Lily talks of the blissful solitude and the cacophony that shackles us. We might be lonely in a room full of people. Here’s her wonderful discourse.

“In a soulmate, we find not company but a completed solitude,” says Robert Brault. Though the human language uses ‘loneliness’ to reveal a hidden pain and ‘solitude’, for expressing the glory of being alone, it is a requirement for the health of our souls. It’s like a yogic posture for souls. The murky, whirlpools of life, never mirror ourselves clearly. We need the calm serene waters of the Pangong Tso, (Pyonyang Lake) in the Himalayas, residing in our hearts, to show up our real selves. The honking and beeping sounds of our huffed and puffed up life, need to be silenced, for some time in the day…a veritable pulling out of the plug, so to say. The cacophony, kills the smiling, soaring spirit. It shackles us in vice like tentacles, of a constant chorus of sounds and sights.

The solitude of the soul is inebriating. It washes out, the daily grime and grind from its countenance and makes it squeaky clean, once again, ready for a fresh onslaught “life”. The hidden springs in our heart, give a fresh lease of life. In fact, we are the least alone in our solitude “bheed hai qayamat ki aur hum akele hain…zindagi ki raahon mein ranj o gham ke mele hain…” (That is the terrifying bit…the feeling of being totally alone and bereft, in a room full of people…). Crowds may surge around you but the heart is a hermit …like an island in a tsunami ridden ocean!

I love what Marcel Proust said of some rooms in his house, where the air was “saturated with the bouquet of silence.” For me the bewitching hour is the caressing, healing, perfumed hour of dawn. The amrit vela, ambrosial in its properties! The only true, loyal companion that we will ever have from birth to death, is ourselves, so it’s wise to make friends with ourselves and be at peace with our niggardly, avaricious passions.

Let us then retreat to the best hermitage, the most exclusive spa in the world. The quiet portals of our own soul! It really is not necessary to read or listen to sad songs or poetry a la “Jab bhi aati hai teri yaad kabhi shaam ke baad, aur badh jaati hai afsurda dilli shaam ke baad …” (Whenever your thoughts come to my mind after dusk, the heart gets sadder, more depressed after the twilight hour).

©Lily Swarn

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Lily Swarn

Lily Swarn is a gold medallist and a double university colour holder from Panjab University. She has authored, A Trellis of Ecstasy (poetry), Lilies of the Valley (essays), The Gypsy Trail (novel). A multilingual poet, writer and columnist, her poems have been translated into 13 languages. A radio show host and Emcee, she received World Icon of Peace, Chandigarh Icon Award, Woman of Substance, World Icon of Literature and several other prestigious awards.

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