Country Cousin

Little more than a year ago, ‘face book’ helped a friend who was long lost in the wild to send me a sms on my mobile. It was a pleasant surprise! And I immediately responded with a call. We spoke for well quite a while and then she spoke as much to C too. And, as I felt all the while, whenever she fleeted through my memory, that she must be a divorced mother, she told me that was the case. I was waiting for her to tell me rather than I ask if she was still carrying the suffix , and she said, “Anil, I chucked the fellow out”. I told her I presumed so.

 She had impetuously acceded to the proposal of a effete fellow who was the branch manager of the office she worked. After knowing her, I and C , besides some other friends too, felt that , that was going to be an awfully wrong decision that she made. The fellow was not the right kind of a man for a girl like her. We did try to dissuade her, but she jumped the line unilaterally. She told us of her marriage only when that was done with.

And now, she was living in Bangalore with her two sons and parents. I promised to meet her while I travelled on work to Bangalore, but somehow I did not ring her up despite being there often.  Though phone calls were common after that, somehow and after my turbulent transplantation from the place I lived and worked for twenty plus years, I ceased to have the mood to call her and be in touch. I see her often on my Facebook wall, but seldom reciprocated, why, I do not know.

There was an interesting twist to how we befriended and how we exchanged visits (I , C ∧ kids),she to our home and us to her lovely ancestral house in a remote country side in Palghat.

It must be about ten fifteen years ago. I got a telephone call to my office. The voice, a woman’s with good accented English at the other end. She introduced herself that she was calling from an International courier company and would request a meeting to see if it was possible to begin business with my firm. I do not remember if I agreed, but she promised to send a sales executive from her office for discussion. She called me a second time to thank for the meeting and the contract. She used to call often enquiring if there was any courier pick-up from my office. She sounded interesting and her language and sense was impressive. She in fact thought all the while that I was someone from north of India. She was, I felt, a bit excited when I told her that I was from Kerala and now settled in that part of Tamilnad. She exclaimed,”Oh gosh, so you are my country cousin that is wonderful”.

We used to in some manner call either almost every day. She invited me home to her parents place, and in fact I happened to meet her once in her office. I told C about this interesting person with good conversing ability and sweet husky voice. Whenever she called, I used to direct rather mischievously, the conversation into fields that was interesting. I felt that she was in a way excited about talking to me and I could feel her keenness to know if I was espoused. On few occasions she told me that she had called the office while I was out and the call was directed to a lady. I was impish in my reaction! One day she said, “I called your office and happened to speak to the lady there, by any chance is she your wife”? I was at the end of my tether withholding laughter (rather wickedly). I guess I managed to deviate the conversation, said neither yes nor no.

That evening, back home I told C about this interesting conversation and my ‘deft’ handling as I put it.

It was the day after or so, C got the call from the Courier’s and she let the “cat out” as I jocularly, but with a little disappointment, commented. The two of them spoke as usual as by then they were fairly at ease in conversing with one other. And C told her that she was not in the office when she called before, the other day and that I,( her husband )often tells her much about this girl from the Courier’s who speak beautifully.

Later, during some time when she called me, she said, "A, I spoke to your wife”. (!)

The Mogul Who Loved His Son More Than Him

Often we blame the industrial age and the cyber age for the ills in the social fabric and the values that we now have. While at the same time acknowledging the wonders and astonishing changes these revolutions have brought forth. Though our social behaviour  have a general disposition warranted by evolution, I believe that, culture along with the shackles of religion have an important hand in determining and controlling human behaviour, determining values and systems. Our feelings too!

The subject of Love was touched upon quite manifestly in the blog ‘B-Log’. Reactions have poured in plenty. This post intends to nudge upon the matter and not just love as was discussed then, but on a more micro level.

I have had ( in retrospect) the amusing  experiences of attending a couple of discourses ostensibly called ”Yoga sessions” and “Inner engineering course”, organised by two gentlemen in ocher robes. I was intoxicated very much during those few days I was at those sessions ,that, when I left the venue I felt wonderfully inebriated and I was virtually walking levitated. A few days after, when reality of life knocked me with its characteristic knock out hook,my behaviour and attitude went back to my old self. I used to say and acknowledged by C that,the immediate aftermath were the days I seldom nagged C or picked up a fight with her. I was floating in blissful spiritual hallucination. Here there was nothing to do with religion or faith.In fact the change for the brief few days was noticeable in me and C. I must categorically discourage any notion that we went to those two ‘vacations’ for transforming ourselves or to seek divine interventions in our affairs. We were cajoled by a couple of acquaintances and thence we undertook the fact finding missions.

