The Veil of 'Nothing'
The phone rang late evening, distracting me, while I was busy
juggling too many things.. Seeing that it was my Mom calling, I still answered
the phone with a customary greeting… she also started with a customary question
‘what are you doing?’… I said ‘Nothing, tell me’ and steered the conversation
further… but she said 'finish what you are doing and call me, I will wait'...
In the middle of a night, I woke up to a soft nudge on my
shoulder… and I saw my daughter standing there rubbing her eyes… next moment
she jumped into my bed, cuddled upto me and held me tight… I asked her ‘what
happened?’ and she replied ‘Nothing’ as she eased in my arms… well, her face
was full of fear and told a story that she saw in her dream…
We were out for a wedding and that moment came when the bride and
groom exchanged garlands… that very moment, my husband held my hand and gently
squeezed it… I amusingly looked at him and asked ‘what?’ and he smiled and
replied ‘Nothing’… I smiled back, while my mind travelled with him to the days
when we had started that beautiful journey… we exchanged many quiet moments
behind that Nothingness…
After spending some awesome days with a close friend, it was time
to part… she gave me a very tight hug… my grip around her didn’t loosen for
full three minutes…She pulled me away, saw tears rolling down my eyes and asked
‘what happened?’… I wiped my tears and said ‘Nothing’… all she did was gave me
another tight hug saying “we will meet soon”…
In midst of a party, with deafening music and animated conversations,
a friend found himself a corner sofa, with a large drink that he made for
himself, staring blankly at the floor… we walked upto him and asked ‘what are
you thinking?’ and without shifting his stare, he answered ‘Nothing’… we sat
besides him, letting him know that we are there for him, yet let him be alone
and lost in his thoughts…
So many emotions, so many feelings, locked away behind ‘Nothing’…
a superficial word used so casually, to veil the deepest thoughts… a word that
actually means ‘absence of anything’, yet used in its most antonymous form, to
conceal the ‘presence of so many things’…
Having said that, this veil of ‘Nothing’ is very
shallow for some eyes who know to penetrate deep into the mind and read all
that is concealed within… this veil of ‘Nothing’ is very weak to be able to
stop the tears and smiles that the face throws up spontaneously… this veil of
‘Nothing’ is almost non-existent for someone – like a mother, a lover, a friend
– who has made place within the heart and knows what every heartbeat says…
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