Cast Away

I watched a movie yesterday and it had a very sensitive subject-a mother’s passion and affection for her child. And how she could keep alive hope against dead ends and patiently waited for her child who was lost from home reunited with her. A poignant wait and only mothers would do. The loss, only mothers may feel more than the father. It reminded me of a real life story and I wondered….!.

I was introduced to this fair, tall handsome guy with round bratty eyes by a good friend. They were mates from their school days. And my friend being a person of intense emotions, feelings and conscientious too, I gathered that this guy too must be of the kind. Else do birds of the same feather flock together? That was way back, some years ago. I also remember meeting him a few more times once at my friend’s house and we even had some light hearted banter over drinks. My friend being keen in enjoying the art form of kathakali and a connoisseur of sorts of the dance drama, he used to hunt his way to the nether world to watch a performance. This guy, his buddy was the member of the once Royal clan from central Kerala and was also naturally a fan of this art form. And often they have both motor biked distance to enjoy the late night enactments in remote temples and villages. These guys had something in common and hit off well. It turned out in later years, perhaps there to end the similarity between the two. It was often that I have heard him, my friend, speak with great warmth and fondness about this chap. And though life took them distance apart, they were in communication and also used to meet.

From the few occasions I have had been with this guy, I did found him gregarious and fun loving. He was just like any of us in our youth, impetuous, and overwhelming confidence.

Years later, I heard from my friend that this guy married a city educated, sophisticated lass and settled in Bangalore.

I continued to hear stories 

occasionally, about this fellow from my friend. The last, I heard from him was that the guy had become an incorrigible alcoholic and self-condescending person. He was a recluse and thriving on self-pity and had lost all respectability of self. He lost his job and was now refuge in a boarding quarter in the old Royal household in a town off Cochin. 

The twist is from elsewhere. He had a great marriage and life thereafter, until his first child was born- a girl. She was born blind! He was devastated and naturally so. He used to seek his friend for solace and as a means to dispose his agony and trauma. What succor can one lend, but to advise courage and fortitude? Appalling stories continued. The poor fellow was almost over the precipice when he confided to my friend that his wife disliked the child and did not have any mind to tender it. She despised the child very much and wanted to give it away to someone. And that unperturbed by his miserable appeals and pleadings she stayed adamant and could agree to nothing but abandon the child. He finally could arrange child adoption through some NGO.  Though, fortunately the child was adopted by a wealthy couple from Germany. We wondered how a woman- a mother could gather does this!

Consequently, he moaned that his relationship with his wife was distanced and fast sliding into terminal point. He wailed that she despised him too, that he was undesirable and an infliction in his own house. He lost the will to work and had terrifying night mares that haunted him. He was always under the influence of alcohol. My friend was understanding and supportive, trying to wean him away from self-destruction.

The final blow was ironically to the poor fellow, my friend. After this man left Bangalore and found refuge in Cochin, he happened to meet him and also could speak to his wife. It was then she revealed that it was her husband who despised the child and did not want to keep the little one. And rubbishing her anguish and utterly terrified state arranged for the adoption and consigned the child to the German couple – her foster parents. All the subsequent affairs and his condition are the natural and direct offshoot of the guilt that began to plough and monstrously haunt him since. Later when confronted with the sordid facts, he confessed to my friend that he was responsible for the wretchedness in which he finds himself. And that the guilt was tearing away at his soul.

I wonder if he will ever have reprieve from guilt, it will gnaw away at him till he ceases to breathe.

The Naked Ape

Desmond Morris kept an interesting outlook, as an anthropologist who studied animal behaviour, later to discover fascinating similarities in the species that consider it elite- Homo sapiens. But this short story nudged me to wonder if Desmond Morris found hideous and wicked amongst animals. The nearest, I understand from animal watchers is that some species of primates like Chimps and Orangutans carry nefarious traits common in man. No wonder they are our not too distant cousins!

And here is the narration that,when read  made me wonder about beasts and ask myself can it be helped if one becomes a misanthropist.

