Sydnyan who just scraped in an entry to the Bloggers' domain, wishes all those fellow Bloggers and their families a prosperous and peaceful New Year!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Season's Greetings 2011
Sydnyan who just scraped in an entry to the Bloggers' domain, wishes all those fellow Bloggers and their families a prosperous and peaceful New Year!
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A path is created...
"It is as if you are lost in a forest.
What do you do?
You have no map and there is no way leading anywhere- trees and trees all around, and you are lost.
What do you do?
You start walking, searching, and seeking. By your very walk, by your very search, a path is created...."
- Osho
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Bereavement
That was a day featuring another typical onslaught of ruthless winter!Gusty wind blew across the Shire carrying the biting chill from Snowy Mountains, plucking down a cluster of leaves, flowers and branches in its savage fury. A flock of wild cockatoos suddenly started fleeting round the distant paddock, crowing under a spell of delirium. Never before, I noticed such an emotional outcry from those birds.
In this leafy suburb of Sydney, it has never been unusual to sight a plethora of colourful birds wandering from place to place amid the lush thickets with their occasional cooing, chirpings and crowing. On the contrary, it was quite unusual, on that occasion, to hear such an eerie, emotional crowing from an incredibly large number of sulphur-crested cockatoos.
Obnoxiously amplified version of cacophony, unnaturally changing tone of those wild birds’ desperate cry had something in it to stir my curiosity and I pulled open the front door of my tiny abode unfolding a vista of nature’s abundance. Nearby, under the fading shadow of a huge gum tree there lay a carcass of a sulphur crusted cockatoo. Suddenly I discovered the source of the screeching noise. Perched restlessly on the branches of the tree, looking downwards to that defunct parrot there I found a multitude of its live counterparts crying loudly;
-reminiscent of a rustic village funeral, back in Kerala, in which the corpse being kept at rest, surrounded by a number of wailing mourners…
- I could hardly banish the phenomenal response of those wild birds, merely treating it as an outcry of senseless creatures. Wasn’t it rather a sentimental outburst for a lost soul?
Call it anything. One thing though I perceived unmistakably out of that quirky episode was of an intense response to an eruption of emotions, a melt-down of acute grief in those wild birds. Very much akin to mankind, the behaviour patterns of other living creatures in response to the sudden turn of events seem to have the same common thread of attachment and compassion…
Deciding not to plumb deep into the depths of the mystiques of life, shoving off all the ponderings of the obscure philosophy enshrouded in a priceless bird’s ultimate journey that ended nose diving into a patch of earth’s filthy soil, having to abandon its rotten remains ultimately for the spiders, maggots and bull-ants, I went back to my study. My laptop beeped reminding there was an unread fresh message that just came through. Hurriedly I opened the message.
Coincidentally, it was a message of another death!
- A death of a human being.
The deceased was my friend’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Thara Shetty, a middle aged lady, a long time widow who had recently been staying with her son in Sydney.
Returning to Poona where she had been living, a few weeks later, she collapsed after a short but enduring bout with renal failure. The news of her sudden end was indeed beyond my comprehension…
I still vividly remember the waving of her hand, greying hair, the radiance behind the innocent and intimate smile and those glistening wet eyes…
I made an urgent call to her son living in an outer suburb of Sydney, but it was of no avail.
- A few hours too late…
He had already left his home and was on his way to Poona. Undying memories surrounding his beloved mother’s joyful moments had hardly vanished from his loving, caring mind. After expressing my sincere concern to his wife, I immediately rang my friend’s wife Mallika Shetty, the younger sister of the deceased. Little did I think I would be able to deliver the balm to quell her rising grief, but I knew for sure I could deliver a condolence message in a few words. Certainly, it helped. I could help hold her sobbing for a short while at the least…
Next day, on Wednesday, after I came back from work I wanted to pay a visit to the bereaved. As usual my wife also insisted that my son who had just decided to call it a quit from his university course and was therefore free from his studies join us on our proposed visit.
When we suggested the idea of the planned visit of the day, our son has grinned and coyly said: “Well, I am afraid I can’t make it. I have planned to go for a birthday party of Satheesh Shetty organised by him, at a restaurant in the city.”
Thunderstruck, I retorted: “What…?” I couldn’t hold my composure. In disbelief, I suddenly became vitriolic in my tone: “Did Sathish know his auntie’s dead body is still at rest waiting for tomorrow’s burial at her hometown in India?”
“That’s exactly the concern I raised too, but Satheesh wasn’t very serious about that. He reckons the atmosphere is not that bad at his home.” I couldn’t pick any hint of resentment in my son’s voice as he continued, “All his friends have already been invited much in advance, and he doesn’t want to make them unhappy now.”
I did not want to put up an argument with my son against Satheesh’s objectionable deed. However, I felt as if somebody delivered a punch to awake me from a nightmare in which I found myself trampled by a bolted Trojan horse that had lost its control and ran amuck. Satheesh has been coltish indeed in charging himself away out of a territory that now becomes alien to his raw emotions and intangible, existentialist behaviour.
Should it be laconically stated as just the frivolity of a reckless youth rather than the exploits and excessiveness of today’s indulgent, wayward youth?
It doesn’t really matter. But, somewhere along the line, something is amiss!
I vainly attempted to identify the cause of this fatal ideological confrontation that crops up with this untameable free will of the young generation, the remarkable mismatch of those links that were supposed to be welded seamlessly aligned with the familial bonds of the Orient.
Satheesh who fitted himself to a tee into a permissive social outfit, as a thriving young man perhaps had succumbed to the fascinating exotics of the outside world.
- Result of an opprobrious, blatant refusal to accept wisdom in the face of a rich tradition that has been built up by his sagacious forebears. Embracing the basic principles of morality and cultural values his predecessors with open arms beckoned him fondly to draw closer to share and feel the warmth of their unwavering love and affection. But alas, the little Devil that gleefully lurked in his conscience urged him to scoff away the absolute sanity that was on offer.
