Freedom of Expression

This article has been influenced by the movie Taare Zameen Par.

Is expressiveness a necessary mandate in the language of communication? Ishaan Awasthi is just like any other child, but sadly enough suffers from dyslexia, a neurological disorder which disables his normal brain processing to judge and discriminate shapes of alphabets, memorize and cognize them when confronted again. This abnormality does not allow him to perform daily task with the ease that other children of his age can.

His parents are not able to reciprocate to his needs of support, love and understanding and constantly pressurize him to perform in studies, a pressure that he is not at all able to take, nor talk about it. He has developed a fear to express himself to his parents and starts resenting all their efforts, to make him understand the need for his performance in order to survive in this over – competitive world, go for a toss. Exasperated and not able to comprehend his behavior, his parents send him to a boarding school much to his dislike.

Ishaan had an uncanny ability of painting and through his painting he used to express himself, but it needed a sensitive eye to notice the pain expressed in his paintings. His elder brother being a scholar – performer, his parents wanted him to follow his elder brother’s footsteps but in this process, all of them got alienated from him. His inability to perform and stand up to the expectations of his parents brutally murdered his self – confidence and this further drove him away from his family. To depict this pain he painted a series of paintings of his parents, his brother and himself and in each painting he used to move himself away a little bit. When the paintings were dropped in a sequence, it depicted his slow alienation from his family, his support system and his recession into the oblivion of loneliness and silence.

The pain which small, innocent and fragile Ishaan could not express through words took the form of brush strokes. The messages he used to convey through his paintings at a tender age of 9 had the potential to rattle the hearts of grown-ups as well. The mode of communication that Ishaan developed was certainly off – track but the compulsion underlying the foundation of its development was nurtured and nourished by this inability of the society to understand pain and its various forms of expression. The view that words are the only form of efficient communication and other form of arts like painting, literature and music are just modes of recreation is what fuels the sad reality of unfortunately different souls like Ishaan finding it difficult to survive in this world.

Such sad reception of other forms of art has also led to euphoria in the society that until and unless a child performs in studies and gets topper marks; he has no stay and say in this ultra – competitive world. Even if the child has some serious problem, continuing in his studies and has some other talents that he wants to develop, he is forbidden to do so till he does not rebel against it and ensure that he has his own way. This could be easy for a normal child but for a visibly compromised child like Ishaan who craves for understanding to convey his inabilities, resentment and resorting to rebellious techniques to nurture his talent cannot be an easy task.

If the liveliness of such a child is killed in the initial foundation days then the society stands the risk of losing invaluable talents. In today’s world everyone wants their child to be a topper, a doctor, an engineer or an MBA and parents put a lot of pressure on their kids to perform. This puts the kid in a spot and makes him feel guilty if he fails. Such thoughts act as poisons to creative talent and do not allow it to flourish and blossom.

Communication is a powerful tool and nature has its own beautiful methods of doing so which are devoid of any words. Birds chirping, winds blowing, flowers blossoming, all convey some message to us. A message that just doing a humdrum and slumber job and arranging finances is not life. It is just one of the ways to live life and should not replace the actual beauty life is. Ishaan did this in a wonderful manner through his paintings and showed it to the world that an unfortunate child like who is still struggling to identify alphabets, a task his contemporaries do without an iota of unease, can perform wonders even without support. Wonder what his capabilities could have been, had his parents understood him and not put a pressure on him to perform the way other kids perform and not put the constraint of verbal communication of expressiveness on him.

The Arrest

Manager: “So how do you find the job here?”
Virag: “It is good. The atmosphere is nice, but at times I do feel that the challenge could have been more.”
Manager: “Hmmm, how do you feel so? The product and the domain, both are so vast, there is so much of learning involved. You can in fact, pick up a module and master it so that any one comes to me with an issue in that module, I can say the module man is Virag.”
Virag: “Yeah I do agree that there is indeed a lot of learning involved, and as you see since the past almost one year I have been working on this particular module and know it in and out. But what I feel that product knowledge is not an issue, it all depends on my zeal to learn, but I feel the lack of chance to learn the domain knowledge and business processes.”
Manager: “OK, I will keep this in mind and if anything comes up, shall keep you in loop.”
Virag: “OK Thanks.”

