Krishna Shastri Devulapalli | Three Short Takes On Anger Management

As an adolescent, I had blazing anger, lots of it. (You wouldn’t have guessed, right, lol.) And it was my mother who worried about me the most. “Your anger is your enemy,” she’d tell me constantly. “My grandfather used to say that the hardest assignment he ever undertook was conquering his own anger.”

Like all adolescents, I didn’t pay any attention. Anger continued being my fuel, raw material and output.

However, my subconscious couldn’t help but take note of my mother’s reference to her grandfather. Born into extreme poverty, he didn’t let that come in the way of becoming a doctor. As a freedom fighter, he faced betrayals, beatings, went to jail, and wrote books while imprisoned. Still later, he founded a bank and served as governor of a state. While here I was, a self-centred little runt getting three hot meals a day, raging because I’d been stood up by a girl or pushed around by a couple of bullies. Even then, though I didn’t admit it, I had the sense to realize how petty, misplaced and plain dumb my anger was.

Years later, I began to get the hang of forgiveness. It was a breakthrough, I thought. After all, forgiving was the opposite of anger. If anger came from wrongs not being righted, perpetrators going unpunished, and the balance of the universe remaining skewed, forgiveness was accepting that life could be unfair, wrongdoers would get away more often than not, and that Dharma was rarely ever restored. Also: understanding that if you didn’t learn to forgive, you would end up bitter, ill, dead or all three.

Despite my ‘growth spurt’, to my surprise, I found that my anger remained. As is. It remains to this day. And I’m guessing it isn’t going anywhere soon.

So, today, I have both forgiveness and anger sitting quite comfortably in my heart like old friends who’ve booked their seats together.

I’m guessing my great-grandfather retained his anger, too. He wasn’t saying he had got rid of it when he spoke about conquering his anger; what he meant was that he had come to terms with it, learnt how to hold that blob of mercury in his hand instead of allowing it to consume him, and deploy it to do the right things.

Imagine losing your anger completely. How would that feel?

We arrive in the world angry. The cries of the newborn, her very first dialogue with the world, aren’t from sadness or helplessness. They are from resistance and rage.

To lose that would be to lose the very foundation of all other feelings, wouldn’t it? How would we laugh, love, sing, dance, create or live at all if we denied ourselves anger?

And how wrong — despite what the wretched godmen tell you about anger — that would be.

***

There once lived a man in whom resided two selves. Self One valued peace above all else.

And it wasn’t the grand world-order variety with a ‘P’ but ordinary peace. The kind that permitted him to stare quietly at a tree for five minutes or sleep undisturbed for an hour. That kind.

But there was another him, too. A soldier who waged war, 24/7. For him, to live was to fight. So relentless was this half of the man that it invariably triumphed over his peacenik half.

“What is your problem?” the peaceful guy asked the warrior one day. “Why don’t you ever give it a rest, you self-destructive fool?”

“Do you sleep okay at night?” said the veteran, soothing his battle scars.

“Yes, mostly. Despite the bruises I’ve accumulated on your behalf.”

“Do you get to look at trees?”

“Yes. Not enough, though. You know why.”

“Is your conscience clear?” said the warrior.

“Yes, clear-ish, for now,” said the quiet guy.

“Who do you think made it possible?” said the warrior, picking up his bloodied sword.

“Where to now?”

“Well,” said the swordsman. “Off to make sure it remains clear tomorrow.”

***

Not too long ago, it took the completion of a difficult piece, the arrival of a long overdue cheque or a new writing gig for me to celebrate.

Yesterday, my car was blocked from getting out of a legit parking spot not once but twice, at two different places in quick succession.

The first time it was by a driver who had taken off for a tea. Ten minutes later, as he unhurriedly removed his car, quite open to an apology from me for interrupting the much-needed beverage of an honest, hardworking gent such as himself, I smiled politely and drove off giving him a cheery wave.

I found myself in the exact same position sometime later, blocked off by a giant SUV. This time I found the gent, the owner, and told him he needed to move his car. He said ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it’ and proceeded in no particular hurry to buy what he he’d come for.

I smiled and waited. It may have had something to do with his being 6′5″, and his left butt-cheek weighing the same as me.

As soon as I got home, I Iooked in the mirror, clenched my hand till my knuckles turned white and (drumroll) gave myself a fist pump. “You rock, KSD!” I said.