Writing the heart wrenching admission as your errand
Unspoken sentences, so you festoon with reticent words
Each heart is smothered with nostalgic memories and
Undermining their woes, you aver your grief as worst!
I just read somewhere that- we see day by day nothing changes, yet when we look back we find a lot has changed. Well, may be this is the ultimate philosophy of life, that we are not our past yet we tend to leave a part of ourselves in the past, something the memories of which continue to linger on in a little space in our hearts and may be somewhere at the back of our minds too, until of course those dark moments, that every human encounters, design the tapestry of our time and again we recollect those memories of our past that lead us to the ephemeral world of nostalgia.
And now when I look back on my life, it is not that I have crossed decades together to shape up the word called experience, yet in a way enough things have happened that make me reflect; I could have done certain things a lot differently and in a better way than how I did them in past, I wish I could travel back in time so to reveal to myself those consequential things of life that I know now, I could have restrained the bouts of catharsis to myself, that at least would not have hurt people in my life. Yes, the word “hurt”, something that we inflict as a reflex action at times, spontaneously without caring for the ramifications and consequences and of course we end up regretting, harming and hurting ourselves more by that ulterior giant of regret that feeds our guilty conscience, and then comes the point of how we decide to act further. Do we rectify our mistakes rather blunders or instead do we go on to add more to the list of the blunders. We all realize this- that being humans, everyone has their own self-esteem, dignity and integrity, yet invariably in a bid to prove our self defined imaginary hypothesis about human psychology we do not fumble a little to go out and start experimenting randomly with the emotions and sentiments of the people around us just to satisfy our own ego and think high of our own selves, concomitantly forgetting or deliberately overlooking the fact that human beings are not the chemicals in any science lab that react as per some universal laws and yield the exact product, rather human nature is unpredictable and different people react distinctly given the circumstances, and has it not happened that in such a fit we end up hurting the ones that make us , that support us and whom we hold more dear to us than life itself. So how do we justify this….act of vengeance, revenge for the scary and bumpy roller coaster ride called life! I believe the scene would have been much better if instead of experimenting with and predicting the human nature and actions we rather try to understand the humans.
Not generalizing though but yes, I too have committed mistakes after mistakes, concomitantly conscious of the blunders I was up to and even now as I write all this just as another form of catharsis, I might sooner or later think of this as another mistake. I am not a very good artist and so bad being my canvas of the past, with no proper landscape or perfect proportion of vibrant colours to make that canvas aesthetically beautiful enough. But then I console myself with the thought that there are others who are even bad artists, and some cannot even hold the paint brush properly. So what is the remedy I ask? Do we stop living life or finish our existence which is so blotted with the stains of sins, mistakes, indecisiveness, remorsefulness and dilemma. Or will we ever switch to the old precept that we first learnt in our life- “Think before you speak”. Are we prudent enough to consider that others are so greatly devout and saintly to forgive us each time or are these notions that we use to delude our misgivings a fine example of our foolish disposition? Should we expect others to act wise enough to overlook our blunders and pardon us, resting our last hopes on: ‘To err is human; to forgive divine’. Do we take pride in giving others a chance to prove their divinity while we consider ourselves innately bound and obligated by the human psyche, and if so, then for how long are we going to evade our responsibility of acting wisely considerate or divine enough towards others also?
Ruined dreams, diminished hopes, lame excuses, shameful temperament, sleepless nights, restless days, and yet expecting people to understand our behavior, and adjust with our swing of temper is another folly to the long list. I am not wise enough or even experienced enough to lecture on life and humanly committed errors, and I am well mindful of the fact that we all are at times compelled, impelled, moulded and shaped by our circumstances that are not always so pleasant and we all know that life is not all milk and roses, but what I have seen over the years now owing to the circumstances around, that in spite of realizing that life is not all milk and roses, yet each time instead of accepting this we tend to make life all milk and roses as if we are God! And that is when we humans derail and commit the greatest blunder. I am not saying that we should give up on the endeavours to make life a better affair for ourselves, but all I assert on is that, in this process we need to be careful enough not to build our mansion of dreams with the bricks of the wistful sighs and throbbing cries of others and never to further repair or replace the cracked windows of such mansions with broken hearts.
I am no psychologist or an expert of human psychology, but just as another human on the journey it is my duty to inform the other passer-bys to be careful of the puddles, ditches, craters, thorns, boulders and abysmal holes that await you on the way, and it is not essential that every time when you fall in them yourself, only then shall you believe or learn what the other itinerant souls had warned of, instead take the precautions and act with alacrity, a little care won’t do us any harm, will it?
And just before the closing words, I accentuate another dimension to which I also have been the victim, as well as the criminal; the old blame-game, the ready tool for our defence rather the ready weapon for assaulting the innocent souls, and only later do we realize that how treacherous it is of us to indulge in such games of harm and hurt as if we are the only ones with the license to hurt that too stamped by the God Himself. If we are so interested to reverse the attack or blame on others, so better be if we join the game of wrestling because their you have the right to reverse the moves for your defence and moreover that is how you win, but in the tangible life it is an attempt to vanity, because neither will the person nor the Divine count it as a deed good enough to the accounts of rewards, you might be able to acquit or save yourself temporarily, but someday we have to face our reflection and I am sure we don’t want our mirrors to reflect how ugly we look and how in profanity we bathe. So what should we do, another illusive solution-break the mirror or rather the mirror will commit suicide itself in trauma (Trauma is the ultimate killer after all!) Haha! And that is something again humans cannot do because we did not humanly create this mirror, but yes we can only polish it to clarity, glossy brilliance and refinement at the same time being careful enough not to become narcissistic, but as close as being untainted in the eyes of those you love, and being true to your own self, which is always the first obligation for a righteous life.
I know as I earlier said that I have no right to preach such principled scruples for I confess that all the above errors at one time were integral with my being and that cost me a lot, to be honest. Perpetual identity conflict, not being able to channelize the sentiments, going on a rampage and at the end of the day not being able to believe and reconcile with the fact that it was really me who behaved like a ravenous ogre in the day ( surprisingly, I become more human during the contemplative nights, funny!).Then bursting into sobs, panting for breaths, resolving to mend the ways yet breaking that resolve with the utmost grace the very next day, again giving into helplessness, relying on the ‘To err is human’ gospel, asking God to forgive and again the identity conflict……..the vicious cycle goes on and feeling ensnared we give up. What an assassination of our conscience! But the most important question: does the conscience ever dies? Ask your conscience, it is ready with the answer.
As I confessed that I am not a very good artist, but with every canvas that I paint rather blemish and smudge and blotch with incongruous filling of colours I learn that at least I can now draw the landscape with much awareness as to how and where to draw, what and which colours would look best though I might fail miserably to fill in the colours with grace, but I do not give up with this hope that someday I will perfect the colours on the canvas that I paint in my mind and who knows- it well might turn out to be a masterpiece- the canvas with colours inspirited with values, forgiveness, emotions, concern, truth, sublimity and inspiration that can make the viewers love the canvas of life a little more with honest contemplation, people may not be able to buy that canvas, however who knows they might be enthused, stirred and encouraged enough to paint such canvas for themselves and that too in a far beautiful and elegant way and not to mention- some are born artists!
It has been an era since I have been venturing this road
Neither my destination I found, nor did I change the way!
---SANA SHAH
