Attitude!

 I have always wondered at this so-called 'attitude'. Why is it that extreme uncouth, arrogant behaviour be called so? What a misnomer indeed!

Attitude, if you were to look up the simplest dictionary, is something basically positive. It suggests a mental framework through which we comprehend the world. In psychology hence, we have the 'positive' attitude, a mental schema that suggests an optimistic outlook.

The so-called 'attitude', indeed it is difficult to guess why this populist misnomer, is weird. It is exhibitionism of the worst type. It is downright aggressiveness though it is considered, oh, both hot and cool!

Actually such kind of cheap show of superiority complex is in reality a  deep sense of inferiority. To hide it, there is this facade of arrogance. Deep within, all these people are extremely  insecure and unsure of themselves. To hide this truth from others, and especially from their own selves, emerge  these pretenses as defense  mechanism.

Such people are to be pitied than hated. They are their own victims. It is a kind of psychological autoimmune disease that deeply destroys them, their own selves, their own self esteem.

If they cross their limits because you are decent, better make these filmy melodrama wallah's a public mock. If you manage that when they irritate you despite ignoring them, you have put them in their place. 

Actually though, our strategy,unless repeatedly provoked, should be pity and ignore them. Did not Blake say,"Where pity, love and peace dwell/there God resides, too"!

Pratima@ Attitude, actually,  means a little something that makes a big difference.

S(h)ame, s(h)ame!

 What you do not want to be done to you, do not do it to others. That is the advice  religion and philosophy bombard us with. Yes, I have used the verb 'bombard' carefully and knowingly.  Well, I believe the principle thus stated and/or its inverse/reverse are not always right or so followed in the reality. In fact, they can be downright destructive of your social standing at times!

Let me tell you why/how I arrived at this conclusion. I was travelling back home after my P.G. lectures. Most commuters on the bus looked dead tired, and were, like me, stealing a wink of a sleep, too, as much and as often as possible.

It was at the Deccan bus stop that this girl got on to the bus.  Near Alka Theater, the very next bus stop, she was screaming at a dicey fellow who tried to touch her inappropriately. In her anger, she yelled,  "what would your mother or sister feel or do if they were to face such behaviour?" 

Before the entire bus, shocked by his crude and vulgar answer, came to senses, he got off smirking. You know what this beastly remark was? He casually said, "my mother would love it. So would my sister!"

What-about-ery does not always help. Very few people have, forget empathy, even sympathy. With the consumerist mindset ruling the roost, instant gratification by any means, and anyhow, is what matters the most for the majority. Ethics has taken the backmost seat long long ago. So never ask anyone the question, "in the same situation, how would you feel/act?" Such a horror would be the answer, you would feel,  "shame, shame"!

Pratima@ we are mere sidekicks in most people's scenarios! " extras in their play" opines Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Making Meaning

 Have you seen that confusion confounded in mystery covered up in a puzzle? Oh, yea, I am referring to illusion art.

Very intricate is this version of art. The artist has to create a painting operational at multiple levels. It essentially has to be multidimensional. It houses very many realities in it, and the wonder of wonders is that all the aspects are present and yet absent at the same time. Obviously an absolutely virtuoso performance!

This form of art is still more special because it is the best example of the spectator finally completing the meaning in/of the frame. Indeed, finally, the meaning of art lies in the audience perspective. Whatever might be the intention of the artist while creating it, it is the viewers who finally decide the meaning of the art, whatever might be the form of the art. 

Let me give you an example. Coleridge's great poem "Christabel" can be seen as a narrative poem, as dramatic verse, as a gothic text, et al. Personally, I feel it is about the corruption of gullible innocence that thinks the whole world is as good as self. Hence I find in it a great variation on/of the Christian myth of the pre-lapsarian and the post-lapsarian realities.

In fact, since readers/audience can thus find new meanings to/in them, the ancient texts appeal to us. Otherwise, why read the works by  Sophocles or Shakespeare or Kalidas?

True,  in brief, that art allows fluidity of interpretations. The illusion art excels in this aspect of art though. In the same innocent frame would be innocuously hidden multiple perspectives which are both present and absent at the same time.  The viewer is challenged to locate all these.

Art and its interpretation thus become a 'heady' job indeed. This intellectual challenge is often supposed to be full of psychological meanings. If you see the hare first, you are left-brained, while if you see the duck, you are right-brained apparently. Most often such a painting proves most viewers to be harebrained though.

My problem with such interpretations is that not only do I see the duck and the hare simultaneously, I can also spot the squirrel the psycho interpreters never assign any value to!

Which proves perfectly my point  about making meaning. Art and the meaning lie in the eye of the beholder!

Pratima @ art is great because it eternally challenges us and our fixed paradigms in to newer moulds.

