Poetry
Shahinur Islam
To read more in English, please visit: www.musitrature.com
Waiting
As the earth moves round the sun all day long
and at last goes for an assignation
holding the outstretched hand of the twilight,
and finds out that her heart is still beating;
as she is impatient over again
in the night to meet the dawn stealthily
before all the lives of the world wake up,
so we are passionate and impatient
all of the days and nights of our whole life
only to embrace the darkness in light
and the light in darkness in the desire
like gravity force of the universe.
If that desire is abruptly eclipsed,
all the hopes are covered with deep dark clouds,
we acquiesce in pangs of that eclipse
tucking our soul into the sludge of life
with patience of the busy pond-heron.
We’ll meet again at the end of darkness
that splits open out of the breast of dawn.
Then we’ll only talk in a long silence
when the Jamuna of our halting words
that are suspended so far in our life,
merely merges into the estuary;
and then all the currents of our feelings
will do build up a foam-covered ocean
where we can spend at least some of our time
swimming and diving, jumping and plunging
in watery happiness— we’ll divest
of airy, acrid touch and land-grown pain.
Like the earth, we still move about and wait.
Opium Addict
Our ancestors who took opium
given by others, and gave up
their own narcotics for the sake
of existence or mirage-greed
that made them trade over again,
look back only and feel the light
of moving as will o’ the wisp;
and that drunkenness still makes you
move against from top to bottom
and makes itself a scale for you
to gauge all men in your values
that are born-blind, primal and false.
You still look for medication
for all troubles in that opium,
and we living in the margin
are thrown away then to the edge—
farthest— sometimes to the dustbin.
That time is perhaps yet to come
for people living on the edge
when all the power of the centre
budges to the fists of their hands,
when they can live in their own time.
So the plowing of the good time
this time is made in the hard times
and the fertile land is just proved
to be infertile, sterile one.
Yet you don’t want to accept it—
the seeds with insects never yield
the bumper crops; but in the soil
of gold-yielding alluvial plains
you’re still sowing the opium seeds.
The Whirlwind
In the whirlwind does fly the heated sand
of life when the wind lets out a long sigh;
but its desire was to fly as a bird
or as a butterfly from tree to tree,
from flower to flower. But alas! When it flies off,
it stumbles again on the heated sand—
on the sand emerged from spending its life
and the defiant desire impedes only
the tempo and pace of the rest of life.
Thus some fate or other just comes away
and fulfills the desire of flying off.
In the heated puzzle of the bellows
even an iron-life just begins to melt
like the ice at the hands of the blacksmith;
life has known it spending a whole life
melting, rotting and being penniless
in the very bazaar of life and world.
And an investment can only be made
with such a life in being of others
whose bodies consume the higher interest
at the compound rate from bones and marrows
of that life and accumulate fat-rolls.
The Myth of Hermaphrodite
You abuse me and taunt me
and give a wry smile
calling me ‘eunuch’.
For you don’t know
who I am and why I am so.
Listen then! ‘When I was alone
on earth thousands of years ago
I did not like it.
But I had no partner to love
and procreate like yours;
but I had both organs as the self-contained
that I rubbed one winter night
like an earth-worm to feel warm.
Later someday when the earth completed
its rotation once,
I felt my belly growing up
and one day felt labor,
and with the big bang
my little twins came out on earth.
It went on and on
for some generations.
Again by chance
kids as you deformed are
began to be born;
later this stream went on
which you boast of now.
So you say who is to be taunted and laughed at.
Whatever I have in use or not
Is the vestige of what I had.’
Death has No Caste
Death has no caste; life has many—
lofty and low levels, colours,
various tastes, various smells, alleys,
nooks and corners— and the roads rough.
He who walks along the darkness
where lies his crime? All the desires
of the deprived run out serving.
The moon enriched with the riches
of others are fully joyous—
the amazed stars only whisper.
The trees that bear flowers are not
theirs if they are not mature.
