In the End by Srini

The following passage covers Abhi's narration of a chapter from K.C. Pathnivala's A Commoner's Vagaries as narrated on a spring Saturday morning at the St. Louis School for the Visually Impaired. The audience includes, for various reasons, the peon, Sister Catherine, Sati, Sumitra and the Major, the sole absentee being Parijatha. The chapter in question is titled: "Who are We to Ask this Question?"

Life thrusts upon all of us a strange kind of solitude. We can never utter every single thought that we have and there is always some part of us that remains unexpressed, alone in our minds. I suppose it only means that no matter how hard we try, people will never see us for exactly who we are. In my youth I tried hard to be transparent with my thoughts and I believed in complete integrity. To indulge in such total integrity as I saw fit, I would endeavour to analyse and understand with great clarity everything I said or did. I desired to be honest with others and myself because I thought if everyone understood why I thought whatever I thought, they'd see me for who I truly was. I tried to understand myself and if I had the opportunity, I tried explaining what I'd understood of myself to other people. It took me a long time to realize that no matter what I said or did, people judged and analysed me for themselves. Even my explanation of myself was judged by their standards. I realized people rarely ever took your word for anything.

It took me a long time to realize that no two people see the same thing even when they are looking at the same thing. When someone looks at me there is no way he or she sees me as I see myself. I began to understand that the solitude that life imposes upon us is manifested as a myriad of unique universes in each of our minds. We all perceive things differently and we carry in each of our minds a version of the universe that is offset ever so slightly so as to make them as unique as our genes. I also understood that there is in each of our minds the entirety of everything. There is in the universe in my own mind the father that I looked up to, the mother that I love, the enemy I hate and even the beggar that I ignore. When my father died, the entity in my mind died and my universe became a little lesser and I hurt. When my first son was born my universe expanded by that much and I experienced great joy. When the beggar passed by my house he walked out of my universe and for him I have little thought except when I say I do not think of him.

I began to realize that the whole universe is in my mind just as it is in everybody else's. Everybody and everything I know and do not know exists in my mind and everything in my mind influences me. I began to understand that in life no one is an island and no one is alone in his or her universe. In the same vein of thought, if no one thought of one particular person then that person would cease to exist. If he or she did not exist in any universe in any mind then he or she did not exist. I have come to believe that everything out there and in here would not exist if it were not observed and remembered. Absolutes can be false and as far as I'm concerned "we think, therefore everything is." Perhaps nothing is truer and more real than a simple clear thought. Matter and energy may be real only as long as someone thinks they are real.

In the infinity of time and space, man's ephemeral circle of birth, life and death may seem futile to the cynic who ponders about it. We may be the only entity we know of that questions its own existence. We may appear to be only tiny little observers in the absolute universe of all, in the infinity that we cannot decipher. Perhaps we are not so puny and ephemeral as we imagine. Perhaps it is in every person and in his or her thoughts that the universe becomes real. Perhaps only we exist and the entirety of time and space is real only as long as we question it and only as far as we can see it.

I believe that the universe is not out there but in each of us, a little different universe in each of us and if you are reading this I probably just became a part of your universe. You will read my words and judge my words and me. Even that observation you make of me will make your universe different from the one I know. If you think about it, to me you are an anonymous reader but to you I put a thought in your head and it is possible I'm a larger part of your universe than you are of mine in some way. But every person in this world is separated by six degrees - six persons. Perhaps even if I do not know you, in the intricate network of human minds you will become a part of my universe in some way. I hope you will, because my mind's realm would then have expanded and my life shall have that little bit more of delicious complexity. In the meantime I will not worry about how you have judged me and in what way you have made me a part of your universe for I have myself to be and I have innumerable my selves to be in innumerable minds.

I have always believed that life moves forward naturally to better ends. If it cannot move forward with you and me then it will do so without us but there are always better ends to achieve. There will come after us better people and perhaps even better manifestations of life. Perhaps one day there will be pure thought, without body, which will know all. I am sure there will come after us better universes in better minds. I know not in what way better but I'm sure that life will move forward. If that is true then I have nothing to fear. For now, somewhere out there in some universe there is the best me and the best you and I look forward to meeting you there.

If you really must know -

Sumitra learnt Braille at the age of 16 when she no longer depended on it. She never endeavoured to trace Pari's past or her father's tragedy. She wrote a book titled The Rainbow is Magnificent When You Can't See It. It was her treatise on imagination and why you don't need to "know" to "see."

Abhi thinks.