The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,” says Khalil Gibran in The Prophet, “the more joy you can contain”. Whenever mental trauma and sorrow shatter me and make me completely defenceless, I take Gibran’s small book in hand and go to the chapter where he speaks about joy and sorrow. He says that joy and sorrow come together, “and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. They are inseparable.”
Yes, joy and sorrow are inseparable. Two years ago I lost two of my close relatives forever in an accident and I was thrown into a whirlpool of sorrow and I virtually believed that I could not come out of it. Disorientation conquered my mind and I stopped writing. It seemed that my creativity left me with the beloved persons. Even Khalil Gibran could not console me. I read and reread what Gibran says: “And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.” But it seemed that my mind was filled only with tears. No trace of laughter was seen there.
But, suddenly, one day I received a mail informing me that one of my articles on environment was included in the English textbook for plus two students in Maharashtra by the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. Of the four lessons in unit three of the textbook, the first one is Pablo Neruda’s Suburbs and the second one is mine (Where Have All The Birds Gone?). One prominent Malayalam newspaper reported the news. I began to write again. TNIE and Mainstream started publishing my articles. Readers’ mails encouraged me and helped me forget the trauma. I realised what Khalil Gibran means when he says that your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And when I received a mail from a Sachin Jadhav, it really helped me come out of the whirlpool unscathed. He wrote: “I am a junior college teacher in Mumbai (Sanskardham Jr. College of Science, Goregaon West). You must be knowing that your article about birds is a Class XII lesson for us. The day I read that, I am in love with that lesson because I think you have given voice to my own feelings... I am going to treasure this conversation and your response forever.” And one of my readers, when she heard the news, mailed me as follows: “I can only imagine the happiness you must be feeling because the most satisfying thing one can do is impact the younger generation in a positive way.” Thus I realised that the deeper that sorrow carves into our being, the more joy we can contain.