What does it feel to be a stranger in a place you love ?

Photo Credit: Siddhartha Ganesh FSLE3

Thank you Sid!

My Student Palak sent me this poem a few weeks back...

I am no longer sitting

in the prison of regret.

I have accepted the past.

I am now free to embrace

the present with a new

sense of appreciation.

I am no longer shackled

by bitterness. I have

learned to forgive

what I thought was

not forgivable.

I am free

to experience the joy of

unconditional acceptance.

As the evening sun set today, and my car slowly wound up the lovely roads of the Campus, deep inside my heart, I knew these are my last few moments and my last few glimpses of something I loved very deeply. I think when you love someone or something, with your soul and your heart, and you lose it...a part of you dies too..

As a child I remember , the one thing that mortified me was the thought of my father’s death. When I saw his dead body at the funeral pyre , and I saw a large log of wood fall mercilessly on his forehead and I couldn't do anything but scream silently in pain , a part of me died that moment. The feeling is of a vast emptiness. You are bereft of any emotions and painlessness..

When I lost my best friend in an Air Crash, again the site of his feet jutting out of the funeral pyre , his eyes looking insanely serene and his smile almost divine, I felt a part of me left me that day.

When my Father in Law passed away recently, the sudden death left me with poignant memories of a man who I grew up to be very fond of and a man who for many years was my role model and eventually began to rely heavily on me for my advise and reassurance.

The same feeling I experienced today evening. As the car was winding up the road, I wanted to make no phone calls, I just wanted to soak in the memory of my last drive away from my child.

I was reminded of leaving my daughter at the Bombay Airport as she flew away for her studies to Nottingham.

To experience no hurt or to blame no one. to accept your destiny as a part of your "Karmic" existence , to know that the many times you spent in that place will never ever come back left me sad and empty and hollow inside. But why did God take away something so dear to me is the one question I have been unable to answer. Its not self pity . I am sure of that. Many feel that I get too attached to people and places. But they don’t realize the  passion and the spirit and the life in the place and the mission would not have come without that sense of ownership, a sense of parenthood and a sense of love for the cause, the place and its people.

I know many students didn’t like me because they felt I gave special treatment to a few. The fact is that I wanted to make each one of you feel special but I could do it to only a few. I only wanted to touch and change as many lives as I could . I had no favorites. But I just happened to know a few more than the others. But I want to apologize to those that felt left out. I am sorry that never was my intent. I want to thank those who thought that I touched their lives for they touched mine too.

And as the Campus receded away from the skyline , a part of my heart stopped beating. A lesson learnt . A child left behind. Its hand slipping away from mine. A treasured memory full of love.  My heart will always beat for you every student in FLAME.  A part of my heart will always beat for the faculty who trusted me or my dream of an education that would break all boundaries. My heart will always beat for every staff member who toiled for a dream.

Alvida.  

Bahot be abroo ho kar tere kuche se hum nikale

Finally , a verse form Madhushala

Madhur bhaavnaaon ki su-madhuar

nitya banaata hoon haala

bharta hoon is madhu se apne

antar ka pyaasa pyaala

utha kalpana ke haatho se

svayam use pee jaata hoon

apne hee mein hoon mai saaki,

peene vaala , Madhushala

Harivanshrai Bachchan  says that he has been making poetry of all the nice (wine) feelings and experiences of his life. He has been filling his inner self with this wine and has been consuming it through his imaginations. I am myself the wine-bearer, drinker and the Tavern

Goodbye FLAME. May the light keep burning!