A Deprived Life

He was naughty,genial and often daring. Perhaps it was the youth in him that egged him to rebel. The age of revolt as people defines youth! There was certain impetuosity in him, but most of all he was a lovable and loving fella.

We have had quite a few adventures and nocturnal exploits together. Though it was very true that his father displayed and enforced domineering pervasiveness and discipline that is seen often meted out to conscripts, my friend in spite of the many thrashings have stood up, dusted himself and serenaded with fun and frolic. Fun, banter was very much a vital limb of his youthfulness. Rejoicing in our youth we had a jolly good time. I still recall the fear that I always had for his father’s temperament. It was often a tough task to call him out of the house while day time  and sneak him out of the house late evenings and at night.

Looking back, I feel that the atmosphere in his home was stifling for a wanderlust soul like he. School and later college was an obtrusive obligation thrust upon us, though we both could cross over with average scores.

 It was 1951 and in the final year after the intermediate examinations, one day evening some of us got together under the canopy of the giant peepul tree that stood at the far corner of the local temple. He was found listless and muted. That was a strange bearing he ever displayed. We had a few beedis with us and some of us liberally exulted in its whirling smoke puffed out from our lungs. We set off for our homes when the temple bells rang for the evening deeparadhana and the crows had ceased their cawing. The bats took off from the lofty branches of the peepul and circled above.

We walked quietly in the mildly warm dusk; the incandescent street light bulbs on the tall  lampposts that stood at a hundred yard distance from each, lend a shadowy image.  They looked like distant stars and swarmed by moths. We could listen to our breaths in the total silence which was occasionally disturbed by the rustling of dry leaves under our feet on the road. My house was farther beyond his. It was then that he opened out a bit. “Look I cannot stand the life in my house any more. And it would be better if I could contribute something to the kitty at home as you know we are six children and father has his temperamental out bursts probably out of anxiety. You know it is a pretty tough to feed seven”.                                                                                                                  "So what do you intend to do about that?” I asked. He was not forthcoming. We bid goodnight and he jumped over the picket fence gate at his house. I moved on and without knowing I would not see him as I knew him, ever again!  

I did not see or hear about him till about noon the following day. It was in the afternoon while she was serving me lunch with boiled brown steaming rice, sambar, ayala fish curry and elephant yam fries that mother casually asked if he had come by that morning. I nodded my head in "No" as my mouth was full with the wonderful gruel of rice and fish gravy. “His little brother was here asking for him and he went back when I told him that you were still wriggled up in bed”. She finished.

He was not seen the whole day and he did not reach home that night. By next day afternoon it was confirmed that he was missing along with his bag of few clothes. Later, that evening some news came about that he was seen the previous morning on the train leaving for Madras, a travel of almost 39 hours those days. I realized he literally ran away from home in search of freedom and living. He could have told me .couldn’t he? His parents, amidst their worry sighed a little relief .The mystery behind his vanishing act made a conspirator of me. Would somebody believe that his thick pal was not aware of his mysterious disappearance? I avoided his father even on the street. I hid behind the bushes and trees when I saw him afar.

When the brown inland letter squared off with the postal seal and my address came to me from an army post depot address in Madras, I was elated as I thought I knew before I saw its content that it must be from him. My chum wrote to me that he joined the army as a trainee soldier and would be undergoing ten months training. In Chennai he joined the Madras Regiment of the Indian Army that was on a recruiting spree post-Independence. Nineteen years old, young, tall muscular and charming, he was a destined recruit, I guess.

Once a month the old post man visited me on his old Raleigh bicycle and thrust   a brown inland letter into my hands. He never smiled or acknowledged my presence; he displayed a face annoyed at my sight. And he was simply doing his postal duty by delivering the letter to my address. Well the whole village believed that I was in cahoots with my friend and I offended his family and elders of the village by not forewarning his booting.

It was a year and a half and I was counting the last couple of days before he was back on his first vacation as a soldier. He had elaborated in his previous letter the gifts he had bought for his family.7 ‘o clock shaving blades for his father, chocolates and Nestle condensed milk for his sisters and mother, a pack of “Lucky Strike” cigarettes for me .. …the list went on.

The day before morning he was to reach back, his father received a trunk telephone call at the local post office. It was from the Railway Police Station in Coimbatore. They had subdued a young man, an army recruit on the train from Madras. He had turned unusually violent at night after waking from sleep and had to be restrained. He was showing all signs of extreme insanity. They followed to here from the address and telephone number found on him.

His father was devastated. He along with a couple of local elders left for Coimbatore immediately.

