Requiem

Some people are fortunate to read their own obituary. Well , is  there  something fortunate in getting to read that? It may also turn to  be a painful reminder, a late realization that you are or were a damn fool. How about being present at your memorial service? The white pallor of you, dressed in immaculate  white traditional uniform of the dead? You would come to know what the world- the friends who you loved , the relatives who you thought loved you, the acquaintances who nod while you pass them on the street ,all would subscribe to the requiem.

The eulogy they may read and it may blush your cheeks even though you are dead.

The ones who disparaged you and hounded you to the end of the world while you were alive, or even did the eerie black magic to summon Lucifer and numb your senses, all would in unionism orate in praise  of the magnificent  person you were. You will wonder why your mother , your wife or husband did not notice these  conspicuous qualities  while you were walking around in flesh and blood. And now once you were  interned in the inescapable underground vault the whole world conspire to  bring forth  grand orations about what you were. You may for a moment  pinch your cheek to  know if all is real. But then the dead cannot pinch, they pinch through!

This was what I felt whenever I  have been at the sidelines listening to a few memorial services . After you are gone, you will be eulogised for things that you did not do, and would not have done either. Hallo and saint hood is thrust upon you . And for that to happen, you need not have to be patient and bring forth three miracles like the Vatican insist. You  only just have to pass away. Scoundrel or saint when alive, you will be baptised after death and given a clean chit that you could not have dreamt when alive.

The mother of all jokes  would be a primate throwing tributes to the departed. The closest liaison he must have ever had with  the deceased would be at a  sumptuous meal complimented with exotic spirits, at the home of the departed. But the words and phrases that flow from him in tribute will flatter even Alcapone lying in his grave.

Eulogies have a queer sense. What they really mean one may not understand because it is neigh impossible to enter the mind of the speaker and decipher what he or she  really means  when he says, “I loved him”. By far that is the fact. Exceptions to the rule are not to be forgotten!

Here  are a few tributes to the departed-

-By a husband who excelled in  infidelity  towards  his wife had this to say at the memorial service.”If  tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.”

-By the Bishop who lead the memorial service to a young woman of the laity who was raped and killed. “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, it comes from the hand of the same master.”

-A politician’s requiem  at the funeral of his bête noire. “say not in grief he is no more , but live in thankfulness that he was ( is no more).”

-A friend’s eulogy .”The mystery of his love is greater than the mystery of death.”

How  I wish I could speak at the memorial service of at least a few people I know. Remind them of their lives and more ,which that they thought people pretermitted

"In His Lost Childhood..."

In the lost childhood, his youth was lost

Cued by fuss and the cortège near.

Who brewed him, baked him and pampered him

And upon him riches like hail stones they lavished.

When the old must tell stories, of men and women of valour.

They nodded in glee his wallows and escapades galore.

 For they cherished it like stories of Camelot.

Wenches, wine and speeding cars – the spirits that enriched him!

 And riches like as for the Romans, but stealthily devoured him

Inheritance vile and the past wretch eclipsed

By riches of gold  those any man will envy.

And they brewed him, baked him and pampered him

In his spoiled childhood, his youth was lost.

Ozymandias

This morning while chatting on the NET with a  distant relative, we happened to discuss the hubris that envelopes man and woman when propelled by fate, design or by sheer intrigue on to a pedestal of aura, of wealth, of power. And it is  then the feeling of invincibility and infallibility engulf their psyche and persona, which leads to the belief of their omnipotence and immortality.

It could be the sum of wealth and the power wealth brings with it free; when lives of cognate and the ordinary beings that coexist is seen insignificant and of no consequence. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and irretrievably!

We both agreed about this queer nature that is found only in human beings, beginning from the dawn of man, whether one is a creationist or evolutionist.

Lives are trodden upon and the furtherance of material wealth and power irrevocably become the ambitions that drive them.The Kings of the past and the Neolithic ones of the present in different avatars are all perfect symbols.Even in today's world!

The sonnet crafted by Shelly in the 18 th century and later published as poetry is arguably the most evocative painting of verses about such men and women and what hold in store for them in the twilight of their imperious lives and the fate that will  befall their legacies.

