Sometime during the early 1980s, I was in New Delhi visiting my uncle and aunty. During that trip, I became ill and developed a high fever. Fortunately, a couple, who were both physicians and long-time friends of mine from Iowa, were also with us. The husband immediately prescribed an antibiotic.
I refused any medication, which confounded everyone. Adding to the irritation was the logic that I offered for my refusal: “I want to experience the fever.”
Since my temperature was very high, my doctor friend was quite vocal with his concerns. First, he tried logic. Then, he threatened to call my wife, Treva, in Wichita or even to have me tied up and be given a shot, if necessary. I am sure he was only half-joking. Irrespective, I could not be budged.
Looking back through the prism of many decades, I can see that it was a period when I was going through an intense internal struggle. Without realizing it, I was starting to write a new chapter of my life.
I was experiencing a vague feeling of becoming aware, conscious, waking from a slumber. It was as if, up to that time, I had been crossing the river of life in a boat with relative ease and comfort, but now I wanted to swim. I wanted to experience the wetness of the water, rather than the dry comfort of the boat. So, it was in that framework that I told my physician friend that I would not take any medicine.
For the next two or three days, I lay with a relatively high fever in the guest bedroom on the main floor. My body was burning up, as if on fire. My appetite was nonexistent, and I went in and out of a delirious state.
To experience the fever, I decided to play a mind game with myself. I pretended the fever was a real entity, and I decided to become its friend. I formally welcomed it and asked it to help me find out who my heroes were.
The fever obliged. Images of people and events started to float through my mind. They seemed two-dimensional, like images on a poster. They were images of religious icons, friends, relatives, people living and dead, male and female—sometimes in black and white, at other times multicolored.
Some images would come and stay for a while; others would float by, as if I were seeing them from a fast-moving train. Sometimes the images were clear, and other times they were blurred. Some images were jumbled up with each other. Sometimes they would come into view, one at a time from one side, and at other times they bombarded me from both sides. The images were accompanied by a cacophony of sounds. My mind was like a blender churning of its own accord at erratic speeds.
Then the movement suddenly stopped. I saw two boys from my high school days in Ajmer, Rajasthan.
These two boys had joined the school during the final year, a few weeks into the term. They were obviously from a village and spoke to one other in a Rajasthani dialect none of the other students could understand. Their clothes and their sparse belongings made it obvious that they were from a poor and rustic background.
Normally, those who were different would have been hazed and picked on by others, but not these boys. They were bigger and stronger than the other kids, and no one would have thought of tangling with them. Perhaps because of that, they did not socialize. They kept their noses buried in their books. However, there was some indefinable aura about them that commanded respect. They were men among boys.
It was not until I attended an intervarsity volleyball game that I understood the mystique of these two gentlemen. I was surprised to see them on the court. No one knew they were volleyball players. But what I witnessed was awe-inspiring. They were giving everything they had in that game. They were covering almost the entire court, perspiring heavily from effort. These two boys, who hardly spoke to anyone, were shouting and cajoling the other players on their team in their stern, loud Rajasthani lingo, urging them all to give their very best.
After that, whenever these two were on the court, the message spread like wildfire. Everyone dropped what they were doing and rushed to see them play. I remember a friend at our youth hostel remarking that seeing them play was like touching a live wire.
During that time, the Russian national volleyball team came to Ajmer to play an exhibition game. These two young men were invited to be part of the city team that lost 15 to 1 in the exhibition game. These two class fellows of mine received a special commendation from the Russian captain.
I had never thought of these two as my heroes, and thus it surprised me when they appeared to me during my sickness. However, at that moment it became clear that, indeed, they were my heroes. They inspired me to do my very best under all circumstances. It was not about winning or losing; it was about doing your very best, even when things were going badly.
In the state of my high fever, I could not remember their names, but I could see those two boys in action. The images were blurred—like a picture of fast-moving action taken with a slow-speed camera. However, I could see, and almost smell, the sweat dripping off their faces. My heroes were right there in the room with me.
I have no idea how long I stayed in their presence, but soon my mind started churning again and I was instantly caught up in the whirlwind. Then, once again, the churning stopped.
It was as if I had suddenly been dropped into a void of total stillness and calm. There was ink-black darkness. Clearly, my mind had stopped.
In that total stillness, in which even a ray of light could not move, I turned around. There in front of me was an amber light. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a small child, perhaps three to five years old. The child was not in the light—he was the light. He had no clothes on. His body was translucent. The light was emanating from inside him. I could not tell if it was a boy or a girl, but somehow, I presumed that it was a boy.
He was playing with pots and pans and was so consumed in his play that he was absorbing all the sounds. I could not hear anything. I could see the child, yet he was unaware of my presence.
A sense of awe and reverence fell upon me, and I was drenched in a wave of love and affection. It is hard to describe that feeling because I had never experienced any such thing before.
I looked at the figure intensely, feeling that I knew this little boy. Then a recognition dawned—it was me. I was somehow seeing myself, or perhaps experiencing myself, as I never had before.
I looked again, and I saw something else. Engulfed in love and reverence, I felt like I was in the presence of the divine. It had a form, and yet no form. It was me, and yet it was something far greater. It is hard to describe now, but in that moment, it was so clear, so natural, without any shadow of doubt.
The next thing I knew, my fever had broken. I lay there for the rest of the night. There were no thoughts or images that I can remember, just a feeling of wholeness that felt good. I had experienced something that I did not know how to describe. But it did not matter.
My guide, the fever, had done its job: bringing me face-to-face with my heroes. Perhaps all these years I had known my heroes, but now I could also recognize them.
balbirmathur.com 
Well Balbir, you are my hero! 🙏