HOPE FLOATS; HOPE RETURNS

 



“Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible,

and achieves the impossible.”

Helen Keller

 

A few weeks ago, I was watching this intense English movie at home, with Harry Connick and Sandra Bullock as lead actors. Though the subject of the story was very intense and heartbreaking, I just loved the title: ‘Hope Floats’...

Well, this Post is not about the movie... It’s about ‘Hope’ and why mankind has placed its trust on it so much and for so long... Desmond Tutu said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”...

Yes, hope is something that makes sense just because there is this thick smog of darkness around us. Else, why would we ever think of Hope? Why would we ever say – ‘Hope Floats’?

Hope does float...

Therefore, Martin Luther King Jr. said so strongly, “Everything that is done in this world is done by Hope.”

You and I will never be able to comprehend the times this charismatic leader, who fought and died for the civil rights of his fellow Black Americans, lived. It was the darkest time for the Black Americans, who were, even after two hundred years of Declaration of Independence, treated as ‘Slaves’... the untouchables. They were not allowed to sit, walk, eat, study, work, worship alongside their White countrymen... Imagine, the plight of these suppressed and abused civilians – what kind of dream would they dream? Yes, it’s against this backdrop, Dr. King rose to fight for his oppressed fellow brothers and sisters... He promised them the land he dreamt for their children... It was he who let Hope float for them...

“I have a dream...” Remember this speech at the Lincoln Memorial on       August 28, 1963?


And, why am I remembering this decades-old speech, today?

Well, Zohran Mamdani, the newly-elected Mayor of New York City, reminded me of it.  I live here, thousands of miles away from New York City, and I have no idea about what actually goes on there. But, I was hooked to the victory speech of Mamdani, all the while remembering the eloquence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr...




You see, the dark clouds return, time and time and time again – not just for individuals and families, but for the countries and the mankind collectively, too. Yes, the dark times have a tendency to return, make us feel helpless, scared and disillusioned... And, with the same breath, let me also tell you this: Hope, too, has the tendency to return... and fill us with courage and strength...

Dr. King was a Black man, whose forefathers were shipped into America as Slaves. So, it’s something the privileged society couldn’t swallow easily. Today, the bias of the society – America or elsewhere – hasn’t vanished... It’s not easy for many around the new Mayor of NYC to swallow the new Hope which is being floated by him...

But, then, that’s how it’s always been, and it, always, shall be...

At the end of the movie, ‘Hope Floats’, we hear the voiceover of Birdee (Sandra Bullock)...                                                                                        

“When you find yourself at a new beginning, just give hope a chance to float up.”

Yes, yes, yes: Hope is not just another four-letter word... It, forever, floats... for you and me.

 

GERALD D’CUNHA        

Pic’s: 1. www.nydailynews.com  2. 

Video: APT

 

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