Delight at Dawn

This post was inadvertently deleted & hence the re-post now.

This early morning, I was half in sleep anticipating the troublesome wakeup alarm on my mobile. In my half-awake mind, I juggled whether I must go for the jog heeding the dispassionate reminder of the alarm. It was about five am and I was startled into full consciousness by the jolting tone of the incoming text message in the phone. I chose to be lazy not to stretch out to pick the mobile phone and instead decided to believe I did not hear any that and tried pleadingly to sleep again. 

When I finally woke up at around half past six, I remembered the text message and read it. It was from C, and it said that, she has some interesting news for me and that I must call her. I tossed about in mind, what that would be. Later when another message came in a little after, I dialed her.

It indeed was news more than interesting; in fact it was such wonderfully pleasant news to be given early in the morn. She said.”Kuns’s (the pseudonym of the very amiable and loving friend of mine (us)), daughter Ammu is to be married away. And the marriage engagement will be in May followed by the wedding in September.”

The delighting news, besides it being a matter that all dear and near look forward to has more reasons for me ,C and surely some of my close friends to be beaming about. Ammu, the little girl she once was and now an Engineer in Electronics is the first child of the generation next to be born to one of the fellows in our close circuit of friends. And S, her mother was expecting her when she brushed away the trouble of the advanced pregnancy and was at our wedding, twenty four years ago.

I may not make it to the engagement in May, which C would definitely be present at. But I will surely have to make it to the wedding, come September. I called up her father, my pal later in the morning and reminded him that he and S, now need to look more like parents (they both radiate a much younger disposition and appearance than any of us).

How inexorably time fly by! Twenty and five years ago who among us would have dreamt in any of our moments of even wild drinking revelry, of such fascinating dream? Perhaps the same was true, yes certainly so, to our parents too. A few more years down and all these kids will be adults walking away into their chosen horizons, leaving…! 

And deluge would seldom happen when we may vanish into the horizon before- for the law of Nature states that matters are cyclical. There will be bees to drone and collect nectar in flowers that bloom each day, the birds will continue to chirp and chatter, the little fishes with their myriad colors swim about in the waters in delight along with the mightier ones, the dogs will wag their tails and bark lovingly when their masters come forth, the sun will rise and set giving way to the moon and the stars- the world will relentlessly turn round and move around for the seasons to enliven all the wonder and another generation will be born for another to give way..

A Dream Still Born

                       "I'm a steam train,big and tough,
                        Riding steel rails, hear me chuff;
                        Running on my steel railroad track,
                        Smoke is steaming from my stack."

Hitch your vision to the stars. Did someone famous say that? I guess so. The fact is I never did really hitch my vision to anything stellar .And when I look back it was more of a variant of   drift wood  kind and  that I was fortunate at times to  ebb with the tide and at  other times get smothered by chance. So there was no real manual design behind what I’m today. Is that not the sign of lackadaisical character?

Strong are the ones who do not let lives be designed and dictated by vicissitudes and the roller-coaster of existential living. They design and chart their course like voyagers who deftly chart the navigation on the vast and seemingly endless seas. And their persistence and perseverance enables them to manoeuvre the vagaries of the mysterious waters and finally say aloud, “Land ahoy”.

As a child I was fascinated by the train that was pulled by the steam locomotive engine. The rail road passed through my neighbour hood and I never failed an opportunity and let go a chance to stand on the over bridge, or the street adjacent to the rail road and watch with enchanted fascination locomotive pull the cars, huffing, puffing and with the occasional shrill whistle that sent  jet of steam out through the exhaust vents. The swish, whistling and hissing the steam engine creates; its huge wheels that are connected by shafts that rotate in synchronous harmony, were wonderful sights and to behold in awe. The manual hand signal on the side of the rail track gave a good indication of when the train would pass. And I would stay put for minutes for the signal to assert and then get overwhelmed with excitement when the engine appears in the distance like a black spot .Then to gradually appear larger in size and vision. When it entered the under the bridge on which I stood transfixed, the brief couple of seconds the huffing becomes distant then to be heard on the other side of the bridge to soon speed off to vanish with the cars in tow beyond the bend on the rail road! The smell of burning coal, though tantalising would also send tiny specks and dust of residual coal into the nostrils and eyes. A less intense consequence when compared to the awe the whole picture gave me!

I decided when I become man I must be a train driver. The huffing-puffing locomotive stayed lingering in my dreams while asleep and the subject to build castles while awake.

It was then by chance and luck of great magnitude as I saw it, that I could travel in the locomotive along with the driver and his assistant. This fortune came my road many, many years ago while I was in Kottayam during a mid- summer vacation from school. I was sent to my aunt (mother’s sister) who lived there. She lived in the housing quarter provided to her husband who worked in the Railways. The housing quarter was a stone throw from the main tracks of the train station and a small open park straddled the railway tracks.

It was one evening and I was with some boys of my age playing in the park. When a locomotive hissed by and stopped with loud clutter and clatter on the track near us. We turned our attention and ran towards the engine. It was driven by someone who was the parent of one of the boys. He asked us if we would want to hop in for a ride. And I guess I was the first one to jump for the invite. So there and then I did my first and only travel in the locomotive .The driver was on a shunting mission and for some fifteen minutes he took us in. I could even help his assistant to shove coal into the furnace and also they let me tug at the cord overhead that sent shrill whistle. It was fascinating experience of a dream that became very true and  nothing alike was felt when I chanced to travel first time in an aero plane.

  

St.Antony , a Story ( Part -II)

                               The Wedding day pic Aug 23

When did I first step into a church? Well memory is very clear here, it was into a Chapel many, many years ago in the convent school run by Carmelite nuns, where I studied in the primary classes. The Chapel is a magnificent Victorian era structure. Though access into the precincts was not free, there were occasions we could be in. It was often that we peeped in through the windows and be amazed by the quietness inside.

Honestly even if there was students from families of various faiths, no separation and difference was felt.  We sang the morning thanks giving song in the assembly with  exuberance and excitement. “Father we thank thee for the night, and for the pleasant morning light…...” We had a parting song in the evening. “Jesus tender shepherd here me….  .”  It was exciting!

I believe, those formative days had immense bearing on me from a tolerant and all inclusive point of view of creation and cosmology. I did not find a necessary distinction based on faith. That I turned out to be an irreligious person in later years may be perhaps a matter of little conjecture, but more of reasons not wasteful.

So it was not an astonishing shock for me that I chose to be confidently around in a church with the woman I fancied marrying. And, I could empathise with her feelings when she expressed the desire while travelling pillion on my bike to pray for a while at the St Antony’s church en route to home one day after a wedding.

However there was no formal proposal to her, going down on my knees yet. Neither did modesty let her. But something told me within as it did to her that we got to live together.

