“Wear helmets, save your head” screamed the banners from all over the city. News items which involved death due to accidents make it a point to mention that the victims were not wearing helmets. However careless an erring driver, he would have a reason to escape from the fact that he was in the wrong, if the person he had rammed into had not been wearing a helmet, hence he paid a price for it. The fact that he was on the wrong side of the road, ceases to hold any weight – the fact that the victim was not wearing a helmet gains importance. The law tries all kinds of media to make sure that the zippers across the road knew the dangers of high throttle of the bikes they were riding, and that the head needed to be protected from any untoward incident.
How very convenient it would be, if every part of our anatomy, not only our head, had such an armour to shield itself ! You know what I am talking about ? yeah you are right, the supersensitive heart ! The heart that houses all our feelings, our hurts, our emotions, our joys and our intense pains - pain which is sometimes even more than the physical pain of a heart attack, when one feels like being run through a sugarcane machine. If only we had some gear which we could don, that would help us protect ourselves from all the barbs that are flying around, and that manages to find its target if one happens to be in the vicinity, is unprotected and vulnerable.
Just like a rider who is riding his bike and crashes, with his helmet hung on his bike handle, many of us willingly invite trouble. We are taught time and again, that we should take people as they come, we should stop expecting them to fit into some mould that we have prepared for them, we should let bygones be bygones… The list of shoulds is never-ending. Yet for all these maxims, when it comes to the dart, it chooses its mark – and how accurately ! And the darts that hurt the most are the ones that come from a quiver close to you… The statutory warning can never work in such cases. Just like it never works for the erring bike-rider; and he, not the oncoming vehicle’s driver is blamed for the accident. He never meant to hurt you, you choose to get hurt, they console you.
There are all kinds of people in this world, and if you start being so sensitive to whatever they tell you, you will only be responsible for all the unhappiness in your life. Another maxim. Sounds very fair and practical. But are matters of the heart ever fair ? and practical ? You tend to lax, you tend to have your defenses down at times, like the rider with his helmet on his bike; and wham! There it comes … when you least expect it, from the quarter you least thought it would originate from. Poisoned arrows, barbs, that makes your heart bleed silently, not so much the fact the wound being deep, as the knowledge that hurts, that the source of the hurt is your own…. Like the regret that the rider has, who was more keen on protecting his bike handle, than his own head !
How very convenient it would be, if every part of our anatomy, not only our head, had such an armour to shield itself ! You know what I am talking about ? yeah you are right, the supersensitive heart ! The heart that houses all our feelings, our hurts, our emotions, our joys and our intense pains - pain which is sometimes even more than the physical pain of a heart attack, when one feels like being run through a sugarcane machine. If only we had some gear which we could don, that would help us protect ourselves from all the barbs that are flying around, and that manages to find its target if one happens to be in the vicinity, is unprotected and vulnerable.
Just like a rider who is riding his bike and crashes, with his helmet hung on his bike handle, many of us willingly invite trouble. We are taught time and again, that we should take people as they come, we should stop expecting them to fit into some mould that we have prepared for them, we should let bygones be bygones… The list of shoulds is never-ending. Yet for all these maxims, when it comes to the dart, it chooses its mark – and how accurately ! And the darts that hurt the most are the ones that come from a quiver close to you… The statutory warning can never work in such cases. Just like it never works for the erring bike-rider; and he, not the oncoming vehicle’s driver is blamed for the accident. He never meant to hurt you, you choose to get hurt, they console you.
There are all kinds of people in this world, and if you start being so sensitive to whatever they tell you, you will only be responsible for all the unhappiness in your life. Another maxim. Sounds very fair and practical. But are matters of the heart ever fair ? and practical ? You tend to lax, you tend to have your defenses down at times, like the rider with his helmet on his bike; and wham! There it comes … when you least expect it, from the quarter you least thought it would originate from. Poisoned arrows, barbs, that makes your heart bleed silently, not so much the fact the wound being deep, as the knowledge that hurts, that the source of the hurt is your own…. Like the regret that the rider has, who was more keen on protecting his bike handle, than his own head !
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