Precious lines

It has been a long while since I have felt like posting anything on my blog. When the brain is blocked with sadness and worry there is no way to be creative. And I don't always want to be negative in what I write. But a few people have said some unusual things to me in the last months that have helped me to cope. They need to be put on record.

When Stephan's close friend Richard Fournier from Montreal heard of Stephan's passing away, he simply wrote back philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's famous line: 'Wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muß man schweigen', roughly translated as 'What we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence,' from the prologue of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. At that moment the context was clear. But that sentence is applicable to

so many other situations and events... I have held that line dear ever since.

I have a good friend, Anuva Neog in Munich. She is much younger than me, and very sensitive and caring. When she heard of Stephan's passing away we spoke briefly over phone. Then she wrote in early September to say that there must be a reason why Stephan has been taken away from me. 'God has other plans for you, Baa, just you wait and see.' At that moment I could not care less what other plans God could have had for me, but as the days and months have gone by, I have begun to appreciate more and more the sense of what she said -- every end must lead to a new beginning, otherwise we are also dead. I do not yet know where my life is going and what is in store for me, but I take courage from her happy conviction.

And finally, my French friend and colleague Philippe Ramirez, a reputed anthropologist from the CNRS, and I were deep in the field in December 2019 when the protests over the CAB broke out in Upper Assam. That meant we were more or less stranded in Kakopothar from a Sunday evening to Thursday early morning. These strikes caught people unawares.  There was a complete shutdown of internet and the mobile networks so it was very hard to know what was going on. There was great distress among the general people, gas cylinders were running out, people had no food and medicines, students living in hostels in Tinsukia and Dibrugarh had nothing to eat, there was no cash in circulation and very little that it could buy. Still the protests continued unabated because the Morans are very fiercely nationalistic. 

In the wee hours of Thursday morning, we managed to get to Mohanbari, driving by the side of burning ambulances, tyres and trees, with the help of a very brave driver and a few courageous Moran students union students.  But then all flights were cancelled from Mohanbari to Guwahati till the Saturday at least. Philippe seemed to be a bit more relaxed about the whole situation -- I suppose French  people have generally become rather used to strikes and protests in recent times. That his flight back to France was not until the next Friday helped.  My flight back to Germany was on Monday; when we heard that no flights would leave Mohanbari also on Saturday, tears trickled down my cheeks. I was despairing, my brain was blank, I had no idea what we could do and time was quickly running out to get to Guwahati, then to Delhi in time for the international flight. 

Seeing me crying, Philippe came up to me and said, 'Meenaxi, aren't we very lucky that neither of us is sick?' 

That line was all I needed to get back my sense of proportion. People were in bigger trouble all around us and here I was crying over a potentially missed flight! That was not only unnecessary, it was completely silly. And once I got back my brain working, we found a way to get back to Guwahati in time for me to catch my flight back! 

That moment of crisis has passed but that line has stayed with me and has helped me to see that I am not the only one in this world who has problems. I remind myself of that line every time I begin to feel unhappy and sorry for myself... things are bad but not so bad, many others have it much worse. That helps me to get up and get going again. 

These three wise and caring friends have helped me cope with the darkness and the gloom that has come over my life in the last months... thank you!