By Vijay Phanshikar :
Passing day’s signature
On placid waters ...
... promise of tomorrow
- Self    
 
 

 

WHEN darkness pops up in the distance, the passing day’s fading Sun leaves the signature of its brilliance on the river’s placid waters... ... then what endures in the mind is the lengthening column of the glowing copper-coin in the darkening sky. That is certainly a promise of tomorrow ... ... that tomorrow will come shining in all its glory ! The human community has lived on for ages -- since time immemorial -- standing up on this promise of tomorrow. No matter what happened in the day, good or bad or indifferent, tomorrow will certainly come. For, barring those mythological nights stretching for hundreds of years, there has always been the morning of tomorrow after the night. No matter this promise, countless days are dark -- as nights -- with despair and danger and deceit and derision and destruction and demolition .. !!!

 

Yet the humans endure all those in the promise that tomorrow will bring change -- riding on the morning’s shoulder, basking in the noon’s warmth, and resting assured on the evening’s lap. That is what the next day will be like, they tell themselves, those humans harassed by today. That is how the humans have come through Time, marching through its rigour and rage. Imagine if there were no promise of tomorrow ! No. None of us can imagine that. Absolutely none. The Divine has not equipped Man with that power to imagine a non-tomorrow situation. That is so because the Divine has ordained the Sun to keep placing its signature on the waters of this evening as a promise of tomorrow’s morn. Such a relief it is that there will sure be a tomorrow -- bring along hope and honour -- so that the human story will continue, will endure.

 

What a metaphor, this ! For, as each days passes into night, the Sun leaves its promissory note so that the humans -- and even non-humans -- feel assured that their story will endure the night and live for the brilliance of the next morning. Then they will start writing the next day’s chapter in Time’s book. As one stands by the placid waters of the river in the dying moments of the evening looking at the sinking crimson of the Sun, as the night raises its head on the eastern horizon behind one’s back, the mind starts opening itself to the promise and potential of tomorrow. Today may be leading to tomorrow, all right. But what actually matters alone is the promise tomorrow holds in its heart. On that platform, we stand !