So death has no caste— whether it’s
premature or immature death,
whether mature or watery—
everywhere is denial, assault—
everything is forms, vogues of life.
Death is a one-coloured, lonely,
friendless tool, a host in oneself.
All the colours, all the flavours,
all grand arrangements of the life
are blasé to it in a flash;
yet festive mood of work of life
does never come to a finish.
Here it wins, here lies its singing;
So death seems to be gray and pale
to the all-around forms of life.
Checkmate
When the illusive gap is plugged up between life and death,
in the sudden drop of the scenes— all powerful preparedness
disappears forever— as if throwing the cold water
in the blazing bonfire.
This truth of the moment still remains so much true as if
all the grand arrangements of life were overwhelmed to it
in a second.
Yet bonfire burns— it longs for burning everlastingly
by making all the timber-kindling-straw-diesel its fuel,
even by sacrificing itself in the other fire
or else by swallowing up the other fire fearfully.
It longs to burn many more days than the star in the sky
burning for million years more than other luminaries.
But alas! Behind the curtain in unpromising time
who seems to stand at ease and write graffiti on the wall
of some life or other, and as per the direction wall
which compliant slaves equip themselves to obey it always
with the cold water in their hands? Which god orders the pawns
of all lives in the chessboard of the world and still goes on
playing the game as he wishes? And he makes the ill rule
his rule for some reason or other, and rolls down laughing
for all the helpless checkmates of the world!
The Cry of Dove-hearts
Our dove-heart is extinct like dudhraj birds
where lives now a sense of hybridism.
It is, as it were, the cultivation
of eucalyptus in the pitraj land.
Humanity is today a species
that comes to be endangered like doel birds
and is found only in pages of books
and painted as a picture here and there
or a coin of Goura, Pundra period
or else that of the Ashoka regime
lost forever or lain in ceaseless sleep
in some museum— so it bears no value
of its own except historical one.
Whether it’s humanity or dove-heart,
both now seem a pillar-less asylum
of the invalid to power and money,
a pretension to the heavy monsoon
in the blistered land of the worthless mind.
Those who’re crushed in the sick race of the world
those who live in their huts in seclusion
those whose hearts are burdened with refined sense
those whose fathomless mind is a river
where endless streams of perturbed pains still flow,
stand as a shelter in their hearts alone
for them without any prop or support
like a single star gazing from afar,
like a statue without life or ideals.
One Day This Life
One day this life will merge into air silently
in the sudden solar eclipse
in the invitation of twilight
in the wave-less ocean, in the still desert.
No noise will that time sound
melodious or tedious.
No pain will burn the heart;
no love will wet the mind.
Perhaps a tear or two will shed
to ruminate the memory of that life
in a solitary corner of the earth
or the tears will dry in the eyes.
In an idle noon on the sands of the Jamuna
perhaps some memory-vorous, lone swan
will be engrossed in feasting on his memories
or hear some saddened music
in the voice of the dove, in the first pain of Papia.
The lost life still seems to be an absconding prisoner
that borrowed the invaluable life from an unknown usurper.
So before paying it back,
it is now the accused to be hanged.
The Wild Duck in Pain
The wild duck in pain flaps his wings in deep water
and the wind comes to kiss his mild body nonstop
when he bobs up with soft catkin scents on his beaks.
Yet the eyes of the hunter just aim at his breast
for which drunkenness? Deep darkness descends around,
the egrets fly away responding to their flock;
the magical dew fallen on the sands beckons
being at the distance of a life. At that time
the pain-puzzled deaf wild duck fumbles only for
the resonance of his own wings desperately.
It goes in vain— the cry of the night goes in vain
to the ears of the hunter; in the breeze of dawn
perhaps the fragrance of his life will drift no more.
And in the daylight there will not any more flash
all pain and joy of the feathers splashing water.
A memory of unknown time seems to come at last
and asks: where and when have you seen such a darkness?
All the dark nights of the earth gathered together
seem nothing to it— no darkness since earth was born.
