“Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as means of transportation.”

So reads the last para of chapter seven of Life of Pi, the book I am currently reading. But is it that simple to move on? Do doubts let us go? Or, do they just like that little pup in the Hutch ad, follow us, wherever we go, even if we want to move on?

Doubts are like those acquaintances around the corner, which you want to avoid meeting but who always find a way to spot you and hold you up for a while and that while is always a tad longer than what’s required for exchanging pleasantries. In that little while, they always end up asking you questions you didn’t want to answer or tell you things which you never wanted to think about. And then those doubts pat on your back, promise to catch up soon and walk away or so they pretend coz further they seem to have gone, closer they seem to stay.

But am not saying, doubts are always unwelcome…sometimes doubts are good, they are just the speed breakers that prevent you from speeding just for the thrill of it. Not all questions that you don’t want to answer are also the questions that you shouldn’t answer. So while we may never like doubts but then they never wanted to be admired, they just wanted to help which they do sometime.

But problem crops up when we over indulge those doubts or look for them when none is in sight. Doubts don’t need black soil to grow; they just need a bit of uncertainty and bit of “I want to get that absolutely right” kinda attitude. And both these things are in no short supply. So even before turning the ignition when you start thinking of the speed breakers, then you just stick at the garage and go nowhere. Or when you are always worrying about a speed breaker at the next bend then you end up driving so slow that you are always late. It is this part about doubts that I hate.

I have noted that what clear doubts best are time, that’ the best doubticide. Doubts are nothing but apprehensions that stem from unknown or may be an urge to control the future or at least to shape it the way you want to see it. And while lot of people say it and lot more agree that future is not in our hands but may be its not completely true. Future is nothing but a function of our actions in the present. When you wake up next day how often you encounter something you could never have avoided, “bolt from the blue” is something which is so rare that we tend to pass everything as an imitation of that. May be if we can just accept that future won’t trick us but would unfold right in front of us and would be shaped by none other than our own selves then may be those apprehensions would lay low. And time has its ways to allay the apprehensions, clear the clouds of uncertainty and get doubts fade away into a bright day, just what sun does to morning haze. So may be it’s wise to wait for the noon, and then there won’t be a haze at all, so we won’t need to look through it. So what we need is probably the patience to put up with doubts and not learn not to listen to them till we can’t absolutely avoid listening to them.

But would it be too late? I wish I knew…

-siddhartha

Song recommendation:

Listen this one for Gulzar's fantastic poetry, from the movie Jhoom barabar Jhoom.

My personal favourite is the last para...

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धागे तोड़ लाओ,चांदनी से नूर के
घूंघट भी बना लो, रौशनी से नूर के
शर्मा गयी तो........ आगोश मे लो
साँसों से उलझी रहे मेरी साँसे

आ नींद का सौदा करे, इक ख़्वाब दे, इक ख़्वाब ले
इक ख़्वाब तो आंखों मे हैं, इक चांद के तकिये तले
कितनों दिनों से ये आसमान भी..... सोया नहीं हैं, इसको सुला दे

उम्रें लगी कहते हुये, दो लव्ज थे, एक बात थी
वो एक दिन सौ साल का, सौ साल कि वो रात थी
कैसा लगे जो .....चुप चाप दोनो, पल पल मे पूरी .... सदियाँ बिता दे