Hope

Hope. The opposite of despair. An emotion that is probably most taken for granted, and yet one that is the basis of our very survival. Whether you call it Hoffnung in German, esperanza in Spanish, or aasha in Hindi, it is still that feeling of deep and instinctual anticipation that we all feel, at every stage of our lives...
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Hope – a four letter word that, according to me, sustains human beings on this planet. Hope is what makes the unbearable bearable, and what illuminates the blackest of nights.

Hope is the tiny flicker of light that a man in a dark cave gropes for, it is the faint heart-beat that the mother of a stillborn child craves for, and it is even the red blot that the child who has failed by one mark is desperate to avoid seeing.

Human beings cling onto hope even when everything else seems lost. Hope is a way of comfort for many. It bolsters their strength by sheltering them in a cocoon of blissful limbo. It prevents them from breaking down and losing their sanity.

Whether you call it craving, longing, yearning or desire – ultimately, it is all hope. And it is this hope that helps us to live each day resiliently and courageously.

A person who has loved and lost, lives with the hope that the new day will bring with it new love; a person paralysed waist-down yearns for the morrow that will allow her to walk, even if it is with support.

Can you imagine a life devoid of hope? What if the man in the dark, airless cave loses hope? What if he is convinced that he is going to die in darkness?

In that case, he will not even try to venture towards freedom, and will definitely die. Whereas hope, even temporary, may at least inspire him to reach out towards the goal – his freedom.

But hope has its imperfections too. How long can you continue hoping? How long can you have faith in that little voice deep inside you that says “Everything will be alright”? The feeling of dread, emptiness and trepidation is bound to come back to haunt you sooner or later.

Think about a woman whose husband has disappeared at sea. How long can she wait for him? How long can she continue to hope that he will come back? One fateful day, she will have to give up and accept that he really is gone, and get on with her life.

And when this tiny thread of hope snaps and the flame of faith is extinguished, it is then that you are most vulnerable.

It seems as if the plank of wood that you were desperately holding onto, to stay alive and afloat, has broken into two, dragging you deeper and deeper into the murky waters of stark reality.

No one expresses it more beautifully and poignantly than Rabindranath Tagore in his story, ‘The Postmaster’ –

            “O poor, unthinking human heart! Error will not go away; logic and reason are slow to penetrate. We cling with both arms to false hope, refusing to believe in the weightiest proofs against it, embracing it with all our strength. In the end it escapes, ripping our veins and draining our heart’s blood; until regaining consciousness, we rush to fall into snares of delusion all over again."