A Tale of Two Sorrows


I had the worst of times and I had the best of times. Through a lot of foolishness I have reached an age of wisdom, yet to be fully attained. There were times of incredulity and there were times of belief. There were seasons of darkness and there were seasons of hope. During the winters of despair I dreamt of the springs of hope. I had nothing before me and I had everything before me.

The above paragraph sounds familiar? Yes it would. I took it from Charles Dickens and mangled it out of shape! You see it seemed apt for the story about to be told.

Looking back over my narrow shoulders at my life and weighing the good and the bad, what I had and what I have, what I needed and what I wanted, what I dreamt of and what was dealt to me, I have two things against God.

I am not an atheist, let me declare. But I am not really “God fearing” as one is expected to be, brought up to be. Whatever I do or even think God knows it all, right? So to me God is more of a friend. You might say we are hand in glove as the idiom goes. Not that He is in agreement to all that I do, but then He walks along by my side complaining at times. As for me I don’t ask much from Him except to take care of me, which I know He can and will, if He notices me going into an abyss or into some dangerous or foolish thing like that. He is my Protector.

He is also the Provider. Adnan Sami also knew it for he sang to Him “mujko lift kara de”. He wanted gadi, bangla and such stuff as was distributed to others. God agreed and to lift him, reduced his weight by tons and quintals. That aside, it seems that God has given me too almost everything slowly and steadily one by one as the time for each came up, as per His parameters, of which none is aware. He didn’t disown me exactly. All the wise people say that one must put in one’s effort and at the appropriate time, God will nudge. Your ninety per cent and His ten, a few notches above the Pareto Principle. But there are two things for which He should have felt kindly towards me.

One. Height. Personal height. Never mind the height one achieves in life and all that bunkum. I wanted to be tall. Now that is quite a relative term. Not an absolute one from any account and angle. You see when I passed my SSLC I was all of four feet ten inches. Without the philosophy of ‘relative’ and all, you will agree that is short, in capitals. In Pre-University, I went up towards the sky by seven inches. And when I completed my graduation God provided another one inch and said, “That’s it”.

Right after middle school I did everything in my grasp to grow taller than I was. I listened to anybody’s advice and followed it. I read up from the library or anywhere about any information regarding height. At one stage when I thought of building my body and started lifting weight someone told me that it would adversely affect my height and I dropped the dumbbells straightaway. I did numerous pull ups. I flattened my palm on the floor, brought my head into my straight knees, forget toe touching. I bent backwards as far as I could risking injury to the spine which I wanted to elongate. I was trying to stretch my spine as much as I could. I did all this and anything and everything that could lengthen my spine straining it to the maximum. Not only spine but the limbs too. I stretched them so hard they could have popped out of their joints. I even tried to stand as straight as I could by stretching myself upwards to add millimetres if possible. What all I didn’t do? But nothing happened after five foot six inches. That is tantamount to five foot nothing.

Was God fair? I did put in my 90%. To my mind He reneged. Friend and all. You may ask what was the height I wanted and why. Knowing full well that I am an Indian, that too a South Indian unlike Rajasthanis and Haryanvis, all I wanted to be was a clean six footer or six-two at the max. Is it too much to ask? You see I had this dream of wearing an India Blazer. In basketball. It is only in basketball and volleyball that you rise up and up during the game. I liked basketball more than volleyball and so the weightage for basketball. Another reason was I seemed to have been quite adept, by God’s grace considering my height, at high jump and earned a name. But to really excel there height was a prerequisite. Being short you can go only upto a certain point in life, is it not? So much so the feeling of being short disallowed me from putting punishing practises in the area of any particular sport. Some kind of a complex told me that it’s no use. So I did all and sundry things on the fields and courts as a means of enjoyment. I became something like a polyglot in sports. But nothing to show for all that.

Two. I am sure given my love for music, particularly vocals I could have melted not only stones but even stone hearts. Once while I was still in school, the song “choudvi ka chand” was coming over the transistor. I did not know a word of Hindi then. But the song sounded good. Touched my heart, if you please. I loudly sang along. From the kitchen came mother’s admonition. “Will you please keep quiet, let me enjoy the song”. That was some encouragement I must say!

It turned out that my wife could pass off as a singer. She took the mike at various social functions to sing while I took it as the master of ceremonies. I tried to coax her into teaching me to sing songs. I told her “we could sing duets”. After some years of ignoring me, she must have got fed up and so in some good mood one day she tried. She picked up a song that was supposed to suit my gruff voice and tried to make me sing. After a few minutes of trying she said “you are hopeless”. I didn’t give up. All along and even after that I tried. When I sing softly along with Rafi, I felt I was equally good. Except that I couldn’t hold my breath as long as he could. But if I tried on my own, everything went for a six. Even if I would sing silently in my mind, it would not come right! I wish God had given me the ability to sing. He didn’t. Nowhere near. If He had I could have melted so many hearts. I was a sheer disaster.

This is one area where I didn’t put an iota of effort, I must confess, leave alone 90%. There must be start point is it not? I didn’t find any. People won’t include me even in the chorus group! What is it that I lacked I don’t know. I could not even sing songs like “Bombay se aya mere dost” or “Lajjavathiye” or “Kolaveri”, leave alone melodious soothing ones which is what I actually like. I could not take part in “antakshari” except monkeying around. I could not remember more than one line of any song. Why? It is cruel.

That is why I am against God. For these two things and for these two things alone. I have no crib against Him for anything else, in all fairness. These two sorrows weigh too much, but. I get terribly jealous and angry when I see a tall chap who is uselessness personified. I become putty when someone sings a melodious song and I fall in love, particularly if it is a female. One is for the body and the other is for the soul. Without divine willingness nothing can be done to these two things I lack. My two sorrows.

As I am narrating this to you I can see Him controlling His mirth with a chuckle very much as my father used to.

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Comments

  1. Unknown22 February 2019 at 23:08

    God it is said never gives anyone hundredpercent lest, he fears, his position might be toppled as they do in politics. He must be muttering under his breath(if he breaths)"yeh nahi sudhrega".God must be thinkingif I give him the height he wants and post him a havildar in Military Police with a thurlam on his head then also he will complain. So he like other human being nahi sudharega. Anyway I enjoy the blog for its humour throughout

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