Musings

Ecstasy & Agony

2012-02-11T13:10:00.000+05:30

“Great many of us are possessed by our possessions.” Nothing can be more tied to truth.

When Siddhartha was beckoned by epiphany one night, he threw away all the trappings of the prince and set forth on the journey that made him the Buddha and gave forth to mankind a philosophy that was the inspiration for exhortations in some oriental religions. His renunciation of material worth, what we call richness was not sacrifice- but a way of life, to free him from the mental agony and turmoil that haunted him. History has no reason to tell us that he eventually bemoaned what he left behind.

I have not read the Gita, as it is, from cover to cover in its hard bound condition. However I have scoured through Juan Mascara’s translation of the Gita that was published by the Penguin, and is in my small but treasured collection of books. Erudite men and scholars as well as people who find comfort in being self-acclaimed acolytes of the Gita - its treatise , have been heard saying that renunciation of possessions is the solitary way to happiness and contentment. Detachment from things material, relationships and so on, is necessary to salvage the soul and the mind from the agony of being born. A kind of Mumbo-jumbo, I would say!

To me who am ordinary and a commoner, such discourse- from a treatise venerated by many has seldom been of much help. I understand “possessions” to mean all that one has, owns legally and morally. And also objects, matters and most of all people who are epicenters of our absolute happiness and contentment. To consider a state where one loses all, or either of the ones, is unquestionably haunting and devastating.

As Ruskin said, “Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.” I fear, often being trapped by the depth and the power possessions, of things that one holds dear to the bosom, animistic and inanimate. Because, when only one feels the torment from the loss of an inanimate possession-lost forever, do one fear and realize the inescapable depths of the excruciating torment that the loss of an animate possession can have.

It is a strange matter. A child ceases to wail after a while from losing a fancied toy. Whilst adults like us are suffocated for the remaining part of our lives after we lose a cherished and closely held possession, person or relationship.

Why then is man ensnared by what he has? Why are we susceptible to the distress and suffering of the loss of a person or a thing loved and cherished? The beasts move on after the anguish the moment of divestment brings and there is no definite proof to tell that they are for life tormented by the deprivation. The gypsies seldom or do not own something tangible. But they are like us, in flesh and blood and can feel the intensity of happiness and pain .

If I’m what I have and if I lose what I have then what am I? But, also tell me how can human beings get over the deprivation or parting of something closely held and cherished?

A Distant Memory.

2012-02-05T13:11:00.000+05:30

The paths tread and the places seen, the men and women whose path we crossed, saw, befriended, worked together, irresistibly loved to despise, loved and most of all choose to remember and desired to forget!

It left me wondering the many faces that passed my gaze. The many I may never meet again, the ones I might want longingly to see again. I began to recollect, to rewind, fitfully though from the first day, I could remember back from a long time ago. Some, who fascinated and enthralled me, some who I loved to hate and some who stay lingering in memory poignantly. Yet some who have been instruments of pain and hurt, of disillusionment and deception, of selfishness and opportunism- and to eclipse all that, just instruments of delight. And some who just passed by as non-entities, and stalked as a shadow, often to comeback into memory.

It is assumed by some that a certain person was the instrument of change in them, a harbinger of sort. To me that has been rubbish to this day. I feel, I’m more disposed to my genetic makeup than an external influence of a stranger, a friend, an acquaintance or just some one. That may be a liability of character, because that can also be the reason why I’m incorrigible.

Many may have vanished and eloped into oblivion after enacting their role in a fleeting life that was not out of their volition. What may have happened to them after I saw them last? The ones who may still be surviving- how are they, perhaps will they ever think of me, remember me? Why must they in this melee and frenzy to stay afloat!

I do not remember his name. He was dark complexioned like the many pull rickshaw men in Chennai. He was tall, well-built and sported a khaki half pants and a woven shirt in cotton. There was discoloration of the fabric around his under-arm, obviously the acidic reaction of perspiration from the glands that worked overtime to keep apace in his struggle to eke out. I remember him sporting a towel of myriad colours around the neck- a towel that may have revealed colours that was not meant to be, awash in his sweat and the dust that wedged on it while it was damp with his toil.

I suppose, I give him a name, a typical Tamil name? No, that would be unfair. He will stay as he will in my memory, a shadow of a figure with no name I can think of. He was the pull rickshaw man who unfailingly picked me from home and put me with care in his rickshaw and lugged all the way to a distant convent school in Thambaram. That was in the sixties and I was in the first standard and living in Thambaram , while my father was stationed at the Air Force base there. When it rained as it does cats and dogs in Chennai, he used to ensure that I was cocooned safe from being drenched and put his tarpaulin envelope around the passenger area of the rickshaw. And then lug the rickshaw to the school in the torrent and along the streets which soon would be a sewage canal. He would then carry me, my school and lunch bags around his shoulder, and like a juggler, handle a rickety umbrella too, so that I was protected from the rain. And he would leave me safe inside the class room. He was affable and pleasant, I can remember, but do not however recall what he had to talk to me all the while- to me a five year old. In the late afternoon after the school, he was punctual at the class room door to take me back home. I must have called him “mama” as it is always so in Tamilnad – a respectful term for an elder, irrespective of his eminence. I can barely recall through the haze of the years that have went by, the bond that developed between the two of us. But that lasted for a year and I was shifted out of Tamilnad.

There is nothing much I can reminisce of him and the time he pulled his rickshaw with me in it. But years after and often I wonder about this man, whose scanty image is etched somewhere and it comes out lingering. Today it did!

That was forty seven years ago. And he would be, I suppose one hundred or there about if he is alive. Else, let he be in peace after a life that must have been hard on him.

Abu, the son of Adam

2012-02-02T17:50:00.000+05:30

What that made me wonder and think, was the movie, “Adam inte Makan Abu” (Adam’s son Abu), in Malayalam and that which acceptably won the National and International acclaim. The movie was a well created one with good visuals and restrained performances.

The story line is about Abu an emaciated perfume vendor whose only wish in life is a pilgrimage to the Haj. To fetch enough resources for the journey, he and his wife ends up selling all they had and even almost gave away their bosom house. However still running short of the required money they are offered the means by a couple of good Samaritans. Since accepting money that is not earned or from the immediate ones is forbidden by didactic Islamic scripts, they are devastated and forlornly cast away their savoured dream of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The fim has many scenes wherein Abu, swears that the very essence of being born is to touch upon the soil of Mecca. The Creator sends forth Man into the world, to be enriched and salvaged by the pilgrimage to the Haj. The reason being born human being is to journey to Mecca! And, Abu nor his wife, though barely eke out living, has no inhibitions or misgivings in throwing away all that little they possess to raise money for the journey of their life.

I was left wondering on many occasions through the movie, that man’s search and straying after a mirage, a faith, and a concept that is allegedly holed up at the top of the golden stairway has no bounds.

The perplexing psyche is to throw away a life in hand and anticipate a much fancied after life that no one has known, seen or come back to vouch. To barter the life to live for a concept of life in what is called “Paradise” as it is made out. The bird in hand is forgotten in the search and fascination for the two that is alleged to be in the bush. Some like Abu crave for a journey to the Haj and would readily part with the little they have for subsistence. Some murder and kill for the promised stairway up into the clouds. It is a strange matter that baffles comprehension. And we call it “faith”!

I do not find reasons to be impressed about what some may call faith , or manifestly “blind faith" and precisely because of the halo given to the term, treat it as holy and beyond impeachment. Sacrosanct that it is impervious to logic, understanding, knowledge and all that is empirical. It is secure against all criticism, argument and opinion. Commonsense is jettisoned as being an unwanted baggage. It is a matter of faith and faith is blind, the argument goes!

Well then what is faith?

When one is blind, what could one possible see? Which means what is argued as the unquestionable notion or faith, is a state of mind that is arrived when one is blind. And since one is blind one is not sure, if it is a journey partially afloat like a drift wood. It is like a cab driver leaving you some where assuring you it is at the door of everlasting asylum and abode of happiness, while your eyes are closed or you are blind to see where he actually left you. And for that journey, you parted with all that you had and enriched life, the loved ones who made your life a cherished one, and with eyes closed faithfully.

There, then, is no faith that is blind and not, faith itself is blind.

A Damp Squib

2012-01-30T09:20:00.001+05:30

If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because anything would be what it isn’t. And contrary- wise, what it would be and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see? (Lewis Carol in “Alice in Wonderland”).

But Anna Hazare thinks otherwise. Obstinacy and outlandish mindset seems to be driving his cause and demands. Now, he wants the local Grama Panchayats superseding the Parliament. Effectively that will ensure besides anarchy, the rule of the rouges, more pernicious than what we have from the dispensation from five hundred plus elected members of parliament.

I have been a person with pro ANNA leanings. Mainly because the movement that he created in India ,was after the mass agitation evoked by Jaya Prakash Narayan in the mid 1970’s against the autocratic, corrupt reign of Indira Gandhi, the most passionately evocative movement. The cause was inevitable, and the time was nothing but ideal. We are mauled, haunted and sick of corruption, and looting by politician – business nexus. And a mass agitation to incorporate a constitutional law to address the inexorable slide of the country into depths of economic chaos and social upheaval was most necessary.”Cometh the hour and cometh the man”, one may have desperately thought of Anna Hazare!

Anna Hazare seemed to have risen for the hour. And a conscientious team including the super cop Kiran Bedi lined up behind him. The government as expected tried everything in the book and out of the box to scuttle the movement. A Five Star Yogic charlatan was even made a decoy and planted as an alternative cause centre. Allegations of financial irregularities by some members of the Hazare team were made out and leaked out with surreptitious intent. The intrigues and manoeuvrings were obvious and on expected lines, when one considers the criminal legal minds who are in the Congress party, Kapil Sibal, Abhishekh Singhvi and P. Chidamabaram. But the much required provision for benefit of doubt and being the wronged was given to Anna Hazare and his team.

However it seems that the twist to the game Anna and his team made, such as some of the eccentric provisions of the Jana Lok Pal, the obstinacy that Parliament should pass it within a short time frame and to hell if required to the debates and discussion in the house for such a vital proviso of national and constitutional importance all point to one direction,”south” in terms of sanity. And in between we heard Anna Hazare endorse the man who presided over the greatest mass extermination of Muslims since the partition. Narendar Modi.

Then, the much dramatised act, hand in gloves with the right wing Hindu parties. Anna announced that he will campaign against the Congress, which can only mean he will endorse the BJP. And the BJP cannily scuttled the very same Lokpal bill in the parliament with ulterior design and intent.

And now look at the picture in this post. Constitution of India it says, and has Sivaji, the Maratha warrior King, the Rani of Jhansi ,Swami Vivekananda, Vinoba Bhave and Abdul Kalam Azad. And only the later was related to the drafting of the Indian constitution. What message does this send? Vinoba Bhave while he was alive was apolitical and not identified with the right wing Hindu clan. Sivaji was a local warrior who fought the Muslim rulers of India.. Rani of Jhansi fought for her right to be the queen and have her kingdom not taken away by a weird law the “Doctrine of lapse”. Swami Vivekananda was not a Hindu fanatic, but a thinker and philosopher. But we see Anna and his coterie , perhaps with the auspices of the right wing Hindu group, usurper the Rani, the Swami and the Bhave into the group of their iconic symbol- Sivaji. Swami Vivekananda has long since been kidnapped by the Hindutva group.