The world’s pain seems to touch the body of last pain
in defeat and is floored at its feet pale-faced.
At the night’s first hour, the hunter pulls his trigger;
then the heat of the body of the duck just hides
wholly in the womb of the night in a moment
and all his pain falls along with his last feather.
Women
Women! You are still ornaments
decking only the rooms, door-sills
and beds, wearing blisters in hands
and dreams falling flat on your face
within the boundary of henna
before you have flown far away.
You have measured life with tiaras.
You couldn’t be so much of humans
as of women— remained women.
You’ve mixed your desires with others’,
in the confined room of the males.
Why didn’t you give up the nature
of the gold creepers in the pride
of self-reliance, identity?
You are still moving like a top
around the circle made by men
in its beckoning of pleasure.
You couldn’t be the tools in your life
to change yourselves in society;
you became the tools for others.
But you need not be any arms,
women! Just be your tools to change
yourselves, to go beyond yourselves.
One or two of you have done this,
kissed the peak of the Himalayas,
touched the summits of some others.
But this can alter nothing much.
Change yourselves this time to change all
so that in the grief of rulers
Ashoka faints at Kalinga,
so that with one blow of your breath
the venomous snakes tuck their life
into the holes and ever flee,
so that the primeval woman
can regain her vanished glory
with your efforts and your movement.
Be a pillar for your leaning,
you also have limbs like the males.
As darkness cannot bear the light,
you cannot bear self-reliance too.
Yet just draw the light in darkness—
be lighted just once, there won’t be
darkness that you’ve thought as your fate.
But you should know— like the conquered
you have no glowing history too.
So you make your history this time.
To arouse you, came Rokeya,
Sufia Kamal, that Khona,
Nawab Faizunnessa, also
Jahanara Imam this time
in nooks and corners of Bangla.
But you did not respond to them.
You are still tied to the shackles
of intoxication of yours.
You could not see any beauty
of the earth, not enquire after
any stars; so many events
are happening every moment
that do not echo in your hearts
in jingled tunes, tempos and beats.
You just made a ruined nest in pain
with a whole life squandering.
Reviving the Ruined
O Rain! You drenched much the dry land,
fields, meadows, forests, wilderness
overflowed the ponds, the rivers,
the canals, the fens, the wetlands
for thousand years— sometimes freely
sometimes on the pretext of freaks.
Drench my heart this time as you did
my forefathers to senseless joy,
gave leisure to compose sad songs
for the absence of their dear ones,
to wash away their deep sorrow
to sing in their stentorian voice
Bhatiali, Bhawaiya music
and so many great rainy songs
while riding the raft pushed in floods
or at great adda of full noon.
Drench my mind-desert just like this,
I don’t care about my body.
If you come down, I’ll get— leisure,
freedom from urban rattling tiredness,
fertile laziness. I’ll glean beauties
of life only. My heart has dried
much earlier— but lived as pieces
on a tattered sheet of the world.
Drench me in the sodden leisure.
If my body lives just like this,
my heart will be very short-lived.
And dead heart has nothing to give;
it pulls and drags the rest of life.
Those who can Give Much More
Those who can give much more on earth,
lay down aprons of joy in peace,
give an address in the pure heart
of Nidhubon to be drunk up,
reap harvests in the arid land
with the agro-facts like Khona’s,
be successful well like the sun
in the gracious triumph of last tricks of war
with wailings in the breast of millions
and with the last droplet of their own blood
in hand as a single light in darkness;
why do they sit quietly in a distance
too far beyond the scenes of the known world?
Why do they hide themselves in a dense pique?
And those who only think that pique
to be a feigning of wisdom
clothed in inability,
just don’t know how the present scenes
that rouse pain in the future womb
also play tunes on strings of time—
in the silence of noonday hour,
in the tone of jingling anklets;
burning in pain from side to side at night,
at all the work, at the hearts of the past
around the marrows with the bones crackling
they just burn and burn and make a cinder.
