19. People Don’t Change
Can we really understand people? Can a husband really understand his wife, with whom he was living for the last 50 years?
Yeah, sure, he knows what she likes, what she wears, what she eats, etc..etc..but, does he really understand her? Can a father understand his grownup son/daughter; whom he fathered, looked after, fought, compromised and for whom he sacrificed part of his life?
The answer to all these questions points to a single source --- Pain.
Pain may as well be a prerequisite for self-knowledge, and which in turn is a prerequisite for balming the same pain; but pain could also lead to self-destruction if the circumstances do not allow that person to introspect, especially if that pain grows up the ego to hide it.
Hide it, It grows. Observe it, It diminishes.
When a person hides his pain, he builds a wall around it, as he builds that wall..he automatically builds a wall around his soul..there by turning into a different person.
He lives with that character he built for the rest of his life, more or less. As hidden pain grows, the growing pain reaches the boundaries of the wall, and the mind adjusts itself to build its ego, and there by changing him further -- to a worse version of himself.
That person is always blind to the facts before him, especially the facts which would rupture his ego. That person, knowingly or unknowingly becomes the most dangerous person creating pain to everyone around him.
And, that person exists in every one of us in various intensities.
My dad was no different, in that moment. But, was it obvious??
He was a person who commanded respect in society, a person who craved and worked for that respect. Such a person would do anything for that society, even if it involves hurting his own family. The society sees only that part of him, the part which strives to be a conformist. If a man is not obvious to himself, how can his real nature be obvious to others except during the times of explosive emotions.
What my dear dad implied was that I too was going in the footsteps of my mother – that I was also going crazy. Preposterous..ain't it? Even if I had the same psychiatric disorder as my mother, Even if I was going crazy…Why would we see the same ‘something’ at the same place?
I was shocked by his revelations. I was angry. But I observed myself.
I knew that I was going through all the emotions any person would go through If he faced the same situation. But the difference --- I observed myself. That observation calmed me down. If I was able to observe my mind, didn't it mean that I disassociated myself from my mind? If I apply the same logic, Whom shall I blame? My dad or his mind? If I blame his mind, then doesn't it mean that I really don't hate him?
Did I observe myself or I only thought that I observed myself? It didn't matter. When a thought calms you down, you apply the same thought process to others. I applied the same thought -- the thought that he was not to be blamed but his mind, and that application made me forgive him. The tragedy of the whole concept of 'observing yourself' is that -- the thought -- the thought which made you unhappy already happened.
Is a man responsible for his actions?? I didn't know the answer for that, and it didn't matter either. I didn't want revenge. I wanted the truth. I knew that people don't change. They do the same thing again and again expecting a different result every time. That implied only one thing -- My dad was going to demonstrate, at-least partially, how he behaved with her when he rightly or wrongly suspected her of going crazy.I hoped his behavior would provide with information about what my mother had gone through, or at least what she might had felt.
So, I let him continue that drama. I acted in that drama. I observed him as I acted. I didn't ask him too many questions. A man's actions betrays a lot more than his words.
"Dad, Why don't we search the Ataka?", I suggested him.
"No, I already did it when your mother came running to me on that night. There is nothing on it..damn it! Dont you think I would have seen it for all these years? Ask yourself..why you saw it only after reading her diary".
She wrote something in her diary, and after reading it your imagination played a game with you.
"Please, for my sake, search again?", I pleaded this time.
He accepted. Thank god.
He, along with neighbors servant, started searching the Ataka. My dad lied to the servant that I saw a snake in there. The servant turned out to be, incredulously during all these incredulous incidents, a snake lover. He wanted to catch the snake alive. He warned me again and again not to kill the snake as he noticed me arming myself with an iron rod.
I armed myself with an iron rod. I found it in the construction site a block away from my house. I didn't intend to do anything with it, but it acted as an anti-dote to the fear in me. Are all violent people kids inside?
They searched the whole ataka for almost an hour.
"Nothing in here", the servant shouted.
