Heat and Dust

Over the past week I watched two Hollywood flicks that were sautéed with pretty decent action and plots and both had extra marital sex and adultery thrown casually into the plots. One, the adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s “Painted Veil” and the other with a much young Robert de Nero and Al Pacino in the cast. In the genre of infatuation, "The Summer of 42” is still etched in memory though.

The subject matter is not the film but depiction of certain foibles that was shown as an attribute in man-woman relationship in western culture. In many literary fictions and Hollywood films-something that seems to be at odds with oriental thinking have been often seen. Even in the works (English) literature by Indian authors on the “Raj “and as well as the British writers of the early twentieth century, the western dame was shown as voluptuous and fast. Or did I read only such allegedly profane books that flourished on the banal theme? Nay, the lecherous eyes of the brown skin native clad in loin cloth roving with irresistible  lust when he serves tea to the fair skinned mem sahib and while she watches the gora sahibs play polo have been artfully mentioned in many works placed in the era of the Raj. And then the lonely soul she is in the strange and humid land, cast away from the cool climes of Victorian England seek the warmth and acrid smell of the brown skinned native. The hungry wolf!

In one of the film, the villain of the piece meets a young and sophisticated woman in a restaurant and though the conversation was begun rather rude they vibe well and spend the evening together and have sex.  The cliched exclamation that I would have uttered in my young age, would have been, “lucky bastard” (!).But in the present time, though I envied the fellow, I was quite amazed as to how a woman could agree to be in bed with a stranger – a man who she acquainted only for a few hours. It was something that a harlot would be inclined to.

Now, the Hollywood flicks are a plenty that pictures such instance. This in fact was titillating in the age of freewheeling youthfulness.  It may have crafted a distinct picture of the western woman, I’m certain not in me alone but among the ones of my generation. A ravenous breed, hungry for sex and willing to devour any man! This was also the theme of the most obsessing books I read when I was about fifteen or sixteen-“Venus in India” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. Longed from then on to sail across to the West! “Heat & Dust”, the Booker prize winning work of Ruth  Jabwala which was later made into a acclaimed film by Merchant & Ivory was  at par. It only added to the allure and fantasy of a carefree life in the West.

An absolute chimera it turned out to be! And not one, even one of the Western women I have chanced to associate with, offer to reenact the plots. It is true as far as I could understand that they are tactile in association (man-woman), something we Indians see as to be distanced and frowned upon. And most of all the halo of virginity, a concept that may have been foisted on cultures by the male psyche is of no great reverence in the West.

I and C were discussing about a couple of films we saw that had adultery as the wicked. They were zestfully enacted and were appealing. Did it matter if the spouse has a fatuous fling? We wondered!    In a context yes it did, it does. I feel, foremost it is the possessiveness than the moral precepts that haunt or pester when such adventures come to light. And that is the matter in any society occidental or oriental. It is possessiveness and the good lord's commandment is only incidental.

As for the libertine ways of men and women, perhaps we have more hypocrisy and shallowness in relationships in our societies than in the West.

Achamillai

A disturbing morning today, to have begun with!

And one of my most cherished poems came to mind.

 It was a pity that in the curriculum that was dished out at school & the university (in Kerala) I was denied the nectar of Subramania Bharatiyar’s great mind. It was Keats, Shelly, Tennyson, Wordsworth and that genre, besides the poet laureates of Malayalam, my mother tongue.

Here is one of the few gems I cherish of Bharatiyar, who like many prodigies was denied a full life’s time. He died young at 39 in 1921.

I get goose bumps when I recite these lines, but will it transfuse into the  blood in my veins? I do not know. Have I ever borne these words in my veins,did I ever try to imbibe? I guess I’m not greatly satisfied.

I have tried in the best possible way to transliterate the verses. I wonder if it justifies remotely, if it does, well I’m content.

”Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Icckathulorellam yethirthu nindra  pothilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Thuchamagi yenni  nammai thooru  cheytha pothilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Pichai vangi  unnum vazhkkai pethu vita podhilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Ichai konda porulellam izhandhu vita pothilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye.”

