What we save, save us
A few years ago, I had once attended a panel discussion in the Kala Ghoda fest...it was on how businesses can support art and museum culture in Mumbai. Towards the end of the discussion, the group was asked how they coped with a systemic rejection of creativity in a city so greatly fuelled by commerce.
One of them, a gentleman with a cloud of grey curly hair, said that every quarter he would examine a word - its epistemology, its meaning in the world and to him, word and experience associations, etc. This would help him peel away the layers of cliches that words and labels usually get encrusted with. Finally he would come to the fragile, beating heart of a lot of dead terminology and descriptions. And that would tell him how he could get his business to survive in Mumbai.
I am not quite there yet. But since the last few months, my nerves have been frayed by a number of things. So 'healing' has been on my mind. I haven't made too much headway in that direction but a conversation with a friend last night helped me see something precious.
This friend, we'll call him G, is an artist now but he was an addict earlier, for many years. He had started doing hash, etc. since the age of 10. The addiction came to fore and glaring when he was 21. Frequent failed rehabilitation attempts later, his family had had enough. They gave G a room, checked up on him to see if he was alive, and left him alone to snort, shoot up, smoke up, drink, abuse, roll around in the abyss of self-loathing, or basically do what he would otherwise do in a cheap motel in Colaba or Goa.?
I have known G since childhood but we had lost touch in the middle. But in the time apart, I had come close to lots of addicts. Of course, there was a lot of judgment on my part - they are weak, they are selfish, and what is the new low they want to explore now? (To be completely honest, I still have that judgement for addicts who have children. Working on that.) But I was continually blown away by those who tried over and over again, and even after they were well enough, they knew they could slip back anytime. How do you join back a society that damaged you so much? How do you make friends with your own shadow that can devour you in a moment of weakness? How do you continue to trust yourself? What does 'healing' mean if you are never really out of the woods?
G told me of one evening when he was sitting and drinking by the window. His grandmother would leave a piece of holy text along with his food. (Ordinarily he would take the food and fling the text outside the window. It would be back with the next meal.) That evening, he opened a page. He read, got enraged and tore it up.
Next day, there was a new copy of the text along with the food. He read and tore?up the text again. This went on for a few days. Then one day, he saw a wounded bird trapped in his sill. The next few days, G tended to it, shared food, made a bed with his worn-out clothes, etc.?He tells me that when the bird got better and flew away is when he started healing a little bit. I asked him if it was his grandmum's loving stubbornness, the text, the family's acceptance, his own will?
He says that tending to the bird had shown him a part of himself that the drugs and alcohol had kept hidden. He finally spotted a version that was worth saving.?And a glimpse of that is what made his healing journey worthwhile.?
You live and learn...to live.