09-06-‘12

A Splash from Rain-drenched Psyche

Azeem-o-shaan Shahenshah! His Highness Lord Varuna’s magnificent caravan has made its majestic arrival in Bhavnagar. The first rain has cleansed the ambience of the city. Needless to say, I rushed to be blessed by it, placing Chekhov aside. I stood in the Christ pose in the terrace and tiny, enchanting rain drops began to caress and pamper the bare skin of my chest and arms the way an overwhelmed father’s tears roll down on his son’s neck whom he hugs affectionately (furthermore) or the way a lass showers tender kisses on her man’s rough face and the man finds himself on cloud nine.

In such a contemplative state, I told myself: “If thou hast to surrender to the Divine, surrender absolutely.” Hence, I prostrated myself on the terrace and the cool, soothing breeze drenched me in ecstasy. I felt like the Good Angels were escorting me towards the mercy of the Omniscient. Meanwhile, I overheard kids chirping, twittering and yelling to celebrate the first rain. Rather than any poetic composition, I found these innocent cheers, this hullabaloo to be the most fitting response to the sacrosanct benediction. A cuckoo, some sparrows etc joined the chorus and this orchestra of existence poured honey in the ears of my psyche. Even the trees stood stunned and rejuvenated. All the grievances, frustrations, weeping of life get swamped by this gift of Nature – rain!

However, an undercurrent of agony pulsated throughout. There is a thin line of demarcation between loneliness and solitude which usually gets blurred in such fragile moments. I felt like “I WISH……” Words from Chekhov’s story ‘The Night before Easter’ resonated in my mind:

“Can you tell me, kind master, why it is that even in the presence of great happiness a man cannot forget his grief?”

I think there are no square boxes in human mind where a person can compartmentalize affirmative and disturbing feelings. Consequently, they get jumbled up time and again however hard one may endeavor to sustain equilibrium. People have various ways to tackle it. Some maverick, lunatics may seize writing material and scribble something like this write up, others may drown them in mundane activities of life, some others may channelize their thoughts to their favorite pastime and so on. To each his own!

Whatsoever, I advocate one phenomenon vehemently: Nature teaches humans to stay alive and enjoy life in its totality. We are surrounded by droop-headed, walking corpses who go on complaining every now and then. Dale Carnegie opined:

“Any fool can condemn, complain or criticize, and most fools do.”

Even such cynics find rain to be a disturbance. Poor ignoramus creatures don’t know that the plights they encounter in rainy days are largely human-generated. Had a human being continued his affinity to Nature, he would not have been so pathetically synthetic and hollow.

So, Return to Nature? No. in fact, Nature returns to us in multiple forms and shades. We just have to let her in. Let’s expand the horizons of our psychology and be true to the self as much as we can. I know that this sounds like a mirage in Indian society but we can at least give it a try. Allow me to sum this up with a tiny poem.

LIGHT

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies

With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

-         F. W. Bourdillon

(Source of the poem: Poetry for Pleasure, selected by Maung Kaung, OUP.)