“Kacchanintha kongai mathar kankal veesu pothilum ,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Nachchai vayile  konanthu nanbar ootu pothilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Pachai yooniyaintha  ver padaigal  vantha podhilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye,

Uchi meethu vaan  idinthu veezkindra pothilum,

Achamillai, achamillai, acham enpathu illaye.”

Fear not oh soul. Fear not

Fear not when the world arrange against

The derisive stares and the faces cold,

Fear not oh soul. Fear not.

When fated to implore by the vagaries of life

When you’ve lose possessions cherished

Fear not oh soul. Fear not.

Fear not oh soul. Fear not

Fear not the seductress’s charms

Fear not the venom of kith and kin,

Fear not the hordes of men in arms

Fear not oh soul. Fear not.

And when the heavens above come flaming down

Fear not my soul. Fear not.

Violence+Martyr+Violence = FAITH

I think genesis of an idea or a philosophy is greatly influenced by the age and time in which it is born. As much as a child who’s growing up, his outlook, vision of life, his morality and ethics are determined by the circumstances into which he was born and importantly how he was raised. Don’t you think so?

I some cases a turbulent incident and or experience can influence a person without bounds and change the course of his or her life. Like it probably did to the lives of Gautama Buddha and the Mauryan beacon- Emperor Ashoka and in recent history to Mohandas Gandhi.

It is also true that a religion like Communism was born out of the socio-economic conditions of an age. But its application in  society in as violent a way as it was applied in the Czarist Russia or even in the Pol Pot’s Cambodia, paved way for its eventual demise in those societies. It is a glaring fact  that history often repeats, but Man seldom notice – that violence begets violence and, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart”( Proverb 11.30).

Though an irreligious person, I have been fascinated by Christ (not the Christ that the Church has electroplated as she want), but the Christ- he may have been a mere mortal, the son of God (figuratively speaking) or the son of God, a man who extolled virtue, nonviolence and urged masses to rebel silently within and exhorted the marginalised to do so, so that a skewed and unjust socio- economic system was addressed and changed. He eventually paid with his life like some others in later history, who dared to articulate- a loner, a lone voice in a frenzied mob.

I feel Christ was perhaps the first communist and not Karl Marx, who was more of an economist expanding on probable panacea for economic and social ills and also borrowing from the philosophy of Christ. It was strange aberration and a painful one that his (Christ’s) acolytes in later days indulged in the most heinous acts to preach and spread his philosophy around the globe. But then that scorched chapter became a ugly history after the age of the Inquisitions. I think, now no one who has admiration for Christ would exhort the archaic dictum of, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, even against the most extreme provocation. If this does not suggest the thought behind the genesis of Christ’s philosophy, the humanistic ring around its genesis, what else does it tell? Whereas a violent birth and a violent childhood is sure to bring forth violent existence!

I have now spent more than a year in a society, a land which is by far open and free, when compared to some of the countries in the neighbourhood who are grossly obscurantists and intolerant. Most of them are conforming to remnants of tribal laws and culture from the medieval ages, when tribal customs, archaic and unjust laws, belief in sorcery and its use to create fear of the supernatural, internecine wars and intrigues, horrendous cruelty on the losers and dissenters were all as common as the sun rise and sun set. Faith and philosophies born out of such times continue to be as primitive as it can be. Though people live in the absolute comfort aided by the advancement of science and technology coming out of Western scientific temper and thought, they seem to be still marooned in the dark ages as far as intellect, custom and beliefs go. Faith in violence, still is in the core of their nuclei.

If someone told me that I represent a country of apostates and who are pagans and with beliefs in strange and false gods, I would either try to enlighten him on his lack of knowledge or ignore the comment in total. For if someone calls you a jackass, unless you doubt you are one why react or show a violent dissent?

