The Perils of Speaking

A few days ago a good friend called on my mobile and told me that he finished reading all the posts on my Blog- some 380 odd that I wrote from 2008. He said, my postings peaked in 2010 and 2011 and tapered off to a trickle in the year that went past. It took him, a fastidious soldier to calculate that. Else who bothers? Do I? No. Blogging was more about letting out oneself, a sort of stress and ennui buster and I seldom kept counting posts or participating in marathons in the Blogdom.

It is easier to and safer too, to write about inanimate matters and dogs, cats or bugs- folks who do will vouch, I’m certain. For, writing about them you could write what you honestly feel about those creatures and your relationship with them. Your earnest observation or even swollen feelings will not elicit comments from them. You may have no fear about them frowning at you for a candid and what you might rightly feel is an honest observation, or accuse you of calumny. But write about the folks you moved within the past week, an old face and you may see a few grimaces, frowns and expressive annoyance accusing you of slander and innuendo. Some may feel you are prying, ostensibly puritanical while being an incorrigible hypocrite and shoot off their reprisals, chafe and profanity. Besides, all the feelings that one keep cannot be from the land of fairness and goodness. That tells the partial reason for the parsimonious blogging over the past couple of years. Why, as an old chum put it, “invite self corrosion?”

In the present day world, more precisely in the more civilised (sic) modern day society we live, the perils of wielding the pen or exercising the tongue are insurmountable. It is not the pernicious zeal of safe guarding and holding on to one’s opinions but the fierce malice towards all ideas that are non-confirming to ours.  A friend called me a pit bull, derisively. He stated I was being too brash, audaciously and unnecessarily blunt with some comments I made. He was petulant about my observation on the “Good Governance Day”. But yet, I find it neigh difficult to stave off the urge to write if not with malice, with vehemence when it calls for. It is utterly daunting to me.

Yet another person wondered aloud why I was expressing opinions that would not be acceptable to others. Why, why? I stood back and mused, tried to reflect am I culpable of the alleged misdemenour?

Having asserted thus, there were indeed matters to reflect and put in words, such as for instance meeting an old acquaintance-a knavish person after a quite a few years. While having lunch with her the, her infamous and feral mechinisations fleeted through my mind. I came back with the firm opinion that a few years more of aging since I last confronted her may not have mellowed her wee bit and she would still be capable and wily as before.

To me it is astonishing how some folk(s) change with wealth and trappings that until recently was a distant carrot and a mirage to them. Malarkey at its acme! New chums, wealthy acquaintances, and gilded social gatherings assorted with celebrities well, well…! One can only remember the past and leave a deep sigh, while taking extra care to keep a distance.

How far can one get candid, about the world around, the people you know and about oneself? How honest can one get, can one be with one’s opinion and yet not be honest enough to provoke? Or is that standard exalted and worthy? What could one say when confronted with the question what fucking business does you have to comment?                                                                                           Finally I might have ended up provoking the holy nobles by using the “infamous” word above. 

Year End Musings

The year seems to be ending with the first sign of the physical existence of the Maoist in Kerala. I’m persuaded to wonder if the Maoist incursion was the only woe that was missing in God’s own State. When conversions and home comings are the rage of the day, perhaps the insurgents will baptize the tribal in the hills of Kerala into their ways. And could someone blame and cry wolf for that?

Leopard cannot and will not change it spots. The question if it is the ‘will’ or ‘cannot’ that stand out can be debated. But the fact remains that the spots that were before, stays put. But yet, I like many others hoped for the impossible. The shenanigans orchestrated these days through the charade called “Home Coming” is falling flat against the thesis and the scholarship put forth by eminent historians that India is a land where 92 percent of the present population are descendants of emigrants. It was believed at a not so distant time that Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India, that view has since been considerably modified. Now the generally accepted thesis is that the pre-Dravidian aborigines- the ancestors of the present day people, who we call Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes), were the original inhabitants. So factually speaking most of us will have to leave the sub-continent lock-stock& barrel, because we simply do not belong here and we criminally usurped the land of the original inhabitants or say the early inhabitants.