Wonder what these folks have to do with the Indian constitution? The picture cannot be a coincidence of insignificance.

By now, we see the end of the dream that was a mere pipe dream- an effective law to unravel corruption and punish the guilty. There is much for all to celebrate except the vast majority of the people of India who still long for a square meal a day.

A Matter of Charcter

2012-01-25T20:29:00.000+05:30

I have not heard about a whole railway passenger compartment being booked in advance for one family. The total members who travelled on the Rajadhani originating in Thpuram and speeding all the way across the paradox called India ,to New Delhi, touched thirty plus. They were off to a Xmas and New Year celebration; call it an en famille sojourn with the youngest sibling and his wife and kids who lived in New Delhi. They even stitched white T-shirts for all to wear on the New Year’s Eve. One of the blokes a good friend of mine got this T-shirt idea as he planned something out of the box to enliven the jamboree. And every one autographed on the t-shirt the other wore on New Year's night. A memorable memorabilia, that memory only can create. It sure must have been a hell of a travel some three thousand kilometres and with six siblings, their spouses, mother and (grand) children.

I mentioned this fascinating train journey to another person, but he was not enthused .I mentioned this as a point to substantiate my contention that there are still families who cherish the oneness and the closeness of being together and are not frivolous. And, is it not a wonderful thing in a world that finds empathy and affection, let alone being together, a nuisance or strange inexplicable words in the lexicon?

He categorically stated that the bonhomie that exists amongst this particular clan is purely because of them all being well in their own choice of living. And character will bare fangs and claws only when situations fall bad for either any of the members. It is a selfish self centred world he emphasised and that expressions of togetherness and affection are superficial. They are always determined by situations that are measured in personal gains and losses.

I did not rebut his opinion, because I sensed that he was talking sensibly with the life that he must have seen on his way in the last six decades of his living.

When I thought more on that, I felt that he spoke with unpleasant candour. And truth always makes a harsh reality of life. Is it not true that situations bring out our true self, in a person?

The Stories From Life

2012-01-19T14:08:00.000+05:30

Life is a big bore; it is dull and dreary; it is agony to be born and living; it is pain and sorrow; it is grief and it is just fun and happiness which makes it dull too.

This will be what my life and your life would look to another. In the midst of frantic living and utter lust for life, resulting in miserable acts of survival in whatever comfortable way possible, we forget the dullness, the dreary insipid or even rollicking flavour our lives may actually have. And if we were to pen our story, be it the autobiography or a novelette based on our life and our experiences- with the real life characters, places and situations we have experienced what a drudgery and endless tedium that will be to the reader. So be the biography of our life, unless it is compiled by a person who has imagination to provide the touches and finishing, polishing a life dull, sad, fun filled or plain bore like they do to the piece of carbon chunk.

Life retold the way it unfolded and in letters will be vapid and bland. It may be exhilarating to you, can be poignant and filled with stoicism to be rubbished. But to the other who is told about, it can be a sempiternal bore and that is much asking to endure.

I guess that is why some creations in literature are exemplary in quality of read, and feel. An example of disaffection to a story of a real life hero, whose endurance, perseverance and obsessive purpose has no peers, is in my opinion the story of Lance Armstrong. “It’s not about the bike. My journey back to life”, is perhaps a story of his life written by himself or a ghost writer. Armstrong was diagnosed with terminal stage testicular cancer at the young age of twenty one. The cancer had by then matistised to his brain and lungs effectively consigning him to a world of no return. Doctors gave him a month or more to live. It was from that terminal and utterly depreciated hopeless stage that he came back to living and went on to win Seven "Tour de France". You expect the book to provide you much insight into the life of a rare breed of human being. But the book was tasteless in words and narration it was as bland as a cold meat. I express this with all respect to a man who dwarfed an illness that makes you forget about life outside the infirmary.

“God of small things”, of the onetime novelist Arundathi Roy perhaps is more known because of the Booker prize the book was awarded. Certainly it may not be comparable to much other excellence in literature. But, for a person of her age and generation (including myself), born and childhood spent in Kerala, the book must be fascinating. More because, I could relate to many happenings in the milieu of Mallu life in the Kerala of the later part of 1960’s. Else the book, though narrated in good English, may be dull to many.

Whereas J.M.Coetze’s ,”The Master of Petersburg”, I felt was a story apart. Though the plot was based on Coetze’s real life and the agony of losing his son, it was adapted with Dostoyevsky as the protagonist. The story was well adapted and set up by the author, that a real life sage and the experience is mesmerising in content.

I have always wondered how a student of law or of medicine can read through and understand the literature in their respective fields. They are dreary! The convoluted and abracadabra of words Greek and Latin in origin that we see in books on medical science is far too fathomless to many. However the power and artistry in managing words and weaving of ideas and messages with them makes "The Emperor of Maladies" , a book of almost five hundred pages a repository of treatise that a lay man can enjoy. Else how a book on the story of cancer could be so powerfully conveyed to lay people like me and many other? Siddartha Mukherji is a new avatar in story telling based on real life.

The purpose of writing this is to express my opinion that our life as it would be retold, or rewound and played for someone from the netherworld, a stranger, friend or foe, or even a Rip van Winkle, would end up as an eternal famine that will be full of ennui and donkey-work.

Perhaps that must be why there is dearth of empathy in the world we live.

Romance That was Not

2012-01-16T12:19:00.000+05:30

Next to Man, among primates Chimpanzees have the general disposition to jealousy. I do not know if jealousy is more a gender specific trait and seen in women than in men, but seems likely so. Men do envy, but the extreme feelings are found more in women. And this is a short story of what actually transpired amongst three young people- a man, woman-friend and wife.

Romance, subtle and subsumed is part of academic curriculum. Though in some cases they go overboard and are publicly passionate. And are often displayed in the corridors of the alma mater, to eventually be enshrined in the scrolls as la affaire Romeo & Juliet! Sometimes the philandering consumes the platonic liaison.

It began as a trivial past time and fun for the group. By some odd way the two were declared in love and serious at that, though in reality that was not so. Recess and bunking of classes were in a group and the rest of them ensured to nudge and playfully prod the two as couples in romance. There was eventually a theatre of a wedding towards the end of the college term and was, let me put it, “solemnised”, by another affable chap.The fun and fan fare took place in the college canteen- wedding as if in a cathedral!

She was gregarious, fun loving, exuberant, lively young woman with abundance of laughter and a great repository of good conditioning.

The hero in the dramatics was a frequent and honoured visitor to her home and was considered as one in the family by her parents. They were such good souls that, the small group of her friends all had free access into the house. This gave opportunity for some outings together, with friends and even late in the evenings, of course with her parental approbation. A late evening at an annual fair of flowers was a catharsis of sorts. A fascination to be at arm’s length was discernible. He began to notice somewhere that she was not averse to the much made about peculiar relationship going critical (a term used in nuclear science when atomic reactors go functional, splicing atoms).Which should mean here that she began to like him and can be serious too about. There was love in the air! And it was subtle and quite.

I’m certain that only the duo would know that, without thinking that the other felt alike. He would be keen and willing to acknowledge and reciprocate her fondness. But the will to take a plunge was found wanting in both. Perhaps they were expectant that the other would show the courage and daring. And most of all there was still a way to go to be flying on their own. Reasons are obvious of a generation that was marooned in conventions and fear of the social controls.

Life moved on and she was married away.

However their affableness and friendly relationship continued. She was charming to be present as a good old mate at his wedding which took place years later. And she stayed through with her little son and her genteel husband.

As destiny and chance would have it for a while, she moved into an apartment- stone throw from the home where he was with his young wife. It was an exhilarating matter.

There were a few visits she made to his house, with her toddler son and sometimes together with her husband. It was during those visits and casual meetings on their evening strolls that he began to notice a decided irritation she displayed to his wife. It seemed more like the nagging nudges young kids throw on another. It was inadvertent, he presumed first. And once after a dinner at her house, he understood well and clear that she was fond of taking digs at his wife. Gathering little instances together it was apparently displeasure, annoyance and shreds of jealousy for a still born affair of long ago. It was plain “woman” in the act, nothing more nothing less! And only women can be tongue in cheek and throw subtle digs to make the supposed adversary uncomfortable.

As pedigree and conditioning would have its bearings, her conduct, attitude, and the envy which she may have bore in mind, slowly ebbed to metamorphose into dignified and loving friendship with C.

I once asked C, much later in life, if she ever noticed a petty irritation and annoyance in her during those early days after our wedding when we were neighbourly. She nodded in the affirmative. And was also intelligent enough to realise that it was the ghost of a long ago relationship that never were, but could have been.

A winter Evening by the Sea

2012-01-13T23:04:00.002+05:30

It was cold winter evening on the beach

The people loitering on the beach or gazing at the blue waters were thin and sparse. The air was whiffing cold and I felt a bonfire would be wonderful to spend the star lit night, gazing in askance,contently or in awe at the sea.The waves of the ocean lashing gently on to the beach, against the sun that was gently hovering down in the horizon, enhanced the wonder of Nature. Sublime, caressing! It seemed like the shore and the ocean were engaged in foreplay. Could the ocean be tranquil as this? The question came back more often to my mind as I left the seaside. By then the sky was heavenly inundated with golden, twinkling specks that seemed like glow worms. They as always reminded me the insignificance of the bipedal ones down on the beach. I left him watching the gently lashing waves, still not quite convinced about my riposte and standpoint. His mind, I sensed was much as not as near calm as the ocean and the tempest was very much alive.

Perhaps that is the way human mind is. It often does not reflect in the facial muscles. Sometime to some it is the opposite, it mastitis in the face and all over the physiological being.

“I’m dispossessed”, was his curt retort to my query about who and where he was from. It was he who initiated and opened the conversation. And was not in my temperament to ask a stranger who he was and where he hailed from. With my characteristic apathy to strangers and discomfiture, I was confined to a good extent and more than often. If I were to be a salesman, which I detest and is unable too, to barge into any, everyone and at all times, it takes a considerable length of time for me to be anywhere proximal to the comfort zone with another. And, I was somewhat offended by his brusque reply.

We chanced to be sitting at the far ends of the disused stone bench which lay on a neglected but quite corner of the beach. I fail to recall who occupied the stone seat first. But it was he who initiated the opening conversation and then exclaimed,”Goddamn ocean this, hardly behaves like one .Look at the damn waves they seem to be of a shallow ces pool.”

“Cesspool”! It was my turn to exclaim and in silence. I looked guardedly into his eyes. This man terms the vast and beautiful ocean, a cesspool?

Tucking my palms into the jacket pockets, I suggested, “Relating this vast confluence with a shallow pool is rather strange. Is it your mind that refuses to see the vastness that is in front?’

He got up agitated, and gesticulating his fingers at me,said in a cold voice, “Man when you wear those leather boots you do not know what frost bite is.” He turned around and walked towards the water.

It was a cold winter evening on the beach!

The Laughter of Jesus

2011-12-26T11:46:00.001+05:30

Here is an interesting piece of thought from Osho (the late Rajaneesh).To be offended by this loud thinking is unnecessary, but to introspect conventions as fed to us will be interesting and a revelation.