Severest Suffering

 Like the play I described in the blog yesterday, the following incident, too, took place in the CIEFL.  Well, I was the Mess Secretary. There was a huge influx of the floating population of short term course students that December.

My attempt was to give a truly wholesome, varied and yet not horribly expensive fare to one and all. Believe me,  being a mess secretary when  some two  hundred  strong student population, all adults in a varied age group of twenty three to fifty-five, eats there thrice a day, is quite bothersome. 

People may eat the simplest, tasteless food at home. Their expectations shoot sky high when they are in the institute mess, for example. At times, so obsessed can they be over some minor item that you wonder if they have come to  study or to hog. Soul curry and food for thought are laughable concepts in such contexts. 

There are all sorts of stakeholders, moreover; the mess workers, their regional affiliations, their hidden associations with regular students and the teaching staff, the institutional canteen owner, the service providers, the hostel office staff‌, and the warden. All sorts of politics is eternally brewing, cooking up in such a situation.

Yet I could manage to make the show run rather well. Most of the participants were very happy indeed. The evening tea used to be at five and it would go on for half an hour. As the mess  secretary, one should keep on checking the process at all sorts of times. So I came to the mess hall at 5.30ish that evening.

The mess was getting lonelier as people mostly used to crowd in at 5ish. There was a lovely tree nearby. I had a nice cuppa sitting under it, watching the ants run their eternal errands. I had a brief talk with the mess workers regarding the dinner, and I thought I would get back to my room/studies.

Suddenly there was this man in his mid fifties who said he would like to talk to me. Well, I had always kept an aloof profile, especially because I used to be truly busy with research work and language learning simultaneously. 

I hence wondered what this total stranger, he was from the short term courses, would have to say to me. Some mess bother, I thought. Suddenly he asked me if I am from Pune and if Bider is a railway junction on the way. Yes, I said, but the train would be there at about two a.m. One never really gets to see it hence, though it is at this junction that the train truly diverts.

He said suddenly , my son got off there while travelling to Mumbai. It seems his son was hyper intelligent, committed, a good boy. For getting water, he got off the train and the train started, it seems. In the hurry to get on to the train, he was crushed under, between the platform and the wheels.

Well, I had never expected any such incident to unfold. I was young, too. Nor had I experienced any such huge tragedy in my life. For a minute, I was so severely shocked I did not know what to say. 

But then I made that hapless father sit down, talked to him of all sorts of consolation possible. Basically I made him realise that I shared his sad shock . At the end of our talk for some fifteen minutes, he said, "I do not know why I felt like talking to you. I thought you alone would understand."

My 'wedding guest moment' as in Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' thus turned in to one of my hugest compliments by a total stranger. I would never ever meet that person again. The only thing I know of him was that he was from a very small village on the Kerala-Tamilnadu-Karnataka border. I do not know any of these languages either.

Yet it makes me feel a tremendous sense of soul satisfaction that I could heal in a minor way a suffering father's oozing wound, and that a total stranger felt I could be a humane, sensitive person. Thanks be to my upbringing and my love for literature, I believe.

A child dying is the worst possible trauma, I think. Especially unfathomed would be the father's unspoken grief that he cannot even give a voice to, given the societal gender roles. If there has been any minor misunderstanding with the child just before the incident, difficult to imagine would be the eternal self torment, the constant march of grief accompanied with self recrimination. Impossible even to imagine.

Remembered all of this because my cousin wrote to me about his son's death anniversary . One could sense the raw grief behind the philosophical explanations of  religious texts. I have shared this kind of intense suffering when a colleague lost her ten year old son. Such was the deep pain that later, when I was explaining the mp Wordsworth poem on the same theme, my students felt I was near tears.

Well, life very very very rarely gives a second chance. Most people are unfortunate thus. Better to live every moment most sensitively!

Pratima@you never know how strong you are unless there is no alternative to being strong, I suppose!

The wor(l)d is the stage

 The world is indeed the stage. We have the authority, the alibi of the great Bard to authenticate this truism. Not only in exam answer sheets but even on the actual stage, all of us would love to follow the path he details.

Yes, each one of us would like to don the grease paint. But we all know the selection process at the school level! Most all great, celebrated actors were denied any stage presence by their respective schools. How can my school be an exception to this universally accepted truth?

At the college level, there are cliques, dominating even the practice hall. Less said about such grandees, the better! And yet in my stints as a lecturer at the BMCC, the SNDT, the  SP and the P.G.Wing, Gholap college, I had wonderful opportunities at this creative and fulfilling passion. More about each one of these, some other time.

Since it is the World Theater Day today, let me right now talk of the street play I wrote, directed, enacted in at the CIEFL. The theme was the ills that dog the educational system. To make it a complete critique within some forty five minutes, I chose the format of scenes depicting typical systemic ills, strung together through a chorus. 

