Converfession: Heart to Heart

In Ashes to Ashes Jay wrote:

Some events are beyond comparison, without measure, some events cannot be understood by others, no matter how they try.
Love
Death
Happiness
Terror?

I agree that from an individual perspective we do have our personal interpretation. But wordsmiths paint pictures with words. They are blessed with the tools - insights and communication skills that enable them to decipher for themselves and their readers - convey the sentiment, the sensation, the feelings of happiness, despair and awe. Using their skills they grab the attention of the willing reader on this roller-coaster journey - from the the zenith of emotions to the nadir of despair and other stops on the way.

Hence when you argue so passionately and eloquently from your vantage point, please allow me to take a look from a different perch.

Love

What is so elusive and furtive about an individual's love that others cannot understand? Along with death, love is one of the most discussed, analyzed and written about emotions: metaphors and examples abound. And past masters have used their communication skills to share with us this intense emotion in tales of Laila-MajnooN, Shirin-Farhad, and Romeo-Juliette. Don't think I can accuse those writers of 'imperfect metaphors, images or descriptions.' What is so unique about the fast heartbeats when lovers exchange glances that cannot be conveyed to others?

The masters have shown love in the escaping sigh: in the coquettish smile of the maiden: in the increasing dhuk dhuk of the heart: in the grim expectations of descending doom: in the 'U' turns in life: in the unexpected emergence of paths: in the ever so slight brushing of lover's fingers: in the furtive first kiss; in the last leave-taking kiss on the forehead, in the fluttering of birds. What gamut, what threshold, what sublimity, what facet of love has been left unexplored and hidden from these wordsmiths?

Pain, Sadness, Happiness

Yes I cannot feel the exact invisible pain that unleashes the river of tears in your eyes. But I can relate to that pain because in the past many have written excellent passages and essays depicting the sense of injustice, pain, neglect, hurt or loss of those who undergo similar experiences. Did you not share Rohan's pain?

To borrow from Jao Beta:

jao

jana hay tou jao
yaadouN maiN qaid
khaabouN ki maanind
waq't ki lehrouN per
bikhar-jao
mooskurah-hatouN kay paimaanouN ka
mauj-e-beh'r-e shauq ka
dil maiN mehfooz lamhouN ka
sheeraza bikhair dou
jana hay tou jao
..........................chalay jao.

kitab-e-dil kay safha-e-aakhir pay
kiya raq'm hay, maa'loom hay humaiN
kuh'r-e-oodaasi maiN leh'r-e-gham
phir ik baar hum aaghosh hogi
chund sa'atouN kay liyay
ya a'bud kay liyay
shayad....

go

leave, if you must
like fond dreams
imprisoned in memory cells
vanish with the waves,
dissolve
---the promises of Smiles
ignore
---the waves from the Ocean of Love
melt away
---those moments ensconced in the heart
go, if you must
................leave.

on the last page of Book of Heart
what is writ large we know,
pensive mist will embrace
the waves of sadness, yet again
for moments few
or forever
perhaps...

The shade of red is subjective I admit, but the murmur of thatheartbeat is a universally shared and narrated experience.

Death, Terror, Mayhem

Yes, we may not know the true depth of that father's anguish seeing the bloodied shoes of his son on the idiot box the next day. Or the parents on either side of the divide in Sarajevo who zoom in on the bodies of their children, in a final embrace, lying in the middle of the square separating the warring factions. Or the frozen look in the mother's eyes, in the crowded bazaar, who identifies the little hand clutching a doll as her daughter's.

Their pains, their sighs, platitudes, vows, their separation anxiety, their faith in meeting again, their last embrace - all have been written about and felt by the readers and viewers. So much has been written about the loss of near ones, that we can come very close to sharing those feelings universally.

Despair, Intensity, Hopelessness

Despair (sound of hope trickling away), emotive intensity (volume of tears), hopelessness (sensation of life collapsing) are rhetorical musings that have been eloquently shared for posterity in the past also.

The father you mentioned feels a vacuum. All of us have felt similar voids at some point. Writers have expressed it. They can relate to him and in turn so can we.

They come darn near close to experiencing your love, death, happiness, terror - about the only thing thing that eludes those wordsmiths is the shape of hope in the flutters of your heart beat.

Let me borrow from Beta Chala Gaya

aitraaf

humaiN rona hee tou
nahiN aata hay
qatra, aaNsoo ka ban'na
kis kad'r mushkil hay
ma'aloom na tha
qatra, gohar-e-miz'gaaN ka
lakh motiyouN say keemti
ban'na nahiN aata.

bun gaya woh qatra gar maiN
to wa'ada raha tap'kooN ga
---maaN ki palkouN say
---khaamoshi say dhalouN ga
teri bund aankhouN kay kinarouN say
---dostouN, azeezouN ki chasm-e-pur num
bun kar chamkouN ga
---ik bay awaaz aah kay saath
her chahti aank ko ashk-bar kardouN ga
yeh wa'ada raha...

confession

wish i knew
how to cry.
do not know
how difficult it is
to create a droplet of tear.
droplet --- diamond delivered by eyelids
rare, precious, and so impossible
to create for me.
if i ever succeed
promise you, i will
---stream down mother's face
---roll down silently out of the corners
of your shut eyes
---will glisten on the moistened eyes
of friends, relatives
---with inaudible sighs
will caress all caring eyes
promise you, i will...

Heart to heart, I would say I understand your anguish. I understand the pain of losing loved ones in despicable acts of violence that are hard to fathom. And, with you and millions of others I do not understand the mind-set that inflicts such destruction. The misuse of ideology, religion, hurt, deprivation and disenfranchisement baffles - singly and collectively. My mind fails to relate to how a young kid of yesteryears can turn into a brainwashed adult of today, willing to part with that most unique of gifts - life. Even though a loss of any life is a loss of life, perhaps, I might reconcile it somehow if these brainwashed take only their own life. But when they cause innocent deaths it is extremely perplexing.

Am glad you gave me this opportunity to share my thoughts with you.