A few days ago I was privy to a strange custom that was enacted outside my apartment. A house of god as one may call it, flocked by a sect of people situates across the road. The ten day long festivities began and for the first eight days I was curious, to begin with and then began to enjoy the congregation that came at night time, the drums and the songs they sang. It reminded of those temple and church festivities back home. Then on the ninth night and tenth morning it was in my understanding bizarre and macabre enacting of a strange and repulsive ritual. Scores of youth lining on either side clad in white, wailing, flagellating with flails and soon they were drenched in their own blood.  The morning ritual was with menacing swords slashing themselves, their torso and head. The young fellows seemed to flaunt. Blood was flowing from head to heel down their torsos, the white clothing a distant thing! The bizarre melee was their way of venerating a historical figure who they considered as the ordained chieftain of the faithful’s and who was brutally killed in the battle by renegades of the same faith.

Later that afternoon I walked an alley down and for the first time I knew the stench of human blood. It was nauseating and morbid air.  I wondered how haloed would this bloodletting and infliction of pain can ever be? If reverence to the martyr and commemoration of martyrdom was the observance then those folks could have enmasse gone to a medical facility and donated blood. That would have been a great act of reverence and worshipful than this ghoulish ritual. But!

Confessions of A Confused Mind

I have disappointments, awkwardness that I want to cloak. I want to feel I’m not unabashed of my disappointments, which I think rise from my timidity and my inability to be decisive. I admit that I have always wanted life to take a different course, or to put it in another way- I wanted to tread a different path. But the lack of will and gumption made me what I’m and brought me to where I’m. And the real I, often feel peeved, more because of fear of what people would see and judge of me. I dislike and dread people judging me- weak in temperament and unless I gather to emit a rough exterior, display piggery and rudeness , the armour that I built subconsciously, will fall apart .I know this is sham and plain hypocrisy, but nevertheless allows me to feel  some security within its cocoon. But I worry someone audacious will call my bluff.

I agitate more at the helplessness fully conscious that anger and annoyance is all I can show as the smoke screen for my mental state. Flummoxed? But I will want to defiantly deny I’m confused and I’m in the wrong. It is true I ‘m disheveled and annoyed by everything around, even the bark of the stray dog on the street or its distant whining. I tremble with irritation and ire in the face of arguments. I want unchallenged compliance, but I’m annoyed at the disagreement shown by others- even by my wife! I can only see it as defiance . I feel total bitterness.Fairness, I feel can exist only when there is absence of arguments .

I have fantasies like everyone out there; I have lived a past that was rebellious and nonconforming. The excursion into rebellion was deviant and when persistently hounded by, first the solitude of childhood and then the pithy urge of adolescence and teen. But yet,later, I had to compromise and conform in many ways. I could not pursue the fascinations that tempted me. I dreamed to break the shackles and the garrote that bound me. But it was like an oubliette and exit was difficult. Yet,I dreamed-  the unending travels to distant lands, the nomadic sojourns in far off places, the eternal honey moon with my favourite writers through their books that I would devour till I cease to breathe.And most of all the serenading for her in lust that was boundless..

Between you and me let me say, I know that the timorous 'I' in me chose a life that was typically wedded to conventions.

 Ha She! I was her paramour and she could enslave me in her enchantment. I relished it and it was ecstatic. I enjoyed being pliable to her whims, her perversions, I loved the enslavement.  But I was too gutless to agree to her demand to cohabit with her and I was dependent on the doles from home. I dreaded that. She was incensed and cursed me, labeled me coward. I was, in a way! I was a coward and that I without me knowing was becoming a misogynist. I felt trampled upon by women dominated home and then out there she was forcing me to grovel, to accept her dictations. I was scared and out of that rose a general dislike, contempt, aversion to anything feminine, man or beast? I ran away from her. Sometimes I wish I had not. But her odour lingers!

Now strangely I find myself at a crossroad. And again the old fear of the morrow, the fear of what the ones back home, the world out there would think of me- lurks, taunting me and I fail to decide. I try in vain to blame it on the world, the system, my wife, my friends and even the stranger on the street. I again see me stumbling at the rope. I want to see the successful ones and among my friends as being too street smart for ethical comfort and appreciation. I feel comfort in seeing and imagining that their success is assisted by compromised social life; of embracing opportunistic way of life. I try to blame my pitfalls and my disappointments on a grossly unfair world. I feel I’m unfit for the society and its way of living. I experience like the odd one out. But I try to lay back and ostentate to myself, my successful tryst with fidelity   and my distancing from moral depravity as I suppose many are. I can staunchly claim to have scaled a peak in the character that many could not scale. But, I still feel annoyed and profane. That makes me angry. 

