Comeuppance

Posted by Tima on Friday October 27, @01:19AM

There it lay in my hands....like a sweet innocent child... and I at liberty to take advantage of it... but could already feel pangs of guilty feeling even before I opened ...

There it lay on my table.Hard bound in brown, quiet nondescript as such , but had all my attention at present, came out of my bag just now, after returning from the movie.Train of events leading to its presence on my table flashed in front of me. She was writing something in her diary“.I came”. Plan for a movie“.somewhere in between she gave it to me to keep in my bag”“I’ll take it on our way back” and she forgot.

Oh god! How can any one be so casual about it. Now it was in my ahnds.Life of a person ,some very personal moments.“Diary is my best friend”.She had confided in me many a times.that I envied this diary. Temptation to tear it was strong but stronger was the temptation to open it, esp. when I knew that I would be occupying some volume of it.Let’s see what has she written.

But something stopped me . Encroachment upon someone’s personal space, when I guard my right of privacy so zealously. I tried to reason . We reason b’cos we are in need of a criteria , a balance to measure the reality , to distinguish between right and wrong.But I wanted to read it. As is always the case one looks for excuses , resons to do a thing when you have decided to do it already.Why should I read it? I wanted to know more about her“ her past” her this and that’’But why can’t we just live in the present ? The body is sensible only to the present pleasure and affliction, but the soul recollects the past and the brain anticipates the future & they are inseparable. But could have very well asked her directly“.

I remember once in a pissed off mood, looking for a topic for some unpleasant discussion, I started with ” How many affairs you had in the past?’ against all courtesy and etiquettes .but culminated in one of the most pleasant evening we ever had. She didn’t avert the topic. She did reply and I have no inhabitations to to believe that it was dishonest. Why would she or as a matter of fact any one? Many a times we are not honest with such questions not onl;y because it had left a bad taste in mouth but also because its not seen in the good humour by the society . So, we trying masking these episodes and effacing their memories . But what’s wrong in these? Right or wrong , can’t say but very natural” Whether our innate instincts determine our social behaviour or human instincts are the creation of the social system in which it develops? The Cyrenaics and the Cynics will continue to preach the opposing ethical doctrines of hedonism and asceticism but is life ever governed by doctrines? One should never exercise prudence due to others ..Let life flow in its natural course, & she believed in it too“

I think Pirsig had said ” Philosophy is the highest echelon of the entire hierarchy of knowledge “ and I more than agree with him. The question about reason and ethics and ” always disturb me, but certainly less than the sight of diary on my table. It remained there, kept disturbing me. Annoying me“.

GnR sang ” “..thinking is a waste of my time”..“,so enough enough watage of time. With a firm resolute, I picked it up. To keep myself protected against the pangs of guilty conscience which was about to hit me , I consoled my self ”she’s too at fault for this infringement of privacy, she gave it to me, I didn’t ask for it “ O! O! O! was I such a fool not to see all this . She gave it to me because she wanted me to read it.This thought surfaced out of nowhere. Can it be so? May be yes may be no. law of Omarta”Why can’t it be possible !Phaedrus told us that number of rational hypothesis that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite. SO, adding this one to the infinity didn’t make any difference.

If it was surrender , I won’t take advantage of it, I can’t reciprocate it, I won’t..Bonds of freedom bind us together.

If its manipulation , I’m no fool to get manipulated . I won’t read it. Does she wants me to see what she wants to show? What would she have written it ’’“ that what she thinks about life”.. what about me’’’“.how much she .”me’“ have forgotten ”..completely”..

Suddenly I felt uncontrolled revulsion

For a nonce, every thing seemed so hollow, that we need to convince each other of our feelings through carefully planned indirect means of seemingly careless communication.Thjis was a betrayal of trust .I hated even the thought of it.

“Betrayal of trust” , Trust is what I sought most. Huhh!! But then what am I doing ? Doubting somebody just on the basis of a stray thought arising somewhere within the abyss of mind .Sometimes reason becomes a slave to man’s passion. How can fleeting shadow of this transcendental hypothesis made me doubt the worth of what is real , very real and cast suspicion over the existence of permanence (at least’’’..). I felt ashamed of myself for all this but still at repose..

Now the diary present in front of me did not disturb me any more nor did I envy it further. It showed me the real depth and permanence of what for a moment seemed so shallow and ephemeral.

Next morning when I gave back her diary I said with a composed reassured tone “ Don’t leave your personal diary like this with any body but I haven’t even opened it”

She gave me a puzzled look which I understood only when she said “ you fool, this is not my personal diary but is the one in which I write my class notes”

Non sequitur I still hated her a lot that night for causing health hazard due to the packet of cigarette I smoked in perplexity , for disturbing me so much, for putting at risk of my head bigger and bigger with so much thought and ’.. But it was a comeuppance