 Mercifully the extraneous factor that always decided our economic fate – the crude oil price has plummeted southwards and the Leopards could revel in the fortuitous boon that has come about. Though that has not alleviated our plight and the hardships in our daily chores, the Leopards could quote statistical wonders that have come to play in their favour. Foreboding of a return of the mother and son and the coterie of sycophants are also helping the felines.

While we brace ourselves for more aggressive posturing of the Leopards who simply cannot shed their parentage, people in Kerala have something to cheer when the year whimpers out. The Gandhian KPCC President V.M.Sudheeran has lost out with his obstinate autocratic style of functioning, one that perhaps he simulated from his icon Mohandas Gandhi. Tipsy days are back again and here to stay and Sundays can be reveling as before. That is the sole solace that seems to strike a chord in me in this whole year that went past.

...of the taboo of Phalluses & other Glands in Phallic culture

The matter is simply misplaced morality- to define it more precisely misplaced notion what is supposedly thought as morality and the eagerness to embrace it as a vindication and display of undue conceit -moral vanity. When such thinking is seen in adults those who are educated, erudite, articulate and in respectable position it is false and stinks of emptiness and hypocrisy.

“To each his own”, is an agreeable dictum for social living. But I can only disagree with people using it to proclaim higher moral grounds for social consumption and acceptance. However in the context mentioned in the next paragraph, I presume that the opinion that led to the “red flag” was egregious and silly.

A few months back a chat group was begun on the social media platform “WHATSAP” by former graduate class mates. The group was ostensibly called “the class of 80”. Great!  About thirty class mates from the 80 batch were successfully enrolled into the group. And dear, some of them are hyper active on the platform, both after office hours and during office hours too. I myself have been an occasional visitor and picking up subjects I could discuss, though opinions in those discussions would converge and also differ, fair enough.  The group is being administered by a jolly good friend and he throws up an occasional “yellow flag” and even a “red flag” depending upon the acceptability of the comments or posts. A means of control and I presume it is to act as a sieve and control of obscenity and revilement of members of the group that could not be entertained.

But I'm afraid it was downright ridiculous when the administrator flagged me down with a ‘red’ when I posted this piece on the platform.

His act can be shunned as frivolous and trivia I suppose, but such opinions originating from people of whom some of them were vociferous and active on the social media in support of the dissent towards moral policing and the “kiss of love “protest, I wonder what outrage is explicit in this innocuous post quoting a physician who was awarded the Nobel for medicine. And the quote was factual and forthright without mincing words stating the pitiable priorities in medical research funding.

Yes it is apparent that the words “boobs” and “penises” certainly offended and enraged the administrator. What miserable and unfortunate organs are they that the creator perhaps in a petulant mood callously foisted upon hapless women and men! For me to post an observation from a notable physician who referred to those words in the right context and in the in correct spell is manifestly obscene, repugnant and gauche. So went the judgment, I presume.

Now, this reminds me of another incident which was comical in almost the same context. When the “Kiss of Love” protest was in swing, I irresistibly posted my observation and opinion on my facebook page against the fallacy of what is termed culture and the hypocrisy of moral policing. A post – a rebuttal , tongue in cheek,vile and vehement was posted by a person on his facebook page assailing my stand and vilifying what he called the advocacy of unrestrained sex. He baptised voices against moral policing as that of votaries of copulation in public like dogs and immoral behviour in public. What amused me to no end was that he, the protagonist was a self confessed fascinator of many homosexual liaisons in his more youthful days. Politely I must term his comment amusing and rebut him by saying he cannot see the wood for the trees.

Now where is threshold for hypocrisy and acceptable moral behavior? What was offensive about the comment of the Nobel laureate and posting it on social platform? Why was the administrator reluctant and peeved to let a discussion originate on the subject?

Looking at the  outraged rejoinder on facebook ,is it perhaps alright to be unrestrained and unconventional at heart and in private while being a puritan by day light?

It will be a wonder if  a few Bloggers would respond to this post. The words are too  abhorrent to mention , to comment . Aren't they ?