Silence
1.
When
my son was born, for the first few minutes he was absolutely silent. No
outburst of crying, no movement and eyes closed. The attending doctor
and nurses were busy trying to find out why he was so silent. My wife
was still on the operating table, drowsy and recovering from one of
the most painful experiences of her life. I stood there, near the
small table where the specialist was doing all kinds of procedures on
my new born son, putting long tube to clear out the air passage in
his mouth and nose, holding him upside down, rolling him sideways,
from one side to another, checking his bright pinkish bare chest with
a tiny stethoscope.
No
one took my pulse that day but I can assure you it was racing and
increasing in every second. The dreadful thoughts flooded my mind.
Was he okay? Would he breathe? I only knew my son for a few minutes
and the normal worries of a parent has already started. And then a
tiny voice let the world hear his first cry. So low the voice was
that I could hardly hear, but saw his mouth and eyes opened for the
first time, and at last he was letting the world know of his arrival
in his own time schedule.
2.
Some
silence is unbearable, like the absolute silence of my son just after
his birth. Some silence is full of anguish and pain. In some
scriptures of our world’s great religions it was mentioned that
there was silence in the universe in the beginning and perhaps the
boredom of the silence made our creator take the plunge into creating
a universe or maybe many universes full of so much varieties, sounds
of all kinds from the atomic to the macro levels comprising this
world. Let there be light and the light was there. Let there be sound
and the sound was there.
And
here we are in the early era of 21st
century, surrounded by technological gizmos, non-stop information
overload, twitting, facebooking, googling, blogging and pondering
about when the driver-less car will arrive with the zero fuel cost
from the abundant solar energy or utilizing the workable fusion or
fission technologies or when we will reach the proverbial
singularity, transcending humanity into the next level of existence
perhaps even achieving the immortality.
My
son is 10 weeks old now. He cries loud and clear when he is hungry or
when he wants to be cuddled. Holding my son very close to me, rocking
back and forth when I try to soothe him after he is fed or waiting to
be fed, I look at his eyes, so much full of wonder and surprises, so
focused observing the ever expanding, the vast and humongous world
surrounding him. Now he started to smile in his dream, perhaps
dreaming a world where his needs will always be taken care of, he
will be given full attentions and there will be no worries of
anything whatsoever. His parents and loved ones will always respond
with the unconditional love and not by heartless silence. In my tight
embrace of my son close to my heart, I can hear the slight murmur of
his fast beating heart.
Sometimes,
in the middle of rocking him back and forth, singing a nostalgic
lullaby deep in the night, my mind wanders like a sea farer. I
traverse time and space, like floating on a magic carpet, travelling miles after miles, looking at the world beneath me. The expanse of
the blue frothing waves of the rocking ocean, the outlines of land
mass of the world, even the tiny miniaturized homes, bridges and cars
and the people of all colors and races, going about their lives and
livelihood. No silence in the world! Then why so much silence in me?
From deep inside me, why can’t I say the words I need to say? Why
can’t I cry from the top of my lungs like my son does, seeing the
scream and cries and desperate agonies of other father and mother,
holding their shredded, mangled sons or daughter, not moving, silent,
snubbed and dehumanized as inferior just for their meager existence?
Silence
has two forms. One is the wilful silence and another one is the
silence of ignorance. In this day and age when fact based information
is abundant, being silent equals with the oppression and oppressors.
This world is beautiful and has plenty of good folks with genuine
hearts and caring. But this beautiful world also has its painful
silence among its inhabitants like me. Who for one reason or another,
perhaps to keep the status-quo alive, preserving one’s own
survival, will not utter a single word seeing the outrageous acts
done on my fellow beings or even the animal kingdom in the name of
consuming protein and tearing the flesh and bones of others. We have
indeed progressed so much ahead in terms of harmony and peaceful
existence, but unless this wall of wilful silence is shattered to
pieces in absolute terms, there will always be victims who will be
playfully blamed just because of their desire to live like the rest
of us.
3.
We
cry when we are born. We cry but slowly get into absolute silence
when we die. In the middle of these two absolute constants is
everything that the real life means. When my son cries I hold him
tight, rock him gently, pacify and sooth him with a song tune he
seems already to like. I slowly whisper to him, let him know how much
I love him and always tell him to cry the loudest, and not to be as
mute and silent as his old man is.
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