Father! How do babies come to the world?” I remember eagerly looking into my patient yet agile young father’s deep brown eyes with an innocent question. I used to go to my daddy with all the questions I had. Father knew everything. His answers were perfectly tailored to protect my innocence. “They come from watermelon seeds.” Somehow his gaze drifted away from mine at that moment. “Why did I come to you as your child? Why am I here, daddy?” I asked crawling to his lap that lazy Sunday morning. My father gave me comforting security in his protective embrace and silence in his answer.
Not very long after that I realized that babies have something to do with some form of pollination, fertilization, germination and some more “ions”. My sixth grade science teacher Mr. Raut brutally proved my omniscient father wrong. For the first time in my life I realized that comfortable conclusions couldn’t necessarily be true. My father does not have the answers to all of my questions. Is innocence defined by loosing it? Is it deprivation from the inevitable? Is innocence just an interval between the deprivation and the loss? I cannot unlearn where babies come from. Once lost innocence is irreversible. I wanted to ask my father again. I wanted to ask him if innocence is merely ignorance only more beautiful. Can it be chosen? Is it naivety? Is innocence childlike or childish outlook on life or more? Is it the belief in the inherent goodness of mankind?
My torment bled profusely from my anguished soul in the silence of the endless nights. It was then when He looked at me with three eyes, a placid and captivating smile, Ganges overflowing from his head and pouring to my soul. Shiva! Knowledge is in peace. Peace is in meditation. Meditation is in prayers of Shiva, the omnipotent. The surrender was so serene.
All that is is a part of God’s plans. People are inherently good. If only I were gentle and kind to human being, despite their deeds and reactions, I was certain to attain nirvana. My hollow was filled with limitless hope. The world is knowable in the scheme of God.
I rested in a blissful slumber only to wake up one day and realize that I had fallen prey to the enticing trap of a comfortable conclusion, once again. Perhaps God knows it all but do I know that there is one? My soul was disrobed again. It was just another lazy Saturday under a periwinkle sky when I met poetry. She sat by me and waved her wand. It was a sapient magic. She has since promised never to leave me in her beautiful silence. She has whispered that she will always make me hear my echo. She does not know the answers and reflects what I do not know but portrays what I feel and think. In her own little way she immortalizes my search without being a comfortable conclusion. I realized what friendship and promise means. She asks with me, like me: How do I know that what I know or what I do not know is what others know and do not know?
He came like a breeze, left like a storm and took a part of my heart with him. I met love one day. I learned to let go the hard way. Some farewells are not final, not even with the person’s leaving. I learned to be strong when I was the most vulnerable. Is it certain that I learnt my lesson? There are many more goodbyes yet to come. There are many more comfortable conclusions that I still have to free myself of. Is life a series of universal events that occur in a unique way molded by our situations and shaping our experiences?
So what is it to live life to the fullest? What is the significance of these existential questions that I find myself pondering and wondering over and over again? I ask for answers within myself.
Events after events and accidents after incidents I try to look for a pattern to comprehend life and world and my significance in it. My attempts to run away from any comfortable conclusions and the inevitable imprints they leave in the process define me. All I know is that I do not know it all. I cannot know it all. These epiphanies that come to visit me like a butterfly carve a pattern in my heart just to be washed away by the waves but refuse to leave me all alone: my father’s tender embrace, my science teacher’s confident solutions to problems, Shiva’s tranquil eyes, my poetry’s unconditional friendship, the hurts and dreams of love, and endlessly more to follow.
Not very long after that I realized that babies have something to do with some form of pollination, fertilization, germination and some more “ions”. My sixth grade science teacher Mr. Raut brutally proved my omniscient father wrong. For the first time in my life I realized that comfortable conclusions couldn’t necessarily be true. My father does not have the answers to all of my questions. Is innocence defined by loosing it? Is it deprivation from the inevitable? Is innocence just an interval between the deprivation and the loss? I cannot unlearn where babies come from. Once lost innocence is irreversible. I wanted to ask my father again. I wanted to ask him if innocence is merely ignorance only more beautiful. Can it be chosen? Is it naivety? Is innocence childlike or childish outlook on life or more? Is it the belief in the inherent goodness of mankind?
My torment bled profusely from my anguished soul in the silence of the endless nights. It was then when He looked at me with three eyes, a placid and captivating smile, Ganges overflowing from his head and pouring to my soul. Shiva! Knowledge is in peace. Peace is in meditation. Meditation is in prayers of Shiva, the omnipotent. The surrender was so serene.
All that is is a part of God’s plans. People are inherently good. If only I were gentle and kind to human being, despite their deeds and reactions, I was certain to attain nirvana. My hollow was filled with limitless hope. The world is knowable in the scheme of God.
I rested in a blissful slumber only to wake up one day and realize that I had fallen prey to the enticing trap of a comfortable conclusion, once again. Perhaps God knows it all but do I know that there is one? My soul was disrobed again. It was just another lazy Saturday under a periwinkle sky when I met poetry. She sat by me and waved her wand. It was a sapient magic. She has since promised never to leave me in her beautiful silence. She has whispered that she will always make me hear my echo. She does not know the answers and reflects what I do not know but portrays what I feel and think. In her own little way she immortalizes my search without being a comfortable conclusion. I realized what friendship and promise means. She asks with me, like me: How do I know that what I know or what I do not know is what others know and do not know?
He came like a breeze, left like a storm and took a part of my heart with him. I met love one day. I learned to let go the hard way. Some farewells are not final, not even with the person’s leaving. I learned to be strong when I was the most vulnerable. Is it certain that I learnt my lesson? There are many more goodbyes yet to come. There are many more comfortable conclusions that I still have to free myself of. Is life a series of universal events that occur in a unique way molded by our situations and shaping our experiences?
So what is it to live life to the fullest? What is the significance of these existential questions that I find myself pondering and wondering over and over again? I ask for answers within myself.
Events after events and accidents after incidents I try to look for a pattern to comprehend life and world and my significance in it. My attempts to run away from any comfortable conclusions and the inevitable imprints they leave in the process define me. All I know is that I do not know it all. I cannot know it all. These epiphanies that come to visit me like a butterfly carve a pattern in my heart just to be washed away by the waves but refuse to leave me all alone: my father’s tender embrace, my science teacher’s confident solutions to problems, Shiva’s tranquil eyes, my poetry’s unconditional friendship, the hurts and dreams of love, and endlessly more to follow.
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