Do you remember that first brush with the sense of the broken?The first time I encountered a broken object was when I was in nursery. I saw my orange box broken into two by someone as old as me. Prem sat in the second last row, all by himself because he needed an extra space to rest his artificial right leg.Politically disinterested, all I knew about him was that he was a refugee from an island far away and that he didn't have two natural legs like the rest of us. Then, yet to learn how deprivation can define a human mind, I was busy lost in a wonderful world of my new orange box. I remember that morning, the entire class except Prem surrounded the orange prized owner . I did not know I was just moments away from my first experience of a green break. It happened at recess, when Alan and me running through a game of catch and fall, landed just in time to see Prem break my much loved orange box into two separate pieces with his two naturally formed hands. Overcome with the unexpected twist of events, I felt fury rise in me as he flashed a derisive smile and placed the broken pieces before me, strapped up his artificial leg and hobbled out. I felt the first silent sob hit me but Alan said,"It is ok, he doesn't have a leg. Let go" and I turned to him angrily,"But what has his leg to do with my orange box?" Alan shrugged but repeated and I listened to Alan's repeated words"Let go".
Through the years,I come across other deprived or depraved souls through broken mementos, broken cds, broken laptops....I repeat "Let Go".
'Let Go' lets you gain just one gift, the gift of understanding the dynamics behind green breaks. An understanding that helps you watch the cracks happen outside your heart.
At nursery you seek a reason how a broken two can replace a depraved/deprived one. And you learn to accept a broken leg sometimes needs to kill the smile in another's eyes.Later you seek to understand the green breaks that need to leave behind a trail of broken hearts, minds and perhaps broken human relationships. And you learn to push pain away to the distal ends of your toes. Most of all you learn not to indulge in a green 'break-through'.
