Baring it all

Yesterday I sat up and read five parts of intimate chronicles of a blogger whose blog I follow intermittently. As she bared her soul and life, I was pulled into the vortex of her life. She is a brilliant writer and I couldn't but help feel immense pain reading what she had written. For a long time, the contents of her posts continued to colour my thinking and I wept quite freely for her, for the world, for pain, for everything that seemed unfair. You know how it is when you start crying. You remember every single thing that made you cry and the tears become copious almost as if you're crying for everything that has passed and everything that is to come. One question that kept arising as I was crying was, "Why?" I know that the question seems quite absurd and meaningless but still my heart pained for that promising young woman who is an epitome of everything postmodern and intelligent.

An afterthought that niggled me after the entire reading-the-posts-and-crying was, "How did she bare it all?" "How on earth did she have the courage to record her life in a public domain?" Perhaps she felt the aching need to record her experience as a repository. Her words still ring in my head and if I start to think about her powerful narrative, I would start pouring bucketful of tears. I refrain to think that the pain she wrote about is something real and visceral, not a story of some distant character with whom one can share a dispassionate relationship that is removed from reality; A pain that one can read about and forget knowing that it is the fanciful creative process of someone who is a story-teller. It is another thing that people do shed tears for fictional characters. Even I do. I did it quite occasionally then and very frequently now. I guess as you grow older you are prone to cry a lot. I recollect an incident from my research days. When I was living with transgenders for purpose of my research, I once accompanied them (Pandiammal, Mahalakshmi and Shailaja) to a funeral where they were called to mourn professionally. Professional mourning was one of their means of earning money. The way Pandiammal cried and beat her chest completely baffled me. After the entire ceremony was over, I asked her, "How did you cry so well?" To which she replied, "When I cry, I think of all that we have undergone . . . I think of my mother . . . my family . . . my village and my home. By becoming a transgender, I have lost everything - my name, my family . . . That's what makes me cry like this." True that. When we cry, we don't cry for something that just happened, we have a cluster of incidents that come to our mind. We don't cry for that particular character in the film, we cry for someone whom we know in the same situation, we cry for us remembering ourselves in that same situation. Tears are projections of our collective memories.

When I read that blogger's long rendering of her life and health, I cried for everyone who suffered ill health, for the talents that remain dormant because of the illness, of the dreams that have to be truncated, of the dependence that causes pain to the free-spirit and most of all I also cried because I knew many like her. I felt helpless that I couldn't do anything to ease her pain.

I didn't comment on any of her posts. What could I have possibly written, "Get well soon" or "I'll pray for you" or "I wish that a miracle happens."

She is a stranger to me but pain isn't strange. Any human capable of compassion and empathy can feel pain and that is what I felt and cried for.

I really wish that her ailments leave her and that she continues in her path of life renewed and rejenuvated and write sassy stuff without any pain.

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet

A beauty so touching that you sob

Traveling by bus today afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised when my friend from Rishi Valley called me and asked me to read a column called Footloose in the Sunday Magazine of The Hindu. Footloose talks about places that are tucked away into the city where not many wander off in their ‘tourist’ expedition. The particular column my friend asked me to read was about how the writer sobs every time she sees a place that is “remarkably stunning” (using her own words).

Cut to 2006:

Location: Tungnath, Located at an altitude of 3,680 m (12,073.5 ft), Uttarakhand

Some of us from the school where I was working at that time decided to go on a trip to the Himalaya. We were quite overjoyed at the thought of this trip. My friend, her daughter and I were a bit slow to climb the Tungnath peak. The others had managed to climb very fast (at least faster than us). My friend and I were slowly trudging along the path. As we went higher, it was difficult to breathe and the way became slippery as it began snowing. During the journey, at times, when we looked around there was no one. It was quite dreary and lonesome. We were very bitter but kept encouraging one another. As we were nearing the place, we saw crows. Sign of life finally. When we saw crows, we understood that there were humans nearby. My friend’s mobile ticked with life as she received a message. So long it was dead! After a grueling hike, we finally reached the top to view the temple of Shiva. Ah! What joy! A temple between white sheets of snow.

Both of us started sobbing.

Sobbing as if a dam had broken lose.

It was the sob which contained a million emotional outbursts – the beauty of the place which completely bowled us over, the sign of the temple finally after a very long hike, seeing snow for the first time in our life and the joy of having made it finally.

It was so perfect that both of us realized exactly what was going on in each other’s mind. We allowed the tears to flow till it stopped on its own accord. It didn’t for a very long time.

When some women say that great sex makes them cry, is this they are referring to? A spiritual experience where all the senses are satisfied.

These tears are rare and valuable as it is caused when one is moved completely from the within.

I am glad my friend called and reminded me of that experience.

Do you have instances as these when you have sobbed involuntarily without stopping. Do share them with me . . .

What prompts those tears . . .

Many a times sitting in the train, i have seen people quietly let down tears simultaneously while talking over the mobile phones. i wonder, who is that at the other end, who makes those worthy tears fall without even realising that they are being a reason for someone to shed precious tears. The tears that fall from the eyes are filled with many stories and memories. My mother while recounting a simple incident from her childhood, sheds tears and the tears seem to be shed effortlessly almost saying that they are interwined with the story being narrated. The tears that some shed while watching an emotional movie also seem to say that. The tears that flow while a particular scene is enacted is almost from a memory that mingles itself with the enactment that prods the tears to fall. i have also witnessed people standing in front of their deities and shedding copious tears as naturally as praying. The tears seem to evoke the same passion as a prayer and many a times they seem to have a cathartic effect on the person. Some songs evoke that response in me. i cry when some lines of a song are rendered but at the same time I am quite unable to actually communicate the reason for the tears. Joy in abundance, a joy that overwhelms us also seem to surface as tears and oft times i have wished for the tears never to cease from pouring forth. Reading the bible sometimes makes the tears flow profusely, sometimes threatening never to stop. Love, joy, pain and a myriad of emotions cause those tears to fall impromtu, which seem as natural as the act of smiling or blinking. Recently, a passionately written email made me cry. The reason for the tears was not the mail but memories and stories which surfaced as the result of the mail. Tears always have memories, stories with a pinch of salt (literally!!)