Christ's message IS rejoice and be merry. But that is not the message of Christianity. Christianity's message is: be sad, long faces, look miserable; the more miserable you look, the more saintly you are. Sometimes I really feel for poor Jesus. He has fallen in such wrong company, and I wonder how he is managing in paradise with all these Christian saints, so sad, so dull.

He was not a dull man, he was not a sad man -- he could not be. The word 'Christ' is exactly synonymous with Buddha. He was an enlightened person. He rejoiced in life, in the small things of life. He rejoiced in eating, drinking, friendship. He loved companionship, he loved the whole life.

But Christians down the ages have painted him as very sad. They have painted him always on the cross, as if for thirty-three years he was always on the cross. And my own understanding is that a man like Jesus will not die sad, even on the cross. He must have laughed before he died( if he ever did).

That's what Al-Hillaj Mansoor the Sufi mystic and poet did before he was executed in public by the fanatic Mohammedans, because he had declared: ANA'L HAQ -- "I am the Truth". Mohammedans could not tolerate it, just as Jews could not tolerate Jesus. They killed him – tortured and chopped of his organs one after the other- but before they killed him, he looked at the sky and laughed loudly.

And that's exactly what Jesus must have done, laughed. But Christians have tried their best to depict Jesus as sad. They have made a saint out of a real authentic human being; they have cut everything. The gospels are not true stories; much has been changed, much has been reduced, much has been added. They have become mere fictions. Emperor Constantine decreed what must be the Gospel . A happy Christ is a misfit for Christians and Christianity.

Down the ages, Christians have been trying to paint Christ as sadder. Why? -- Because all over the world religion has been dominated by a neurotic kind of people. It has been dominated by the people who are masochists, sadists. In the East too, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism -- they have all been dominated by the masochistic people, the people who enjoy torturing themselves, the people who are incapable of living life in its totality. The people who are too cowardly to live, escapists, have dominated religion up to now. These escapists have depicted Buddha as not laughing, Mahavira as not laughing.

And Christians actually say that Jesus never laughed in his life. Can you believe that? Jesus never laughed in life? He enjoyed all kinds of people, and he never laughed? Can you imagine that a man like Jesus, who was always feasting for hours with his friends, never laughed? It is inconceivable! How can you go on wining and dining without laughing? He must have joked, he must have told funny stories. They have been edited out. He was a very true man, and very courageous. He accepted Mary Magdalene as his disciple. It needs courage, it needs guts. I cannot believe that he never laughed.

We are made to cry – as soon as we are detached from the womb. Up to now doctors have been very Christian. The first thing they do is they hang the child upside down and hit him on the buttocks. Do you expect a child to laugh? This is a great welcome to the world, putting the child upside down, giving him a hit -- a good beginning, because his whole life he is going to get hit in the pants, again and again. And hanging upside down, how can he laugh? No wonder he cries!

Now there are a few doctors working in a different direction. They bring the child in a more natural way out of the mother's womb; they don't cut the umbilical cord immediately because that creates crying, that is violence. They leave the child on the mother's belly with the umbilical cord intact. They give a good bath to the child, a hot bath, they put the child into a hot tub of exactly the same temperature as it was in the mother's womb.

In the mother's womb the child is floating in water. The water has the same contents as sea water, salty. In the same salty chemical solution, of the same temperature, the child is put in the tub. He starts smiling. It is a real beautiful reception. And not with glaring tube lights... that hurts the eyes of the child. In fact, so many people are wearing glasses only because of the foolishness of the doctors. The child has lived for nine months in the mother's womb in darkness, utter darkness. Then suddenly so much light... it hurts his delicate eyes. You have destroyed something delicate in his eyes. The child should be received in a very dim light, and the light should be increased slowly, so his eyes become accustomed to the light. Naturally the child smiles at the beautiful welcome.

I can't believe Jesus not laughing at all. He lived thirty-three years and did not laugh? -- That can only be possible if he was absolutely perverted, absolutely pathological, and ill. Something must have been wrong if he didn't laugh. But nothing is wrong with him; something is wrong with the followers. They depict their saints, their messiahs, their Prophets, as very serious, somber, sad, just to show that they are above the world, that they are beyond, that they are not worldly people. Laughter seems shallow, seems unspiritual.

Although the message of Christmas is rejoice and be merry, still there is sadness, because the whole of Christianity teaches you to be sad. It is not a life-affirming religion, it is life-negative. It is much more life-negative than Hinduism, much more life-negative than Judaism. It has no sense of humor at all. And a religion without a sense of humor is ill, pathological. It needs psychological treatment.

Peter, standing in the crowd, looked up at Jesus on the cross. As he watched, he distinctly saw Jesus motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here," said the Lord.
As Peter moved forward, two Roman guards blocked his way and beat him till he fell to the ground.
A few moments later, Peter, bruised and bleeding, looked up and saw Jesus again motioning him forward.
"Pssst, hey Peter, come here!"
Looking around, Peter noticed that the crowd was gone and so were the Roman soldiers. He moved closer to Jesus, "Yes, Lord, what is it? What is it you want?"
"Hey Peter," said Jesus. "Guess what? I can see your house from here!"

St. Antony- A Story

2011-12-11T09:03:00.001+05:30

It was late January and a holiday. The tropical weather was mild and comfortable at that time of the year. And besides, being quite a couple decades and more years ago, the severity of climes have not begun to be felt then. The sea breeze that came from the west when blowing in over the inland lake and caressing the bamboo shrubs in the perimeter of the church, ensured provision of heavenly spell and mirth. Or was it the sheer presence she lend or the boisterous gaiety that accompany a wedding- the wedding of a close friend?

It must have been early dawn, well before sunrise and I was woken up to the clutter and chatter, the excited shrieks and exhilaration that results when dear and near ones meet. She had arrived by the early morning train that must have laboured in some time before then. Not being quite congenial and comfortable with young strangers of the fairer sex, I chose to stay a little longer than usual in my bed And when I came out of my room it was with some pleasance filled excitement and caution. Something told me that I must not betray clownish discomfiture that can envelope me when unfamiliar young woman are near. A woman who I have only seen in photographs and not seen or personally acquainted before.

I saw her lazing down the stairs and I guess the first smile, nod of the head and the “hello”, was not too bad. It was apparent that photographs captured in a camera are sometimes a faint image of what the subject actually is and can be grossly unjust too. Something inside pumped the excitement and heightened the heart beat. Strange, I thought. All through during the couple of days she stayed in the apartment ,whenever I could grab and create an opportunity to be near her and engage in some conversation, I ensured the chance never went begging. I wonder if others noticed the sudden oddity.

Something always kept telling me, there was a mutual attraction, but more latent in her!

She came back a few months after. There was no communication between us in that short interregnum. However a second meeting was a friendlier and alleviating affair. She was down for the wedding that afternoon of my close mate. Though social prescripts did not require her presence at the wedding, I was thrilled that she was there in any case. Perhaps she was gracious to accept the invite and be there as the representative of her parents’ .Perhaps, looking back destiny enticed her!

After the wedding we all moved to the adjacent banquet hall for the grand feast that the bride’s father had richly organised. I and a few friends amongst us proceeded out after the sumptuous feast and the brief revelry involving indulgent drinking of wine. We took off towards the pier to take the boat ride across the lake to the island. She was the last one to hop on to the boat and I offered her my hand to hold on while jumping on to the rocking watercraft. Which she unhesitatingly accepted!

We had a refreshing couple of hours on the island. The optical illusion in the west caressing the ocean- of the sun set and the magical shadows the illusion provided on the lush green foliage and trees that fondled the island and also the sparkling waters of the vast lake that straddled the piece of land we stood, all, was wonderful for the occasion. There were three women in the group besides her. Our group was excited to be around in that ambience. All the more the two of us, which we knew and we alone knew in our hearts, unbeknownst to each other and the rest. Modesty demanded that I must be cautious not to reveal any sort of excessive care for her comfort or needs. Lest her guardians would notice .Quite timid I felt of myself, but could not go any farther than being so.

It was dark when we returned to the boat that would ferry us back to the mainland. The journey back to the apartment had to be sorted out as some of us had taken a taxi to the wedding and now all had to reckon with the few motorbikes we had. I was the loner on my bike and wished I could suggest that she could travel pillion with me. But timidity stamped out the grit to say so. As luck could have it or destiny having its say, one of her guardians suggested that she travel pillion with me. And he reminded me to take care of her while on the road. She accepted the suggestion without hesitation. It was perhaps a relief for her too if she were wishing so. I chastised myself for thinking for her. Stupid Cupid! But she travelled the distance back with me.

I rode the bike with great caution and sensed her timidly holding on to the fabric of my shirt for safety. On the way back she suggested that we stop at the church of the Saint Antony .She enquired if I had any difficulty in doing so. I answered absolutely in the negative. I smelt that doing so would fetch me more time with her on the road. We went in to the shrine. The shrine of the Saint was a popular destination for the faithful who believed that their supplications and petitions will get favourably disposed by the benevolent Saint. One’s wish is sure to be granted! I wondered what wish and favour she might have had in askance submit to the holy saint. She bought candles and flowers from the vendor outside and I joined her in patiently lighting them at the altar. It was indeed a good feeling to be in the shrine with her .I wished that time stood still.

When we began our ride back I was disturbed and annoyed that the distance to the apartment appeared shortened. I frantically thought of a way to stretch the distance and time, so that it could be a long never ending ride with her.

Did the Saint see my thinking?

There is no Snow on Kilimanjaro

2011-11-28T12:32:00.001+05:30

The hills were verdant. But it seemed to her barren and desolate. The dark green canopies of the trees and the tall elephant grass rocked in the wind. To her they seemed to be expressing violent disapproval. The wind wailed and came incessantly brushing the tall grass, bending it as if by coercion, but something the shrubs seemed to relish before it went back to its former state. The wind then hit the hillock where she lain with a howl. She felt them like the calls of the hyena. "You raunchy slut go away, you charlatan keep out”. They seemed to howl their cat calls in chorus. The symphony that Nature played did not touch her faculties.

Is it or is it not the state of the mind? She again began to hear the words reverberating from far away-the words that were spewed at her. And now the wild has taken up the call, “Pariah, get away.” Nature too has a way to tell her annoyance with her for being there. Her being there – did that defile Nature too? The cold roaring wind was like profanity directed at her. It came from far over the hills, know not its genesis, know not where it goes and know not what it holds in its way in passionate kisses. But they seem to whip her, lash her lacerated torso, piercing through the torn fabric of her dress. Even the wind, the grass, the trees, the hills, all has begun to express discomfort, disdain and repugnance for her. Is it or is it not the state of mind? The mind refuses to see the dance of the ballerina, the tango on the green hills.

She knew she have not much far to go. Her broken limbs were twisted and swollen. She bit back the pain, though not more excruciating than those words that come after her, haunting her ears like the sound of the cymbal. She laid her head on the rock and lay still, looking far above up into the blue sky. She could see no angels, no fairies but void, not even floating fleeting clouds, just void. And the words kept resonating, “You ........raunchy slut go away.”

