thursday philosophy - be weird whenever you can

a lot of people are of the opinion that i cannot get any weirder, but one can always chip away at perfection and transform all that carbon into diamond.

one should choose the time and place well, though. do the unexpected, is my motto. choose a nice time, say like after a hard day at work, when one's bosom cronies and one are lying in various stages of spread-eagledness on the couch in front of the tv. wait for the right kind of song, and break into a sudden dance. roll eyes and throw about limbs for added effect. one may even add a yelp or two in tune with the said song.

the reactions are generally satisfactory.

i got several seconds worth of shocked silence.

why nice girls pick losers

Puppet making workshop tomorrow.

the kids are going to make rod puppets like the highly stylized wayang kulit puppets and will use them to stage a shadow puppetry show on stories from the ramayana or the mahabharata.

the scripts are in - one around sita's swayamvar and the other one on her abduction. we have such a fine sense for melodrama. even kids could unerringly go right to some of the most dramatic episodes from the great epic.

bits from the script for the play on Sita's Swayamvar;

narrator: janaka called all the princes to his court and declared a competition.

janaka: today i declare that who will lift the SHIVADHANUSH and string it will be declared the husband of my beautiful daughter.

narrator: many princes, demons, rakshasas tried to string it. but everyone failed. few were not even able to lift it. it was like nobody could lift or string it.

narrator: king janaka went to vishwamitra and told him something.

janaka: vishawamitra, would brave rama like to string the bow?

narrator: rama went to string the bow. he successfully stringed the bow. but soon the bow broke.

janaka: i announce rama my lovely daughter's husband. i am a happy man now.

soon rama and sita are married.

the end.

the end indeed, in more ways than one. poor girl.

:::

the entire idea of her swayamvar is so depressing - lovely princess, beloved daughter, all dewy eyed and innocent, the kohl in her eyes almost melting with the wait for the prince, landing the biggest chauvinist in the assembly. what would sita's fate have been, if she had but chosen a more ordinary man than the purushottam? definitely not the deified symbol of indian womanhood, but all the same, she could have been perfectly happy being wife and mother to an ordinary man and his ordinary kids.

following his shadow through dense woods and dusty roads, soft feet worn out on thorns and pebbles, sheltered complexion seared in noonday suns, rough cottons for the silks, flowers for the jewels...to what end? doubt and renunciation? to become the touchstone for a man's pride?

what waste.

i cant help being torn between sympathy and contempt for her.

i'd have taken ravan any day - good king, interesting parentage, skilled musician, good brother, brave warrior. plus, he must have really, really fancied her. helen of troy was more practical in these matters.

how stupid to have waited for him who led her through hardship and came for her not out of love, but out of a misplaced sense of bravado and affronted pride.

pack up the moon

poetry is such a dangerous art. no space for pretense. Auden's 'stop all the clocks' is the most moving song of desolation. it cannot have come unbidden. what loss might have forged it?

it sets my skin prickling every time i read it. every verse is a lament, controlled and absolute.

filled with the black despair that comes down like a thick velvet curtain - suffocating and blinding. the same terror that jolts one awake from nightmares where loved ones die in strange ways. the landscape of dreams where every law of the ordinary world is a mockery of itself, where every step is a step to doom; every face a quick-morphing mask. nothing, nothing can be done. where everything of value can go in a snap. and one is defenseless against it.

the daily terror that mothers and lovers endure.

Stop All The Clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W. H. Auden

sad day today

the jeans that was an uncomfortably tight fit a month ago is now comfortably loose. i am losing my hard earned kilo.

hence, i am sad.

the (un)holy state

all my friends persist in being ardent advocates of matrimony. like it is some giant exclusive club they are dying to join. more is the horror, they would do anything to drag me into the quagmire as well.

members' benefits - exciting conversations about the lord-and-master's eating habits, sleeping habits, working habits, spending habits and bathroom habits. why do they imagine for a moment that such fascinating details could be of absorbing interest to their unmarried friends? do my glassy stare, tapping foot, yawns and frequent peeks at the watch convey anything else? i think i need one of those workshops on body language. or perhaps, i could take a cue from my old deaf cousin great-grandfather and shout 'it is all nonsense. NONsense' at them.

what is the point? i get told - companionship, children, some one to look after one in one's old age, social acceptance...

companionship is plenty. all around. if one is a self-sufficient individual one does not lack it. or else, simply cultivate a reading habit. that banishes a want for company.

children? adoption is not a crime, surely? why go through all the horror?

support in old age - what a selfish notion. abhorrent. does one have kids just so they can be effective pay cheques in the future?

social acceptance - why bother? why bother at all?

today i got told that i am to lose one more to the marriage-mafia.

my poor, silly, optimistic friend. why, oh why are women so silly?

i live in dread of the other shoe dropping. may it not.

spring cleaning in autumn

cleaning cobwebs. all sorts.

clingy, immaterial things. nothing to be gained except getting one's hands dirty. still, how lovely they manage to look sometimes. holding up heavy drops of dew, minor rainbows in every drop. like something magical to be treated with care. too fragile for heavy handedness or haste. one can get so completely taken in. the spider's lair.

so much time wasted.

monthly strange event number-1

i somehow managed to cut a deep gash on my left foot's big toe by accidentally getting it under the leg of the chair that i was sitting on. being hungry and sleep deprived does not help matters at all. i spent a good minute wondering exactly what place hurt, and what exactly i should do to make it better. slow, slow reflexes.

after making sure that i wasn't about to cry or something equally silly, everyone else proceeded to robustly make fun of me. unkind people.

ah well. the mind above matter thing works, after all. i can now forget entirely that i have a big toe on my left foot, let alone one that hurts like hell.

i certainly don't mind spilling a little blood, but i wish my injuries were a little more heroic than this.

• 
  

saw off shr tonight. the family i got to choose.

can't say goodbyes convincingly. hate letting people go.

the land of plague and floods

the diamond city is far from glittering. it is a dirty, dusty eyesore. at least the old city is - garbage piled up around street corners, encroachments bang in the middle of main roads, ugly broken down buildings, dust and grime all around, factory chimneys belching smoke in heavily populated places...a total municipal disaster.

as one enters the city, a giant hoarding proclaims the biggest lie i'd encountered in a long time - Welcome to Surat. clean city, green city!

mass apathy or mass illusion.

• 
  

the evening saved the day from becoming one more statistic in the most-boring-day-my-life register.

dinner and conversation with mr. and mrs. sharma, my gracious hosts for the evening at their lovely home. watching the comfort of an alliance of long unfolding in an equal, if different, partnership. the sweetness in being taken for granted.

later, a walk in the garden made fragrant by the flowering of the ratrani, the full-moon glow and the sound of crickets in the stillness. on the drive back, i notice that night shows the city off in kinder light. the warts are hidden in the dimness and the neon lights add a touch of festivity. an obligatory dressing up.

the car cruising over the flyover with the windows down and the breeze all soft and whispery, companionable silence and the comfort of being with a friend in a city of strangers....not a bad day.

small blessings abound. and i am thankful.