In Quest of Wild Happiness
At the end of the nightlong war comes a shrivelling dawn
shouldering merely a drop of happiness, her image
sitting tight in the ravaged field from far to much farther—
too far— to the hundred more fields; her whole body remains
a thirsty mouth like a dry leaf. A whole cubic heart of pain
is born just as seeds of pomegranate are stored in a whole.
The rest of the day across the grassy field when the sky
is more impudent with someone else, the bad company
of love forfeits the solitude of grass. Then no tapping
of fingers falls on her lips like the second phase of the moon;
On her mahua eyelids shower no kisses in crazy glee.
This time her eyes picture the relief hanging in the tie
of a noose after so many years; and then someone seems
to inaugurate the workshop of sadness in the town
of heart. At that time a fire-beaked bird comes with love of hell,
and without taking her on his wings nips her entire heart
and throws in the parched crematorium unseen so far
as if to burn and enrich the ash-ground for the last time.
But how many days he’s peeped into the yard of her mind!
How much he’s been besotted with the drained delight in her!
How often he has left her alone with the mere fragrance
of shefali after making them fall in the morning
in quest of wild happiness in the missing, cruel forests!
On the Edge of Thirty-Four Years
On the edge of thirty-four years
breaking the trance of the hermit,
you still came to the lap of the refused forest.
You shed suddenly on the awakened mind
left to rot like the fibre of jute giving up its body
to the lap of the silent forest on the edge of thirty-four years.
In the hope of fibre, the heart remained cut off from its breast.
For its stink so many people have often vituperated
secretly or openly.
As you came today at last, O my poesy!
Why so hurry? As long as the breath flies the dust,
stay here to trace the destination of the unseen beauty
in various ways to the earth in the eyes of the hermit.
The world needs you so much today
to light all the ravaged, ragged hearts
in bright sparks amid all grayness.
As you were not here, all the animals still lived
as beasts on the breast of earth.
If they happen to meet any man,
they don’t think they can see a man of the earth,
who is not easily available— so easily
even after ransacking anywhere in the universe.
They are blessed only with eating like animals
dipping their noses in the grassy happiness.
As you came, just stay for at least thirty-four years
on the edge of thirty-four years—
by the time you will make the earth rotate thirty-four times.
To read more, please visit: www.musitrature.com
Short Stories
The Bengal Kittens
-Shahinur Islam
“Only two more weeks left for fall,” Rini says to me, looking out through the window, her words striking a soft musical note of the upcoming fall colours on the chord of my heart.
Over late-afternoon-coffee at our dining table, we’ve been shooting the breeze. As soon as I hear her forecasting about fall, I peep out. See a pool of reclining sunshine trying to daub warmth on the ash-colour roof of the front house. See its warmth melting right away into the dark surface. Also see it giving sporadic sparkles of smiles on the right-side-maple leaves. But this fall prediction puts me down in the mouth, as summer—the absolute guarantor of outdoor joy and enjoyment—seems to be playing the departing note two weeks ahead.
Meanwhile, we overhear someone knocking at the door…knock-knock…
“Our beloved son, for sure! Doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, only hangs out all day,” I speak up to Rini, while getting out and opening the door. My eyes pop out when I see Antu holding two kittens.
They’ve adopted the golden appearance of the royal Bengal tiger, but sported large black spots instead of stripes. With their adorable and affectionate looks, they meow at me and fidget to hop on to my lap. Are they treating me as their grandpa at first glance?
Maybe. They also evoke a furtive fragrance right away at leopard’s pace from a wasteland corner of my mind, which makes me almost unbridled. Setting it aside for now, I scan Antu’s apparently pale face, and bawl out,
“Why didn’t you come for lunch? Where did you bring them from?”
“I ate with my friends. Bought the kitties to keep. Aren’t they so cute?” says he.
