Loner's Tip No. 12 - Like The Morning Sun

The sun was only beginning to come up the horizon when I took my last step up the hill. The air had a chill in it that I could smell through whatever remained of my semi frozen nostrils. I had trekked alone in the dark, fumbling, falling over stones, puddles and crevices that seemed no different than the innocuous jungle floor. As I sat on top of that hill, facing the rising sun, watching the morning sky change its colour to the infinite blue out of the pregnant night, the wind swept across my face and told me that I was free – free enough to see what can hold a man from the inside; free to love or hate, free to choose either.

      In front of me, as far as the wall of mountains standing like guards, was a wide valley blanketed with a thick layer of fog pierced here and there by trees that rose higher than the rest. Squatted on grass moist with dew, listening to the chirps of the birds that the cities have forgotten, basking in the slowly-growing halo of the sun, I smiled. I had understood the secret of that old woman who always smiled.
      I don't know her name. I don't even know if I'd ever meet her again but I'll recognise her smile in the middle of millions. Hers was one of the most magical smile that I had known to exist. A smile that could tell you the definition of honest truth – the unchangeable kind, the independent kind, yet the one that won't harm – like the sun or the moon who would come up every morning no matter who lived or died, smiled or cried, won or lost. Her husband died, she continued to smile. Her son left, she continued to smile. Lot more happened to her that can be safely qualified as misfortune, but she continued to smile the same true, infecting, heart-warming smile. After I had made sure that she was not mad, I finally had the courage to ask her what made her so happy? My question made me nervous, as if I was about to ask her figure.
      'I water the plants,' she said, without even looking at me. She was watering the plants then.
      'You water the plants? And that's what keeps you happy?' I asked, perplexed. She looked at me, that same smile playing on her face and she nodded. For a moment, she made me nervous. 'But you can't be doing that all the time, and you'd feel bored by it after some time. You can't be happy by such a thing forever?'      'When I'm bored with plants, I cook,' she said without blinking an eye and with such a calmness that made me feel like the numero-uno fool breathing over mother earth.
      I left. I had no more questions. In my mind I had decided that she was mad.
      I went back to life – a desk job in an air-conditioned office, a roof to shelter and hide me, lots of hours to spend finding reasons for missing that one harmless smile that in those days of childhood, was so much in abundance that it was easily taken for granted. Riddled days like that makes man realize the travesty and misconception of all those bonds that we once perceived as unconditional – parents on whose shoulder we could stand and look for our own dreams with covered eyes; that sibling we believed will always be our little, dear bunny; that best friend we believed will always be the best friend forever; that one true love that we hoped would walk with us hand in hand when the dawn of life dissolves into that last crimson evening; that child who when born, brought tears to our eyes – the kind that we only know once in life. One time or the other, for one reason or the other, with all those around, man watches all these seemingly unconditional bonds break into non-existence – no explanations provided – and with those, goes the right to that one true smile, that one mad laugh.
      That day, having trekked that slippery slope in the dark, having raced against the impending morning, and finally watching the sun rubbing his eyes to the world, I realized that the old woman who always smiled was not mad at all. She had just discovered the key to happiness – she had accepted the fact that no bond is unconditional. Every bond is only weakly shackled by those invisible limitations that define the comfort, survivability, desires and attachments of those involved. Men and bonds change when these limits change – and these limits change very often, without warning. Those who remain attached are left wondering and troubled.
      That woman, she had nothing on which she could depend. No living bonds that would give her the illusion of being unconditional. Even her hobbies that made her survive an otherwise boring, lonely life, would change. She saw, she knew and she accepted. She accepted that nothing was unconditional except 'Change'. She braced for it, prepared for it. There ended her struggle with herself, there ended her dependence on life and things, there began her journey to a happiness that would never end – like that fabled fountain of youth. I guessed, and quiet correctly that if I'd asked her if she felt any anger towards those who left their own ways, she'd have said, 'Why hate them? Why feel angry? Its not a crime to want happiness. We all need it. Don't we?'
      She was not mad after all. She'd known and accepted the truth about change. She was free now.
      The sky was a crimson carpet now. The clouds seemed like innocent, playful pieces of paper simmering at the edges. I was getting late.
      I got up. I had a mountain to climb down, a road to travel, and a day to smile. Unconditional, like the morning sun.

