اب تم ہی کہو کیا کرنا ھے؟
It’s happened to all of us. We are routinely getting on with our day and suddenly out of nowhere, a gush of wind comes our way bringing with it a whirlwind, a ghost of sorts, of memories past. It immediately feels like we are under-attack. We feel the urge to wield our weapons against it, all the stories and justifications we built in our head to fight it off are worn right away like an armor, and a state of fight is assumed because we are afraid. Afraid that it is going to destroy us(again) if we just sit back and let it take control.
But does it work? Has it ever? It has been my experience that the very things we try to actively control in our lives end up being the ones we have no control over.
It doesn’t have to be that way though. There is an alternative.
Who says it has to be a fight? Why can’t we turn this into a beautiful ritual while assuming the role of a silent observer when the past revisits? It happened. It was monumental. What more of a reason do we need to turn it in a ritual?
When the breeze of remembrance of past comes, it brings with it, its own songs and poems. Some old. Some new. Some gut wrenching. Some uplifting. And we just have to be there. Acknowledge it. And sometimes, that breeze may feel like a tornado. And again all we have to do is simply be there. Acknowledge it.
Denying it won’t make it go away. It is far better to just let the breeze do its thing. And trust our soul take charge and create harmony between the breeze that we find ourselves in the middle of and our eventual destination. Even when it may feel like the soul hasn’t taken charge. We must have faith that it has.
And we don’t need an audience for this ritual. We are the audience. Sometimes, that is our sole role in our own life. That of a silent, accepting, observer. We could fight our inability to direct the course and create havoc, all the while creating a false sense of vulnerability by involving others. OR, we could just let the breeze pass and just be present for it and patient with it, without projecting our consciousness onto the course of events. It would be a futile effort to insert ourselves in the midst, one that is inconsistent with our soul. As they say in Punjabi,
“ہنیری آۓ تے بے کے ُکلاؤ۔”
And once it’s over, we can go back to who we were. We’re still there. And we realize, that it wasn’t a battle that had to be won, but a ritual that had to be witnessed. By ceasing control, we coexisted with our past. And that’s all we can do. We cannot undo it. We can only learn to live with it. And it is equally important to realize that this is not a coping mechanism but the only sustainable way of dealing with past. So, the next time, when it comes knocking, we do not have to get shaken by it, forced to relinquish all control when we can’t fight it off and consequently, left to feel helpless and in a state of doubt. Instead, we can know exactly what to do and have the perspective that when it passes which it shall, we will still have ourselves to go back to.
And what a beautiful feeling that can be. To know that, no matter what happens, we will always have ourselves. That is the only certainty I need. The only one I want to depend on, regardless of how much, or how little, I have or will ever have.