This too shall pass...

"This Too Shall Pass!"

The mother of all phrases, almost as sacred as Bhagwad Geeta itself, this is one panacea to every hell you are going through in your life at a given point in time. The origins of this miraculous adage are not exactly known, but I first heard it in 'My Best Friends Wedding' and it suddenly went down my throat like smooth blended scotch and hit my mind like an ataractic, liberating it from all the 'trivial' worries I had. Julia Roberts screwing up majorly in her attempt to steal her ex-boyfriend from the 'talons' of a very sweet, very marriageable girl. She is all shaken up, sitting in the corridor of the hotel floor, smoking, when this friendly bell boy passes her and sharing her little cigarette stub, coins these magic words"This Too Shall Pass"!

Since then I have seen this get caught on, like one use-anywhere-it-will-fit apothegm and people are not abandoning it anytime soon. It got me thinking though, today, as I saw its liberal use on MS itself over the past few days. So, let's take a moment to see, when you really need someone to come, sit besides you and say "This Too Shall Pass"!

[You accidentally copied a non-vegetarian forward of the most extreme kind to the most gorgeous female (towards whom you were making impressive inroads) in your office, while trying to kill time with you useless ogle-at-all-remotely-pretty-fe
males friend, and by the time you can say oops, the 'thing' is spread out on her 19" LCD screen in its entirety while the 'poor' girl was trying to get the 120 page design document reviewed by her project lead. Man! What will follow shall never pass. It will haunt you like Frankenstein every single day of your life! ..even though every soul you even remotely know, will tell you that "This Too Shall Pass!"]

[You are a living specimen of things gone wrong with independent India. Tobacco-chewing (and spitting in the corner nearest your chair), porcine, greasy haired, sarkari babu who has a bigger desk drawer than the secure vault at RBI. The drawer is bottomless. No one has ever crossed your desk without feeding the hungry drawer. You beam a quintessential smile to the poor chap sitting across the desk and toss the usual 'Vajan thoda kam hai file mein..' only to discover on Aaj Tak next day that the 'poor' chap was a sting reporter. A million people see you running to the toilet door while some more cameras chase you with 'Ab apko kya kehna hai?' and lock yourself inside. Someone needs to get there inside with you and tell you - "This Too Shall Pass!" ]

[You were in the middle of 'something' with your pretty, coquettish neighbour, when your wife returns home early as the tailor she had gone to, to get her dresses done, had ran off with HIS neighbour! I am not sure whether the aftermath will ever pass, but you still need someone to put his hand on your shoulder and tell you - "This Too Shall Pass!"].
.
.
But, seriously, I mean really seriously, have you ever had a moment where you are so dumbstruck that you don't know what to feel?.. when someone has slammed the door in your face so hard your ears still reverberate with the bang…. when you don't know what you are going to do in the days that follow apart from wondering what happened and what could you have done differently…when you can't help but gaze at the door, hoping it to open suddenly and see that face smiling at you again, but deep down you have given up hope. Don't you need someone to come sit next to you, give you a warm cuddly hug and croon softly in your ear - "This Too Shall Pass!"