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