Images and text are copyright of the author.

Loner's Tip No. 11 - Twilight's Symphony

It's 7 am in my country, and I am in love. Before the world starts accusing me of cheating, let me add that the person I have fallen in love with is – Myself.

Having slept at 2 am last night, when I was woken up at 5 am to drive across half the city, I didn't know what was in store. As I drove through the city, through the same roads which are a mental torture to any sane man, I realized that something was different. The air had a lustful gentleness to it, the kind that is not polluted by man's blindness of mortal achievements, the roads were empty except a few stray dogs, who for a change did not bark or chase me which they usually do when man tries simple, innocuous things as driving back home, and the only sound in the air was the gentle murmur of the engine of my motorcycle, a playfully occasional grind of the road against an unloaded truck which passed by at surprisingly gentle speeds, and for once not intending to kill you simply because you dared to venture on the road. The gentle darkness slowly dissolved into varying shades of blue with such slow speed that you would wonder if you were a superman flying in outer space, watching the orb of the world rotating gently and breaking the bonds of the darkness which envelops half the world at any given moment.

If such peace existed before in this city, I never found out for I was always too busy hating it for what it doesn't let me have. But the morning changed everything. And just while I drove through, searing the air and the much wanted moments of loneliness, singing on top of my horible voice, I realized that something effused out of me – like a stream of water breaks the surface of hard and unrelenting earth – a happiness I had never known, a comfort I had never realized, a peace which I knew would never go out of me – and all this, I knew, only and only belonging to me. And I fell in love with me. Like many others, I had made my mistakes of wondering with a heavy heart as to why my troubles would not go away on their own, why couldn't I hide somewhere so they couldn't find me. But this morning, I realized that the only happiness that exists in this world is the friction of my breaths against my nostrils, the expansion of my chest a couple of times a minute that keeps me living – that I live. All else has no value. Never have a I felt so happy, never so much at peace.

So now, the loner who fell in love has this much to tell – give into a morning of your choice and let the city love you back, take you in her arms like a seductress waiting to please you and seduce your senses. Sometimes, you don't need to feel lonely to seek an escape.

Though unrelated slightly, just after I had dared to challenge millions of poets and writer who lived before me, and who said that romance and love thrive in the secluded darkness of the nights or the crimson skies that preceded those nights, I remembered this poem by William Wordsworth, which I believe he wrote one a similar morning of 3rd September 1802, gazing at the beautiful, legendary city of London, while standing at the Westminster Bridge. One of my favourites, no so much for the description of a legendary city in its true grandeur, but for the fact that the poem, and the city would have been incomplete without that effusive morning on which it was written:

Earth not hath anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now like a garment doth, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Images and text are copyright of the author.

