Small mercies

The mechanised routinised assault of terrorism has turned life into a cul-de-sac. You never know when you are forced to meet your maker. The sheer meaninglessness of life, the vulnerability of our beings, is amply highlighted by the way we perish every day. At the time of writing these lines, before me is a picture of the little Hazara siblings that was widely circulated in the social media. With a heavy heart and crushed spirit, I have to tell you I cannot write on the injustices done to them. What is the point? We keep writing, nay shouting through the printed word, the same thing over and over again. Simple points, nothing out of the ordinary. But those who can make or break our lives do not listen, will not listen. It is like talking to an atrociously slow child.

At such frustrating moments, only small mercies of life come to your rescue. Books written to lift your spirit. Songs with magical lyrics and enchanting melodies. Great stage, cinema and television performances. The trick here is not to stay caged to the world of masterpieces, but to take a walk on the wild side. I know Mozart’s Isis and Osiris and Wagner’s Parsifal are grand works of breathtaking beauty. But not Shakespeare, Mozart or Wagner please. As I said, small mercies.

There are times when, perhaps, the most cliched book names speak to you. For instance, over a decade ago, in perhaps the darkest part of my life when there was no way to lift my spirit, I found Harry Potter. You will be astonished how many people have judged it without either even giving it a try at all, or else failing to go beyond the first two challenging, but small volumes. Since then, I have been on the lookout for the next Harry Potter. And I found some.

I don’t know how many of you have read or even heard about Eon Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series. A brilliant mix of science fiction and fantasy, this series of eight small volumes meant for children can be read by adults with equal fascination. It is a shame that no filmmaker has chosen to adapt it for the cinema or even television. But then, after seeing what celluloid did to Harry Potter, one feels thankful that no one has tried.

Then there is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which has not been quite as popular for what is deemed as the author’s crude attacks on established faith. But an author’s true test lies in how vividly he can create a universe of his own. And this is where this work impresses you beyond your imagination.

Another book which cannot fail to please you is Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams is the PG Wodehouse of science fiction, with every sentence so delicious, it melts in your mouth like a great treat. But since almost everyone among my friends has read it, I am not going to spend too much time discussing it. The only reason I brought it up is because like the Potter series, this one too leaves the Oliver Twist in you asking for more.

The closest thing I could find to the Hitchhiker’s Guide is Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s Red Dwarf series. While the TV series of the franchise is interesting, the books written by these two authors are really enjoyable. And that actually brings me back to my original point: the sheer meaninglessness of life, for this series, too laughs at the absence of such a meaning.

These are a few desserts of nihilism. Try them, but above that, try the spirit behind them. We are tiny bubbles in the infinite ocean of time called life. When we are born and how soon this journey is cut short — by a totally ridiculous and unrelated accident — is unknown to us. So why worry too much? Perhaps, our time will be better spent if we quit whining and start living. As one of the authors mentioned above once wrote, “Everyone dies. You’re born, and you die. The bit in the middle is called life, and that’s still to come.” Let’s live it while we can and be thankful for the small mercies.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th,  2014.

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