In a sense, another woeful demise - Premature demise of a glorious culture!
Who is there to bemoan…?
Having got the choice between sharing the grief of his aunt’s death with his nearest kin and enjoying his pleasure-filled birthday celebration along with his companions in the luminous atmosphere of a restaurant, he opted for the latter without much ado. Against all odds, he accepted a dare to hang out with those rapaciously awaiting pals in his own arranged birthday party, leaving behind the melancholic atmosphere of his village-home…
By such an oppugning enactment perhaps he simply lifted the elements of radicals beyond the conventional confines which most of the youngsters in our society would have emulated, being exposed to the blindingly grotesque environment out there.
After a long drive, having reached our destination, I along with my wife was struggling to find a convenient parking spot. A long way along the street on both sides there were too many parked-cars.
We didn’t have to ring the door bell. The door was left open. There were many mourners, more than that we anticipated, all of them the family friends. I could hear voices in various tones, all filled with the conversation of the same theme:
Death!
The scene, though without presence of the dead body revealed a vacuum created by the sudden departure of a soul elsewhere and imparted a vague, tearful reminder of mortality instantly rewinding my fresh memories to those bemoaning parrots I noticed outside my home the previous day…
I did not know whether the bereaved lady of the house knew where her son had been at that particular moment…
But, I knew.
And, I really wish she didn’t…
Ironies of modern world
I do ask more often to myself “who am I?”, and occasionally to others, “what is life after all?”
I am not a Vedantic scholar. I didn’t learn Sanskrit as it was never included in my curricula, nor was I smart enough to grasp that extremely difficult tongue. Therefore the Vedas are undeniably beyond me. Notwithstanding, my endless quest continues for a comprehensive answer for leading a purposeful life. Hence the inquisitive mind in me took zestful leaps to every possible direction on earth. The journey had been commenced without any road map, without a defined destination. Curiously enough, perhaps self-righteously I was led by myself to the places of worship as well; Hindu-temples, Christian-churches, Buddhist-Pagodas and Muslim-mosques.
And, I am now led to the belief that each of us, rich or poor, literate or illiterate, has intrinsic worth. It is understood and rightly said, “we are arrived the same and will depart the same.” Some of us, nonetheless, fail to comprehend this stark reality and maliciously thrust the wheels of justice to grind at various speeds and directions in preparation for trading their very values for power and wealth.
To discover the reality of life, not to untangle the myth, I was visiting those places of God, waiting behind the wilting stacks of pithy but seemingly absurd notions perched deep in my mind. I thought I would be able to get enlightened and have my world-loving heart salved, thus the world around me would lighten up at least in front of my own eyeballs.
On the contrary, everything happening around me everyday has been shattering my sense of being.
People never become happy with what they have. The rich wanted more riches. Those who are flooded with wealth now want to change their physical shape, as though they want to flaunt their belligerence to the very creator since they are not content with the way they are born. So frenetic they become, dauntlessly they subject themselves to artificially corrective procedures. They reconstruct their perceptive ugliness as if the ultimate definition of beauty unquestionably goes along the so called glamorous image that is kept personified by the socially myopic elites. The woman of this evolutionary iconic society suddenly realises her inflated breasts are more than adequate to be displayed in front of the gloating eyes of her peer. Therefore she resolves the jelly implant she once resorted to has to be siphoned out at any cost. Not a moment’s wait, she straight away heads to the operating theater as the cosmeticians are ready to open her up to reduce the heaviness of the breast and increase the thickness of their purses.
Just as they pursue that course of cosmetic touch up, a poor lady waits ridden in pathos for a hospital bed, let alone a theater, to get rid of the insidious growth of a malignant lump in her breast... Somewhere on this very earth, near the door steps of a mosque, mutilated bodies of innocent ones lay in a pool of blood, their once beautiful organs asunder... And, there are many out there begging for a pacemaker to sustain their heart beat for their meek survival so that they can satiate the palpable emotional feelings by cuddling their loved ones.
The lives of abject poverty wait beneath the blazing sun, fronting the flogging of downpour, and braving the lashing wind, in vain…
- Just for a touch!
- A touch of love!
Universal justice thus being beheld fluttering in paradoxical proportions, one’s belief in God, justification of faith, is sorely tested. My anxious wait desperately continues to see the human race envisage a better class of not one’s body shape but that of humanity with greater quality of comfortably simple life.
The Natioinal Gallery of Australia was contemplating buying a $35 million painting of the legendary painter, Wassily Kandinsky, a world pioneer of abstract painting. Sitting inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales, its director Edmund Capon was reported to have said: You know what I would do? I would sell this building and buy the painting!
Whatever happened to follow his statement may be immaterial to this context. But while he boasted with ebullience and ease toying with this ludicrous notion in his mind, I wonder whether he has ever bothered to look back to those who were struggling to meet the basic needs of their simple lives at his own back yard, let alone the reverberating mournful appeals that he might have severally heard from those children in rags, surviving in far away places of the wretched third world.
I don’t know what his erudite words really meant. It does not really matter, but certainly those words of a highbrow have instantly imploded a sand castle that this uncouth layman has been painstakingly building in mind - a beautiful symbolic representation of a utopian world.
“Hopeless world,” I mourned and fatuously said to myself. “Realisation of an egalitarian world community will only remain as an everlasting dream for many...”
The Omnipresent
The Omnipresent
V.
P. Gangadharan
He
never bothered to turn back and catch a glimpse of his dauntless journey nor
did attempt to reprieve the exquisitely ornate, delusive world of his past. He
lived for the moment, perceivably conquering everyone and winning everything
through his academic genius and an uncanny ability to adeptly amass fortune.