Some days later a customer project comes up. They had some issues with the product which needed to be solved at an urgent basis. The manager comes to Virag and tries to know if he’d be interested in taking up the project. Virag, seeing an opportunity to improve his communication skills and customer interaction tactics, takes up the project. Now he is i2 Technologies’ face to the customer. He is whole-n-sole responsible for the project. He works extra time to keep up to his standards since he was handling it alone and was handling it for the first time; the whole product was at his disposal. But he had the confidence to pull through. Also he had a KEY AWARD to his kitty to boost his morale for his work on his previous assignment. But one thing pulled him back and that was his marital problems. His estranged wife was trying to control him with the help of her parents. His in-laws were pressurizing him to abandon his aged and dependent parents so that they can interfere in his daily matters and get a grab of his financial control. He was slowly realizing it was a coy from their side to malign his parents’ reputation amongst his relatives, and putting a social pressure on him to succumb to their unjust demands. But Virag does not budge, and does not take a decision against his principles.

Meanwhile he was excelling in his project and was delivering a performance. The client had given him the liberty to call at anytime he had a doubt and also used to arrange the calls according to Virag’s convenience, keeping in mind the time difference between India and the US of A. It was the 10^th September 2007, Monday as per IST, so Monday morning being a Sunday evening for the client and as some serious discussion was involved the call was scheduled in the evening so it is Monday morning for the client. So Virag planned his work accordingly, patched it up by 7: 00 P.M. and reached home. Just he had parked his bike and reached for the elevator when a man approached him.

Man: “Are you Virag?”
Virag got a bit wary seeing the man’s appearance.
Virag: “Yes, why?”

The man flashes his identity card indicating that he was from the local PS. Virag froze. He understood, his wife had approached the police with a false complaint. Though he tries a bit to act as if he does not know what is happening. The man stopped him in the parking area and did not allow him to use him phone as well. Then swooped down the whole team. They were about six in number. Virag was made to sit inside the police van and told to wait. The security person informs his parents that he is being detained by the police. They rush downstairs.

Meanwhile Virag was now told that a dowry harassment complaint has been against him and his parents by his wife and her parents. Virag tries his level best to convince the police person that this complaint has no standing and he has evidence to prove his point, but he is not given any chance. When his mom arrives, he passes over his laptop and HIS CELL to her and tells her in Gujarati to inform Rishi (their lawyer). His mom takes away the laptop. And then calls up Rishi as well her sister, who stays across the town. Then the Station House Officer arrives. He insults Virag and his parents very badly and shouts at them and threatens them. Virag, as advised by Rishi, maintains his composure and tries to convince the SHO about the nullity of the case, but he had been bribed properly by Virag’s FIL, so he is in no mood to listen. All the three are taken to the police station on pretext of investigation.

The Revelation

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

For first time readers, please refer to the post, “The Brain and the Soul”

Its time to get up, the time is six thirty am. Jignesh’s cell phone alarm was ringing. After thinking a lot about Jahnavi and how to tell her about Sid, he had gone to sleep late. He got up lazily rubbing his eyes, saw the time, 6:40 am. Oh Shit, got late. Hurriedly he got up and the first thing he did was to SMS Jahnavi, Hey, can we meet in the canteen before the lectures. She replied with a smile. The silent bridge of words between them was the most exhilarating form of unrequited love between them. Lectures started at 9 am. They met in the canteen at 8:45.

Jahnavi: “Good morning, you look sleepy. Slept late? Studied till late?
Jignesh: “You ask a lot of questions.”

Jahnavi giggles.
Jahnavi: “So, tell me Sir, at your service.”

She was beaming with joy as this was the first time Jignesh had called her to meet. Though she had wanted to call him many times, she could not, long live her inhibitions and Jignesh’s moronic image. But today was different and so was different Jignesh today.

Jignesh: “Hey you know I wanted to tell you something.”
Jahnavi: “I am listening.”
Jignesh: “Well you know as we are good friends. And also initially we did have some petty issues.”

He was still hunting for words, when the voice banged him from back. It was Sid there. Oh Shit, bad timing for the first time. He thought.