Loner's Tip No. 9 - Hope's Story

Not very long ago, in a beautiful and pristine village, far away from the greeds of humanity, lived a little girl named Hope. Her mother, a very beautiful woman, was Lily. Hope's father, James – a God-fearing, courageous, hard working and a honest man. Together, they formed the happiest family, so happy that others said that their smiles could turn someone's misfortune into good luck. One day, as fate would have it, the loving Lily died. Just before she closed her eyes, she made James promise that he would look after Hope.
A few years passed. All the while James, struggling with his loss and loneliness, tried all to take care of little Hope. After all, she was all that was left of Lily. Soon he found his loneliness overwhelming him. He married Desire, a beautiful woman, full of promises of love and togetherness. Little Hope's happiness knew no bounds for she had a mother again. No one knew, that Desire was not a human. She was a witch.
Soon, Desire's spells started working on James, who in turn started to believe that Hope was possessed by an evil spirit. He would not talk to Hope any more, would not listen to her, would stay away from her, and was rude to her. Hope, in turn, would sulk in silence, wondering what she did to annoy God. Soon James decided, with enough grief and helplessness, that it was in everyone's best interest that he and Desire run away from Hope. So one night, while the poor angel was asleep, dreaming of the good days when her father loved her, James and Desire eloped.
Just as they were running away, Hope woke up and caught the sight of them. She screamed of fear, she called for her. Hope ran behind him, all the while calling him, urging him to come back. Soon she reached a very dark forest, it was so dark that she could not see her own fingertips. There were sounds of wild animals and smell of a lonely winter in the air. James was nowhere to be seen. She was scared to her bones. She had only taken a few more steps when the ground below her melted and she fell into it. It was Mr. QuickSand. She struggled, cried and wailed, "Let me go, please. My father. I need to stop him." "No," came the loud voice from the molten ground. Mr. QuickSand's voice was like dark clouds thundering. He gave a demonic laugh, the most vile one she had ever heard. She shivered in fear and tried hard to free herself of that evil quicksand. The more she tried, the quicker she sank. Just when she was sunk till her shoulders, she cried, wished her mother as alive. And then, as if by magic, a ball of light appeared and started to hover over the pool of quicksand. Hope watched as the flying ball of light became a shape and Lily's spirit appeared.....
A flash of happiness ran through Hope, “Mommy,” she screamed, all the while trying hard to reach out to Lily. She sank 2 inches deeper in the quicksand. Mr. QuickSand laughed again.
“Calm down, sweetheart, calm down,” the spirit said.
Hope wanted that the spirit embrace her in her arms. The thought made her cry again. She wept so much that for a moment Mr. QuickSand thought that her tears would dissolve him. Hope tried to pull her hands out so that she could reach the spirit but she only sank more.
“Calm down, honey. Don't move. Mr. QuickSand won't hurt you if you be a good girl and stay still,” Lily's spirit looked at Mr QuickSand and smiled. He smiled back. Hope could not understand this acquaintance and kept weeping. Lily kept consoling her. Finally, after an hour, Hope wiped her face and nose.
“Daddy went away,” she said. Lily's spirit nodded.
“Desire took him,” Hope took a deep breath. Lily's spirit wondered if she would cry again.
“I want to go to Daddy," Hope started to cry again. Lily was patient.
“Why do you want to go to Daddy, sweetheart?” Lily asked after a while.
“Because I love him,” pleaded Hope.
“But you can still love him when he is away.”
“No,” Hope wailed again. “I want to be with him. I feel happy when he is around.”
“But you can still be happy without him.”
“How can I, Mommy? If I love Daddy and if he is not around, how can I be happy?”
Lily's spirit was thoughtful for a moment. That was a valid question. “Tell me sweetheart, do you believe that when you love someone, you should be happy as well?” Hope didn't understand the question. Mr. QuickSand on the other hand found the discussion curious and paid all his attention to the apparition. “Do you think that Love always comes with Happiness and never without it?” Lily asked after thinking for a while.
Hope was thoughtful for a while before she replied, “Yes, Mommy. I feel happy whenever Daddy is around. I love my friends as well and I feel happy when they are around. And they also feel the same. Those who love, they should always be happy, isn't it, Mommy?” Her innocence, momentarily, moved Mr. QuickSand.
“You're making a mistake sweetheart,” Lily's spirit said, “All of us, while we live, take it for granted that happiness will always go hand in hand with love.” Hope was still confused. Mr. QuickSand was all ears. Lily continued, “You see, child, we are all born with little gaps and holes in our hearts, which we try to fill all our lives. Love always begins when we, in the depths of our hearts and spirits, find someone whom we believe can fill those little gaps in us. Its just like children – not all children are friends with each other. You only make friends with someone you like. Isn't it?” Hope nodded, she was starting to understand.
Lily said, “And when we find that someone who can fill our gaps then the first thing we want is to have him or her fall in love with . We secretly harbour the desire to be loved back similarly as we love that person. And it hurts when we don't get loved in return.” After a momentary silence, Lily said, “Where I come from, there are people who only went there because they ended their lives when they were not loved back in return.”
Hope interrupted, “Mommy, are you talking about the kind of love you fell in with Daddy before you two were married?”
“No sweetheart, I am talking about all kinds of love that there is – between you and Daddy, between you and me, between me and Daddy, between you and your friends,” Lily explained. "And when you'll grow up, between you and the man you'll love."
Hope was lost again, “But Mommy, I have always loved you and Daddy. And you too have also loved me back always. I never had to want and wait for you to love me back. You two always loved me, isn't it?”
