Malagiya Aththo and Living Hells – “Mangala on Sundays”

Isn’t it interesting how majority of compositions - poems, short stories, novels – are expressions based on Lost Loves?

They may be the writer’s own experiences but they touch our hearts perhaps we too have felt the same emotions, some time in our lives.

The death of mother or father, separations from siblings we love or loss of friends separated by distance disturb our emotional balance.

Nothing disturbs us more than a lost love.

Mourning of the dead fades away with time. Loss of friends may be overcome by finding new friends. Yet, the lost loves linger.

We savour the “virahava” as much as we savour the “adaraya”.

No! We savour the virahava over and over again , going through why? why?? why?? or the what ifs of broken relationships with boy/girlfriend. We mourn the Living Malagiya Aththo more.

Someone recently said,” Essentially all love poems say the same thing…never loved anyone like I love you.…why did you leave me?! ….i am lost without you."

Are we so attached to duka?

Do we neglect to see the reason and the way of overcoming duka because we are more comfortable in feeling sorry for ourselves? Do we love the attention we get when others rush in to save us from ourselves?

Some, unable to cope with those intense feelings; even end up taking drastic actions to end it all.

One fool recently ended up in hospital having swallowed a high dose of Panadol in an attempt to get his girlfriend back. He was a smart fool though – he was smart enough to swallow an overdose of Panadol by the hospital gate and run inside to seek immediate medical help!

High proportion of those once -madly in-love marriages end up in messy divorce. They don’t even have the luxury of blaming a third party like the parents or even the astrologer for their woes.

Then there is the flip side of the coin.

People we dislike enter into our orbit creating a Living Hell.

We can change the jobs to get away from bad bosses. We can jettison bad friends. We can ignore troublesome relatives or meddlesome in-laws.

Yet, some remain trapped in bad marriages, with husbands / wives from hell. The mutual feeling of love was gone long ago, if there was love to begin with. Divorce is not an option. Bound by Karmic Forces, beyond their current sphere of control and influence.

Physically abused, mentally tortured wives or constantly “cheated-on” husbands chose to suffer silently. They too are trapped in duka, frozen by passage of long suffering time, unable to find the path out of suffering, unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Some, lost in the dark, take their own lives to end it all. That is their way out of suffering, never having learnt the lesson of life, condemned to repeat the same mistake over and over again through their journey though Sansara.

So, where is our Salvation? Trust in God taking Jesus into our lives?

How do we change the effect of Karmic Forces? Realise “Four Noble Truths and Eight Noble Paths”?.

Or, do we learn to “Always look on the bright side of life” and look forward to a new dawn every day?