To make the street play truly full of punches, I used many parodies of famous Bollywood songs. As it was a very democratic, open attempt, during the practice, we all fine tuned the parodies, added a few more, and so on. When our troupe of committed but amateur actors used to practice under the canopy of the huge tree right in front of the academic building, the monkeys in the branches above would chatter if the voice rose a little too high pitched.

As it was a street play, our costumes ,we could assemble them from our own personal clothes. Instead of elaborate drapery, I came up with the idea of pungent placards. We worked on these most creatively. Oh, yes, the Office Superintendent called me aside to convey the Registrar's message that nothing be objectionable. I suppose, a sweet smile a la mysterious Madame Mona Lisa is the best antidote to such censoring! 

It was all word of mouth publicity. Yet there was a sizable audience; in fact, it was full forum. As the theme was so close to everyone's heart, we got a very enthusiastic response, too. Immediately after the performance, in the  institute Mess, I was congratulated by even the floating population of students who were there for short term courses. A pan Indian appreciation it was, given the institute profile. The usual chatterati, the dear 'dahlings', too, could not help but say good things, even behind the back!

As I was  basking in this glory in my own mind, a surprise was awaiting me in the wings, so to say. The next morning, Prof Amrutavalli, who was not exactly  very fond of me; in fact, I was not even a regular student of Linguistics, called me. I was a little worried and nervous as I had often seen her enact the Vesuvius.

Surprise of surprises, she asked me to submit the script which she said she would preserve. As the Head of the RTV (Radio and T.V.) Department, she said she wanted us to perform yet again, and it would get recorded.

Well, I do not exactly know why/how the posterity is never going to enjoy that great recording, but the perfect script is still with me in multiple copies.

Yes, dear Will, the wor(l)d is indeed a stage. Here is a  debut director, dramaturge and a debutante actor bowing down to your infinite wisdom as ever!

Pratima @ "suit the action to the word/the word to the action" to hold the mirror up to nature as Hamlet would advise. You indeed said it, dear Shakespeare!

Making memories

Time flies. With a breakneck speed. The shadows that it leaves has multiple shades to them.

It is difficult to believe that a year has just passed by the fatal day. Throughout the year, there have been very many times I felt she is very much there, may be, at Raju's or Sanju's place. Often my impulsive response to some event or the other would be 'Aai needs to know this'.

Yet, despite the loss, March 26, 2022 had indeed a good feel to it as it asserted yet again that  she is alive in so many hearts that cared for her. Vinaya, whom she alone called Bakuli, remembered her as soon as the day began. She helped out with  the subtitles of the video I made for Aai. Her newly married son, Rohan, worked at it far away in Australia. 

Heartfelt messages, chats, phone calls kept on pouring in. Prakash Mama, her brother for whom she was a proxy little mother in his childhood, liked my write-up on her, for instance. Her nephews and nieces remembered her most fondly. So did obviously her immediate family.

What I mean to say is that we carry on with life. We have to. There is not any alternative available. Time shoots like an arrow, straight ahead, never to  come back.

It is hence necessary to create as many good memories as is possible within the limited period that could be allowed,  that is allotted, to us. It is with this firm "re-solve" that I bid a final farewell to this year of mourning.

She, like Papa, would always be there. Tears, like right now, are umpteen times going to well up in my eyes. Yet, hereafter, I shall not wallow in grief. Instead, I shall spend every minute in a way that would make them both be proud of me, as they always were during their lifetime. 

Pratima@ parents much missed/how memories cherished call out/beyond boundaries

The Dark Night of the Soul

 That fatal, dark night exactly a year ago! It was March 25, Thursday, while this year March 25 falls on a Friday.

Aai had to be fed nasally, directly in to the stomach. She hated such indignities. Due to the hospitalisation, it was made compulsory by the doctors. I asked Amit if she can be bottle fed or if the tube can be removed. Her doctor was not ready for it, anyways.

Actually, it was inevitable that she would not be able to long tolerate the tubes. I had earlier heard her repeatedly talk about how hard, in fact, impossible, she found the plight of her cousin or her distant friend. Hyper self-respecting and basically a healthy-ish person despite the b.p. and diabetes, quite under control, though she had to take medicines for some twenty years to keep them checked, she disliked intensely the nasal feed, et al. 

How I wish she would not have to go to the hospital! No use now discussing why she had to be taken there. It requires tremendous courage and ethics to accept one's mistakes! Very, very rare are people who own up their misdeeds how much later they regret or rue their hurried carelessness.

Actually Dr. Khare checked her on Tuesday late at night. Once again on Wednesday, he was here at home as he had to fetch his oxymeter he forgot here. I fed her all the feeds at the right time, her medicines as usual.Only the elektral, as an energiser, though not compulsory, given the drastically reduced quantity of food, had yet to be given.

