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                                                   The yellow  truth

                  I was a small child then, and fond of making faces at

people whom I did not like. I had no courage to speak ill of them but made caricature of them when I was with my peers, whom I considered reliable and harmless.  They  included all my well-wishers who had no other design but to shape me wise and intelligent, and of course truth loving.  Now I am ashamed of what I said about them, yet no guilt ever crossed my mind, for my feelings were never malicious or derogatory. One was my grandfather, who had a dream of me, he believed my first teacher and the teacher thought I had a brilliant future; I would move places and would bring glory to the family. Of course it never was the case later.  The teacher was a self acclaimed astrologer. My grand father taught me English  and vernacular and spoke of the beauty of language and communication. He had a desire to see my handwriting as indicative and unique. My first encounter with deceit and lie was my attempt to present old pages of workbook of handwriting as recent. I smudged the page with fresh ink and took it to him for endorsement and presented that it was written a few minutes back. He could not detect that on some occasions and when he knew it he was sad and sighed long. I have never forgotten my first voyage into untruth and later I smoked and lied, talked to a few girl friends and said I was playing football.  I tried hard to be an agile goal keeper, yet never could become one ,even failed to keep goals  for  my section in high school. Well, for me truth is absolute, nothing relative, no ifs and buts and it is louder than soul’s progress. Yet I have told lies, even tell lies  but never with malice.

     I could never forget or forgive myself for such misadventures. And for me truth is invincible and absolute. No ifs and buts, I never deny that I have been telling lies, yet I never rationalize that with scores of alibis. My lies are my shames and I carry that in silence and thunder. Lies are loud and truth is placid, that you would never be able to dismiss.

             Recently I had the horrific experience of viewing a few episodes that spoke of truth in a loud and cosmetic candour. I would have nothing to say if it was not a soapsoup and a buckshow. It was neither a tale of life nor an admission  of guilt.  It was never objective.  I was agitated when in the name of truth , it   was outraged and vitiated  in vulgar TRP race. Someone is asked questions of no importance to the viewer and the answer is either yes or no.  Questions relate to personal lives and ranging sexual escapades to desperate scheming. Is it of any relevance? It appears ,salacious details are implanted for premediated response. All these things are justified by  ” jo dikhata hai woh bechta hai.” ( visible objects could only sell.) Thus market economy relegates sane human emotions to background and what emerges a ghastly percecption of human degeneration, defilement or rather a human decay. The demented audience is left wondering and cursing himself and only himself.    Does it serve  any purpose? For me  an emphatic no.

To hell with your truth telling, it is not music to my ears. It is crude and vulgar bordering on obscenity. You ditched your friend, you had sex with a girl much younger to your daughter, and I would never call you a martyr. How does it affect me as a viewer? Is it preaching Spartan heroic? Your modesty never reaches me, why should I view your shoeshine- nonsense when I can simply close my eyes and ruminate over my past and feel the sky above and touch the sprinkling raindrops, think of the green around, and listen a small bird chirping at a distance.  When some one from the system denies moral policing as its priority, I have a free will to banish the nonsense from my view. Could any one suggest me otherwise?Could truth ever be pyrrohic?

        It is a cliche', a hackney one, much discussed and more deeply felt.  Dreams wither in the bud, it does never flower often.

    The day I thought I could not attain my dreams, it was death for me. The sky appeared darker than it was. I was torn apart and thought I would not stand again.

While I said this I do not isolate me as a rare case. It happens with most of us. We have dreams, aspirations and ambitions that we cherish and a moment comes we fail to realize them.  We think it is the end of the road, and we are lost and condemned. Scaring apparitions and assumed thoughts turn us obscure. A few days back I had the opportunity of attending Roka (engagement) ceremony of a young, beautiful and intelligent girl. I saw her mother there. She was sick, diabetic and looked a sad, as Lawrence once said ' a whited sepulchre' of the original one. She was in her late forties; she had a dream to have a rich, elegant life and possibly a socialite of note, may be worth page 3, yet could not have that. Her husband was a marble and tiles dealer. She took to alcohol, lost one of her kidneys and now a pale woman turning paler each day. Her daughter became addicted to alcohol from her college days, joined a BPO firm and shortly afterwards discharged from the job for her 'irresponsible and delinquent' behaviour. She was also to drugs then. Now she is marrying an elderly man having an affluent business. I could not know the mother was happy or not. The child did not pursuit an identifiable ambition; she allowed her life to sail rudderless and unguarded.

If one has a dream to have a vain glorious spectre , rarely one succeeds as its attainment is always subservient to unpredictable happenings,chance turn-around.

   For such dreams I have no sympathy. For me dream is that which attunes to self fulfillment for a cause, social and spiritual sanctity, one of its ingredients, where your inner content has an ever-present affirmation. Then also rarely one achieves his cherished dreams. Once it is accomplished another takes its place, we then have a run, to attain it and the cycle never stops. Dreams substitute another. Yet it is again rare that people are content with what they accomplish. We feel a few could only be accomplished and more has to be left unfinished.  

                      While I said I was aghast at my dreams' evanescence   I referred to a dream that I had  then, a kind of  reaching out to intricate complexities of the world around and then  I treasured iconic wishes which I gathered from the milieu and settled for it. But mostly we do not strive to achieve that. To dream is human and not to persevere to achieve it is more human.  As a young boy I had an aspiration to join a particular service, a middle class dream job. But I collected some friends who were prone to kill time with me but a few among them were highly motivated in their pursuit. In those times of life a little pampering and a few attentive gazes take you away from your persistence. That happened with me and I was left unmoving in my pursuit.  To speak of failed dreams now would not serve me better.   

                      I still maintain dreams never come from wild fantasy. Most of our ambitions are attainable. I do not wish to be entangled with the lascivious wishes of some, for whom the dream ends in seeking a man or finding the idol of a woman. Apologies to them, for this is where the mobility ends and static and all pervading fantasy possess the one who cherishes such a wish.

          Then disconsolate wishes are not to be sympathized with. But not all of us have such desires. As I said earlier our dreams have a design and we rarely accomplish it for lack of motivation or pursuit. If such a disaster occurs many of us break for ever; not to rise again. Phoenix is rare and to face the world after failed dreams is equally difficult and unless the real self is invoked we become wrecks. Yet when we get over we have less complicated tasks to accomplish and our endeavour aims at a routine existence, albeit less gallant and more earthly. There lies the human substance and the soul flourishes to lead light and passion as rising flame allows us to stand erect and advance further. We have a single conceivable life and the more we crack the less we achieve in that. Then is it not worthwhile to stand up again and face the consequences not as a wreck but like a carefree bird. If my current dream fails I have enough chance left atleast to become a better human being.