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Spice of Life | Of human connections, grief and healing
Spice of Life | Time, they say, is a great healer, but I think it’s the memories that give us the mettle and resilience to survive. God has fitted a self-healing mechanism in human beings, writes Narinder Jit Kaur
In one of his poems, poet Gulzar uses his childhood memory as a metaphor to talk about human connections and personal loss. Here’s the simple paraphrase. “When we were young, mother used to make ‘upley (dung cakes)’ in our village home. Each one of us children would draw faces on them while they were still wet, give them a name, and mark them as our own. Later, when mother lit the fireplace, we would sit around and watch surreptitiously, and with trepidation, as to whose ‘upla’ she would pick up randomly and throw into the fire.” The same is with life. We never know whose loved one would be picked by the unseen hand of Providence.
Grief is a blind monster that takes you unaware and hits your weakest spot when you are hardly prepared for it. It clenches you in its cruel grip, exploiting your susceptibility.
We nurture and survive on emotional bonds, be it blood relationships or friends. Though conscious of our ephemeral human existence, we bask in the warmth of a fallacy that these associations will stay with us forever. And when we lose one of our loved ones, it sucks the very life out of us, leaving us devastated.
There is nothing more shattering than losing your younger sister. At that moment, what you go through is unimaginable, and ineffable. Your heart turns into a lump of lead, crushing your spirit down with its weight. Your inner being turns into a dark cave of molten lava that scorches your soul black. A pricking numbness runs across your fingertips, down to your spine. You lose your identity; you forget who you are, and where you are, a shadow running directionless in a desert, with the sand of nothingness engulfing you from all sides.
Yet, it doesn’t prepare us for any further setbacks, nor does it deter us from succumbing to new emotional pulls. We go through all the pain and agony afresh whenever faced with a similar situation. But it’s perhaps necessary for our mental well-being.
Time, they say, is a great healer, but I think it’s the memories that give us the mettle and resilience to survive. God has fitted a self-healing mechanism in human beings. With time, memories of the times spent together, growing up, laughing, crying, cracking jokes, and sharing secrets together keep our dear ones alive and thus give us the strength to come out of the trauma.
In that blind journey in the sandy desert, small green shrubs of memories pop up here and there, providing us with the much-needed rejuvenating vigour. And the fragrance of reminiscences becomes our lifeline.
Rightly does Helen Keller say,“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved, we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”
The writer is a Patiala-based retired associate professor in English and can be reached at njkaur1953@gmail.com.
