A tear moves...!!!

Tears apart!
by Rajbir Deswal

Tears flow in many ways. They fiercely flood, wallowingly well up, tend to trickle, flow slowly, slip sloppily, brim exceedingly and are basically emotion spurred. Shocks and thrills too bring tears, while happiness makes them purer. “I hate tears, Pushpa” — being a common refrain at many a mention of tearful situations after the Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila starer lit up the screen to let the gleam of the glowing dialogue travel till today when one is to refer to tears.
I remember Dilip Kumar in “Ram Aur Shyam” softly plucking the tiny, shiny twinkling tear-ball drop-land on his fingers trying to please his niece, but the scene lingers in my mind till date. The films have also shown the idols or statues either bleeding from the heart, or rolling down tears at the plight of a particular protagonist on whose predicament even providence takes a pity and is moved.
There are people who cannot withstand the sight of tears, particularly when one is so very emotionally attached to the other that one cannot stand the pain and predicament of the loved one. Tears in the eyes of women are believed (mostly by men!) to be the most powerful weapon with them.
The English people are known to be possessing and recommending a stiff-upper-lip sans tears, particularly for military generals, dictators, despots, royals and even bureaucrats. At Diana’s death, none of the Royal family, though sullen, betrayed any signs of a sense of loss (on the face of it), while many Britons were seen shedding tears, besides Alton John, singing his ‘Candle in the wind’, making many a tear find their emotional nemesis in flowing out of the eye-uncontrolled.
I remember an instance when having lost their parents, two brothers and a sister were fighting a bad patch in life, to slug it out painstakingly. Unfortunately, the younger of the two brothers, joined a dacoit’s gang. A police officer extracted money out of him to favour his brother ‘a little’.
The bread-earner boy had to sell off their tractor to pay the bribe. He too was then in the final year of his graduation, with his younger unmarried sister being another one to take care of.
The boy summoned up courage to approach the Superintendent of Police. He narrated the bribe story with his eyes flooding with tears, becoming red. But the boy did not let a single tear drop from either of the eyes. They were held on his eye lashes so as not to convey any weakness in his fortitude and conviction of staying bold under all circumstances. The SP ensured that the bribe money was restored to him.
I recall Lord Tennyson’s “Home they brought her warrior dead” when the widow doesn’t weep and let flow her tears. Many wise people around exclaim, “She must weep or she will die”. Nothing seems to work till “Rose a nurse of ninety years/Set his child upon her knees — Like summer tempest came her tears/ ‘Sweet my child, I live for thee’!”
Tears can move even the stones into some kind of a predicament, letting flow only elixir of hope.
I remember another story of a tombstone maker who is approached by a widow to make a tombstone for her husband. She keeps looking at each one of his chisel strokes while he keeps telling himself the same thing — ”She must weep or she will die”. When till two days she doesn’t break down, the tombstone maker has to make two tombstones.
Despite all that goes with the tears, Mahatma Gandhi wanted to wipe every tear from every eye. A tall order, Bapu! But you could do it — tears apart!

Pic courtesy http://www.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://api.ning.com/files/21tNO5FzXGvgGrwb2dF*qdhMLp-*nO8p-7aJWWU2gUUnzBnMBbJXj20Mvj89EK9sRhre2MVmnUb7lGKscUIm6KSw*WLC0Een/tears10.jpg&imgrefurl=http://my.englishclub.com/profiles/blogs/silent-of-tears&usg=__WWCoOtUDHn94Ad72ItMsWoBzzVQ=&h=375&w=500&sz=28&hl=en&start=7&zoom=1&tbnid=9WHPz5jLnuM9hM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&ei=qlUTUMXkBoLkrAeW3oHQCg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtears%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D569%26site%3Dimghp%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1