Let Bygones be Bygones

What would happen to us if we failed in our attempt to recall?  This hit me when i had a hard time recognising a familiar face as i watched that film Precious.  Actually there were two but when i failed in my first i didn't try too hard as the movie itself was making me too grave , too sad to think about anything else other than the child abuse and worse the incest that it talked of. Oh God ! i kept muttering  at each scene and could only control all the sad sighs when the movie ended with a hopeful note.

But then i kept thinking about this strange phenomenon that happens on a daily basis.  How come we remember some and forget most. The painful moments stay with us forever while very few of the blissful ones remain.  Ask anyone of the pleasurable moments and there will be very few to recollect whereas given a free hand one would start ranting off the unpleasant ones,  one by one.

In a way the past plays an important role in making us the way we are today. Some use the past as something they will never have in their life again and others let it rule them.  i get reminded of that line from' Gone With the Wind' where Scarlett O'Hara , the daughter of a rich Irish immigrant plantation owner proclaims  "I shall never be hungry again". She was thrown out of her plush royal life into that of penury and hunger and her proclamation after her suffering was not an ordinary one. Her life later as the novel progressed was a testimony to the fact that people often remember the sad past and it kind of is instrumental in the transformation... good or bad.

It is said that all psychopaths , criminals of all kinds including terrorists have had a very sad past.  If only people could use all that anger and all that sadness to be a hopeful and positive person like Precious the world would be so much more livable and so much a safe place to be.  Inflicted with the HIV Aids virus because of that continuous abuse by none other than her father and two kids later at a very tender age of 16, Precious was an embodiment of everything which i would love to call an INSPIRING SURVIVOR.

So there's Scarlet O'Hara who was extremely beautiful with a 20-22 inch waist who had her past and did everything she could to never be hungry again but finally lost out on one true love and then there was a most unattractive overweight and abused girl from Harlem who suffered all and finally emerged out of her suffering with a strong resolve and love.  Love for herself and her two kids one of which was affected with Down's Syndrome.

Precious with John McFadden (Lenny Kravitz) the kind hospital nurse

Miss Weiss (Mariah Carey) the social worker with Precious


And later during the day as i went on with my affairs i remembered the two familiar faces i had seen in the movie and those two were of Mariah Carey as Miss Weiss, the social worker and Lenny Kravitz as Mr John McFadden, the kind male hospital nurse. Both of them singers par excellence in real life. But the real angel in Precious's life came in the form of an alternative school teacher Miss Blu Rain played by another brilliant actor Paula Patton.

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) seen here with her other alternative school mates with whom she bonded well.Below right is the saviour angel in Precious's life-Miss Blu Rain (Paula Patton).

We come across many such events in our daily life and often we question" Oh God Why Me?" We forget that life is like that.  Somethings sad and somethings happy and it is up to us to use these to carve out a better life for ourselves. What can come out of perpetuating anger and vengeance nothing but destruction. First others and later of our own. Surely that is not what we really want. Further another point worth remembering from the story is that when one door closes another window opens if only we care... to pay attention to those angels whom we fail to recognise and acknowledge. There is a hymn that is going on inside me now.One that we used to sing in school when we had our morning assembly and it goes like this   "It takes courage to answer a call
                It takes courage to give your all
                It takes courage to risk your name
                It takes courage to be true
It takes courage to dare , what no other will share
To be standing alone , one whom no one will own
To be ready to stake , for another man's sake
It takes courage to be true
               It takes courage to say , what no other will pay
              To give each man his share , though there will be less to spare
             To be seeking no more than the neighbour next door
             It takes courage to be true
Give me courage to answer that call
Give me courage to give your all
Give me courage to risk my name
Give me courage to be true"

Feel grateful and thankful to all those who have more to add in my life in terms of hurt and sadness because that will be my lesson in life never to be that person...ever...and can't quit this page without the tagline  "Life is short. Life is painful. Life is rich. Life is ...Precious ".



                
photos of the film courtesy: http://www.fadango.com/precious:basedonthenovelpushbysapphire_122469/moviephotosstills.

Love is...

She would want to believe what it says in the Holy Scriptures about attaining the human form,That after so many cycles of birth and rebirth one finally comes into the earth as what the biologists call Homo sapiens. Given the highest form of all creation having a brain which should be able to guide him to live his life righteously so that when this cycle is over he is finally merged with the ONE.

