The window
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning, while
they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hang the
wash outside.
“That laundry is not very clean. She doesn’t know how to wash
correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap,” young lady commented.
Her husband looked on, but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman
could make the same comment.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean
wash on the line and said to her husband: “Look she has learned how to
wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.”
The husband said: “I got up early this morning and cleaned our
windows!”
**********
So many views came and they got stuck in a bottlenecked traffic – or
is it just another disorderly queue? I felt as if I have listened to an
ancient sermon. Or may be I have already heard it before sometime in my
life.
 I took my eyes off the unread emails. The rest I can read sometime
later. Even responding to the sender of the story can wait. No, that’s
not nice I thought. I scribbled a few words thanking the sender.
This is one reason I love forwards. Some forwards actually have
lovely stories to share. They take your breath away for a while. I
looked at the pile of books gathering on my table. Some I have stashed
away for later reading. Some I don’t think I will ever read. No, not in
this life, I guess.
I remember what I had been taught in childhood: to read good books.
What are the good books? Classics? Or may be action and other stuff
written in posh and polish language? I remember my friends’ opinion of
Mills and Boon books. True, I don’t like them either. But can we look
down on the books for that matter?
Moving a little further on the track, I looked at another pile in a
hidden place. They are some banned books. Why are some creations banned?
We have criteria. Some books hurt the religious conscience. Some books
have unethical or too much reference for sex and violence.
At the end of the day what are all these books? Aren’t they all the
same, the wash hanging on a rope line? And we look at them through
different kinds of windows.
Art makes the man sensitive and fill him with compassion, I have
heard elsewhere. I had my first doubt when I watched some Hindi
commercial films. They had hardly anything other than revenge. If
someone wrongs you, you should revenge – no talk of forgiveness at all.
Seeking revenge is quite easy, because we see through a stained
window. Forgiveness is the hardest thing to teach. Sokreaksha S Himm’s
The Tears of My Soul is an autobiography of a Cambodian boy who survived
an execution. Whole his family became victims during the Pol Pot regime.
He was full of venom during the early stages of the novel, always
talking about avenging the killers of his family.
Once he gets a chance to avenge a killer. The killer cries, relating
that he was threatened to do so. It’s all but a hierarchy, and the
topmost person must have been suffering from some psychological disorder
to carry out such genocide. It’s easy to have killed the killer, but
Himm chose the harder path: forgiving. He learns forgiveness is the best
weapon.
Creative works of this calibre are a rare treasure to find among the
mushrooming lot. They look at the life through a faded window. They
don’t see the beauty of life. Life is unfair, true. But wailing it won’t
make it a fair deal. We have to get along with it, happily embracing
what it has to offer.
Creative works shape up our life. Or at least they influence our
daily thoughts. So it is with life. We are quite fluent in watching
others, but hardly ourselves. How many times have writers used the pen
to criticise their community, their culture? How many times have they
indirectly shown they are not capable of watching themselves? They are
gifted with writing, just as we are gifted with sight to check what’s
out of the window. We are gifted to see out, because we have to know
within. We never do it.
Let this story be a beacon light whenever we pen vile words against
our fellow humans. Thank you, Sajani Fernando, for sending this story,
for opening the window.
[email protected]
|