In essence the poem refer to the Pharaoh, Ramsey-II . But it means sensible to all who are born.

This poem below is an outstanding and artistic lament of the end that he never saw and may have never thought of, where all his trappings were of no avail.Legacy in ruins!

OZYMANDIAS     

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said. Two vast and trunk less legs of stone

Stand in the desert.Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stampede on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias,king of kings

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”

Nothing beside remains Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and the level sands stretch far away.

Mr.S

Should we take birth signs in the Zodiac at their prescribed value or believe their alleged influence over our lives, capable of propelling us forward or knocking us down? Some say yes, others a stern no, dismissing it as nonsense. Personally, I care little for it, as the veracity seems humbug and the whole matter mere mumbo jumbo. However, I’ve had enough experience to know what some people can do with an unassuming zodiac sign. A few individuals born under a particular sign have caused me considerable discomfort and trouble. One fellow stands out as the enfant terrible of the constellation—a Sagittarian. Mercifully, I last met him in 1995.

This takes me back to 1982, when I was posted to Cochin after a six-month stint in New Delhi. I was raw, fresh out of college, and something of a pushover in an organisation, regardless of my position. After all, I was a trainee, being inducted over two years. This fellow, let’s call him Mr S—as S is the first letter of his name, evoking holiness—was anything but saintly. In fact, he shared his name with a revered figure and his consort from the mythical Ramayana, yet in real life, he was their antithesis.

It was through enduring him that I learned his attitude stemmed not from fault but from his limitations and his acute awareness of them. Such people need a fig leaf to cover their shortcomings, and he required many. Yet, there was no limit to my annoyance with his idiosyncrasies. As a co-worker, I had no choice but to tolerate him. He was short, about 5 feet 3 inches, which seemed to fuel his inferiority complex. A veteran who had risen to some extent from a low level in the organisation, his years of service ensured his continuity on the payroll. That says it all.

Beyond the annoyance he was adept at creating, his innuendos and duplicitous games at the workplace simmered within me, with anger always waiting to erupt. The quality I detested most was his servility to senior managers. He stooped miserably low, crawling when he merely needed to bend. It was nauseating.

During review meetings and conferences, held in five-star hotels across various metropolises, he was at his most ridiculous. I saw hotel staff managing banquets, lunches, and breaks laugh and smile mockingly at his conduct. The worst was reserved for evening cocktails and dinners, when, under the influence of spirits, he became a derisive caricature of himself.

I could tolerate his personality quirks, but the attribute I loathed most was his “shoestring tying” and sudden vanishing act to the loo. He wasn’t exactly a miser but was artful in living off others while safeguarding his wallet. He drank like a fish and ate like a famished Rip Van Winkle. Once, during a dinner when kebabs were served, someone remarked loudly on his clownish behaviour, “Arey, kebab mein haddi kaise?” (How could there be a bone in the kebab?)

The shoestring act was always reserved for the end of evening gatherings, to which he tagged along like a limpet, even uninvited. When the bill arrived, Mr S’s diminutive figure would vanish below the table—either fumbling with his shoelaces or disappearing to the washroom, only to resurface after we had paid. He would then enquire earnestly about the “damages” for the evening before slinking like an eel to his vehicle in the car park.

Why do I write this memoir about Mr S? Because I had a dream in which he was devouring kebabs alone, caring not a hoot for me standing nearby, smacking my lips and drooling uncontrollably. When I awoke, my pillow was damp, and I could almost smell the kebabs.

Escape to Dreamland

Raman Menon hailed from a well-respected family of upper-caste Nairs in the erstwhile princely state of Cochin. The aristocracy that Menon clans among Nairs claim is more self-proclaimed than bestowed by extraterrestrial largesse or former princes. They resemble the British aristocracy of India, with their stiff upper lip and a “Gallic” or even haughty nose up in the air. They seem to believe in and convey the spirit of pristine Nair heritage and culture.

But Raman Menon cared little for the trappings of his surname. He was an ambitious and fun-loving person. Holding a respected position in the state bureaucracy, combined with his family’s lineage and social standing, he was poised to soar to greater heights. Young, handsome, and with masculine charm, he seemed destined for success.