The fortune was but rapidly vanishing through his finger tips, clinging on to
the lengthy digits that he wrote loosely on cheque leaves in the course of his
luridly perverted indulgence - not once did he question the absurdity of his
material extravagance! Bragging with the insolent tone of his voice he ripped
into tatters the cloaks of moral compliance and benevolence to be bestowed into
the hungry hands of mankind. Enthralled in the glowing fire of excitement, he
plunged into a fascinating existentialism. Immersed engrossingly into its
alluring warmth, beneath the snowy-white froth, outer layers of his physical
body were wilting away while the inner vanity melted like wax. With all the
actions filled with filthy secrets he could only become infamous as an
insidious scourge in his frenetic quest for an undeserved fame.
Climactically,
he had to pull himself out of all baleful addictions although part of him
yearned for a final drag before it’s all over. Amid the stinking breath and
pitted skin, however, there remained many awful memories that would instantly
turn to be monstrous. A small minded person with full of ego, fear, anger and
mistrust would thus appear to be the reminder of a ruptured fairy tale.
Eventually,
stooped with the burden of sins he acutely felt his mundane existence suddenly
becoming utterly distressful. Under the clutches of unresolved guilt and with a
looming uncertainty of his eroding physical frame, he
started peering apprehensively into the emptiness of his own mind, for fear of
something ghastly lying in wait somewhere round the corner.
All
of a sudden he had now come to grips with the reality and felt as though he
wanted to be enlightened of the perennial happiness that he was void of. The
quest for spiritual happiness had thus emerged.
And
he began a frantic effort compulsively for restitution by seeking extensive
pilgrimage. Garbed in saffron, he had an irrepressible desire to start and
continue a journey by foot from one temple to another...
Enticed
with a sense of devotional fervour he filed past many a soliciting image that
spelt physical afflictions and poverty. In his zest to reach the altar to get
to the deity he impulsively ignored their desperate calls for a few coins...
Outside
the front entrance to the temple a leper lay, prostrated flat on his pallid face,
eroded arms being outstretched towards the devotees passing-by. The dark torso,
naked, and drenched in perspiration was glistening under the scorching sun. Not
a word came out of the corrugated lips though the slit between them widened
under the strain of hunger.
A
tear drop that appeared in the tip of the eye of a diseased beggar didn’t mean
anything to this sagacious pilgrim even though it may verily be a woeful
reminiscence of human misery.
‘One
cannot escape the eternal cycle of suffering if destined in the course of
rebirth. The current plight is determined apropos of the deeds in one’s
previous life...’
Unmoved,
while on this unfinished pilgrimage he was trying to find his reason for the
wretched plight and the gruelling physical condition of that leper.
Notwithstanding,
he longed for catching the eye of the skilfully sculptured statuettes of Gods
as he passed along the walkway to the shrine much to the belief that it would
heal the self-inflicted scars of transgression in his heart.
The
inner compound of the temple was much smaller than he expected. In the centre
was a dark shrine where all the pilgrims and devotees were waiting in a long queue
impatiently in front of the closed door that was to be opened soon.
Being
the contributor of a handsome amount for the upkeep of the temple, he could
manage to queue-jump and be positioned right in front, just an arm’s length afar
of the closed door of the shrine. Having a penchant for a devotional touch to
the deity with his finger tips he fervidly leaned forward to catch an
unobstructed view of the Almighty.
The
priest came rushing as he was behind the scheduled time to appear, and the
closed door was hastily opened for the eagerly waiting devotees.
Suddenly
the bubbles of silence burst.
Brass
cymbals were clashed.
Conch
shells were blown, louder and louder...
The
Brahmin priest chanted Sanskrit invocations which one could hardly decipher...
Even
as the oil lamps were all lit, strangely, the darkness engulfed him…
Pitch
dark!
What’s
happening?
Where’s
his God?
Had
the God disappeared from this holy shrine?
Was
he becoming blind?
Had
he once again lost all his senses?
Adding
to the mystery, he was drawn tempestuously out of the crowd and was pulled
across by an invisible power straight out, to the front-gate of the temple!
Lo!
The poor leper was still there, crawling forward with a wallet in his lofted
stumpy arm. In disbelief he searched for his wallet and found it missing!
In
a flash the handicapped, shapeless leper, being transfigured into Narasimha, rose from the ground and in a
gigantic leap lunged towards him with a thunderous roar, vigorously hurling the
wallet in the air! The wads of currency notes flew in the hot air like burst
cotton wool...
Burning
in the glowing hell-fire and damnation, with a fractured will, his head bowed.
And
he shuddered in the thunderous, rumbling roar: “Go to hell…hell…hell…!”
Drawing
from the last leftovers of dried emotions in his mind, he pleaded loudly in
response with a yelp: “Oh no...!”
When
he woke up, in front of him there stood his wife, his life’s anchor, with a cup
of bed coffee.
Wondering
she said: “Don’t say no, this will make your day…”
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
My Own Conviction
Boring through the sleety midnight air, my vehicle swiftly took me to the emergency ward. Had I known that I was to be trundled into a squeaky hospital bed amidst the whining and murmuring,
I would have perhaps heeded my Doctor. Months ago, Doctor Morrison cautioned: “Your symptoms suggest you are down with a potentially debilitating physical condition.” He suggested a surgical procedure I should undergo, laconically attaching a hint of pain to it. “Sooner the better,” he urged.
Though I didn’t mean to, I ignored his professionally sagacious advice.
Though I didn’t mean to, I ignored his professionally sagacious advice.
And here I am, subjected to share a room with three other squirming patients who lament over their forced transit to this murky corridor, nestled somewhere along the tedious journey towards their physical freedom. Here I am, being submitted to some biomedical appliances, forced to drink a glass of water every hour…
After having a dose of prescribed drug I thought I would be able to catch a wink. A burning feeling kept me constantly awake. After several vain attempts to alert the nurse by pressing the buzzer for help, my irascible mind gave me an irrevocable urge to reach for the emergency button. It worked.
I had three nurses, instead of one, rushing to the ward, where I lay restless.
I said, “I am in terrible pain. I need to have something to sleep.”
“Silly you! Why should you press the emergency button for that?”
“Because I tried the buzzer a number of times and I thought it was inactive. I am sorry,” I confessed.
