Small Complete Circles

"Life has come around to a full circle." Often, have I heard this being said by mostly elderly people. And at times by random people to express the fullness of life or rather the completion of an experience. And also by people, who are, let's say spiritual in nature. I think all of us imagine ourselves reaching that complete circle..... some people reach that Utopian circle on marrying and having a child to make life perfect or fulfilled. Or others... in fact many others would associate post retirement from their professional life and from their personal responsibilities as completion of their circle. I conjure up a picture in my mind's eye of two senior people...lounging around with a cup of tea looking at the albums of their grandchildren or taking a trip to some hill station without the baggage of children (hmmm....I think the former sounds like an ad for a tea brand while the latter seems to be promoting some tourist destination.)



But my point is that one experiences this completeness...... I think I have experienced it too... not in any huge life changing instance... but my life has had its few complete circles.... and maybe that is what we need in this hurried and harried world.... the awareness that there are small complete circles in life, which we can enjoy, and thereby, not be so daunted and fed up with our lives. There should be the need to be aware of these small circles... so complete and fulfilling in itself... to appreciate these... to yearn for these and maybe just maybe find ways and means to create more of these circles of fulfilment.



I remember the headiness that I experienced when I got admission to what was the most sought after course in JNU.... from the first moment I walked into that portal and went thorough the never ending task of operational procedures that finally established me as one of the numerous students in that educational institution. Attending the first few classes... going to the canteens with my other so called intellectual classmates.... perusing through the numerous books kept haphazardly in the even more disorganised library.... all that, however mundane and lacklustre it might sound to anyone else, was a much awaited experience for me that signified a completeness of an experience. It is surprising that it was in JNU that I found most of these little circles of mine being completed..... be it the first time when i got into a relationship... or the first time I had a bike ride in the chill of winter... be it the first time I experienced excruciating emotional hurt and the recovery after that.... be it the first time I wrote my exams ...... so many experiences that have encapsulated itself in tiny tiny circles of contentment and the knowledge that it has happened once and maybe it can happen again.



My father and mother.... now leading a less than usual busy life back in Assam since the time my father retired from his demanding stint in IPS. Now they share, what I enviously and joyously call, their renewed honeymoon and dating. They go shopping in the street vegetable markets each sharing a maize or popcorn...... two on-their-way senior citizens relaxed because their children are financially settled (though a little anxious since they are not married) but nevertheless most of their responsibilities taken care of.... they can once again experience compatible togetherness without me or my brother to over crowd their lives. They have come a full circle.



Many instances. Some of them more significant than the other. Some of them unfortunately not in memory. But they are my circles. And we all have circles of contentment. I just wish we could grasp them, especially when we get bogged down by the mindless riff-raff incidents that life, that jobs, that petty arguments with our peers and our bosses throws at us. Maybe we can't always get what we want so dearly but maybe we can remember the feeling that we experienced when we did get what we want even if it was for a short while.... and maybe we can hope for that circle to happen again.... after all "hope is the feeling one has that the feeling one has isn't permanent." And so also the circles that we have are not permanent but that it was there. And it was beautiful.