He married into a family of Menons from Palghat, in the erstwhile Madras Presidency. The bride was a well-educated, sophisticated woman, an epitome of haute couture and an alumna of Yale in the USA. But this alliance was perhaps a serious misstep in the course of Raman Menon’s life. The incompatibility of the relationship led Mr Menon to file for divorce after much acrimony. The marriage ended with the same intensity with which it began. The stress of the divorce and its aftermath left Mr Menon drained. The marriage lasted about a year—a year of utmost turmoil.

Determined not to be left searching for a compatible partner, the Menon family arranged another bride for the young man—a distant cousin. Raman Menon married again. But ill fortune shadowed him like a relentless spectre; tragedy struck as nothing else could. The bride died less than six months into the marriage, succumbing to lymphoma. It was darkness at noon. Raman Menon’s life was shattered, his rising professional trajectory twisted like a mangled ladder. He was at a loss to pick up the threads once more. Cruel innuendos circulated, speculating about his ill luck and why fate seemed to deny comfort or longevity to any woman who became his consort.

He vanished from society and from the country. Settling in a foreign land, he never returned to the town of his birth. Once an agnostic, he became a theist and joined a Hindu religious outfit. He spent all his leisure time outside work at the ashram, adopting the name Sudhama. He lived frugally, walking about like an ascetic. Unlike fellow members of the congregation, who saw their involvement as a cherished luxury, Raman Menon was hermitic. He ate the simple food devotees brought. While travelling, he walked great distances like a nomad, subsisting on morsels from compassionate strangers. He resembled Jain monks on their long road to what they believe is nirvana and salvation. Rarely did he open up, but when he did, it was to confide that this life at the ashram was his dream and a calling.

A man who once professed agnostic beliefs, struck by successive tragedies, turned into a hermit and ascetic! A man who harboured utopian fantasies and dreams of living! Though this story is real, the tragic events in his life serve as a metaphor for the challenges we all face at different times. For less fortunate souls, the tempest lingers longer. Tragedy need not be overt but may manifest as dejection, disgust, frustration, or devastation—anything potent enough to persistently stress us. Then comes the time for wool-gathering, hoping for bliss and mirth in pursuits we once loved. For some, it sparks a frantic search for an escape route.

There is indeed a life out there, as I mentioned in the post “The Road Not Taken,” that beckons but is no longer mine. When it mattered, when I could have trodden that road, I did not—out of conditioning and unawareness of its pathos. I feel awed and envious of friends and ordinary people who, despite constraints, have achieved the extraordinary. They have not taken the cowardly path of an ill-clad, unwashed, smelly absconder claiming abstinence, nor are they escape artists who could outshine Houdini. Instead, within the bounds of social living, they have embraced the life of the liberated wanderer—like birds that transcend land and sea to migrate—embarking on occasional journeys of bliss and mirth to the dream that is Zion, a traveller’s Zion.

But alas, man often fails to see the paradise at hand that could lend wings to fly towards his fantastic dreams. Only when he knows what it is for a paradise to be lost shall he see the beacon that was always alight.

---

Morality- my foot.

I have read the book of Bertrand Russell one of my favourite writers, “Marriage & Morals”. It was when I was into the second year in college and now since much immorally moral living has taken place and the reading was a little over three decades ago, I fail to remember in detail.  But I can tell, Russell in that book confronted and scathed the hypocrisy of Victorian Britain of his time. The subject and his opinions on social living, morality and marriage, I felt were valid generally to men and women everywhere. I was quite fascinated and influenced  my outlook and thought. To the ones who see repugnancy in the ideas and outlook I bear now, can perhaps see that as a worthwhile distortion such a great book of thought did to me. And I love that.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said that what matters more is if  one will be honest to do in public what one will be willing to do in private. I wonder if Thomas Jefferson had catholic leanings or he saw through the hypocrisy of moralists.

But looking around all these years I feel that morality is a blunt edged weapon that the immoral wield to camouflage their illicit self.  Morality per se has become the tool  for  the ones who were not lucky to enjoy the oft branded immoral pleasures the other indulges in. And hence he/she is adversary and immoral.

It is crying wolf and calling the grapes sour.

