Picture credit: Geralt /Pixabay.com

This was written after the episode where Swara doubts Sanskaar (remember that blanket burning scene?)and seems to have caused quite some angst and had really set the forum on fire.  In those days, one thing that struck me was the general prevalent opinion that Swara is /was an angel - me, the eternal skeptic - felt it a small overstatement. Now I know I am wrong - it is a gross misstatement.  

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Swara is human - completely in love with the concepts of truth, faith and forgiveness. She has little clue as to what is needed to turn these beautiful, ideal concepts into a living, breathing reality.

Let us start with Truth' - Swara is a fanatic follower of facts - which are but the building blocks of truth. They are like the constants which can, will and must be used to derive the truth - they constitute the truth - but can never be the whole truth. She is unable to distinguish between the two - when she says that she always sides with the truth, she has invariably come to the conclusion and the proceeds to use facts to support her conclusion - the reality that the facts could lead to an alternate, albeit a bitter truth, is conveniently ignored by her.

Case in point - the molestation charges against Sanskaar - she concluded that he was innocent and found the facts necessary to prove that he was innocent - she did not use all the facts available to prove conclusively that Ragini was the true culprit and should have been punished for leveling such a heinous allegation.

Yesterday too - she saw Sanskaar burn the shawl - fact; he lied about it - fact;  he had 'damning' evidence of being in the vicinity of the kidnapping - fact; and she conveniently used these facts to build her version of the truth - him being guilty.

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Next is faith - her idea of faith is based on tangible evidences - she does not have the courage to hear that which is unspoken and that which is not readily seen. She sees Ragini's tears and steadies her faith in her sister (if she ever lost it). She hears Laksh sowing seeds of doubt and her mind wavers - She is a true believer, she sees and hears and construes faith on those truths, oblivious to the irony that her faith is belief in facts - which are never the whole truth. 

Faith needs comprehension and not mere acceptance.

It is similar to how all of us accept the earth is round, rotates on its axis (at a speed of 1600 km /hr. ) and revolves round the sun. Not visible to us but generally accepted. Now try comprehending these facts - stand with your feet together firmly on the earth, close your eyes and visualize yourself on a blue ball, spinning at a speed of 1600 km/hr. and simultaneously hurtling through empty space in a fixed orbit at 108,000 km/hr.

Our minds cannot encompass the enormity of the idea itself. That is why faith is so difficult.

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And lastly her greatest flaw - her idea of forgiveness - it is so tragic that it borders on the comic. Forgiveness in her definition - is completely overlooking the act and pretending it never happened. No! Nothing can be further than truth. Forgiveness is acknowledging that someone has done wrong to you, that the person has hurt you with their words and deeds, it is accepting their acknowledgement of the wrong committed and then finding the courage to stop being hurt by the past. It does not mean pretending that the travesty was never committed. It does not mean that you let the person go without punishment.

And if the person truly means something to you, forgiveness means allowing the person to embark on the journey of repentance and redemption. It means giving courage to the person to be ripped apart by the winds of regret and put back together in the fires of penance. It means standing by as they go through self-doubt and self-pity and not giving up on them. And it means standing at the end, the finish line - willing them to come through, come through to you, waiting, even if it kills you.

"Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can't change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth, then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free."*

No - Swara has always been slightly two dimensional - a strong believer in concepts and singularly failing in living them out. She has actually never really had faith in Sanskaar, despite her assurances (mostly to herself) that he is her best friend'. She is too human - inanely full of passive goodness - active goodness needs the support of truth, faith and forgiveness! She never hesitated to remind Sanskaar about his past - you do not do that - "Don't ever use someone's past against them. You're just reminding them of the mistakes they made back then. If you watch their expressions carefully, then you will see the hurt in their eyes as they reminisce everything that happened. Never use emotions as a weapon, it strikes deeper than you can imagine"**

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She is not the true hero of this tale - she is a human with clay feet and sadly, with a clay heart. She, however, is amazingly blessed to have Sanskaar by her side. He is no hero either - for - The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. A saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light." ***

Sanskaar is the Saint - he has truly lived and continues to live to the idea of truth, faith and forgiveness and has set his moral compass to her light (however weak and fickle that light is). And if he is equally blessed, someday Swara shall also realize, acknowledge and join him in his journey. 

And if he is not so blessed, then he would think - "Love, he told himself, was open to interpretation like any other abstract indulgence but followed the same principles everywhere, irrespective of everything else. One, either won or lost in love, there was no bridge in between, and he decided he had lost, lost to himself, if not to her." ****

*quote by Shannon L Adler - Author

** quote - unknown.

*** quote - Felix Alder.

**** quote - Faraaz Kazi

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As mentioned this was the very first post of mine and I have not made any changes, just a few typos - so it is as raw as it was then. My propensity to ramble set in once I gained confidence that I was not going to be driven out of the Forum for pathetic writing.