Sid: “Hi Guys, what’s up?”
Jahnavi: “Hi Siddharth, how are you?”
Sid: “I am great; I think its time for the lectures. Shall we, Jignesh?”

Jignesh motioned with his eyes, later, to Jahnavi. She caught it and they headed towards their respective departments. Now Jignesh was not at all able to concentrate on his lectures. He was in a dilemma, how to tell her? what if she goes away? He feared hatred and rejection. His insecurities were getting the better of him. Now she will think I am a real moron who can commit blunders independently but needs a friend to apologize, Jignesh thought. But it’s not totally my fault, for had it not been for Sid, his love for Jahnavi would have died within him. He just hoped Jahnavi to understand and realize this. Lunch break happened but they could not meet as Jignesh was called by the principal for some Biology seminar. So they had to wait for the evening coffee meet and the day seemed like ages to Jignesh and Jahnavi, who had sensed some amount of apprehension in his voice in the morning and had been wondering the whole day, What could be the matter? Why was he looking uncomfortable with Sid around? Why did he say ‘later’? These questions were making rounds in her mind. By the time the day ended and they met for coffee, they were like just about to barge into one another and finish off the matter. Jignesh had failed to muster courage to speak out, he feared losing her and Jahnavi wanted him to speak and feared losing Jignesh if he did not tell her. Seeing his composure she knew it, he will not speak, she will have to dig in, and so she spoke.

Jahnavi: “Hi How was the day?”
Jignesh: “Nothing special, yours?”
Jahnavi: “Ok types.”

Now she waited, hoping he will speak up. But he did not. And he was cursing her silence as that would mean, he will have to speak. His breaths conveyed his aggravated level of discomfort to her. So she spoke again.

Jahnavi: “I am noticing, there’s something you feel like sharing with me, but God knows why are you stopping yourself? Tell it na, what is it related to? Any tensions?”

Jignesh felt as if a gunshot was fired on his chest and he was not feeling the pain unless he saw himself bleeding. Now he had no choice. The silent bridge of words was crossed.

Jignesh: “I am in a dilemma. It’s related to us and I fear knowing it you will run away from me. Can you just take it as my weakness and my limitation and accept me the way I am. I mean see I did not mean it. I admit my part of the mistake but somehow I was helpless.”

Jahnavi was exasperated now. She could not make a head or tail of whatever he was saying. All she could make out is, there was something he wanted to share and he fears I will go away from him, knowing it. What bullshit, does he not know how I have fallen for him and how much I have started loving him. I am ready to accept him as he is whatever he has done and wants to share, Oh Lord, please make him do so. I promise I will not go away.

Jahnavi: “I need more details, Jignesh. I am not able to make any sense of what you are trying to convey. If you fear our relationship will be affected adversely knowing it then let me tell you one thing. If the relation really suffers knowing a fact, then the relation is not worth spending time on, and we should actually move on. And if the relation is really that strong and rock solid, believe me, it will not suffer, it will strengthen on the contrary. So just lighten your burden.”

Jignesh also knew this thing. But his insecurities still had an upper hand. He made one last attempt to escape confession. His soul was gasping for breath by now, but his brain was still in the controlling position.

Jignesh: “I can understand, but please can you not grant me this much liberty of knowing that whatever it is, it was my limitation and I do admit my mistake in it as well. I agree to whatever you say and your right to know is also justified, but my fear of losing you is killing me.”

Jahnavi: “Well, if that is the case, then let me tell you that, if you tell me, then there are chances I might not go away, but coming this far, now if you decide not to tell me and convince me for the same, then I will definitely go away and never come back to you, come what may.”

Jignesh knew his brain was losing, and since Jahnavi was the only child of her parents, her stubbornness was not a surprise, after all he was also no less stubborn being the only child. He finally prepares himself for the worst outcome of his confession and tells her everything about how Sid had helped him and how he had suggested him how to talk, apologize, and how Sid had shared his skills of handling girls. Jignesh admitted he used to get confused with her behavior and reaction at those debacles and then Sid used to explain him and guide him further and that they owe a lot to Sid for their relationship. Had it not been for Sid, the relation would have never nurtured so far so beautifully.

