a few days back, i was feeling hopelessly restless. office hours were long, boring and filled with repetitive work. i had not written or read anything good for sometime. that, considering that my job involves writing and i scour the net for good stuff throughout the day is a pretty depressing statement. i used to reach home late at night, siting blankly, in dire need of that one piece of written word that would save me from sinking. in the span of those few nights, i must have flipped through umpteen books; must have read gazals and poems in a truckload; pages and pages of essays, short stories, speeches, magazines but nothing was working.
i knew i'd a lifeline, just that i didn't want to use it then. like the great warrior in the Mahabharata, Karna, i was preserving that for a more dire future. but that was not to be. gods still carry that wicked sense of irony.
kept on my bedside table, wrapped in a transparent ploythene cover, that lifeline was a book that i'd bought a month ago. it was so precious to me that i didn't want to read it! don't you feel about some books like that? or wish after a story has ended that it shouldn't have ended? i wanted it to be a part of some more important day in the future, 'cos whenever i read that author, i go into the soul-searching mode. that book was/is a treasure for me, because its author talks to me like nobody has ever done before. but as i said, it was just not meant to be.
i picked the book up. read the back cover, then the cover, the author's short bio, few lines for the translator, a few epigraphs in the beginning and then the first para of the very first page starting with the line, "it was the happiest moment of my life..." for two nights, i read only that first para and thought and pondered upon and tried to maintain a distance with the rest of the pages as i didn't want to go through them so soon. two nights after that, i've read around 80 pages. pages that have kept me up till twelve or one or two in the night. i read, re-read and then read them once again. and after all of that, i'm not sure whether they are the best by this author or not. now tell me, dear friend, are their people who ask this question to themselves, "Is this the best life i've lived?" so how can i? 'Cos when Orhan Pamuk writes, i don't judge or ask questions, i can not, its so much about me that i just keep reading...almost as much as i keep living.
"In fact, no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant 'now', even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse. If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.
But when we reach the point when our lives take on their final shape, as in a novel, we can identify our happiest moment, selecting it in retrospect, as I am doing now. To explain why we have chosen this moment over all others, it is also natural, and necessary, to retell our stories from the beginning, just as in a novel. But to designate this as the happiest moment is to acknowledge that it is far in the past, that it all will never return, and that awareness, therefore, of that very moment is painful. We can bear the pain only by possessing something that belongs to that instant. These mementos preserve the colors, textures, images, and delights as they were more faithfully, in fact, than can those who accompanied us through those moments."
- Kemal Bey, the main protagonist
in Orhan Pamuk's novel 'Museum of Innocence'
tell me, my dear reader-friend, do you believe that the happiest moment of your life is still to arrive or have you already lived it? would you like to share your happiest moment or its expectant dream with me?
3 comments:
Orhan Pamuk Adee...when I began reading snow, i stopped reading it after reading a few chapters..because I wanted to hold on to reading the book, i did not want that feeling of coming back to my hostel room, opening Snow & then reading & finding something that would dazzle me...the bliss that will fill me, as I forget about the rest of the world, while I walk through the snow covered lanes with Ka. I bought more books by Pamuk... But I have not started reading 'em yet...i felt the same reading many other writers, Pablo Neruda & Gulzar to name a few
My happiest ever moment was when i got a signed copy of TRUE COLORS from Adam Gilchrist himself.
I have that book preserved. Its still feels new. The new smell of the book is still there.
I have read the book twice :)
Its a treasure
But many more happy moments to come :)
I simply loved reading this.
Yes, there have been books that I have loved dearly. I keep wishing that I could read them for the first time again!
I dont believe in the concept of "happiest days" (I used to, but now no longer do). That is because no 2 days and no 2 moments in my life can be compared. They are all unique. What I can say is that over the years I have learned to enjoy everything - happiness, sorrow, companionship, loneliness, victory, defeat, satisfaction, hunger... When I am 85 and talking to my grandchildren, I want to be able to tell them that I lived the happiest life... not happier than anyone else's life... just the happiest life that I could live.
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