Look at the Ocean, not at the Waves

We fail to see the Ocean for the Waves

That ‘true love triumphs’, a time-tested belief accepted by the human race from the days of Adam and Eve, still stands tall giving testimony to the power of love. Love has many connotations; many hues and colors like the working of human minds. Well, efforts put in by etymologists to define the term love go flat since it is not defined by words but by one’s feelings and emotions.

But then, our shimmering passions for love only make us look at its pinnacle since most of us are not able to reach it because of varied reasons. ‘Love is God; love is divine; love is bliss and peace; and love is blind too’ are some of the emotional outbursts we indulge in all through our life without experiencing or feeling all the dimensions of love or without our being able to reach its crest.

To many of us, love is the foam crested waves that are lashing at the shore. We always look at the waves only and not at the fathomless depth of an ocean. It is so easy to look into dots and miss the sight of the picture. Our mental vacation is so crude that it happens without our knowing it.  

An ailing, but obstinate child nags her mother for a cup of ice cream and cries her head off when it is denied. Seemingly, the mother has a heart of stone in not yielding to the demand of her child, but truly she is the incarnation of love as she is more concerned with the health of her daughter than her crying for ice cream. A father is too revealing his concern and love for his teenage daughter when he reproaches her for speaking on her cell phone at midnight. Such a father and mother are on the crest of love since they think their mollycoddling of their children may spoil their well-being and safety.

Sometimes, you may see a man, with good physique, standing at a street corner and craving the passers-by for alms. Instead of giving him a few bucks as your counterparts are doing, you may get him a job and make him live decently. Through such an admirable action you show your love for the society. Sure, your noble act makes you reach out to the pinnacle of love where the Angel of Love welcomes you with a curtsy as she is happy with your displaying of a rare gesture and responding to the unexpressed needs of a beggar.

Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, showed an altogether different dimension of love for his country when he brought forth a host of capital punishments to rein the occurrence of crimes and to make Singapore a heaven of peace and one of the developed nations in Asia. He did this with an iron hand for the well-being of the people.

It is not uncommon in life to see a person make the other suffer. But, if the cause for making others suffer is to see them happy ultimately, then such an action can be called love … love in disguise. Lee Kuan Yew did this to his country and god, too, is doing this to many of us quite often.

There are people with questionable characters who get things done for others by dubious means: from a drunkard by making him tipsier and from a crazy woman by giving her gold and diamonds. This is always done in the name of love. But, love can never be manipulated. It must never be used to make others do what you want. When you love someone, you must never ask them to sacrifice even a part of themselves in the name of love. This form of manipulation contaminates our love for others.

Eventually, love is the name of the relationship we are trying to have with someone who are closer to us. Rather, it’s a sort of fine feelings … an intention to serve the well-being of others, which may, sometimes, get crowned or crucified. Just read what Kahlil Gibran has to say about love:

“When love beckons to you, follow him/ though his ways are hard and steep/and when his wings enfold you, yield to him/though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you/And when you speaks to you, believe him/ though his voice may shatter your dream as the north wind lays waste the garden.”

Image courtesy: Google

He Who Laughs, Lasts!

Time had erased and eclipsed almost all my childhood memories, but not those of my uncle. He was tall, emaciated and slightly hunchbacked. He would look distinctive, a tad different with his white dhoti and full-sleeved shirt. He had jet-black wavy hair, but relished keeping it unkempt. A thick pince-nez would always be on the bridge of his nose and he would be seen carrying a black umbrella on his shoulder all through the seasons.

Uncle would talk less, but laugh more at anything and everything, making men and matters objects of humour. While he got his umbrella hung on his shoulders, he was wearing his laughter on his sleeves. But it became grotesque and people grimaced when he laughed at something during sombre situations like funerals. There were occasions when mother had a dig at him for his untimely and out of the box laughter. But, uncle never stopped his laughing; he laughed through life saying, ‘before the assault of laughter nothing can stand.’

Come Diwali, uncle would give me bundles of sparklers, flower pots, chakras and crackers. Once when a misfired cracker burnt my fingers and made a hole in my brand new shirt, mom told me to stay at home. Fortunately, I had an uncle by my side. He rushed home hearing my misadventure with the crackers and laughed loudly at the bandage on my hand. ‘Hey, man,’ he shouted at me. ‘Get into your feet. Buck up. Let’s finish off the remaining crackers’.

‘Do you know why you fall down sometimes?’ uncle asked me once. I blinked and kept mum for a while; for, at the time I had failed in my final exam and uncle got wind of it somehow. ‘You fall down just to get into your feet again,’ uncle said without looking at my face and let out a ringing of laughter. That was the uncle’s trick and I passed in the next year all my exams with flying colors.

Could I say uncle was my friend, philosopher and guide? No, because those clichés, I’m afraid, would not fully explain the bond I had with him. Could I say then that he was my guiding star? No again, for stars appear only at nights unlike uncle who shone on me always and guided me against all the odds of life.

The sun was now sheathing his rays. He couldn’t win the battle with the dusk. Sea breeze began spilling specks of sand on my head. Uncle and I were sitting on the Ramanathapuram seashore. Uncle had his eyes riveted on the series of waves lashing at the shore non-stop.

‘Easwar, you’re going to Mumbai tomorrow and start a new life. Life is going to present you many of its vicissitudes and you should make yourself ready to face its odds’, uncle became a bit serious sans his laughter. ‘Life is like a battlefield. What weapons would you like to wield in the battle, my boy? It should be nothing but laughter and, through it you can conquer the world.’

That was the last time I was destined to be with uncle. I had to move to Mumbai since I got a job there. The time of my parting with uncle came and I cried like a child, holding his hands. Uncle roared with laughter seeing my tear-filled eyes. He said: ‘Why, Easwar. I think I could cultivate an acre of paddy with the water flowing down your cheeks’.

It was over ten years I came to see uncle. The funeral was in the air when I reached his house. I rushed home the moment I heard about uncle’s sudden passing away. ‘A massive heart attack,’ I was told. It took hours for the message to sink in as I felt a knot in my stomach. All my senses refused to believe that my dear uncle was dead and gone.

Uncle was kept in a bier in his room. He was on his usual attire: white dhoti and full sleeved shirt. The pince-nez was on his nose. ‘But, where is the black umbrella?’ I looked around. ‘In his last moments, he was only calling out your name’, one of my relatives told me when people carried uncle to his grave. All eyes were set on me; they expected I would cry my head off at any moment. But, I fortified myself not to cry as uncle never liked my crying.

Funeral rites were carried out as per the agama rules. Uncle was then cremated. I saw billows of smoke rising skyward from his pyre. I looked at the smoke with a sullen face. People crowding around me thought that I would at last cry now. But I didn’t.

Crestfallen, I was now sitting on the Rameswaram seashore; my relatives were about to immerse uncle’s ashes in the sea. I was looking at the swirling waves. But they seemed sulking and hesitant to come and lash at the shore, for they couldn’t see uncle by my side.

The vast green sea, the surging foam crested waves and the cacophonies of people sitting around me reminded me the day, years back, when uncle and I were sitting on the shore, laid back. Uncle was silent, watching the waves intently. He, then, let out a peal of laughter and said: I tried to count the waves that were coming over to the shore and I heard them saying: ‘don’t try to count us, bloke. Counting us is like shaving an egg … a futile task’. He laughed again and a chorus of laughter burst out from the nearby crowd who had heard uncle’s remarks.

 I now started laughing suddenly pointing my fingers to the waves. People around me grimaced by my roar of laughter as it tore into a sombre moment.

But, I laughed again and again to the delight of the waves.

Image courtesy: Google

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