Hope

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Hope is an abstract word and it has as many connotations as there are individual men and women. The animals too, perhaps, entertain hope, may be in the context of their survival. A man who hopes for things indirectly indicates that his past, including the immediate present, has not given him nurturing memories. If memories are pleasant dreams are juicy. If dreams are juicy hope is more colourful. But if a man has bad memories of his past he may hope for a change in his present screenplay of life. But if he convinces himself that nothing will ever change his life, he may rethink his life and will decide whether he would go on with his unchanging, flaccid and stagnant life. If he decides to put an end to his life it may be on an impulse or after a conscious admission to himself of having failed to carve out his own being. Reality is always a challenge irrespective of his position in family, society, world, his dreams and aspirations. As one grows from the stage of the babe in the nurse’s arms (or the hell- hole) to pre-adolescence a bond with life is already struck. Living creates desires and dreams. Hope naturally makes him strive for a better tomorrow. How can someone tear off the bond, cancel the unwritten MOU?

Albert Camus in his Myth Of Sisyphus has called living a habit. “Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognised, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering.” I am tempted to ask, who in the world is not feeling, at some point or other, the futility of living a life of daily martyrdom? The priest, the devotee, the kings, conquerors as well as the sick get moments of the absurd. The desire to play destiny maker  to one’s own life and put an end to that absurdity with a ‘bare bodkin ‘ often pushes us to the brim .But should we all kill ourselves ? Failure has several faces and man is fated to encounter such faces daily. A world conqueror like Napoleon after victory at Corssica rolled on his large bed shedding tears of failure for not having conquered the heart of Josephine. But he did not go in for suicide. Even as a half blind prisoner at Elba he dreamt of a comet in the sky to appear at his death.

Dreams are endless. Failures are endless. Suffering too is endless. But euthanasia is the last thing one should desire. I am not an advocate of fate or destiny. In the modern world man himself carves out his own destiny. In the process failure comes. Frustration comes. Nature too is now cramped and cribbed by man’s adventures. Nature protests. Man suffers the consequences of his own technotronic attacks on nature. A tree blown bare and bald in a super cyclone again smiles with foliage. Nails, they say, grow in the coffin. Man’s mental fight against all odds goes on in ceaseless reinforcements: why then acknowledge defeat? Some battles will be lost in the general war of life. A failure or defeat or despair should not lead man to jump off a cliff. Suicide is not even the last choice of a soldier, unless he is a Roman Fool.

Whoever gave us this life wanted us to live it fully. If life is a poisoned chalice drink it to the lees: the afterlife may be ambrosiac. Hope for the best because the unborn tomorrow may reveal the garden path to your Princess. Love always gives hope; if not today , tomorrow; if not tomorrow the day after and so on. Hope keeps your nerves agile makes your body and mind ambulatory. Hope is future, the unseen, the unknown possibility to put life on track.

There are still some people who think why repeat the past in the present if no redemption is insight? The answer to those nay sayers is: because these chain repetitions of negativity may one day break and new light flash illuminating your dark reality. Hope keeps you alive. It makes you think, plan, plot and try. Waiting for Godot is worthwhile even if Godot never turns up, for the wait strengthens reason. This reason is strengthened by hope. Hoping against hope comes naturally to human reason. Those who feel life is absurd do not know how to live. Life is  a work of art  if you know how to hold the brush of your being alive.