“We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach but do not practice and another we practice but seldom preach”, said Russell. I go with the later because then one need not have to stoop to claim infallibility, or flaunt hypocrisy coated with sugar. Is it not that everyone has an enigma, a secret garden? Social living is more about not being dishonest to not admit so, but not to swear that it is not so.

Now what is morality? I keep asking to myself. Is it not out from the mind and the conditioning of a person that moral and immoral is born or engrained? The foremost matter that comes to mind when one speaks about morals is unrestrained sexual orgy. Even religion speaks only about carnal pleasure and its engagement that is forbidden by the creator. Moral teachings that insist love has to be the harbinger of creation and should not be lustful. But man cannot be equated with beasts that are biologically disposed to copulation only when the genetic motor senses that the ground is fertile to sow. And that is the way Nature maintains her creative balance. Man is biologically disposed to exercise sexual indulgence even outside the intent of procreation. Because man has found morally banished lust a vital factor of his genetic engineering. It is ideal that man, like pigeons or mynas for instance are confined to a single partner for life. But is it the case in real time? Russell was true when he opined that lust is what comes first and love maintains it. I hope I do not sound applauding promiscuity.

To refer a real example of being morally offended and outraged-  A few years ago where I lived, the ground floor of the apartment was occupied by a firm to run their office. This young guy an ex Army captain moved in to work there. And he began using the place as his place of stay as well. He was smart and well educated. And apparently he could easily have girls for friend. And week ends he used to have a few  girl friends of his ( boys as well), descending there after work hours and have a ball late into the night. I was envious but enjoyed his good time. This guy next door a burly giant who sits all day at his verandah trying to observe and hear about the happenings elsewhere  could not tolerate this activity of the Captain. He confronted me and accused me  for being silent about this. He was  aghast  and outraged that girls were staying overnight in the house.  I suggested that that is in no way affecting me and the Captain has his guests in his house. The man said the whole thing was immoral and I must report the matter because  it happens in the floor below my house. I told him I had more serious matters to bother about . And left it there. He went to the owner of the apartment with the matter. I was referred back and I told the owner that it is none of our business. And there is nothing criminal and nefarious going on. The matter rested and our giant must still be sulking about long ago.

Man has certainly journeyed a long way from the Garden of Eden when even nudity was not a subject that fell in the category of immoral or the reprehensible. Now nudity is confined to night clubs and strip dancing in indulgent social gatherings.And we even have self acclaimed moral police who decides what is nudity and scanty in attire. Besides coveting a woman or woman coveting a man outside marriage, or over indulgence of sex, morality as decreed by the establishment does not speak much about unethical conducts like murder, rape, and robbery. Commandments sent forth through men who claimed being the chosen couriers of God have prohibited these acts as sinful but not immoral. That is a weird concept of morality indeed.  

Morality per se is generally preached. In fact, the correct usage is –“flaunted “, by the ones who also pedal spiritualism and devotion to God. It is a contradiction, but a discomforting truth.

So, I infer morality is superimposed by the threat of sin and the long shadow of sin, rather than the good or bad of the act of the protagonist on himself or the society he thrives in.

There is always an alibi an excuse waiting to be used for absolution.

Himalayas

                                        Nandadevi in the setting sun from Auli

Many of us may have wished that our childhood and growing-up years were different. Get into a time warp and relive it all, eliminating the bitter parts. But then how do we get back when we know time travel is still a scientific fantasy? We may then want to enjoy the childhood of our kids. See the beauty and fun in their growing up. Their exultation in all that we could provide them, all that we may not have had the fortune to know as children.

Let me be more candid. I mentioned in a few blog posts the not-so-pleasant relationship with my father. I remember having not felt or cared—I missed out on him when he was alive, when even we had those showdowns, and the autocracy he wielded only added to the distance; the chasm between the two of us grew. But the depth of the loss of having missed out on a vital aspect of human relationship began haunting me, more so when well into my later forties (I suppose it was also the case for him later in his life as well). Many of us who have been through that experience would resolve to be different with our kids, trying to give them an unforgettable and memorable childhood and growing up.

