The touch of life!

Last night I searched in Google, typing ‘Prof Daya Krishna’, the name of my most loving teacher, rather a lovely, witty friend with white beard. When I joined the philosophy department in university, he had already retired. I met him as a helper student who was supposed to read and write for him as his physical ability to see and hear was fading with time. We read and wrote and talked together for almost ten years (with intervals because of my short term jobs). I could do much more for my career in philosophy with him than what I did. I only got two articles published with him, one in the Journal which he used to edit and one somewhere else which I wrote during my doctorate. I was never serious about my career. But whatever I have done in my life so far was always done whole-heartedly. I believe in the lines from a poem of famous Hindi writer Harivansh Raya Bachchan: ‘Whether goodness or sin (paap/punya), I never do it half-heartedly.’

The professor – whom I called Sir – was a lively person and so was I, full of life and vigour. We had a wonderful time together. I never remembered we had any heavy discussion on any ‘heavy’ topic. Anything philosophically significant if I remember was always in the form of a one-line question, formed carefully by me and a one-line answer, given spontaneously by him. He was always surprised by the depth of my question and I was always overwhelmed by the exactness of his answers, hitting the bull’s eye. Many times I and my Sir used to take lunch together and read ‘Mayalok’ or listen to ghazals or some classical music before he retired for his afternoon nap. Sometimes I used to go in evenings instead of morning and have a cup of tea with him. I used to fetch sweets prepared by my mother and he used to return a call of thank to my mother. Many times I used to bring dal makhni and malai kofta from a nearby restaurant for him or paan (betel leaf) as he used to love it. Sometimes I used to drive him to some park for evening walk. He would happily settle down on the back seat of my scooter. Some times, when we could not meet for many days, I used to sneak into his house (his door was always open when he was awake) and cover his eyes from behind and let him guess who was it and he used to express his joy with his warm welcoming hug. But why am I sharing these memories with you?

Because, for me, there is something special about his memories.

I met many professors, teachers, relatives, friends, persons in my life and many of them impressed me, taught me something or the other. But even today, when it is more than a year since he passed away, whenever I see his lively photo or ‘feel’ his presence I get wet eyes. One might say I am very emotional but I feel there is something more about his thoughts than an emotional attachment. Emotions are very unreliable facts and fluctuating realities though there might be a depth in the experience itself. But, in my relationship with Sir, there is a ‘life’ which touches me somewhere deep within.

We all have memories of many kinds but there is something radically different in some memories. The scope is as vast as universe. It might be a touch of new raindrops, or sight of a beautiful flower or anything from nature. It might be beholding a tiny existence on earth or watching stars or infinite space with a powerful telescope. It might be some impressive lines of a famous poem or an innocent remark of a child. It might be any experience with a long, deep relation or a few minutes meeting with a stranger. There is something special and magical about some moments in life. We never forget them, not because we memorized them strongly but they never fade away because they touched us so deep that they become part of our existence. Whenever we reflect on our ‘self’ we can feel the spark and spur from them.

Our life is of a given span. We live this time span full of progress and digress, success and failure, career and relations, earnings and spendings, outings and home stays, learnings and teachings, thirst and quench, agony and ecstasy, reading writers and thinkers, jokes and tragedies, reflecting and deflecting, etc but among all these activities there are the moments when you are touched by life. It might be anywhere and everywhere.

The BIG questions ‘What is life?’, ‘What is it all about?’, ‘Who are you?’, ‘Why are you?’, ‘What are you’, etc and all that is related to life can never be answered in any words. They are only ‘experienced’ by a person ‘living’ and, to comprehend them, you need to reflect on the moments which you lived ‘whole-heartedly’ because clues for the questions of life lie in the moments when you were ‘touched’ by life.

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Rachana Sharma has Doctorate in Philosophy and Masters in Philosophy and Sanskrit. She has published articles in various philosophical journals such as Paramarsh (Pune University), Journal of Philosophical Research (New Delhi), and The Philosopher’s Index (Ohio University, USA).