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| The village where I live now |
I have passed
through hells. Some of them were creations of my own immaturity and other personal
drawbacks and quite many were generously awarded by people who decided that I
deserved them. Religious people are particularly adept at creating hells for
others who they regard as sinners.
There were
times when I thought that life was an endless pain. There were moments when I
longed to put an end to it. I wished to hide myself in some fathomless cave on
a wild mountain. A few individuals, hardly one or two, were kind enough to
counsel me in those times: “This too will pass.”
I was not at
all certain that it would pass. On the contrary, I accepted my definition of
life as an endless pain with certain Buddhist resignation and acquired
stoicism. When I left my lecturer’s job
in Shillong at the age of 41, in utter despair and apparent disrepair, I had no
hope of a bright future ahead. It was a risk that I decided to take before
putting an end to everything altogether. The risk turned out to be worth it.
Delhi offered
me just the kind of life I had dreamt of: a residential school with sylvan
surroundings and cosy staff quarters. That is the institution where I worked
for the longest period: 14 years. I would have retired from there had the
school not been shut down by a religious cult which emerged like a wolf in
sheep’s clothing.
I can
understand the evil motives of cults and organisations, however noble they may
look like from the outside. But what really shocked me was the duplicity of
some of those religious people who pretended to be the noblest of souls while
they carried a legion of demons within. I tried to convince myself that “this
too would pass.” But I was wrong. I passed instead. I moved out of the
institution just like all the others who worked or studied there.
Some things
pass and some don’t. Some pain is inevitable in life. Some lessons are learnt
only through immense pains. In the end, those lessons are what really matter.
Nice narration of personal experience. It is unfortunate that you had to quit a place you loved to be part of and retire peacefully. I guess like a flowing river, you have also moved on, seen some bad and some good things on your journey.
ReplyDeleteYes, i have acquired much grace along the way though mt writing may not always reflect that.
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