My dad's eyes met mine. Accept your defeat, they were saying. I didn't.
"Do you see any hole in the wall?", I asked the servant.
"A hole?"
"Yes, a hole in the wall at the corner".
The servant disappeared for a couple of minutes, and then he shouted, " Yes, there is hole here. A big one, the snake might have escaped from here. I think it came from the same hole"
I looked at my dad. WTF expression in his face. He immediately walked over there and confirmed it.
"Any explanation for the hole?", I asked.
"I don't know. I am sure it was not there when we built this house", he replied.
"Do you see any football lying around there?", I asked the servant with some trembling excitement in my voice.
"A football?",
"Yes, a football"
"What football got to do with a snake?", he asked.
"Just look for a football", I ordered.
He again disappeared for a couple of minutes. I could hear the sounds of boxes kept aside, objects dropped, objects picked up..the usual sounds of a search..and then..silence..increasing my heartbeat..and then again the search. He found nothing in the end.
As they were about to climb down the ataka, I asked him, "Did you look inside the hole?".
"No, I didn't", he replied.
"What if the snake is inside it?"
My dad wore an apathetic face. He already concluded the outcome of these proceedings.
The servant, who was already drenched in sweat, disappeared again.
"No.Nothing in the hole", he shouted.
"Search properly", I shouted back.
A tense minute went by. I didn't know why I was tensed as If I sensed something, as If that creature was right there looking at us, observing us. I might had sensed the smell. I might had sixth-sensed it. I didn't know. But, I felt very tense.
I was able to see the the light dispersed by the torch light. An eerie feeling. An anticipation of hell.
My Dad got down the ataka and went in to the hall for a breather.
The servant finally came back, and stood at the edge of the ataka. The torch light still on.
"Nothing here", he said. He gave up the search.
"Do you smell anything peculiar?",I asked him.
"Peculiar? No. But, then again, all these kinds of places smell the same"
Then, I noticed a a shadow of a snake..may be a tail..I didnt know..it was right behind him..
and I shouted on the top of my voice, " LOOK UP!"
He looked up. The torch fell down. Then I heard a scream, and then I heard a thumping sound of someone falling down, and then...silence. Terrible silence.
"What did you see?", I asked him, after he came out of his blackout.
That poor guy had lost his consciousness on the Ataka. My Dad called for help, and two of his friends appeared. They got him down the ataka, and searched it once again...including the ceiling.They found nothing. We waited for him to wake up. Finally after half-hour he woke up. I knew what he saw. I was sure he was going to tell them what he saw. That was my ticket to prove everyone that that creature was not my and my mother's imagination.
I asked him again , "What did you see?"
He replied, "Nothing".
"Nothing? Then, why did you scream, Why did you fell down? tell me".I was shocked by his response.
"No. I didn't see anything. I slipped and fell. Thats all. I didn't see a thing", he replied.
"I told you to look up, right? You looked up, right?"
"Yes, I looked up.But there was nothing. I just slipped and fell"
"What nonsense!". I was totally frustrated by his response.
"Look, I didn't see anything, not a snake, or rat, or a cat. I need to go now", he said.
I tried to stop him, calling him a liar and whatnot. My dad's friends stopped me.
That guy almost ran away from the house, as if he didn't want to be there even for one second.
"It was on the ceiling. I saw it.It was right there", I shouted.
"What did you see?", one of my dad's friend asked.
"A creature, I think", I said.
They looked at me with sympathy. Looked like they already knew the whole story -- my dad's version of the story. But, I tried to convince them. I told them everything, all the events that had happened for the last 2 weeks. They didn't interrupt me.
After I finished my version of the story, one of the friend said, " Listen to your dad. You need a doctor". The other guy said,"No, he just needs a job", and laughed.
Nope. They didnt believe my story. I didnt see any reason as to why they had to believe it. There was no proof. Moreover, the story made me look deranged. I didnt blame them.
