Rushdie,Krishnamurthy&The Incas

I was encompassed by ennui and lassitude the other day. And I tried to bring back the zest to read. There are quite a few buying of books that are untouched. And before I settled to stick to one I went through a couple other. The first one I browsed and read about thirty odd pages was the ‘Satanic Verses’ of Salman Ruhdie. I have never been a fan of his style of writing – what critics acclaim as “mystical magical realism etc etc ..”. It is true that he is immensely prolific with words and strange acrobatics in use of English language. But the reading of such a book in the state of boredom I was in was not encouraging to my state of mind. So I left the book marked at thirty plus page. The next one that came to my hand was a book, which I m certain will need a lot of patience and concentration to read.  For some it is a fad to claim having read him. And that they are bowled over in life, in words and deed by his writing and lectures.  I have read his "Commentaries on Living". And a few essays here and there. But regard his thoughts as something apart from the many nonsense we take as living and life.I glanced through the book of J. Krishnamurthy!

Interestingly a couple of question answer sections in the book proved to be live.

1-     What is prayer? In daily life, what is its importance?

Krishnamurthy replies, “I presume you really put that question in earnestness. Let us find out. Do not listen, but find out. Why do you pray and what is prayer? Most of your prayers are merely a petitioning, an asking. You indulge in this kind of prayer because you suffer, because you are alone, because you are depressed and in sorrow. You pray to God and ask for help; that is a petition, and that you call prayer. The content of prayer is generally the same although the intent behind it may vary. Prayer, with most people, is a petition, a begging, and asking. Are you doing that? Why are you praying? I am not saying you should or should not pray. But why do you pray? Is it for more knowledge, for more peace, for the world to be free from sorrow? Is there any other form of prayer than that? There is prayer which is really not a prayer but the sending out of good will, the sending out of love, and the sending out of ideas. Which is it you are doing”?
If your prayer is a supplication, a petition, then what happens? You are asking God or somebody to fill your empty bowl, are you not? You want that bowl to be filled according to your wishes. You are not satisfied with what happens, with what is given. So your prayer is merely a petition. It is a demand that you should be satisfied; therefore, your prayer is not prayer at all. You just want to be gratified, so you say to God, "I am suffering; please gratify me; please give me my brother, my son. Please make me rich." So, you are perpetuating your own demands. That is not prayer.
The real thing is to understand yourself, to see why you are asking, and not for what you are asking, to see why there is this demand in you, this urge to beg. Then you will find out that the more you know about yourself physically as well as psychologically - the more you know what you are thinking, what you are feeling - the more you will find out the truth of what is. It is that truth that will help you to be free and not beg.


2- Why does one feel the necessity of love?
Krishnamurthy- “You mean why do we have to have love? Why should there be love? Can we do without it? What would happen if you did not have this so-called love? If your parents began to think out why they love you, you might not be here. They might throw you out. They think they love you; therefore, they want to protect you, they want to see you educated; they feel that they must give you every opportunity to be something. This feeling of protection, this feeling of wanting you to be educated, this feeling that you belong to them is what they generally call love. Without it, what would happen? What would happen if your parents did not love you? You would be neglected, you would be something inconvenient, you would be pushed out, and they would hate you. So, fortunately, there is this feeling of love, perhaps clouded, perhaps besmirched and ugly, but there is still that feeling, fortunately for you and me; otherwise, you and I would not have been educated, would not exist”.

Did these passages show me the way out of ennui? Well interestingly it provoked thinking and that helped forget the stress and boredom for a time. And also I moved on to another book on “The Lost city of the Incas”.

Eulogy

Happiness and contentment are complimentary. What is happy and content for one need not be so for the other. Happiness and contentment is related to what we perceive as the state of physical and mental existence where and when we are not afraid of leaving the world and passing into history- death.

Yet not many leave the world in the sate I mentioned. Many fret and go with remorse, dissatisfaction and discontentment. For many it is the surfeit of want that predominate need which creates an unhappy and helpless end. Though our physical state is not entirely within our grasp and likeness while we are in the twilight days of our life, yet there is something that we recollect and see as the life we lived, and the moments we had which we never dreamt will be for us, to experience and relish- that gives the courage to depart in peace.

I write this as a brief eulogy to a person, a relative of mine. He was an unassuming person and with small beginnings and end. He, I felt during some twenty odd years of knowing him, was very soft spoken and unobtrusive that he may not have pained another soul, human or animal. He had his own share of penury, and hard times. Bringing up his three children with a subsistence level of income is not a wonderful experience to relish. But whenever I have been to him he has always uttered little jokes that would tickle smile and laugh from within me. One amusing comment of his has to be noted here to remember his tongue in cheek wit. He noticed some minor irritant between his son and daughter in law (son’s wife).He consoled his son with his facetious comment that, “Well we both made terrible mistakes. We both married from Kozhikode”!!!!! When the banter was in Malayalam the tone and essence was immensely amusing. (I m sure he meant no ill to the fairer gender from Kozhikode).

