"Promise!"

It has been really long since I wrote (read typed). A lot of factors have aided this to happen today and I have a moral obligation to thank them before I start writing. Primarily, thank you Chetan Bhagat. If a million people read R2020 (seriously?), I was reassured that at least a dozen people will read what I write. Next, a few friends, old and new who read my previous blog posts and kept asking me why I have stopped writing. The comments under each of these posts were a huge boost – I don’t think I will need any further inspiration than this. And of course, to the Lord Almighty! I pray the divine force stays with me in this innings of mine.

 “Promise!” – The clear, loud and cute voice of this kid turned my attention and took me a few many years back in memory. The number of times I had uttered this word right through my childhood blew my mind. From returning an eraser the next day to visiting a friend’s home during the weekend, I remember making a promise for a multitude of things; the ones my mind perceive today as petty affairs. Not that I was only at the giving end, I was at the receiving end of a million promises too before life became all that serious. As I returned to the present, I saw her tender fingers brush against her mother’s palm as she uttered the word again to get a peck on her cheek.

The beauty of the word was slowly sinking in. Years have passed by, but I don’t think I have stopped making promises. Just as I took a moment to look around, I realised it was not just me, but the entire world that was running on promises made and received. Day in and day out, how many promises do we make and how varied they are! Some are exchanged by two pairs of eyes. Some are loudly unsaid. Some are defined on papers.

A friendship.. A marriage.. An election.. An occupation.. All these are promises in a certain sense.

It is one of those rare words that have an immense potential to make or break lives. It is a pity that if most of us evaluated the percentage of promises we have kept, we would be left with numbers as poor as India’s growth rate. Whichever end you are at, what use is it to be a part of a promise which is not kept? Alas, an unfulfilled promise is like an ass that cannot carry loads. Neither can it be of any use nor can you keep it for memory’s sake! Why promise, if one cannot keep the word?

With a very sincere gratitude to all the ones I mentioned above, here I promise myself to keep writing regularly! Like I said, “Promise!”

I think. I write.
Ever Loving

Ganesh Ramachandran