Lady Macbeth

These days with the proliferation of media in the form of television and print, news are not reported or analysed. The veracity and truthfulness is not looked into. And news is created, sensationalised and reported. The result, we have no way of judging or concluding what is news ipso facto and what is nonsense and imagination  purveyed as news. This is where news is paid for. Paid news as we all can see is false hood, and untruth packaged as genuine and thrust upon the gullible public. The discerning still sieves through and throws the rubbish into the trash. Whereas the big majority are fooled in no uncertain terms, for which in fact we ourselves are to be blamed. The reason for this state is the general public is hungry and craving for sensation and sleaze. We see and get what we look for!

With reference to this state of our news media, a fascinating incident was mentioned by a person. This is nothing to do with politics, corruption by politicians and men holding public offices. But it tells the sordid saga and innuendos inside a business house and comical too. The end is risible to a great extent. You could laugh your guts out!

We have heard well about the feuding inside conglomerates like Reliance and manipulations in Satyam. We have seen dirty family linen washed in public when the internecine dislike of Mrs Indira Gandhi for her youngest daughter in law came out to the fore.

The amusing story told to me goes like this. Lady Macbeth (euphemism is true to the character), is the member of a business house by wedlock. True to the characteristics attributed to daughters in law she ,(in this case in cahoots with her spouse) plants a paid news in a not very obscure vernacular daily, with the intent to usurp  other members and founding people of the business unit. The write up with a surly photograph of herself eulogised her from beginning to end. Though she came from fringe back grounds and was eking out living consigned to some nondescript job in Government, the article impressed without gumption her courage in jettisoning the cosiness and comfort of a lucrative, respectable and safe job to confront the vagaries and uncertainties of business life. It went on to laud her far sightedness and vision, entrepreneurial acumen, and hard smart work that turned an enterprise of low beginnings into a behemoth it is now. The irony I m told is that people who mattered in the evolution and sustenance of the enterprise were not mentioned even in passing. The gratitude and acknowledgement that they deserved was not accounted in any remote way. It was a petty and cruel joke with deeper insidious dimension.And in fact she was a dispensable and non contributing factor to the success of the enterprise.

She would have  like Lady Macbeth called upon the evil spirits "stop up th' access and passage to remorse in order to be relentless".

As expected the paid matter got a fair coverage and where it did not reach she ensured that the clipping was circulated. And then came the somersault- the denial and expression of surprise and squarely blaming the reporter for misrepresenting and contriving. The purpose of the paid news was done. She could send the message across as to who the boss is. It was a successful coup-de-tat after all! There were no ripples, but smooth slide into control of all she surveys. There where mocking and hushed jokes on the news and the woman, in the corridors of the enterprise. People who have known her and her self where amused and where cautiously derisive.

Every place of power has a retinue of self-seekers. And she has quite a crowd of such. And they were nurtured and sycophancy well preserved.

The final shot was from poetic justice, and people in jest said that, they now believe in the heavenly power. And it happened after a few days of the paid news coming out. Lady Macbeth, our  heroine set off on a foreign jaunt.  She was given a conspicuous farewell and bon voyage by her palanquin bearers.

She was slated to fly out of the country from Chennai. And with great pomp and air of having arrogated she walked to the emigration counter. Where the sky fell shattering on her virtually! She was stopped by the officers and turned back as she did not have a valid travel VISA. The derisive talk of the town is the queen who longed to be the queen did not know the basics. It is now widely presumed that she has gone into incognito, and may not resurface until her predetermined date of coming back from her foreign tour, and that she may need a while to nurse her bruised ego back to its former state.

It is also supposed that the people who felt grievously ignored and hurt by her are drinking wine in private to toast the fall.

Curse of the Serpents

I have known revulsion, abhorrence, plain fear and awe when I watch on National Geographic and other TV channels, men like Steve Irwin , Romulus Whitaker and Austin Stevens  handle and fondle serpents as  toddlers  would do to   toys. The thought of the very prospect of seeing them live naturally would send shivers up my spine and my heart palpitate. I see them often at night by the head light of my car when I drive back home. Wriggling fast across the road (the drive from where I work to my house is through a lonely stretch of road with undergrowth on either side).I often see them run over and lying mutilated on the road. Even the sight of their mauled and mangled sinews life less on the road would send shivers though I m well cocooned in my car. One late evening coming back home I stopped the car and opened the gate. I bend down to pull of the latch and I virtually froze as there down a few inches from my outstretched palm was a colourful coil, moving slowly when disturbed by the light of the car and the movement of the gate. It was a Russell ’s viper, common around the place I live. I stood frozen in fear and for it to move away .And it took a while, as  Vipers are tortoise like when it comes to moving about, though they being ambush predators  strike very swiftly.

