Pain and Freedom

Driving back from Goa is always a bitter-sweet feeling. You have just had an amazing vacation and your mind is refusing to return to the harsh normlcy. But the drive itself more than makes up for the sadness.

This time around we chose to come via Pachal ghaat. Its a long-ish route (Amboli is quicker and better) but the drive through ghaats (there are at least 5 of them when we counted, may be more) was nothing short of a breathtaking experience.

Playlist was on. The song was कांटों से खिंचके ये आंचल. I have heard this million times before, hummed along. But some days, mind is able to make a completely new meaning out of old stuff.

In the movie Guide (a master piece made by Vijay Anand), the song expresses a girl throwing away things that weighed her down/ pulled her back, about freeing herself and experiencing a new will to live.

आज फिर जीने की तमन्ना है (Today, I want to give life another chance)
आज फिर मरने का इरादा है (Even the death, today, I look forward to)

The song starts with the words कांटों से खिंचके ये आंचल and in a very somber, reflective, contemplative state that I was experiencing at that moment, I newly understood the gravity of those words.

कांटे (thorns) is not just what weighs you down. But it is also what’s causing pain, not always visible and something that takes a lot of efforts to get rid off.

And when you pull out नाजुक आंचल from these thorns that life has presented you with, it (the आंचल) is bound to tear. There is no easy way to separate out pain from our life. That act of getting rid of thorns will also come with its own price.

What meaning packed lyrics! Shailendra, the lyricist could have chosen any metaphors but he chose these. Most of the times, we choose pain because liberation, freedom from the pain usually comes at some cost which we are not willing to bargain for.

No one understands and explains ironies of life as well as a master poet.