I feel like coughing. Spinning around, I cough twice, and walk back to the chair I was sitting on. There I think of the fragrance awaking dad’s memories. I remember his three pet dogs that once saved his life. Remember their unswerving loyalty to him. Remember the haunting story of dad and his dogs that mom often told me.
Until I was ten years old, every night I used to nestle against mom on bed. She told me dad’s story so many nights, yes, so many nights that I still feel as if I saw it happen with my own eyes. So lively and fresh! It had two main reasons—first, except for being witness, I was quite familiar with the setting, the context, the materials, the characters of the story as I’m with my own breath for my existence. Second, the way mom narrated with her distinctive style and sense of intonation.
The story ran like this:
Dad used to hunt migratory birds, so he and my two elder brothers went shooting in a small boat at the wee hours of a winter morning to the Bramhaputra River sands. Unlike now, that time the river was teeming with water; the vessels like cargos, ships, ferries, navigated effortlessly. Their boat being small and light, they were faced with a storm that flipped it midway. They struggled to float against the ruffled waves and strong current, but soon started suffering the despairing weariness. Deep darkness descended all around. All their efforts, struggles ended almost in vain. Now there was nothing to do but pray to the Saviour. Luckily, they spotted a ship flashing like a firefly. The flash gave a ray of hope to the desperately despaired souls. The sailor anchored off near them. All the while, dad and brothers were paddling with their both hands except for the eldest one who was holding the gun high with his left hand. But whenever the sailor sighted the arms, he stopped and suspected they were confirmed pirates, so rescuing them meant his own ruin. Meant digging a canal and inviting crocodiles. Meant saving his probable killers. He was poised to steer away. His decision shattered their last hope to the ground. As if a boat sank near the bank! As if the suffocated dipping in air couldn’t breathe in oxygen! They beseeched; they implored; they begged. But all their supplications just failed to convince the sailor anyway, so when he was about to steer, he happened to glimpse the bank where three dogs were barking, but not retreating anyway, their eyes fixed on these drowning men. Although he couldn’t hear their barks strangled in the noise of the ship and the storm, he could fathom their suggestive gestures. And he’d learned before that animals like dogs don’t lie. Only then the sailor changed his mind and rescued dad and brothers, at last!
It’s not uncommon in a river or sea, yet as many times as I used to hear it in mom’s characteristically attractive style of story-telling, I felt creepy, hiding my face in her breast as the victims were my own people, my then outer world.
But I was more flabbergasted at the common sense of the dogs than anxious and scared of probable loss. I wondered how they got the news beforehand. Wondered how their barking cries shot through the huge, ruffled waves, and how their doggedness made the sailor listen to them, at last.
Who else is such faithful? Who’s so loyal? Who can sense the danger of their master beforehand and keep trying to save until and unless he’s safe? They’re pets, dogs in particular. Although a kind of man might forge the same inseparable bond, it never seems unconditional. And very rare on the conditions as well. That’s why, only, only the pet dogs have since occupied the place of kin of soul in my heart.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep any pets so far because of my unsettled life-style and fretful living. And now such an illness has attacked me that I can’t even think of keeping any furry animals around whereas, unbeknown to me, my other being, Antu, has brought two kittens, though not dogs. This thing is delighting me, my heart dancing. Making my chest and rib bones shudder with joy. The children who make up for their parent’s inabilities, fulfil parent’s unfulfilled dreams, are undoubtedly a great source of delight. In fact, there’s no other such great attainment as this.
But my joy is ebbing soon like the feeble youth of summer that is withering away on the rooftop under the smiling cover of maple leaves. A new anxiety engulfs me. Engulfs Rini more than me as she knows it well, so she already left me. Left for our son’s inner room to bring home to him how his hobby would cost him his dad’s life. Would it be good eventually?
Antu’s jaw sags. How come? He wonders if she’s concocted a story. Everybody here keeps pets. What though he keeps? He decides unwaveringly to keep the kitties. Bears them under his armpits and a packet of soft food in his right fist and returns to me.
