Skip to main content

Cracks in the forts

Orchha 2015


I live alone with my wife. This solitude is my choice because other people make me feel intimidated. There are rare exceptions, of course. This is about those exceptions. They are not many. Just one here and another there. That’s all.

Most people I come across look like impenetrable fortresses. They are solid people. They know how to handle situations, what to say and what not to, when to smile, and so on. I am infinitely clumsy in comparison. I feel awkward and out of place wherever there are people. Except a few people.

Those few exceptions are people with cracks in their fortresses. They look happy by and large but there is an undercurrent of sadness somewhere in the depth of their being which they don’t let others see. They don’t laugh boisterously. But they don’t weep either. They smile a lot. And you can see a shade of sorrow running along the contours of their smiles.

They are not the wind that bends the reeds; they are the breeze that caresses the blooms.
They are not the waves that rage in rising tides; they are the ripples that murmur in tender lakes.
They are ready to accompany you in the dark tunnel you are passing through.
They are not scared of the dark, your dark side. They are conscious of the darkness within them.
The gaping holes in your heart don’t terrify them; they let you see the cracks in their forts.


For copies, click here

xZx

Comments

  1. DashyJune 11, 2020 at 5:00 PM

    Perfection is intimidating and imperfection is comforting. I agree to that. Beautiful lines. ❤️

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pranju chakrapaniJune 12, 2020 at 11:01 PM

    This is exactly the kind of post that makes me a reader of your blog. Honest.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Renu VyasJune 13, 2020 at 7:01 AM

    Sometimes, you write what I feel :) I can totally relate to this post being a loner..a kind of social misfit. There are a handful of people that I can really talk to and I'm happy with the way that I am..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
20 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
12 comments
Read more

Thomas the Saint

AI-generated image His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge of a group of boys like me. Thomas had little to do with me directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally. You won’t be able to meet him anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continu
16 comments
Read more

William and the autumn of life

William and I were together only for one year, but our friendship has grown stronger year after year. The duration of that friendship is going to hit half a century. In the meanwhile both he and I changed many places. William was in Kerala when I was in Shillong. He was in Ireland when I was in Delhi. Now I am in Kerala where William is planning to migrate back. We were both novices of a religious congregation for one year at Kotagiri in Tamil Nadu. He was older than me by a few years and far more mature too. But we shared a cordial rapport which kept us in touch though we went in unexpected directions later. William’s conversations had the same pattern back then and now too. I’d call it Socratic. He questions a lot of things that you say with the intention of getting to the depth of the matter. The last conversation I had with him was when I decided to stop teaching. I mention this as an example of my conversations with William. “You are a good teacher. Why do you want to stop
15 comments
Read more