I can vividly recollect the utter repulsion I felt, nausea as well, after watching the movie ‘SSSssss snake’.

So is my fear of snakes, and determination to keep as far away from one if I notice one around, is unbound.

A couple of months ago I, C and R went to the Mannarasala temple after exhortation from a few people of piety. The abode of the Snake gods and goddesses! That was my first ever experience of the temple dedicated to serpents. Eerie was the feeling. My fear of snakes that developed from nascent days added to the eeriness. And I bore with me stories and legends of lore about the temple and its serpent gods that were spun for me by my grandmothers from the time I was little. I left the temple hoping that I invoked the serpent Gods to my well being.

A few days ago a friend who considers everything supernatural to be determining the odds for and against him sent to us a septuagenarian gentleman. I feel now that he was aptly named ‘Naga Sabapathy’ He visited the place we live and went around the house and the outside in a sort of deep observation. After a few minutes he sat down and began to talk. He made some statements from my personal history and also C’s. He spoke about a sacred grove near the place I lived when I was little. He asked if we ever killed a serpent (he referred to the Cobra) a few years ago at the place we now lived. We answered in the negative and told him we have not seen one yet around here. He then went on to say it could be somebody who must have done, but the damage of the act might touch us in many ways.We are afflicted by 'sarpa dosham'( curse of the serpents).

Ara was keenly watching him and the discussion. Later that evening when we were sitting together he had these few questions directed at me.

The gentleman was only referring and gesticulating about snakes with hood, is it that in his encyclopaedia of the genesis of serpents other species of snakes do not matter or doesn’t exist. It is well known that there are many other species of snakes that are more venomous and dangerous than the cobra. Then why is this consternation about the poor cobra alone?

And what reason is it that if someone, we are not aware of or known to us killed a serpent some time in the past and the malediction befall us?

I wonder if I must direct this incertitude to the gentleman if he returns.

Twinkle

It is very difficult to observe the twinkle in the eyes. The gleam is come and gone at fraction of a split second. Certainly there must have been instances when all of us have had the twinkle in the eyes. The twinkle is not in relation to euphoria,it dose not persist, but it is the subtle acknowledgement of satisfaction and happiness. And also soulful appreciation, of this, words cannot express. It does not stay as sparkle in the eye for minutes. The heart takes over the spark. And the eyes are as usual thereafter. It gleams in the eyes like the water bubble that surfaces for a brief second and then transforms into gentle waves that acknowledges the reason for the sparkle.

I once read an article of Nithya Chaithanya Yethi in the Kalakaumudhi . Therein he dwelled on the expression of affection. He says in the West expressions are physically dominant. It is kiss on the cheeks, on the lips, a warm and close hug etc etc. Be it to your mother, girlfriend, sister, wife or acquaintance! This he also acknowledges is frowned upon in India. We do not express animated love and affection with our limbs and facial contractions. Be it in public or private.. To emphasis the point he mentioned an instance where the deep love and affection for his sister and for her to him was conveyed through the twinkle in the eyes of their both. This was when he landed back in India after a long sojourn in foreign lands and his sister was at the airport to receive him. He said there was no hug, no pat, no hand shake no kisses. The subtle affection was in their eyes and each could notice it and be enlivened.

The other night Ara was going back to Chennai and it was about the time he was leaving the house. I was speaking to my friend Balan and told him that Ara was leaving. I called Ara and told him there was a phone call and asked him to speak. He was in hurry and expressively did not want to be on phone. He frowned and waved to me that he will take the call some other time. I told him it was Balan maman. And I saw for a moment the flash and sparkle in his eyes- “the twinkle” He ran up to me and took the phone.

(I cannot recall if I ever gleamed when my father’s friends wanted to speak to me).

Apart from all that it is amazing what a pair of eyes can convey and I wonder if there is any other organ that can spark and tell a thousand stories of happiness at a shot.