“And we will always do so, sweetheart. But when it comes to us, you see, even before you were born, we knew you would complete our little world, and we loved you even before you came to this world. And for you, as soon as you were born, we were around for you – loving you, taking care of you, protecting you, nurturing you – and you loved us back. So neither of us had a point in time when we waited for the other to love us, we were always there for each other. But now, when your Daddy is not there for you, your desire to be loved back is hurting you.” Lily looked at Mr. QuickSand. He nodded.
“But Mommy, I can't help but feel sad when Daddy is going away.”
“That's true, honey. That's what makes us human. But you see, in doing so, you depend entirely on your Daddy to be happy. You are wanting for a happiness whose presence depends on another person to love you back. What you should want is to be happy from inside – from inside yourself.”
“How can I do that – be happy from inside?” Hope asked inquisitively.
“First of all, by believing that it was only in your control to love someone. It is just not in your control to have that person love you back. Loving someone was your choice, being loved back is good fortune. Not being loved will hurt as it hurts all good and pure human beings like you, but that needs to be endured, for it will pass with time. Other than time, there is no other cure for it. If you try to fight it and try forcefully to get someone to love you back, it will hurt even more.”
It was then Hope understood how this pool of quicksand had suddenly appeared beneath her feet. Now she knew why she sank deeper each time she struggled to get out. Now she noticed that all the while, she had been listening to her mother peacefully, without fighting, she had not sunk any more.
Lily's spirit said, “Whenever someone tries to get love forcefully, Mr. QuickSand comes in their path and they fall into it. And from then, the more they struggle, the more they sink.”
Hope was silent. Lily understood what question swam in her daughter's innocent, deep black eyes. “Time, my child. Time is the only cure. You just need to stay still, let it hurt you as much as it can without you loosing your goodness, and then it will pass and someone you deserve, will pull you out. Just let it pass.”
Mr. QuickSand nodded with a smile mixed with a small part of pride which comes when someone explains how perfectly one works in his purpose.
“But why Daddy? All Daddy's love their daughters. Why doesn't my Daddy love me?” Hope was getting violent, she . It didn't help except that she sank two more inches, she said, “I don't want to live. I'll kill myself.” With this, the heart broken little girl pushed herself inside the pool of quicksand. Her head was just under the surface. She pushed hard to reach deeper, just then she felt her body fly out in the air and fall back in the pool of quicksand, sinking only as much as she was before she tried to force herself in.
Mr. QuickSand said, his thunderous voice mixed with calculated anger and purpose, like that of her school headmaster's, “It's a sin, my dear to try and end one's life. It's a sad thing that my entire existence depends upon the suffering of others but this is my role in this world and I play it well. It doesn't please me watching children, young and old struggle in my depths after having themselves enslaved to someone else for their peace of mind. Sometimes, I hate myself. But what should I do? Find a lake and dissolve myself into it? End my misery? No. I still do it for it is my very purpose. I find my happiness in the fact that my purpose is fulfilled, that my existence is justified and put to a lesson-teaching use. I can only help you realize the truth about your troubles, to make you strong enough to face your troubles, but I'll not help you end them like this.”
Hope's cries reduced to sobs and soon she was quiet. In the moments of silence that followed, Hope and Lily kept watching at each other, while Mr. QuickSand took a quick nap that one deserves after a long and hard working day.
Hope broke the silence finally, “I'm sorry Mr. QuickSand. I'm sorry, Mommy. I understood it all now.” Lily's spirit felt as if, within a moment, by some magic, her little girl had grown up. Hope continued, “I understand that I can only love someone but not have them love me back necessarily. That's not in my control, so no point being sad for that. It will hurt but it will pass if I endure it with peace and faith. Life will bring something new, even better, in some other form. If I keep worrying over what's been lost, I'll never be able to recognise when life gives it back to me in a disguise. I need to wait, enduring the pain, and it will pass. If I don't endure with patience, I'll fall into Mr. QuickSand again and the more I struggle there, the more I will sink.”
Mr. QuickSand gave a Santa Clause type laugh and said, “There you go child. There you go.”
Lily's spirit nodded. She could not cry for she was a spirit without body or else, she would have. She added, “Very true, my angel. And remember, this is true for all kinds of love...”
“Between Daddy and me, you and me, me and my friends, me and the man I'll love...,” Just then Hope realized what she had said more than she needed to. She looked at her mother and they both broke into giggles. Mr. QuickSand joined in.
Just then they heard some footsteps.
“Dadd...,” Hope was about to speak up when she saw Lily looking at her with contracted eye brows and a smile on her face. Hope understood. She would follow her lessons.
“Hide, quick,” Mr. QuickSand said.
Soon, an old, childless couple passing near by spotted Hope. They threw her a rope and hauled her out. "Where are your parents, child? What are you doing here?" the old woman asked.
"I am alone," Hope said.
“Oh my child,” said the old woman and held her in her arms. Tightly. “We do not have anybody of our own. Will you come with us, child? Will you be our little daughter?”
“Look at your age, Jasmine,” the smiling old man said, “We can only be grand parents.”
They all laughed. Hope started to walk with them. She sneaked a look back and found Lily's spirit waving at her with a smile on her face. Mr. QuickSand quickly wiped a tear from his eye and whispered, “Bless you, my child. May your story be told for generations to come. Those who have loved and lost, may they find peace and strength in your lessons and endurance tonight. And may the world see the true virtue of love.”