However with two of my close chums (Balan & Sree) rebuking me for what they asserted (and rightly so) as my unparalleled foolishness, I decided to ask her and without delay if I can have her hand. It certainly could be a betise if I walked about on the presumption that she would want to wed me. The whole world almost knew that I wanted to marry a catholic lass- my family, friends and her folks. And quixotically, except the woman that mattered ,the woman concerned!

It was perhaps the longest journey of my life-a journey on a sultry March afternoon, from Cochin to the distant town in Tamilnad some two hundred fifty kilometers away. The dusty town that it is and was then was not relenting at night too. It was quite warm. I checked into a hotel and spent another longest period ever –the longest night! The following morning I would be going to her house (where she lived with one of her sisters). It was then, rolling about in bed that I wondered what if I had been prejudiced about her decision. Presumptions can be awakening painful and panicky too.

March 20- and the Sun took a long while to come up in the east and go further up in the sky. Perhaps the whole world was conspiringly going slow.

Audaciously, I began the chat with her on the assumption that she has accepted to marry me. I did not while sitting across in the chair alone with her in the room, think it was necessary ask her if she would marry me. I assumed that we had decided to be married and began the discussion on our life after wedlock. The little nitty gritty matters that can come up manifested, or be foisted up by the ones around, more because we were from families of two different back ground and faith and many other things I do not recollect what and what not.. Did we chat for an hour? I guess so.

I was to take the night train back and in the evening we found a convenient excuse of walking to the church being a Sunday (I have not seen since, that keenness ever in her to go to church ha!!) We took a long slow, casual, walk. And wished the road was longer!

By then it was intense and clear that the physical law of Nature had played its role. We were attracted because of the forces of gravitation and honestly!!!

"Oh Lord Forgive Me for I'm Cynical"

I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist, I became one.

 This is what I would tell in face of the alleged cynical tone in me, be it verbal or in letters. I checked the definition of the word “cynic” and found the following decorative pieces.

A) Believing the worst of human nature and motives; having a sneering disbelief in e.g. selflessness of others.

B) Abusing vocally; expressing contempt or ridicule.

C) Showing contempt for accepted moral standards, esp. by following self-interest.

But I do not fit in these descriptions with much gusto, though I do not deny the definitions that may be in me, but it is more relative.

The reason for the ornamental pseudonym that I may have, “cynic”, is more because of what I see as an uncontrollable offensive attitude of what for example is sinister, deprecating, torn away from even semblance of altruism and abusive. I find it comforting, release of pent up energy to react sternly vocally or by letters to a situation when it demands, rather than be timid and peeved and then boil inconsolably within oneself. It is better to be sheared away from any possible loss of self-respect.

There have been a few blog posts that went purportedly directing my ire at persons and happenings that were less tolerable even to a serf who would love to crawl when asked to kneel. Certainly the spars between friends are not to be for love of God included in these.

A few months ago, some savvy fraudsters managed to hack into my Google mail account, presumably fancying me for someone worth a shot at. The invisible forces set off a chain of email to all my contacts in Google. The  email went had the subject matter of my perilous state in Greece and that I was urgently in need of money to bail myself out of some hole. Many of the contacts smelled rat and pooh-poohed the message. The slightly sceptical ones made sure to contact C, to ensure that everything was smooth and the message was hoax. It was apparent to even a nitwit that the email message was not from me.

A naïve but unfortunate person whom I have never met, but only spoken on the phone, shot off by Bank transfer some $ 750 to the fictitious address .I came to know of this a month later and he was rather ashamed of his impetuosity. Nevertheless, I feel an affinity towards him for the apprehension that made him act so when he got the hoax message.

Last week my sister called from Thpuram and narrated an atrocious grapevine that came to her hearing that day. The matter was circulating in her Banking circles for these months before a colleague decide enough was enough and told her.

I understood her annoyance but also was displeased and offended by the matter and shot off an email message to the villain of the piece. And decoying copies to some of my contacts too. It certainly was a message that was matter of fact and alluding how contemptuous I hold him in esteem for his apparent pernicious canard and nonsensical act.

When the fraudulent email message went about in December, it went to this person who is holed up with his riches in Saudi Arabia. He was holding a fat account in the Bank branch where my Sis was in charge. Once, after a reference from my Sis, I  spoke to him on a matter of emplacement and did communicate once to him by email. The subject was forgotten since. Now when the email went to him also in December, instead of displaying the decorum to call the Bank branch in India and enquire with my Sis about the email, he went about telling some other branch managers that the lady manager’s brother whom he has not met asked him for money. The gossip loving colleagues of her went about spreading the slimy gossip, know not how far. It finally reached her ears the previous week. To further the agony the guy with drew some Rs 100 million from her branch and ably aided in the whole process and gossip by one of her colleagues she trusted much.

Now one can choose and ignore the situation or be cynical in this context relatively.

The situations that I allegedly become cynical are similar in content. If one can have the luxury to be stoic, why not express oneself and be cynical and relieved too?

Jack & The Bean Stalk

                                       An old photograph

The mother is furious at the boy that he is sent to bed without supper. The blunder he did was to give away the only possession they had, the cow, she entrusted with him to sell in the market and he did literally for nuts. He bartered the cow to a man who offered what he claimed to be magical bean seeds. The seed grew overnight into a huge stalk that went up to the skies and  little Jack went up the bean stalk to the Ogre’s castle, befriended the young woman who was a prisoner there and he finally enriched himself with the booty the Ogre had. And all that is all fascinating for a fairy tale. And Jack’s mother was absolutely within her rights and duties as mother to reprimand him severely for the infringement. But what if mother refuses to advise, suggest, discuss let alone gentle nudge when it need be?

I have an issue going off and on with C. And I feel she refuses to see my side of the argument and steadfastly opines that the children are grown up and she need not be asking them to do things; she should not be acting like a catalyst or correcting them. The trouble is that she has her heart ruling her words and reactions than the brain locked inside her head. This has been more than often a rusted piece of nail that pricks me.

She may read this post as she sometimes ventures into my Blog!

I’m not expressing the lack of confidence in the children per se. They are in their own ways individualistic and have formed determined and strong opinions.  A is twenty one and R eighteen. But as Balan mentioned in his recent post on parent’s anxiety and Oushu in his Blog about his mother’s apprehensions- apparent it is and not an enviable position when you are  concerned about your children’s future, however well they may be marching ahead. It is not anymore in the day’s world that, epiphany like with little Jack that will lift you up in life. It has to be perseverance, hard work and most of all smart work. If it is only hard work one may live the life of an ass.

A has taken of his own very volition a medium that probably will be “the” talk and the thing of the present and the future. Something that depression and inflation, the economic synonyms will not bother much-“visual media and entertainment”. As luck has paid back, we (I & C) have not thus far bothered much about the academic brilliance or performance of both the kids. And thus far they have done fairly well. Fortunately they did not want to be stereo types( doctors and techies) and we loved that decision more than any.