“It has probably been turned off… Shortage of nurses you know.”
“Shortage of nurses alright. But I have just seen three of you dashing to the scene.”
“Shh…” Hushed the nurse, a Finnish looking tall blonde.
I was silly indeed. Why the bickering? What I heard just now when I sought temporary solace to my brimming physical distress were the resentments of my own conviction. In a sense, she was right. It was unrealistic of me to expect too much from a nurse. She may be offering only what she is paid for. My stupidity, rather my lofty expectations of a nurse, of her noble and compassionate services, prompted me to ask for help at this fag end of the day. May be I had noticed the services of a few caring diligent nurses and pictured every nurse in the same frame. Whatever may be the case, I should bow low with awesome respect to their beatific career.
Two Panadeine Forte tablets with a glass of cold water, and I dozed off…
Suddenly, someone woke me up. Shrill voice of a nurse.
“What you want, this time, Donna?” The nurse was too loud for that midnight silence of a hospital ward, which otherwise was only disturbed by the occasional snoring of the one who gulped a sleeping pill or two.
Donna too was desperate for help, seeking relief from the pangs of her wound. She was brought in last night after a Gallbladder operation.
“Alright, I can give you a jab.” The nurse walked away to come back with a needle.
Faintly listening to the noisy steps of that high-heeled nurse, prodding my feeble fingers into my shabby face, I slipped off to sleep…
I woke up again as though I was shaken up vigorously. In hospitals the wheels are never meant to stop. One patient walks away when another waits in agony to be trundled in. Squalling of an old man wriggling with excruciating pain shook us all up. I learned that he has been putting up with that endless pain for almost six weeks! As he has a history of very low blood pressure, anaesthetic medication was considered to be fatal. Neurologists and palliative specialists strained every nerve to abate his stabbing pain and restore to him some restful moments.
Holding my pain I tried to relax, looking around my hospital room which was kept immaculately with all the facilities one could ever ask for. I have no reason to squabble.
I found my eyes settling again on that pathetic sight, right at the opposite bed, a lamenting old man, lamely attempting to glance through a birthday greeting message received from his daughter residing in Canberra.
I don’t know whether that message means anything to him or if it will help to lift his ever sinking, palsied spirit. Looking at the profile of the victim crying for help, searching for something in his frail looking sullen face, I could find an indecipherable message. More and more I tried, more and more I failed to comprehend.
All that I could do was witness a tussle between hope and hopelessness…
A quotation I once read came clearly to my feeble mind: “I complained of not having shoes till I saw a man who did not have feet”.
After having a dose of prescribed drug I thought I would be able to catch a wink. A burning feeling kept me constantly awake. After several vain attempts to alert the nurse by pressing the buzzer for help, my irascible mind gave me an irrevocable urge to reach for the emergency button. It worked.
I had three nurses, instead of one, rushing to the ward, where I lay restless.
I said, “I am in terrible pain. I need to have something to sleep.”
“Silly you! Why should you press the emergency button for that?”
“Because I tried the buzzer a number of times and I thought it was inactive. I am sorry,” I confessed.
“It has probably been turned off… Shortage of nurses you know.”
“Shortage of nurses alright. But I have just seen three of you dashing to the scene.”
“Shh…” Hushed the nurse, a Finnish looking tall blonde.
I was silly indeed. Why the bickering? What I heard just now when I sought temporary solace to my brimming physical distress were the resentments of my own conviction. In a sense, she was right. It was unrealistic of me to expect too much from a nurse. She may be offering only what she is paid for. My stupidity, rather my lofty expectations of a nurse, of her noble and compassionate services, prompted me to ask for help at this fag end of the day. May be I had noticed the services of a few caring diligent nurses and pictured every nurse in the same frame. Whatever may be the case, I should bow low with awesome respect to their beatific career.
Two Panadeine Forte tablets with a glass of cold water, and I dozed off…
Suddenly, someone woke me up. Shrill voice of a nurse.
“What you want, this time, Donna?” The nurse was too loud for that midnight silence of a hospital ward, which otherwise was only disturbed by the occasional snoring of the one who gulped a sleeping pill or two.
Donna too was desperate for help, seeking relief from the pangs of her wound. She was brought in last night after a Gallbladder operation.
“Alright, I can give you a jab.” The nurse walked away to come back with a needle.
Faintly listening to the noisy steps of that high-heeled nurse, prodding my feeble fingers into my shabby face, I slipped off to sleep…
I woke up again as though I was shaken up vigorously. In hospitals the wheels are never meant to stop. One patient walks away when another waits in agony to be trundled in. Squalling of an old man wriggling with excruciating pain shook us all up. I learned that he has been putting up with that endless pain for almost six weeks! As he has a history of very low blood pressure, anaesthetic medication was considered to be fatal. Neurologists and palliative specialists strained every nerve to abate his stabbing pain and restore to him some restful moments.
Holding my pain I tried to relax, looking around my hospital room which was kept immaculately with all the facilities one could ever ask for. I have no reason to squabble.
I found my eyes settling again on that pathetic sight, right at the opposite bed, a lamenting old man, lamely attempting to glance through a birthday greeting message received from his daughter residing in Canberra.
I don’t know whether that message means anything to him or if it will help to lift his ever sinking, palsied spirit. Looking at the profile of the victim crying for help, searching for something in his frail looking sullen face, I could find an indecipherable message. More and more I tried, more and more I failed to comprehend.
All that I could do was witness a tussle between hope and hopelessness…
A quotation I once read came clearly to my feeble mind: “I complained of not having shoes till I saw a man who did not have feet”.
Delusion of Grandeur
The eyes were green and penetrating. Hair
glowed like polished copper. Reddish nose with tiny nostrils had semblance of
parrot-beak. Fully ripened mandarin was the best match for those cheeks.
Occasional smile exposed rather prematurely decayed irregular teeth, speckled
badly with black pores like corroded metal.
