A Bat Named Conscience

When the entire world was busy at night wrinkling the bedsheets

in the half-awaken half-asleep state, a bat was born. Like most of the other bats, it had wide ears, tiny eyes and a small mouth. His father named him ‘Conscience’.

Yes! You heard it right, ‘Conscience’!!

‘What a strange name!’ – exclaimed all the bats. Father bat just smiled.

‘What does Conscience mean?’ – asked an old bat in the group.

Pointing at the stage in a nearby religious centre, the father bat told, ‘Well, I don’t know what conscience means but the man who speaks for hours every day there uses this word often. It sounds good.’

There was a huge tree just outside the compound of the religious centre where all the bats lived. All the religious heads that came there to give their sermons definitely used the word ‘Conscience’ in their discourse. The same word became the name of this newborn bat.

Days passed. Conscience grew up like all the other bats. One day when it had gone far away in search of food, the tree on which all the bats lived was cut as per the directions of a religious head. He had said that bats carry bad omen. They should be kept away from humans. When Conscience returned, it saw neither the tree nor the bats. It just found a place in a ruined building and hanged itself upside-down waiting for its fellow bats to return. Days passed; no one returned. World was busy in its own businesses. The Bat was lonely and lifeless.

Once, while hanging upside down from a branch, Conscience saw a boy buying something in a shop. The shop was crowded. The boy got what he wanted, gave money and received the balance back. The boy started walking slowly back home counting the money he got in return from the shopkeeper. It was more than the amount it should have been. He was in a dilemma whether or not to return it. ‘Shall I just buy the long fancy pencil that I see everyday in ‘kaaka dukaan’ while going to school?’ ‘What if shop keeper remembers later about the extra money he returned and asks me when I go next time?’ ‘What if the God who is watching all of us punishes me?’ – some thoughts and questions were running in his mind.

He went home, returned his mother only the money that was mathematically correct but morally wrong and kept the rest with himself.

It was a summer night. The boy had slept on the bed by the window side keeping the windowpane open. He was half-asleep, half-awake. Conscience flew near the window many a time. The boy heard the sound of its fluttering wings and woke up. He was drenched in sweat. He took a few moments to return to normalcy and slept. When he woke up, he was very clear. He took the extra money that he had received from the shop keeper the previous day, went to the shop, returned it and came back home. He felt relaxed. He just looked at that ruined building. Conscience was innocently sleeping hanging upside down.

As the days passed, Bat became very active at night when everyone was in a half-awake and half-asleep state. It started visiting everyone’s windows. The boy who cheated in the exam and had become the school topper, the officer who had taken bribe from a poor old man to release his pension, the girl who went outside with her friends in the name of special classes at college, the man who was undergoing seven-year itch, the politician who had made black money, an adolescent who was unable to regulate his hormones and raped an innocent girl, a woman who conspired with others and murdered her husband - Bat visited everyone’s window at night. Some of them woke up and confessed their mistake the next morning or later.

It brought a lot of changes. People started accepting their mistakes, confessed them, stopped repeating. In some cases, the mistakes were forgivable and the losses or pains they created could be undone. In some of the cases, it was just a confession of mistakes without being able to compensate for the loss or pain they caused to the victims. But Conscience was purifying minds.

Those who accepted mistakes started feeling light-hearted. They were happier than before. Acceptance of mistakes prevented them from committing the mistakes again. Admitting mistake was definitely insulting but was the simplest and the most effective way to be happy. The same people who were committing mistakes, hiding them within, confessing in front of religious heads or god, offering something at temples, mosques or churches to wash away their mistakes, now stopped needing to go to any such places. The heart was the best place to find peace. Conscience was the best doctor.

Bat was becoming popular. It awakened people midnight and lightened their hearts. Number of people praying god, confessing their mistakes to religious heads and offering money, gold, clothes and even hair to religious centres to forgive their mistakes yet give them what they wanted, without even thinking what would god do with all they offered declined day by day. One day, a religious leader foresaw the implications of the growing importance of Conscience among people. He started to think seriously to curb Conscience in the people and in the society.

The very same night, the Bat visited the window of the religious head’s room. It was in half-asleep and half-awake state so many questions arose: ‘For my selfishness, for my livelihood and survival, am I not misleading the people in the name of god, religion, scriptures and so on? Isn’t is simple and correct for people just to lead their life as per their conscience and their value system? Isn’t what I am doing by creating fear of hell or the lure of the heaven to keep them in the good track wrong? Shouldn’t love and self-realization be more ideal ways of guiding the man than creating fear or lure?’ – questions continued. He woke up and sat on the bed. He had got drenched in the sweat. Almost the same had happened before with politicians and other lawmakers who misled the people as individuals or as a society.

Though realized, it was not easy to for the religious head to confess his mistakes in the public and relive his life differently. He could neither just ignore the Conscience fully nor accept it. Finally, after thinking a lot, h ordered his followers to catch the Bat and cage it.

It was the dawn of the day. Bat, which was tired of visiting everyone at night, had returned to its habitat and hanged upside down to sleep. Perhaps it fell asleep soon as it was tired after awakening so many people at night. It saw a dream. In the dream, the Conscience visited itself. It started asking questions to itself. ‘Are you correct by yourself? Why do you invoke a sense of guilt in someone who wants to live and do things as per their wish without any intention of hurting others? Why are you programmed by the society, civilization, law of the land? Why are you diluted by the world? You are not powerful’

The sleeping Bat woke up. It couldn’t see properly. Some men came, easily caught and caged it. It was confused, helpless and hardly alive.

From then, it has remained caged without complete freedom to express itself and to invoke people. Even now it sees the boy taking extra money in return to what he bought, it sees the girl making malpractice in exam and standing school topper, it sees officers taking bribe, politicians and religious heads misleading people for their selfish fulfillments. But Conscience is helpless. It sometimes makes sound that doesn’t reach them. Some of the people ignore even if they hear.

The Bat named Conscience still lives in that cage trying to tell us something. It is half dumb and we are half deaf.