As she doesn’t pamper the thing, he sits by me. His kittens straighten their legs and purr and meow at me. Seconds later, I feel like coughing once again. Turning my face, I cough and ask him to leave them in his room. He rejoins, “Look, dad, how cute the kitties are! I’ll keep with me as long as I’m home. Man’s not safe where animals aren’t”
Antu may have thought I don’t like them, nor do I let them keep. But almost anybody, at first glance, can feel affectionate towards them. Anybody can even pant for keeping them. And honestly speaking, I just have a soft spot for pets.
Rini comes again and keeps swaying him, “Doctor’s forbidden to keep anything furry or hairy at home. It’ll make your dad’s case only worse. See last month we even took the floor carpets off!”
He sinks in the heart, takes the kittens to his room without a murmur, and confines himself all night. Both of us request him persistently to open the door, but he doesn’t even for dinner.
I awake early morning and knock at his door and try to comfort him, “Well, the kittens will be with us,” although I still don’t know how to keep them as keeping themmeans adding fuel to my illness.
Hearing me, he opens the door and wraps me straight in the arms for a while. After that, our eyes meet, and I discover his eyes tear-soaked and reddish. He lowers his gaze and says, “Dad, no more kitties with us. Please take them to the Humane Society right away.”
I know my son: first he’ll go his way, but eventually he’ll come our way. I’m sure he’s pondered over what Rini said to him yesterday, and taken a whole night to wipe his affection for the kittens. I still tell him to keep, but he still goes on refusing.
However much he refuses, he’s unable to wipe out his affection for the kittens, unable to rid himself of the feeling of belonging, as his looks and airs mirror something else. He refuses only for my sake. Now he insists me I take them to the Society. Isn’t it a simple equation that if he can bring them, he can also take them back? But I know he can’t, he can’t face it, so he’s also said that after he’s left home, I’ll leave them to Society.
I just left them without letting him know. While I was handing them over to the Society, the kittens seemed not to leave me. They were hopping on to my lap and shoulder, snuggling down and rubbing their faces against my body and mewing high-pitched. As if they were insisting, “We got our shelter, our home. We don’t wanna lose it.” And whenever I put them down on the ground, they were rolling over and stretching their legs.
After I left them with Society, I happened to conjure up Antu’s teary eyes, sadness-smitten face. I couldn’t even pay the price of his hobby owing to my illness. This inability was blurring my eyes and making my way home feel steep and impassible like a hill. I couldn’t go straight home, so I drove to this park.
The park abounds with trees—maples, cedars, oaks, pines, and so on. I see the late-morning-green trees swaying in the wind and basking in the sun. Also notice a protruding maple tree turn yellowish so early. The tree shares something with me—it’s changed its colour fast, or has to change for its survival and can’t hold green any more as I myself have given up food for soul for my healthiness.
I only murmur to myself, “Rini! My fall has come two weeks earlier. Its colours have varieties, glitters, and surprises, too, but no vividness of soul.” [The End]
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Nonfiction
Happiness, Peace, and Joy
by Shahinur Islam
Happiness lies in comparison—comparison with different stages of one’s own experience, comparison with life of other people. The former state stems from the gradual development, but the latter from selfishness and snobbishness. And this keeps growing and growing by making one more snobbish while the former just retains its stability. Consequently, happiness is just the euphemistic name of selfishness.
Personally, I grudge against happiness. Not that I do not crave for keeping well, but I do not think that being happy means being well.
Living in happiness is personal, self-centred, envious, and dependent on selfishness. We usually live in happiness only when we see someone else is inferior in health and wealth, money and power, designation and title, beauty and accomplishments, or appearance and complexion to us.
Seeing someone being legless and comparing it with one’s own sorrowful state of ‘no money to buy a pair of shoes ‘and, thereby, forgetting one’s own sorrow is another name of happiness. But I do not hanker after this happiness. I want the legless person, too, keep well despite his sorrowful state. And by not comparing his/her state with mine to be self-content, I should rather work on how I can buy him/her a pair of shoes or how I can help him/her. In this case, I prefer being in joy or peace as it differs from happiness.
