Rose Mary

Have you ever thought of what keeps mankind going, what makes people want to go on living when everything in the world seems to be unpleasant, evil, dangerous? When life itself becomes a burden? Myths have a way of explaining the well-springs of life when pure rationality fails. Remember the story of Pandora and the box that she was entrusted with. She was warned never to open it. Of course, human nature being what it is, what she does the moment she is alone is to open it and she lets out all the evil possible into the world. Pain and anger and jealousy and all the bad things of life. She shuts the box in haste but hears a feeble voice asking to be let out. Though afraid, the voice is such a sweet and gentle one, she lets out the one creature that is left behind. And that is hope. When all else fails, when everything around collapses in violence and hatred, when even God seems a distant and heedless figure, hope will find a way to console and make life worth living again.

It always surprises one to read of people who live in extreme deprivation, people who have lived in cages where they cannot even stretch, in pain, for decades, still retaining the will to live, still struggling to maintain life as well as they can, still hoping for deliverance some time in the future, when every present minute is torture. And surprisingly few spend their lives after that with bitterness or thoughts of revenge. At least, the people one reads of.

Haven’t you heard it in conversation around you, among the ordinary people in one’s life? You know they speak of all the ills that are plaguing our lives ranging from governments all over the world, that women live under constant threat of attack, that children are dying all over the world because of war, because of hunger, because of disease, to the fact that the power fails unexpectedly when one most needs it. And then mostly, there is that ‘But…’. And one or two things that have happened in the recent past are quoted to say that there are things that are going right according to the speaker. It might be the election of a no-hope candidate who stood for something important to the speaker, it might be the fact that some offender has got his/ her come uppance. But… there is always something that alleviates this picture of darkness and evil. This is what the poet Sugathakumari spoke of when she wrote, ‘Oru tharakaye kanumbolathu/ ravu marakkum, puthumazha kanke/ varalcha marakkum, palchiri kandathu/ mrithiye marannu sukhichepokum, pavam manava hridayam…’ (On seeing a star/ It forgets the night, on seeing the new rain/ It forgets the drought, on seeing a baby’s milky smile/ It forgets death and enjoys life/ The poor human heart…).

This sense that things will improve, that the cruelties will end, that justice will prevail, that ‘the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up’ keeps human beings sane and hopeful. I don’t know about you, but I read with eagerness the stories of hope that come out in the newspapers, the stories of people caring for others, of people trying to make other lives more bearable, trying to educate children. There was a time when people hoped that politics, the right government would turn the world into a better place, that men would leave in peace and contentment. Of course, that belonged to another century, another age. Governments, rulers, can fail, turn autocratic, selfish, egoistic and the ruled suffer in consequence. In the present age, we draw hope from actions of individual goodness that are making the world a better place in small ways. And that is probably more sustainable. Because it comes from the innate goodness of some individual that is not likely to fail.

So, perhaps, the best new year wish this year would be that we do see that one star that can make us forget the night, that the few drops of water makes us forget the heat and dust, that the dreaming smile of a little child can make us forget the terror of death. That we have hope.