them off the coffee froth. “ He asks questions that no body could answer!”. That proud father’s tone was familiar , having met a few as I greyed over years.

“What’s that?” I asked the boy busy with his iPhone. Must be a game I would never understand.

He raised his head momentarily. “ When God is omnipotent and omniscient , why we need many Gods? One is fine , right?” and he got back to his game.

I was a bit embarrassed. It was not hostile, but indifferent ambience. That makes one nervous.  

‘Well’, I said “ Which subject is of your interest?”

“Science “ a terse reply.

“ Oh. In science what? Physics, Chemistry, Biology…”

“Physics” terser.

“ Ah! My buddy you are,  then! I love Physics. Have you studied about Light? Geometrical optics, Physical optics.. and … lasers?”

“ Yep “ he said, as he raised his head “ I have seen Lasers during a college visit ( Could be University department). Small handy ones to big ones filling an entire room “ he was smiling , for the first time.

“Class B lasers, perhaps. Do you know what the difference between a Laser beam and a normal light is?”

“Yeah!” he beamed “ Laser emits single color light .. hmm.. mono chromatic wavelength. Laser light is very intense, highly parallel and travels great distance without dispersion and least energy waste”

“Least attenuation” I continued , mildly correcting him . I could feel, I earned a respect when I dropped the technical term. That is the curse of evaluation biases… ‘All elders are chatty, know nothing technical and would just advice…. ‘  Guess I had crossed that barrier  in his mind.

“Suppose “ I continued “ You are in a dark room with colored objects. You have a red laser , and you shine them with that. What would you see?”

“Hmm” he paused “ Well, if one object is red colored, I would see that in red and those in Green, Yellow, Blue cannot reflect red light and they all would look…. Black? Perhaps?”

“ Exactly!” I smiled “ So, an object reflects the light of it’s nature and absorbs all other colors. When the incident light is bereft of it’s natural color, it cannot reflect , absorbs all the light and looks dark. Right?”

Image courtesy Thanks to : https://dramatics.org/color-and-light/

“Yes” He was getting bored.

” Now,  switch off the laser, open the door and let the sunlight to illuminate the room. How the objects would look like?”

“ In their respective colors. Obviously” He shrugged . Such a silly question…

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-3.png
Image courtesy Thanks to : https://dramatics.org/color-and-light/

“So, when you have a white light that combines all the wavelengths, falls on different objects, each one chooses its own preferred color as per its composition. A monochromatic light, when illuminates objects other than its own color, would create dark images. It is total confusion , right?”

“ What this has to do with God?”

“Now” I said, “when  you have an omniscient and Omnipotent God , you can select  a property  as per your need  and composition, exhibit that and  reject the rest. Each one  radiate the character of his/her choice.  You want knowledge? seek Saraswathi from the omnipotent; want assets? You seek Lakshmi. This is your compositional inclination. Everyone is differently blessed, enabled to carry on their duties.

Now , you have a monochromatic God, who is rigid , says “ My Way or the Highway” , could you get the property of your choice? If that God doesn’t provide what you seek, you would be no different from others. Only those who align with the Mighty Mono, would radiate. Rest will all be dark. The radiating ones would abhor the darker ones or try to change a green to a beautiful blue like them.  You kill or proselytize.

Once you understand all these properties come from a single source and we ‘choose’ what we love to radiate from that infinite, you   realize “ There is a Single entity: We call it by many names”.

He was listening with mouth wide open.

“Ah, we have a short  Upanishad Sutra that goes like “ Ekam Sat: Vipra bahudha vadanti”- meaning “ There is one Truth – wiser ones call it  by different names”

There was an uneasy silence in the room. Sundar coughed nervously and blurted, “ I…I  did not know that there is an answer. I am basically an engineer and my wife is a software pro. We have not been exposed to these … these stuff… you know… city dwellers”

“Neither villagers  and small town idiots have time to read these and think.” I snapped. “ It is about having a concern . Being a parent, you need to learn more, guide more and earn your respect from children. You invest your time  not just to heap knowledge, to effectively communicate to the next generation , telling them what they should know and how much. That requires efforts, responsibility  to deliver on parental duties”

Sundar got up, adjusted his three fourth and switched on the light.  LED lights glowed instantly filling the room with light.

White light.

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