Jahnavi was listening, dumbfounded, speechless and awestruck. She could not find any words and kept pondering over whatever Jignesh had just told her. She was happy that he finally mustered courage and listened to his soul and also confessed, but his confession had far reaching repercussions. Since yesterday, dramatic colors were getting added to the hitherto black and white image of Jignesh; Jahnavi had so far developed with her own observations and analysis.

First of all, he was not boring, he acted moronic, but he lacked certain realization powers as well, which she had so far thought he possessed, but now she came to know it was Sid’s contribution that worked. But then Jignesh was truthful, honest and the moment he realized that the relation was getting serious he cleared the initial veil. This she treasured. Also everyone is not born intelligent, people tend to get matured with experiences and also learn from them. Jahnavi was happy that Jignesh had proved himself as a quick learner, this showed that he did not have ego, for ego is the biggest hurdle to learning.

Jignesh was getting wary over her silence and interpreted it wrongly. Sadly he moved out of the place, thinking he has lost her forever and will treasure whatever time he has spent with her so far. But he was feeling much lighter confessing. Jahnavi was so deeply involved in her thought process that she did not realize Jignesh leaving and by the time she did, he was gone. She sighed, smiled, and thought she will call him.

Life or Years?

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

Natasha woke up and found herself in a hotel room. She was shabbily dressed and was not able to recollect how she had landed in this room. She saw the menu card lying there, and read the name of the hotel, “Nandan Van, FC road Pune”. Pune!!!, how come I reached Pune from Bangalore! She thought. But she was not at all able to recollect the last 2 days of her life. And again on returning back to Bangalore, the same fear followed her, someone stalking her. This fear was killing her and she was not able to concentrate. She walked straight into the chamber of Dr. Suresh Malhotra. After listening carefully to her, and her problems of her fears of being stalked, her complete loss of memory over elongated periods sometimes extending to weeks and people around her trying to remind her of instances, of which she is completely unaware of and sometimes finding herself in places, she had never thought of visiting or any remembrance of how she reached there, Dr. Suresh could conclude only one thing, the presence of alters in Natasha. She was a victim of a psychological disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder, better known as the Multiple Personality Disorder to the layman. This was further corroborated with the fact that people have sometimes addressed Natasha as Nisha, Nausheen and Rosemary. The problem was grave, Dr. Suresh thought, 4 alters. He thought. But this was not the right time to disclose. He just told Natasha that she was overworked and needed rest. He advised her to go on a vacation, thus buying time to work on the case. After she left, the problem persisted. Dr. Suresh was pondering over it.

In the evening he met his pal Dr. Amitesh Mehra, who was talking about a case of “ischiophagus conjoined parasitic twins”, a rare case of conjugal Siamese twins, where the child has two pairs of limbs, hands and the other twin is residing inside the host, sharing nutrition, kidney, anal channel and excretory channels. Dr. Suresh was bewildered at hearing it. Nature had its own way of performing miracles he thought. On one side he had a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, where the person herself was not aware of the existence of three other personalities residing within who take up turns to make her perform things she’d never imagined. Also when the alters (the personalities, Nisha, Nausheen and Rosemary better referred to as alters henceforth) took control Natasha was lost, a personality, a part of Natasha was lost. On the other side he was hearing a case of parasitic twins, where a real physical person resided inside another, two personalities, completely distinct, sharing space and nutrition.