Images and text are copyright of the author.

Loner's Tip No. 8 - The Pigeon And The Spider

Never had I thought that one day I will, among all the things which man can count as favorites, have a favorite villain as well. My favorite villain is Lord Voldemort – the most powerful dark wizard, ruthless, born out of a loveless union, incapable to feel or even comprehend love. He is shrewd and cruel, a planner who knows how and when to corner his enemy, render him alone and away from all good people and things, render him helpless and vulnerable. And then he would play with the enemy’s mind, show him things that don’t exist, make him scared, make him abandon all things worth doing and all people worth being with. He weakens the victim in body and mind. He makes him believe in the ‘easy’ turning the victim like him. And when the victim is all alone, weak, defenseless, begging for relief, the ‘merciful’ Lord would then oblige – he would strike the final blow. Like a spider he would watch the prey struggle in its web and then – game over. He would not play any more like most play with their food, like innocuous children pull a scared puppy’s legs.

Anybody feels like they know Mr Voldemort? There is another thing sharing all the traits of my favorite villain. Isn’t that description paralleling the very anatomy of loneliness – something that’s born in our hearts when all love, peace and hope is sucked out; something that makes us want nothing but a moment of loneliness even if it comes at someone else’ cost; something that assumes complete control of our minds and hearts like a lustful man or woman and repeatedly makes us feel that the goodness of life was being distributed, an enemy had put 'Do Not Disturb' on your door. It makes us ask again and again, each time louder than the previous – why me – when the sensible thing to be asked would have been – why not him / her? It even makes us want all bad things to happen to another when in our sane minds we would have sheepishly argued that we must not wish or act on something which we would not like to happen to ourselves. Loneliness, it seems, then becomes the thin line separating the Gandhis of our hearts to Hitlers of our minds.