I woke up at four-ish after a tired, stressed sleep. I tube fed the elektral water, quite a longish process. She appeared okayish. By the time, I washed the entire equipment, it was almost 4.30. 

I thought better to check all her basics before going back to sleep. Suddenly the oxymeter would not show any activity. I checked it on me. Then I realised something is the problem. I called up Dr. Khare, he came almost immediately. But it was no use.

I do know I, too, would die one day. What was tough for me was the fact that just within thirty minutes or so, an entire lifetime changed!

The only consolation I have is she breathed her last in her own bed at her own home. It must have been terrible, the last moments, given the heart attack. But she looked peaceful, almost as if in deep sleep, fast asleep. There was no disfigurement due to death.  Most importantly, her sad demise could be honoured, unlike millions who died a very sad death  due to covid.

I felt numb like anything. Some part of it yet lingers. Well, I am not exactly a person who can showcase her grief and bereavement. Yet I remember the doctor had to remind me that I should call up Raju-Sanju. I was so dazed that I remember factually talking to Dhanu who was weeping inconsolably when she called up. Dr. Khare was still there,too. Finally, he had to ask me to throw the catheter in the dustbin.

Tough were those hours. I do know that instead of her suffering more and more due to bedsores, and all, she literally slept/slipped in to that eternal sleep, in a quite okayish condition peacefully. She did respond quite well to the Doctor's queries on Tuesday. Her mind was strong, but the body was weakened beyond tolerance. 

Every year March 25 will come, but never this dark night of the soul!

Pratima@tears, not shed, are the real language of deep grief.

Hope:Haïkus

 Hope

1) Hope is 

the smallest dot of

a dark monsoon cloud

on the most pallid skyscape

extending beyond the horizons

as barren as lost lives.

2) Hope is

the tiniest pale bud

on a burnt out branch 

in that  dazed wreck 

called Hiroshima

3) Hope is

the first yawn in a fortnight

gurgling at the parched maw

of an insomniac.

4) Hope is

the lonely crow

awaiting hesitant

at the washed out

neat nest of the 

roosting sparrow

5) Hope is

the happy smile 

of the merry baby

at the proud parent

holding a birthday greeting

a mosaic of standing sleeping curving lines

आशा

वैराण आयुष्यापार  फापललेल्या

पांढुरक्या क्षितिजावरची

मृगघनाची सानुली टिकली

आशा

सानुली साजरी कळी

जळीत फांदीआड

भग्न नि:शब्द हिरोशिमात

Pratima@hope is/assuring myself/that these images/could be better dressed/as haikus!

A Letter from me to myself

 When all is greyish gray,

my mind, dear,forget not 

on either side is jet black dark, 

or the lucid transparence of the white

then why fumble in the coils of the night?

Caught all alone 

on a narrow path

dark, solid slippery

whence jumps a waterfall 

in to the deepest valley,

look up then, n around, dear,

are not the sunrays shining

atop nary broken drop 

in to endless 

wondrous bows 

be it rain or the nascent moon

be it dusk  or dawn?

Endless stretch the roads

like the anaconda, hissing

in every turn twisting 

why in the maze get lost?

Be thou thine own

Ariadane's thread

Mystique pathways 

To nascent horizons lead!

Pratima@bright, though brittle, is hope/then why dread dungeons' dark tropes?

Water!

 The importance of water is seminal, and in all the aspects of the term 'seminal'. Water is both, for instance, liquid and centrally important. Water is indeed the base of our very being. All that is living, including a camel, requires water for existence and sustenance. 

We can live without,  sustain ourselves without food for days on end. We cannot live long without water though. "Water, water everywhere" is the need of humans, flora and fauna. No wonder, the U.N. decided to dedicate a day to it.

As it is, the potable water in our world is depleting dreadfully. It is due to the awful human behaviour that consists of polluting the natural water sources and the water beds every which way, be it the industrial effluents or the untreated sewage water.

Thus dies an entire 'eco system' in and under water. In this context, we must remember that human life began in and near water bodies, flourished near water sources. This IS an ecological as well as historical fact, absolutely undeniable. Today, however, having ignored it, we have invited on our heads the wrath of Nature.

The real scarcity of water currently, however, is in  our eyes that reflect our dried up hearts that are selfish in an obnoxious way. Can I say hence that the real unusual aspect of"The Kashmir Files"  lies in its generating an empathy amongst the audiences across the world? In the cinema halls all over the world‌, diverse audiences had tears in their eyes . There were, of course, the suffering Pandit's  themselves who wept, but the rest of the audience, too, was moved beyond words.

In my opinion, this film, I hope to see it soon, is successful because it did  not end in "entertainment, entertainment, entertainment" alone. It made everyone think anew, whatever be the debates. 

