We have no any strong and conclusive proof that the creatures other than human are crying. This Article being centered on human being, we have no concern with creatures. Tom Lutz, a biological Researcher of eye fluid (tears) gives three distinguished types of tears (1) Basal (basic) tears (2) Reflex (resulted from irritation or injury) tears; and, (3) Emotional (Psychologically caused) tears. But, here also, there is no any intention of mine to give you any scientific studies of crying or tear shedding. I am going to deal with the emotional tears only now-hence-forth.
Charles Darwin has said, “Crying is the special expression of man.” Crying has no any barriers of age, gender or culture and it will continue for ages in human life. No any external power or authority can prevent crying anybody until the crying person itself calms down in its own way or at its own will. Sometimes it happens that even the crying fellow itself cannot control own crying until the effect of happiness or gloomy whichever might be the root cause is fully wiped off from the mind.
Arnold H. Glasow has quoted, “Crying is a release, a psychological tonic or tranquilizer.” Crying is valuable and yet free, a gift from God to mankind. It is not limited to babies or women; it is for all. It is natural, healthy and curative. To stay fit both physically and mentally, crying is necessary. Sometimes some saddest or happiest events may prove to be fatal to weak hearted persons if they are not reacted or absorbed by shedding tears. At this juncture, I’ll correlate my subject with some literary backgrounds just to justify the importance of crying in human life. Let us go now onwards to an emblematical poem of Alfred Lord Tennyson titled as “Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead”. Instead of any brief summary of the poem, I am going to give you the full text of the wonderful work of the poet. It is as this:
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry.
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe:
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee–
Like summer tempest came her tears–
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’
Above poem being self-explanatory, I don’t need it to be interpreted. One might argue that if the tears cannot bring back the loved one to life who has already died or restore a collapsed love or recover a great loss of fortune, even then what is the use of shedding tears? It is easy to narrate such philosophy for those who have not passed through such dreadful happenings in their lives. A barren woman cannot understand the pains of a woman delivering the child. Crying is such a wonder of human life that has puzzled people throughout the ages. Message of the above poem is clear that any shock of gloomy or joy must be resisted and only crying is a remedy with which one can come out of the shock and be relaxed.
People cry when they are sad, afraid, angry, depressed or in pain, and yet people also cry when they are happy. Crying occurs in all emotions—it even contributes to the physiological well-being of an individual from birth to death. Now, let us ponder over crying of new born babies when the whole life span of human for crying is covered as above. It is a mysterious issue in the sense that nobody can ask any newly born child why it is crying and we ourselves also must have cried at our births, but we don’t remember the reasons. These reasons might be more than one in numbers and they can only be imagined under hypothesis or intuition. Further, they cannot be counted as authentic also as there are chances to differ with the findings of the Researchers.
Here, I cannot restrict myself to narrate probably a Hadith (Saying) of an Infallible Imam (Leader) of the Shiite Muslim School of thought known as the Twelvers also that if a baby is constantly crying and does not calm down, its mother should lie down with left chest (breast) down in bed and keep the baby’s ear stuck to it so that it can hear the heart beating of the mother closely. The child will stop crying immediately if it is not suffering from any physical problem. Argument behind this practice might be that the child had continuously heard the heart beating of its mother since it was in womb and life had begun in its fetus state. Being the heart beating of mother familiar to the baby as stored in its unconscious mind, it concentrates to its rhythm and calms down.
Human’s life begins with crying first. Crying is our best friend since our birth. This friendship should be kept healthy as and when any opportunities come across our living lives for crying. We should not miss such opportunities and cry naturally and freely. Trying to fight back the tears is injurious to both mental and physical health(s). Sometimes some chiefs of families try to prevent their crying in the events of somebody dear one’s demise with the only good intention that the others might get courage to bear the loss of the deceased. But, at the long run in such frequent practice of holding tears, its outcome comes such as the natural emotions of that particular person get hard and he or she loses sensibility or sensation. Human should remain soft by nature and it is advantageous to the global peace in the large scale of its uses.
In support of my thoughts mentioned above, I am here to mention a Gujarati Poem of the Poet ‘Kalaapee’ titled as ‘Jakham’ (Wounds of heart) in summarized form. The Poet says, “My heart has caught many wounds. I have tolerated them and still more I will tolerate. I have never counted those wounds and will never count. Let them hurt my heart still more. But, O God! I pray to you and expect your boon that my heart should never be rigorous (without feelings).”
While winding up my Article, I would like to remind my Readers the major theme in few words that crying is an important mean for releasing both physiological and psychological tensions. But at the same time I would also like to warn that crying now and again, even in any normal and bearable circumstances, is cowardice. We should always remember that our life is a battle field and we are the warriors. We must fight against all woes bravely and should keep in our minds a famous slogan that a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
Hope that quite a new topic, discussed here, will be commented in other points of views by my Readers just as a debate platform in comment boxes.
– Valibhai Musa