But I get apprehensive often as A is in my opinion though not certainly agoraphobic is not entertaining my suggestion to be more advertising. And it is necessary more because the field that he has chosen is not easily amenable and one has to be heard and seen. But C seldom tells him or discusses advisory matters with him. She tells that he is grown up. This irritates me all over. I do not feel that he is still letting himself submerge in it.

She expresses unquestionable confidence in the children and silences me by asserting that they are conscious of matters and will certainly do what is required to further their selves.

It is not always that all mothers and parents have such optimism. But to me it takes more to be convinced and I have to see the ground proof, the result and the sum of the matter. I get distressed when I think of the missed opportunities that I let go begging. The matters I was not expressive about and timid when I had to be assertive. It is the desire to ensure history should not repeat in certain ways.

When I was little I was fancied with Jack’s scrambling up the bean stalk and the good things he brought down from the Ogres abode for his mother. As a boy it is easy to fantasise and imagine such manna falling on you. But with half a century of life behind, there is anxiety and reality that has to be dealt with. The world is tough today than it was a few decades ago. And is cruel and unrelenting too.

MAGNA CARTA

Social Studies, the mixture of Geography and History that was in the curriculum at school were an interesting subject to read. John, King of England from 1166 until his demise in 1216 had to counter the hapless Barons who turned rebellious and got together to curb his powers. They brought forth the Magna Carta which was drafted to curtail the vast power the King had over the land, people and his recalcitrance towards the Papacy. History is like a long, intriguing novel ! It is a story of knowledge, conniving, deceit, victories, battles won, wars lost, of people who preceded us and in flesh and blood like we. Spilling of much blood, usurping one’s own father, brothers and even mother on the long desperate scramble to the glory of throne!

But my history book says Magna Carat was a failure, though the death of King John secured Magna Carta eventually.

The drama continues to be enacted even today and in our midst, in social lives, in dwellings among lay people and more among the powerful and the mighty. Distrust, helplessness and subterfuge like in the times of John the King of England! The Bard detailed such intrigues in the Macbeth, in King Lear and Julius Caesar. The latter had more in common to the real life episode that preceded William Shakespeare by about one thousand five hundred years. But life all the same, even before the Italian Machiavelli, was full of intrigues, lust for wealth, power and amour. So why pillories him for what we call “Machiavellian deceit and intrigues”?

There is a friend of mine who often narrate in disgust to me the chicaneries in the family she is married into.  She lamented in anguish and disgust, the subterfuges and intrigues that are agonisingly rampant in the circle of her in laws. A rocky nuptial accord that she has with her husband is on a plateau now more because of the necessity to secure her children’s rightful share of the assets. She wonders if their father will ever have anything left to bequeath. More because even though he is crafty, he is pliable, she says. One of her in law (her husband’s brother) as she sees it happen will through guile and artistry that deludes without the deceived knowing so, arrogate what has been jointly held by all of them.

She has now decided that she will not deign and begun to face a bunch of specious sisters- in law- square on. Cowed down by the weight of their contradictions, the rest of lot have lost out on their deft plans of producing a Magna Carta to reign in the marauding brother and his wife and save much of the wealth that they will elude their grasp. They now assume that they can “Hail Mary” their way out of the imbroglio .

I asked her if she would mind if I blog some of the story. She said she would not care a hoot. She is sometimes distrait that she indulges in binge drinking. Though I and C have cautioned her to desist from exposing much of the rags in public and take care of herself.

It is the cruel irony of life that under the avalanche of unbridled wealth, people who were relatively decent and spartan would metamorphose into people who can bring forth much sorrow and anguish.

Encounters with Supermen

There was a framed slightly moth eaten, faded, black and white picture in the loft back in my mother’s house. The picture was the record of the day someday in the 1930s.The scene shot was the Petta railway station platform, in the outskirts of Thpuram. There are a group of men and women, clad in khadi and sporting caps of the Congress party, all standing and in two rows. A “half naked Indian fakir”, standing along them! He has a staff in hand, slightly bent frame and skinny native pallor. Standing in the group is also a man in his late thirties, my maternal grandfather.

The day marked Mahatma Gandhi’s arrival in Thpuram. I was fascinated by that photograph. It is fascinating and awe to encounter Supermen! I envied the old man, my grandfather.

It was in 1978, and an evening in Thpuram. The then beautiful stadium in the heart of the city, “Chandrasekarn Nair Police stadium” was packed with men, women and children. Many had come from far and away. It was little after 5 pm and the crowd was frothing with excitement and impatience. it was a tidal wave that wanted to break on to the shore. There was, I remember vividly not many police men around, and that was strange for the occasion. The fact was the State was then ruled by the Marxist led Government and they perhaps in their convoluted ideology and thought- what they would call wisdom decided that she did not need any protection of the state police. They wanted her to fend for herself. A repartee in silence for the almost two years of dictatorship she inflicted on them.

She came in a white Contessa car. Like a girl in her youth she sprinted the few yards to the platform and troded up the flight of stairs on to the platform. The crowd roared a mixture of applause, and booing. She was clad in white sari and long sleeved blouse. She waved at the crowd. And soon began her speech. I was standing quite near the platform. I had once seen her some fifteen odd years back, while she went past in an open jeep through the main through fare in Thpuram in a motorcade and with grandeur, waving at the frantic, yelling crowd that thronged the sides. Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s first visit to Thpuram as the Prime minister of India!

Back now at the stadium fifteen years later she was looking old and the travails of her life of the past showed. She has been out of power, in jail and now on campaign trail .She paused for a while in silence, when the namaz call blared through the loudspeaker in the adjacent Masjid. I felt that was a well thought ploy to appease the Muslims by conveying her sense of respect.

By the time she finished her speech a section of the crowd was surging infuriated, shouting expletives at her. She was soon whisked into the car and it sped out. The crowd surged behind. I took the short route to the road and reached her car. She was seated in front alongside the driver. It was apparent that the antagonistic crowd was blocking the car and threatening, her. I saw Mrs. Gandhi at arm’s length! And I noticed fear, and uncertainty in that face that displayed, power, regality and guts. The personality that told the most powerful man in the world Richard Nixon the President of the USA to “fuck off “and not get involved in the subcontinent .The pictures that were displayed much in the newspapers were a distant faint reality and  memory. I saw her cornered like doe amidst   a pride of hungry carnivores. Somehow the car managed to speed away. I saw fear and plain fear in her eyes and I could almost touch her.

It was the Maurya Sheraton in New Delhi and was some time in 1983. After a Company conference, I was there for the dinner and fun. I and couple of colleagues were standing out in the porch and enjoying cigarettes in the cold winter in December. An Ambassador car came by and braked with arrogance. Out jumped a man and like a lightning walked into the lobby. He moved with the swagger and confidence, as someone said of a majestic Alsatian. It was Field Marshall, Sam Manekshaw. We had too short a notice to react and he was gone.

