Epiphany was to me a term to be learnt and forgotten like much else that is done at  college. I remember the copy of my text book ‘The Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrahams’ which the handsome and ever smiling Ajayan, my junior had borrowed to learn from and in which he had laboriously made notes, underlined and marked various stuff. That is how the word first caught my attention, with a note written by him.

In the early years after leaving college I was still under the illusion of being able to clear NET (National Eligibility Test for Lectureship) and get that elusive scholarship called JRF( Junior Research Fellowship) which promised a princely sum of Rs. 10,000 which was such a dream. What made it even more impossible for me to give up on this dream was Balraj.K, my younger brother who insisted on asking me almost every single day, ‘Chechi, are you not preparing for NET’?  I resented his prodding me  and was consumed with guilt and sorrow when I lost him and his daily questions for ever on 10th of July in 2012 that I immediately registered for a PGCTE from EFLU, Hyderabad. I was in tears every time I sat down to write each one of those 33 assignments of having let down that single human being who seemed to have such a mountain of faith in my abilities.

Life rolls on, doesn’t it? So it did, many bumps and rough hits later, I was busy enjoying my state of ill health, nagging pain, over heaped stress, anxiety and what not, refusing to see the sun light, determined to seek doom and gloom,wearing a sad, tired face of a martyr much maligned and much abused by the act of living, yes, this was as recent as yesterday, when epiphany chose to strike!

Epiphany in literature is a moment of sudden realization, as in when the Prince of Denmark, the young Hamlet, realizes that there is no such a thing as a perfect revenge and that he has to make good of the chances that come his way to avenge the brutal killing of his father at the hands of his uncle, Claudius.

” There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will”.

Epiphany struck me in the realization of how much of our lives is in our own hands and how much is definitely not ours to chose or to play around with. The element of uncertainty in life looms large making it difficult to make definite plans and preparations for what is to come.Perhaps then all that is to be done is to embrace life with a Nietzschei-an nihilism and take it as it comes. There is no grand purpose anyways!

Maybe then it makes sense to be in the moment, enjoy who you are, where you are, irrespective of those around or not around you.

It makes sense to celebrate your little moments of achievements like your being able to get up early, why not? or being regular with your exercise or being able to keep your smile intact or maybe just being around as you are, that is no mean achievement considering the fact that many of the more illustrious are choosing to call it quits from the stage of life, rather early and many others never get a chance to come this far in living!

So, go on, celebrate living, plan or no plans.

So, go on, be yourself, no matter who judges you and how.

So, go on, love yourself,  whatever your reality is, love it, embrace it wholeheartedly.

Epiphanies anyone?