No, this is not because I need help. This is because I have, finally, grasped a teensy bit of the meaning of this wonderful gesture.
It’s amazing to see how you can learn the biggest of things from the smallest of experiences in life, when you never even thought you had the opportunity to learn something. This is dedicated to a friend, who gave me this opportunity to learn what help means. Maybe I am making a mountain of a mole hill, because I have been a child kept in the “high-security” of my family, still… I am thankful to her.
It’s 9 in the morning; I wake up, angry to see the time and cursing myself for bunking so many classes in life, brush and start sipping tea when I see my friend X, with her notes and books. She sits beside me and I answer some of the questions she is asking herself to revise what she has mugged (me: puff up with pride). Then comes the googly – What! We have this chapter too! (I discover I need to mug one more chapter) Please let me have a look at your notes, please please… (I am totally devastated, as if) I follow her to her room and sit beside her while she tells me what exactly to read, and provides me with her “underlined” stuff and imp notes to read from. I am happy (wah!) and start mugging asap… At about 11, “Hey X… I just got up… Was ***** yesterday. Please, please explain this chapter to me, I can’t really…” Before I can figure out which chapter is being talked about, my friend X is in her room, patiently explaining the intricacies of what so-n-so person has to say about so-n-so things. In 30 mins., she arrives – “Ah, I need to finish off fast, thank god, she understood so fast, so well.” – Not a complain, not a curse, no expression of sadness, anger or helpess-ness… In fact, appreciation for having grasped so well and so fast!! She completed her chapters (asking me from time to time whether I needed more stuff to read from) and we went for lunch together.
This friend, with whom I have never spent so much time before, seemed to have made my day. Isn’t this what true help is? Isn’t this what you want when you have messed up half a dozen things in life and yet have to complete this so important task? My friend’s caring glance seemed to me, like my Mom’s – always soothing… Her help to my other friend, leaving out her own time, was exemplary. Her sitting next to me brought up all the experiences of my life where I have been neglected help, a loving hand, a caring word for the simple reason that I always topped the exams, made it to the school sports teams, won the music competitions… My friend had nothing against all this… She didn’t care if my CPI was so good, she didn’t care if I was bunking classes and working for something else, she didn’t care whether I would be able to help her later on (being in different departments, we would probably never share any other course). All she cared was that my plea was answered. That she had done her best to help me.
I salute her. For helping me of course, but more so, for helping me learn how to help.
Monday, September 28, 2009
About the sand and the shells
Being the daughter of a navy person, I have this fascination for the sea, the ships, the shore, the sand and of course, the shells on the beach. As a child, I have seen these little and huge marvels of nature, heard them whisper words of wisdom, experienced their anger and felt their love – beneath my feet, on my face and in my hands. And now, after years of pondering over little and huge issues in life do I seem to understand a part of what they were saying…
This is about the shells and the sand and the two contrasting qualities they have taught me. Courtesy DCH and a photo of my Aunt’s I loved, the sand has always been symbolic of the fact – The tighter you try to grip it, the more you lose… Is it really true? Then what about those great thinkers and inspiring men shouting -Never let go of what you want, Your dream cannot come true unless you persevere… Or is it a half-truth? Does destiny really have something in store for all of us, to be discovered only at the right time, right place? And how do we know when the right time and what the right place is? When exactly do we tighten our grip or loosen it?
All these questions remind me of the shells – my once (sigh) best friend and I used to collect. Though I have had the privilege of collecting shells from many different sands, thanks to Dad, it was amazing collecting shells with her right in the midst of a construction site near my place. Old, new, double, single, designed, broken… we had enough classification to take us an entire night long to divide them into, and how fun it was! I always used to wonder why all of them are different – mainly why only some of them have pearls and why none of these construction site ones seem to have one. My Mom told me, not all shells can have pearls – they lack the necessary stuff and mechanism (whatever it was, I didn’t understand then). One day I learnt in school that there is a complex process of pearl formation, and thought maybe, maybe these shells just don’t give the process enough time to get the pearl done. I asked my Mom and she said it might be the case too.
Till I could figure out what the actual reason was, my once best friend and I had parted ways. Without a word, without a tear, without a note… Two souls who once shared a notebook, a frock, happiness and tears and the deepest of expressions parted without a single goodbye. Some say it was because one of us had the pearl, the other didn’t. Some say it was just destiny. And I am remembered of the shells – is it something really intrinsic? DO we really have something pre-written on our foreheads saying whether or not we are capable of doing, achieving, enjoying something? Or is it like the shells that do not give enough time for the pearl to form?
I haven’t the answer yet. Maybe I am not capable of finding it out, or maybe I haven’t given it enough time. In case you know please drop me a line… I still feel the void… Created in std 6th, after my friend said goodbye, without saying why…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)