Its the end of the monsoon season ,with the clouds deserting the skies to give way to a sardonically smiling sun, leaving behind a strange "depression", and the beginning of a cruel month-log oppressive heat,as they call it. I sit by my window sill, a silent observer to nature's farewell to the pompous army of wispy white-silver blurbs that had invaded the skies only about a couple of months ago. The trees are bowed, all prepared to shed off the regal green costumes they'd been wearing for the annual play, still lookin fresh, nonetheless like a full grown adult whose just passed the prime of his life. A flock of birds move swiftly across the sky, blocking the rays of the sun intermittently, in a way of strange defiance to its all-pervasiveness. They dont look back, neither do they hesitate for once at the prospect of having to leave a place which was their haven for quite some time now. They just move on ....to another country, another season, another home... seamlessly...
Its a small occurence in the yearly cycle of nature, and yet so significant as to teach one a lesson of how everythin that comes has to go away, sometimes so subtly that this fact becomes hard to sink in. Questions of why and how arise, yet they seem a ruddy rhetoric, coz there exists no answer, no explanation to pacify the ostensible nature of our lives.
The most powerful man at IBM taught me the most humblest of lesson in a 5- min speech. It was an innocuos and yet pertinent question - "IBM sold off everythin that had taken it years to invent and develop, in a matter of days to save itself from turning into just a name in the golden pages of history. Wasnt it tough to let go?" . The answer made us listen in a wide-eyed astonishment, "Its true that it had taken lots of efforts, and nurturing to develop all those technologies. The biggest opposition to the sell-off were the scientists who'd worked on it for years, for it was their soul and their lives more than their daily bread. It, had, however become impossible to keep it any longer. We could only keep our children if we could watch them wear torn clothes and bang their plates in hunger. We thought it a better option to give them away to someone who could take better care. We had not turned irresponsible, but the responsibility had become the roadblock. So, we decided tolet go. And its never easy to do that. But , at some point you come to realise that you cannot have everything for urself. You visit a hotel, stay in a room and like its furniture, possibly even get addicted to the plasma screen, but then when u check out you dont take all of it with u, and its inadvertent , it comes naturally as the most obvious thing to do. Its the same about so many things in life. Think of those who have to get a part of their body amputated because it has become cancerous. This is letting go. "
"I let go
With no yesterday
Neither a tomorrow
No fantasies of pleasure
No baggage of sorrow
I let go
I have now
And now has me
The coming moment will decide
What the next step will be...
For I'm but an idea upheld
Another idea can also be me
I let go
To be another me!"
-quoted from "http://humorix.20six.co.uk/humorix/art/22750318/I_let_go#comm"
I'm amazed at the way children and dogs have this innate capabilty to let go(not that i'm comparing the two in any way-i'm not a child hater nor a dog lover!! ). They become so attached to people close to them in a very short time, but when those very people go away even for a short time, its convenient for them to forget all about them in a matter of hours or days at worse. They wont hang on to them, and would still smile with a faint recognition if they see them again, only to show that same affection if the countenace is prolonged for some time. I had a cousin in singapore, and we used to go there every summer when she was just 2-3 years old. For the 2 month period that i used to be with her, i was the one to bear her peskiness and the only one she'd look for every morning at the ring of the alarm bell. She used to hug me so hard that it was always tough to say goodbye. She used to cry and miss me for a day , and then again the very next year, she'd be like the 5 second Joe, behaving like she'd never seen me before, leaving me with the daunting task of wooing her again, only to say goodbye again. I met her after a long time a month ago. She has grown up to be a 12 yr old with the typical British accent and attitude. She remembers me, but sadly for me , feels no affection at all. I'm just another acquaintance that her short life had treated her to. For me, its hard to swallow this fact, and yet for her it doesnt make any difference. Same goes with dogs, u live around em for a few days and they'll bow before u...u come again after a year, try to poke them and off goes ur finger(poor u- u'd never realised that the loving dog ever had such sharp canines!!!!).
It takes us more than a tear and a resolve of the greatest degree to let go of anything, or anyone- our possessions tend to take over our very existence - be it the people we love, our dogs and cats (it took one whole song for a certain Jai to make Aditi overcome the loss!!! :P ) , boyfriend/girlfriend, a job, a dream which couldnt be realised, or sometimes, even an obsession!! We hang on to it like a baby does to his bottle of milk. We sit and think about the loss so much that it makes no sense to live at all. And all this, because of our expectations that never cease. From the moment we first get attached to somethin or someone, we start expecting, and then we start expecting those expectations to be fulfilled, which goes on to become a vicious circle which threatens to undermine our very own selfs!! Its not that letting go is something i preach, beacuse i'm the worst person in the world to practice it- and one doesnt preach what one cant practice!! I've always somehow managed to lose everyone who has ever come close to me -and they have somehow managed to fade away swiftly into the depths of time. Be it a friend who has hurt me , or left me high and dry in times of need, a teacher at school who was more than a teacher, a girl who broke my heart, or just somebody who forgot me with time. But i still hold on to the memories, keep believing that someday i'll find them all back, and lead an ideal life- with the people i want. But then there's no such thing as idealism in our prosaic lives. In the end it boils down to god's pencil and the papyrus on which he inscribed the lyrics of our lives. We can do anythin but cannot make God buy an eraser. You may call him a miser but then thats what he is... Whats meant to go, will go...we can ill-afford to miss a glance at whats coming next...watch out!! It might be meteoroid!!! :P
Kabhi kabhi aditi zindagi mein yu hi koi apna lagta hai
kabhi kabhi aditi wo bichhad jaaye to ek sapna lagta hai
to phir koi kaise muskuraaye kaise hasde khush hoke
aur kaise koi sochde everythin's gonna be ok!!!
The day we find the answer to this 'kaise' we'll be truly happy!!! :)
.jpg)
