Poetry from Pain and Beauty from Disaster....There is a song in hindi which goes "What else may I offer you besides my heart, May God add my years on this earth to yours..."
I always thought this was a beautiful song, since the words were so poetic and singer enriched it with her voice and it is like a birthday gift a friend offers to another. I know this song is older than me and I cherish it dearly.
But as I was growing up I realized that everyone is India blessed the other with long life. As a teenager I became aware of the misery in people's lives. Looking back now I realized my own growing pains was being reflected in the pain in the outer realms. But growing up in a India, a patriarchal male dominated society where all men are fearful of themselves and each other, the only person who will ever say that they had a happy childhood while growing up in India before the 90's is either suffering from amnesia, creative or convenient memory, or is too insensitive to their external surroundings and lives in a make belief world.
The only joy people had was in sharing tales of each other's miseries, exotic food, festivities, shopping and fantasy tales of bollywood and its equivalent in every language of the nation. No one was happy within themselves and every child grew up in terror of at least one of the parent. Every woman was either terrorized by her husband or mother-in-law or sister-in-laws. Every man was nagged by his wife or terrorized by their parents or employer. Emotionally it is a weak society. The only thing that makes India thrive even today is our belief in the immortality of the soul, the laws of karma as expounded in Bhagavad Geeta. The millions of monks (sadhus), the holy sons and daughters of this holy land, living in the caves and forests or river banks and in hamlets, unseen and unheard by the media and the rest of the world in continuous prayer through each breath who still keep the vibration of the place at a higher frequency.
Anyway, about living longer, each time I heard someone grant a blessing to someone else, "may you live longer" I would correct them and say "may you be happier" and people would look at me and say "wow! never thought about it. It is true, what will a person do being alive if he is not happy, so Yes, may you be happy for as long as you live."
As a toddler I could sing before I could speak and I could dance before I could walk. There was no way of keeping me quiet in my seat when a song played on the radio with a nice beat. I would every song with melodious note and meaningful lyrics and sway and dance to every foot tapping beat. As I was growing up I began getting into the meaning of the songs I sang and realized that the more I loved a song, the more sad were the lyrics.
Recently I heard a Vietnamese song which is beautiful but so sweetly sad. It is a ballad which speaks of a girl who is married off and the unspoken love of a boy is expressed in this song. He mourns her separation and asks why did she have to be married off so far that every time I wish to see I have to close my eyes. Why couldn't she be married of somewhere close by, so I could continue to glance at her when I wished.
Nowadays when I hear a song I wonder why does it have to be so painful? But it is so beautiful that I can do nothing but helplessly sing it to myself. The tale of every loss, whether it is physical or emotional is expressed most beautifully in poetry and songs that transcend time and gender. All of Tagore's creation, Rumi and so many of the poets of yesteryears were an expression of their pain, which we identify with even today.
During the revolution for India's independence poets were all over the nation inspiring the masses with thoughts and feelings of unity and freedom. The bullets of the british had to eventually bow to power of the passionate cries of the poets of India. Like Voltaire said the pen is mightier than the sword. Today I lift my pen again to write a tale of the power of words over war.
