I MA English
Paper:
Romantic Age
“We
don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents”1 said Bob Ross in
one of his very famous art videos. It’s interesting to note that this
philosophy holds true to the process of painting, much like how it holds true
to the process of creation and sustenance of life itself. Perhaps there is
method in every chaos of this world.
Have
you ever come across something which is completely perfect? Something flawless,
extraordinary, unbelievable. Might be your favourite movie star, or the fresh,
hot biryani from your favourite restaurant in town, or maybe someone you love, whose
warm smile transcends any beautiful thing you've ever seen.
Although
these things may seem to be the most divine to you, for another person they
might be something very commonplace. Then it is safe to say that nothing is completely
perfect for everybody at all times, everything in this world is flawed in some
way or the other.
So
what holds us together in this defective, incapable world? Is it possible that
all the slip-ups contribute towards the functioning of things in a manner which
although is unpredictable yet systematic?
The
term “accident” often has a negative connotation, but it simply means
“something that happens unexpectedly and is not planned in advance”2.
It is true that human beings are used to being structured and systemized, and any
deviation from the plan turns out to be the reason for great distress,
especially if the outcome of such deviation leads to fatality. But is it really
so bad?
In
third grade when I was appearing for my annual examinations, my father turned
up very late to pick me up from school after my Hindi exam. I was burning with
anger, as it was already two hours since the exam was over. I was waiting all
alone and breeding the idea that my father forgot I existed. When I finally saw
him drive towards the gate, I’ll admit that
I
was happy to see him but at the same time, I was prepared to launch my frustration-filled
missiles at him because I deserved an explanation and it had to be a good one.
As I approached him I could see him more tensed than I had ever seen him and
with every step I took, the wrinkles on his face seemed to get deeper.
And
when I reached him I opened my mouth to accuse him of not loving me enough. “Mummy
met with an accident, I'm coming from the hospital, let's go.” His words left
my eyes and mouth wide open, but only in a metaphorical sense of course. I
acted confident and unfazed, which made him feel less nervous too I hope.
And
that was probably the first time in my life I entertained the ideas of
mortality, love and loss perhaps a little too seriously in my head. The journey
from my school to the hospital seemed to be a never ending one. “She's alright though,
right?” is all I had asked him. “She's alright”… “Head injuries”… “Nothing to
worry about”… “Has lost her memory”… “Been unconscious” I remember only bits
and pieces of the conversation I had with my father. I was having three
conversations simultaneously. With my father, with God, and with myself. And I
wasn’t paying attention to any of them.
“Empathy
is the quality of character that can change the world.”3 And I
strongly believe that to cultivate empathy, one has to be in dire straits first
hand to experience its intricacies and understand its multidimensionality on a deeper
level.
The
hospital was one of the most reputed ones in the city, which only made it
scarier. Ambulances kept pulling up into the Emergency wing of the hospital every
now and then, and my mother was unfortunately kept in the ICU right next to it.
My fear
was getting the best of me and I had a very grotesque imagination for a 7 year
old, which helped me in a way. I wanted to ask my father “How much blood came?”
When I finally saw my mom, I was relieved. She was awake, clean and whole
because the doctors and nurses did a great job.
And
she was relieved to see me because fear was getting the best of her too. She
thought I was sitting behind her in the two-wheeler when the accident had
occurred, and that they were hiding my body away from her till her recovery. One
thing I had learnt that day was that there was no age limit for crazy
imaginations.
I
was exposed to situations which not many children are exposed to which made me
think of other children in my class who had it worse. Some had lost their
parents to illness and others to unfortunate circumstances.
Amrit
didn't have a father which let him get away with his bratty behaviour, Shubham
Sharma was a sweetheart whose father had died of a heart attack leading him to
discontinue school altogether and move to his hometown. I was left to wonder if
it was just me and my father now.
Years
down the line, I realise how that one accident would've taught so many things
to so many people. While my mother was lying knocked unconscious on the road, a
stranger offered to take her to the hospital in his car. We don't know where he
is now, he doesn't know where we are.
But
I'm sure carrying an unknown injured lady who had awful amount of blood oozing
out of her helmet wouldn’t have been an ordinary experience for him. In that huge
crowd which was gathered at the place of the accident, there must've been
someone who would’ve fought with his wife that morning before leaving for work,
someone who would’ve thought speeding and driving dangerous was “cool”, someone
who would've cursed their life or taken it for granted, or someone who had lost
faith in humanity.
And this
spectacle would've made them realise the fragile nature of life and witnessing
a human being helping another would've shown them the strength of a helping
hand andgiven them the reassurance that there was some hope in this world after
all. My father, who was so accustomed to hiding his emotions was failing
miserably in his attempts at acting strong. And that was the day I knew he
loved my mother and my mother was surprised to discover that too.
It's
a puzzling thing to think about, how something unpleasant is required to force
the pleasant things out of somebody. It's like how they say, only when you're
exposed to difficulty in life will you be in a position to move towards
something greater. The whole thing about gold getting purified in furnace and
diamonds being formed under pressure which we've all grown up listening to is
sort of true.
The
7 year old me prayed to God, “You can’t take away mummy from me yet, I'm not
giving her yet”. Fast forward to last year when my father met with a brutal
accident, we got a phone call from a stranger asking us to reach this hospital
near my home because my father was kept there. I felt fear and pain gripping me
like someone pouring acid down my neck.
The
20 year old me prayed the same old prayer “you can't take away papa…” paused,
thought for a few seconds and said “give me strength”. I saw life as it was
because it wasn’t a battle with God anymore. It wasn’t me claiming my rights.