Two days went by. My dad decided that he had enough with that Ataka, and he hired some construction laborers to dismantle it. I didn't object to it as I too wanted it to go. It was the scene of a mystery ,but I was not Sherlock Holmes, I was the victim cum detective. Moreover, I believed that Ataka served no purpose to the amateur detective in me..as I gleamed as much information an amateur could from it.
While they were dismantling it, with their tools and whatnot, they discovered that the hole had in fact an opening outside, a six feet above the inside opening, near the upstairs, not as big as the hole inside, but a smaller one, covered by some trees. It took them large amount of concrete to fill the hole, and they joked that we had been screwed by the engineer who built this house as he used inferior material to build it.
But, for me,it all made sense. If I forget for a minute as to who made that hole, the fact that there was an opening outside made it plausible for me to believe that a creature entered through it. That became my proof.At least I thought it was my proof. But would the existence of the hole prove the existence of a creature?
As they dismantled the ataka, and filled up the hole, I broached the subject with my Dad.
"Dad, Dont you think it is kinda odd that there is hole with an opening outside? In all these years, you didnt notice that?",
"No, I didn't, and frankly, I am quite surprised. But, this has nothing to do with any creature whatsoever. I never saw anything."
"What makes you so sure?", I asked him.
"What makes me so sure? Even if there is something here, I don't see any reason why would anyone behave oddly, or crazily after seeing it. Its just impossible", he explained.
"But, you yourself said that you didn't see anything. How can you be so cock-sure about how people are supposed to behave after seeing it?"
"Why don't you just leave me alone?". He was irritated.
I observed his face closely. No, it was not cock-sure, it was full of doubt. There was guilt in his face, and that meant only one thing -- a doubt had been planted in his mind. It appeared to me as if he wanted to dismantle the ataka to erase his memories, his guilt, and his doubt. A seed of doubt had been planted in his mind, and he wanted to kill it before it grows big. He tried to kill that seed by dismantling the scene of the mystery.
The ataka was dismantled within a couple of hours, and it took two more hours to fill the hole. By that evening, everything was clean and done. If any new person saw that room, and was told that there existed an ataka few hours back, he wouldn't believe it..imagine me telling my story that something else existed in there. My Dad took extra care to make sure that no traces of past existed in that room. Thats how he tried to kill his memories, thats how he tried to repress them. I call it repression by destruction.
That night it rained heavily. The TV was on. Dad was eating his dinner all alone. Watching him like that, all alone, made me feel sorry for him. What did he achieve in the end? The things he had done decades back were haunting him. He thought past as something gone, something over..and he thought he moved on. But, did he really moved on?
Thoughts as usual came and gone, even as I was watching the TV. But, this time, there was no fear..I was sure that creature did not live there anymore. That calmed my mind a bit...and the thoughts freely flowed. I was thinking as to why that creature appeared only to me and my mom, but not to my Dad. I was a late sleeper, and as I wrote before, I got that habit from my mother's side -- she is also a late sleeper -- a vampire kinda -- a nocturnal.I remembered that every-time we saw that creature, we saw it in the middle of the night. That meant that the creature is nocturnal. It becomes active in the night. Some animals are nocturnal, aren't they? Since, my dad was an early sleeper, he most probably didn't come in contact with it.
There was something else -- Why didnt my Dad and his friends hadnt been able to find it the last time they checked the late-ataka? Most probably, it must have escaped through the hole.But, why did it come to ataka in the first place? What does it eat? Male? Female? Sex? Kids? What is it anyway? An alien that fell down in a freak accident? A creature born on earth?
I remembered that it rained quite heavily on the night I found it. I also sensed the smell when it was raining. I quickly turned to my dad interrupting his dinner, " Dad, Can I ask something?"
"What?"
"Was it raining...well, did it rained on that night when mother saw, i mean, she thought she saw something?"
"I don't remember", he replied without giving much thought to my question.
"Please remember, its important"
He thought for a couple of seconds, and then said, " Ya, it rained that night.So what?"