- That was Paul, an Australian immigration
officer in Singapore. He was sitting at
the other end of a glass-slabbed table that displayed a colourful world map
blown-up to an enormous size spreading over the upper surface.
In front of him leaning forward with his
arms crossed on the table sat a swarthy Brahman youth from Kerala, a South
Indian State.
Questions and answers....
Paul Stonnil asks...
Karthikeyan Bhattathirippadu replies...
K. Bhttathirippadu – The journey that
began from the rustic beauties of Quailon as a schoolboy took him many eventful
years to get settled down and eventually placed himself up in Singapore as a
Computer Engineer. He has sought entry to Australia for living and as a result
was up for his first encounter with an immigration officer.
“Well, I think I have finished with my
questions, Mr. Bhattathirippadu...I suppose it’s your turn now.”
Those words reflected a note of
compulsion.
“Have you got anything in particular to
ask?”
Bhattathirippadu tensely watched the
officer’s mixed expressions. He had a number of questions to ask. But, he did
not really know where to begin.
He remained pensive for a while. And then
suddenly was found making a frantic effort to smile. With that enforced smile
still lingering on his face he asked: “is there any kind of discrimination
still existing in Australia?”
- Discrimination...
The word ‘discrimination’ seemed
reverberating in the cool, dense, air of that richly decorated room. Sonority
of that sensational word seemingly struck to every surface of the room
including the walls that tastefully displayed posters of primitive Aborigines,
Asians and the white European settlers in conglomeration, depicting a Utopian
society.
- A promise of equality...
“Well done, Mr. Bhattathiri...well done.
Your question indeed suggests that you are rather obsessed with an egalitarian
social concept.”
Paul tried to impose a wry smile that spelt nothing but pejorative
sarcasm. After
a relatively long pause he continued:
“Well, Mr. Bhattathiri, if I put it
straight, I feel that you should not have asked this question. I suppose you
are not entitled to raise such a question which is ineffable by its own merit.”
He said it sternly without emotion as if
he was passing an impersonal verdict upon someone. He remained silent as though
he was lost into a deep thought, struggling to find an objective definition of
human value...
“You know what I mean?”
Stonnil’s voice suddenly became blunt and
was found distinctly sardonic in tone.
“Let us go back to your own country’s
cultural heritage and social set-up which was said to be built up solidly on
altruistic and ideological base.
“You would perhaps agree that the Harijans
occupy today as they did in the past the lowest rung of the social ladder in
your country, particularly in your state. They were believed to have
contaminated not only by their touch but also by their presence. They were
denigrated to such an extent that the mere sight of them made the atmosphere
ominous to those sanctimonious Brahmins.
“For the majority of people in this
contemporary world this is the most heinous and oppressive form of
inequality...Don’t you still maintain the distance among own civilians in your
village, in your own neighbourhood? Even now they call their names by their
respective casts and sub-casts- Nair, Menon, Pillai and what not...? Why should
we go that far? Let’s take your own name: Bhattathirippadu. What does that
denote? Please would you tell me what that means?”
“Nothing, but delusion of grandeur.”
Karthikeyan whispered to himself.
He felt ashamed as if somebody had spat
right in his face...On the basis of his own wretched background he could not
utter a word of resentment. He felt quiet and empty. His feelings became numb
and cold. His silent response was his confession. He thought that his long
desperate cry of rebellion should have begun years ago, from his village
against his own people, against his own father...
Balaraman Bhattathirippadu- a railway
servant who sought an official transfer to Shornure to get away from the so
called untouchable Harijan lads of Quailon, Kannan and Koran, who reared
buffaloes and led them every hot day to the nearest lake of Mullattu to take
the beasts for a cool dip or a muddy swim. When those inferiors passed their
superiors on the road they did not step aside and make way, as they ought to.
Those revolting lads were defiant instead. They often twitted the Brahmins
about the unnatural way in which they kept others aloof by building
rigid walls around themselves. For the
fear of being contaminated, Balaraman Bhattathiri- ppadu, his fanatic father
wanted to turn away from them. And, strangely enough, at the same time with the
same craze, due to the ideological differences, Karthikeyan wanted to run away
from his father, a lunatic fringe.
Karthikeyan does not believe in nor does
he wish to place himself on a hierarchy of status by virtue of being born to a
Brahmin who tried to establish his superiority among others. He does not want
to receive the accolades of any undeserved social status though he has to bear
the stigma of all those odious deeds of his predecessors who made the other
mankind subservient to their use and tried to destroy the others when they
could not subdue.
Monday, July 12, 2010
The Indelible Stigmas of a Nation
Like anyone else, I also had a loving father and a treasured mother. They were the ones who had to place me in the market to be auctioned. They didn’t win anything. They lost everything instead in their bid- Mother’s wedding necklace and father’s whole life savings.
I had never read in any of my text books, nor was I taught at any time in my life that there was a thing for which you had to give money to the buyer. I had been a stupid girl to accept that, it was nothing but my ignorance. The deal was nonetheless made, with a lifelong warranty…
I had never read in any of my text books, nor was I taught at any time in my life that there was a thing for which you had to give money to the buyer. I had been a stupid girl to accept that, it was nothing but my ignorance. The deal was nonetheless made, with a lifelong warranty…
In the first night, as he slit open the most delicate membrane of my virginity, I tried to vanquish my pangs in a wriggle or two concealing the chagrin with a tearless sob of silence. In his excitement of winning me, perhaps, he couldn’t see my inner tears, let alone my purity. He responded to my strained, dry smile with his passionate kisses, seized my repugnant body by both of his invasive, masculine, arms; combed my curly hair with his burning fingers; rubbed my nose, my eyes and my whole body to feel my warmth, as if he was up for devouring me…
Unperturbed, however, my parents too didn’t execute an agreement to state that the exchanged article could not be returned unconditionally. Unaware of the fact, perhaps, he was hasting with his meticulous scrutiny in making sure the quality of the flesh he had acquired to keep was worthwhile. Accordingly, he tickled to see my giggle, pinched to arouse my feeling and pulled my rather chilled hands towards him to make me feel his warmth… He had all the while been simply ignoring my struggle to convince him that he was not my pick. I had been gently and secretly closing all the outer doors of my reclusive self, one after the other, recouping bit by bit everything that was passed on to him by my desperate parents in the shape of human flesh.