“I was not comfortable with the estrangement that crept in amongst them. And felt that there was nothing wrong in engineering a rapprochement and it may be a good thing to happen. Turning around the sour relationship would make the air pleasant and well-off. To me it seemed a sensible thought and especially so when the subjects of the story were siblings. She being my spouse, I was privy to her untold emotions. But she was adept in keeping matters of disaffection away from visibility. And, at the same time I could also sense the choke point in her when disaffection from quarters she considered her own anguished her with such intensity previously unknown. I was dismayed and surprised at the pathetic behavior meted out to her. I felt perhaps it was deign to even consider a rapprochement or an offer of redress. It negates the very essence, the spirit of what is rapprochement. Rapprochement alleviates unpleasantness that visit because of matters that were committed but later repented. I wondered if insolence, disdain and haughtiness may be considered such, more when there seems to be no apparent keenness in shelving those traits.

But I felt, fleeting and fickle that life is, why harbour ill will and bear grudge. More so when it is amongst ones close and near, by blood and birth and even friends who bear a place in our bosom? So I decided to let the frost thaw when the woman phoned me to ask if she would go with us for the weekend. I saw an opportunity to bring back the old days, when it was bonhomie with lot of apparent affection thrown in their midst. It would help to assuage hurt feelings if she and the woman are traveling together in the car over the fair distance we planned that weekend. Unpleasantness and hurt emotions may make way when you are in physical proximity and in easy surrounds.

Later in the evening that weekend Friday, after we checked in at the resort, we met at the Club house of the Hotel, atop the hill overlooking the valley - the glinting town far below. It was a perfect retreat and entrapment with the starry sky above and glittering reflections of the town far below- lending a heavenly state of ambience. The haunting smoothness of the Hindustani on the stereo relaxed every sinew and nerves from head to toe. Looking around at the full house, I felt it was fortunate to have had the late realisation that afternoon and called the hotel to reserve seats at the club house. The atmosphere lend by the serenity besides the soothing effect lend by the visuals outside the glass paned windows and the euphony inside was only gently jostled by the intermittent clanking of the cutlery. Conversations were soft enough in hushed murmurs.

She and the woman were seated across me at the far side of the table. I did not interrupt and let them continue with their conversations and restrained banter. She was quite lively through the journey and seemed to have revived the lost times of old. She chose to sit in the rear passenger area of the car, as often the woman while she travelled with us complaints sickness if seated in the rear and would choose to seat in the passenger seat in front with me at the wheel. And, almost through the drive until she fell back in her seat asleep, she was leaning forward between me and the woman and indulging in animated chatter. Now, seated next to the woman, her visage was sprightly like old times. I felt that it will be appropriate to convey to the woman, the guarded thoughts and feelings that seethed in me. She must not take my spouse for a naiveté, a nitwit, one without emotions or feelings and must accept that she has a heart that can offer unrequited love and affection, but which throbs in deafening silence when trampled and shunned. I began by telling the woman that emotionally she has been alienated away from them. And these days were nothing but torment to her. It was often, that at night she rolled about in bed unable to sleep or walked about outside on the lawn quite disquiet. For she had much love for them, while their lack of concern and empathy coupled with their distancing from her was too disconcerting. And, also I told her that their attitude and conduct were to quote, “the unkindest cut of all” and which even brought her to bear the macabre idea of ending it all.  However it was good that she could today get to efface her anguish. The woman listened to me with expression of much understanding and occasionally looked at her sister in askance and astonishment, conveying the message that it was all her silly mind and was much ado about nothing. She maintained a condescending tone and even rebukes. 

While the desserts were being served, I excused and went to the lavatory and also to steal the comfort of a quick cigarette in the coolness of the mountain air outside.

We left the place on the evening of the second day and I was satisfied that the short but good time in the much pleasant climes of the hills was doing good to her after all those days  of melancholia and anguish.