 People as I see are rude and baneful and they conspire and accuse me of being so. I detest unfavourable judgment in all opinions that are thrown at me and am alienated too; a non-agreement unbearable. I fret and fume that the conspiracy is absolute and I feel a loner. I would want to redefine blasphemy. Anything and anybody not conforming to my feelings, my thoughts, and my wish is blaspheming. I would not bate an eye if I have to lose relationships, I would like to believe so. .And like places that I have been and loved but managed to leave, should not be entrapping me. I fear sentiments, I love them too. They are mooring me anchored, I fear that would melt my armour and I do not have the temerity to accept so.

I fear the cassock that shields me will fall down; my glass cubicle will crumble.

I will fight back. Shouldn’t I? I’m not defeated .am I?

Or have I missed, not noticed the gift in hand- that I actually am blessed?

The Lord God Made Them All

All Creatures Great and Small; all Things Bright and Beautiful; all Things Wise and Wonderful; the Lord God Made Them All.

James Herriot books are a genre apart in uniqueness, beauty and simplicity, about animals, pets and his love for them. The dog stories of Herriot are viand for the mind and soul, be it young or old. However it was not until well into my life, I could have a pet at home. That was more because of C’s immeasurable love and fascination for animals, especially dogs. I have had cats back when I was little, but they were often frowned upon at home, more because of their behavioral traits of opportunism. I did love them nevertheless.

So we were assisted by a family friend to take a pet from a litter of puppies. The offer was for free as it was the only one from the litter that was left because the others all male were taken away by people. So, the little bitch, a Labrador- Dachshund mix breed and a black one came to our house when she was about sixty days old. We named her “Blacky”! Both Aravind and Radhika, then about five and two years of age were equally excited and in fact their curiosity was often irritant to the little pup.

Blacky was less than foot tall and pretty stretched like her mother who was a Black Dachshund. However her behavioural traits and attitude was inherited from her father the Labrador. That made her an intelligent, loving and obedient dog. She was zealously concerned about Radhika and guarded her like an Alsatian. She would not shy from chasing a stranger if he/she went near the girl. But understood who had to be let in and kept at a distance.

There was an instance when she did what she resisted doing and what she never dared to do thereafter. The primeval instinct in her once got the better and she ran out on to the road and later came in awash, probably in stagnant drain water. For the first and the last time she got the stick and endless bath in shampoo, soap,  spray of lots of perfume and cologne thereafter.

She slept on the sofa in the living room. Though the kids wanted her in the bed along with them, I was insistent that bed was out of bounds to her and she can have the cosy comfort of the sofa. Certainly I could see in her tiny eyes that she frowned upon my decision. She used to timidly tag on to the kids at bed time but when I wagged finger at her she used to go and curl up in the sofa.

Then, we moved into another house and a couple of house next to our, was a woman with whom Blacky became friends. The intro, I guess happened when C took her for strolls outside. The woman had a comfortable and luxurious life. She was estranged, from her husband; in fact she abandoned, banished him after he suffered a major heart attack and was penniless as well. The story is rather unsavory to dwell. She was keen about a hedonistic life and seemed to enjoy it.

Blacky who was annoyed and uncomfortable when she knew that none of us would be around in the house suddenly seemed to vanish at night after she got her meal. It was rather a mystery; we could not hear her growl and bark in the night admonishing a street dog when it would howl outside. Then punctually at about seven in the morning when I would be in the verandah having my cuppa and morning newspaper she would wriggle in through the closed gate and trot to me rather timidly and with  guilt in her eyes and sit by my chair staring eagerly at me. Her black tail wagging and was with some apprehension. When I asked her where the hell she was she would gaze down on to the floor and then quickly vanish into the house. This became a routine. We later found that the woman next doors were keeping Blacky in her bed and in the comfort of her air-conditioned bed room. Blacky finally got the privilege which she wanted. There was not a moment during other hours of the day she would leave the house.

