February 10 has been memorable to me- a day from those days of childhood when everthing seemed so happy and beautiful. Februrary in general brings to me memories of all the happy events that happened in this month- and somehow connect my psyche with that of the young teen of 90's. After witnessing many years of turmoil, the early 90's were days of stability for my family. Although the country wasnt particularly peaceful in those days- all things were on the boil: Mandal commission agiation, the Ayodhya movement, Punjab, Kashmir, financial crisis, naxalites close home...but there was some kind of a new light of hope, which later fully manifested in late 90's but was already manifested in the early years too- and I had somehow connected to it. The Deepavali and Sankranti festivals of this period are some of the most vividly remembered happy memories of my childhood. My poonal, 'griha pravesam' of our new house - those are the 2 events on 10 Feb that happened in the early 90's. Both somewhat linked perhaps- a new birth, a new home. And now February is also special to me since thats the month Sri Ramakrishna was born some 160 years ago (coming to that, actually this year its exactly 160 years).
But people change, the same events that brought happy memories once can also bring bitter ones too. Thats what I discovered over the weekend. Being away from home, I perhaps did not witness the pain and sadness with which that home of ours had to be sold off. My parents went through all that personally, it has come to become all that loss means to them. And so when I remined them of the special occasion that 10 Feb presented, I was surprised they have all but forgotten the day! This is gain, this is loss, a memory can bring both. What a contrast time makes!
But if somehow we can learn to overcome the pain which it later led to, and just remember all the happy things that a day once gave, that perhaps becomes like a soothing balm. Existence is infinite, our being is vast, we have covered our eyes and therefore the future seems invisible - this is what sages say. I mention here a profound idea I got from a memorable episode in the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Here Commander Sisko lands up in in a wormwhole and the custody of a special class of Aliens who exist at all points in time, but just one point in space. In understanding Sisko's use of words like 'past', 'death' etc the Aliens point out to Sisko that remarkably actually even he infact exists at all times! In that light, if we let ourselves to be constrained by sadness and deny our existence at one point of time, we get sorrow...
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