This empathy, shining in the eyes brimming with tears, can make our brittle wor(l)ds stronger. Otherwise, the multiple albatrosses around the human neck would make life a dead sea where there is "water, water everywhere/not a drop to drink."

Pratima@Let us keep small little water containers for birds, given the summer getting hotter by the day.

The H(e)ard Facts!

 Actually, I had decided to write about forests today. I love forests. The "deep woods", for example, Robert Frost talks about. I have taught the poem repeatedly, and, I would like to flatter myself, rather well. Science students loved the poem after our lecture and discussions therein. 

Be it Wordsworth's Lake district or the artificial woods of(f) the Victorian villas, forests allure me. Do not get me wrong. I can comfortably quote umpteen examples from Marathi or Sanskrit literature, too, not to mention the other literatures, and analyse them from multiple angles. And, no, I am not being boastful. That is the simple, rather regular, chore of a student who loves Literature. 

Today, however, I feel wary about writing of/on forests. Well, around me, I can see umpteen half baked analyses that miss the wood for the trees. The dreary dreadful din of 'phishy' opinion mongering can casually deafen the simultaneous roars of all the lions in all the  safari's, I think.

Yes, you guessed it right. I am referring to the ugly politicking over the film by my (sur)namesake director. No, I have not seen the film. I, however, had the high hopes that at least now the pundits could get the glimmer of a possible redressal. 

Any victim always looks for justice. The crime that wiped out the very identity, a possible lifetime, one feels, must be fairly addressed, the guilty punished at least by the veil of obscurity over the dastardly deeds getting torn open. Only then can decades old wounds that kept on oozing underneath may get some soothing balm.

By the day, however, the "Kashmir Files" discourse is getting uglier. Such is the  putrid politicking that it is a free for all as far as political parties and their rivalries go.A human(e)issue that needs a compassionate trial is getting bogged down in to religiosities. 'Five thousand  years old crimes' against adivasi's are getting quoted in the bitterest possible language as counter "narratives", I suppose, the most fashionable and least understood term currently, the other being 'eco sysyem,' yet again a much maligned rhetoric. Such a cocktail of caste and creed is absolutely intoxicating! 

If this is the plight of a group of millions, what hope for justice against age old character assassination of an individual, especially when the so-called proof is not palpably available? What-about-ery and ideological hatreds are, in brief, creating such a din that the Ukraine war itself could get silenced, deafened!

Nobody is saying that other good films should not be watched. No sensible person would argue either that other victims need not  be heard. I suppose, the only positive possibility is that in this meyham all sorts of good films are getting mentioned, and people would watch them, too.

 Sometimes, I almost wonder if it is about the business issues as this film seems to break all the records of all super (stars) super (dooper) hits. Why not, for example, the calls for donating the profits of the other money minting movies? Anyways, the Agnihotri's did mention the donation bit, too.

Propaganda machines, I do very strongly believe, can be effective only this much, and no farther. Otherwise, other much touted films would have been hits, too. Moreover, all those who truly care are ready to watch any good cinema. Such people would, and do, stand up against any injustice, for sure.

Why the visceral hatred against this particular film? Difficult to understand this reality! I get the feeling that people often push forth any wapp message, every tweet without thinking about it, without counter-checking the  basic details, I suppose! 

Identity politics cannot be the eternal trump card to beat an imagined adversary with. I have myself seen a so(ld-over- ideology)- called academic incite, with gestures, too, prejudices. In the twenty first century, however, such "imperatives", Kant described so vividly, seem to let in the side vistas, too. Well, everybody knows everything, what with the internet. It is difficult to delude even the commonest man now. That is the real h(e)ard fact , everyone better accept, I suppose!

Pratima@why play the "mine is the honest opinion, yours is peurile propaganda" game? It sure would get you noticed, but does it lead to any sensible solution?

The Happiness Day

 March 20 is the world happiness day, it seems. So says the UNO. Better to follow it as life currently is quite a malaise. Just when we thought the pandemic is getting under control, the war exploded on the Russian front. While it is still not ready to recede, the next variant of the Covid & Co is already looming large on the horizon.

What exactly is happiness? Neuroscience would have us believe that it is a combo of hormones. Serotonin makes us feel confident, while dopamine boosts the pleasure principle. If oxytocin could be called the happiness hormone, norepinephrine is the energy booster.

Well, these brain waves need to be helped, too, so that they function better, right? Absolutely no need for any artificial stimulants such as drinks or drugs, the support system of the so-called 'cool' who are actually very weak as human brings. If  life itself cannot intoxicate them, how long will such artificial supports that, moreover, ruin their entire system.

Which then is the better way to be happy? I suppose it could be inculcating certain mental and psychological habits. The first and the best should be to learn from the past mistakes, accidents, misfortunes without forgetting that the present and the future are ours to make, unlike the 'gone forever' past that cannot anyways be rectified.

