Many years back,
Roger Waters had written a searing melodrama about a bloke called Pink. Rock
star/Entertainer Pink had had too much of everything in his life, too much
adulation, too much applause, too much publicity. The painful events in his
life, which were not so obvious to the fast changing world, had built up a wall
around him, brick by brick. Pink fell into self oblivion, no longer being the
person he was meant to be.
The tale of
walls assuming significance in our perspective of life is nothing new. They are
not mere structures of brick, stone and mortar. I perceive a building has walls
because it wants to have a stand on its own, its own separate demarcated existence
on geography.
From the nuggets
of history, examples can be picked up from the Great Wall of China, a 2000 year
old 8000 km long magnificent fortification of a kingdom. A barrier to nomadic intruders.
A stamp of an authoritative civilization. More poignant and symbolic is the
Berlin Wall. Antifaschistischer
Schutzwall (German) was built by the GDR, against their
claim of protecting East Berlin from the purportedly still not denazified West
Berlin. More than a wall, it was a bloody cut across the face of Berlin. The
myriad murals on the west german side stood silent testimony to the thousands
of east germans who tried and died failing an escape from their own motherland.
There are walls around and within us. Like an
inseparable part of our compatmentalized identities. What someone is to me, may
not be the same someone to you. Its just not only a matter of vivid perception,
but what people are and what they really let others know. Little peeled off slices
of memories, of childhood, of teenage, of being adults; and the experiences
from them, sustain and build the bricks of those walls. Sometimes, these walls
break, and sometimes, they just keep getting built and built.
Late into the night, I watched the Berlin Wall
being clobbered down, amidst hysterical euphoria. People hugging, celebrating
and waving comfetti into the still german air. I glanced into my own walls, and
whispered a soothing lullaby to myself, lest they collapse in the apparent apprehension.
“I need you now” I
told.
It will just be the bricks that will have to
go.
“Walk up and down outside the wall.Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.
And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall.
"Isn't this where....”
(Outside the Wall- Waters)
-Palash
May 2012, Lumding.