The life lived was not! She deluded to live in the tower that she crafted, the tower which she in her supercilious and imperious living did not see was a tower in a dune of sand. The frenzied aspiration to reach the skies could only built the tower of Babel. She saw the days come back in a time machine. She had deign much, but the illusion of trappings and wealth did not tell her the condescend living that it was. In these moments when the retinue that flocked to her beck chose to foresake and this miserable solitude in the hills impelled by remorse, guilt, infamy and now having purposefully wandered afar into the wild, lost her way, she knew she will eventually surrender to the lonesome cold moments before life would gradually ebb away from her. Her clothes were torn and in tatter. She now has been wandering for almost a week, aimless and in trance. The leeches in the rain fed mangroves downhill have preyed amply on her. The sores were bleeding. She understood that she cannot any more delude the world let alone herself that they were stigmata. Hunger and starvation was throwing her into intermittent delirium. Brief moments when she slid into hallucination brought to her apparitions of many faces whom she had hurt, had trampled with her wicked mechanisations and crafty innuendo, the ones she shut out selfishly. She will gradually yield to hunger, the cold, the insects and the predators who feast at night. She knew she may not see the light of another sunrise. Her time of reckoning was fast nearing. She longed for darkness, for light was dangerously fearsome.

She feared going back to civilisation. Was it the fear of repeated denials- all those who once stood at her beck? When did she lose her way? She lost her way early in adulthood, to avarice, glamour and wealth. Then the lost ways became the path to often tread. The hubris of youth, the lust for wealth, the malicious pleasures that infested and intoxicated her veins, when she used and jettisoned people -men and women, she lost her way! When she decided that there was value for nothing, but price for everything, she had lost her way! She lived and thrived in false hood, trickery and emotional black mail.

She quivered and trembled seething with anger and it was aided manifold by the physical impuissance and weakness she felt. She remembered that old woman cover unable to look her in the eyes and turn her wrinkled weather beaten face away when she chose to feign having not heard others disown her. The very same hag, who did nothing but encourage, when her own flesh and blood walked astray! In fact she prodded her, urged her, and exulted in her perverse ways. For pounds of riches would silence all tongues. It was frailty at its loathsome worst.

She now recalled the old fable of the felon who was sentenced to be hanged till death .When asked what his final wish was, he pleaded to transpire a personal longing to his mother. And went forward as if to tell her something in quite to her ear and locked his teeth on it like a vice to wrench the organ out of the woman. He wildly then exclaimed to the wailing old woman- his mother ,blood dripping from his lips and holding the blood drenched pried out ear, “It was this very ear that you lend as deaf to all those little infractions I did as a child .And it was this very ear that feigned to the many greater sins I did. The very ear that encouraged me by pretending being deaf! And now bring me to the gallows. It is not worthy to be on you no more.”

She sobbed and cried. She lay there crying until tears up to the last drop let out and dried .Flies were insistently feasting on the sores that lay open .She saw the predator bird circling above. It had sensed that the time was up for the feast. “The crunchy feast on the invalid raunchy”!

She rolled her eyes towards the tall peak a little to her left. She longed to be there on top. Then she saw that it was this fiery longing for being “there” that made her tread the path that she should not have. She saw that she was not invincible, but a mere mortal in the intrigues Nature has. It began to bury in her, though she all these years believed, liked and exalted in desiring , in believing that she was essential. She deluded! Like Marie Antoinette entrapped in the comfortable cocoon of pomp, lust and wealth, she failed to see the harbinger.

It dawned on her that there was no snow on Kilimanjaro. She closed her eyes and slowly sensed her going down the yawning abyss to be free of all that she ever had, ever relished and all that finally vowed her away. The final image that stayed in her before the last iota of consciousness slipped away was the scavenger bird circling above in patience.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

2011-11-26T13:03:00.000+05:30

Some time ago, I bought a book on Winston Churchill. Though no admirer of him, it was a volume of his collected speech. Known for his eloquence, oratory skills and phrasing of communication with eternal words, I presumed that the book will be an interesting read. It was a disillusionment of sorts like the disappointment Winston Churchill must have felt after losing the elections in Britain after winning the Great War!

The speeches that were included in the edition were more concerning the domestic policies of his Government in Great Britain and his comments on the inland matters of that country. Though there were glimpses of his eloquence and rhetorician arrogance on World affairs, men, colonies and most of all reason why he must be detested for many of his opinions!

Here are samples of few that may be read and concluded the way you may want to.

1- 1-The short crisp sentence that shot into international fame and immortality

“I have nothing to offer but blood toil and sweat.” (In the House of Commons, 1940 when Great Britain was crudely thrown into the World War II).

2- 2- “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”(In the House of Commons 1940. referring to the pilots who fought the Battle of Britain).

3- 3- Now here is something that the purist of Indian Jingoist would frown at.

“It is ...alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organising and contradicting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King Emperor.”

4- 4- “You have enemies.Good. That means you stood up for something sometime in your life.”

5- 5-The Churchillian hubris at its detestable best.

“Before we proceed let us get one thing clear. Are we talking about the brown Indians in

India who have alarmingly multiplied under the benevolent British rule? Or are we speaking about the Red Indians in America who, I understand, are almost extinct?”

6- 6- Here is the one that proved his insensitivity and macabre philosophy. Stiff upper lip or otherwise Britons were wise to show him the door after the War.

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time.I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the Black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the very fact that a stronger race, a higher- grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” (Churchill to the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937).

7-Nancy Astor, the first woman to sit as member in the Commons,

“Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison”. Churchill, “If you were my wife I will take it.”

8-Now here is one that if Mr Churchill were alive now and uttered would have seen him enshroud with Salman Rushdie fearing the fatwa from the vile looking Mullahs.

“ ......the fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.”

9- Here is a blister that should keep all India thinking.

“India is a Geographical term. It is no more a United Nation than the equator.”

10- And the perseverance and courage in him is amplified in these words he spoke,

"Never, never, never give up.

Summing up , perhaps I have to wonder,is it not true that all men are sculpted from contradictions?

The Ides of March

2011-11-22T21:01:00.001+05:30

Morte de Caesar

" Julius Caesar in derision,"The Ides of March Have come ". The Soothsayer," Aye Caesar, but they have not gone".

Those who extend much credence to the influence celestial configurations exercise on earthlings, wish off ill lucks, good tidings, ill tempered acts and omissions as matters that are not under the realm of ordinary mortals. While the heavens wreck havoc and shower largesse on us they are determined by forces abe initio not within our control. We are just marionettes, mere puppets dancing to the whims of the Puppeteer.

Destiny is written or foretold for each of us, it is said. That happens sometime during the exit from the mother’s womb, it is claimed. The heavens, widely acknowledged as the stars or the planets in the solar system, including the centre piece the sun, aligns in some predestined or ordained way that they directly influence the child that is born. His or her destiny, pallor of the skin, character, and life, all are influenced thereon by the life less planets that were held also as beacon at night to men of the sea in the past. The trials, tribulations and triumphs in life are chartered by the alignment of the planets. Henceforth each course of events in the life of the new born is called fate.

Fascinating raison d'être from the oriental thoughts! Take it or leave it.

Dhuryodahana the villain of the piece in the epic Mahabharata, was obstinately impervious to reason, advice and sane suggestions by the elders and even from the mystical sorcerer Krishna. He was truculent, wanted war and nothing else. The aftermath is well documented in the epic. It is said that Dhuroydhana would never have seen reason because he was consumed by hate and lust for power. These attributes were instilled in him and latched like limpets because the constellation of his birth star was such. That he will have to fall! And hence he could not be redressed by reason and wise discourse. A wise head on those massive shoulders ought to have helped the man see reason and the safety net of a via media and détente. He and his retinue of brothers could have kept the chunk of the kingdom. But that was not to be, he invited wrath and chartered his and the elimination of his clan.

Don’t we see many a similar fate invited with ticker tape parade by many men in high places, Kings, Presidents, despots, and dictators of varied hues? Manifestation of celestial alignments or otherwise, Man has often displayed bêtise and to great repercussions.

An astute strategist Adolf Hitler refracted on his pact of non aggression with Russia and attacked her. His army went deep into the Russian country and eventually was decimated by the harsh reality of Russian winter and her fire power. The collateral damage was the combined assault of the allies from the south and the west. The rest is history.

In the 1970s Sergeant Samuel Doe led a military coup in Liberia. It is said that on his way to power he killed the then President by disembowelling him while asleep. As it usually happens to despots he was impervious to reason and finally nemesis caught up when he was arrested after a coup d’état by his former accomplice. One can watch on “you tube” the execution of Samuel Doe. He was mutilated and killed. Alignment of the stars at his birth?

In contrast Iddi Amin one of the most infamous and notorious of African despots , who was quoted saying that human flesh was like Sushi and delicious. He was in fact a modern day cannibal. But when it mattered most he chose the wise way of vanishing to the sanctuary of the Islamic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he lived a comfortable life well into his eighties.

And well in recent memory the despot of Babylon, Saddam Hussein was impervious to reason and sanity, that he chose the path that ensured his destruction. A haven and sanctuary for him with his booty was not a distant possibility, if he had agreed to relinquish his despotic hold on the country. But that was not to be. He was blind to reality of the American fire power and that decimated him and his cronies whole sale.

The harsh sandy desert soil may not have set in his grave, and it looked that Muhammad Ghadaffi was obstinately insistent that he must end violently, and seemed he craved for it. And he did meet the horrendous fate. There was ample opportunity for him and his clan to relinquish power and vanish into oblivion in some tax havens. But again, was it some strange combination of lack of reason, he went the oft trodden path of deluding in his invincibility?

It is said that the ides of his stars could not be resisted, that the demon king Ravana kidnapped the princes Sita. He was reticent to his brother’s pleadings to send back the kidnapped damsel and befriend the warrior prince Rama. The “Ides of March” had to be bewared of. But not, he did!

Is it a desideratum that Man must blame the stars for the ills that befall him? Beware of the Ides of March!

To Sir, With Love

2011-11-18T11:21:00.000+05:30

My first teacher in my living memory was a woman who lived near my house. She was, I guess, a tutor in a Government primary school. And I remember she coming home daily for an hour to teach me and my sister. I must have been just about five. Memory is sketchy to be specific. But she taught us the first lessons in language- Malayalam and simple Arithmetic. We had the lead slate, wrote with the lead chalk slate pencil and used the ubiquitous (those days) “Mashi thandu”shrub to wipe and erase the slate clean.

The next person who taught me was again a woman in her twenties called Saroja (Saroja teacher) and lived near our house. She was a Brahmin and we (me, and my sister) were treated to fabulous Tamil dishes- sweets, savouries, bajis, paniyarams etc when we went to her house for the classes. She taught at the same convent we studied. She taught me through my first standard to the fourth. The wonderful anticipation and eagerness in walking the short walk to her house for the classes were the fantastic collection of comics of Phantom , Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Casper the friendly Ghost, Riche Rich and Mandrake the Magician, that was in a huge collection in that house. They were owned by her delinquent brother who apart from reading comics, having sumptuous food and blasting hell a lot of crackers for Deepavali did nothing much. He was a drop out! She used to be annoyed when I used to devour the comics between classes and thereafter. She exclaimed that language is not great in comics and may actually damage a child’s language. Her big sister was always around to appease her and let me go on with those fascinating comics.