As she is going on with her chores of keeping the house euroclean her husband chuckles and says-"You must've been a safaiwala (a professional cleaner who brooms,dusts and mops)  in your previous birth. Hence your obsession with cleanliness."
Normally she would've grumbled and given back but not today.She is trying hard to take it in her stride sportingly and not to react to snide comments which she feels is unfair. She is trying hard to tame her anger which gets the better of her. Into one of  peaceful self and mulling over what she had read in the Holy Book she smiles faintly and looks at her tormentor and says-" Safaiwala ? nneVer ! i know i was the Jacaranda tree."
"What brings you to that conclusion dear?" asks her husband his demeanour now emanating something of surprise and bit of affectionate amusement."
She stops comes nearer to her husband who is hastily tying his shoelaces now and she  removes his spectacles from his face to give it that squeaky shine and says "i shall tell u later in the evening if only you promise not to laugh it off and just listen".

"Oks dear , evening then when I return and i shall hear your story","and yes i will listen without dismissing" says her husband allowing her to put back his glasses on him. Giving a hurried peck which in it's manner said take care, he then says bye to her and pushes off to his daily grind. She too gets busy after closing the door behind anticipating little of what afternoon has in store for her.

During the day when she is all clean and done and as she sits with her lappie checking out her mail she finds this beautiful e card from her husband which conveys all . It is no ordinary e card sent with the click of a button rather the one which entailed snatching time out  from the hopelessly manic Monday and searching the world wide web to find the most apt the most suitable. Apart from the above picture of a resplendent purple among the greens was something more refreshing. Something that reached out to her and refreshed her and as if in a reverie she was transported as she recited aloud the poem by an unknown  (unknown definitely to both of them till now)  poet called Ann Beard.
                                                               A Jacaranda Tree
                                     A Jacaranda tree stands tall, and sways as if to say,
                                     Look! at this magnificence, i'm bearing blue today
                                     forgive the way I shout out aloud, my lack of modesty
                                     but nowhere in this troubled world is finery like me.
                              
                                     Light rays slide between each leaf, to settle on the tips
                                     to lightly kiss your face with a hundred million tiny lips
                                     you only have to lift your eyes to greet the filtered sun
                                     a sight i guarantee will warm the heart of everyone.

                                     Though very tall, my leaf is small, it's form is one of fern,
                                     large panicles of bluebells swell to trumpet unconcern.
                                     A bee collecting nectar from an ample deep white throat,
                                     takes flight to join it's family, and of it's feast to gloat.

                                     Look up to see each fern like leaf, floating up on the high,
                                     like footprints of a centipede that stroll across the sky
                                     See how far my branches reach, admire their greenery,
                                     I am beautiful and strong, I am the Jacaranda tree.

 Oh! darling! darling! thank you for the lovely poem she says to the sender, almost choked with emotion . An eye catching glow of happiness radiated from her as if she was in love all over again. She decided what she was going to serve him for snacks with tea and more importantly to do a bit of makeover to surprise him pleasantly. Probably wear that new dress, put on some eye make up and a bit of gloss on her lips and then between his admiration and tea with fresh snacks tell him about the Jacaranda hypothesis. She must not let him guess that she has received the love and the apology already and fake ignorance of the mail.This time she will have her dig. She is not at all bothered that at best she might be dismissed as a beraham (insensitive to feelings) and there is a possibility of her makeover going unnoticed which she seriously doubts as he will notice when she opens the door to usher him in. He might listen to her and call her pagal ( insane) but that too will be said affectionately with a hug she is sure of that. She had reasons to feel thus as when she had mentioned it to her best friend she had got a hysterical laugh, an affectionate pagal and a suggestion to sign up for that TV sitcom Raaj Pichale Janam Ka (suspense of the previous birth ). She stars humming and making plans for the evening and this time she hums the easy one so that she prevents herself from going off tune.
 ''Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket and save it for a rainy day....

...  Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket never let it fade away"...She hums and starts imagining a beautiful green where she could take him and show him enough and tell him all so that he is able to understand why she feels she was a Jacaranda tree. Now that he has shown through his gesture that he was wrong in calling her a pichale janam ki safaiwala and that he loves her and was just having a dig at her.