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Khalil Gibran, the
Lebanese-American writer and artist, once described how he first became a
madman. He says he woke up one day and found that all his masks had been stolen.
Thus, maskless, he ran through the crowded cities shouting: "thieves, thieves,
the cursed thieves!" A youth standing on a housetop cried, "He is a madman!"
When Gibran looked up to behold the person he found that the sun was kissing his
naked face for the first time in his life and, suddenly, he wanted the masks no
more. Then, as if in a trance, he once again ran through the same streets but
this time he was shouting: "Blessed, Blessed are the thieves who stole my
masks."
We get the point. But in that
case, is everybody wrong in donning facades to hide their real selves ? And, to
continue that line of reasoning should we all tear them off en masse in order to
become the "real" us (which incidentally had taken the decision in the first
place to wear "unreal" Masquerades)? Also, by that same reasoning once more, why
does the "real" us feel some time later along the way that the dropping of such
guises is a blessing ? Pritish Nandy, the sometime Indo-Anglian poet has written
in Masks to be Interpreted in Terms of Messages that disguises should perhaps
best be understood as communication tools. After all, what is our species if it
cannot interact with one another, but ultimately lonely ?
Gibran discovers exactly the same
thing almost immediately afterwards following the madman episode. He goes on to
write: "I have found both freedom and loneliness and the safety from being
understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. "Unfortunately
the safety from being understood is indeed a problem for those of us who choose
not to live out our days alone and by ourselves.
What is love for instance
?Besides all superficial and other trappings, it boils down to a deep
understanding of the other and results in commitment, not confinement; bonding,
not bondage. Maybe some people might argue that something in us does get
"enslaved" in the process, but this is hardly anything tantamount to thraldom or
peonage. And of course if all reality in the cosmos is to be described as the
outcome of creative play by the divine absolute, if it is a spontaneous sportive
activity of Brahman, if it is lila, then masks are something we very definitely
need. How does one play so many parts otherwise ? "My friend," wrote Gibran
elsewhere, "I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear that protects
me."
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