Unpretentious Acuity

Rabindranath Tagore’s Doodling Art

"A sparkle of realization hits the heart-door quite hard." I pulled out this page from my ‘The Complete Poems of John Keats’ book. I had most probably written this line before starting my graduation journey. After solving a hundred pages of calculus, permutation- combination, algebra, and after crossing over the bridges of 'velocity' and chemical funnels, my path turned to peek into the road of literature. It was not a conscious decision; rather, I was pulled to do something unknown, something that I never thought of. One college, one experimental application in the literature department, my selection and admission—it was too fast to assess. Probably, I willed to do so. If I wanted to go back to the microbiology department, where I almost snapped at an irrelevant question during the selection process, or to the chemistry lab, where I almost toppled an acid beaker on my lab coat, perhaps my decision would melt into the ocean of unjustified. Fortunately, I never went back.

"This way is uncertain," the sound almost guarded every entrance to stop me. I did what was the most talked-about ‘out-of-the-box’ and even ‘risky’ gambling toss. But the toss still falls on my side. Whoever indulges themselves in the brownish pages of literature will agree that the toss never takes even a little tumble. My teenage curiosity entered the sudden adultery in that ‘risky’ zone. One evening, I was flipping over the pages of John Donne’s poems. I was awestruck and a little confused about how to deal with his notion of sensuality. A clueless teenager was in search of something unknown but somehow that would lead her to the next treasure map of literature. I typed on my laptop ‘Rabindranath Tagore Songs’ and started playing. After two-three hardcore nature songs, a song popped up: ‘Ore Nutan Juger Bhore’ (At the Dawn of a New Era). Each and every line of this song was hitting soothingly to make the listener realize the power of the unknown. I replayed the song and listened to it in a loop. Particularly one section filled my heart, as if I could see the dark shadow of opinions moving slowly away with the layer of my flickering self-doubt. It says,

Kī rabē āra kī rabē nā

kī habē āra kī habē nā

ōrē hisābi,

ē sanśaẏēra mājhē ki tōra bhābanā miśābi?

(What would stay and what not

What would happen and what not

Ohh cagey mind,

Would you let your feelings take you with this doubt?)

Opinion, judgment, and later the veil of self-doubt—we often deal with these kinds of prejudices. In the course of this time, I realised that no matter what kind of passion you feel for something, society will judge you for your individualistic decision. The eyes will poke you to ask, "What’s next? What is the result of your decision? Are you successful?"

Unfortunately, the speculation list is endless. And if not every single time, but some time, we also doubt ourselves for choosing any particular way for us. It goes on and on until the time we hit the bar of a conceptualised idea of a positive result or else typecast as an outlandish. But do we even realise the hidden magic of uncertainty? If we tried to pull every stubborn rope of a time machine, we would still never see the exact ‘certain’ future. Because it is in no way certain. The idea of certainty changes every day. But if we accept the value of uncertainty, we see the ‘real us’ and our 'real power’.

Uncertainty opens up the path of self-realization. If we were not tested, we would remain coiled into the hole of comfort, which would never allow us to grow and expand our horizons. Then we can pick the unpretentious ‘us’. We find the unpretentious acuity in ourselves.

In every struggle, we meet new us. In every step of our actions, we see our potential in a new way. I call that realisation Ina*. It continues as long as we wish to bring the newest us. In his philosophical work Sadhana: The Realisation of Life Tagore says, "The more man acts and makes actual what was latent in him, the nearer does he bring the distant Yet-to-be."

We just need to respect the path to find that ‘Yet-to-be’.

(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)