Envy

The shimmering surface of sprakling blue water, as pure as the purest, shines throught the crack . there is a world underneath that crevice- a world where life contimues untouched by the brutal pangs of winter. Everything else now lies enshrouded in the serene white of the cold that is as deadly as it is spectacular. Winter’s here, spreading its cloak of  snow, sparing not an inch of green, Except the moss, that slipcover of rocks who remains unmoved, untouched still enthroned on its stone-hard abode.

The winds beneath their wings, that once assured them there was no limit to their flight, had now betrayed the birds, shunned them away, forced them to leave. They seek the warmth of the south. They migrate.  And yet they pine. For they have left behind one unfortunate parched soul, one  maimed bird. Abandoned him to die.  Nature makes no allowance for those who cannot survive.

They feel the first rays of sunshine and hope touch their wings, they feel the pleasant heat of warm spring, even as the last drop of blood in the abandoned’s body freezes, solidifies. He shall choke to death. He shall yearn for one gasp of breath, for one touch of warmth, for one moment of recluse. He shall have none. He shall call out for help in his mind, scream for endless hours. Feeble cries shall escape him. Feeble unheeded cries. He shall wonder why no one is comin to hisrescue, why no one helps. He cannot see they  have already left. He is blind.

Even though the heat bathes their body, their hearts remain cold. They are warm. But they greive. The guilt overpowers the sunshine on their backs, burdens them with heaviness they shall find difficult ot shake off for a while. And then they shall forget. They shall learn to cleanse their memories of unpleasantness, of the voice that shall wring their heart and shout out loud in their years that they ran away. They shall learn to supresss that voice, they shall learn to supress their conscience and live, while he dies.

 And yet there will be atleast one who cannot forget. Next summer, when they will return, this one will look at the unmoved moss, and envy it for its quiet strengh, for its ability to witshtand the stinging cold, for its power to protect the rocks from the harshness of the cold unlike the birds who left their injured for dead. Atleast one will be ovewhelmed by the sweeping current of jealousy that will make him wish he was like this constant patch of green, never abandoning its home, that which it loves. 

Envy you say is a sin. I say it is inevitable.

Black and white..

I come to terms layer by layer.

Oh! How many layers are there to you,

The white is just a speck,

black paints your precious lair.

Oh! How i wish the black was just paint.

Of Wounds And Wishes..

Does it hurt a woman to be stung with a hundred needles a month or be subjected to radiations day and night, or be stuffed with chemicals, in a desperate attempt to survive what in technical terms is malignant neoplasm, more colloquially, cancer? Does something inside her moan in pain every morning, when she sees a cluster of her hair fallen onto the pillow? Does it hurt a man to know that the woman he loved and cherished half his life betrayed him for another man? Does it sting him to see her arm-in-arm with someone else? Does it hurt a newlywed bride to know that her husband has perished in a terrorist attack? Does it strike her every night he won’t be coming home? Does it hurt a mother, who had been yearning to finally see the child she had been nurturing inside her for ten months, to hold its little body- quiescent in death? Does her heart cry out every time she looks at a child beaming at her?

                                                    Yes, it does. But sooner or later, it ceases. The mourning, the grieving, the pain- comes to an end at last. It does not undermine the effect of the loss or the magnitude of it. The memory of the loss remains livid, but the pain wanes away, making way for another emotion. A woman suffering from cancer, may find in her pain, realization, that she has only days to live. This realization may strengthen her with courage to live the remainder of her days to the fullest. Another may strive harder to recover, to survive. Yet another might feel doomed.

                      Corporal mortification, particularly popular among a catholic sect known as the ‘Opus Dei’  in its extreme form includes seeking ‘penance’ by inflicting severe physical wounds on oneself. Whipping oneself with barbed wires and wearing them around one’s thighs as a show of remorse for a ‘sin’ committed, is common among such people. The pain, they deliberately inflict upon themselves washes away the guilt from their rather insecure minds; reassures them perhaps, that they have been ‘chastised’ – rid of their wrongdoings. To some it may serve as a license to folly again and again.

                           ‘There are no free lunches in life” – “no pain, no gain” is as true as any truth can be. That it is human nature to seek a recluse from pain is no less a truth. Some simply accept it as a way of life, maintaining a rather stoic attitude; some like the Opus Dei seek to control it, while others obliterate the memory of the loss, choosing to retain only the happier ones. Yet others- weaker ones, finding no other way out of their grief, seek to end it along with life itself. It takes both weakness and strength to commit a suicidal act. One has to be weak enough to run away from life and strong enough to bear that one last pang of pain- the pain that leads to death.

                                                The memory of the pain and suffering brought about by the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, the Haitian earthquake has united men in their purpose to extend a helping hand. On the other hand, the memory of a long lost dear one in a curfew ages ago, still prevents a Hindu and Muslim family from embracing each other. Had not the likes of Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad embraced martyrdom, for the purpose of delivering a nation from pain? Had not the most devastating nuclear attack ever to have been witnessed by man, that tore apart thousands of families in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not been a display of vengeance born out of the wounds of the victims of the Pearl Harbour? The memory of the victims of the Mumbai attack, kept alit the fury of men who refused to allow Mohammad Ajmal Kasab the right to a lawyer, or even the fury of men who took a more sensible stand. This anger and vengeance is perhaps the prime cause for disharmony among different communities, regarding which, a special mention is owed to many a Bollywood ‘action’ flick featuring a muscular Sunny Deol shouting abuses and firing bullets at anyone and anything ‘Pakistani’.

         Yet, it is not just vengeance or fury that is born from pain. The pain and grief, not to mention the guilt that one feels while looking into the soot smeared face of a ten-year old, polishing boots near the signal, or the melancholic eyes of a mother who is forced to watch her little child fall asleep with a half-filled stomach, is not to be undermined. It compels one to lend an extra penny to those who need it. Is it not humanity residing in one, stirred by the pain and suffering of less privileged ones, that compels men to devote their lives to the betterment of society?

                      Just like the dark night makes us acknowledge the bright day, black emphasizes white, so does pain illuminate that one string of hope, no matter how thin or frail. A painful today urges one to strive for a peaceful tomorrow.

Tomorrow

And as I strove to find the horizon submerged by the foamy waves, I found that the phoenix hope had finally broken free and spread its scarlet wings to meet the sun before it bid adieu. It added its scarlet feathers to the fiery red of the sky and vanished into the vastness of the night to come. Tomorrow it would rise from its ashes