It was about a month after, when I was back from a tour that she mentioned it over breakfast. She asked me if I would recall the night at the resort when for a short few minutes I was away from her and the woman while the desserts were being served. I said I did. She then suggested that the woman, her sister, may have had different agenda. I looked up at her in askance. She told me that the woman chose the moment I was away to suggest to her that she be careful about my ways and that I may be having an amorous relationship with another woman. I agape, asked her why the woman had to concoct such a vicious story and how that mattered in the context we discussed. And it then dawned on us- the smiles, the hugs, the sweet nothings and even the occasional jerks of tear were all artful deceit of the woman. She would want to have strife amongst us and what else could achieve that better than a journey seeking reconciliation with us and then a malicious story with lecherous undertones subtly planted in our midst? A potent keg of gunpowder! ”

Saturn

I write this from a very personal angle. A subject that is touched upon because of my sceptical demeanour. And I cannot for the love of God accept the matter per se as it doesn’t fit into any inference that I can reach based on thought and reason. I cannot yield to the lure of the mysterious and the unknown and content as inviolable fact. Or for that matter the promise of paradise in after life. For, I do not want a blank and postdated cheque. And I say this without offense and wish people who disagree on the points here in do not take this as a brusque.

I have been having a torrid time since the past two odd years. Though not personally, professionally it has been an abysmal free fall into a grotesque black hole, with ramifications on ones psyche and personal fortunes. One can call it design, destiny, miscalculations or sheer bad luck. 

When the subject must be attributed to design and or destiny, the responsibility of the protagonist is absolved. For, then, when matters of life on earth are designed, dispensed by someone what could a victim do other than be victimised? Then, one is just a marionette. If it is to be attributed to one’s personal incompetence , error coupled or by sudden twist in events  different from planned - call it vicissitudes, then the blame can be put at the door of the person or be apportioned between the hands that destine and the unfortunate victim.

So when things are going wrong, the earthlings seek the assistance of a learned person who calculates the positions and movements of the members of the stellar system, what and where the planetary cast was when one was born. This is said to determine the reasons for why it was, why it is and what now and after.

I got a phone call from my cousin sister yesterday and she called me after an appointment with a quite old and revered distant relative who has much expertise in astrology. He read and studied my horoscope and explained to her his findings and the panacea to alleviate the effect of the ills set forth by the stellar conjunctions. She was wary of my reaction though she reeled out the findings, reasons and advice. The gentleman told her I’m eclipsed by the influence of Saturn and there may be slight remissions from the following month. Though the celestial object will not let me off the vice grip till 2016. He attributed the past disasters to the eclipse by Saturn which has its portentous shadow over me. The advices and suggestions were, to be restrained in spending and have much care in physical health (which he alleged, I do not care now). He threw a window open when he said there are possibilities of lost fortunes being retrieved. And finally, a limited redressal can be brought about by propitiating one among the holy trinity.

I just leaned back after the telecom and reflected upon the information what she passed on to me. I thought of Saturn, the splendid planet which is almost a hundred times massive than the earth, with sixty moons and nine fabulous ring of ice; Saturn, a distant stellar occupant some 1.67 billion kilometers away; a planet of gas and ice geysers and with density that is so low that the gravity is only about 90 percent of the earth. And, that gives me a room for comfort. Certainly the gravitational exertion Saturn can have on my fate, destiny or even  at the time I was born must be infinitesimally small as it has to travel 1.67 billion kilometers. Perhaps my mother or even the obstetrician’s gravity may have had more influence on me!

I could not reason to agree with the important findings conveyed over phone. As for the advice of practicing thrift, I have not been flamboyant or extravagant literally speaking; the indifference to health is a wrong notion, though I have been as always indulging in the pleasures of alcohol, an occasional smoke or a fabulous meal. And, there is no guarantee that nemesis may not stay away if life is insipidly puritanical. When one is agnostic since the age of seventeen and still unable to see anything remotely satisfying the existence or otherwise of an anthropomorphic big brother it is difficult to heed the last advice too. To accept the existence of a sapient super natural figure to whom I can fall upon and for him to show mercy, seems quite ludicrous. Because, what would make me the chosen one? To even think distantly so will be grossly impudent.

 I cannot see any reason to accept the fondness of human beings to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values. If the spectacular planet Saturn is playing dice upon my life and destiny, it certainly will have to be doing so, on the lives of many other living things, beasts as well.