I think I can recall that it was from the third standard and parallel to the classes at Ms Saroja’s, I and my sister were also sent to the almost middle aged Ms E. Sawyer who lived opposite our house and across the street. She was Anglican by descend (not the Anglo Indian) and a spinster. She coached us English. Ms Sawyer had a parrot called Polly that spoke English words fairer than we did. Many years after, I visited Ms Sawyer who had moved away and lived in a different part of the town. Now I notice that someone else live at the place she moved into. I ‘m sure she must be about one hundred if she is alive now. She was the quintessential English woman, mysteriously marooned back in the sub continent.

Mr Sankaranaryana Iyer was the headmaster of a local government high school. He was in his eighties when he began to come home alternate days to teach me and my sister. He was gifted in English, Mathematics and all the array of subjects. The couple of hours he spent with us were enlivening. He let us feel that we were learning and not in any way coerced to study. He was deftly uncanny in imparting knowledge. I still remember him going about the Second World War, the war time Prime minister Mr Churchill,De'Gaul and so on in the midst of his class in the nonsense called “Algebra”. Those made me forget the anguish of Algebra. He spoke about varied subjects in the course of his classes. He was of the opinion that learning must be a fascination and not a bitter pill forced down the gullet. He taught me from the fifth standard to the ninth. Years after, when I was ensconced in a job, I went to see him occasionally at his house. He was then in his nineties, but alert, and recogonised me. The last time I met him was at his son’s house, he was quite frail and was quite unsure of who I was. He died a few days after.

The memorable moment of my life, a moment when we met after almost ten years is etched with ample goose bumps. Before that, I last saw him when I went to his small apartment in my old High school to seek his presence at my wedding. He was the chief warden and retired from active duty as a teacher. The School authorities, as a token gesture of gratitude and in there graciousness offered him the warden’s job ,after he retired and provided him a room next to the boarders bock in the school to live in. He was unmarried-a bachelor, and the only relative, his mother passed away some years ago. He was a revered figure of average height, had a thin steady frame and bald. The long white beard and ocher dhoti and kurta gave him a mystical look. Perhaps everybody who became mattered or not in n society and who was educated at the Government Model High School Thiruvanathapuram have gone through his tutelage.

It was the morning of my cousin’s wedding which took place in Thpuram. The traditional reception that was accorded to the groom was on at the gates of the Mandapam. And I was accompanying my cousin brother in the short ceremonial procession into the Mandapam. I noticed this old man of thin frame and flowing white beard and whiskers and simultaneously him, me. He shrieked as if it was a war cry and came running to me with hands outstretched. ”Eda Anil..ey” (Dear Anil). He hugged me in one mammoth straight jacket -vice grip and I in reflex responded by lifting him up. We had literally felt tears in our eyes. It was indeed one of the greatest fortunate pleasances to be embraced by a teacher when meeting him after many years and time. He was the family friend of the bride. The whole crowd of men, women and children who were witness to the event, all, were dumbstruck in trance, and did not know for a while that it was the unrestrained natural affection of a teacher for a former student and a lousy one at that. He was Mr. Narayana Kurup, or with the abbreviated name “Kurup Sir”.

For me it was to “Sir with love!”

The Electrician

2011-11-15T13:28:00.000+05:30

Someone, look alike of Oliver Twist peeping from outside the main gate of my office. He was seen standing outside with confused but eager look, and I noticed him through the day when ever I ventured out.

The next morning, the watchman came in to my cabin and enquired if he can permit a boy to come in and that he wants to have word with me. Also that he was persistent that he was hanging around the gate since yesterday and would never go.

I remembered the chap I noticed the day before. I asked the watchman to send him in. He came in rather timid watch full but unsure of his next step forward, rather furtively- whether he should make it or not. He was certainly a late teen version of Oliver Twist- the image that we have seen in the work of Dickens. He wore khaki trouser, but no footwear. His long sleeved shirt was dirty and slightly open at seams. His hair was dirt brown and looked altogether not cocooned in a healthy comfortable living.

He was from a village south of Tamilnad, beyond Madurai. He has been in the city for a few days now and his hunt for livelihood was fruitless. He indeed looked distraught and famished. I asked him what work he could do. He pulled out a multiple folded plastic cover from inside his trouser pocket and took out a certificate which was almost in tatters. It said that,”Subu Raj …. Is approved Electrician in grade…” And that he has passed the Electrical curriculum from ITI.

SubuRaj reported to duty at 8. And precisely, the next morning. He was in a different clean trouser and shirt, but crumpled. He was bare footed. I called him sometime in the day and told him that he will have to compulsorily wear leather footwear while he is on work. I remember giving him a little advance for immediate personal chores.

He married in a year’s time. And I understood he lived with his young wife in a rented dingy room near the factory. He proved to be a fantastic worker. He had this keen sense and uncanny ability to handle electrical works, installations, trouble shoot, and all with élan, perfection and neatness. There was no hanging wires not tended points and all the haphazard matters typical of electrical works we often see in many places. I never had a breakdown in the factory and office while he was around. He eagerly ran errands for other members of the staff and fixed their electrical works in their homes.

He did a perfect and professional work in the new factory premises we wanted to commission. Later C asked him if he could do the electrical plan for the 4 acre plot we bought and wanted to build a small house amidst a jungle of trees. He planned things so wonderfully that in no time we planted some four hundred trees on the land. He did a wonderful work in electrifying various points on the land, drip irrigating every sapling. There was a small shack that was built on a corner of the plot, where tools and electrical mains were installed. Suburaj was asked if he would to stay there in the night. He was at ease. We lived some five kilometers away.

One morning around 7’o clock, I and C was on the verandah sipping tea and scouring the daily. The phone rang inside, and C took the call. I went in hearing C give a howl. She turned to me holding the phone and said,”Suburaj is dead, he hung himself.”

I soon began getting calls from other guys in the office. Some were already at Suburaj’s dingy home. They told me that he went back to his room after the night shift around 3 am. He even had tea in the way side shop and chatted with the guys loitering there, smoked cigarettes. He told them he will be back by 8 after dawn. And at 5 in the morning his sister-in-law who lived next doors along with two of her brothers went past his room and seeing the door open she peeped in to see the poor fellow’s body hanging lifeless from the ceiling. No one could tell what transpired in Suburaj’s brain between that short while from the teas shop to his hanging.

I asked the guys to inform the police and ensure that all help is extended to his brothers –in law to transport the corpse to their village. I promised to be there as soon as the policemen took charge.

At 8 am I stopped by the office to speak to the crowd of workers who gathered in shock. I got a call then from one of the staff that Suburaj’s corpse has been taken by the brothers- in law in a Taxi to their village. And that they were in a hurry. The police wanted the sub-inspector to be present before they could visit the scene. I was shocked at the haste and the lack of legal formalities. No autopsy, no police records. It can bring me trouble as he was on my payroll. I called the police station to record my anguish and complaint at the total lack of legal formalities. I suddenly felt something odd and expressed it to the policeman who attended my call. He said,” Why must you worry? The chap is dead, killed or extinguished himself and found in his place. Nothing happened in your premises. Let us not bother much. You take care of your matters. We have a lot of work to do than run after a dead man.”

Suburaj was not cremated in his village but buried and the same evening. I was told his uncle wanted it so.

His uncle a middle aged man came to my office one day and spoke to me. He said that he tried in vain to get the local police to exhume the body for an autopsy. And that he was certain the Suburaj was killed and then hung. He was adamant that the foul play was perpetrated by the two brothers in law.

Later it transpired that Suburaj was having a liaison illicit and amorous with his young sister in law (wife’s sister) who lived next doors. And his wife was upset with the matter and she went back to her village. And that Suburaj used to take his sister- in-law to the shack on our land for his amorous extremities. The brothers in law were furious that they could not dissuade either of them and struck on the plan to put an end to the man himself. I sat listening to all the matters in dazed attention.

And even when his wife and infant son came with her brothers to collect his pending salary money, and dues, I could only mechanically sit and listen to the eulogies his brothers in law reeled out about him. When they were departing, I commented,”Suburaj did not kill himself, he was murdered and then hung.”

I Did Not Know What to Tell

2011-11-09T22:16:00.000+05:30

The School Flat with the Chapel

The first time I travelled without shackles- without the company of someone from home was when I and a few delinquents sneaked out on a train journey to Quilon some 70 kilo meters away from Thpuram. We went to the beach there and loitered before eating a good platter of mutton curry and parattha.I must have been sixteen or there about. It has been stifling times at home, more because I was a rebellious character. Perhaps it is better to rephrase and say, a different sort of fellow unusual for a conventional family with quite conservative leanings in tune with the establishment. I ceased to be religious in the conventional sense, no temple and Providence from that age, was questioning everything including the existence of God or even he himself if he were real; began to be fascinated with skeptical readings in literature. Rebelled against the diktat from home to keep away from friends etc as they thought friends were bad influence, even the good ones next doors. In the bargain I landed with some unsavory elements to the great distress of my mother.

I dreamt about a life in the boarding. While in college I was in awe about the fellows who lived in the boarding. The College hostel was tucked in the midst of a rubber plantation and we used to venture there during recess. It was a different fantastic world. But I knew that my yearning will be still born as I hailed from the same town.

When years later, we had to decide to admit A in a school away from the town we lived, the only option was to put him there as a boarder. Constraints of our work , besides lack of good educational infrastructure in that town we lived then, gave us no room to manoeuvre and the option was to put him in that distant school in Ooty as a boarder. He was then going into the first standard. The agony that we went through, and the distress and lost feeling him as little child went through then, are still painfully alive in memory. Both the children growing up were given enough room to manouevre, and freedom to tell us, talk to us anything and everything. I was keen that they must not feel the constriction I felt when I was their age. They still enjoy the freedom and we hope they make intelligent and conscientious use of that.

There were interesting alumni there. People who came back with their children. One day during our visit to the school we saw this guy in his forties hugging the huge pine tree near the hostel of the primary class laughing with tears in his eyes. He later confided that he was a parent and it was to this tree that he used to go to while he was border during his bouts of loneliness and home sickness. He said he used to hug the tree for long and feel comfort.

The school was not an elite institution fees wise, as well as by way of philosophy and motto. It was an institution that was begun by an English clergy man some seventy five years ago. With both our children doing their schooling from the first standard there, we can confidently content that their formative years were well taken care by the institution. Now to hope that they carry those things of value they imbibed from there through into their lives.

A, passed out his twelfth from there four years ago. He was the Head Boy in the final year. And being an active participant in various activities especially music and dramatics he was in the elite group fancied by the Principal and the faculty. But strangely the relationship of the whole class with the Principal turned sour towards the fag end of the term. The Principal was a strict disciplinarian and that may have turned the tables on the boys and girls of the twelfth who were all in a rebellious age in their lives. The precarious times when one is not a child, but is neither an adult though one wants to be noted so.

A’s class mate and chum,G, as this boy may be called was a happy go lucky sort of fellow with occasional exploits and fond of girls. The Principal had notified that if found in sneaking on conducts considered unsavoury, dismissal from school, or confinement to the school hospital tucked up far in the campus for other infractions will be certain. Infractions such as carrying a tuck, pocket money, cell phones in the locker for instance.