I saw him since that day twice and was fortunate to speak to. Once in the early 2000, I met him at the Coimbatore airport. He lived in Coonoor and was travelling out of Coimbatore often on his honorary capacity as member of the board of some thirty odd corporates. He then had lost the sprint, but still the pride and regal was live. His shoulders were slightly bent. I approached him and wished him. I said, “Sir Can I have your autograph?” The Field Marshall said,”Son why me from an old man?” I told him, it is old men such as he who makes us proud.

A few years after that I met him at his residence in Connoor. My friend who is now the Brigadier took me there on a visit. He was seated in the sofa, quite frail but the exuberance and brightness in the eyes were vivid. We shook hands after my friend introduced me. I reminded him with respectful awe that he autographed for me once. He chatted briefly with me and we bid goodbye.

Sometime in the 1980’s, I met an old man in Mumbai airport. He was seated in the passenger area a few seats from me. He looked familiar and I was not keen to break my brains to think who he would be. Sometime soon he stood up and walked with a back- pack on him towards the check in area. It was then the guy next to me said that was J.R.D.Tata. I cursed myself for my silliness and I rued what I missed.

I was on my way back from a business journey. And was at the Mumbai airport. It was in the days before the air traffic boom and there was just one flight out of Mumbai to Coimbatore. Having spent the sleepless night at the airport, I was thrown wide awake from the hung-over, when I saw this short guy walk briskly in with a bag in hand and sporting a bowler hat. I ran to him and took the book I was reading with me. I said,” Mr. Gavaskar, good morning. It is nice to see you again. I saw you in Thpuram when you were there to play the one day match against Australia”. He said, “Well that was long ago, yes.” I asked him for the autograph and while he autographed, I enquired." Whatever did you feel when those West Indian giants hurled that hard cherry at you at 150 kmph?" He smiled and wrote, “with best wishes Sunny Gavaskar”.

Siddhartha

I remember that it was when I was about fourteen and doing my 9 th class that the Hindi dubbed version of a film purported to be on sex education ran to full mad house in Thpuram. The film was titled “Gupt Gyan”. I was quite scared and even afraid to slip into the theater to see the film as the subject was taboo and anathema. There were many afternoons on the way back from school when I loitered with my heart wrenching, around the Cinema where it was being exhibited. The movie I was told by the lucky and brave ones, (I then realised during from those days that, ‘luck favours the brave”) who managed to sneak in and see the film, that it graphically had many scenes that were revelation , but continued to be only mystery for me.
  But I may have encountered difficulty at the theater gates as the movie was strictly for Adults and one must, the bare minimum have whiskers that tell one is an adult. I did not then have even stray hair on my cheeks that would tell my adulthood.

 “Siddhartha” based on Herman Hesse’s novel was a daring film with brave scenes ( those days) ,with Simi Grewal and Sasi Kapoor.  But the version which I managed to see in the cinema was mauled by the censors.

Those days as folks would know

, no internet, no Google to surf into pornographic sites or Wikipedia manuals on female physiology and anatomy. And those films that were released allegedly with a big Adult content were all flattering to deceive. Sex and anything to do with the subject was fit enough to invite abomination. The only salvaging saviour that provided any insight into the area and life which was still elusive, a shadow and hence inquisitive, were those proscribed magazines that were sold at shady dark street corners. And it was then one day that “The Venus in India” landed in my lap. I may not have devoured another book as I did that novel. But again it was like the film sound track in the All India Radio when you compare to a visual treat of internet and television.But some time ago,when I tried to read the novel again ,I closed the book unable to go beyond a few pages. That is not to decry the novel.

In contrast, I wonder at the burst of deluge that can capably drown an adolescent that prevail now in the form of information of all kind. The question that sometimes I asked myself until a few years ago, when Aravind & Radhika surfed the NET, are they being bludgeoned by materials and information that they cannot fathom and comprehend? Or have their brains evolved with the evolutionary  cycle to absorb  information that come to them which is  at least a decade before  used to entice me when I was their age.

Now, in the times we live, the individual must be getting information about matters that were damned once upon a time. But has the society in the macro sense of the word and the individual, changed to accept white as white and black as white and black?
 No, is the answer. There are still  misplaced moralistic discourses replete with hypocrisy that it stinks like the untended pit of excreta.

I was quite astonished after watching host of Hollywood and English films in the past six months. The extent of explicit portrayal of physical intimacy between man and woman is powerfully brave. Even for a liberal free for all society that exists in much of West. The reality, be it violation or intimacy sinks into the viewer. Thespians that enact the roles,male and female are all renowned and highly acclaimed names. When the plot demands they act, and moralistic barriers hauled up by society is ignored. Justice is done to the story and picturisation does not deceive. Look what Anna Hathaway did for the film “Love and other Drugs”, Noami Watts in “21 Grams”, Kate Winslet in “Revolutionary Road” and many other acclaimed actors. And the lead men actors in these films are no less insipid when it comes to a demanding sequence. In contrast, early last year, I was privy to a few days of shooting of the new avatar of a Malayalam film that in its earlier incarnation more than thirty five years ago kicked up hullabaloo, controversy and raised eyebrows. Though artistic,I see that was an average creation.

I could also have lunch on the sets with the lead actress, who is singled out for powerful and controversial roles that needs bravery and gumption. She is from a respectable family and well educated almost winning the Miss India a few years ago. Speaking to her gave me the feel that this is no chicken hearted actor, but someone who is not afraid to portray the role as justifiably as it should be. And she maintained that professional commitment and dedication what as actor she must, she would and to hell with the squeaking, weak kneed moralistic hypocrites. The film had scenes that required much explicit content and peevishly the director and the producer back tracked. And the movie lost much aesthetic charm it ought to have had.

The very same society and people, who turn tongue in cheek observations, watch these films with perverted fascination and miserably failing to grasp the depth of the work.. It is like the psyche that maligns and disparages female medical nurses while forgetting the respectable, service they render relentlessly.

MEN-OH-PAUSE

A couple of years ago I, my friends and most of the acquaintances of my generation touched the fifty yard mark. And thence dawned the enlightenment that the days ahead will certainly be a bonus. But when I reflect, the fact is that life is too fickle and the succeding second in time is in itself bonus. But it took damn fifty years to realise that! “Ha, foolishly lays the head on the shoulders of Man!”

I disliked being reminded of the knell of fifty. Forty was an interesting dawn as, “at forty one turns naughty”. But my sister and C too, wanted a small luncheon or dinner for the occasion and some of my close chums who were in Thpuram at that time assembled at my sister’s home.

It felt awkward to play VIP and blow the candles out and then slice the cake. An Anglican hangover conveniently imbibed by us! An amusing anecdote one of my friend Tomy narrated on the occasion that aided in casting away the timorousness of the birthday cake affair was his summing up of the birthday bash that a class mate of ours threw at a star hotel, when he turned fifty  a few weeks prior to my birthday. He said in his customary humour,”Hey that fella P celebrated his menopause party the other day . 

