{"id":11173,"date":"2016-02-10T10:42:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T05:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=11173"},"modified":"2016-03-24T09:11:20","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T03:41:20","slug":"hope-trope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2016\/02\/10\/hope-trope\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope Trope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An old man lives alone in a house. That&#8217;s how it has been for almost a decade and a half. With relatively lesser proof, I believe that I can stay alone for a long duration without feeling lonely. But I could be wrong, and a decade is a long time, especially when you think of it in terms of days. Many times, when I&#8217;m outside with friends or waiting for D to get home, I think about him and wonder, how does it feel to open the door of one&#8217;s home and not have someone waiting, knowing that this is something that will never change now?\u00a0How does he cope?<\/p>\n<p>Far away from him, a child is growing up. She is also far from what I&#8217;d call her homeland.\u00a0Will\u00a0she ever speak her mother tongue? Even if she does, will she be a cultural misfit in both the worlds she occupies? Circumstances haven&#8217;t been kind to her parents, hopefully things will look up sooner than later. But time waits for none, and one&#8217;s childhood leaves imprints that echoes through one&#8217;s life. The first section <a href=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2016\/01\/27\/atrophy-or-not\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> is a testament to that. What does the future hold for her?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The world has changed for two children. I don&#8217;t know them, I knew their mother though. She was my age, and now she&#8217;s no more.\u00a0The elder one probably gets a vague sense of the significance of the event. Reminds me of another child who went through this at roughly the same age. There will be a void, what will be its effect on their lives?<\/p>\n<p>On New Year&#8217;s eve, when the world around had already begun its time honoured rituals of revelry, I got out of the office and started making my way to the cab that was waiting for me. I noticed a man walking in the middle of the road unsteadily. A cane and a bowl &#8211; a blind beggar. I guided him towards the footpath, but as I got into the cab, I noticed that he was now at an intersection and stepping on to the road again. Thankfully, a woman was on hand to help him cross the road. But how long would this go on? Did he have a home to go to? How would he get there? Did he do this everyday?<\/p>\n<p>In all the above, I can probably attempt an intervention, that too in a couple. Even then, the scope of the intervention and its impact are limited. The helplessness\u00a0disturbs me, and also makes me realise an uncomfortable truth &#8211; when one moves past the idea of God and cosmic justice and understands that all that&#8217;s to happen is in the hands of the self, and the randomness of circumstance (including the ones who will offer a shoulder to lean on), how does the concept of hope work?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-11175 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hope.jpg\" alt=\"hope\" width=\"600\" height=\"282\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hope.jpg 850w, https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hope-300x141.jpg 300w, https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hope-768x361.jpg 768w, https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/hope-600x282.jpg 600w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 600px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 600\/282;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On a related note, read this recently &#8220;<em>Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no prejudice in favour of Christ as against Genghis Khan.<\/em>&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.farnamstreetblog.com\/2016\/01\/will-durant-religion-history\/\" target=\"_blank\">via<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An old man lives alone in a house. That&#8217;s how it has been for almost a decade and a half. With relatively lesser proof, I believe that I can stay alone for a long duration without feeling lonely. But I could be wrong, and a decade is a long time, especially when you think of <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2016\/02\/10\/hope-trope\/\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1479,412],"tags":[4909,1192,1088],"class_list":["post-11173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughtstream","category-life","tag-cosmic-justice","tag-god","tag-hope"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11173"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11281,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions\/11281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}