It was a story written by Khalil Gibran, that set Arya into a pensive mood.
The story was about a king who had called 1000 wise men of different tribes to his kingdom and asked them to frame laws. When he read the laws, he wept knowing that there were one thousand crimes committed in his kingdom. He brought the laws down to seven. Displeased with this, the one thousand wise men went back to their tribes and laid down one thousand laws. Now the kingdom is filled with one thousand law breakers in one thousand prisons. A great kingdom that now has one thousand law makers and one wise king.
Try as she might, Arya could not forget this story. She strongly felt that there was more to this story that just being one of fiction. “What is Khalil Gibran trying to say through this story?” was her constant question.
When Vidyadhar met Arya, he found her in a preoccupied state. This puzzled him as she is one who greets him with a beaming smile and an exuberant hug. Before he could ask her anything, out tumbled the story and the question that refused to go away from her mind.
“What is Khalil Gibran trying to say through this story, Vidyadhar?”
This story had set Vidyadhar also thinking and he wanted to know what Arya’s thoughts were, before saying anything, “What do you think, Arya?”
“I don’t know. Is he saying that we are all making laws for ourselves? Is he saying that having made the laws for ourselves, we are unable to live the laws? Is he saying that being unable to live the laws, we are also breaking them and creating prisons for ourselves – prisons that we are neither able to stay in nor are we able to come out of”.
“Can you give some examples Arya, that would help me understand better what you are saying?”
“I can share examples from my life, Vidyadhar. Laws that I am making for myself and in the process living as a prisoner in a prison, that I have built for myself.
When I expect others to live life the way I want them to live, I have laid out a law. They are certainly not going to live their life my way and so they become law breakers according to me. Why am I making laws for them to live their life? In addition, I am also a person who thinks people should lead life the way they want to lead. Paradox, isn’t it? By wanting them to live the way I want them to, I am now breaking a law that I have set for myself. Having broken the law, I am putting myself through a prison of berating myself.
I expect my child to study well and ace the tests and exams. I have now set a law for my child? My child is not able to ace the tests and exams and hence according to me has broken my law. What does my child get as a law breaker? Imprisonment in the form of a punishment. Is that going to make things better? No, I see my child wanting to break every law that I make. To me, my child becomes a law breaker every time. This makes me dole out punishments by the dozen, and my child makes it a point to break every one of those dozen laws. You know what Vidyadhar, all this perhaps has lead to me imprisoning my child for the rest of my child’s life. As it is my child will make his / her own laws, but I have made my child carry the load of breaking and making more laws, which is the impact of being imprisoned by me.”
“Gosh, that’s a powerful way of putting it, Arya. This makes me think of my own laws and the prisons that I have put others and myself into.
I always wanted to do everything in the perfect and best way possible. I also expected this from others around – be it family or friends or colleagues. I have set a law for myself and everyone around? I will push myself to achieve what I want to and more often than not, I will succeed. The times I don’t which is rare, I become a law breaker and I will the put myself thru a torture, both physically and mentally. My own prison of punishing myself. Ok, what happens if friends and family become the law breakers? All hell will break loose. I will scream, shout, tell them how much being perfect matters to their life and I will push them to live my law. They can’t Arya, because they are not me. They become law breakers not only in my eyes but in their own eyes. What worse punishment can I give them than this?
I am a man of a few words and so according to me, others also should be measured in the way they talk. That’s the law that I have made. Since I anyway speak less, I don’t think I break the law at all. Others who keep talking and talking and talking become law breakers in my eyes. So, I put them in a prison of isolation, which means I ignore them. When I see them, they are like a piece of furniture for me. My wife and children find ways to talk to their friends when I am not around, and they hence become law breakers to me. What punishment do I give them? Words again. I can get nastily sarcastic and I put them down so much that sometimes I see the smile on their faces just washing way in an instant. They want to talk to others but because of the law I have made for them, they don’t want disharmony at home. So they have made their own laws to remain in harmony. When they break that, they become law breakers in their own eyes. They feel guilty when they talk to others because they have broken the law that I have set. I have also made them to break the law of their nature – which is having the ability to make friends easily and enjoying it also.”