The next one should be not to constantly cosset oneself, instead count eternally one's blessings, one's plus points and the brownie points life is eternally offering. When we sum these up, we wonder why we were so sorry at all, right?

Next it is necessary to respect and care for one's support system. If your father, for example, has supported you like the pillar of strength, come what may, you, too, must nurture that companionship through positive thinking, through actual active participation in multiple aspects of life. Anyways, we get it just once, and if life has been kind to us so as to give us another shot at it, we must celebrate that second chance, very, very ,very rarely granted, in a happy way. Thus would we be luckier still.

I suppose, competing with one's own self by giving oneself small but sure tasks daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, so to say, adds purpose to life which gives a constant boost, too,  the moment you attain that small, little but sure goal you designed for yourself.

I think, reading, writing, listening to and making music and gardening add tremendously to our happiness. Technology is right now literally at our fingertips. We can use it positively to make small, meaningful films, documentaries, for instance, dividing the work properly into pre to post production. One can learn for  and thus  earn an online degree, too. 

The best source of happiness, however, has to be the best buddy, our pet, especially a dog. The total acceptance and profuse love a dog constantly offers without nary a complaint is sheer divine pleasure.

Just as a profession can give us monetary stability, if it is avocation, in addition, the cup of happiness can be brimming over full, I suppose. A hobby, too, could help as it could add to the sense of attainment. 

Well, multiple such possibilities are there at the individual level, and they can immensely add to our contentment level. Just once a day, for example, if we were to try, something outside our rough plan of/for the day, it can add the unique feel to the day, making it happier still. Making a cup of coffee with a unique flavour for parents or for  the partner can be an example. Their happy surprise would add to our happiness, too. Similarly, social concern makes us sensitised and hence happier.

In brief, mental exercise is as necessary as some physical exercise. Even acupressure and breathing exercises add to charge up our happiness and wellness quotient. In my opinion, however, real happiness is being grateful for this beautiful gift called life. Enjoying it creatively is the real contentment!

Pratima@ "so many, so many are my favourite things/when I am sad or down, I have to just remember these favourite things."

The Buffer Zone

 March 19. Aai's birthday officially. Papa always wanted that her birthday be celebrated on March 19. Most probably because date wise, their birthdays were just a day apart, his being on March 18. I suppose, it symbolised togetherness for him.

 On the contrary, Bhau Mama always insisted that her birthday be celebrated on the Holi day. What did Aai do? She acted the buffer. On both the days, March 18 and on the Holi, she would prepare excellent sweets that would be divine delights.

I suppose that buffer role was what she was excellent at. In a way, both Aai-Papa, belonged to a generation that had the buffer role foisted on them. As a woman though, obviously Aai had to be better than the best at that role. Let us look at some relationships to explore this further. As a daughter, for example, the only goal she could have was marriage, while her daughter could think of a selfhood, too. Incidentally, she met her bridegroom only when she garlanded him at the time of their marriage.

As a daughter-in-law, her in-laws were terribly traditional, strictness personified, dominating her as per her daughter-in-law role. As a mother-in-law herself, she was leniency itself. In fact, the so-called traditional asserting self was more for the daughter-in-law by the time she became the "Aai, aho." Much water had flown under the bridge.

Life thus kept on coming full circle again and again. Most often though, if not always, she would have to be the arch below, the buffer. Papa, for example, could not cook at all. Very very rarely, when she fell ill, if at all, he would make pithale-bhat. Her sons, on the contrary, are better at the culinary arts than even her daughter! 

Looking after the household duties in her generation was mostly the womanly duty. Not that Papa did not bother. For sure, in multiple ways, he helped. But such were the times that it could be only this much, and no further. Her sons‌, on the contrary, excel at all the household duties. 

I suppose their entire generation had this buffering duty to bear. Papa, for example, had to take the responsibility of his father's household, and at a very early age, too,  while his sons, he made them good at it, could afford living independently, masters of their own choices and their lives every which way.

And yet I have never seen either Aai or Papa feel edgy about it. I keep on thinking how many times, they had to just adjust.  Both of them came from small towns, for example. Both had to negotiate Mumbai, the mega city, very early in their lives, Papa as an employee, Aai as a new bride. How did they manage it? Their backgrounds had hardly prepared them for such a life. 

My heart literally tears apart each time I remember one of Aai's stories. She used to be absolutely all alone in a huge big building after both Papa and Bhau Mama would leave for work. One day, she had to venture out as she needed the wheat to be ground. On the way back, initially, she just could not locate the lane as each one would look similar with those immense buildings.

Tough times for a hyper sensitive, shy woman. What is unique, however, is Aai learnt quickly to manage well, however difficult the circumstances. She belonged to a big family in a small town. Due to Papa's transfers, she had to learn to live in such far flung places as Bider now, Aurangabad then, miles and miles away from any support system. She managed it!

