REACTIONS

On a crisp sunny afternoon in 2009.

Here I was,  retching bile into the toilet. I knew people vomit at the sight of something disturbing or at a repulsive smell, but I never really imagined that the brain would read a piece of ‘information’ as being so unsafe to the body that it triggered a reaction such as this. And here I was emptying my putrid gut into the stark white commode. The truth had hit me. It felt like that cold slap across your cheek that numbs the pain for the first few seconds, before you begin to realise the sensation of pain.

I was thought to pursue knowledge which as they say, is beauty.  But beware, not all knowledge is beauty. When you are privy to ugly and sickening knowledge, it is far from beautiful. It is ugly and sick.

How had I ended up in this mire? Why me, why us, why them? Is this actually happening? Thoughts and questions exploded in my head and as the water flushed down the toilet, it felt like I was being sucked into the whirling vortex.  I wanted to vanish into its depths of blissful darkness too.....but at the same time, I knew too well that, I wouldn’t ever want that wish to come true.  To vanish and be gone would have been utopic.  But asking for that would be unfair because, as much as I hate to admit, I was the least affected in all this.  Yes, the shock hit me hard, but for the two others in adjacent room, it would have felt like…..…. …like….

……………………well, I don’t know what it felt like for them really!

They were frozen in a daze. Their brains hadn’t reacted the way mine had. Their brains did not process the information as being hazardous and they weren’t rushing toward sinks and bowls.  This was perhaps the culmination of the years of angst, confusion, disgust and helplessness. And rather than a revolting effect, they had been relatively calm.

Of course, they were furious, disgusted and dejected at the same time. There was screaming, crying, trembling, shouting, questioning and all the elaborate gesturing that comes with it. They had felt betrayed, deprived and hurt. Their ‘hero’, their ‘protector’, their ‘inspiration’ had turned out to be an illusion.

 But it seemed to me that their energies were directed more towards the culmination.  At that moment, they had probably attained that elusive state of enlightenment, where one gets to know that they were correct all through…that their doubts and fears were not, in fact, unfounded. The feeling of finding that lost nail with which, you have been waiting, to shut the coffin.They weren’t shocked. They were shaken …..and who wouldn’t be. A piece of information such as this would make any rock shudder….

……………..but then would it?

……….for in the same room was another person who remained surprisingly calm. Even at this juncture, where for the rest of us the axes on which our lives rotate had permanently shifted, this person seemed completely at peace.  May be the strength came from the fact that this was the person controlling the ‘knowledge’….revealing fragments of information exactly when they had the potential to make full impact.

I can probably never ever begin to understand this enigma, incarnated as a human.  Years of grooming must wipe out basic sensitivities from an individual. The one that had suffered and harboured the doubts for years had, eventually on knowing the truth, decided to bury it back into those abysmal depths. The intention may have been never to reveal the truth, perhaps even to forget the truth… until of course the (un)fortunate turn of events decided otherwise.

It was probably an extremely relaxing moment for this person, to be able to unfold the layers of pretence and falsehood that were used to bury the truth and finally unfurl the dark secrets out in the open for others to take charge. A catharsis!

'One' situation.....'different' REACTIONS.