It was quite an amusement when I received on my "facebook" a friend request from him.I responded in the affirmative, and when I met him later I joked to him ,'uncle at last we are now friends'. In his later days he was an ardent social net worker on facebook. His nieces and nephews where his net working mates.He found subtle and effective ( I guess effective) ways to overcome his illness.

He was not false, fake and intrigue or connivance was not his world. Perhaps he was not ambitious enough to run after wealth and power. May be his chemistry was not meant for the scramble for such life. And since he was not so I guess he died peacefully in his sleep.

I have been well treated and kept in good humor by him whenever I was at his home. He used to bring out his quota of military supply of Rum to share with me. And crack subtle anecdotes and jokes. During his later part in life after affliction of cancer and slow but unsteady recuperation his children used to wag their fingers when he tried to drink a second glass of alcohol.

I met him at his daughter’s home, just a fortnight or so before he passed away. He was back from a weeklong trip to Goa, where his daughters took him for a family sojourn and fun time. That night, before dinner, I chose to be the bartender and offered him three drinks. When he mentioned the diktat of his children of limiting alcohol to one drink, I suggested, just ignore them and enjoy! Later he came to me, presumably in pleasure after the few drinks and said, “I had a wonderful time in Goa. And I have not ever dreamt or thought that I will be able to visit such places, and I'm very happy that my children took me there.I have no words to express my happiness. I will hold close to my heart the days I spend there with them”.

He died a few days after. And I m certain the little things that he found happiness like the short trip to Goa with his children is perhaps what would have seen him depart with a content heart. Perhaps his soul must be still reliving a life in Goa!

He, I feel showed that, one need not climb the pinnacle of power and wealth, need not cruise on the QE-II, race across Europe in a Porsche, and need not run around temples and churches ostentatiously proclaiming ones piety and sacrifice for the rest, but only have the heart and the mind to savor the little things that come ones way, and not hurt the ones who love you and leave the rest unhurt.. And I guess he did so.

Twenty Euros

Twenty Euros

One of the notable landmarks and locations in Amsterdam is the Dam square. The imposing gothic constructions adorn all sides, modern department stores, hotels, and pubs are scattered around. The summer palace of the Royalty cannot be missed! The Square is always thronged with tourists and the Dutch who always fancies outdoors on a sunny day. Pigeons have virtually taken over the middle of the square and the imposing old buildings around. Jugglers, ventriloquists, makeup-artists in various costumes, street performers, tramcars, and exotic horse carriages resembling the ancient especially add to the romantic air. The square itself overlooks the central Railway station just about a kilometer ahead. The Dam square bustles with life in the height of a summer day and cold rainy days. The fickle Amsterdam weather can one moment by warm and bright in the radiant sun and the next moment dreary cold and drizzling.

Further behind, once you enter the ubiquitous alleys by the side of those huge buildings, there is the famous tourist attraction- ‘the glasshouses’ and the nightclubs. The coffee shops frequented more for Marijuana and other light drugs that are legal in Holland are also about there. You can smell more of burning “grass’, than the cappuccino or the Columbian, burnt coffee. It is one of the liveliest of all foreign destinations. Not to forget the countryside which is simply laid back and exquisite

I described a bit of the square and its periphery to tell a very amusing and comical story, a joke that went practical. And when the person who was the center of the whole story told me, we laughed our guts out sitting in one of the pubs there in the Dam square. He was a Dutch gentleman in his late fifties and represented one of the garment brands in Amsterdam. He worked in Amsterdam but lived in a town called Breda some two hundred km by car from Amsterdam city. A summer weekend he and his wife drove down to Amsterdam and decided to hang around Dam square and the nearby wharf. They spent the good part of the day moving around, having occasional coffee, beer and popcorns. By late afternoon the gentleman was having rigid legs and he longed for the comfort of a pub or to park his arse somewhere. His wife was keen to do some shopping at the nearby  Bijenkorf department store. He was quite at odds with walking around supermarkets and department stores. So he told his wife that he will sit by the fountain ledge in the square feeding the pigeons while she shops at the store. Our hero sat by the fountain in the square. Sometime soon an escort girl came up to him and began to prospect. She told him that she can spend the day with him for one hundred Euros. Obviously, the girl took him for a tourist. Our gentleman friend, who by nature was a wisecracker, tried to play something funny and told her that one hundred Euros was too much for her and he can offer twenty Euros. The girl huffed and puffed before she went away in anger.

Sometime later our friend’s wife returned after her shopping and they began to walk back to the car park. And some way down the walkway they ran into the same escort girl. She came up to our hero and told him close in the face, pointing at his wife by his side, “this is what you will get for twenty Euros”.

Our middle-aged friend thence decided to be careful before he pulls a practical joke on someone.