When she was expecting for the first time, she fell severely ill. The doctor was sure the foetus would not survive. Somehow Papa nursed her back to some normalcy. They were at Nanded, some six hundred miles away from any help. As she was not to travel till she was a bit okay, in her early ninth month, in the horrible April heat, on a meter gauge train, she somehow reached her parental place, to walk down to the maternity hospital some two or three weeks later!

And it was this woman who would constantly empathise with her daughter-in-law's strong medicines and its possible effects! How did she manage to be so strong? Whence this resilience? In her school days, surely there was no teaching of life skills, and all!

She gloried in, loved that bouncing back, whatever might be the setback. She never pitied herself, never grumbled against the endless troubles, faced them with a smile.  They both took the extremely difficult decision that Papa would travel all alone to these umpteen transfer destinations, given his honest ways, while she had to stay all alone  at Pune with three growing children for the sake of their education. Sure we were very nice kids, but it must have been terribly difficult.

Aai and Papa, their resources were limited but their hearts and souls were limitless, brimming with sheer love for the kids. No wonder, they made the tough buffer role a joyride! 

Pratima@ "I can be changed due to what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced due to it, " says Maya Angelou.

 

A Unique World in its Own Simple Way.

 March 18 is Papa's birth anniversary. He belonged to a generation born just before the Indian Independence. The most charged years of the freedom struggle circa 1942 were his formative childhood years.

As a result, there was a tremendous innocence and a huge idealism to his personality.  He actually believed in the purity of means and ends, for instance. Well, all the three of us siblings do that, too. But the difference is that we know that the rest of the world may not do so, while Papa felt it ought to.

Let me give a concrete example. I am stating my own case. Like Papa, I, too, believe that the means matter much, much more than even the ends. Absolutely agreed upon. Like him, I, too, feel that education, for instance, is not merely a salary giving employment.

 Unlike him, however, I know perfectly well that for 95% people in the field, it is merely a salary cheque. I accept this reality fully, completely, totally, and what the rest of the world is/does would not make a dime of a difference to me. My idealism would never ever waver. But I would never even try to improve on, better the rest of the world. Papa would!

He actually believed that everybody else should also be good, should not indulge in any corrupt means, for instance. Great! I, too, would like to believe that there is no corruption of any sort, all are ideal, et al. But I accept that reality is never ever so, and, moreover, unlike Papa, I would never try to improve others because I accept that they would not, nor would they want to, as their priorities might be vastly different. 

In all aspects of my life, I am absolutely every which way  ethical, idealistic, perform everything most honestly to the best of my abilities, and leave it at that, and carry on, facing whatever such life within such surroundings has in store for me.

 But, unlike Papa, I do not expect that the rest of the world better be so. It would not occur to him that such a clean insistence would be called all sorts of negativities, and he could not understand how or why.

He never drank, for example, anything beyond milk, and occasionally a coffee or a lemon juice. Drinking for him hence was a sin, and he would try to rectify such behaviour. On the contrary, drunkards provide me 'dry' amusement. Funny people they are, who are horribly self indulgent, and could be helped if they wish to, is my attitude.

He could not comprehend, similarly, how simplicity, just behaviour and  good intentions can be misunderstood, or why these traits could be considered preachy, for instance. His was a vision that believed in certainties, may be, because he had to struggle a lot in life. He started shouldering the family responsibility at a very young age, sacrificed his dreams due to it, and yet had to suffer at the hands of his own elders. 

The greatness of his innocence lies in not being bitter despite such treatment. He had very good tastes, loved music, literature, writing well. I wish he had worked on that. He loved his family more than himself. He was committed to a lot of welfare activities even during his retirement years. Whatever he took up, he put his soul in to it. An example could be his work for Alzheimer's. Honestly, so straightforward he was,  I always felt he needs protection from this nasty, cheap world.

Papa was more like the ideal hero of the 1950's films, honest, genuine, sincere. Well, the creator has, too, realised that the world today has no use for such a mould. And yet everything I always do continues to honour him every possible way. Love you, Papa!

Pratima@ Hitch your wagon always to the stars, but let your feet be firmly be on terra firma!

Always here, with us!

 Holi always used to be special for us. It was Aai's birthday, tithi wise. Very difficult to write the "was" bit, but it is an inescapable fact, a bitter reality.  She succumbed to a major heart attack on March 26 last year, while her official date of birth is March 19, and Papa's is March 18. Incidentally, Aai's Aai, too, expired of a heart attack after a longish illness on 26th.  

I know cynics would say that all this is  sheer coincidence, but there remains hidden deep within a daughter's  heart a young girl's simple faith that tries to find symbolic patterns in such rather obvious parallelism.

