These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.
“Flattering to deceive” is a term Indians who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s are all too familiar with.
The term, though English, has found its way into at least two dozen Indian languages, albeit in translated form. It started with hockey (sorry, field hockey, in which India has won eight Olympic golds), shifting to badminton and tennis. The Indians were lucky to regain lost glory in field hockey in 1975 when they won the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.
And Prakash Padukone finally won the All England Open in 1980 and the World Cup in 1981 to put India on the badminton map.
But tennis has continued to deceive the Indians (in singles). In the 1970s Vijay Amritraj (part of the ABC — Amritraj, Borg and Connors) beat Rod Laver at Wimbledon, Bjorn Borg in the US Open, and was two sets up against Borg and led 4-1 in the fourth set at Wimbledon in 1979.
He had a 5-6 record against Connors and beat McEnroe in the Cincinnati Masters. But when it came to Grand Slams, he couldn’t proceed beyond the quarters.
Times have changed, and we, the teens in the 1970s, have grown up and … moved on. Beijing, however, brought back those memories, that cycle of hope inevitably followed by despair.
By Beijing, I mean Beijing weather — weather forecast to be precise — in the later part of July and the first few days of August. For night after night, the weather forecast flattered by predicting rain, if not thundershowers, only to gift a cloudy or overcast sky or light rain the next day followed by more humidity.
Which reminded me of an Indian saying, mashooqa ka mizaaj, kabhi shabnam kabhi shola, meaning a beloved is fickle — changing from a night of cool, soothing dewdrops to a day of fire and brimstone.
Blame it on climate change if you will, but that is another, and very important, story to be delved into at another time. Suffice it to say a domino-like effect of melting polar ice, shrinking glaciers, dying rivers and streams, shifting currents, and chopping down of forests in the name of development is tilting the only planet we can call home toward a “hothouse” state beyond which even the best human efforts to reduce emissions and restrict temperature rise will be simply of no use.
The fickle, or should we call it revengeful, weather we are experiencing in Beijing and across the world is the message our beloved, our beloved earth, is sending us.
And as the great Rumi said, “These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
Listen to them, heed their advice, lest you lose your beloved forever.
Or as the greatest Urdu poet Ghalib said, Humne mana, ki taghaful na karoge, lekin, khaaq ho jayenge hum, tumko khabar hone tak (I agree you won’t betray me, but, I’ll turn into ashes and dust by the time you get to know this truth).
Which works both ways when it comes to our beloved (Earth).
The time to make amends, to change the mood of our beloved from fiery temper to assuasive demeanor, is passing us by.
After this there may not be any flattery or deception.
Seize the chance, we have to.
Or like Rumi grieve: “I wait with silent passion for one gesture, one glance from you.”
Knowing well you are gone, gone forever.