Life’s always been an unexpected story; like a movie that keeps you wondering till the very end, at every twist and turn, with its bouquet of surprises and the thorns of bad lessons. Perhaps, my Goddess; kind and loving as always, decided to fulfill a wish that I had been yearning for since years, and like she always does, this time too it formulated in a plan which she only knew of.
I knew I was going to have a fever; a bronchial does not do pretty well at this season of the year, and I am pretty used to it, although I hate it each time it shows its sarcastic symptoms. So there I was, too feverish to make a breakfast and grabbing Coffee and Sandwich at the Gurgaon Metro CCD only to miss my lunch for the day. Well, missing lunch is something I secretly become happy of, because it gives me the weird hope of losing a little more weight. So coming back to the Adishakti’s plan, I checked my Twitter notifications and what I saw not only dilated my pupils but also sent my mind into a whizz. “Dr Shashi Tharoor would be speaking at the Sahitya Akademi! And no office to clash, no code to be delivered on priority. But yes, the weekly evening meditation would be missed…But then I would be going to another temple; that of Maa Saraswati, so hopefully some penance would be done”, I thought. The entire day I felt very sick, like on the first two days of viral fever, but by the time it was 5:30 I got this sudden surge of happy energy, like that experienced during the annual function at school. My instincts told me that I was just about to witness an exhilarating experience, and mind you my instincts have hardly ever betrayed their mistress. When I reached the auditorium, it was almost full although there was still time for the event to start. Luckily, there was still one seat snuggled in between the middle row; I hate being a back-bencher, and being one today would be akin to being coroneted only to be sent on a 14-year exile. As each second passed, I tried to sink in the feeling that this would actually be the day when I would see this magnificent personality, in flesh-and-blood; this very auditorium, that microphone, that dais, this door that he would enter from, and the ions and atoms of this room would be vibrated from the resonance of that majestic voice. It was real, it was happening and it was divine; I am a worshipper of the Shakti, and of no human being am I in so much awe of except this one, and in the normal case I would have been a little disturbed, because getting too much emotionally involved in anything is what we consider being out of balance, not a very fruitful prospect; but my senses told me that I was in complete balance inspite of these myriad thoughts churning in my heart and therefore, I knew this was a special day.
And there he entered; tall with accomplishments, immaculate with the purity of knowledge, and graceful with humility in spite of all the multifarious qualities that he is made of. Hearing him speak was like transcending infinite boundaries; of language, culture and geography, as he ceaselessly moved across his experiences and that of others, talking about how literature has shaped and how the tastes of people have changed over the decades. It all floated in front of my eyes, again like a motion picture; literature of the times of R.K. Narayan to the current age, when the likes of Chetan Bhagat and Amish prevail, and the conditions that affected this change, in conjugation with how the globalization influenced the lives of the people, and hence the literature. I was struck by his honesty when he said that the copies of books that these authors sell outnumber his; he never attempted to compare the literary value between his books and theirs, and he rather celebrated their value. This I could attribute to only one thing; love for the universal form of expression and its proximity to the psyche of the masses. It was like a stream of wisdom flowing from the mouth of a person who had been through this whole process of literary transformation and respected its sanctity along with the importance of its protection. Well, and what he actually said did not sound as insipid as my piece might read and it was neither quixotic, but full of interesting points and metaphors that anybody can well relate to.
In the brainstorming session, I managed to put up the question that often disturbs my mind, and that is the varied interpretation that people often subject any account to, and its severe repercussions. I have been equally worried about how people are ready to come up to a conclusion even without having read or known the context whatsoever. Well, and I must admit that I got pretty conscious while asking this question and I spoke everything I had to, literally in one breath. What Dr. Tharoor gave as the response was brilliant (but then what is not brilliant in his speeches?). The thing that I really appreciated was the honesty, truth, humor, genuine advice and concern with which he answered the question. And I felt a great level of sincerity with which he was answering each question, as if he wanted to pass all the knowledge and thoughts that could be passed to the recipient.
When the session finished I did not really know what to do next. I felt like a school kid wanting to a take a selfie but did not gather enough confidence to do that. I took a picture from a distance and smiled rather stupidly. And then I booked my Uber for the nearest Metro Station and put my concentration on safely reaching my abode in Gurgaon on that rainy evening. I wanted to retain in my limited capacity, all that wisdom, all that charisma, all that positivity that had been showered upon us that evening. If you recollect, I was sick that day and now, I felt as if I did not own a body, a little equivalent to the blissful state of being just the spirit.
There is one thing that I realized about Dr. Tharoor; when describing him, people often get caught up in his exceedingly good looks and are often in the danger of not looking beyond, and that, beyond those good looks shines the luminescence of enlightenment, honesty, intelligence and strength. I am reminded of these lines from Endymion that people have oft used as a yardstick of eternal beauty,
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness."
A million thanks, Dr. Tharoor for spreading amicable and kind thoughts and building agility of rational minds.
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