Fatal Obsession

The young man is talented, and is a gentleman to the core; but the problem with him is that he wishes to belong to a group of people who do not wish to consider themselves “gentlemen” in the way the world around would understand. He is too polished to belong to this group of men who make sincere attempts to be down to earth. His one and only interest in Indian classical music has kept him away from his other companions who have varied interests, and are not as obsessed as this gentleman, and that is where the problem begins. He has been thinking all along that he was made for music, and nothing else, and would do anything to pursue his interest in music, even by hook or by crook.

This attitude of the gentleman had landed him in trouble on several occasions; his condescending attitude towards his companions who are not as gifted as he is in music is sometimes so very evident that one can make out his motives. Unfortunately he has always considered himself the “best” of the lot in music, and if anyone else were to occupy his place, he finds it hard to accept, leave alone join others to sing or play the instruments. He has been doing this for several years, and maybe he will continue to do this for all the years to come, until he is cornered to face a realistic situation, where he might find his illusions crumble to nothing. But no one knows for sure, when that moment will come.

No one understands me and my interests – this has been one of his refrains to others all the time; anyone who does not encourage him to pursue his sole-interest in music is against him, and all those who let him have his way are good to him. If anyone were to understand him, then they should take it for granted that he is the most versatile classical singer; if they do not honor him with that recognition, then they are considered as music illiterate. This has been his trend, and we do not know where exactly he would land up after a few years; but one thing is sure, his life is not going to be a smooth sail… he is bound to face several storms and typhoons.

I would not think that music had made him less of a human; no. Any true music is supposed to arouse the human heart towards the appreciation of beauty and truth. If that does not happen with this gentleman that is an indication that something had gone wrong somewhere during his upbringing. It is hard for me to go to the details of how he came to be so obsessive with music all these years, and no one had administered to him the much needed shock therapy, to wake him up from the psychological slumber he is still in. Probably once he wakes up from this slumber, then he might be able to see truth as it is, without any additional color glasses.

But who would tell him that what he sees through the eyes of his obsession with music is only partial truth, and there are more elements which may be of greater importance than music, and lead him to enjoy beauty and truth in a more intense way. So long he is obsessed with music, he is not going to see beauty in other elements of nature or human creation. There is beauty in the blue sky, there is beauty in the creepers, helplessly climbing on a tree, there is splendor in a rose or lilly; we don’t need to strain ourselves to see beauty around us, and it would be narrow mindedness to think only music has rhythm. If I can find rhythm in the songs of the birds, in thunder and the rumbling of the streams, then I will find the most soothing music in nature, and then I may not need to take asylum with human-made music!

Turning a New Leaf

The young man came to me spontaneously, and asked me where the Father was, and when I told him that I was the one, he was a bit surprised, but after a few seconds introduced himself, how he reached this alcoholics/drug-addicts rehabilitation center. Hailing from one of the Seven Sisters in the North Eastern India, he had been addicted to alcohol and drugs for the past eight years. For a 23 year old man, eight years of life with alcohol and drugs is not a short period, but when he decided to try this rehabilitation center, just outside the City of Joy, I suppose he really meant to amend his habits and turn a new leaf. I could see that this young man was serious about his life, though many of them had been just wasted uselessly.

But not all is lost, and the young man wanted to change things and all that he wanted heartily was the support of the people who mattered to him. He had not been a good-for-nothing young lad, who only wanted to waste the hard earned money of his parents with bad company; he had good education, which had fetched him a government job as computer operator with Air India. Who could think of such a lucrative job, which he had to resign, when he could not manage his compulsive need to have drugs, and now he regrets for having resigned the job, and wonders if he would get the same job, after returning home sane and sober.

He was not the kind of young man who did not think about his parents; when he said that his cousins and nieces are engineers and computer experts, he was not even earning a decent salary. As the first child of his parents, he had greater responsibility towards his two other siblings, one brother and one sister, but with his alcoholism and drug-addiction, he could hardly think of looking after himself. What was so very interesting for me was the fact that he was able to recall to mind what had happened to him, and how he could make things new, if only he gets an opportunity to prove his self. But he was not sure if he would survive the full course of the rehabilitation package, which may last as much as six months.

The lady who had been behind the starting of the center, whom I had gone to meet, did not share with the kind of feelings this young man had poured out to me. She had seen him for a month, and she would know about him much more than me. It is possible that my feelings were rather soft towards him, but not for the lady, who almost chased him from me, when she saw that he was talking to me, before she entered her office. Then what she told me about him shocked me: that he was jumping over the wall to get drugs, and was quarrelsome. She even said that soon they would send him away, because according to her, no one was happy with him.

The young man had a lot of complaints about everything possible: food, accommodation, toilets, the lady director, the priest who is supposed to be counseling them, the program proper… He poured himself out, and I listened to him patiently, but without making much comments. One thing was clear for me, more than psychological therapy and medication to keep him free from the desire for alcohol or drugs, what the young man required more was compassion. I have heard stories where empathy and compassion could work miracles, which no human science can explain. I wish the lady and the priest counselor concentrated more on winning the hearts of these helpless victims of circumstances, rather than offering them something which cannot really change them. There is no greater weapon to change than love and compassion.