Malinda Words: Life signatures

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 206th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

When I was around 10 years old my father told two stories related to ageing. One was about Dorian Gray, the highly acclaimed novel by Oscar Wilde. He offered a to-a-ten-year-old version.

‘Dorian Gray was a beautiful young man. Someone paints his portrait. Dorian sells his soul so that while the portrait aged, he would not. Years later he sees the now hideous looking portrait. Enraged, he slashes the portrait with a knife. His body is later discovered with a knife thrust into his chest. The portrait is also found. It’s a picture of Dorian Gray, young and beautiful.’

I can’t remember the name of the principal character in the other story. All I remember is that someone, a beautiful woman I think, was asked to make one wish. ‘I want to live forever,’ was the wish. It was granted. And so she lived and lived and lived. She aged and aged and aged. She grew decrepit. She shrivelled up and became small enough to live in a bottle. The wish-granter had visited her again and asked her what she wants now. ‘I want to die,’ she had said.

Both stories must have got etched in the subconscious a few years ago while discussing infirmities associated with old age. I observed that Buddhists generally wish ‘niduk nirogi suva!’ That would be free of sorrow, good health and a sense of peace and not ‘long life.’ We do wish ‘chira jeevanaya’ and say ‘ayubowan (may you live long)’ but niduk, nirogi and suva are not age-bound.

These stories and thoughts came to mind when I read the observations on ageing expressed by one of my favourite actresses, Merryl Streep,

‘Let no one deprive and deny me of the wrinkles on my forehead attained by the delight of living a beautiful life, don’t rob me of my lips which remind me about how much I laughed and how much I kissed. Look at the bags under my eyes, they reflect upon how much I cried. All of these memories belong to me and they are all very beautiful. You can’t believe a changing face is so beautiful. It’s the history of one’s life, which reflects what one did, his or her experiences, and achievements. It reflects the love one has received, given, shared, and also the pain one has gone through. I am happy, excited, glad, and proud to grow old with such grace.’

It’s about treasuring the signs of our passing through the years that are inscribed on our bodies. The duka-saepa (sorrow-joy), laabha-alaabha (profit-loss), yasa-ayasa (fame-obscurity), nindaa-prashansa (insults-praise) or the ata lo dahama (the eight worldly conditions) leave traces. They constitute a biography of sorts. They give us the privilege of looking back. For meditation on the thilakshana or the three marks of existence (‘sabbe sankhara anicca, sabbe sankhara dukkha, sabbe dhamma anatta’ or ‘impermanence, suffering and not-self) they suffice. A mirror is all you need. In fact you don’t need even that, for these traces are evident even on your hands and can be obtained even if you close your eyes.

And all the life lived, all the lives refused to be lived, all the loves experienced, all the loves lost by ‘loving’ (as per norms) and all the lives similarly lost by living will manifest before us, to be touched by fingertips, gaze and mind, without rancour, without regret but just the peace of knowing, ‘this was who I am, this is how I became who I am.'

All stories get written on the skin. Traces of life settle in the heart and mind. They are eminently readable. And if wrinkles and lips and bags under the eyes are seen as metaphors, then theoretically it is so easy to reconstruct the lives we’ve lived. All the gardens we’ve walked through, the thorns that cut, the fruits that delighted, the landscapes that made us stop, the smile of a stranger, the tears of a child and innumerable moments that shaped us into who we are, one petal and one thorn at a time are laid out like a tapestry. Every thread, a story. Every color a moment. Not a perfect pattern but still epic. Like Meryl Streep.

26 August 2023

Life signatures

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