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What do Tears Carry?

As a man, the opportunities available to us to cry, progressively decrease.

A part of adulting as a man is to forgo emotion, to be detached. To avail the cry ticket, there are but a few opportunities:

To cry is to put yourself out there, to reveal yourself in what, one might argue, is the most vulnerable position.

Yet, each tear holds something. A beckon to something, a release of a held emotion, an opportunity to embrace that vulnerability, well, because you're human.

I tend now not to cry too much, surprisingly. Yet, it's always when I'm alone, in solitude, that I break down.

And the cue is always the same. A devotional song, a bhajan, dedicated to the Lord, always plays. I find myself captivated in a mixture of nostalgia, melancholoy and intense devotion.

Then, I do the fateful sin of opening the lyrics and their English meaning. And boy, do the waterworks begin.

It started this time, as I read the Venkateshwara Suprabhatam at 4PM. Odd, I know. Yet, Mom played it in the morning, and I found myself humming it. So I gave it a listen. And as the Venkateshwara Stotram started, it welled.

In particular,

ativēlatayā tava durviṣahai ranu vēlakṛtai raparādhaśataiḥ । bharitaṃ tvaritaṃ vṛṣa śailapatē parayā kṛpayā paripāhi harē ॥ 3 ॥

It means, but a simple sentence:

I have committed countless offences repeatedly, O lord of Venkata — forgive me swiftly with your supreme compassion, O Hari.

That's almost in every verse, yet this hit me differently. The recitation. The devotion and the nostalgia.

For me, as I read that, I immediately found myself at the steps of the temple I frequent.

I remember the time when I sat with a lack of a job, yet asked but one thing: Please forgive me.

I remember the times I sat alone in the night, cherishing my family and my friends, and then asking of Maa, the same thing: Please forgive me.

The verdict needn't be passed on me after I'm gone, for I had believed I was/am a sinner of the highest order. Forgiveness was all I asked of her. Her love, a smidgen of it, was what I'd requested.

To hear it recited seemed as though I'd written it.

ahaṃ dūradastē padāṃ bhōjayugma praṇāmēchChayā gatya sēvāṃ karōmi । sakṛtsēvayā nitya sēvāphalaṃ tvaṃ prayaccha prayaccha prabhō vēṅkaṭēśa ॥ 9 ॥

This verse, implying Having come from afar, eager to bow at your lotus feet, I render this service. Grant me the fruit of constant eternal service for this single act of devotion, O lord Venkatesha.

Is words I found myself writing, reciting and begging Maa Kali for. At every moment, as I'm at the temple, the same words (paraphrased ofc) are uttered.

For me to find myself asking the same thing that sages of yore asked, to feel my appeals being communicated, for a dirtbag like me to ask something that sages requested, I do feel a bit teary-eyed.

To hear this song and realise that there's a non-zero chance that when I'm gone, I might have the opportunity to rest at the feet of her, I can't help but believe my tears are filled with joy.