UNLEASHING YOURSELF
I was reminded of William Henry Davies’s poem ‘
Leisure’,
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
---------------------------
----------------------------
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Sometime in February
2012 when I was in the United States
my daughter took me to a concert at the Fox Theatre in Saint Louis. She had planned it well in advance
for she knew I would enjoy it. It was a performance by a musical group called
the ‘Rain’ and it was a ‘Tribute to the Beatles’. The group was very good as
they recreated the aura of The Beatles not only by the sheer excellence of
their musical performance but also through their appearance and showmanship, in
fact while playing numbers from ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’
they wore the dresses as appearing on the album cover. Throughout the show my
wife was watching me and my daughter looking at me expectantly that at any
moment I may get up from my seat and start dancing with the crowd. As an elder
I was supposed to maintain a certain decorum. But funnily a large portion of
the crowd there belonged to my generation, we had grown up with the Beatles
music and I could remember nearly all the songs and the lyrics. There were a
lot of young people also and as the concert progressed many in the crowd could
not restrain themselves and were up from their seats waving to the beat and
that included me. I enjoyed myself, at that moment there was no inhibition and
it was sheer joy. My daughter was happy and my wife was relieved that I did not
go on to the dance floor.
We have all watched a
child when it laughs. There is nothing beyond that laughter, there is no
analysis, no inhibition. The child laughs because it felt like doing so and it
is sheer joy for all of us when we watch the child do so, so full of innocence,
so truthful. I got wet in the rain the other day while I was walking along the
beach and for a moment there was exhilaration as I went back to that day when I
was a child of five dancing in the rain and believe me I had no clothes on at
that time. Of course I cannot do that now, that is dance with my clothes off, I
would be taken to the nearest mental asylum. But the sheer joy was there for the
moment. Now I may be worried that I may catch a cold and be lain down with
fever. When the rain now comes we run for cover.
Have you ever gone to
a children’s painting competition? It is an experience as you watch them
painting totally absorbed. I had the occasion to be a judge at one of these
competitions when I was in Ahmedabad and as I was walking among the
participants observing them, one particular child caught my attention and I
stood watching him while he drew a scene obviously from the Mahabharata for the
serial was being aired on the television during those days. There were two
chariots and he showed two persons fighting with the arrows flying across the
page. He was so absorbed in the painting that I am sure he transformed himself
into one of the warriors there and it must have been Arjuna, for Krishna was also depicted in the painting. He was not
bothered whether anyone was watching him or of the people around him. It was
not technique or an analysis that was involved here, it was just purity of
thought. Of course as we grow, we perfect the techniques and come out with more
realistic paintings closer to the original, but in the process of course the
innocence is lost.
We all have a child within
us, but we have locked it up. We have forgotten that pure childish joy,
innocent, spontaneous. We can no longer laugh our guts out, we always feel
watched and our actions are constrained by our surroundings. We have forgotten
that tender teenage sensation of first love, we have forgotten to fall in love.
We conclude that these are sensations that can no longer come to us as we have
grown beyond all this, we have grown old. I can still fall in love, in fact I
do that everyday. Sitting here as I write all this down, I also walk across the
mountains feeling the cool breeze and breathing in that mystic silence. I sit
by the brook as it begins its journey downwards and listen to its gentle song
as it caresses the pebbles and flows over them. I stoop down and put my hands
on its surface and feel the beat of its heart and as the clouds slowly drift in
enveloping everything in its fold I lose myself to that everlasting stillness.
I know you will call me a dreamer, but this is what makes me want to write, to
paint, to sing and even dance.
Unleash yourself, for
the joy of living is in living without rationalising each and every action of
yours, bring back that child in you which you have kept hidden for such a long
time. Express your affections openly, for this is infectious and tends to
spread around you. Happiness can be shared but not so hate. Hate can only
bounce back and hit you. Be a child, nobody hates a child. It required a
Munnabhai to tell us that there is nothing wrong in hugging a person to tell that
I am there for you, it is more effective than just reassuring him or her by
saying “don’t worry I am there for you”. Mere words come from the mouth but the
feelings are from the heart and by hugging I guess you have a direct access to it.
It is better to be
crazy and thought to be so then to be dull and inconsequential.
