Condolences

An old man
erudite, accomplished,
widely known for unfailing
articles on solstices
and equinoxes,
dies.

Acquaintances,
colleagues, students
rush to write letters
not to the family
but to editors.

Tributes and eulogies
fill the columns.
I was his favourite student,
says one.
And I topped his class,
admits another.
I am writing
from the States,
adds the next.

Only one remembers
that the man walked
slowly
from home to lecture
and back.

No one ever
gave him a ride.

—

This could do with much more polish, but it was written in the heat of the moment. I’ll try to improve it, soon.

Appada

Appada. The word escaped amma’s lips as the ghetti melam faded. Both daughters married. Her duty done. All that is left is to die a sumangali.

Appada. Amuda put the receiver back, kissed the cross on her chain, sat down and sent up a small prayer of thanks. He was unhurt, the AC compartment had not derailed.

Appada. She set down her basket in a corner of the room that sheltered seven. Today had been a good day, only three measures of kadambam left unsold. And that Selvam had not turned up to demand his cut.

Appada. Sixty three votes. Narrow but clear. He would no longer be ‘former’ MLA. He stood up, somehow taller, somehow stronger, somehow more frightening, and marched out to address the cameras.

What makes you say it?

Dylan or not…

…this piece is worth getting all soft-kneed about:

One morning all the steam whistles in the valley blew continually for an hour to warn residents that the floods were imminent and once the whistles ceased to wail, the waters rushed in to obliterate alleys and attics, chapels and cellars, confessionals and milking stools, lawns and lanes, the nests of birds and the dens of foxes, the beds in which children had been conceived, porches on which old men smoked, places where the sunlight came late on account of the hunch of the hills. All now silence. Think of the music that could and should be written, the pastoral opening, the wail of the whistles, the roar of the waters, the long silence at the end. Someone should compose such a piece. And the spiders and the insects who crawl upon the earth, the snakes and squirrels, what happened to them, did they rise upon the waters and make their way exhausted to shore after dark and in latter times mold stories to tell their young in the span of years yet appointed to them, or did they too end their days in the blue musics of the deep?

Sigh. Sigh. Go, go away and leave me now, I need to sit and sigh alone.

Imagined futures

The evening was spent with my 5-year old nephew. A model child who does not fuss about food, who puts his toys away when told to and who doesn’t ask for chocolates when accompanying his mom to the shop, he sometimes unnerves me with his perfect behaviour. Before the sun went down, we were in the garden playing something not unlike Calvinball. When it got too dark to be out, we went indoors, got ourselves some banana milkshake and settled on the couch.

His parents work. While they are dedicated to their children and do an admirable job of managing career and family, there is little time for some small luxuries like story-telling. Oh, of course my nephew has books. Tons of them. They read a few out to him each night, not once do they forget. And he in turn loves being read to. What he does not get though, is a simple story, without the aid and input of illustrations, one that forces him to rely entirely on his imagination for the pictures.

Storytelling takes time. Even if you know the story thoroughly and are familiar with each detail and nuance, the narrating of it all is a fine art. Some people are natural, some learn through a lifetime of telling and retelling. It is a demanding exercise, one that requires you to provide answers to endless questions, to adapt to the listener (Teacher says we must not cut trees. So the woodcutter is a bad man!) and to embellish.

Appa is a marvellous story-teller and so are many of my aunts. My childhood was filled with thousands of stories, from traditional sources like the Mahabharatha and not-so-traditional ones like Ananda Vikatan (a post on those delightful mama-mami kathais soon!). My nephew, however, is not as lucky. His parents do not have the energy at the end of a working day for the involvement of an original narration, it is easier to depend on (gorgeously illustrated) books and comics to create the magic.

This evening I decided to tell him a story, the time-tested way, seating him on my lap with some milkshake for nutrition and vadams for nibbles. He was a little puzzled that was no book to look into, but decided to give me a chance nevertheless. I wound through the trials and tribulations of Hansel and Gretel’s young lives and he listened carefully, almost never interrupting. When we reached the end, he jumped up and said he wanted to hear another. After dinner, I told him. Ever obedient, he nodded happily.

