Two sides of life
By Mangu Ram Gupta

EVERY dark cloud has a silver lining — is one adage which has stood the test of time and assumed the status of a universal truth as soon as the cloud floats away, we see the azure sky beneath. Thus gloom has a gleam lurking in it. Dusk is followed by dawn; night by day, sunset by sunrise and a storm by calm.

Life is neither a bed of roses nor a plank of thorns — is another plain truth. Life is an admixture of comfort and discomfort; pleasure and pain; fortune and misfortune. It thus furnishes a sparkling example of how gloom and gleam are quite inseparable. If one is a prologue the other is an epilogue. So intertwined are both these aspects of life.

The Almighty in his wisdom, has so ordained things and made " the negative and the positive an integral part of our lives. If an individual’s life were all pleasure and no pain, it would be as difficult for him to enjoy pleasure as it is to bear pain. Similarly, if one’s life were all success and no failure, success would lose all its glitter; and sparkle. One would cease to strive for it. This would surely make one’s life drab. The combination of opposites makes things worthwhile. Misfortunes test our mettle and act as moral-boosters.

Though gloom and gleam undoubtedly constitute the warp and woof of our lives, it is certainly gloom which dominates our existence. We have, thus, in our lives more of gloom than gleam more of misfortune than fortune; more of pain than pleasure; more of failure than success; and more of darkness than light. We are often overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life and curse our fate. The darkest spot being just under the lamp, gloom follows gleam close on the latter’s heels. So dominant is the gloom.

"Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends," is what a wit says and this is surely very true. Everyone worships the rising sun — is an oft-repeated aphorism which too has admirably stood the onslaught of time. When a person holds a high office or is at the zenith of his grandeur his kith and kin surely flock to him; indulge in a lot of sycophancy; extol him to the skies and secure favours from him. As soon as some misfortune befalls him and he is bereft of his importance, his friends and relatives are oblivious of his presence. It is as if he does not exist. They forsake him. Napoleon had such an experience and expressed his dismay at it like this: "When I was happy, I thought I knew men; but it was fated that I should know them only in misfortune."

Shakespeare expresses the same truth as: " Men shut their doors against "The setting sun." When you laugh, the whole world laughs with you; but when you weep, you weep alone — is still another way of conveying the same idea.

It is, accordingly, only in adversity that we are able to test our kith and kin and find what a metamorphosis their behaviour has undergone.

"Nature" is, nevertheless, different and holds a lesson for us. Look at the flower. It follows the sun not only when the days are bright but also when they are cloudy. This should act as an eye-opener for us.