Guardian Angels

The concept of guardian angels is not new to human imagination. We believe they watch over us, holding us as we fall, never judging us if we forget them in our momentary ecstasies. As the decade passed on to the next, I needed them to look after me.

A friend was leaving Mumbai on the last day of the year, 2010 was a mad race, 2011 looked confusing to say the very least, the future had never looked so complicated with a promise of getting worse with every passing year. The life that we lived seemed to follow a strange pattern; the enlightened ones called it Maya. It took the form of a cycle - of joy and sadness, of hope and despair. And we were entangled. It made us look up from the abyss with a renewed hope and made us forget what life can become when we rode the waves.

Maya, the enchantress seemed to rule everyone’s lives. She made us fall in love, often more so as an answer to our inner loneliness than for love itself; she made us forgo our inner radiance for the neon lights in the maximum city; she told us tomorrow would be a better day and we believed her because Pandora’s folly had left us with just hope.

It’s unbelievable how every aorta of Indian spirituality lets man find the meaning for himself, if he so chooses. I love the fact that Hinduism allows me to believe I am God Himself – “aham brahmāsmi”. While people take refuge in the concept of karma and therefore extend it to fate, believing in the inner God in us makes us feel stronger. But sometimes, the strength begins to flicker - the moment before the final assault in Rohan, when Strider looks to the east and remembers Gandalf’s words – imagine his mind which wonders whether deliverance will arrive as the sun rises.

And since the morning of the 31^st, they called, the gtalked, they texted, they let me know that they were there watching over me - from Bangalore while buying mutton for a nice afternoon lunch, from Coimbatore while watching the stars, from Canada while negotiating the first ever time zone difference between us on a new year, from the US while wondering why is it so cold, from Calcutta after waking up from a night of frenzied partying. So on the quietest New Year’s Eve in my life, I felt safe and comforted as I held my cup of hot chocolate in my hand as calls came from Delhi.

That’s the beauty of the angels. They come in when you need them the most.

As I write, I feel the temperature rising in my body as Mumbai snuggles up to one more cosy night. It’s one of those nights when I can’t make myself read what I have just typed out, but it doesn’t matter…

…For my angels watch over me.