By Vijay Phanshikar :
A spec of light
In the dark room ...
Hope !
-  Self 

WHEN everything is dark -- the room and the mind -- even a spec of light is most eagerly awaited. For, when the eyes wide open see nothing, even a dot of light lights up one’s inner sanctum. That little dot of light, then, shows that there is an opening in the fortification of darkness around -- and through that minuscule opening, a little spec of light has found its way in. What a delight, that ! The stolid darkness is not impregnable, after all. There is hope, thus, that at some point, some more light may come in -- lighting up the mind darkened with despair. That little dot of light, then, looks like a distant star twinkling above in the limitless sky. Yes, in the dark room, the hallow blackness looks like space that has no limit, no end, no dimension.

 

 

Will one ever see light ! Will one ever feel the promise of life beyond darkness ! Tamaso Maa Jyotoirgamay (May one travel from darkness to light), said the Upanishadic sages. Will that prayer of hope ever turn true ? -- one may wonder after getting caught in a hopeless dark corner or room. Anxiety, then, is the only companion. The heart is thudding and the mind anxious with eyes wide open in search of a promise of light. Then appears out of nowhere a little spec, a little dot of light that says, ‘Look, I am here.’ The joy of that moment is beyond words. It just explodes into a great defusion in the mind. After all, life is not so hopeless.

 

There is a hope, a promise here that at some moment, the dot of light may become a ray of hope and then a spark of brilliance that would make every difference. In his single, dark cell in the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, Swatantryaveer Savarkar also had similar mental oscillations. Would he ever live to see light, at least a spec of it ! -- he wondered. True, an occasional swerve of the door also would send a dim light into the prison cell -- and Savarkar would feel pepped up. The prison torture was beyond the normal endurance of anybody. Would he really come through ? And then came those immortal Marathi lines in their most poetic lilt: Anaadi mee, Anant mee, Avaddhya mee bhala Mareel ripu jagati asaa kavan janmala ! ... (Eternal I am Without birth, Infinite I am Beyond death, Immortal I am My killer is yet to be born ...!) Hope has such nuances -- spoken or unspoken, often silent, often swinging between the positive and the negative, often rejuvenating and energising ... ! Even a spec of light, a dot, a ray in the dark room and mind is good enough. ... For, that light kindles in the inner light !