Besides the jest, the statement was a reality jolt. The identical syndrome that haunts women when they near fifty or get into the fifties! Though men have not any reason to fret and be subdued by mood swings of the threat of menopause and the psychological  fear of losing the uniqueness of women hood ,"fertility”. And physiologically men are fabricated to have a very long innings when it comes to matters of arousal and amorous life... But the fact remains that at least for some like me, the reality check has begun.

This is not just about sexual life that gives much thought. But it is the subsumed fact that lies, Vis a Vis the greying of hair and whiskers, the deposit of fat around the mid riff, the increasingly somatic existence and the enlightenment that the downhill ride has begun. While holding in gratitude the fortune many like me who could live so long with insouciant countenance, solemn thoughts for the many that perished before they could bloom and in the pinnacle of their salubrious lives!

This seems to be the age and time when I feel more like the odd man out in a group which is more in their early forties or even thirties. I’m sure some may dispute this. It also could be so. And it again must be the mind that plays the poker. The Kafkaesque age in one’s life! Strong and brave are the ones who tread forward with nonchalance. Why not?

I have a very good friend, who is my age and who we all see leads a life of quiet and unhurried. The slightly receding hair line garnished with salt and pepper, a sporty beard- and he refuses to think that he is an Uncle Tom. He believes and lives that he still draws the awe, the glances of the young and the middle aged of the fairer sex. This alone is not the end game that is all about. But it is the measured and calculated steps that he puts forth in life, that perhaps make him some what a lovable odd one out.

Now, I also recollect an oxymoron like remark someone made to me.And he certainly was not an M.C.P and   harboured no derogatory feel to the opposite sex either.He said, “It is disheartening to fly Kingfisher and Jet, because the stewardesses may want to use the salutation, ‘Uncle’, while in the discomfort of an Air India flight, one can call the stewardess, Aunt.” 

He was expressing the anguish that the elixir to sustain youth in life is still a myth.

Little Red Ridding Hood

“Little Red Riding Hood”- the fable was in my English Reader in Standard II. Pictures in colour of the little girl in the forest , picking up wild flowers and in great spirits, en-route to  her grandmother who lived in a cottage in a clearing deep in the forest still is etched in memory. And then the cunning wolf dressed up in her grandmother’s clothes and cuddled up in bed!

Cinderella, in the carriage drawn by  white horses on her way to Prince’s Ball; the little Snow White and her dwarfs. Alice and her fascinating encounter with the Rabbit and other creatures was in the Radiant Reader in, I guess Standard Three. There was the story of Peggy in her red satin frock in another lesson, which pictured a model family living in the English country side. Then, of course the Sleeping Beauty and King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but certainly not to forget the outlawed hero Robin Hood.

 Well, being put in an English medium convent, I was as a little boy more in sync with these characters and allegories such as their stories. Those stories drew and crafted an image and concept that proved to be enduring and inerasable. I guess that will be one among the few good things in me.

I was a sort of a loner in childhood - belligerent, delinquent and a rebel through adolescence and teen. Being eldest of two children and my sibling being a girl a few years younger to me, there was a lot of closeness that one felt to a sister who shared the same womb. I can recall that the protagonist and central characters in all those fables I mentioned was consciously and subconsciously identified to the only person I was to be with, at home, en-route to school, during recess and all the while, my sister. The wicked wolf was identified with the most disliked person, I then presumed and hence a threat to my sister. The villainous queen and Cinderella’s step mother to any woman who was as I felt rude to my sister. I wondered what would happen if she were to fall down through into a hole like poor Alice. It happened that she had a deep red frock, which she wore on certain days and I was proud that she could be identified with the pretty little Peggy. Mother once mentioned I becoming uncontrollably agitated and wanted to smack the nurse who inflicted a hypodermic injection on the little girl and she wailed.

Often in later life in my adolescence and teens, I became quite a loner, because I felt that a brother in place of a sister would be more of fun and jubilation. As she grew into her teens the distance came about in communication and I now feel was natural that a girl was bound then by a limitation of being a girl. That applied to the relationship with, be it the father or big brother. She moved closer to our mother and two women are definitely a bigger force than one!

But I introspect much of the bond that stayed within me, as it was seldom exposed. More because, I guess was due to the conventions and social behaviors then, that one seldom exhibited any visible and excited affection to a woman, be it your sibling or mother. And the same applies now and continues to this day.

Looking back a few years, I compare with my two children and their exasperating fights and complaints of bullying by the other. Often it was the girl who is younger who cried wolf and alleged offence from the brother. And indeed he used to peck her beyond once patience. But what I noticed, in his angry facial expressions and seemingly violent act of hurting her was that the act was only an act. When he seemingly held her wrist and twisted, forcing a shrill outcry from her in pain, it was obvious that he was only feigning and had not hurt her even a whisker. The drama was hers and she deemed to be her prerogative.

That was in their childhood. When they matured into teens, I find the bond and affection manifest and strong as I hoped it would be. I feel till now, content that they imbibed in their body chemistry what I feel is inviolable necessity- affection and love for ones sibling. I tell them often that relationships that might come into their lives in the years ahead may dissuade them from being solace, succor and encouragement in life for the other. But, they ought to ensure that the subject matter is not negotiable, because if they must claim to be a life form greater in sum to beast, then they have to be different from beast. And a rightful and conscientious man or woman who comes into their lives will not trade for that.

The ironical fact and the incongruity that I notice around is that, it is more often a lopsided matter as it often is in real life.

Ecstasy & Agony

“Great many of us are possessed by our possessions.” Nothing can be more tied to truth.

When Siddhartha was beckoned by epiphany one night, he threw away all the trappings of the prince and set forth on the journey that made him the Buddha and gave forth to mankind a philosophy that was the inspiration for exhortations in some oriental religions. His renunciation of material wealth, what we call richness was not sacrifice- but a way of life, to free him from the mental agony and turmoil that haunted him. History has no reason to tell us that he eventually bemoaned what he left behind.

I have not read the Gita, as it is, from cover to cover in its hard bound condition. However I have scoured through Juan Mascara’s translation of the Gita that was published by the Penguin, and is in my small but treasured collection of books. Erudite men and scholars as well as people who find comfort in being self-acclaimed acolytes of the Gita - its treatise , have been heard saying that renunciation of possessions is the solitary way to happiness and contentment. Detachment from things material, relationships and so on, is necessary to salvage the soul and the mind from the agony of being born. A kind of Mumbo-jumbo, I would say!

To me, an ordinary and a commoner, such discourse- from a treatise seen as sacred by many has seldom been of much help. I understand “possessions” to mean all that one has, owns legally and morally. And also objects, matters and most of all people who are epicenters of our absolute happiness and contentment. To consider a state where one loses all, or either of the ones, is unquestionably haunting and devastating.