Time has mournfully elapsed as I kept losing everything I preserved, like anyone else, for the attainment of joie de vivre. Little did I succeed to gather the audacity that a contemporary female counterpart normally could be expected to. Remorseful of their convictions, my beloved parents finally succumbed to their afflictions.
And here I am, still lamenting, lurking in the graveyard of my irrecoverable past, in sheer despair.
Belated though, now I started gaining the courage that I should have had long ago. Grappling with the broken fetters of a nuptial bondage while I continue waiting vainly for someone to take me abode, my silver hair conjures a wisp of a lurid, lackadaisical fate which is hard to be unlearnt. Notwithstanding, I have now become a capable lady who can courageously look after herself…
Everyday I receive tens of e-mail messages in my inbox, all from my kith and kin. Among many messages, occasionally I come across some weird ones too. I receive one such with an attachment. The concise message contains two magic words: ‘Should work.’
‘Should work what?’ An immediate question springs up in my mind, and I open the attachment. All of a sudden, the blank monitor screen turns divine. I scroll through inquisitively… In bold text it is written: ‘MAHA MRUTHYUNJAYA MANTRA.’ Underneath the scripture, appears Lord Shiva’s picture with a serpent standing upright on the right shoulder. The word, ‘Ohm’ is inscribed in Sanskrit in His open palm that bestows blessings.
I scroll forward and read, ‘SUGANDHIM PUSHTI VARDHANAM.’ In leopard-skin apparel, Lord Shiva is seen in dancing posture. Having scrolled further it reads: ‘URUVA RUKAMIVA BHANDHANATH.’ Again, Lord Shiva, with smiling face, holds a conch shell in right hand. I continue to read: ‘MRUTHYOR MUKSHEEYA MAMRUTHAATH.’ This time Lord Shiva appears with Parvathi and Ganesh. Ganesh pours out milk from a conch shell onto Shiva Linga the base of which is embellished with colourful flowers, placed around in abundance.
Next comes up the enticing message: “This is a powerful prayer of Shiva.
· Send this to 7 people within the next 5 minutes, and your wish will come true, somewhere, somehow. Do not keep this message. The mantra must leave your hands within 96 hours. You will get very pleasant surprise.
This is true, even if you are not superstitious. Forward this mantra to at least 5 people and your life will improve.
* 0 – 4 people: your life will improve slightly.
* 5 – 9 people: you will have at least 5 surprises in the next three weeks.
* 15 people and above: your life will improve drastically, and everything you ever dreamed of will begin to take shape.”
I am certainly not superstitious, but I believe I have become a victim of a social carnage. I wouldn’t bother to figure out what those mantras meant to me, but sure I would want to forward this message to millions if I could rescue those miserable victims of the abominable social injustice which I have been subject to, and if that was the sort of boon this message was going to bring about. But as there is simply no faith left in me any more I delete the message outright.
Time has mournfully elapsed as I kept losing everything I preserved, like anyone else, for the attainment of joie de vivre. Little did I succeed to gather the audacity that a contemporary female counterpart normally could be expected to. Remorseful of their convictions, my beloved parents finally succumbed to their afflictions.
And here I am, still lamenting, lurking in the graveyard of my irrecoverable past, in sheer despair.
Belated though, now I started gaining the courage that I should have had long ago. Grappling with the broken fetters of a nuptial bondage while I continue waiting vainly for someone to take me abode, my silver hair conjures a wisp of a lurid, lackadaisical fate which is hard to be unlearnt. Notwithstanding, I have now become a capable lady who can courageously look after herself…
Everyday I receive tens of e-mail messages in my inbox, all from my kith and kin. Among many messages, occasionally I come across some weird ones too. I receive one such with an attachment. The concise message contains two magic words: ‘Should work.’
‘Should work what?’ An immediate question springs up in my mind, and I open the attachment. All of a sudden, the blank monitor screen turns divine. I scroll through inquisitively… In bold text it is written: ‘MAHA MRUTHYUNJAYA MANTRA.’ Underneath the scripture, appears Lord Shiva’s picture with a serpent standing upright on the right shoulder. The word, ‘Ohm’ is inscribed in Sanskrit in His open palm that bestows blessings.
I scroll forward and read, ‘SUGANDHIM PUSHTI VARDHANAM.’ In leopard-skin apparel, Lord Shiva is seen in dancing posture. Having scrolled further it reads: ‘URUVA RUKAMIVA BHANDHANATH.’ Again, Lord Shiva, with smiling face, holds a conch shell in right hand. I continue to read: ‘MRUTHYOR MUKSHEEYA MAMRUTHAATH.’ This time Lord Shiva appears with Parvathi and Ganesh. Ganesh pours out milk from a conch shell onto Shiva Linga the base of which is embellished with colourful flowers, placed around in abundance.
Next comes up the enticing message: “This is a powerful prayer of Shiva.
· Send this to 7 people within the next 5 minutes, and your wish will come true, somewhere, somehow. Do not keep this message. The mantra must leave your hands within 96 hours. You will get very pleasant surprise.
This is true, even if you are not superstitious. Forward this mantra to at least 5 people and your life will improve.
* 0 – 4 people: your life will improve slightly.
* 5 – 9 people: you will have at least 5 surprises in the next three weeks.
* 15 people and above: your life will improve drastically, and everything you ever dreamed of will begin to take shape.”
I am certainly not superstitious, but I believe I have become a victim of a social carnage. I wouldn’t bother to figure out what those mantras meant to me, but sure I would want to forward this message to millions if I could rescue those miserable victims of the abominable social injustice which I have been subject to, and if that was the sort of boon this message was going to bring about. But as there is simply no faith left in me any more I delete the message outright.
