Evening rains...

The rains beat down with a fury and I watched, entranced, from my cosy corner. The palms were buffeted in the wind. Little puddles appeared and seemed to boil over with a surfeit of drops attacking from all directions. I knew the fury would be short-lived and all of it, the lashings of rain, the howling of the wind, the thunder – would fade away in a few minutes. I smiled – nature was quite a performer herself. I love watching the rains – it always makes me feel like my very soul has received a fresh scouring. The crisp, freshly washed air enlivens both mind and body. My whole being perks up and feels revitalized. 

Today’s rains reminded me of farewells. I have always needed closure in my life for everything. Many times however I have had to cope with an event in my life where there was no chance to end things nicely. I have never forgiven myself for missing the chance to say a final farewell to my father. Open endings are tough to handle. A part of the pain ceases to go away because you have forever lost the chance to say the words that you think would have made a difference – small words that have great importance – “good-bye”, “sorry”, “thank you” – the words remain unsaid and the scar that grows over, always feels tender to the touch.

Much like rain, farewells too, can be blessings. Done with the right spirit, they can cleanse you. You look back and see clearly the turns in your path where you have stumbled or someone else has laid a trap for you or where the path itself turned treacherous and you decide that it was all for a yet-to-be-revealed purpose. You bid farewell to the hurtful feelings, to the pain of having stumbled badly and you move on – with or without the chance to actually say goodbye. Words have always mattered to me but even I have learnt that there are certain occasions in life where only silence will work. Silence, when consciously chosen, is the best farewell.

The evening grew quiet after the short and furious spell of rain. How swiftly it had passed and how beautiful the silence felt after all the vented fury! This calm is when I find myself almost lost in contemplation. The silence is soothing and I feel cocooned from my everyday worries. There is so much to relish in the moments when you can be one with the world around you. Even thoughts cease to arise for a moment. The continuous seething of colliding words disappears and you are left with just the incredible sensation of being at peace.

I learn anew from every rain. The message I hear in the drumming of the drops is that of hope – everything can be cleansed, refreshed and renewed. You only have to open your mind to receive the blessings coming your way. I learn to inhale the scent of benediction, to be grateful and to walk fearlessly in the rain.

On Masks...

I look around me and see people in masks - masks of propriety, masks of being happy, masks of being bleeding hearts - all sorts of masks and I wonder what they do with these masks when they are alone. Do they yet see them when they look in the mirror? Do they take them off when they go to bed? If two people in a relationship agree to wear the masks that each want to see on the other, do the masks stay fused on only in the heat of the discomfort of each other’s presence or do they come off in front of another and then are donned on again when the play resumes? Masks are fascinating and to a certain extent, commonplace. They perhaps make life more colourful. But they also make life more contrived.

If you do not know whether you can ever see another truly as he or she is and accept them as they are, warts and all, and rather build an idealized or rather ‘Bollywoodized’ version of them to love, then masks are indeed a very attractive alternative. Because the truth is every one of us is flawed and we carry many scars as remnants of battles fought and won or lost. To see another as they are, to learn that none of us can point fingers at another without in effect condemning ourselves as well, would be liberating. There would then be no need of masks. Every flawed one of us is also beautiful. The beauty of the body is so transient that if you build your life around the image of yourself that you think impresses others, you will find at the end of the day, when the beauty fades, you have nothing to fall back on. But if you cultivate the beauty of your mind by opening it out to truth and reality, generosity and kindness, willingness and gratitude, you need nothing to hide behind and you certainly do not need others to hide from you.

A friend had posted a video this morning and as I watched the woman in it saying that people declaring that they are fine is probably the main reason why you find so many unhappy and discontented souls out in the world today, I smiled because I usually think the same thing. I do not say I am fine when I feel sad. If a close friend asks me how I am, I usually tell them I am low if that’s the way I feel or that I am ridiculously happy for no reason if that is the way I feel. I see no reason to say I am fine unless of course the person asking has no real interest or has lost the right to actually ask after me. This too is a mask, this saying of ‘fine’ always – except that in this case the mask we don is to fool ourselves more than anyone else. Perhaps this too is necessary, then again if we cannot even see our very selves for what we are, which mask will be enough?

I do not write this in order to point out a problem and suggest a solution – I merely observe what I see around me and write it down. I have always done that. In writing, if you don a mask, you touch no one – there you cannot lie – so for me writing has always been a solace, a way out of confounding thoughts, an enjoyable mode of expressing what many of us contemplate on but few would put down in words. Live, if you can, with no masks or failing that, think awhile on why you need so many…maybe you will find that you are simply quite wonderful just the way you are…