I remember those old classroom windows
high up in the then, to me, tall school building
that looked out at the old Parsi whitewashed
residentials; and I sobbing inconsolably in a
drama of feeling alienated, where the teacher thought
my unresponsiveness was because I didn’t know
the language, but I was dumbstruck in the first few
days outside my oyster, my mother’s accoutrement
of love and warmth in an exercise of her motherhood
that was uncompromised and unconditional and perpetual.
The folly of crying never came back to me throughout the
time the secrets were unfolding to me as I displayed a
subconscious bravura in keeping a still silence about
my fated life. Even with no grief exhibited, in my late teens, in the
external confirmation by an astrologer, recommended to me by
a female politician friend, who informed me that my life would be
mind- and emotion-snappingly difficult! I had abstract distractions (like
inner voices and a universal lyric) that helped me take on the fact,
with a degree of equanimity, that my adult life would be submerged in grief
of tribulation. But I was always a stoic, who could chance to smile
to greet anybody else’s smile with kind fortitude. So, I didn’t cry over
intimidation and bullying by vested interests; I didn’t welcome kibitzers.
I chose not to fear; I had an inlaid gratitude even in my satyagrahic violent
non-violence and, though I am not a talented diagnostic, I followed the enchiridion
of my own intuition, personal wisdom and revelation. I know the munificence of
sacrifice and the magnificence of love and duty, and the seemingly insurmountable
tasks of overcoming hardship; especially when the ones you love are, themselves,
compromised by the overwhelming treachery, and they are unaware of it! Just like evil
percolates in smooth unnoticed derisive devouring through the fabric of creation, righteousness
must also permeate like a countervailing slipstream through a sylvan country, holding it
together when it is threatened to be brought down by denudation. I ask you my silent
empathisers, would you profess your edicts for me to slay my courage in abattoirs that
dismember me to an enervation; or would you let me fight my battles by my own devices,
even as I am old and tired, yet with a stringency of will and integrity! We all need sustenance,
of course, but my self-esteem must not always be short-shrifted for your own leverage!
This is my clear signpost to you, if you all want to be up my alley! And to add, finally,
we all need somebody to love us, respect us and vindicate us in the toughest times, even if from a distance!
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