Having sent him off to his food, I turned to my computer and found an email from a friend with a link to this article in Slate. He had sent it along because he does some peripheral work for the OLPC project, and was concerned that studies like the one reported may derail what he sees as an important and necessary effort. Discovering that PCs may take away from homework and other activities is certainly disturbing, but I don’t see this as very different from the fears expressed about the effects of TV on an earlier generation.

What does bother me is that technology is increasingly substituting imagination (not a new concern, this) – my nephew finds it unusual not to have a book with pictures to accompany a story. Will his children find it strange to see books in which pictures don’t move? I worry that being constantly exposed to someone else’s vision of the world, we may never learn to create our own universes. I may be old-fashioned, but I cling to my mental pictures of the Enchanted Wood, of Narnia, even Hogwarts and fear that watching the movie versions will erase the “original” in my mind.

For all the doomsday predictions made about TV, the idiot-box generation has survived, with its imagination intact. In fact some of the most stunningly original, vivid and spectacular narratives of today that appear in the form of video games are the work of that cohort. Stories and novels continue to be written and read. More books are sold today than ever before. More prizes are given and more continue to be instituted. It is a victorious refutal of predictions that this generation would lose its way, its ability to imagine better worlds choked by the constant barrage of stimuli that fills modern lives.

Despite all the that, my original concern remains. Are we losing the ability to engage ourselves without need for external contrivances? As our worlds get ever more filled with devices of distraction, will we lose the ability to be good enough company for ourselves? Will my nephew, on a day without books, without electricity, without his football, still manage to have a good time?

Insolence then, insomnolence now

I have flown with the owl. I have come to life at dusk, prepared my eyes for the darkness, waited for the sounds of day to fade. And stepping out, shivered from anticipation, fear and the thrill of tasting the forbidden.

I have crouched in half shadows, eavesdropping on drunken quarrels. I have listened to the night-watchman talking himself to wakefulness. I have heard the lonely roar of the late bus. I have puzzled over soft rustling sounds in the alley until sweet parting sobs revealed all.

I have watched shift workers descend the company shuttle and walk wearily home, wordless unlike their daytime compatriots. I have seen the lights in the cabaret dim, clients stumble out, dancers in shawls of modesty slip facelessly home. I have watched sweepers turn out the day’s litter from the depot’s buses.

I have heard the first thuds of a new day – tight newspaper bundles landing on the pavement. Silent swishes of paper on paper as nimble fingers sort yesterday’s gossip. Landing shouts of fishermen, answering calls from their women. Diesel vans, dyspeptic from substituted kerosene, bringing in the city’s vegetables. All preparing to stand by as normal people wake reluctantly to their day.

It is not yet light, but impending dawn has pushed away the night’s romance. I am suddenly somnolent. I grope my way home, to cool sheets and hard berth.

– – – – –

Oh, many have been the nights when I brushed aside the daily repose, indulging my inner voyeur in the unlit city. I thought nothing of it, for sleep was not then a precious, proscribed pleasure. Perhaps I am paying in unclosed eyes now, for my youthful disregard. Neglected nidra is having her revenge.

– – – – –

More is less

V drives two kilometres from home to Nilgiris. She has left work early to avoid the late evening parking wars at the supermarket. She pulls out a trolley and piles it high with rice, wheat flour, daal, salt and sugar, neatly labelled and packed in clear plastic. Some butter, some bread, on occasion, some cheese. Pasta. Spices and nuts. A quick, guilty trip to the snack aisle and finally to the queue for guiltless vegetables. Nine hundred rupees. Into the pocket of a well-to-do business family from another state. Unspeakable quantities of plastic packaging. Six polythene bags.

A walks slowly down 4th Cross, past eleven-year-olds playing street cricket. She arrives at Deepa Stores, opens her handbag and retrieves a list. Rice, wheat, daal, salt and sugar. Soaps and detergents. Four hundred rupees, and home delivery. On the way home, she stops at a cart selling bananas. Eighteen rupees. And another selling guavas. Fifteen rupees. As she opens the gate, an old woman with a basket on her head approaches. Twelve rupees for amaranth and spinach. A grand total of Rs. 435.00.  Four local livelihoods bettered. No plastic bags, no packaging except for the detergent.

What is wrong with us?