As Ruskin said, “Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.” I fear, often being trapped by the depth and the power possessions, of things that one holds dear to the bosom, animistic and inanimate. Because, when only one feels the torment from the loss of an inanimate possession-lost forever, do one fear and realize the inescapable depths of the excruciating torment that the loss of an animate possession can have. 

It is a strange matter. A child ceases to wail after a while from losing a fancied toy. Whilst adults like us are suffocated for the remaining part of our lives after we lose a cherished and closely held possession, person or relationship.

Why then is man ensnared by what he has? Why are we susceptible to the distress and suffering by the loss of a person or a thing we loved and cherished? The beasts move on after the anguish the moment of divestment, loss or dispossession  bring and there is no definite proof to tell that they are for life tormented by the deprivation or loss. The gypsies seldom or do not own something tangible. But they are like us, in flesh and blood and can feel the intensity of happiness and pain .

If I’m what I have and if I lose what I have then what am I? But, also tell me how can human beings get over the deprivation or parting of something closely cherished?

A Distant Memory.

The paths tread and the places seen, the men and women whose path we crossed, saw, befriended, worked together, irresistibly loved to despise, loved and most of all choose to remember and desired to forget!

 It left me wondering the many faces that passed my gaze. The many I may never meet again, the ones I might want longingly to see again. I began to recollect, to rewind, fitfully though from the first day, I could remember back from a long time ago. Some, who fascinated and enthralled me, some who I loved to hate and some who stay lingering in memory poignantly. Yet some who have been instruments of pain and hurt, of disillusionment and deception, of selfishness and opportunism- and to eclipse all that, just instruments of delight. And some who just passed by as non-entities, and stalked as a shadow, often to comeback into memory.

It is assumed by some that a certain person was the instrument of change in them, a harbinger of sort. To me that has been rubbish to this day. I feel, I’m more disposed to my genetic makeup than an external influence of a stranger, a friend, an acquaintance or just some one. That may be a liability of character, because that can also be the reason why I’m incorrigible.

Many may have vanished and eloped into oblivion after enacting their role in a fleeting life that was not out of their volition. What may have happened to them after I saw them last? The ones who may still be surviving- how are they, perhaps will they ever think of me, remember me? Why must they in this melee and frenzy to stay afloat!

I do not remember his name. He was dark complexioned like the many pull rickshaw men in Chennai. He was tall, well-built and sported a khaki half pants and a woven shirt in cotton. There was discoloration of the fabric around his under-arm, obviously the acidic reaction of perspiration from the glands that worked overtime to keep apace in his struggle to eke out. I remember him sporting a towel of myriad colours around the neck- a towel that may have revealed colours that was not meant to be, awash in his sweat and the dust that wedged on it while it was damp with his toil.

I suppose, I give him a name, a typical Tamil name? No, that would be unfair. He will stay as he will in my memory, a shadow of a figure with no name I can think of.  He was the pull rickshaw man who unfailingly picked me from home and put me with care in his rickshaw and lugged all the way to a distant convent school in Thambaram. That was in the sixties and I was in the first standard and living in Thambaram , while my father was stationed at the Air Force base there. When it rained as it does cats and dogs in Chennai, he used to ensure that I was cocooned safe from being drenched and put his tarpaulin envelope around the passenger area of the rickshaw. And then lug the rickshaw to the school in the torrent and along the streets which soon would be a sewage canal. He would then carry me, my school and lunch bags around his shoulder, and like a juggler, handle a rickety umbrella too, so that I was protected from the rain. And he would leave me safe inside the class room. He was affable and pleasant, I can remember, but do not however recall what he had to talk to me all the while- to me a five year old. In the late afternoon after the school, he was punctual at the class room door to take me back home. I must have called him “mama” as it is always so in Tamilnad – a respectful term for an elder, irrespective of his eminence. I can barely recall through the haze of the years that have went by, the bond that developed between the two of us. But that lasted for a year and I was shifted out of Tamilnad.

There is nothing much I can reminisce of him and the time he pulled his rickshaw with me in it. But years after and often I wonder about this man, whose scanty image is etched somewhere and it comes out lingering. Today it did!

That was forty seven years ago. And he would be, I suppose one hundred or there about if he is alive. Else, let he be in peace after a life that must have been hard on him.

Abu, the son of Adam

What that made me wonder and think, was the movie, “Adam inte Makan Abu” (Adam’s son Abu), in Malayalam and that which acceptably won the National and International acclaim. The movie was a well created one with good visuals and restrained performances.

The story line is about Abu an emaciated perfume vendor whose only wish in life is a pilgrimage to the Haj. To fetch enough resources for the journey, he and his wife ends up selling all they had and even almost gave away their bosom house. However still running short of the required money they are offered the means by a couple of good Samaritans. Since accepting money that is not earned or from the immediate ones is forbidden by didactic Islamic scripts, they are devastated and forlornly cast away their savoured dream of the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The fim has many scenes wherein Abu, swears that the very essence of being born is to touch upon the soil of Mecca. The Creator sends forth Man into the world, to be enriched and salvaged by the pilgrimage to the Haj. The reason being born human being is to journey to Mecca! And, Abu nor his wife, though barely eke out living, has no inhibitions or misgivings in throwing away all that little they possess to raise money for the journey of their life.

I was left wondering on many occasions through the movie, that man’s search and straying after a mirage, a faith, and a concept that is allegedly holed up at the top of the golden stairway has no bounds.

The perplexing psyche is to throw away a life in hand and anticipate a much fancied after life that no one has known, seen or come back to vouch. To barter the life to live for a concept of life in what is called “Paradise” as it is made out. The bird in hand is forgotten in the search and fascination for the two that is alleged to be in the bush. Some like Abu crave for a journey to the Haj and would readily part with the little they have for subsistence. Some murder and kill for the promised stairway up into the clouds. It is a strange matter that baffles comprehension. And we call it “faith”!

I do not find reasons to be impressed about what some may call faith , or manifestly “blind faith" and precisely because of the halo given to the term, treat it as holy and beyond impeachment. Sacrosanct that it is impervious to logic, understanding, knowledge and all that is empirical. It is secure against all criticism, argument and opinion. Commonsense is jettisoned as being an unwanted baggage. It is a matter of faith and faith is blind, the argument goes!

Well then what is faith?

 When one is blind, what could one possible see? Which means what is argued as the unquestionable notion or faith, is a state of mind that is arrived when one is blind. And since one is blind one is not sure, if it is a journey partially afloat like a drift wood. It is like a cab driver leaving you some where assuring you it is at the door of everlasting asylum and abode of happiness, while your eyes are closed or you are blind to see where he actually left you. And for that journey, you parted with all that you had and enriched life, the loved ones who made your life a cherished one, and with eyes closed faithfully.

There, then, is no faith that is blind and not, faith itself is blind. 

A Damp Squib

If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because anything would be what it isn’t. And contrary- wise, what it would be and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?  (Lewis Carol in “Alice in Wonderland”).

