Rough Seas Are For Few Ships

Every ship sails well on calm waters. If one were to know the true strength and quality of a ship, he has to look at how it handles rough waters in a storm.

Every person puts on a smile and acts nice when he is happy. Which is why while judging a person’s character, it is important to know how he behaves when angry. No emotion rocks a person’s balance and façade like anger does. Anger brings out the true beauty or beast within a person. All the pretenses a person is capable of putting up will be blown away like dead leaves in the wake of a gust. The act breaks down revealing the true slang. And if the person was indeed putting up a decent façade just to impress others, he leaves a trail of destruction so painful for the victims that even a lifetime of repentance may not clean up the garbage he dumped on them in that one instant.

When we decided to get married against our parents' will, I and my wife were left with only one choice - we left our homes and got hitched. Neither side had any inkling of what we had planned. When the news broke out on the D day, it did create the chaos we expected but it also wreaked a havoc we couldn't foresee. Parents on both sides were more angry than hurt.

My mother retreated into her own cocoon and didn't talk to anyone for a couple of days. She didn't talk to me for a month. She never spoke a word even of how badly hurt she was. She had chosen her way of dealing with her anger.

Her family, on the other hand, hurried over to our apartment as soon as they got the news of our marriage and made a ruckus at the building. Venomous words were hurled at my mother – someone who had always been respected by thousands of students and revered by hundreds of teachers. She was blamed of being the orchestrator of the whole thing – that my mother had meticulously planned everything to defame their “respectful” family and trap their girl.

It was easy for my mother to retort with similar accusations and defamation because she too was in the same predicament. It was easy for her to use wretched and loathsome words back on them. But she did not. Not because she couldn't but because she chose not to.

Not everyone understands this difference. Just because one realized what kind of beast he turns into when he is angry doesn't right the earlier wrongs. Some wounds cut too deep. Some scars etch for life. What one says and how one reacts in anger is a deep reflection of the self. If that reflection is vile, the aftermath is not a mistake but a sin.  And there is no pardon for sins. Not in this world.