So I always wanted to provide my children, especially my son, with things and moments that eluded me while I grew up. Most of all, the father-son relationship. He, Aravind, was quite a temperamental fellow, even while he was little and also in his early teens. And taciturn too, like me. I decided to go on a trip with him. And it was the summer vacation in May five years ago. He was 15 then and had just finished his ICSE 10th exams. He was back home from boarding, and I planned the journey to the Himalayas—Kedarnath and Bhadari (inspired by stories of wilderness and mountains by a mountain-loving wild friend). I felt a trip with Aravind to a new part of India would be a learning experience for the boy and a source of gratification for me—experiencing the pleasure in a reverse way. I mean in giving something I could not get. The journey was only for the curiosity and pleasure of travel, togetherness, the mountains beckoning, and not an iota of spiritual bullshit. In any case, an agnostic like me and a boy whose mind was zealously left unblemished and unstained by religious mumbo jumbo.

He was initially a bit reluctant. But once we boarded the flight from Coimbatore to New Delhi, he became quite at ease. We stayed in New Delhi overnight and took the early morning Shatabdi to Haridwar. It was the second time he was in New Delhi. A few years prior, four of us (I, Christy, Aravind, & Radhika) together made a triangle tour of Agra, Jaipur, and New Delhi in winter. It was a good experience for the kids.

Haridwar was quite warm and sweltering in the May heat. For the boy it was the beginning of a dawn of realisation, something he could not have imagined or knew existed. A kind of cultural shock, a bolt. The dirt, the human excreta by the sides of the road, the muck, the disease, the penury, and the dust all around when we got off the train and walked to the bus station nearby to go to Rishikesh! He became silent and gloomy, quite confused! We checked in at the Rishikesh tourist lodge and went out in the late afternoon for a stroll down the Ganga and the joolas. There were lepers and ailing people waiting all around, begging for alms. All that, I suppose, made the little fellow very distressed that he refused to walk further and wanted to go back. I cajoled him to the ghat by the mighty river Ganga. He always trailed behind, very irritated, and kept saying we should go back home. Then, the argument began by the Ganga. He just walked away from me. I could not leave him. He frowned and fumed and wanted to know why I was following him. I felt miserable—very miserable! I sat by the ghat on the steps, and I could still remember me weeping; it ached within me. A dream was turning sour! Was it? Then I noticed suddenly that he was missing. In panic I ran around frantically and utterly distressed and at last found him sitting elsewhere further down by the ghats.

I felt that I might have to cancel the trip and get back to Delhi. I telephoned Christy that evening to tell her Aravind was upset about the whole thing. She suggested I change plans and travel elsewhere with him, where he wanted, or even get back home. I asked him what he wanted. He refused to answer. That night he slept without eating. The next morning, we had to take the bus well before dawn to Gowrikund. At three in the morning I coaxed him out of bed. He would not walk by my side and strayed behind. I was running out of patience, but yet I had to be patient and not be worn down by a very uncooperative, petulant, and obstinate young fellow. He was still moody, and till almost half of the nine-hour journey, he was not in his element. Then, just as the fickle weather in the Himalayan heights, he changed, became different, and a pleasant, gay boy. He was enjoying the journey.

                                       En route to Kedhar

En route to Kedhar

We had very good moments that evening in Gowrikund, a tiny mountain hamlet. To make matters rather unpredictable again, I suddenly began to feel chill and feverish. It seemed I was going to be bedeviled by fever. Fortunately, the next morning I was feeling fine. He was the first to wake and arise the next morning at 4 ’o'clock, and we set off on the long climb of 17 km to Kedarnath. It was a fascinating journey. Of course both of us were not at ease with the undisciplined pilgrims and their cacophony. They were missing the mountains and their gods! We drank from the mountain streams, ate chocolates for energy, and had a few encounters with Sadhus smoking bhang and marijuana in their rock lair by the wayside. I wished I could borrow their smoking chillums! It took us almost 9 hours to walk the serpentine, rocky mountain path.

When Kedhar welcomed us with its snow-clad, silvery, shining peaks resplendent in the rays of the sun, he was thrilled. I enjoyed his happiness. We went around the town. The temple where they have faithfully incarcerated Lord Kedhanath was too crowded. I wondered how God can be comfortable in that melee and the relentless petitions and lobbying from pilgrims and devotees. We empathised with God in his misery! I suppose he vanished from the shrine long ago and moved further up into the inaccessible, icy, wind-beaten mountains. Far from his maddening devotees.