We are left alone and hurt by all that and all those we can't control. I haven't known anything more potent than fear, money and love, when it comes to alienating man from man, turning them against each other as if they were healthy cocks bred by their masters only to win cock fights. Unlike the proverbial cock, the human at the receiving end suffers, less in body, more in heart. Then the demon of loneliness, our own version of Voldemort overtakes us and turns the weak into him while the strong get nothing but a seemingly unending era of unjustified and undeserved suffering.

Do we have a choice? Yes we do. We always do and its a pity that not all know that apart from credit cards and beautiful-but-bitchy-women-in-the-family-serials, there is a choice as well – either give in to your Voldemort and be sullen, down, secretly begging for pity, or tell your troubled heart that the darker the night becomes, the closer the day gets. You can’t see doesn’t mean it won’t come. It will. It has to. For it’s the very nature of ‘nature’. So kick it out of your mind like an itchy stray dog and don’t let it control you. Go into the sunlight feeling the warmth of it on your skin and enjoying the light while it lasts. If you liked to sing while you drive, sing. If you like to cook something untried before, cook. If you like to dance in the private theater of your room and heart, dance. Do everything you’d have otherwise done. Do all this despite a heart so heavy with troubles that it threatens to fall out through the same routes the body takes to cleanse itself every morning. As if that ‘thing’ didn’t happen at all. As if you’re the happiest man or woman on this earth. Till now your troubles laughed at you? Mock them. Tease them now, for they can no longer control your heart no matter what happens. Be the bird you always wanted to be.

Feel the desire of happiness and not the jealousy on someone else’s happiness. And the bad day will pass. I have never known one that hasn’t passed. Some just take longer, but they all pass on. If happiness doesn’t last forever, why would troubles?

Go tell your heart that All Izz Well. Mine is ‘It will pass’. It always does.

Images and text are copyright of the author.

Loner's Tip No. 7 - A Traveller's Memoir

No matter how much we believe or boast the inherent goodness in us, all of us intrinsically are partly made of those demons that we publicly condemn. I am a believer of 'circles' (see my other blog http://simtheory.blogspot.com/ for this) and following on the same rhetoric, I think about the saying that when your line appears to be smaller than the other, rather than trying to erase the other's line, make yours longer. Positive the essence of this adage is, and one that works well for the hard-working, honest and god-believing kind. I once found, that when our line of troubles and emotional issues seems to be the longest, it appeases to find other lines larger than ours. As the name of this post suggests, it is not really a tip. It is a personal account of a day which turned out to be a wonderful experience and a pacifying lesson for days to come.

On one of those days while meandering through a tarred road in the middle of a forest, we found an old man, lean as a stick, as old when the city folk start complaining about nagging daughter-in-laws, inflation and increasing vulgarity in cinema, that old man walked in the same direction as us, holding two large cans full of water heavier than himself, on a steep descent. We the extra kind city folk stopped our car and asked him if he would like a ride. Unfortunately, he didn't understand our language and we didn't understand his, so we resorted to some signs, which had a disastrous effect of giving him the impression that our car had broken down and we wanted it pushed. In a flash, the old man rushed to the back of the car and pushed it with all he had. Had I not rushed out and with some difficultly made him understand that we didn't want the car pushed, he would have collapsed by his sincere exertion. The guy, whom I call Mr. W finally understood our generosity and accepted the ride, all the while speaking something seemingly funny and not-understandable to us and making clueless but curious faces when we said something not-understandable to him.

