WHAT TO THINK?

WHAT TO THINK?
“Oh! That was the loudest blast I have heard till now. Oh, another and louder than the previous one. By Jove! Another and still louder. And there, I hear the sound of thousands of guns fired together and mixed with it, also come the painful dying cries of those thousands whose names were written on the respective bullets. They sounded like cries of helpless souls being tortured in hell, most of them, for small or unintended sins. What more bad things can I write about this beautiful, cursed heath? I also cannot ignore the sight of the frightened and directionless running of the other creatures, other than human beings. But to write that sight down is beyond my capacity of framing sentences using my limited vocabulary. In fact, to describe the expressions on the face of the animals appropriately, whom man thinks to be expressionless, is not within a man’s power of expressing himself.”
These and a number of related thoughts passed through the mind of one petty soldier of the victorious army. But, perhaps, he had lost himself in the battle. This drama was in no way new to him nor was it the severest one of his life. He has grown habituated to it now, habituated to the agony that lives suffer due to war, to the indifference the heads of the governments show to the sufferings of their own people whom, they had promised protection with tears in their eyes, as if they had borrowed the pain of other souls and had felt it themselves.
These cries, seeing people getting killed brutally does not make much difference in his world now. He just has to picture the world minus some people and continue deducting some more now and then. Now, he just looks at the battlefield and the tiny, similar looking figures moving around, as an activity that is a part of his daily schedule. And he does not know what to think when his eyes suffer the ordeal of seeing the misery around. He is as blank as a child is when it looks at its homework book. How many more deaths will he brood over!? To stop the pain every time his heart had to bear, he has now stopped making friends.
“Pain!? Feelings for people do not touch my heart anymore. I can no longer love any of my fellowmen. I have turned stone, ice.” That is what he thinks every night. Thinks and believes that he believes it. But I know what he believes in. I know that these are all thoughts of a frustrated man and after all, he is only a human being. He cannot stop loving good people, trusting them and feeling for them. The way he goes on helping his troop-mates proves it.
His life has been, till now, as my readers would call it, a very lucky one. Most understanding parents, a great comrade as an elder brother, well established in his business and a very loving, young sister with a happy family of her own. Touchwood! He himself has also got all he wanted. The only bad luck he faced was in case of his love who deserted him. But she hardly matters now. She has vanished from his mind as if she never existed.
You know what the worst part of being a happy person with a heart is; the sorrows of the world around leave deep impressions on your heart. When you have yourself suffered life, your heart does turn a bit cold to the misfortunes of others because they (the misfortunes of others) only remind you of yours. But when they are new for you, they are like absolutely new, shining, sharp knives hitting fresh meat, making the deepest cuts.
Perhaps that was the reason why Siddhartha was so much affected by only three sights he saw and became the Buddha. But he then started preaching that a person has to stay away from ‘maya’ which is attachment to living beings or things to keep himself away from sufferings. But can any of you please tell me how will a man live without loving the world he lives in or the people he lives with? Even to help someone pick up a paper, you need to be considerate about him first. Then how is it possible to stay away from ‘maya’? And if a man has to stay away from any attachment, for what and how would he live at all? The truth is, man cannot help getting attached to other lives as long as he has a heart.
But this soldier of mine fails to realise this now. He thinks his heart is all butchered and there is no place left on its surface to cause more pain. But he forgets that time heals many wounds and you can never stop your heart from providing space for more cuts. But he will grow up. As for now, he sits on the top of the watch tower at night with his violin, staring at the moon with a blank face but tears rolling down and singing ‘moon river’. I do not know whom he calls the ‘dream maker’ and the ‘heart breaker’. I believe, God. Who else?