Long day is over. With looming darkness the tranquility blanketed the land. And with every passing moment small bright stars started to appear as a tiny dots on celestial sphere. And surreptitiously once azure sky transitioned to crimson and finally settled for dark gossamer of bright specks. Meanwhile the persistent screeches of silence were briefly being punctuated by crashing of waves on the rocks below. Thus the amalgam of monotony simply gave ample alibi for tired eyelids to relax upon already tired eyes. All of sudden in the half light a silhouette appeared and brandishing the courage that no scimitar can cut through, spoke in crisp, terse and authoritarian manner “Here I am! Kill your emperor if you wish.” The hortatory challenge impugned the loyalty of the entire troops and in no time the thunderous echo akin to heavy dose of caffeine commandeered the half sleep. And without further a do they all caved in, yelling at the top of their voice “Vive L'Emperur!”. And thus Napoleon marched into Paris, unseated Louie XVII and ruled for next 100 days until he met his Waterloo.
In this day and age the courage as such is an endangered species. The most courageous thing that anyone has done seems to be eating some disgusting worms to win a stupid competition on Fear factor. And these sickly acts are triumphed in TV station as if it parallels to Hercules killing the Stymphalian birds. It is lamentable that the entire world is simply pursuing a transitory spike in tv ratings and the length people go for grabbing 15 minutes of fame is simply appalling. The best exhibit is balloon boy in America to Anuja Baniya in Nepal. Is media culprit? Of course but equally culpable is the viewers whose insatiable hunger for consuming shocking news has reduced once proud field of journalism into laughing stock. And with all the shenanigans of whether News of the World tapping into the phones of the victims of London Bombing or ESPN’s ridiculous coverage of Lebron James’s big decision one thing is for sure, every unimaginable event has in public eye become quite blasé.
After going through the plots detailing Napoleonic wars written in old, yellow, dust covered pages from my mother’s diary I realized how awesome it might have been to live through that era, when valor and bravery were considered as an act of honor and when people lived and died by that word. It made me feel that the vanity that we protrude today is puerile in front of those valors of yester years. History books, literature and ancient text all are all filled with the stories of warriors and kings that went through great lengths of suffering to reach greater heights.
Courage always reminds me of that famous line from Lord Tennyson’s Lotus eater:
“COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
This line has several meanings. Of course one implies reaching the paradise where sun never sets. It is a beautiful analogy for prosperity. But reaching that Shangri-La requires courage; courage so big that it can overcome any rising tide that can drift us far from it.
Cursory glances of my eyes then shifted through all the succeeding republics and settled on lines narrating the establishment of Paris Commune which till this date is idealized by leftist all over the world as perfect manifestation of cradle to grave utopian socialism. The fact further emphasized in Nepali media when in middle of heightened rhetoric our own comrade Badal told the uproarious crowd in Baneshwor that the ultimate goal of Maoist is to establish the Kathmandu commune and on doing so he underscored an unwavering, unfaltering and unshakeable courage . But alas! All of sudden my animation was broken with shrill cry from surrounding and dogs barking everywhere. And before I could make up anything the ground shook violently and my reflexes immediately understood that it was an earthquake. And eating my pride and swallowing all the courage I ran to the safer grounds. Certainly courage can be romantic in literature but slightest jest of Mother nature can wipe the smugness of so called courageous bunch .
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