It
was me letting go of things which were beyond my control and letting it mould
me in a way which was the most ideal for me to function in a family and in a
society. Life is about accepting and letting go.
We
are faced with so many challenges in our day to day lives. Most of them are not
as intense and hence we don't categorise the little mistakes and mishaps as
“accidents”. They don't leave us shattered or turn our world upside down. But
when it happens, we end up seeing things which we didn't know existed and feel
things which can never be put into words by language.
One
sudden brake by a random bus driver is all it takes to teach a 7 year old
lessons about mortality, love and loss.
The idea
of “Butterfly Effect” under the Chaos Theory states that the smallest of
changes in a system can result in very large differences in that system’s behaviour.4 This gives me all the more reasons to
be careful even in the little things I do.
So
if I lose control of my temper and end up shoving my fist into someone, it is
possible that the ripples created by my impact would end up coming back to me
multiplied a thousand times in the form of a speeding train. Maybe it's an
exaggeration but it can be viewed as a magnified version of the concept of
“karma”.
What
goes around comes around. Nothing wrong in believing in it, especially if it
makes you a better human being. We will thus know that everything happens for a
reason and maybe this is what the world is based on.
Many
a times, we tend to accuse God and denounce his existence because of these
accidents which take place in our lives. Sometimes we end up in unpleasant
situations so we say, “if God was real, he wouldn't have let this happen”.
Now
I'm not going into trying to prove whether God is real or not, but what I would
like to focus on is our attitude. Imagine a world where no accidents took
place, where everything went according to your plan without any deviations.
First of all, that would be impossible because our plans would be overlapping
or contradicting with each other's.
Then
who would decide whose plan is to be carried out? We would probably have
reservations on the basis of caste, gender and age even for that to figure who
should be “living the life”. It's scary to think how chaotic the world would've
been in that case. At least now the accidents which occur are uniform - they
happen to everybody. Equality.
Secondly,
we wouldn’t have met some lovely people in our lives if things had gone
according to our plans. We falter, our plans don't work out and we end up
meeting each other “accidentally”.
We
end up achieving great things, learning new skills, experiencing new feelings,
all under “accidents”. But the thing which differentiates the good accidents
from the bad ones is just our perception. We call the negative ones “accidents”
and the positive ones “luck” or “chance”. The best part about life is, we never
know.
An
accident may be a blessing in disguise, and your luck may bring you to ruins.
Since we can't comprehend which is which, it is better to not stamp anything as
anything.
Treating
life as a collection of experiences which bring us opportunities to learn would
aid in coping with the most heartbreaking events as well as the most blissful
ones, and the gap between these two will slowly reduce.
The
reason behind everything in this world bearing the quality of being ephemeral
is the plain truth that human life itself is not permanent. We attachmortalmeanings
to things because we look for ourselves in everything we see.
In
one of my favourite poems, the poet writes
“The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so
many things seem filled with the intent
to
be lost that their loss is no disaster.”5
No
person can point to something or somebody and say that it will remain and stand
the test of time.We know this truth but somehow hesitate to accept it. But when
we do, it will only be liberating because we tend to let fear cage us within
our own minds and strike us blind towards rationality.
Four
years ago, it was revealed to me that one of my family members (whom I choose
not to reveal) was suffering from a chronic illness. I realised then that my
support system consisted only of my immediate family. My priorities were clear
within the blink of an eye.
I
made a pact with God and asked him something so specific that it's absurd. I
asked him to keep my dog alive for the next 10 years, my father the next 20
years and my mother the next 30 years. A part of me likes to believe he showed
me a thumbs up and a part of me thinks he was shaking his head in disbelief.
It
is interesting to see how we try to get everything under our control, try to
get hold of all the strings and keep everybody under our thumb - so much that
we’d even want to decide when somebody dies, according to our convenience.
There are certain things we will never be prepared for and this is when the
doors of our minds will be thrown open to new wisdom and understanding.
What
we studied in 11th grade under LeChatelier's principle can be
applied not only to chemical systems but to the functioning of the entire world.
It states that when a system experiences a disturbance, it will respond to
restore a new equilibrium state.6 In simple terms, it means that all
things are perfectly balanced and in the event of any disturbance, everything
will work towards the restoration of that balance.
The
world is a big chemical system in itself so the law holds relevance to the
processes which take place continuallyto attain a holistic stability. This can
be seen even in the physical world as stated by Newton’s third law.7
It
is clear that no system in this world, natural or artificial, moves in a linear
fashion. There are many networks designed to absorb the impact created by
malfunctions (or the “accidents”) and regain a functional state.Nature has its
own way of controlling damage. We've all seen our injuries getting healed. Our
wounds close, our sadness fades away and spring comes again.
And
just like that, my mother was discharged from the hospital after what felt like
ages. The stitches on her forehead were visible after the bandages were
removed. She touched her wound gently as I saw her looking at herself in the
mirror which was placed in a corner of our house, above the wash basin.
She
stood there smiling to herself, I felt like the child of a warrior. She firmly
believes that God gave her a second chance at life so she must give others a
second chance too. She paused and took her helmet up to put it under the
running water.
I
hopped towards her to see, she squeezed the spongy foam inside the helmet and
out came oodles of blood gushing, and I was waiting for her to react like how
anyone with PTSD would. But she just calmly said “look, so much blood came… and
that's not even all of it” and continued to smile and wash her helmet which was
now clean and put out to dry in the April sunlight.
Date
of the accident: 19th March, 2006.
References
1 Bob
Ross
2Oxford
Dictionary
3Barack
Obama
4Butterfly
Effect
5 One
Art by Elizabeth Bishop
6 LeChatelier’s
Principle
