Karuna :)

                            

I happened to be present in the kitchen when the television set (do we call them anymore, now that they are nothing more than thin sheets? Anyhow.) showed Lord Krishna in Mahabharata, telling about ‘karuna’. The first reaction as of being mentally transferred to the Hindi classes in school. And the first thought was how come the word got transferred to the once-heard-not-used-anymore category in my mind? Such a nice word. When you fall in love with the whole world, that is karuna. We tend to fall in love with selected people around us, make a circle, what modern metaphorism would say. And we love them. In adverse, or any such situations, at most we would go ahead to do something for them. I remember faintly a father holding his family close, protecting them and being utterly numb towards me standing by. I was heartbroken and stung, wondered, was I not a daughter to him? Am I not a daughter, sister, friend, lover to you? If nothing, am I not a fellow human being? Karuna, said Lord Krishna, has a tendency of vanishing from this world. The temperament of loving the whole humanity. Those who annoy us, those we are jealous of, those who do wrong to us. Are they just not another us who lost the way? Why is it that hating someone is so easy, having a grudge that just wouldn’t go away is so natural? Why don’t we hate less, why don’t we love more? Karuna. Such a nice word.

:)