"Nothing. Just asking", I replied.
If it was not a mere coincidence that we both found the creature during rainy nights, that meant --most probably it likes to stay in dry places, and hates wetness. Since, it is a nocturnal creature, and since it rained that night, the creature instead of going out that night, climbed down the ataka most probably in search of food.
The puzzle was getting solved too easily, and I didn't like it. Yes, it relieved me for a minute, but there was a sense of unease. I felt as If I was writing a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and trying to give hints to the readers, sometimes throwing them off the track by misleading them, and in the end showing them how all those edges fit perfectly, and how clever I was as a writer. But, that story was all my imagination. In the same way, What if that creature was just my imagination, and what if I was using mere coincidences as solutions to the puzzle? What if I was imagining as a writer and reader at the same time, trying to out-guess myself? A small doubt. Wait, What if I just doubt my own success, What if I was sabotaging my own progress.....
A thunderstrom somewhere stopped those thoughts.
Rain again, I thought.
Wait, Rain. Night. It is raining tonight. A rainy night.
A creature. Noctural. Hates rain. It is raining now.
I didn't sleep a wink that night.Nothing returned. Nothing happened either.
Two more days gone by. I waited for my dad to make a move, the same move he made with my mother. He didn't make a move, he didn't talk to me either. Then I realized that he already made a move, it is called the silent treatment. Either that or he was really thinking something, or worrying about something. I put my hopes on the later.
Worry is nothing but mind looking for solutions for pain or a prospective pain, and result of that worry may go both ways. The mind may find solution or it could find a short cut by repressing the pain.Either one of them must happen ASAP, because the mind cannot sustain that pain for longer time. It is almost like death. That shortcut -- repression of the pain is a survival technique which we learnt as kids....and mastered it as we grew up. That's why I say that people don't change, because in order to change you have to be truthful to yourself. Repression goes against truth.
I was sure my Dad was not going change at all.The small doubt -- a doubt that he might be wrong about my mother -- a doubt that got planted in his mind because of the existence of the hole, and most probably the peculiar behaviour of the servant, caused him pain. But, it was a small doubt and a small pain. These small pains, in comparison to ego-smashing-life-altering mega pains, are very dangerous. I predicted that he was going to worry, feel guilty, and regret for a couple of days, and unable to face the resulting pain, he would hide it, by falling back on his old self. He would absolve himself of all wrong doings, he inflates his ego by telling himself that was the best father, best husband, and he did the best he could do. He would put the blame on others. He pities himself for being the sacrificial lamb. He imagines telling people how he sacrificed his life for the welfare of his family, and the people calling him 'a great guy'. That thought calms him down. Taking that calmness as cue, the mind encourages the same thought. The mind imagines, creating stories to gain sympathy from others, and the only way to do that is to make the villain of the story evil. The villains in this case - Me and my mother. Then slowly he starts believing his own stories. The cycle of pain-repression-ego inflation is now complete. I predicted all of it, and was just waiting for him to make a move.
On the third day, he approached me. I didn't find any kind of worry in his face, but he appeared sad, as if he was carrying the burden of humanity.
"You know what?", he said.
"What?"
"The truth is that You and your mother..both are both mental", he said.
I realized right then and there..that my predictions came true. His words were carefully designed to officially put the blame on others, and more importantly designed to hurt them.
He continued, " It breaks my heart to say that...to talk the truth. The truth that I married a crazy woman and begot a crazy son. I wonder how many hits this heart of mine is gonna take. A crazy wife who destroyed my life, and now, a crazy son who is destroying my happiness..whatever remained of it. Oh god, let not even the worst enemy of mine face the same predicaments I went through and going through"
His face grew sadder, but I knew that somewhere inside he was feeling happy, feeling better about himself. He was infected with Jesus Christ syndrome -- a false sense of sacrificial lamb -- fake righteousness -- A self-pitying narcissist.
He killed us to save his soul.
People don't change, do they?
Continued here..
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