 1996, September 10^th.He died early morning today. Forty five years of extremely deprived life. He did not recover from the inexplicable change that came about on that fateful journey with loads of gifts and happiness bursting at the seams. Fellow travelers had no clue to what went wrong. They saw him sleep like any and then saw him wake up a mad violent man. He was confined to the mental asylum for the major part of his bedeviled phase of life. Those days the viable treatment for insanity or extreme mental illness was administration of electric shock which subdued the patient and put him to sleep. He endured many. I have seen him at times, in his cell in the hospital, sometimes unconscious after the electric therapy and sometimes awake. He recognized me at times, but suddenly he was violently profane and abrasive. Sometimes he even spoke about the naughtiest things we did. He often used to remind me to bring back the beedis we used to smoke and I took him beedis in acceptable ration .

I cannot to this day see what went astray. A life that promised lot of love and fun to be bludgeoned by misery and to go up in smoke.He lived a life of living dead,seized by delusions and hallucinations with violently frightening temperament which towards his last days lessened to the extent that he seemed to be existing without knowing.It seemed to me that he was in his silence inviting for a journey into his world which we cannot know. Or did he say, “Welcome to my life of night mares”? 

The Ravishing of Women

                         Suicide of Lucretia 508 BC

The burst of outrage and the leaderless demonstration and protest in New Delhi against the gang rape of a young woman in a Delhi transport bus has been a windfall to the media in terms of ratings. I would not be surprised if they juxtapose commercials of condoms in between the coverage and programs on the appalling incident. The opposition politicians, sans party lines voiced ridiculous demands and expressed angst. The government in power which displays astounding imbecility in all things except corrupt practices and sleaze was irritated by the protest, which according to them was much ado about nothing.

Certainly rape is not an endemic scourge confined to India.  The ravishing of women has been man’s vicarious pleasure from ancient times in human history. The Roman attitude towards women and rape was that of property felony against the husband or the lord of the house. The rape and suicide of the Roman noble woman “Lucretia” triggered the rebellion that is said to have overthrown the Roman king and paved the way for the Roman Republic.

I happened to read the poignant article of Kevin Alfred Strom,” Ravishing the Conquered Women of Europe”. To say that the feeling it gives is distressing, is a misnomer. The depth of revulsion at the human race which we represent is fathomless – library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm.

Rape as a weapon of war has been in use since early human times. Lust, liquor and loot were the offer for the victorious. This was taken to horrendous proportions by the victorious allies in Europe after the Second World War. Since history is always dictated by the Victor, atrocities piled on the vanquished are seldom known.

The wide spread anguish and outrage that is now a phenomenon in Delhi over the past few days has not even in this age of instant visual beaming by television channels,  provoked such demonstrations in other parts of the country. About a year ago a woman in her late teens was pushed off a running train in God’s Own Country- Kerala and raped before being killed by the lone rapist. Not to be left behind, recently a father was arrested for repeatedly raping his adolescent daughter. Local channels are all with such distressing news 24 x 7.Tender age doesn’t seem to be deterrent for physical abuse. Infants, teenagers and the aged are at equal risk- be it in the sanctuary of the home or outside the walls of the house. This is when one has to acknowledge that it is not power and subjugation alone that is behind the mindset of a rapist or a molester. How could a father engage in such demonic acts on his child?

The matter that looks rather perplexing is the sudden out-pour of anger after the Delhi gang rape. Rape is a daily occurrence by the hour .Not to forget even men are sodomised and raped. In Kerala a former Marxist Chief Minister was quoted to have said that in the USA, rape is as casual and common as having a cuppa.  This was a Communist’s reaction to the mass abuse of a woman in Kerala.

Why is it that the unbridled anger that we now see not directed to the systematic abuse of women by the State? Be it the questionable powers given to the paramilitary and army personnel in the North East resulting in rape of women by security forces (seldom reported to the outside world); the outrage the disciplined (sic) Indian army continues to commit on women in Kashmir; the rape and murders of tribal women in the central heartlands of India by the Para military deployed against the Maoist?

Moving buses, speeding trains or police stations, the safety of women is not going to be secured. Firstly, because the male psyche finds excuses on her dress codes and her presence in a particular place at a given time. This fantastic theory is seconded by the likes of Sheila Dixit, pathetically herself a woman, who was quoted to have questioned the indiscipline of the gang rape survivor in being outside her home at that unearthly hour of 9.30 at night. Even after the Supreme Court ruling to the contrary the survivor is placed in a situation where she has to prove she is not guilty of provocation and of loose morals. The court also has stated that non-consensual sex even among spouses can be seen as violation of woman’s right. Because a woman goes the way of harlot, it does not give man or the social order the right and impunity to violate her. Either the learned court is ahead of our times or we insist that we would like to confine in barbaric social laws and notions.