Shortly after, he signalled us that his destination had arrived. He offered us to come to his home. 'Chala majhe ghari,' he said. Its amazing how little the word 'ghar' changes across so many languages in this marvellous country. We accepted and followed and moved past 2 dry but large pieces of land, scraped dry out of every hope of life in it by the unrelenting sun, a well with only a little water in it, some children running around without their pants, 2 village men who immediately gave us respect much more than what we had asked for or deserved, a couple of cows and stray dogs. Guessing by the size of his home, I thought he would be an influential man in this little utopia, which comprised only a handful huts, but a large number of people - most of them youngsters focusing totally on a cheap FM radio held at the centre of their worlds and attraction. The remaining majority were the children clearly outnumbering adults, old, teens, and cows combined. On that otherwise hopelessly hot day, they ran around, pulled an innocuous dog's tail, played without worry and were amazed by us - the aliens of the day.

Once there, Mr. W told us about the stats of his family, and we were offered a tea, which to my surprise, I accepted. The tea was not very much to my taste but I had a feeling that this was the most sumptuous tea I would get in places like these. That corroborated that Mr. W was not only influential in his village, but also relatively more wealthy (God - me and my habit of being wrong). Mr. W sat with me as for some unknown reason I was most chatty with him. And out of his many words I could not understand, I made out these - water, rains, no, poverty, us, God, etc. I then looked at his face and I saw his eyes were wet. I hated myself that moment for accepting that sumptuous tea for the extra dose of sugar and milk in it, which I was secretly disdaining, which could have fed half a dozen of those pant-less children when they wailed for it. A supreme gesture towards strangers.

Just while everything seemed to be turning tragic, Mr. W said the most extra-ordinary words after looking at my camera - he wanted me to click a photo of him and his family. The smile and pure joy in his eyes, which were wet just a moment ago, his spirit living so much in that one moment of life, almost moved me. I gathered all of his family to get them clicked. His wife, relented first and Mr. W insisted that we request her. She, an equally old woman, agreed with a heavenly shyness, and took time to comb her scarce hair. The image in the beginning on this post is one of those snaps: Mr. W - the man in the middle with the disinterested boy in his arms and Mrs. W - the timeless Madhubala in earthly green besides her man. And what a man he was!

As like every other villager, marvelled at being able to see himself frozen in time in nothing more than a click, Mr. W and family basked in the amazement of science and offered to visit again just as we left.

Now, that whole episode left me at a very troubled point. I just could not understand, how someone so much hated by good fate and reasons that make up happiness, having to support more than a dozen people, managing and living with the hatred of those growing up, and with nothing but a sincere hope that every 'tomorrow' will be better than 'today', how can such a man offer us 3 cups of his version of a rich-man's-tea when his own livelihood was unaffordable to him? How could he manage to smile and feel marvelled by some city folk swinging noting but a digital camera and who would make no difference to his life except devoiding him of some super costly sugar and milk? All this courage and love in a hopeless world for what? All this honest goodness when life gives you all the reasons and those sinful temptations to easily become what you hated most, all this for what? How could such love, peace, happiness, hope and courage fit in that lean, dying body of Mr. W when our young, strong and extra fat bodies reject those like one north pole rejects another?

Some thinking brings me to the conclusion that its not that difficult to smile no matter what you go through, or what goes through you. Its not that difficult to decide that whatever happens to you, it cannot, just cannot change you into your version of demon and a bad man. No one wins by simply doing something against us. He only wins when that thing done against us, changes us into something we always hated as a child, he wins when he turns our goodness into him, makes us like him - a hater, a plotter, a snatcher, someone who basks in the pain of others.

By all measures of maths, physics, and economy, Mr. W's problems are larger than a lot of us, none of which are in his control no matter how hard he tries and how much he prays. If he can manage to smile, if he can continue to imbibe and exude all those good things we only find in children's story books, why can't the rest of us? If some still find it difficult and impossible to smile in times of great personal loss and trouble, go find your own Mr. W, feel how small your line of trouble is from his and then at least feel happy that yours are not the biggest problems of all. For once, being lesser would serve you good.

Image and text are copyright of the author.