Saturday, June 25, 2011

Beyond barbed wires

Sometimes they were praying, and the memory remains
Sometimes they were crying, and the memory remains
Sometimes they were silent, and the memory remains
Sometimes they were violent, and the memory remains
Walking along the bund I could see the remains of an old bunker. It had always been there but today I seemed to notice it after a long time. I still remember that when I was nine, it was a fully functional one. Then it was abandoned and demolished and we started playing inside it. And guess what… we completely ruined it. We used to play with the clay and sand in those cement bags which had been left there. However there were still some marks pointing to its glory days. As I walked past it, I turned my head back as if I was trying to retrieve the lost childhood from there. But aaahhh!! There was an acute pain in my right foot. To my utter dismay, my foot had landed on a piece of barbed wire and it had pierced right through my sandal. I limped and hopped a few steps and sat down. As blood was oozing out I applied some pressure over my wound.

I then stared at the small piece of barbed wire which had caused me injury. Some part of it was red with my blood and some part was brown with age. I laughed, because ironically I have had a lot of such experiences. When I was born maybe the first injection the doctor gave me was by piercing me with a barbed wire! But that was just the beginning. I found barbed wires everywhere and anytime, in tight, dark alleys and bright wide streets, and covering the houses and sometimes the playgrounds, before dusk and after dawn, in chilly winters and sweaty summers. Deep inside, I always felt as if barbed wires were holding me back from something and stopping me. From what, that I have to figure out.

As I was wondering Jhelum spoke, “It is not just you who always saw the barbed wires and it is not you alone who was hurt by them. Many see them, many have been hurt and many will be hurt by them, but they mostly seem to ignore them as if these don’t even exist or as if they are the permanent unshakable structures defining the boundaries of life. These barbed wires tame not only people but ideas too. They symbolize something; they symbolize who calls the shots and who runs the show. They symbolize a nation bound by slavery.”

Well that seemed to be some added info on barbed wires. They sure seemed to be more than metal wires now! Thankfully, by now the bleeding had stopped due to the pressure applied on the wound. Now it was time for a tetanus injection and they really stick it at the wrong place!

As I was going to the medical shop to get “my medicine” it occurred to me that the barbed wires (and what they symbolize) need to go. It is we who have to remove them, melt them make some toys from them so that we can play happily again. Otherwise our butt will have to bear the brunt! We need to look beyond these barbed wires and reach out beyond them. We need to rid our minds too from the barbed wires. Let ideas and visions crossover. Then certainly, there would be no need of a tetanus injection!

Some are undone by life’s fears
Some by a loved one’s tears
A bloody past and a dark future
That’s how life through a barbed wire appears!
(Sigh!)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Stranded - between hope and hoplessness

Before hope and after hopelessness
there is hope, even in deserts wilderness
there is hope, before dreams and after dreamlessness
there is hope


“There is always some hope”. I remembered these words of a friend as I looked back at my past. Why only “some hope” and not “enough hope”, I wondered? Is even hope miserly these days? Seemed liked the recent turn of events had drained all hope from me. It is June and the sun is shining brightly but there seems to be no light in life. In this hopelessness I was hoping for hope. Strolling along the bund I sat by the side of Jhelum, hoping it would share some of its hope with me. After many years I was serious today, maybe trying to rationalize hope. But it seemed that, it was beyond the mathematics I knew. Differentiation and integration of emotions did not lead me anywhere. Even the differential equations and matrix equations seemed helpless and hopelessly naïve.

Even mathematics had failed me today, as I couldn’t find the governing equation of life! In this desperation and hopelessness I asked Jhelum to share its hope with me. Ironically it replied, “Hope cannot be shared. It’s something that grows within the heart and dies there only.” I was disappointed to hear his answer. I was desperate and in no mood to hear philosophy. However, before I could lash out at him, he said, “I have been here for ages now. Seems like, I am as old as time itself. From my inception there was some hope with me, always! It kept waning and waxing like the phases of the moon. Sometimes I was full of hope, and sometimes hopelessness seemed to prevail. Sometimes all seemed to go right and sometimes everything seemed to fail. My dear, life is not a cakewalk. Each one has his share of fortune and misfortune. But one must never give up. Hope is always there round the corner. The only problem there is that this life is a maze with too many corners and we don’t know which corner to look at... It’s easy to lose hope in this land of ours, where hopelessness is rampant. Hopes and dreams of a person are killed here, even before they are born. People here seem to have done their PhD's in killing hope… They talk about female infanticide and much more, but hope infanticide never makes the news! I have seen people cry besides the coffin of hope, little knowing that hope and man share a coffin. When a person dies, hope dies and when hope dies, a person dies… But kiddo, as I can see, you are still breathing, so just rise and shine because life means hope.”

All this pep talk had some influence on me, though not much. The sun had set by now and all I could see was a tinge of redness in the sky. Didn’t it seem just like my hope, which had set too? However as I climbed up the stairs, I could see the sun again. Mathematicians say that by this phenomenon one can find the radius of earth. I don’t know this smart stuff, but it seemed that just by changing my viewpoint,my outlook, I could see the sun again. Maybe the sun is always there. Maybe the sun of hope never sets. It just seems to have been hidden from our eyes and all we need to do is change our viewpoint, our attitude and our resolve!

Hope I went to find,
In my heart and mind
I just couldn’t, and then innocence smiled
And lo! Out it flowed from heart and mind