What Should I Talk Of

R.L. Shant

What should I talk of?

It was my grandmother who knew what to talk of. You could draw a hundred and one meanings out of a single thing she said, giving rise to as many inferences, but to her it bore one single meaning. I do not know why I had neither faith nor belief and, what my fickle mind was fumbling and searching for. Her meaning however was clear and unambiguous: to hold fast to dharma and to absolve yourself of the sins in this short life to put to good use the fleeting moments of your life and to pave way for charming other world, to accept gratefully what God bestows and to own plain simplicity and rectitude of this world.

Two types of characters only figured in her talks: the ones who stood by dharma and those against it The paths of those on whose side God and the dharma stood were illumined even in the darkness of this world. Her ingenuous and simple world had distinctly clear bounds : some fears and restrictions.

The sustaining aliments were not available in large measures as compared to our tunes. To value it and to use it frugally was, therefore, also a limit and restriction. In case you scattered some salt about, she would bring home to you with images that you would be made to cliff a mountain for every speck of salt you cast down, there in Nagra, the Nagra that stood beyond the bounds of this janama. It is true that all her talks and characters were held in leash by the fear of hell. Its fearsome shadow was on the prowl for every breath and hovering above to swoop upon.

Our old generation nurses us a grudge that we entertain no fears and keep to no limits and restrictions, neither those from God, nor from man, none relating to aliments, dharma and creed

Very likely the old characters would be dumbed and exhausted long before they developed in the world to which we have beer; condemned. They do not perceive this, or even when they perceive it, do not acknowledge that. It is not that we reply to them, but there is luck in their favour. Today's character has no grit to stick to it, he gets a tongue-tie before he speaks. His self-esteem knows no restraint, he is unmindful of what others think. He, instead of hiding his flaws and foibles, exposes them to the full gaze of others. laughing under the sleeves, lifting countless slabs on their eyelashes. What restrictions shall he accept? What shall be his values? What is his life? Was it given to him on his asking?... May be he would not have liked to be born.

His breaths? He has been giving an account of them ever since he began to take them, and this debt is ever increasing day by day. Sustaining aliment? A siren call from across the sandy desert is only leading him astray.

His society? Its Monaliza-smile was ever an enigma to him. All along his life, he has been trying to fit himself to its measure,. now falling short and then brimming over its confines.

His Narga is to lose his way; he sticks to it only to keep up with his neighbours. He lives only to die shattered to pieces after a brief period. These brief fleeting moment are to be given a meaning.