Dr. Suresh: “So how do you think are you going to cure the parasitic twins?”
Dr. Amitesh: “We will operate on them and separate them through surgery. The operation may take anything between 28 – 35 hrs, depending on how well the patient responds to the treatment. Also we have other issues like tissue growth and kidney transplant, the parasitic twin is drawing nutrition from the host. Alimentary canal and the breathing duct also need to be separated.”
Dr. Suresh: “Seems complex but at least you have something physical and concrete to work on.”
Dr. Amitesh: “What’s the matter with you?”
Dr. Suresh told him of the case of Natasha. Although multiple personality disorder has a rich history and literature, it is a practically incurable disease so far with no guarantee on the timeline. It all depends on the origin of the personalities and the very fact that patients sometimes refuse treatment, on grounds that they are not ill and no personality resides within them. Dr. Suresh thought how different personality development is from the case of parasitic twins. Not very much except for the fact that the two personalities in the parasitic twins case have a separate physical existence, here the same person assumes different roles, portrays altogether different personas. But parasitic twins do not harm anybody. But people with multiple personality are rarely harmless. Natasha can be very harmful, it will be very necessary to dig into her past and know the reasons that have given rise to these alters in her. But that being a cumbersome and lengthy process, void of any guarantee of success even after elongated psychotherapist sessions, Dr. Suresh was getting wary over it, when he heard Dr. Jaya Mathur speaking to someone on phone,
Jaya: “After listening to your case, it seems the person is suffering from BorderLine Personality Disorder.” Dr. Suresh was alarmed hearing the words, BorderLine Personality Disorder. Another psychological disorder which wreaks havoc on the life of the patients and the loved ones of the patient.
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is defined as a personality disorder primarily characterized by emotional dysregulation, extreme "black and white" thinking, or "splitting", and chaotic relationships. Their mood swings like a pendulum and they can love someone till eternity in a moment and at the very next moment they hate them to the extent of posing any harm to them. Dr. Suresh was thinking about all this and thought how psychological disorders had led to most of the problems in today’s life. The most alarming fact was the rise in the number of such cases with modernization and urbanization. This was surely related to the increase in the stress level of the population. The average income of an individual has no doubt increased manifold, but as they say, everything has a price; the increase in income brought with itself an increased paranoia to invite more and more stress in life. Today as we see youngsters starting their earnings with thousands, magnitude times with what their fathers started, but living standards have shown a dramatic downfall. They might have added years to life, but have not added life to years.

Negativity Works

All the characters referred to in the below blog are fictitious and bear no resemblance with anyone living or dead whatsoever. Any co-incidence is purely co-incidental and unintentional.

X: “Hey you know A, she seeing B these days.”
Y: “Oh really!!! how come you know about it?”
X: “I had been closely following the two, and then rounded up A over it, initially she was hesitant but I was insistent, and she succumbed, admitted to having seeing him, but says they are JUST FRIENDS and that’s it.”
Y: “Oh I see. Interesting.”
X: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
Y: “Yeah don’t worry.”
Both of them sign each other off exchanging pleasantries. Exactly similar conversation takes place after some time between X & Z and Y & W.

X: “Hi, blah blah blah”
Z: “blah blah blah”
X: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
Z: “Yeah don’t worry.”
Y: “Hi, blah blah blah”
W: “blah blah blah”
Y: “But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.”
W: “Yeah don’t worry.”
So on and so forth, the word spreads. Almost every body comes to know about the on going JUST FRIENDSHIP between A and B. B does not like it. Men never like it and women do not want it to happen but it still happens. And it happened here because A trusted X and confided about her relationship to B but on condition of concealment. X promised but went back on her words. And then the same thing happened with Y, he also went back on his words and so went back all those W’s, Z’s et al. who not only spread the word about the relationship of A and B but also other stories started making rounds. A and B remained the hot topic of discussion in the office for some days until someone said that the VP had been seen at a dinner at the Taj with his secretary and the focus of gossip shifted, a hotter topic was available, but in this case there was neither any element of concealment present, nor its presence justified, but in the earlier case A had told X not to disclose, but still X did, so what prompted X to do so?
Jealousy towards A for having gotten B, excitement, anxiety, some grudge against either of A or B or some other cause. Well all of the above causes do find their respective share of justification in the explanation for X’s behavior, but still all the above are circumstantial, the presence of which might / might not have triggered the spreading of rumors as also all / some / none of the causes might again not apply to the behavior of the Y’s, W’s et al. So there has to be some sort of commonality in the behavior pattern and so arises the obvious question as to what is it?
Well the answer is ‘Its negativity’. The element of negativity in all the conversations is fairly obvious yet unnoticed. Let us have a look at the following statements.

But it stays between us, right? I’d promised A not to disclose this to anyone, but you know we share everything, so just told YOU.

This is the negativity involved. X thinks, why is A telling this to me. And there is an element of forbiddingness in the statement that provokes. As a natural tendency human beings tend to do forbidden things first hand. If history is to be believed then supposedly this element of negativity explains the propagation of human race. Eve was forbidden to eat the APPLE, but the element of negativity in the forbiddingness compelled her to do the FIRST SIN and rest is history and ever since it has been this element of negativity that has served as the driving force between all the major events so far, constructive or destructive.