But Anna Hazare thinks otherwise. Obstinacy and outlandish mindset seems to be driving his cause and demands. Now, he wants the local Grama Panchayats superseding the Parliament. Effectively that will ensure besides anarchy, the rule of the rouges, more pernicious than what we have from the dispensation from five hundred plus elected members of parliament.

I have been a person with pro ANNA leanings. Mainly because the movement that he created in India ,was after the mass agitation evoked by Jaya Prakash Narayan in the mid 1970’s against the autocratic, corrupt reign of Indira Gandhi, the most passionately evocative movement. The cause was inevitable, and the time was nothing but ideal. We are mauled, haunted and sick of corruption, and looting by politician – business nexus. And a mass agitation to incorporate a constitutional law to address the inexorable slide of the country into depths of economic chaos and social upheaval was most necessary.”Cometh the hour and cometh the man”, one may have desperately thought of Anna Hazare!

Anna Hazare seemed to have risen for the hour. And a conscientious team including the super cop Kiran Bedi lined up behind him. The government as expected tried everything in the book and out of the box to scuttle the movement. A Five Star Yogic charlatan was even made a decoy and planted as an alternative cause centre. Allegations of financial irregularities by some members of the Hazare team were made out and leaked out with surreptitious intent. The intrigues and manoeuvrings were obvious and on expected lines, when one considers the criminal legal minds who are in the Congress party, Kapil Sibal, Abhishekh Singhvi and P. Chidamabaram. But the much required provision for benefit of doubt and being the wronged was given to Anna Hazare and his team.

However it seems that the twist to the game Anna and his team made, such as some of the eccentric provisions of the Jana Lok Pal, the obstinacy that Parliament should pass it within a short time frame and to hell if required to the debates and discussion in the house for such a vital proviso of national and constitutional importance all point to one direction,”south” in terms of sanity. And in between we heard Anna Hazare endorse the man who presided over the greatest mass extermination of Muslims since the partition. Narendar Modi.

Then, the much dramatised act, hand in gloves with the right wing Hindu parties. Anna announced that he will campaign against the Congress, which can only mean he will endorse the BJP.   And the BJP cannily scuttled the very same Lokpal bill in the parliament with ulterior design and intent.

And now look at the picture in this post. Constitution of India it says, and has Sivaji, the Maratha warrior King, the Rani of Jhansi ,Swami Vivekananda, Vinoba Bhave and Abdul Kalam Azad. And only the later was related to the drafting of the Indian constitution. What message does this send? Vinoba Bhave while he was alive was apolitical and not identified with the right wing Hindu clan. Sivaji was a local warrior who fought the Muslim rulers of India.. Rani of Jhansi fought for her right to be the queen and have her kingdom not taken away by a weird law the “Doctrine of lapse”. Swami Vivekananda was not a Hindu fanatic, but a thinker and philosopher. But we see Anna and his coterie  , perhaps with the auspices of the right wing Hindu group, usurper  the Rani, the Swami and  the Bhave  into the group of their iconic symbol- Sivaji. Swami Vivekananda has long since been kidnapped by the Hindutva group.

Wonder what these folks have to do with the Indian constitution? The picture cannot be a coincidence of insignificance.

By now, we see the end of the dream that was a mere pipe dream- an effective law to unravel corruption and punish the guilty. There is much for all to celebrate except the vast majority of the   people of India who still long for a square meal a day.

A Matter of Charcter

I have not heard about a whole railway passenger compartment being booked in advance for one family. The total members who travelled on the Rajadhani originating in Thpuram and speeding all the way across the paradox called India ,to New Delhi, touched thirty plus. They were off to a Xmas and New Year celebration; call it an en famille sojourn with the youngest sibling and his wife and kids who lived in New Delhi. They even stitched white T-shirts for all to wear on the New Year’s Eve. One of the blokes a good friend of mine got this T-shirt idea as he planned something out of the box to enliven the jamboree. And every one autographed on the t-shirt the other wore on New Year's night. A memorable memorabilia, that memory only can create. It sure must have been a hell of a travel some three thousand kilometres and with six siblings, their spouses, mother and (grand) children.

I mentioned this fascinating train journey to another person, but he was not enthused .I mentioned this as a point to substantiate my contention that there are still families who cherish the oneness and the closeness of being together and are not frivolous. And, is it not a wonderful thing in a world that finds empathy and affection, let alone being together, a nuisance or strange inexplicable words in the lexicon?

He categorically stated that the bonhomie that exists amongst this particular clan is purely because of them all being well in their own choice of living. And character will bare fangs and claws only when situations fall bad for either any of the members. It is a selfish self centred world he emphasised and that expressions of togetherness and affection are superficial. They are always determined by situations that are measured in personal gains and losses.

I did not rebut his opinion, because I sensed that he was talking sensibly with the life that he must have seen on his way in the last six decades of his living.

When I thought more on that, I felt that he spoke with unpleasant candour. And truth always makes a harsh reality of life. Is it not true that situations bring out our true self, in a person?

The Stories From Life

Life is a big bore; it is dull and dreary; it is agony to be born and living; it is pain and sorrow; it is grief and it is just fun and happiness which makes it dull too.

This will be what my life and your life would look to another. In the midst of frantic living and utter lust for life, resulting in miserable acts of survival in whatever comfortable way possible, we forget the dullness, the dreary insipid or even rollicking flavour our lives may actually have. And if we were to pen our story, be it the autobiography or a novelette based on our life and our experiences- with the real life characters, places and situations we have experienced what a drudgery and endless tedium that will be to the reader. So be the biography of our life, unless it is compiled by a person who has imagination to provide the touches and finishing, polishing a life dull, sad, fun filled or plain bore like they do to the piece of carbon chunk.

Life retold the way it unfolded and in letters will be vapid and bland. It may be exhilarating to you, can be poignant and filled with stoicism to be rubbished. But to the other who is told about, it can be a sempiternal bore and that is much  asking to endure.

I guess that is why some creations in literature are exemplary in quality of read, and feel. An example of disaffection to a story of a real life hero, whose endurance, perseverance and obsessive purpose has no peers, is in my opinion the story of Lance Armstrong.  “It’s not about the bike. My journey back to life”, is perhaps a story of his life written by himself or a ghost writer. Armstrong was diagnosed with terminal stage testicular cancer at the young age of twenty one. The cancer had by then matistised to his brain and lungs effectively consigning him to a world of no return. Doctors gave him a month or more to live. It was from that terminal and utterly depreciated hopeless stage that he came back to living and went on to win Seven "Tour de France". You expect the book to provide you much insight into the life of a rare breed of human being. But the book was tasteless in words and narration it was as bland as a cold meat. I express this with all respect to a man who dwarfed an illness that makes you forget about life outside the infirmary.

“God of small things”, of the onetime novelist Arundathi Roy perhaps is more known because of the Booker prize the book was awarded. Certainly it may not be comparable to much other excellence in literature. But, for a person of her age and generation (including myself), born and childhood spent in Kerala, the book must be fascinating. More because, I could relate to many happenings in the milieu of Mallu life in the Kerala of the later part of 1960’s. Else the book, though narrated in good English, may be dull to many.