“Painful isn’t it Vidyadhar, when we get to know about ourselves. Truth is bitter and the harsh reality is so difficult to digest. What you shared reminds me of what I heard this man sharing with one of his friends, about a situation that he is facing. He said that when his wife takes a certain dislike to a few others, she will not talk to them and neither will she want him to talk to them. She has made a law for him. They stay abroad and there are times when he goes for get-togethers where some of these people his wife has taken a dislike to, are also present. He says that they are basically nice people with idiosyncrasies like everyone else; and that he cannot ignore them in these get-togethers. When he returns home, his wife asks him if he met any of them and he says that he lies to her by saying, “No, I did not meet them.” He has broken a law made by his wife. He feels that he has also broken a law the he has for himself – that of being honest at all times. He says that he feels as though he is caught up in two prisons and getting out of both of them seem a daunting task. I was also going to India like him and was waiting for the same flight. When I heard him I wanted to put my arms around his shoulders and say , “Uncle, I can feel the pain of your imprisonment.”
“Arya, as I hear you and myself, I feel the shackles of the chains that we have tied ourselves with, to our prisons. The only jailor who is present is ourselves, who is a worse jailor than anyone from outside. I want to break free and I know that even that is in our hands. More than the sense of freedom that I want to feel, I am weighed down by the shackles.”
“I am an optimist, Vidyadhar. I strongly believe that when we know the situation that we are in, we are already half free. This half-measured sense of being free, will give the space for us to wrestle with ourselves and find ways to break the shackles. Having broken the shackles, the challenge is not to imprison ourselves again.
That’s a tall order though. Is it tough to meet this tall order? It depends. If you look at this tall order as something that will set you free when you achieve it, and that sense of freedom brings a beam of a smile on your face, you know what you need to do. I know what I need to do, Vidyadhar. A tall order and an uphill task it maybe but I am ready for it. By knowing that I am ready for this, I have already broken some shackle somewhere within me; and if I can break one shackle, I can break many more. It will take time and effort – time to break the shackles one by one, and effort not to make laws and imprison myself and others.”
Vidyadhar watches Arya walking away humming the lines of “I want to break free..” and finds himself humming after her ?
May 13, 2017 at 8:35 pm
Khalil was a thinker poet with a spark that existed by birth and then perhaps largely influenced by the environmental the socio-economic background of his mother-land Lebanon (where both Christianity and Islam are significantly prevalent), his disturbed childhood at homeland, further studies in another country as a refugee, his upbringing in a traditional Lebanese way even in the country of refuge , studies in his homeland at an adolescent age and further continuance in the same country of refuge etc. etc..
This particular writing of his, in my opinion, perhaps echoes his conviction, ‘you can’t administer/build a Nation where diversities of tradition, beliefs, language and religion exist in people, through laws that are do not recognise the deep influence the said diversities do have in their lives’. This is too straightforward and logical a truth, failing to understand which and carrying on administration is the chief cause of multiplicity of laws not capable of effective implementation, therefore rampant violation thereof, consequential non-value adding rather counter-productive punishment and so on leading to further and further deterioration of society, socially and economically.
This is exactly what the story is about a king who had called a thousand ‘wise men’ of different tribes to his kingdom, asking them to frame laws. They would have naturally made law for the easy living of theirs and favours from the administration rather than for the people living peacefully. Naturally, there will be one thousand laws and the consequences that follow, including neither peace for people nor the administrator being able to live with the laws and prisons they have created.
The examples are there in our families where we make our own laws and impose on our family members depending upon our own ability to dictate!
Everything is fine and logical. But we have come a long way even to consider solutions. It therefore remains to be seen whether we are going to wake up from difficulties we have created for ourselves (AdhyATmika) or the Nature is going to intervene after much water has flown, in its own dreadful ways of aDhibauTika, as ordained so by the System (aDhiDaivaTa)!
Wake up in what? Obviously, individual resolution of ‘Simplistic way of living’ that will culminate into the possibility of effective good governance.
Is it anymore possible to retreat in this advanced complex situation? It is easy to say ‘I have realised this and that itself is becoming half-free’ etc. One may be even declare ‘Í am ready’ and all, but unfortunately the likelihood of its stopping with just blog writing perhaps angling for appreciation (or fishing for compliments) is more than to believe that it is with a conviction it will indeed bring about a magic. I will not be surprised if even Khalil had had such intentions!(of course, I am not a Khalil researcher)
But I am sure such things will do great rounds in literature as we have seen writing of scores of such ‘thinkers’, but yet the world carrying on in its own way mostly awaiting Natural intervention only!
What is then suggested? Let the charity begin at home with our conversion, notwithstanding the possibility of reformation of society at large taking decades or centuries or era before turning for good.
Till then therefore, Let us be humming the lines of “I want to break free..” as and when we are in such a mood to and carry on happily!!