Dare & dash

“I am the light of no one’s eye,” Bahadur Shah Zafar supposedly sighed while being packed off to the Burma prison by the British after the 1857 war. If he moaned about “not being the lamp of anyone’s heart” (na kisi kay dil ka chirag hoon mein) at this dethronement, he had reason to lament.

But when we use Zafar’s words to moan about far lesser, trivial tribulations of life, we run the risk of making a mockery of the sensitive verse. Worse, this could push us deeper into apessimistic pickle.

For, pessimism, as psychologists emphasise, can be an excuse as well as a hypothesis. Being in the downswing of emotions can sometimes make you feel like the world has ended, that nothing is going to change. But submitting passively to blues only sets up a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecy: even asmall step in the opposite direction can break this up; that’s when you seize the moment and refuse to go under.

Another defeated emperor, for instance, had a sudden change of fortune for his grace under pressure: when Alexander the Macedonian asks King Puru how he would like to be treated, the gigantic ruler replies, “Like a king.” “Don’t you want to be free?” Alexander asks.

“All that’s included in my first answer,” Puru replies with immense dignity, instantly warming Alexander’s chivalrous heart! Puru not only regained his crown but also remained loyal to Alexander’s friendship long after his retreat.

One can argue that the times were different; that the Company Bahadur deposing Zafar was no Sikandar! But the principle stands.