Rating: 5/5
Life is a peddle one keeps rolling; the swift, subtle patches of feet tiringly lofting up and down till the plasticity of life gives a call to end the charade.
It’s an indefinite mortal waiting to be subsumed by the immortality of death. To set the tone right, it could be an agglomeration of experiences (good or bad), justice denied and often bribed—if law has not been on your side, an inept perfidy of the goons; could be your dear relatives or the ubiquitous neighbors, a flicker of invasive thoughts of declining the ‘nomadic alcohol’ if you are the only teetotaler among the tiddly and tipple or a banter among friends that ‘sex is the last thing on my mind’ even if it is not.
Isn’t these small things make up life or spending sleepless nights in contemplating what was lost or snatched away—losing your mind on the sand slipping out of your hand will only harden the grip of the empty freckles to not let hold the other textural hues of life.
Reflections of life are morsels of food; a tinge of sweet or sour defines of what goes inside the body would be either a devastating or an invigorating experience!
Death is always cumbersome! It’s a flight nobody wants to catch.
We take immense pride in our choices, opinions and introspections but what positions itself as our night guard is the irrefutable loneliness—the waves on a full moon night forge ahead not knowing if they will recede back or purge ahead upon the walled irony of life. Our loneliness is also a shadow of the tumultuous waves that may consume us or throw us at the edge.
If this loneliness is concomitant in our journey of life, why talk of presumptions then?
Accept and fill it with what you like the most; reading—to have a mind of your own, gardening—to be close to nature, painting—to picture the other side of the mirror or anything that keeps your mind and body occupied.
If old age seems debilitating and a nuisance, which it is, then memories are a constant companion of reflections and assertions to validate your innocuous presence, though you still maybe a sore in the eye for people, especially your loved ones.
All this comes straight from ‘Khushwant Singh’—the most blatant truths of life, a grave reminder of our falsely orchestrated foibles, making him ‘Not a Nice Man to Know.’
TAKE AWAY
The book has some beautiful and thought-provoking couplets of poetry written by Ghalib, Iqbal and other renowned English poets—worth a read and worth contemplation—let’s not leave life as a banished memory of unanalyzed scriptures as every word is a forsaken reality to give me the garb I adorn.
Khushwant Singh was known to be opinionated; blatant and cohesive, if need be. His writing reflects a vulnerability that we try to detract fromto appease our masculinity or femininity or to carry it as a trademark of intolerance. No matter how we look at this, certain realities of life are like a wild storm in a teapot unable to be restored. But, definitely a pause to reflect on its occurrence can be a life-saver.
Multiple pieces of writing—humorous, infectious and ineluctable…