The sparkling brilliance of Madhushaala

देने को जो मुझे कहा था,
दे न सकी मुझको हाला,
देने को जो मुझे कहा था,
दे न सका मुझको प्याला;

समझ मनुज की दुर्बलता मैं,
कहा नहीं कुछ भी करता,
किन्तु स्वंय ही देख मुझे अब,
शर्मा जाती मधुशाला।।


75 years ago, a 28 year old Harivansh Rai Bachhan, created something extra-ordinary. A collection of short Hindi poems that has captured the imagination of a nation for three quarters of a century. Madhushaala. The ultimate philosophical literary work in Hindi that speaks about life almost exclusively through its extensive usage of metaphors.


When I read the above poem the first time, I found it so brilliant that I must have read it at least 6-7 times over and over again! There are many things in this world that we desire, and we try our best to get it. Sometimes (even with our sincerest efforts), we don't get what we want. If we can't blame ourselves, our typical response in such a situation is to identify someone/something to blame, like maybe our boss, friends, parents, etc. . We try to vent out our frustrations and disappointments by blaming them for being the reason that we couldn't get what we wanted. By doing this we allow anger, resentment, and malaise to buy prime real estate in our hearts and live there permanently. We get caught in a cyclic vortex of blame games and name calling because, lets face it, we are not so perfect ourselves! It typically becomes a chicken and egg discussion ...

A: "I could have got xxx if only you would have ..."
B: "Well, I would have done that if only you wouldn't have yyy ..."

Isn't it? How many times in your life have you blamed someone for you not getting what you wanted? Has getting into an argument allowed you to feel better? Did it take away your disappointment? Did pinning the loss on someone's forehead decrease your heartache?

Some consider forgiveness, as a sign of weakness. I don't think so. It takes far more courage to forgive someone who has wronged you, rather than to kick him in the solar plexus. When you kick someone, you give him yet another reason to be upset with you ... hence reducing any possibilities of reconciliation and also of salvation of the thing that you are upset about losing. In some cases your kick can fear motivate him into behaving as per your wishes, but it is a well-known fact that the effects of fear motivation are short lived and sooner or later you will be facing the same person, with similar thoughts in your mind, but blowing your top over an entirely new incident. Gandhi had said that when someone slaps you, offer your other cheek (when you are confident that you hold the moral high ground). When you forgive someone, you are actually sending across the message that you realize that the other person is only human and that he is prone to all the drawbacks of his species. After undergoing a process of realization and actualization, the perpetrator's understanding of his wrong doing is more sincere, deep, and long lasting.

I argue that the greater one's loss, the more one should react with benevolence. This will make the other realize his mistake (maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday), and your compassion towards him will disturb him much more than a kick ever would. Your compassion towards him will be a kick to his spirit and consciousness, and one day that person will feel guilty about what he did to you, and will then either apologize to you for it or in repentance, he might try to salvage whatever you lost. I am sure that you will agree that either of the last two will be far more satisfying from than the hollow relief one gets by verbally/physically lashing out at someone.

Will it always work? No. Not because this process is flawed, but because of our mortality i.e. the limited time we have in this world. The self-realization of the perpetrator that has been sparked by your benevolence may take any amount of time. Sometimes it may take too long and you may never get to see the remorse in the other person's eyes. However, one of the biggest positives of this process is that, if you get to see the other person's remorse then you can safely assume that the transition is permanent.

So is it worthwhile to try this approach to life? I think, yes. You don't lose anything and develop a greater chance to win the other person's respect and to achieve a more permanent transition in the other's thought process and consciousness. And who knows, if destiny smiles ... your forgiveness may also have the power to trigger a reverse chain reaction that may allow you to end up with something that you were once upset about losing!