A, used to tell us his apprehension when he was home on short breaks from school. That G is being recalcitrant and may land up in serious trouble. He was warned by A to avoid his flirtations. He did not want an incident to mar the year. But G being the glamour boy for some girls, A was in a quandary. G was too indulgent! One night during the group study, G and his girl friend were hauled from the garden nearby. It was the Gorkhas who busted the matter. News reached A, and he slapped G for the infringement. The Gorkhas refused to hush up the matter. The lid was blown and G was dismissed. The Principal smelt that the matter was going on for some time and he was furiously cross with A for not revealing it. A was adamant during the enquiry and the threat to strip him off the Head Boy badge, that he was not aware. The Principal did not believe him. He mentioned the matter to me, while I met him to collect A’s mark sheets and certificates after the examination results were published. I felt quite miffed when the Principal covertly aired the accusation to me. I felt cross with A. It was the feeling a father would have when someone accuses his child of infarction and misconduct.

I could only tell the Principal that I will enquire with A.

When I confronted A, he said, “Yes I knew about G’s relationship. I even hit him and tried to discipline him. I forewarned him of the peril should his conduct be known. The whole class was aware of how I took him to task and reprimanded him often. But if the Principal wanted me to be a snitcher, well no, I cannot be one. G is my friend, he may have done wrong. But I cannot disown him and compromise him. Not over even the threat of my dismissal or stripping me off the badge of the Head boy."

I did not know what to tell.

A, & friends getting ready for the farewell dinner ( 2008)

Bucket List

2011-11-07T13:27:00.001+05:30

“Kick the bucket when it is done with”. This was Edward Coleman (Jack Nicholson) in the film, “Bucket List”. The nonchalance to life when death looms large and imminent! Courageous resignation was evident in the statement.

In comparison Mr Wilson, in Somerset Maugham’s short story, “The Lotus Eater” had the audacious and fearless plan to die at sixty, if nature doesn’t intervene at sixty-to take it away by his own hands. And according to him, what more can one get from life after twenty five years of blissful living and happiness in the island of Capri, with wine and food, books to read,watching the moon risings from the cliff overlooking the bay? This decision he took at thirty five and gave enough room for his annuities to last till he was sixty.. But he was physically well at sixty and had lost the courage to smother his life. Twenty five years of leisure, and happiness drained the potency of will and courage from him. He was frightened to die. It was like atrophy of the limb which was disused for long.

I know not, now in my early fifties how far and deep the road and the woods are still. In the teens the thought of being erased from the world never occurred- because of the “audacity of youth”. Nor in the thirties- it was still a decade of confidence and feeling of perennial immortality. Even at forty the sun set seemed far away. But it has begun to dawn and one thinks often that a decade or a score of years from now is a mixed boon of grace. Yet, then is it not also true that age is in the mind?

A person once exclaimed how wonderful it would be if she could live till or beyond one hundred. It immediately reminded me of Marquez’s “One hundred years of solitude”. I would not want to see seven or ten generations of posterity. I asked her if she would be prepared to see and know what she would not fancy to see and know. If she sees it fine well she may wish. But the longer you live more are what you see and hear that you did not ever wanted.

If someone asks me to make a bucket list, I would say it’s already done .Contentment! That indeed is a tricky loose and relative term to play with. One can never be, one will ever be, critics may allege. Yes indeed they have a point there. What is contentment is relative to a person. And what makes contentment is the ability to feel content by fulfilling ones needs and not crave for never ending boons. Isn’t it?

I could reel out many of my fantasies to be dropped into the bucket. Some being, a journey to the Galapagos, Machi picu, Tierra del fugo; a long walk up the Kilimananjaro; a week and more in the Masai Mara; a lonely trek and stay in the icy wilderness of the poles, in the arctic winter; a cruise through the Canadian arctic; a week and more in the wilderness of Alaska; drifting in the ocean on a schooner on a full moon night;serenading through the snowy splendor and majesty of the Himalayas; a night in solitude by the Victoria falls and a week in the grassy cold wilderness of Eravikulam; a quite night at home with glass of whisky and reading a favourite author. And if the end come in any of these places like the whiff of air never smelt, well what else can one hope for and ask for? Any other thing ephemeral that comes by is incidental lottery!

Do I need to scheme of millions in dollars? Do I need to harbor fantastic scheme of a mansion for myself? Do I need to own a fleet of BMWs or MayBachs? Do I need to thump to the world that I have achieved? Tethering my ambition to the stars has not been in my person. May be a drawback, a limitation or even a boon than bane! Opinions on this may differ from how one looks at it.

Where does one launder one’s disillusionment? That indeed is a question. But I guess learning to override that and let pitfalls be eclipsed is the sane way out. Though it takes a lot of agonising and immensely painful effort and mental rearrangement – guts, plain and only guts!

In the end the bucket list has to include only contentment. Contentment from not possessing material bonanzas, not from elevating ones ego to a higher plain or what is lovingly termed as achievements. But just simple contentment that there will be happy people around you. The ones you love and who love you- and the ones you brought forth.

But contentment is ephemeral and elusive isn’t it? So is the bucket, it has hollow somewhere beneath, which we do not notice. Isn’t it?

Hey, that's me

2011-11-01T17:12:00.000+05:30

It was H.G.Wells who suggested that human cadaver must be put to better use. He suggested that cadavers be send to medical schools for study and not be interned or cremated.

Well this will be frowned upon by the ultra right wing of the religious zealots, of who we have in plenty. The Islamic didactic edicts mandates that a dead body be interned within twenty four hours of death occurring. And sentiments in other faiths too may frown upon such idea. Immediate family would cry plaint and in horror of such a prospect. How could the cadaver of a son, father, mother or someone near and dear be mutilated and dissected on the dissecting table in some nondescript medical laboratory? Outrageous and bizarre!

I have often thought of the matter, and also the subject of donating ones medically fit organs after death. There is this very good friend of mine who suggested that he may want to donate one of his kidneys right away. His contention was that one can survive well with a solitary kidney. I, predominantly and other fellows in tow pulled down his suggestion as quixotic and unnecessary. If honourable service is the idea, well there are as many that one can think of and exercise. By the same yardstick can one forego an eye? Well I guess he saw the point of my argument. We have not heard from him on this since.

Coming to the point of bequeathing one’s body after death to a medical school for research- has enormous potential benefits for medical science and future generations. It not only letting science identify and document the reason for death, it will also dwell into the many inexplicable and sudden demises, unknown facets of physiology etc. Why does a healthy man, for instance fall dead with a massive cardiac arrest- while his routine medical checkup gave a perfect ten? Winston Churchill smoked cigars like as if it was a matter of religion, I suppose. He enjoyed ample dose of High Land Scotch too. A perfect combination for early disaster! But he lived well into his eighties and did not die of cancer or heart attack. He even survived an English winter and with Pneumonia. If I or you enact that fascinating style of living we may not go far. Why is some body chemistry not susceptible to abuse? Why does a disciplined life style not see the person live long, but die of cancer or a heart attack?

A cover to cover reading of the fascinating biography of cancer, “The Emperor of Maladies”, throws open much knowledge for lay men like us in matters where science have been not quite successful if not failing repeatedly; where it has been hope plummeting to abysmal despair; inexplicable remissions and relapse. How mankind and medical science have even after centuries of battle with cancer find itself still groping at times. There is a lot hidden in the physiological system of man that will take years and years to unravel. Or will we ever like the outer solar system? There is acute shortage of human cadaver for study and training in medical schools. And sometimes artificial, synthetic replicas are used. Imagine the fabulous benefits medical science will gather should mortal remains be autopsied. It may re- write medical knowledge itself.

Why not donate organs that are not diseased? Why must we take them with us into the furnace or underground vault? Why not bequeath it to the needy that the many sins, false hood spoken and done while alive may be nullified with our heart, liver or kidney pulsating in another person, even after we are gone? Ensure our eyes be the beacon of hope for another, while the very same pair of eyes may have feigned blindness at many things?

It has been decided by C, and the children too are aware, that should one of us precede the other, our cadaver must be given to the anatomy department of a medical school. The organs be harvested and donated. True, the grief filled moments may sometimes prove to be prejudicial to the wise cause. Hence there must be someone who would undertake the deed of legal requirements. That is a better way of mourning the passing than wail uncontrollably.

The “Tower of Silence” has a noble idea in it. I would prefer my cadaver be used for a medical cause than let it be barbecued and smoked out of existence or let it be dumped in some underground pit for maggots, worms and wrigglers to feast to the bones.

If paradise is lost by not queuing to be there with my mortal remains intact, let it be. In any case we do not know the dress code to enter paradise.

Quid Pro Quo

2011-10-29T19:09:00.000+05:30

Old woman, Mary John promised to the Virgin of Vellankanni, fifty candles if her daughter was returned safe from her trip to the Kailas Mansarovar. She, as penitence for her litter’s sin in seeking an alien and false God in lieu of the only true God she was sworn to, offered a special mass at the local parish church. And when her daughter came back from her highly trumpeted journey safe and healthy as when she left, Mary John was pleased that her God heeded her supplications. Still ,when she was told that her daughter’s Land Cruiser almost went off the mountain road in Tibet , but was saved by a whisker she thanked her God for sparing her daughter from a life threatening danger . It dawned on her then the sleight of her God, taking away the life of the little white lamb in their house instead. It fell dead one day with no apparent reason (Life of beast are in any case insignificant comparison to human beings).As a bonus to her God she said a twenty one “Hail Mary’s” and twenty one “Our Father who Art in heaven”.

Rameshan Nair was an ardent devotee of the bachelor god Ayyappan who abodes in the hills of Sabarimala. Rameshan Nair is a private contractor and has his fingers in all lucrative civil works in town. He has this uncanny acumen and knack to tackle bureaucracy and the powers that be. He had insider information on the tender just called for the construction of the new Airport terminal that would run into multi million. He manipulated and with insider help defrauded the various quotes and had his bid as the sole tender and at a highly inflated price. He in turn had offered his God Ayyappan a gold crown studded with gems. And he promised to bring it to the abode of the God by himself, only that the contract must go to him. God relented, after all who would not in face of gratification? And Rameshan Nair bagged the contract.

Haji Ahmed had business of rectified spirit. Besides the few thousand litres of authorised licenses the bulk of the merchandise traded by the Haji was smuggled in from distant States. The standing contract with his God and his plenipotentiary was that no untoward must happen to the smuggling of rectified spirit that happens incessantly. His God has been faithfully abiding by the verbal understanding and Haji Ahmed used to uninterruptedly without fail dispatch a sizeable amount in currency to the Masjid treasury.

What is wrong in these three cases of commissions and gratification? They are approved by the heavens. Aren't they?

We have thousands of men and women in India from various religion and faith, scamper to many places of worship- temples, mosques, churches, etc and offer money and in kind for various favours they ask, in advance and post- happening. You help me achieve this, help me get this, save me from conviction, and I give thee in cash or kind. Perfect the quid pro quo begins with the holy Gods.

Thence what is misplaced and wrong about a minister making the extra few hundred millions for favours done to some selected industrialists, and what is wrong, sinful, unethical and unlawful in paying bribe and receiving gratification. The matter begins with God.