I was quite defiant about the dog’s attitude. I exclaimed that she was an opportunist and selfish like the woman next doors forsaking relationship for comfort .Though an uncompromising dog lover, even C was rather surprised at her behavior and perhaps saw some parallel.

Later ironically and quite disturbingly, when she took ill she chose to spend the night at home and die and we were calling out to her when we found that she did not turn up the next morning as she used to. C went to the woman’s house to fetch her and was alarmed when she found she had turned up the previous night there, but did not sleep in the woman’s bed and she went away soon. Sometime late in the morning, she was found dead under the foliage of crotons that stood outside the French window she used to sneak out after her meal at night.

Did she know she would die and wanted to die in the house? Did she try jumping back into the house that night through the window? 

A Summer Storm

I stood by the well, and it was about three in the afternoon. The hot summer sun swiftly had vanished and darkness had dawned at noon. I felt the change in the air-the crows seemed to flutter in circles perhaps prodding the others to scamper and fly back to the safety of their roost; the sparrows which are a rare sight these days were hastening to pick up the specks of food they could find and were intent to fly back to their nestlings; the mynas were not to be left behind; the family of squirrels were scurrying up the branches of the old mango tree; the lone ranger –the serpent bird who found roost among the thick green foliage of the mangos-teen moved to a safer branch. The clouds had gathered in thick mass, in dark, blackish grey. The sky looked viciously beautiful! One would wonder if the sun was up in the sky a little while ago glaring down on all earthlings in its full summer fury. The dominance over him was total

The breeze scouted and moments after thunder roared in the distance. The wind quickened and the tall stooping coconut palms swayed ominously. I stood still looking at the sky and felt the swift change in the air seep up from through my feet, through every sinew in me. Lightning broke crevasse of fire-fiery   streaks in the dark rain clouds. The cumulus nimbus was in no mood to retreat, the storm clouds soon spread her canopy of dark grey tentacles and it felt the sky was coming down to meet the land. The chariot of the gods roared swiftly and blazing silver flashes in the dark sky. I thought I saw firmaments in the sky. The earth seemed to shudder and I stood by the well.

Then she arrived in grandeur. Pouring down in torrents quenching the flora and she hit the earth as succor to the soil, dry and parched by the relentless glare of the summer sun. It was April 7 th 1973. The summer rains had arrived. I soaked in her. I longed to melt in her, awash!

Why do I remember that day and the morning after? I do not know. The summer rains, how she arrived and squelched the earth, engulfing all life in her munificence and beauty. And then, the day after- morning when I woke up and walked about outside the house and on to the road still drenched and cold after the rains the evening before- breached branches of trees, debris of broken twigs and tree leaves littered; pebbles and sand carried by the torrents  and strewn on the road; bright red and chaste white hibiscus flowers bowed by the beating of the summer storm albeit still with splendour and  beauty, washed by the rains and carrying droplets of water, peeped over the compound walls and fences of houses on either sides of the road; Kanikonna (Cassia fistula), was in full bloom , being April and nearer to Vishu- they looked bright lapped by the rains and their  yellow gloss prettier in the warm soothing rays of the rising sun. The bougainvillea, kanikonna (Cassia fistula) and the cluster of jasmine flowers were strewn around on the wet earth by the gate in front of the house; their tiny petals still sparkling with droplets of rain water.  They seemed to paint a picture abstract and beautiful, red-pink ,yellow and white. The sunflowers endured the beating in the rain but they invested their majesty and stood beckoning the morning sun. As it was my habit of checking by the fish tank every morning soon after I was out of bed, I went to it. The water was almost spilling over, and was crystal clear. I felt my finger the index and the middle into the glazing water and I tinked in the coldness that grabbed them. The fishes- the Gold, the Angels, the Black-ies and the Sword tails all were in ecstatic play.

By then the sun was up and the warm rays fell upon the earth, through the trees and it brought forth a feeling of blessedness.

