Youth

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

When the evening lengthens to reach the dark core of night I rejoice waiting for the dawn. Light never fades; what appears like dissipation is illusory, for behind the dark infernal silence the exuberance of luminosity opens up atom by atom, the lotus blooms petal by petal, grass blades dew-decked or pale –dry look up like my beloved raising her eyelids shade by shade while getting ready for the day. The flapping pages of calendars change numbers, letters and figures but time does not fade into history rather assimilates all history, remaining aesthetically and morally neutral. The sun is never tired, never late, never betrays its own youth. The moon waxes and wanes revitalising itself (herself or himself as you please) as a beautiful being like my love changing apparel to satiate her moods morning, Moon  night her imagination flies, floats, ambles but is never still; the soul of the moon, stars and all beings embraces phenomena for moments of fulfilment and move on for new excitement in the flow of time. The universe is young, youth is the vital energy of creation, all humans, animals, insects and vegetation like the astral manifestations up above move with energy of youth.

You may say how is it – man grows old, slows down and dies, flowers swell with pride of beauty but droop and dry, blacken and fall? Well that is the meaning of youth. A man falls but man is always up and doing, a flower dies but flower is not dead, like the clouds marching in royal fury on a clear blue sky, conquering the blue territory with dark energy within a word-drop.  No static form is true, change and dynamic renewal of youthful vitality is what the universe is the stuff of.  The Gita says the form changes, the body is discarded; a new body is taken by the soul like my love changing a saree into a suit or a gown, this lila goes on with vigour, nothing comes to an end.  Life is the only sentence without a fullstop, it changes images, metaphors, tense and speech yet moves on. A man is old in years but his mind, desires, dreams, aspirations in the progression of changing tenors continue till the body is discarded for its uselessness and a new form is taken. The process is automatic, with the youthful universal energy changing scripts as the new imaginaries take on its fancy. There is no pause.  For every death there is new birth, for every tear there is laughter, for every end there is a built – in beginning.

Have you ever seen the waves of the ocean lax in rest slackening their shore breaking roars? Dawn noon night they strike changing rhythms as the wind blows or tempests blow or the red moon maddens. They never stop inbreathing the spring air, never pause to see visiting fairies with floral diadems on their heads like Ceasar’s laurel crown.  If you watch keenly the sea changes colours too as the sun completes his diurnal molion charming from morn to night and as the moon changes her makeup like my love. The dark green at dawn turns blush green when the dawn crimson touches the sea with a wake up kiss. The sea changes colour as the sun changes from crimson to pale yellow to white (hot) to orange in slow succession. The night changes colours, the earth, the sky and all ocular substances change colours, attributes, quality and at times shape. This is the dynamic vitality of youth which is not a ‘state’, temporary and faddy.  It’s not what the poets say spring and summer, gradually slowing down to a mature slackening of pace. Youth is not a rosary of hours, it is eternities of moments with different validity constantly updating its informed reality.

Youth today is not an enchantment of the soul. Modern young persons are impatient to spend time in comforts luxuries with the conviction that ‘youth’s a stuff that will not endure’. The rhythms of fluid, variable eternity outlasting the ‘endurance’ of the material body are not of meaning or validity to them. Pleasures of balloon moments are indulged in with superficial ludicrous attention till they burst leaving tonal lethargy in the body and mind. Youth today are without moral soulforce, they dissipate their  energy in radical protests or uncritical practicality unsure of the veracity of the higher soul. And they are alone, each to his needs of body moments. Love is no more an unending lyric changing pace, rhythm, metrics, passions and images in mutually adjustible progression to a life beyond. Living is confined to a feel good factor. Self belief is rare, limited areas of momentary illumination are explored to the accompaniment of sensual music.

O my youthful souls, remember, if darkness descends on us brightness also falls on us, whether from heaven or pure physicality the investigation is not over. God is not dead, he is in us, driving our energies to the creativity of literature, arts, philosophy and science. A mystic veil still hangs -  go and discover it. Make your soul multi-sensory and search for the Beyond in everything.