In matters of commerce, they say, the fault with Dutch is offering too little and asking just too much. But Indian culture has the opposite we are even handed in giving and taking. The art of graft begins in places of worship. Else how could one explain the throng of men and women flocking the temple at Tirupathi, with the alibi of the story that the Lord should not default in his contract with the Lord of wealth, Kubera? Why do we offer quid pro quo to God? This is not spiritualism if someone argues in that fashion. It is pure, plain and unbridled graft, like the ones that happen daily in Indian social, economic and political life. Why is it that only when it is offered or given to Providence it is offering and to A. Raja it is bribe?

Indians cannot live without giving and accepting gratification. It is engrained in our physiological system and body chemistry. Our culture and civilisation does not jettison that, it embraces. The difference in the same exercise, when offered or given to Gods is termed offerings and sacrifice and when it is handed out to a bureaucrat, a poor peon or an elected representative then becomes bribe.Is there something amiss in our interpretation of the act, the language?

Ours is a rich spiritual culture and heritage. It is claimed in all history books in our curriculum. We have hundreds of years of spiritual existence in India. And consequently, ideally the penury and sufferings in the country should be a misnomer. A spiritually rich country that can claim five thousand years of civilisation , that can offer thousands of years and ancient spiritual solace to the entire world - festering itself in poverty, disease, hunger and infamy of various hues! A strange contradiction!

Ambrosia

2011-10-26T15:22:00.000+05:30

“There is no love sincere than the love of food”.

Dreams in which you lie in bed and literally drool! It must have happened to most. It often happens to me.

I’m at a sumptuous dinner or party with food that is the envy of even the Romans and all their Gods. Sometimes it will be the typical wedding food in a Keralite Hindu wedding, sometimes the aromatic Byriani and pulsating mutton curry of the Muslim folks amply proportioned with ghee and at times it will also be the grandeur of the food at a Christian wedding. I would be in anxious hurry and impatience to grab the food and stuff it down, sometimes I will be trying to stretch to grab it even, but alas I cannot move my hand or it superficially perceives the food then I wake up with a forlorn jolt, drooling, literally. The realization dawns that it was not only a dream but a nightmarish end to feel now that I missed the whole tempting array of cuisine.

Then I slip back into the abyss of slumber, with stupor of the dog that was shown the fascinating piece of bone and taken away with cruel audacity.

Food, the one that tickles, and pleasures the taste buds and the mind, that gives the heart its ever eluding content has been my fascination.

I sit back to recollect the times I have had food that stays in the heart and long each day that I be consigned to a remote island paradise where I and just me alone will enjoy all that every day , is not ephemeral and it never ends, . A life in Shangri-La!

The best of the country side food of Kerala devoured in the thatched tenement straddling the green paddy fields that tango in the breeze that is incessant, was like paradise brought down to me. I had that many times, but one, a particular time and place was heavenly simple and plain. Spirit that even Gods will not resist (the Kerala toddy) complimented by well cooked tapioca in coconut and tagged with the wonderfully dangerous looking Valla (a kind of fish found in Kerala back waters and rivulets) curry. Supplemented with roasted duck, frog legs, roasted pork garnished with coconut slices and the Entreat the appam with chicken curry in fried coconut gray. Beef ollathiathu (roasted) being an added indulgence. I wished after, and knew I would not mind, if my heart ceased to throb it would be with content.

Once I went to a wedding reception in Chennai. It was a Muslim wedding. The food served was of only a few dishes unlike the Christian and Hindu weddings in Kerala that never ends and stays on course after course. The Byriani with chunks of juicy mutton garnished with ghee, roasted chicken sprinkled with sliced onions and tomatoes sautéed with amazing composition of masala, a tremendously subjugating curry of brinjal, and then came the dessert carrot halwa in ghee. I still can at times smell that food though ten and plus years have elapsed since.

Once I and C went for a nonsense called Yoga class, which was a discourse with gimmicks by a widely known man in ocher robes. It was a three day event in Chennai, and what kept us glued there was the lunch they served which was pure vegetarian. I do not recall the dishes but exquisite were they, I’m yet to taste any that will match let alone rival that.

Steak! Versions of that are many. Often we are forced to agree that the chunk of meat grilled and peppered can also be termed “steak”. But the best and the unrivalled buffalo steak was served to me and C while we were in Jackson. There can never be any steak that can be juicy and enhancing as that. It was the feeling, the fear that the hotel staff that waited on us would see us gluttonous Indians that we desisted from asking for a repeat of the dish.

Shewarma, the misleading regional versions were attractive, until I ate the beef shewarma at a Turkish joint in Johannesburg. It was rolled in bread as big as a huge Nan. Rolled and stuffed without a wee bit space with meat, mayonnaise, grated cabbage, and mustard sauce with other condiments. I kept licking my fingers and sucking my thump till the end of the day.

There is a very mundane, but nostalgic variety among the cuisine I long for each day. The India Coffee Houses are quite famous for their coffee, maslaa dosa and brisk service, besides other dishes. The masala dosa from the ICH as the outlets are called have the same taste and aroma from Srinagar to KanyaKumari. A plate of MD as the masala dosa’s are called, complimented with Mutton -Omelet and signing off with aromatic coffee will eclipse any depression and augment rejuvenation. No exaggeration. Each morning I wish for the MD and MO.

But finally I reach to the food that most of us in the family, I’m sure, miss now. The local Kerala cuisine that my mother’s sister used to cook. It is true that no food can rival the ones mothers’ cook. But when traded with her sister’s gifted hands, the dishes my mother cooks come second only. The fish fry, the mackerel curry in grounded coconut and coriander powder with the tangy –sour fruit , kodam pulli( (seen only in Kerala), the simple beans thoran , the avial , the olan( sliced potato in coconut milk with peas and green chilly), the theeyal ( drum stick and yam slices cooked in fried coconut and coriander gravy),the sambar , the prawn theeyal and prawn fry roasted with liberal dose of onion slices, and what else! I have not come across yet another array of food ,prepared ,which aids with amazing content - the taste buds and leaves the soul in peace.

It was akin to ambrosia if not one!

Inherit the Wind

2011-10-22T19:21:00.000+05:30

I saw the movie a third time around a few days back. “Inherit the Wind” was the 1960 movie version directed by Stanley Kramer, of a real time incident in the USA down south in 1925 that shook the conventional notion and conformity of religious diktat on creation. The incident that triggered the prosecution of a public school teacher for teaching “Darwin’s theory of evolution”. Those were the days when government funded schools in America were proscribed from teaching the scientific theory of genesis of man and evolution of life. The religious right vehemently renounced the evolutionary theory, stigmatised Darwin, and declared him an anathema and a persona non grata. It was sin, blasphemous and a crime to teach or believe that man was descended from the monkeys and the apes. Children were taught the Biblical fairy tale of creation and that was considered indisputable and inviolable.

The movie captures the core of the subject, ‘the right to think’, and not just the ephemeral matter of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution, or the sleight of God in creation. The right of the thinking man! It was an individual’s right to think independently, which was endangered in the prosecution of the teacher against whom the whole town of Hilsburgh and the establishment panoplies.

Spencer Tracy & Frederic March in the film

I heard about this fascinating story and the movie itself from Aravind, my son. He was then in his twelfth class at the boarding school in Ketty, Nillgirs. The dramatised adaptation of the movie was enacted by the senior boys for the school anniversary. He donned the role of Mathew Harrison Brady the fundamentalist politician who appears in court to pillories the teacher, and his close friend Mani, the role of Henry Drummond who defends the accused. In the movie the role of Brady was brought to admirable life by Frederic March and Spencer Tracy the role of Henry Drummond.

The movie had amazing court room drama, histrionics and crisp dialogues with repartees, all which made one pulsate to think. And feel the ethereal pleasure when the mind is free and thought boundless. The movie itself begins with the old song,”the old time religion”, played in the back ground. It ends with the death of the fundamentalist prosecutor who goes hysteric in the court room and dies there of a massive cardiac arrest. The last shot has Henry Drummond, the defence attorney walking away with the copy of “The Evolution of Species” and the “Bible”.

The dramatised version was a highly awaited one, and the boys and the girls did enormous back stage work with dedication to excel the play. I was eagerly anticipating the day as I and C had never missed a school cultural function or sports for the twelve years our children studied in their alma mater. And that being Aravind’s final year in school, I and C would want to move heavens, keep aside other engagements and tide over all difficulties to be in the front row. Aravind, as the Head boy was awaiting and looking eagerly to sign off in style from the school that blessed him with invaluable life in his formative age.

Mani Prasad & Aravind ( Henry Drummond & Harisson Brady) from school days

Then nemesis in flesh and blood (I cannot help phrasing my feelings strongly), struck and I was left behind with whimper and helpless. C had to travel alone to Ootty to the function. I had to prioritise a meeting that was so vital that I stayed back but was a damp squib in the end. Thanks to the people who timed the meeting and made it a successful not starter, I felt in such way that I even believed that they had a design in my misery and missing Aravind’s dramatics.

I waited in anticipation, C’s arrival back with the children late that night as the Pooja Holidays were following the next day. The play was given a standing ovation by the whole audience (parents, children and staff). The best actor was decided in an extremely narrow margin and won by the sweet looking Mani. C mentioned that Aravind sent Mani on stage to collect the award for the best play as it seemed he was anticipating him to be called to collect the prize for the best actor. However though he must have felt a wee bit sad, he said he was happy that Mani was chosen as he admirably portrayed Henry Drummond. It was good to see a healthy competition that ended well. When I met the Principal after a few days he expressed regret that the judges had to deliberate much and decide narrowly the winner for the best act. The play was a great success and when others told me that I was quite unlucky to miss not being there, I felt miserable and terribly sad.

It was only after I watched the film, and without an iota of hesitation eulogise the thespians Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Frederic March that I began to wonder how well the children have enacted the play for it to be so raved about.

Hence I tried to catch up with the lost essence by watching over and over, the film itself. I would recommend that the film be watched, any which way you can, buy it or down load .The monkey trial as the incident was called in real time had a parting theme as well.

“He that troubleth his own house shall ‘Inherit the wind; and the fool shall be the servant to the wise of heart.” (King James Version of the Bible – the book of proverbs).

La'Belle

2011-10-18T15:36:00.001+05:30

"Mediterannean". Musee D' Orsay

There is seldom any doubt that French women are one of the most effortlessly sexy and beautiful .

I was going through some old pictures stored in my lap top, and revisited the pictures of the gorgeous looking lass from France. The picture must be about ten years old and I last saw her before she left the company I was then doing business with. The last I met her was in Strasbourg in their office. And that day she and her boss took me out for lunch. I did correspond with her on business matters and some advice about textile fairs in Paris and Lille which she frequented. Well in fact she was a Textile school product and worked in that Company as a designer and Stylist for men’s wear. Hence her twice yearly visits to India.

She must have been twenty four or there about.

Once on her visit to India, she happened to be in the town over the week end and came to our house for dinner. The next day, a Sunday, we all drove down to Malampuzha in Kerala. As she and her boss wanted to see a bit of “God’s own country”, of which they heard much. (The subsequent year we sent them by car to Kumarakom to erase the unpleasant memories of this forgetful trip). It was an awful experience for the heat and the very ravenous men folks of that place. Being a Sunday there was a sizeable crowd of men and women who ventured out to nauseatingly pry and strip another- beautiful women. The kind of people who are intrusive and agape upon seeing a white (pale) skinned alien woman.

