LESSONS FOR LIFE

It holds me amazed at how our life, more than anything else, is effected at so many different levels by the lessons we learn in its course, than the episodes of joys and sorrows, we too often find ourselves trapped in. Unlike our emotional status that we subconsciously allow to define the face of our existence, it is in real those lessons, the teachings picked at the various crossroads of our lives, which rightfully depicts the picture of our existence. It portrays the person we are and we carry such priceless lessons in the depth of our hearts, unchanged against the onslaught of time. We wear it like steel armor against the hurdles of life. We tend to them like a lover to his soulmate, all the while deriving the indomitable spirit to be honest to yourself, even when the whole world seem to ploy against you.

There are two ways, how life writes to you all such lessons. One, the hard way of bagging experience, where you first fall and bleed and then come to know that pain is inevitable and no destinations in the world have ever been achieved without it. Whereas, two, is the more human way of learning where we attain wisdom through the kindness and generosity of our elders. They are landmarks on the map of our lives and every time we felt lost or broken in this journey of life, we have inevitably returned to those landmarks to figure out our respective ways.

I remember spending time with my grandfather in our ancestral house, in the village of Bardhaman. I was in my junior school then and long summer vacations contributed to the development of an eternal bond between us. In the afternoon, I used to lay alongside him on the hammock that suspended from the high ceiling of the long, echoing balcony as he recited me tales from Ramayana. He used to hold a coir rope that was connected from a distant pillar and every time he pulled at it, slowly releasing it back, the hammock swayed lazily through the afternoon shadows, my mouth split in a giggle as butterflies danced in my stomach. He would then tell me in his deep voice that evil, doesn’t matter how strong it is, always fails before the good. I would gently nod, half understanding the wisdom behind the words, slowly drifting to a sweet siesta along the swaying hammock, with the light of afternoon splashed across our pressed bodies.      

Every morning he carried me on his lap to the paddy fields on the outskirts of the village. He would talk to the farmers and assist them in their work, as I stood by him with my tiny fingers in the safe wrap of his clutch. There had been days when we had sat down under the shade of an enormous Peepal tree and ate our lunch on banana leaves. I would nibble grains and fries from his platter and place it in my mouth. Soon after he would bring me home on his shoulder, as I sat up high and threw a tantrum of questions to him, asking about who those people where and what they did on the fields by walking behind buffaloes. He would patiently answer me about the farmers and how over the years, they have become his friends. He would then turn back to look at me, his face alight in a smile and would tell me that they simply didn’t walk behind buffaloes, rather they were ploughing the field. I remember how he had enriched me during those walk back from the paddy fields about the importance of friends. He used to tell, ‘No matter how high you soar in your life, never miss an opportunity to make friends.’

Three years later, when I was in seventh standard and far too young to fully comprehend the priceless lessons he sowed in me, he passed away due to a cardiac arrest. Good, evil, modesty and kindness were still words that I studied in my text books of moral science and the reverberations of their meanings continued to elude me till then. That year as I laid down on the hallway hammock and held the hard coir rope in my hand, I knew what it was like to pull it for hours. As I relaxed and drifted to sleep, swaying with the breeze, he was braving the bruises of the coir rope on his palm. I felt strangely lonely there lying on the hammock as a series of realizations slowly tried to awaken me from within.

Today many years later as my younger brother in his mischievous act of plays, snatched a bar of my favorite chocolate from me and ran away munching, I felt my soul speak to me. The anger, that a minute before was throbbing inside my head is suddenly replaced by a stupendous calm.

It is there, in my composed self today that I find traces of my grandfather’s preaching. I recollect eating from his platter beneath the Peepal tree and suddenly realize the value of patience and sharing that he left within me in all his modest smiles and caring embraces.

As I walk into the room and grabbing a metal hammer, break open my piggybank with a shatter, mom comes rushing to find me seated amid scattered coins.

“What happened? Why did you break it?”

“I want to give it away to organizations taking care of the elderly people.” I paused. “In Dadu’s memories…”

As she walked away silently, I caught in her eyes the gleaming drops of pleasure.

*****

Please note – This post has been written as an entry for the 'SUPPORT ELDERS' initiative by Kolkata Bloggers.