MEN-OH-PAUSE

A couple of years ago I, my friends and most of the acquaintances of my generation touched the fifty yard mark. And thence dawned the enlightenment that the days ahead will certainly be a bonus. But when I reflect, the fact is that life is too fickle and the succeding second in time is in itself bonus. But it took damn fifty years to realise that! “Ha, foolishly lays the head on the shoulders of Man!”

I disliked being reminded of the knell of fifty. Forty was an interesting dawn as, “at forty one turns naughty”. But my sister and C too, wanted a small luncheon or dinner for the occasion and some of my close chums who were in Thpuram at that time assembled at my sister’s home.

It felt awkward to play VIP and blow the candles out and then slice the cake. An Anglican hangover conveniently imbibed by us! An amusing anecdote one of my friend Tomy narrated on the occasion that aided in casting away the timorousness of the birthday cake affair was his summing up of the birthday bash that a class mate of ours threw at a star hotel, when he turned fifty  a few weeks prior to my birthday. He said in his customary humour,”Hey that fella P celebrated his menopause party the other day . 

Besides the jest, the statement was a reality jolt. The identical syndrome that haunts women when they near fifty or get into the fifties! Though men have not any reason to fret and be subdued by mood swings of the threat of menopause and the psychological  fear of losing the uniqueness of women hood ,"fertility”. And physiologically men are fabricated to have a very long innings when it comes to matters of arousal and amorous life... But the fact remains that at least for some like me, the reality check has begun.

This is not just about sexual life that gives much thought. But it is the subsumed fact that lies, Vis a Vis the greying of hair and whiskers, the deposit of fat around the mid riff, the increasingly somatic existence and the enlightenment that the downhill ride has begun. While holding in gratitude the fortune many like me who could live so long with insouciant countenance, solemn thoughts for the many that perished before they could bloom and in the pinnacle of their salubrious lives!

This seems to be the age and time when I feel more like the odd man out in a group which is more in their early forties or even thirties. I’m sure some may dispute this. It also could be so. And it again must be the mind that plays the poker. The Kafkaesque age in one’s life! Strong and brave are the ones who tread forward with nonchalance. Why not?

I have a very good friend, who is my age and who we all see leads a life of quiet and unhurried. The slightly receding hair line garnished with salt and pepper, a sporty beard- and he refuses to think that he is an Uncle Tom. He believes and lives that he still draws the awe, the glances of the young and the middle aged of the fairer sex. This alone is not the end game that is all about. But it is the measured and calculated steps that he puts forth in life, that perhaps make him some what a lovable odd one out.

Now, I also recollect an oxymoron like remark someone made to me.And he certainly was not an M.C.P and   harboured no derogatory feel to the opposite sex either.He said, “It is disheartening to fly Kingfisher and Jet, because the stewardesses may want to use the salutation, ‘Uncle’, while in the discomfort of an Air India flight, one can call the stewardess, Aunt.” 

He was expressing the anguish that the elixir to sustain youth in life is still a myth.

Little Red Ridding Hood

“Little Red Riding Hood”- the fable was in my English Reader in Standard II. Pictures in colour of the little girl in the forest , picking up wild flowers and in great spirits, en-route to  her grandmother who lived in a cottage in a clearing deep in the forest still is etched in memory. And then the cunning wolf dressed up in her grandmother’s clothes and cuddled up in bed!

Cinderella, in the carriage drawn by  white horses on her way to Prince’s Ball; the little Snow White and her dwarfs. Alice and her fascinating encounter with the Rabbit and other creatures was in the Radiant Reader in, I guess Standard Three. There was the story of Peggy in her red satin frock in another lesson, which pictured a model family living in the English country side. Then, of course the Sleeping Beauty and King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but certainly not to forget the outlawed hero Robin Hood.

 Well, being put in an English medium convent, I was as a little boy more in sync with these characters and allegories such as their stories. Those stories drew and crafted an image and concept that proved to be enduring and inerasable. I guess that will be one among the few good things in me.

I was a sort of a loner in childhood - belligerent, delinquent and a rebel through adolescence and teen. Being eldest of two children and my sibling being a girl a few years younger to me, there was a lot of closeness that one felt to a sister who shared the same womb. I can recall that the protagonist and central characters in all those fables I mentioned was consciously and subconsciously identified to the only person I was to be with, at home, en-route to school, during recess and all the while, my sister. The wicked wolf was identified with the most disliked person, I then presumed and hence a threat to my sister. The villainous queen and Cinderella’s step mother to any woman who was as I felt rude to my sister. I wondered what would happen if she were to fall down through into a hole like poor Alice. It happened that she had a deep red frock, which she wore on certain days and I was proud that she could be identified with the pretty little Peggy. Mother once mentioned I becoming uncontrollably agitated and wanted to smack the nurse who inflicted a hypodermic injection on the little girl and she wailed.

Often in later life in my adolescence and teens, I became quite a loner, because I felt that a brother in place of a sister would be more of fun and jubilation. As she grew into her teens the distance came about in communication and I now feel was natural that a girl was bound then by a limitation of being a girl. That applied to the relationship with, be it the father or big brother. She moved closer to our mother and two women are definitely a bigger force than one!

But I introspect much of the bond that stayed within me, as it was seldom exposed. More because, I guess was due to the conventions and social behaviors then, that one seldom exhibited any visible and excited affection to a woman, be it your sibling or mother. And the same applies now and continues to this day.

Looking back a few years, I compare with my two children and their exasperating fights and complaints of bullying by the other. Often it was the girl who is younger who cried wolf and alleged offence from the brother. And indeed he used to peck her beyond once patience. But what I noticed, in his angry facial expressions and seemingly violent act of hurting her was that the act was only an act. When he seemingly held her wrist and twisted, forcing a shrill outcry from her in pain, it was obvious that he was only feigning and had not hurt her even a whisker. The drama was hers and she deemed to be her prerogative.

That was in their childhood. When they matured into teens, I find the bond and affection manifest and strong as I hoped it would be. I feel till now, content that they imbibed in their body chemistry what I feel is inviolable necessity- affection and love for ones sibling. I tell them often that relationships that might come into their lives in the years ahead may dissuade them from being solace, succor and encouragement in life for the other. But, they ought to ensure that the subject matter is not negotiable, because if they must claim to be a life form greater in sum to beast, then they have to be different from beast. And a rightful and conscientious man or woman who comes into their lives will not trade for that.

The ironical fact and the incongruity that I notice around is that, it is more often a lopsided matter as it often is in real life.

Ecstasy & Agony

“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 wealth, 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, an ordinary and a commoner, such discourse- from a treatise seen as sacred 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 by the loss of a person or a thing we loved and cherished? The beasts move on after the anguish the moment of divestment, loss or dispossession  bring and there is no definite proof to tell that they are for life tormented by the deprivation or loss. 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 cherished?