Political clout of the perpetrator or his long hands reaching high places will ensure that the investigating agency- the police re- writes the sordid saga with the victim as the villain and profane. The rest will be handled by the incorrigible lies that barristers of the defendant orate in court rooms, tarnishing the victim and shredding her character to smithereens. The sanctuary law provides is deftly used by the practitioners of the law to vilify and pillories the victim and ensure the case is dismissed or the accused gets away with a knock on the knuckle.

What assurance can a rape survivor hope for even from an all women police posse who would taunt and lambast her for a “putain”? The social acceptance by her family her spouse and his family? Are young men noble hearted and chivalrous to descend and grab her by the waist and speed away on horseback? How many among the outraged young men demonstrating in Delhi are disposed with the audacity and are knightly to offer the survivor, solace, love and security of a home?

We are missing the woods for the trees. The fact that has to be acknowledged is that the fire has been burning since the dawn of man – rape and violence against woman is not a nascent phenomenon taking cue from Bollywood flicks. Sexual violation on women and the insensitive assault on the hapless young woman in the Delhi bus was only a tiny aspect in the anarchy and decadence that has set in man’s mind. State sponsored tyranny is another extension. It is not that all is well with man and sexual abuse of women is the only pernicious issue, an exception that has to be immediately corrected.

The means suggested for this is equally anarchic like the act itself. Castration, death penalty and so on that are vociferously demanded can be also extended to other crimes. Why not amputation of the limb for larceny, stoning to death for adultery?

The reason why the spontaneous protest in Delhi lost its halo was because of obstinate demands and emotional statements on punishments that have to be legalised. Bringing down the insensitive government to act has other means that are democratic. Why not vigils at the India Gate like the ones in Tahir Square, Tiananmen Square or even the Wall Street? Instead vociferous calls for immediate and unconditional action from the authorities like the pigheadedness of the Anna Hazare bandwagon will only eventually result in the movement against sexual abuse of women whimpering out.

And women will continue to be ravished.

Rambo

Sometime ago, a dog breeder fell in love with our Rottweiler, Rambo. He was insistent that we agree to have his Rottweiler bitch mate with Rambo to sire. The naughty Rambo being a virgin we were rather amused to find out how he would react to the luscious bitch. Naturally the fellow was bowled over and but we did not expect to see such panache and civilised (sic) conduct from him, a dog. The female was in her heat and naturally the scent of the bitch in her sexual arousal would suffice for the male dog to go berserk. We let them together for one full day. Rambo first took her around the compound and like an obedient escort stood by her side in the enclosure. We were wondering and often thought Rambo was impotent. We in fact teased him for what we thought was lack of masculinity behind his hairy chest. The fact was that the female dog was not fully in her state of sexual arousal. And poor Rambo had to wait and know patience. He would not violate her, alas dogs do not know to rape!

The hullaballoo and outrage after the Delhi gang rape that has virtually deluged over the past few days made me remember the conduct of the dog Rambo, a creature in the family of beasts upon whom we foist the prevalence of such behavior and designate it , “beastly act”. This notion and judgment that mankind often make is unjust and preposterous. A rape victim was quoted having said “Not enough people understand what rape is and, until they do ..., not enough will be done to stop it.” As male, I cannot know the physical and emotional trauma an act of rape can do to woman. But to empathize with agony one need not have to be hauled over the burning coal.

I cannot say with certainty from the perspective of all men what emotions can jet across a man’s mind and what muscular consequences he may demonstrate when blessed with the site of a curvaceous beautiful woman. But there can be no man who will not be titillated by the physical endowment and beauty of women. Speaking for myself, necessarily it is not the feeling of sex and instant copulation that plough me down. Often it is the awe and admiration for the beauty of the female physique and charm that enchants. Lust is something incidental and not a necessary factor that haunts when confronted by a titillating female physique. And voluptuousness necessarily need not arouse the insistent craving for copulation, though it can be the catalyst. Certainly the endowment given to the human species is the faculties to think and restrain. But beasts seem to have expressed amazing prowess of restraint that we believe they are incapable of. When a man does an act that besmirches the beast, perhaps we need to redefine the lexicon.

How do we explain a father violating the daughter? What mindset is it that sets off a group of men on a hapless woman? It is just not the sickness of the mind but the decadence of the society we represent and the civilisation that we laud about. Such creatures, are they comforting beings to be unleashed in the society?

I will not be surprised if a media enterprise offers the victim of the Delhi outrage a fat sum to tell her side of the story, her experience of the gang act. Because such is the swelling of squalid, vicarious pleasure that is festering like gangrene among us.

The Mayan prophecy of apocalypse on the 21 st Dec last would not have been a cataclysm at all. It would have perhaps ensured the elimination of a civilization that has renegade the right to be called civilised.

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?