So that tells a lot about the impact that  spiritual, religious and occult discourses that are dispensed at the many “divine abodes” and prayer congregations that have mushroomed all over, especially in that stretch of the national Highway from Trichur to Aluva.

If these centres of divine ordinance and dispensations were of any impact, society would have usurped what we are told that heaven is like. Love, compassion, understanding, unselfishness and the few other virtues would have eclipsed the many other vices that are corroding the fabric. There would not have been necessity for “old age homes” – a refuge where we banish people when they turn feeble, sick and old. There may not have been the real life picture of an old infirm mother in her nineties confined into the corner of a cow shed by her own sons and daughters. There may not have been avarice, greed and insensitivity, even amongst siblings and children of the same womb.

A fascinating anachronism has to be mentioned here, however trifle it may be to some. A respected elderly gentleman passed away a few months back. He is survived by his three children. The last many years of his life was spent with his youngest child. His children are all well educated and in respectable positions in life. It was after a couple of months after his passing away, that his youngest child noticed his bank balance of a few lakhs of Rupees. Instead of cornering the small fortune to her, which would not have surfaced anyway as nobody else had an idea of that, she divided the money into six equals and deposited into six accounts in the credit of the late gentleman’s six grand children and sent the deposit receipts to them. “A watershed in stupidity in the present day”!

No divine ordaining was required for the act I mentioned. It was ingrained in the gene. While learning history in the middle school, most of us may have been told about the unrequited love of the Mogul invader Babur for his son who was ailing and sinking .It is said that he spent an whole night by the sick son’s bed and prayed to his God .He pleaded and beseeched his god to relieve his child from the suffering and appropriate his life instead. The wish was granted, so the legend notes! This act of the Prussian monarch was espoused as selfless, laudable and heavenly. In simple terms a father bartering his life if that would save his child.

If a parent is told about his or her child’s illness, accident or misfortune there may not be parents who would not overcome everything in their way to be near the child. They may invoke all gods and offer themselves in every which way, if that can provide reprieve to the child. We call it selflessness; we call it love in pristine form. We may enact a “Babur”. By the same token how would Man react if it is the parents’ life that is on the block? Will Man, without batting an eyelid exercise the same love for his/her father or mother?

It may not be untruth to say that Man may not and that may be because Man see little of him in the parent, but see himself in his biological creation.

And we call it love- selfless!

An Evening

Self importance- the feeling of inflated pride and consequently the tormenting feel of hurt to his ego, it has happened to all of us at some point in life, but it happens to him often. Instances which dented his feeling of self importance! The reluctance to let go the consequent urge to fight back, to retaliate any which way he can. The social and other etiquette are flung away as his pride is hurt. He knows that the subject that is instrumental for the feeling is insignificant and of little importance, but his mind does not accept the little pin -prick to the ego. He hits back and makes a mountain of a trivial little mole hill. Matters then reach a stage of serious consequence. The situation threatens to explode out of his hand.

On another plain he knows that the other person was brash and offensive. And that he was directed by his 

vanity and imperious nature. He also knows that the other is strong, physically. And a brawl may be unsafe for him. But still he refuses to see the writing on the wall and retaliates. His pride is inflated and does not subside. The consequence bruised ego and bruises all over. What if he had let the other enjoy the momentary imperial satisfaction, what if we had ignored his impetuosity and turned away? The blind rage of the bull is always to the advantage of the toreador!

The fields were green with grass, there were crickets hopping around. In the setting sun the shallow brook nearby was sparkling gold. The horizon touching the hills was crimson as the sun slipped slowly beyond and below. On the field I stood, there were a few crows pecking at the buffalo droppings. The Mainas were pulling at an earth worm they managed to pick. The dragon flies were flying low and dancing a ballet. Further down the field a group of little boys were chattering away while playing football. The few water buffaloes in the stream came up and eyed the surroundings. I noticed one of them a brute of a fellow poke his horns on another, inviting a confrontation. The offended one turned around eyed the brute as if telling what and how he felt about him. He did not charge back, he moved away from the brute. Apparently he must have seen that there is space around to be at peace and not engage in the war of pride. A physical confrontation was unlikely to be in his favour. The brute looked helplessly miffed for a moment and moved to another to vent his brawn. 

He has not known , he did not foresee that his match would arrive one day!