The majestic jack fruit tree which stood at the front left corner of the compound was gleaming. Its foliage of dark green leaves looked pristine, fresh and brilliant. The jack fruits that donned along its trunk through the year were resplendent greenish yellow and beamed, tanned by the storm. The huge mango tree was imposing and sweet little yellowish mangoes had fallen down in the wind and rain waiting to be picked up. I looked over the well and saw the water level was only a couple of feet below the brim. The ferns sprouting luxuriously on the walls of the well had driblets of storm water and looked vivid green. The squirrels were scurrying along the trees and squeaking, tails standing up; the sparrows and mynas were intensely devouring the seemingly unending carcass of May- flies that were washed out in the rain.

The feast was splendid, the ambience electric and the wait worth. I inhaled a very deep lungful of air. There was a lyrical quality about the air that morning. I felt I was reborn.

Malarkey

It is not true that one can create an illusion of humility; the membrane is so thin that the world will see through the facade  It is not possible to divorce us from what we voice and write. They are our selves-good or bad, acceptable or outrageous, humorous or livid.

In times gone by when I was young, avenues to see one’s thoughts in print was  rare and success- an achievement as scaling the Everest, possible only to the very few who succeed after relentlessly posting in the mail the works they pen- essays short stories, poems ,so on and so forth to publishing houses, newspapers and periodicals. In fact there were no boulevards that one could trod through to air one’s thoughts. The virtual age has revolutionised all that. And it will be sheer untruth to claim that what we write on our blog, be it as a post or comment is not us speaking, our psyche, our experience and they are only pertaining to aliens or we speak for the reader. Else one must admit that one is a common hypocrite who wants to influence and sway people with clichés like “awe”, “awesome” etc.

An ode to melancholy cannot be penned in an elated state. One has to be feeling sad to write about being sad. Can I say that my poem, my essay are not my thoughts but of my neighbour? It is only when one empathises with the misfortunes of the neighbour or when one is consumed by one’s own misfortunes does the ode to melancholy bears. A man like Mukesh Ambani sitting in the ugliest mansion ever built to desecrate the Mumbai skyline cannot possibly pen or be enchanted by the lines of William Wordsworth

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”

I’m not an afficando of poetry but I understood that the language of John Keats lines

'Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane

 In some untrodden region of my mind'

can be linked to his love letters to Fanny Brawne.

Keats penned one of his famous five odes , “Ode to a Nightingale”, one spring. He felt immense tranquility and happiness in the song of the little bird that nested near his house. He went out sat beneath the tree for hours and thence was born one of the most beautiful odes. What other state of mind other than sheer joy and tranquility can provoke such a creation? A paranoid mind cannot hear nor see the nightingale.

Take these lines of P.B.Shelly:

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

 My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

 Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!'

The poet evinces his aching for rebirth and resurrection. He wants to be as 'timeless, fleeting and lofty' as the West Wind, for he suffers endlessly. The intense emotional distress of the unforgiving life makes him bleed-the life experiences ('I fall upon the thorns of life') and longs to put an end to the agony. I do not think that Shelly would have felt offended or ashamed at this dissection of his verses.

Can one say that the lines were all in humour and jest? There is always our pale self in our words and writings even if we consciously want to camouflage or deny that. One need not be a Maugham or a James Joyce, but life’s experience is in our words and writings.

 Hemmingway’s candid painting of life as seen and experienced by him created the unique literature that give us immense pleasure. Hemmingway’s life and his writings are entwined and are mirror images. “Death in the afternoon”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” both vivid narration of his love- bullfighting and his experience in the Spanish Civil war, then “The Old Man and The Sea” are undeniable exposition of human relationships, emotions, love, agony, lust and disappointment. Imagine Papa Hemmingway creating “Snows of Kilimanjaro or the Green Hills of Africa if he were a reticent and incipient arm chair explorer? The throbbing emotions packed in the “Snows of Kilimanjaro” would certainly have touched Hemmingway as an experience felt or seen in some ways.

It is life that make a writer or a poet, Mark Twain,Hemmingway or the Bloggers like us and there is no infamy in not being timid and to accept that our words in letters are our life- humour, jest, agony, joy or stoicism.The opposite is sheer malarkey.