Suicide of a highbrow
September 12, 1979.
Tucked in an envelope that indicated the urgency of its delivery was a dolorous message written on a pink paper
Sam expired!
- My brother.
It was the incredibility of the untoward that gave me the real shock rather than the revelation of a piece of paper. How on earth could I believe it?
Not even a month passed since I had his last letter which as usual carried all his sentiments of affection and concern. A letter that he used to ride roughshod over to the proposed engagement of our youngest brother John and his fiancée Rita, a professional model. Though Sam had spent last few years of his studies in the States his intellectual pursuit did not yield to recognise his brother’s engagement with a modelling girl. This relationship appeared to have been taken by Sam as, “The culmination of a brother’s delirious chase for owning a curvaceous product that has been whimsically displayed in commercial market places.”
Scrawled across the page in a few lines were a brother’s disgruntled, noiseless utterances which irrefutably projected the profile of a moral zealot. In his last letter he mentioned he was grossly engaged in the preparation of a thesis on Genes, specifically on ‘Dominant inheritance’, which he expected to complete by the end of September. This was his second major work since he obtained a Doctorate in Genealogy from Harvard University.
I did make a point to send a greeting telegram to John and Rita when they announced the wedding.
“Now you are one…
In love
In laughter
In living
And everything in life
Is twice as beautiful…
- Felicitations!”
The message might hardly have reached my home town in Kerala, here comes a message of death with a gentle tap at my apartment door.
Solemnisation of marriage was to be held in Thiruvananthapuram, the death occurred in Mumbai, and I was in Singapore. Both the deceased and the bridegroom are my cousins. The relationship established among ourselves was more like siblings, since I was orphaned at the age of eight.
Proposing an elaborate celebration with carousal, I drove home with a variety of foreign liquor to boost the evening party on the day of marriage at my residence having invited a select band of friends and distant relatives. Buying a surprise gift for my daughter has been one of the priorities of the occasion. A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes when she gleefully received my gift. With her usual giggle she said, “I wish there were many marriages to come in dad’s family.”
Up came the lunch call. At the lunch table mother and daughter were engrossed in their waggish discussions related to their new dresses that I bought for them the other day to signify the occasion.
My thought, however, took wing gliding merrily across the ocean, tiny rivulets, stretches of lush green pastures and coconut palms. In my ears chimed the church bell with its hymnic rhythms. Amidst the glow of countless candles, on a flourishingly decorated aisle stood my brother dressed like a prince of the province. Sporting a radiant smile he held his fiancée who stood beside him holding her head up gracefully reciprocating with her professional charm that was extravagantly supplemented with her jewellery.
My murky mind appeared to have found some sparkles of immeasurable joy. I have been fluttering in the lambency like a firefly that has no sparkle left on its own wings.
A quaint knock at the entrance door of my apartment gave me a jerk from my silvery dreams.
I grumbled: ‘May be a friend of my daughter, or that nosy Chinese couple in my distant neighbourhood.’
Irresistible to a thrust of ire I shouted at the door:
“Who the hell is that?”
The doors sprung open.
A grim-faced Chinese bloke in khaki uniform stood right in front, stretching a pink sheet of paper. Seemingly unperturbed, he said in his local Malay:
“Ma’afkan saya untuk manggangu tuan. Telegram untuk kamu. Salin di sini.”
(Sorry to disturb you, Sir, a telegram for you. Please, sign here.)
- “Sam expired.”
I felt a blow of a chilling wind, strong enough to extinguish the glow in my spirit. All my sweet dreams tumbled…
Suddenly I felt bewildered and lost as if the ground had been cut off from beneath my trembling feet. I stared out into the street until the outline of the messenger’s moving figure on a motorbike dissolved into the density of buzzing street of Singapore.
I sobbed like a child. My wife and daughter soon joined me wailing uncontrollably.
We quickly started for black cloths.
Certainly death follows birth.
But, should the pall of destiny befall upon this young man so soon? And, should it be on this auspicious occasion of his beloved brother’s nuptials?
Message was sent out to all my relatives and friends. Arena of a commemorative dinner party was slowly transforming into a place for the mourning of the bereaved.
A requiem mass was arranged in Queenstown Sacred Heart Church.
“Grant that we who are nourished by his body and blood,
May be filled with His Holy Spirit,
And become one body, one spirit in Christ.
Through him,
In him,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
All glory and honour are yours,
For ever, and ever….
Amen.”
Condolence message was published with an obituary in the late edition of a leading newspaper.
What might be the reason of his sudden demise?
The reason really did not matter.
- Sam is no more!
Through the silence of many days I thought always of Sam who once held all the hope which a gift of intelligence ever proffered, from whom all our family members expected such a magnificent future….
All at once everything is reduced to a few fistfuls of ash…
Ever since that staggering untoward, it has been as if everyone in my apartment has forgotten to talk. An eerie silence was creeping through every corner and holding back every pace….
It was a week later my daughter picked a letter for me from our letterbox. That was of our uncle. In his laconic way of writing he just summarised the whole events in a few lines.
“One cannot survive the stakes of God’s penultimate punishment, for we are to face the consequences of our own deeds. The marriage had to be postponed indefinitely due to the unexpected end of Sammy. Johnny and Martha, your sister, have taken the next available flight to Mumbai to collect the dead body.”
Another letter followed immediately. This time the consigner was the bridegroom.
Dear brother,
Believe me! Though the purpose of our flight to Mumbai was to pick up Sam’s body we were utterly astonished and boundlessly rejoiced to find him alive. This most weird episode had been a cliché Sam employed to have stopped my marriage…”
I read those lines again.
I could not name my sudden emotion and had no words to state its cause.
I saw the thin branches of a pine tree in a distant park being waved like jubilant arms. Surprisingly happy though, I felt hollowed in my mind.
Strangely I received an unexpected stab of agony….
Sam is alive, no doubt now.