Whereas J.M.Coetze’s ,”The Master of Petersburg”, I felt was a story apart. Though the plot was based on Coetze’s real life and the agony of losing his son, it was adapted with Dostoyevsky as the protagonist. The story was well adapted and set up by the author, that a real life sage and the experience is mesmerising in content.

I have always wondered how a student of law or of medicine can read through and understand the literature in their respective fields. They are dreary! The convoluted and abracadabra of words Greek and Latin in origin that we see in books on medical science is far too fathomless to many. However the power and artistry in managing words and weaving of ideas and messages with them makes "The Emperor of Maladies" , a book of almost five hundred pages a repository of treatise that a lay man can enjoy. Else how a book on the story of cancer could be so powerfully conveyed to lay people like me and many other? Siddartha Mukherji is a new avatar in story telling based on real life.

The purpose of writing this is to express my opinion that our life as it would be retold, or rewound and played for someone from the netherworld, a stranger, friend or foe, or even a Rip van Winkle, would end up as an eternal famine that will be full of ennui and donkey-work.

Perhaps that must be why there is dearth of empathy in the world we live.

Romance That was Not

Next to Man, among primates Chimpanzees have the general disposition to jealousy. I do not know if jealousy is more a gender specific trait and seen in women than in men, but seems likely so. Men do envy, but some say the extreme feelings are found more in women. And this is a short story of what actually transpired amongst three young people- a man, woman-friend and wife.

Romance, subtle and subsumed is part of academic curriculum. Though in some cases they go overboard and are publicly passionate. And are often displayed in the corridors of the alma mater, to eventually be enshrined in the scrolls as la affaire Romeo & Juliet! Sometimes the philandering consumes the platonic liaison.

It began as a trivial past time and fun for the group. By some odd way the two were declared in love and serious at that, though in reality that was not so. Recess and bunking of classes were in a group and the rest of them ensured to nudge and playfully prod the two as couples in romance. There was eventually a theatre of a wedding towards the end of the college term and was, let me put it, “solemnised”, by another affable chap.The fun and fan fare took place in the college canteen- wedding as if in a cathedral!

She was gregarious, fun loving, exuberant, lively young woman with abundance of laughter and a great repository of good conditioning.

The hero in the dramatics was a frequent and honoured visitor to her home and was considered as one in the family by her parents. They were such good souls that, the small group of her friends all had free access into the house. This gave opportunity for some outings together, with friends and even late in the evenings, of course with her parental approbation. A late evening at an annual fair of flowers was a catharsis of sorts. A fascination to be at arm’s length was discernible. He began to notice somewhere that she was not averse to the much made about peculiar relationship going critical (a term used in nuclear science when atomic reactors go functional, splicing atoms).Which should mean here that she began to like him and can be serious too about. There was love in the air! And it was subtle and quite.

I’m certain that only the duo would know that, without thinking that the other felt alike. He would be keen and willing to acknowledge and reciprocate her fondness. But the will to take a plunge was found wanting in both. Perhaps they were expectant that the other would show the courage. And most of all there was still a way to go to be flying on their own.  Reasons are obvious of a generation that was marooned in conventions and fear of the social controls.

Life moved on and she was married away.

However their affableness and friendly relationship continued. She was gracious to be present as a good old mate at his wedding which took place years later. And she stayed through with her little son and her genteel husband.

As destiny and chance would have it for a while, she moved into an apartment- stone throw from the house where he was with his young wife. It was a remarkable coincidence.

There were a few visits she made to his house, with her toddler son and sometimes together with her husband. It was during those visits and casual meetings on their evening strolls that he began to notice a decided irritation she displayed to his wife. It seemed more like the nagging nudges young kids throw on another. It was inadvertent, he presumed first. And once after a dinner at her house, he understood well and clear that she was fond of taking digs at his wife. Gathering little instances together it was apparently displeasure, annoyance and shreds of jealousy for a still born affair of long ago. It was plain “woman” in the act, nothing more nothing less! And only women can be tongue in cheek and throw subtle digs to make the supposed adversary uncomfortable.

As pedigree and conditioning would have its bearings, her conduct, attitude, and the envy which she may have borne in mind, slowly ebbed to metamorphose into dignified and loving friendship with C.

I once asked C, much later in life, if she ever noticed a petty irritation and annoyance in her during those early days after our wedding when we were neighbours. She nodded in the affirmative. And was also intelligent enough to realise that it was the ghost of a long ago relationship that never was, but could have been.

A winter Evening by the Sea

It was cold winter evening on the beach

The people loitering on the beach or gazing at the blue waters were thin and sparse. The air was whiffing cold and I felt a bonfire would be wonderful to spend the star lit night, gazing in askance,contently or in awe at the sea.The waves of the ocean lashing gently on to the beach, against the sun that was gently hovering down in the horizon, enhanced the wonder of Nature. Sublime, caressing! It seemed like the shore and the ocean were engaged in foreplay. Could the ocean be tranquil as this? The question came back more often to my mind as I left the seaside. By then the sky was heavenly inundated with golden, twinkling specks that seemed like glow worms. They as always reminded me the insignificance of the bipedal ones down on the beach. I left him watching the gently lashing waves, still not quite convinced about my riposte and standpoint. His mind, I sensed was much as not as near calm as the ocean and the tempest was very much alive.

Perhaps that is the way human mind is. It often does not reflect in the facial muscles. Sometime to some it is the opposite, it mastitis in the face and all over the physiological being.

“I’m dispossessed”, was his curt retort to my query about who and where he was from. It was he who initiated and opened the conversation. And was not in my temperament to ask a stranger who he was and where he hailed from. With my characteristic apathy to strangers and discomfiture, I was confined to a good extent and more than often. If I were to be a salesman, which I detest and is unable too, to barge into any, everyone and at all times, it takes a considerable length of time for me to be anywhere proximal to the comfort zone with another. And, I was somewhat offended by his brusque reply.

We chanced to be sitting at the far ends of the disused stone bench which lay on a neglected but quite corner of the beach. I fail to recall who occupied the stone seat first. But it was he who initiated the opening conversation and then exclaimed,”Goddamn ocean this, hardly behaves like one .Look at the damn waves they seem to be of a shallow ces pool.”

“Cesspool”! It was my turn to exclaim and in silence. I looked guardedly into his eyes. This man terms the vast and beautiful ocean, a cesspool?

Tucking my palms into the jacket pockets, I suggested, “Relating this vast confluence with a shallow pool is rather strange. Is it your mind that refuses to see the vastness that is in front?’

He got up agitated, and gesticulating his fingers at me,said in a cold voice, “Man when you wear those leather boots you do not know what frost bite is.” He turned around and walked towards the water.

It was a cold winter evening on the beach!