One alone usually cannot live in joy. It takes at least one other person, and that is why, it involves a sense of wholeness. And living in peace is meek as well as flawless. Though it also implicates a sense of individuality, it is unknowing and preoccupied with a sense of pervading wholeness. It fosters no selfishness or enviousness; rather, it has an inherent acknowledgement of keeping oneself and others well.
In happiness and peace, there lies stability, but in joy, there is dynamism. That is why, those who live in happiness, their selfish and self-centric state is static, too. This condition begets pride, ego, and snobbishness. And those who live in peace have the ever-static tolerance, ability of understanding others, and a sense of decorum of not annoying others unnecessarily. On the contrary, those who live in joy, have ever-dynamic, ever-flowing feelings that always welcome wholeness. Nevertheless, living in joy is a transient thing while living in peace is a lasting thing. As a result, peace is better than happiness, and sometimes joy in peace is much better than that.
Solitude
by Shahinur Islam
We are born alone, live alone, and die alone though other hands are involved in us. Solitude is our constant and inevitable companion. To put it in other terms, we are born helpless, live helpless, and die helpless. Nothing or nobody can help us in the absolute term though no efforts are apparently spared.
Solitary is that person who has no kindred-spirit. Solitude endows us a deeper sense of life and world. The lonelier, the deeper. Crowds may give materials, but it unifies them. It conducts knowledge to wisdom and sagacity through perseverance and meditation just as the turbulent water gets static and crystal clear after much time of zero activity resulting in a clear view of the water body. Solitude also provides a complete sense of life like this. Buddha got enlightened in solitude, and Hazrat Mohammad also resorted to the Hera for perfection in solitude. We can measure the extent of loneliness of God through the Universe. To do something good or bad, we need solitude. So dacoits or saints- all need it to plan and execute their tasks. For atonement, it is a prerequisite; for realization, it precedes everything; and for creation it is mandatory. All the good and bad deeds of a life or a single day are projected on the projector of seclusion. Then they are filtered by the mind of the person in seclusion as per the temperament of the individual and the spur of the moment. It helps dovetail the nuances and subtleties of life. Thus it provides us with not a part but a whole. And the whole lessens extremity, clears off confusion, and sets up stability.
The greater, the lonelier. For no company is found at this stage though frequently sought. So a sense of misunderstanding, which yawns the gulf, grows among the commons. Banyan trees are characteristically alone. Other creatures live in it. It holds many, but they are not its peers. Thus it stands alone. The sage also holds many, and is recourse for many, but s/he lives alone.
The higher, the lonelier. For very few people can soar higher and higher just like a vulture which goes up and up in the sky where other species of birds cannot reach. That is why, vultures live alone and isolated unlike other birds which have no ability to go that far.
Thus solitude is a boon to some people who know how to harness it in life. But it may stand as a bane to many if they are allergic to it. This species is surely afraid and anxious of it as they don’t know how to make the best use of it in life. To them, it is useless, and bears no value. There is no greater punishment to this type than solitude.
But excessive solitude makes man unsocial, self-centred and somewhat selfish. Lifelong seclusion makes one selfconscious indeed, but may not make other people conscious. Indulgence in it hinders spontaneity and naturalness, though that loss is offset by some extra-ordinary power or prowess.
However, in some phase or other in life, willingly or unwillingly, everyone experiences loneliness. Sometimes it is monotonous and tiresome; sometimes it is pleasing and enjoyable. Before we come to and after we go out of the world, we were and will be in seclusion. So solitude in this life is a continuity of before and after life.
Observation of life in solitude imparts life a whole view just in the same way as watching of play staying outside the sideline gives the opportunity to observe it wholly. For this there lies a fear of missing details, but the totality is not ignored.
Everything appears lonely, and so heavy in microview or close-up view while everything is crowded in macroview.
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