Aug 24, 2010

08. Lavanya Logic

লাবণ্য-তর্ক


Yogamaya said “Lavanya my dear, are you sure?”

“I am sure, Ma”

“Amit is very restless, that I admit. That is why I am so fond of him. See how haphazard he is. As if everything is always slipping away from his fingers.”

Lavanya gently smiled “If he had to hold on to everything, if things did not slip away from his fingers, it would be a disaster for him. His decree is, either having he will have not or he will have only to lose. To keep what he has, does not go with his nature.”

“To tell you frankly, my child, I really like his childishness”

“That is a mother’s duty. In childishness, responsibility is all for the mother. And for the child, all is play. But why ask me to load responsibility on one who cannot bear it”

“Don’t you see Lavanya, his mind, so unmanageably restless, has calmed down so much. I feel tenderly for him. Whatever you say, he loves you.”

“That he does”

“Then what is the worry”

“Ma, I do not wish to oppress upon his nature at all”

“What I know is this, Lavanya, love demands some oppression and oppresses too.”

“That oppression has a jurisdiction; but what is painful to one’s nature cannot be tolerated. The more love-stories I read in literature, the more I realized, the tragedy of love is when, despite knowing each other to be of free spirit, human beings have not been content with what is. Where there is coercion to make one’s will the will of the other. Where by changing the other to one’s desire, one thinks of creating the other”

“But my child, for two people to setup home together, if one another cannot create a little of each other, things cannot run smoothly. Where there is love, there the creation is made easy. Where there is not, there in using the chisel and hammer, that you call tragedy, is what befalls.

“Those who have been designed just to setup home, hearth and family, let’s not talk about them. They are made of soft clay, in pressures of day to day family life, they are moulded in itself. But one who is not at all made of clay, cannot give up the self’s independence. The woman who does not understand this, the more she demands, the more she is deprived. The man who does not understand it, the more he clutches, the more he loses. I believe, in most cases, what we think we have, it is nothing more than the case of a hand-cuff having the hand.”

“What do you want, Lavanya?”

“By marrying, I do not wish to hurt. Marriage is not for all. Those with a perfectionist mind, they seek in a human what they sieve out after eliminating things part by part. But entrapped in marriage, a man and woman get too near – with no spaces in between – then they have to deal with the whole person in very close proximity. There is no way to keep hidden any one part.”

“Lavanya, you do not know yourself. No part of you needs to be taken off to take you”

“But he does not want me. The me who is an ordinary person, a homely girl, I do not even think he has seen that being. The moment I touched his heart, it started speaking non-stop nineteen to the dozen. With those words he is still creating me. If his mind calms down, when he is at a loss for words, in that sound of silence will be caught this mere ordinary girl who is not his creation. In marriage, man has to accept what is, he no longer has the space to mould."

“Do you think Amit cannot completely accept even a girl like you”

“If his nature changes, then he can. But why should he change. That is not what I want.”

“What do you want”

“As long as I can, let me remain entwined in his words, in his mind’s play like a dream. And why should I call it just a dream. It is a special birth for me, a special form, in a special world truth has revealed itself. So what if from a chrysalis has burst forth a coloured butterfly to live only for a few days, what’s the harm in that. A butterfly is no less a truth in this world – so what if it shows itself at sunrise and passes away at sundown. Just this much is to be seen, that little time is not futile”

“That you want to be with Amit for a moment in the form of mere illusion, I can understand. What about you? Don’t you want to marry. Is Amit too an illusion for you”. Lavanya sat silent, without a reply.

Yogamaya said “When you talk of logic, I can see you are a well-read girl. I can neither think nor speak like you. Not only that, I cannot be as tough as you either in my work. But I have seen you through the thin veil of logic, my child. It must have been twelve that night – I saw the light still on in your room. Went in to see you bent upon your table, weeping with your face in your hands. That was not a girl who studies philosophy. Once I thought, I would comfort you. Then I thought, on the day of tears, every girl has to weep, no point in holding back. This I know very well, you do not wish to mould, you wish to love. If you cannot serve with your heart and soul, how will you survive. That’s what I say, without him near you, you will not be able to live. Pray, do not pledge not to marry. I fear once you have set your mind to something, you cannot be shaken”

Lavanya did not say a thing. With downcast eyes, she kept folding the edges of her sari for no reason. Yogamaya said “Many a time have I thought seeing you. With so much study and reflection your minds have become very fine and delicate. The thoughts you are building up within are not fit for running this home and hearth of ours. In our times, there were lights of the mind that were not even visible. But you do not wish them to be so anymore. Piercing through the coarse layer of body, it is as if they are making the body itself invisible. In our days, with just the coarse layers of the mind, there was sufficient joy and woe in this world. Problems there were no less. Today, you have made it so much more, nothing have you left simple.”

Lavanya smiled a little. Just the other day Amit was explaining invisible light to Yogamaya. From that has come this argument – this too is delicate. Yogamaya’s mother would not have understood it in just this way. She said “Ma, in course of time as the human mind understands everything with as much clarity, it will be able to suffer shocks with that much strength. The fear of darkness, the distress of darkness is unbearable, because it is not clear”

Yogamaya said “Today I think, it would have been better if the two of you had not met”

“No, no, don’t say that. That something else could have been instead of what is, I cannot even think of that. At one time, I had a firm belief that I was parched and dry – I will merely study and pass exams, passing my life just like that. Today I suddenly found, I too can love. The impossible has been made possible in my life, that is enough for me. I feel I was a shadow so long, today I am truth. What more could I want. Do not ask me to marry, Ma.”

She got down from her stool, put her head in Yogamaya’s lap and began to cry.

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