De Profundis

I'm writing this particular post because I want to have a chronicle of 4 events that have touched me deeply in the past few days and I would go so far as to say, transformed me.
The first was watching the movie "The Motorcycle Diaries". It tells the story of the 10,000 kilometre long journey undertaken by Ernesto Guevara de la Serna through South America, a journey which was to prove instrumental in him becoming Che Guevara. The movie is stunningly shot in South America but Che didn't have time to gaze and admire at the beauty of his home continent. He was too preoccupied by the stark reality of deprivation and exploitation that was rampant in those times. The most touching scenes are the ones where he talks to people of native Indian descent and is horrified at the poverty in which they have to sustain themselves thanks to centuries of oppression by the European settlers. The most poignant scene is when he stands in front of the ruins of Machchu Pichchu and exclaims that a civilization that could create this does not deserve to be displaced by a barbaric one, which is what he considered the conquistadors to be. As they keep traversing the continent, they meet and talk to more such people till the youthful, even boyish, Ernesto changes forever. He spends time with the underprivileged, works among lepers and becomes more and more convinced of the need for a revolution, even a violent one to rid South America of its despotic rulers. Now Che is someone I have always admired, even if not always in agreement with his methods but after seeing the story of his transformation, I felt a sudden sense of unease within, there is so much wrong with the world around us, yet we all sit comfortable with it all, the misery and injustice around us should stir us, if not to eradicate it, if not even to protest against it then at least to acknowledge it. There is something terribly unfulfilling about living life like this. Like Che says in the end of the movie, "something within me has changed forever".
The second incident was my visit to the Gandhi Ashram here in Ahmedabad. I've always wanted to go there and as luck would have it, we were taken there as part of a course on Ethics. The Ashram lies in a bustling part of Ahmedabad city, by the roadside, between a marketplace and a petrol pump, as mundane a location as you could find. Just like the Mahatma himself, an apostle of purity among ordinary men and women. We spent two hours in that place and it felt like a lifetime. Going over his life through photographs and his possessions preserved there, I felt a sudden purgation. Here is a man who was as human as you and I, yet he achieved almost God-like status simply by following his principles and living by simple ideals. He truly understood the people of his country and today it is hard to even imagine the kind of respect and reverence he got from his countrymen, of all religions, regions and creeds. As I stood in front of the collage displaying his life, I could not help but cry. Here was an ordinary man who became extra-ordinary through his thoughts, his courage, his convictions and his discipline. Standing there I contrasted his life with mine (not that I have any pretensions to even a hundredth of his greatness and stature), I stood ashamed of my often elastic morals. I decided that day that even if I could never aspire to the Mahatma's greatness, I could at least be his follower. Thus I decided that day to never abuse again and to try and limit all my indulgences, whether it be food, drink or anything else. Later I went down to the banks of the Sabarmati and I have never experienced the kind of peace and contentment I did at that moment.
The third thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I got talking to someone here who's one of my closest friends about life, love and other such trivialities. My friend has been going through some tough times and had been a cycle of depression for almost a year now. And it wasn't always like that, I remember that for the initial period of the first year, he was a very jovial and fun loving person. Then somewhere along the way, he started slipping more and more into depression and started staying away from others. Now I've seen this happen with others and I think when you isolate yourself from others, the mind becomes an echo chamber for negative thoughts, you never break out of the vicious cycle of feeling bad and thinking negative. In the first year, with so much work and pressure on us, we did not meet and talk very often but with things easing up in the second year, we had more opportunities to talk and make up lost ground. I learnt about all that was bothering him and in turn shared my feelings and fears. I also tried to help him, gave him pep-talks and tried to make him feel better. He told me something that someone else had said to him about his transformation - "____, you had a nice smile once". It was true, I had hardly seen him smile in the last few months and he agreed with it. It struck me so deeply that I wrote it on our dorm blackboard outside my room. Next day we had an all night talk session, after which we went out at 7am to have a cup of tea in front of IIMA's main gate. There's a temple close by and my friend gave me a ten rupee note he had found on the ground one day and he had pledged to give it to charity. He wanted me to go to the temple and put it in the donation box. I asked him to accompany me and do it himself. He declined, because he's an atheist and stood outside. I went in and kneeled in front of the Gods and for the first time in my life, I did not ask anything for myself. I asked God to take care of my family, my brother and help my friend feel better. I guess genuine, unselfish prayers work, because a couple of days later, I went up to him and he told me that he was feeling fine and happy now, he had shelved his plans to go home. I asked him what happened and he said that it was just one incident that happened earlier in the day that changed everything. I can't describe that here but it was one of those mundane, everyday conversations he had with another friend of his and like a bolt of lightning, everything was fine for him. The problems that he had are still there I suppose but now he is determined to be happy and fight through them. I'd like to believe that there really is a God. The blackboard outside my room now reads "You have a nice smile....once again!!)
The last was again something which has moved me deeply. I was chatting with a female friend of mine and she went over significant incidents of her life. In between stories of growing up as a normal, fun loving girl, she suddenly confided in me that she had been sexually abused as a child. Even while writing that down, I had to pause and take a break because I still haven't come to terms with the enormity of that statement. At that moment too, my mind had gone blank, there was nothing I could think of. Then suddenly a torrent of emotions came up, first disgust at the beast who had done this to her, revulsion at the thought of the kind of things he must have done to her, then sympathy for what she had gone through and finally disgust at myself and her other friends. She has always been someone who keeps quiet, doesn't talk to many people, hardly ever smiles and at times gets angry at people. Many people think that sh ehas an attitude problem, some think of her as being snooty. I myself told her to start smiling moreand mingle with people (of course I said it in a way that was not offensive or even critical, I said a lot of genuine nice things about her first). But the fact remains that I diagnosed her/ prescribed solutions for her without for once thinking of what might have gone on in her life to make her behave like that. It's easy to criticize and slot people but I felt ashamed that I fell into that trap without even stopping to think if there was a reason behind her actions. And though I had always respected her for her intelligence and her kind, helpful nature before this, my respect for her went up even more after I got to know this, because it takes a lot of courage and strength to get over something like this and achieve all that she has done so far. My respect for myself, however, has plumetted for a while, it'll take me some time to get it back.