As a destructive tool it is the easiest method to spread rumors and falsities about anyone. The statement, “DO NOT TELL ANYONE” is a self-provoking one. It sparks a plethora of questions, the first one being, “If it is not meant to be told to ANYBODY, then WHY AM I THE CHOSEN ONE.” and some other obvious questions as well, “What are the implications if I spread / keep mum / or discuss with someone in private. The first two options might seem a little dramatic, but the third option most often rules the roost.

Discuss with someone in private, but the irony here is that paradox involved in the underlying negativity element which slowly includes everyone in the ambit of someone and the word is out. But negativity is not about spreading rumors or a mere characteristic behavioral pattern of gossip-mongers. It has many positive effects as well. The mandate of negativity is to generate curiosity and this can work in a constructive manner as well.

Let us get back to the start of the world. What if negativity did not exist in human nature and Eve had not taken that APPLE, Adam and Eve would never have participated in the first ever creation process and human race would not have propagated. It was the negativity element in Eve’s nature that she, on being forbidden to have the apple, got provoked, had it and then time witnessed expansion of human race. So is negativity a boon in disguise? A question too hard to answer. Even in mathematics the sign for positive ‘+’ is formed by crossing the sign for negative ‘-‘, which clearly shows the endowment of EVIL prior to the bestowing of GOOD.

Twists and Turns of Life

Wow!!!, “Old is Gold”. As has been righteously said, “It takes years to make and a moment to break”. Yes folks, it took years of my parents’ (especially my mom’s), training, sacrifices, coaxing, scolding and bickering to ensure I not only get the excellent grades in school, but also get the best lessons of my life. It took 13 yrs of my academic struggle to ensure that I not only get admitted to one of the top notch engineering colleges, but also get the best stream available (Computer Sc. & Engineering). Thereafter it took four years of continuous struggle and the agonies and ecstasies of hostel life, new friends, new hardships, new survival strategies to make myself capable of facing the world, accept unforeseen challenges and finally it was the first day of my final year when the result of a 4 hr interview was my first appointment letter in an MNC with a “decent” salary. Then it took me 19 months before I could move to Bangalore, the dream city of any software engineer, and being the only son of my parents, I had nurtured a small wish all these years to own a house of my own, where my parents can stay and retire in peace. A handsome salary (credible enough to get me the required housing loan) and our savings ensured we will be getting a home of our own. Six months hence witnessed tireless efforts by my mom, assisted by me to see that small dream of mine materializing. Yes it took all these years of dedication, patience and efforts to reach this stage. And then came the final task for my parents, getting their only son married. An alliance came and things started to fall in place and in a year more I was a married family man. How the transition from a boy to man took place was hard to notice but easy to realize, with the rising pressure of new responsibilities. Life had been really good until three months after marriage till she refused to return back and laid conditions on return. Still we thought we could bring her back until that moment came when my wife walked into our house with her parents accompanied by the local police team threatening to file a false complaint of dowry harassment against me and my aged parents. And suddenly it became so difficult to live. All this because I did not heed to her demand of deserting my aged and dependent parents, all this because I could not take leaves from office to join my in-laws on a preplanned trip, of which I was informed only 2 days before the trip and all this because my wife did not want to accept the responsibility of my parents and wanted a luxurious life full of pomp and honor and all this because instead of my wife taking care of my aged parents, made them take her care and all this because all these years her parents had pampered her like anything. And yes of course, all this because we are living in a country having biased non-bailable, non compoundable, cognizable offense provision in its Penal Code, wherein the woman (read married woman) can simply walk into a police station, submit a writ complaint of harassment for dowry (either true or false) and hold the boy’s family at ransom. And yes it was the end of the happy days for us, at least in the near future, for all that started as a relationship for life one year was dead now and the burden of the corpse was too heavy to be dreaded along but that’s what life is, has to be accepted and lived with strength. And so after all this I am here fighting a legal battle to safeguard me and my parents. Having being tagged a criminal for just getting married and not demanding dowry. Indeed it took a moment to break all that was built over these years.