Now she was a very beautiful and debonair. Tall slightly tanned and had exquisite assets that makes women glamorous and attractive to men folks and envy of the same sex. Being her second or third visit to India she was not quite aware of the prejudice and hypocrisies of the land. Wearing jeans and a round neck t shirt that clings to a beautiful body was indeed quite provocative to the gentry there in Kerala. I and C could feel and she too, the prying and lecherous eyes roving all over her. In fact we had to be more conscious and ensure that none of them got berserk and laid hands on her. There was no dearth for comments that were derisive, mocking and vulgar. It was a wonderful relief when we were back in the car to drive back to our town. The only quite side of the day adventure being the boat ride on the lake, which was away from offensive eyes.

After she left the company the contact just faded out, though it must be the pleasure of every man who appreciates feminine physical beauty and charm, to be in contact with her.

The next I heard about her, (let me call her M, after the first alphabet of her name), was just a few years ago from the woman who was her boss. Well, M was going steady with a young man who lived in her town of Strasbourg. And they were quite intimate for a while, before she was befriended by another fellow. She was I presume dating two men at the same time. It was immediately after that, that she found her pregnant. And she decided to marry her new boy friend. Marry they did. Because she had this good news for him that she conceived and will bore him a child. However a few months into marriage she went in for a paternity test and found that the child was from her earlier boyfriend. The man whom she married was not prepared to continue the relationship if she did not medically terminate the pregnancy. This she refused outright. His persuasive skills running out of steam and on a limbo, he (her husband) walked out of the marriage. She was left to fend for herself.

She eventually gave birth to a child, a boy. She was living by herself, a single young mother, in dire need of a job. In an unenviable state of bringing up the infant and meeting ends meets.

Quite an unfortunate turn of events for a woman who was captivatingly beautiful.

One can laugh away the confusion of parentage and the comedy of errors if one sees it that way. However the same life style is quite in our garden too! Isn’t it?

IODEX

2011-10-15T17:17:00.000+05:30

There was this old joke doing the rounds in college- Question, “What is the height of innocence”? Answer, “Pregnant woman rubbing Iodex.”

Well that was a trifle naughty joke. And can be exercised in circle of friends during banter. There are then statements that may be intended as jokes but when pronounced at the wrong place, at the wrong time can create an awful lot of embarrassment. And when it originates from an adult it may be frowned upon, and may create a piquant situation. Which tells that jokes apart, one must as an adult have common sense in good proportion and good judgment, lest an occasion of banter will be transformed a spoiled stage?

But the liberty and license to thrill and kill are with the toddlers and the little ones. The little children who walk with unsteady steps and utter matters that sometimes thrills to kill you. Embarrass you to no end, evoke erupting laughter, and hush silence in agape and sheer comical situations too. It is height of innocence and witty at that!

“It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally and politely put their parents in their place.”

It was quite a few years ago and my niece was growing out of toddle. She was taken one day to the zoo in Thpuram by her parents. I guess she was two years old at that time. Moving around the enclosures she was carried by her father, my sister’s husband. As usual, when little children are taken to zoo- the arena where primates are enclosed, that would be a fascinating halting point. So my sister and brother in law hung around with the little girl around the enclosure where they had the baboons and chimps. That day had quite a good commune of people at the zoo. The little girl was so thrilled and elated with the primates inside. That she refused to leave the area. My brother in law was carrying her prodded her that they have more great animals to gaze elsewhere. She suddenly blurted out in high pitched voice pointing her finger at the monkeys and tapping her father’s face, “look the monkey looks like Atcham(dad).” The guy was certainly miffed and embarrassed and apparently people around heard the child’s statement. He gently pinched her and asked her to be quite. She then blurted louder still, “why do you pinch me for that”.” I understand that since that day the poor fellow have not taken fancy with zoos.

She now has grown up into a woman and finished her masters in zoology. She does not rattle or pass trivial talk, but if she tells something, it will as meaningful and sharp that it is difficult to refute the statement.

C’s parents were living in a small hamlet in the Nilgiris. Aravind, my son was quite fond of the old man, her father. We were once out there with the old folks on a short week end ors o. The boy was about four years of age. We were all watching some programme on the television. I guess it was some sports channel and the boy was fascinated with some body building competition that was being telecast. The boy was asking questions to the old fella and he was trying to give the child an explanation or a satisfactory answer. Not quite convincing for the boy! We heard the grandfather tell him something about the muscular physique of the men and how they built it over. The little fella, caught the old man unawares when he asked him,” appuppa why are all their muscles inside their underwear?” The old man a benign and timid fellow was stuttering to answer that question.

An Ode to Mother Dearest

2011-10-11T15:24:00.000+05:30

I have seen him, his brothers and sisters do that. I have seen that when I was little and was trifle amused by what I then thought was a kind of acrobatics. Bending and touching at her feet or falling prostrate at her feet whenever they ventured out on a long journey or before engaging in any labour of importance. He, (my father) had asked me and my sister too, to touch her feet (in reverence) before we returned from the summer and mid- term vacations at her place. Which was then a serene, sprawling country side by the sea with copious paddy fields that go beyond the horizon straddling back water canals and meandering rivulets on one side of the hamlet , lush green all over with coconut and areca- nut palms , majestic mango and jack fruit trees standing on the fringes of beautiful fresh water ponds - bearing fruits seldom found even in paradise.

I did not literally imbibe the gesture of obeisance I saw him bear with humility towards his mother. But I have not let a day by , since I have begun using my faculties of thought as an adolescent where I have not gotten off the bed in the morning and began another day without remembering her, my mother, where ever she was- in the same house or elsewhere. Day begins with thought of respect, gratitude and remorse for my many delinquencies as a teenager that have pained her much.

Sometimes I trust that the karmic philosophy is just not a theory but a fact of life. Because perhaps what ails one’s life may be the just requital of what one does to one’s parent – mother in particular. Metaphorical though, makes sound sense to pursue as a matter of good living.

She has been the most cultivated and Spartan of women. Her pictures from the old tell much about her pretty countenance and demeanour, the gracefulness of beauty. This, my sister has not been fortunate to genetically acquire. She was called “mayil peeli chechi” (sister with peacock plumes). Such was the amazing lush, long black hair she had. I remember my elder cousins (father’s nieces) reminisce that they were in awe of her the day she came home to my paternal mother’s as the bride just married. They have told me that they wanted to befriend her as quickly as they could, to touch her. My father’s sisters never had a word of remote resent for her, only admiration and respect ,so were all her relatives in law.

No one had ever spoke ill of her and never have she spoken ill of any. Even the difficulties she encountered in marital life, did not make her succumb to speak ill about my father or reveal even a wee bit about her melancholy. It was not that he was unkind to her .This happened while I was little, may be eight or nine years old. The conversation took place between my maternal grandfather and my mother. Or was it a monologue from him? He was a domineering person as men were more autocratic those days. He did not meet eye to eye with my father and they had mutual dislike. It was some matter that troubled my mother and I saw her weep. She was being admonished by her father (my grandfather) for putting up with my father. He wanted her to separate from him and proclaimed that he had the obligation and the resources to take care of her and her two children. She was not angry with her father for what he wanted her to dare. He in fact understood that of all his six children, it was she who would be with him and not for his wealth. And she was a portrait of decorum even in the most distressful times of her life. We in jest say she is the eponym for tolerance. But she has never forsaken self respect.

She was quite a terror to me sometimes. I now guess that it was more out of her frustrations that she was annoyed with me than my provoking her anger.

The respect that came forth for her from all because of her demenour was conspicuously apparent to me when elder members of the acquaintances, friends and relatives we have one after the other reminded me of not to hurt her by word or deed. This was when they were told that I was to marry a girl from a catholic Christian background. There was this friend and school mate of her who did not mince words in reprimanding me and reminding me about my decision and that in no way must hurt her. And it has not , I’m fortunate!

Genteel as genteel can be,!

Wisecrack

2011-10-08T21:50:00.000+05:30

A friend feels that perhaps what he sees as my intemperate reactions these days is because of my state of mind. Coming from a good friend the comment cannot be dismissed as insensible or not true and I indulged in self analysis and introspection. Though he was the only fellow to make this fantastic judgment! But I had to be discreet; tread with care, not to be biased about myself if I might suddenly notice my not so exemplary quality as he sniffed. I must be cautious that I do not go forward with the sole aim of rubbishing his/her observation. I must be sure to be diacritical.

It is a funny game this social living. I’m certain primates too may be having all the advantages and difficulties of gregarious living. It is funny when we sit back and rewind, sensitive indeed is this art of “communicating”. Unlike what Bindu mentioned in her comment in her Blog post, it is just not in business matters alone that communication can be important. Even in mundane affairs, among spouses, parent and children, between friends, with acquaintances, the stranger on the road-with everybody it matters. A pause or a comma, a colon or silence, all might be construed as meaning something different than intended and diametrically opposite too.

Once a person opined that if someone calls you ‘monkey’, wisely there should not be any recrimination or reaction even. He said such name calling would not make one so. It certainly will should one react angrily at such an act.

Yes indeed, the mental plight plays a great deal in affairs of a person and the way he conducts himself. Am I petulant? Do I throw my peevishness, my stress, my disturbed mental or physical state upon an unassuming person?

Yes I have done so. I have picked up quarrel and raised voices with frustration than anger, well that was mostly with C. In the office I have sometimes got quickly provoked at the slightest pitfall in a person. I have thrown files back at the person. These were, call it temperamental reactions to certain event or person over whom I could not exercise control .I guess this most of us do. We pick up some one manoeuvrable to vent our pent up helplessness. And often that will be our spouse.

It was long ago may be in the early years of our married life, I picked up few din with C. Reason I really do not remember. But I suppose that the villain of the piece must have been me. One was a verbal confrontation of sorts and I guess I was quite pissed out with C’s callous attitude at my excitement that out of annoyance I picked up the decoction of coffee and poured on her head. She looked the victim of a prankster on holi. Yet another time we were arguing on something and again I was annoyed at her retorts or indifference that I threw the plate of omelets to the far corner of the room. It rang through immediately all over my nerves that I did something horrendous with food. I remember aplogising to her, picked up the platter and ate in remorse over my action. Sulk, I did!

Have I abused someone because of my failures or mental state? Certainly no. In fact throwing the anguish of one’s meekness at home, error of judgments and repercussions in professional or personal matters on someone has not been my conspicuous attribute. There are many who do that and are an incorrigible lot.

What transpires in my mind of my travails in life has been my sole companion as my shadow itself. And I do not think that even C or the children have thought of leaning over to see what goes through in my mind. More often it has been a lonely haul in abasement, except that, there were a few close ones who spied out in anguish that devastation shows out. This has been the matter in affairs thick and thin.

Then how the hell is this fascinating discovery that my words and deeds reflect my travails and perils? It is easy to be in judgment, I suppose. And it will be wise to not react when one is called a primate or an ass for example, because if one is sure, it is silly to retort on something that is silly and untrue .Let the Troubadour sing in praise of what I’m not.