But, he is dead….
Tucked in an envelope that indicated the urgency of its delivery was a dolorous message written on a pink paper
Sam expired!
- My brother.
It was the incredibility of the untoward that gave me the real shock rather than the revelation of a piece of paper. How on earth could I believe it?
Not even a month passed since I had his last letter which as usual carried all his sentiments of affection and concern. A letter that he used to ride roughshod over to the proposed engagement of our youngest brother John and his fiancée Rita, a professional model. Though Sam had spent last few years of his studies in the States his intellectual pursuit did not yield to recognise his brother’s engagement with a modelling girl. This relationship appeared to have been taken by Sam as, “The culmination of a brother’s delirious chase for owning a curvaceous product that has been whimsically displayed in commercial market places.”
Scrawled across the page in a few lines were a brother’s disgruntled, noiseless utterances which irrefutably projected the profile of a moral zealot. In his last letter he mentioned he was grossly engaged in the preparation of a thesis on Genes, specifically on ‘Dominant inheritance’, which he expected to complete by the end of September. This was his second major work since he obtained a Doctorate in Genealogy from Harvard University.
I did make a point to send a greeting telegram to John and Rita when they announced the wedding.
“Now you are one…
In love
In laughter
In living
And everything in life
Is twice as beautiful…
- Felicitations!”
The message might hardly have reached my home town in Kerala, here comes a message of death with a gentle tap at my apartment door.
Solemnisation of marriage was to be held in Thiruvananthapuram, the death occurred in Mumbai, and I was in Singapore. Both the deceased and the bridegroom are my cousins. The relationship established among ourselves was more like siblings, since I was orphaned at the age of eight.
Proposing an elaborate celebration with carousal, I drove home with a variety of foreign liquor to boost the evening party on the day of marriage at my residence having invited a select band of friends and distant relatives. Buying a surprise gift for my daughter has been one of the priorities of the occasion. A flicker of astonishment rose and died in her eyes when she gleefully received my gift. With her usual giggle she said, “I wish there were many marriages to come in dad’s family.”
Up came the lunch call. At the lunch table mother and daughter were engrossed in their waggish discussions related to their new dresses that I bought for them the other day to signify the occasion.
My thought, however, took wing gliding merrily across the ocean, tiny rivulets, stretches of lush green pastures and coconut palms. In my ears chimed the church bell with its hymnic rhythms. Amidst the glow of countless candles, on a flourishingly decorated aisle stood my brother dressed like a prince of the province. Sporting a radiant smile he held his fiancée who stood beside him holding her head up gracefully reciprocating with her professional charm that was extravagantly supplemented with her jewellery.
My murky mind appeared to have found some sparkles of immeasurable joy. I have been fluttering in the lambency like a firefly that has no sparkle left on its own wings.
A quaint knock at the entrance door of my apartment gave me a jerk from my silvery dreams.
I grumbled: ‘May be a friend of my daughter, or that nosy Chinese couple in my distant neighbourhood.’
Irresistible to a thrust of ire I shouted at the door:
“Who the hell is that?”
The doors sprung open.
A grim-faced Chinese bloke in khaki uniform stood right in front, stretching a pink sheet of paper. Seemingly unperturbed, he said in his local Malay:
“Ma’afkan saya untuk manggangu tuan. Telegram untuk kamu. Salin di sini.”
(Sorry to disturb you, Sir, a telegram for you. Please, sign here.)
- “Sam expired.”
I felt a blow of a chilling wind, strong enough to extinguish the glow in my spirit. All my sweet dreams tumbled…
Suddenly I felt bewildered and lost as if the ground had been cut off from beneath my trembling feet. I stared out into the street until the outline of the messenger’s moving figure on a motorbike dissolved into the density of buzzing street of Singapore.
I sobbed like a child. My wife and daughter soon joined me wailing uncontrollably.
We quickly started for black cloths.
Certainly death follows birth.
But, should the pall of destiny befall upon this young man so soon? And, should it be on this auspicious occasion of his beloved brother’s nuptials?
Message was sent out to all my relatives and friends. Arena of a commemorative dinner party was slowly transforming into a place for the mourning of the bereaved.
A requiem mass was arranged in Queenstown Sacred Heart Church.
“Grant that we who are nourished by his body and blood,
May be filled with His Holy Spirit,
And become one body, one spirit in Christ.
Through him,
In him,
In the unity of the Holy Spirit,
All glory and honour are yours,
For ever, and ever….
Amen.”
Condolence message was published with an obituary in the late edition of a leading newspaper.
What might be the reason of his sudden demise?
The reason really did not matter.
- Sam is no more!
Through the silence of many days I thought always of Sam who once held all the hope which a gift of intelligence ever proffered, from whom all our family members expected such a magnificent future….
All at once everything is reduced to a few fistfuls of ash…
Ever since that staggering untoward, it has been as if everyone in my apartment has forgotten to talk. An eerie silence was creeping through every corner and holding back every pace….
It was a week later my daughter picked a letter for me from our letterbox. That was of our uncle. In his laconic way of writing he just summarised the whole events in a few lines.
“One cannot survive the stakes of God’s penultimate punishment, for we are to face the consequences of our own deeds. The marriage had to be postponed indefinitely due to the unexpected end of Sammy. Johnny and Martha, your sister, have taken the next available flight to Mumbai to collect the dead body.”
Another letter followed immediately. This time the consigner was the bridegroom.
Dear brother,
Believe me! Though the purpose of our flight to Mumbai was to pick up Sam’s body we were utterly astonished and boundlessly rejoiced to find him alive. This most weird episode had been a cliché Sam employed to have stopped my marriage…”
I read those lines again.
I could not name my sudden emotion and had no words to state its cause.
I saw the thin branches of a pine tree in a distant park being waved like jubilant arms. Surprisingly happy though, I felt hollowed in my mind.
Strangely I received an unexpected stab of agony….
Sam is alive, no doubt now.
But, he is dead….
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