                                            The peak at Kedhar

It was six in the evening and was fast getting dark. We devoured a good meal of roti, dal fry, and sabji. Now either we hang around the night and try our luck at getting space to sleep, or we must descend. But it was not so wise either way, and a storm was gathering. It was going to be risky walking back in the dark. We fixed a deal with two ghardwali men, and for Rs 500 per head, they agreed to give us two mules for the downhill journey. Aravind enjoyed the precarious ride on the mule in the heavy rain and over the tricky terrain. I was hollering the hell out in panic. And Aravind was smiling and laughing, all the while enjoying the ride on the mule. Even in my utter horrible fear, I could see his happiness. Then, I looked down into the deep valley below; I feared the awful thing to happen—the mules losing their footing and taking us down into the abyss below. The muleteers were irritated with my moaning and were laughing amongst themselves at my precarious perch on the mule. One said to the other, “Ye ladka teek hai. Wow, admi pagal hai." The other said to me, certainly not thoughtful of my knowledge of Hindi, “Arey, chillana math.”.

We reached back at Gowrikund by eight at night. Aravind asked me why I was throwing tantrums all the way down and shouting like a kid. He was laughing at the comic character I was perched on the mule and wailing.

I felt immensely happy that he was enjoying the travel, the togetherness at last!

                                              At Auli a moment

At Auli

The next morning we traveled by bus and broke our journey at the ski resort of Auli, where we stayed for a couple of days. Being the height of summer, the absence of snow was indeed disappointing for Aravind. On the journey to Auli we crossed a valley that came into view from nowhere—a mighty Himalayan peak suddenly coming into view as the bus negotiated a sharp bend in the road. God at his closest. Most of the passengers were either fast asleep or chanting gibberish, eyes closed. Only we both saw God. To me, an agnostic God presented himself as the massive, humbling might of the snow-clad mountain range. It was an awesome experience and mightily humbling, one's insignificance unequivocally felt, the beauty beyond explanation.

At Auli, late in the evening, we watched Nanda Devi at her golden best, vividly bathed in the rays of the setting sun, its peak resplendent and majestic - solid peak of gold from a far away star! Lucky are those who found God and bliss in the beauty and humbling majesty of the mountains. I thought of Spinoza's God and the depth of truth in that concept of God. The same idea that Einstein endorsed, that he found more tempting and wise than those gods humans created in their own form, ways, and manners.

We went to Bhadarinath from Auli before coming back to Joshi Math and then travelling back to New Delhi.The Alakananda was in full flow—its icy waters relentlessly gushing forth over rocky boulders—water colder than ice! Seldom did the river know that downhill by the plains she would be violated—raped and polluted beyond even the wildest imaginations of the evil demons Lord of Kedar and Badari guard us mortals from.

Something again began bothering him the little fellow at Badarinath, where, to my utter consternation, he again went missing in the crowd. He became moody and irritated. But there were quite a few moments to cherish for both, ordeals as well!

 

He now wants to redo the tour with me. I jestfully tell him, “Not me anymore with you.” Now he has grown out of his teens; he is twenty and went with a couple of friends of his to a remote mountainside in Uttarakhand. They even went to Rishikesh and set off on white-water river rafting. And elsewhere near Kasol, they were even caught unawares in a hailstorm in the forest. They lost their way and spent the night in the forest. He travelled second class “two way’’ from Thpuram. A fifty-two-hour journey one way, and he wanted it so. Journeying in second class (cattle class) on Indian Rail is the surest way of understanding and knowing the throb of India. He understood quite a bit of what life in India is all about, and he has many more miles to go to understand much. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in trying to show him outside the comparative safety of the cocoon he lived in as a little boy. Perhaps the real world was shell-shocking, incomprehensible, and cruelly disturbing, and I, his father, being the catalyst to peeling off without warning the protective armour around him, may have provoked him, made him feel let down, insecure, and he expressed rebellion.

He wants to plan another trip up north soon. He has begun to enjoy moments that eluded me while I was his age! I guess, at long last, I could also give something I could not experience, feel, or enjoy!