“What are you writing?” Lulu, my
parrot asked. With a nice red band across his neck he appeared as if wearing a
bow tie.
“Diary, Lulu, diary. I have been
thinking about writing it daily and regularly.” I continued to write.
“Very interesting. I always wanted
to know what people write in their diaries. It must be interesting to read.
What say you?”
“Lulu, you are not supposed to
read other people’s diaries. That’s not done.”
“You men have so much to hide, so
you do not allow your diaries to be read by others. Do you write everything
that you see, feel and think?”
“Diaries have many purposes. I do
not write it as my autobiography. And even autobiographies do not reveal
everything about the author’s life.”
“Oh, you remind me of what Mark
Twain said on oath in the Court. He was asked if the statements in his
autobiography were true when he said, ‘Yes, literally, they are true, that is
to say they are a product of my impressions -- recollections. As sworn
testimony they are not worth anything; they are merely literature.’”
“Ha, ha! I have often felt that I
could not comprehend why many my parents and other relatives made certain
decisions in their life.”
“That’s true. You converse so
little about these things. Not even on dinner table.”
“When the situation is ‘hot’ and
difficult, everybody avoids discussion about it. When the issue is amicably resolved
we talk about how we did it rather than what were the various aspects of the
problem and what we went through.”
“And if it goes wrong, particularly
a family issue, the subject often becomes taboo. Nobody says it is taboo, but
nobody talks about it.”
“Right!” I agreed. “You said it,
Lulu.”
“So why don’t you write all about
in your diary? Your children and other relatives will learn what you went
through in those difficult situations.”
“The fear is what if they read it
during my lifetime!” I said. We both laughed, Lulu rubbed his head on my neck
in agreement.
Vivek S
Patwardhan
"What
you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven
into the lives of others."