The Inheritance Of Loss.

In the past ten days, I’ve ruined a paper, burnt an arm, fallen seriously ill, and received more love than you can ever imagine. When I came home, I glanced through old photographs that brought back memories of my childhood, times I did not value while they were still passing. Of the many familiar faces, smiling away, in those old photographs, there are some that are now no more. As I saw them gaze back at me I remembered the lines of a poem I once read which read vaguely like this...

"Where did my Childhood go?
It went to a hidden place
That’s hidden in an infants face
And that is all I know"

As I thought of this I began to slowly realize that despite all the money, power and pelf this world can offer; there is no inheritance that anyone can bequeath you; not by choice but by circumstance greater than the inheritance of loss. I learnt a lesson that we all learn in time; that time is ephemeral and the only thing that does and can stay with you are perhaps the thought of all that you have loved and lost. Without losing it all you will secretly admit; those moments would have little value, because living without them alone teaches those who have lost, what losing something, however small meant to them,

As I write this and time floats by; like any other time this time too is of little value to me.No, not because it is not precious, but because it is yet to pass. History is replete with examples that teach us that things become valuable only when they are scarce. An interesting case in point would be perhaps of the Kohinoor diamond. With a history of 500 years, if it could talk it would have many an interesting story to tell. Stories of the many great men who have won and lost it; but one thing is certain, it is but a piece of rock if you take out all that history from it. The chronicle of a time lost; It really is a wonder that what is now no more is precisely what gives it such value.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, while still alive was considered at most a mediocre composer. He died in penniless disgrace, and yet it was only after it so happened that humanity realized the ingenuity of his work. Today a wad of papers that so much as bare his handwriting is considered a work of genius. The life of Vincent Van Gogh also tells a similar story.It is the story of how a man condemned by society to be a madman, left derelict and homeless while living, is in death hailed as an eccentric genius. Are these hypocritical judgments on the part of humanity at large? I am not one to judge; but then again the examples before us speak for themselves.

When I was giving my board examination, as each paper came closer, I thought of the times I had spent in the canteen, bunking without a bother in the world. I also thought of those who were, at that same time hard at work in the classroom. I had once condemned them in the words of Dr. Zeus to be 'nerds' and questioned all that they were 'Losing' out on. Now when the exams have passed I often wonder how I shall explain to my mother as to why my result was so terrible. When it does finally come I might just wallow in a little sorrow and wonder about what could have been, and then perhaps face the reality of what is; my inheritance from the time that I lost.