For sure she symbolised, and actually practised, many qualities one can associate with 'holi', the fire principle. She was bright. There was a fiery spunk to her. She had immense warmth in her. She was self respecting, like the proud flame. But what I genuinely found in her that is truly similar to the Holi/holy flame was her ability to burn down all that is dross.

I have never heard her carp about and criticise viciously  people truly responsible for making her early marital life in her in-laws' place horribly difficult. She sure felt hurt due to the injustice, but she was never bitter. On the contrary, she had that fiery determination, that brilliant resilience to shine back burnished despite every setback.

In fact, she was so averse to any dross that she rarely indulged in any gossip mongering.  She would never go visit the neighbouring auntie's house gossiping galore after the "husband goes to office, children to school" routine.

 She would spend the afternoons reading, stitching, sewing, knitting, embroidering. She was very good at many handicrafts, too. She designed so many types of different curtains made of delicate, fragile glass pipes and dainty, small bottles with different coloured water, and beads, for each separate door. Each one would have a unique design, peacock, flowers, and what have you. She could make fabulous flowers out of all sorts of material. Her rangoli patterns used to be divine. 

She was great at cooking, too. Of course, she marvelled at special Marathi dishes, and  the unique  Maharashtrian pickles and papad's, for sure. What was real special, however, was that  her simple dishes for the daily lunch/dinner regime were of the lip smacking variety. That, in my opinion, is unique because it is routine, hence tough, especially because she never used  generous dollops of onions, garlic, coriander, and tomatoes!  Her preparations were truly healthy, and proportionate. Never even once did her fridge overflow with left-over's. 

She excelled in learning, and later teaching,  the "sant vangmay",  the writings of Saint Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram and Samarth Ramdas. She learnt the Geeta in depth, too. Many more such qualities and abilities she had that I shall write about later.

Basically her life had a subtle but sure discipline to it.  It had a silent but systematic regimen to it, and she stuck to it even in her early eighties! In brief, she led a good, happy, worthy life. Hence the title of the blog today. She stays. Always, here, with us.

Pratima@ One never really understands the meaning of 'I miss you' until one tries to reach out to the fragile old wisened hand of one's parent, and realises it is not there.

Whataboutery!

 The Agnihotri film is indeed the talk of the town. I have not watched it yet. But I find its theme genuine. This film gives a voice to untold miseries, to millions of muted lives. 

What I find rather funny and quite surprising about the debate surrounding the film is the what-about-ery. Whatsapp group after whatsapp group, a message is making rounds. It lists YouTube links. These are videos about, for example, the Babri Masjid violence. In an aggrieved and in a quite threatening "what about" tone, the message asks the reader to watch such videos before watching The Kashmir Files.

Yes, every violent act is BAD. Any discrimination is horrendous. No issues about this leitmotif at all. Yet it must be remembered that each and every violence mentioned in the message has been, and continues to be, addressed, and in multiple ways. True, these violences are indeed despicable. The gruesome murder of Dabholkar, for instance, should not have taken place. Undoubtedly!

Yet it must be remembered and accepted that the exodus the film details has never ever been given any platform, any forum at all in the public sphere. For decades, innocent people have suffered for absolutely no fault of theirs. Nobody bothered about 'their' human rights. The indignities and cruelties they suffered were atrocities. Why not at least now accept that they must be delivered  some humane consolation, fair justice, even if much delayed.

Nobody is doing them any favour thus. It is their birth right denied to them like their birth place, their hometowns. It is absolutely wrong to bring caste in to the debate. Victims are victims are victims. It is wrong to gloat that some eons ago their powerful ancestors could have been masters, and so their successors should suffer now. Anyways, this is only one version of the history. 'Their' chronicles could be vastly different! Nothing justifies victimisation. For sure!

Moreover, justice must be delivered, wrongs must be righted, the guilty have to be punished. It is not proper to say, forget the past, whatever happened, happened. Nobody can thus minimise a pain throbbing eternally in the heart, and wounding the soul by the second.

Neither what-about-ery nor party politicking can be the answer. Justice has to seen to be delivered, and at the earliest!

Pratima@ "The moral arch of the universe is," says Martin Luther King, "long. But it always bends towards justice."

More humane than humans

 Actually, I am not exactly a social media enthusiast. In general,  I read whatever is forwarded on the wapp groups (I am on very few, anyways) and the Telegram groups. Both these I have joined due to professional reasons. I may read an interesting tweet or a news item if it pops up on the general google search. I am not on the FB in a big way either. Mostly I do not watch the short videos on the FB.

Today was an exception though.  I came across this short video about a dog. As it is, I love dogs. In my opinion, they are much, much better than many a human beings. In this particular video, a dog saw a dying pup. He tried to help the small one. To no avail though. The dog held the dead pup in its jaws and took the carcass to the nearby field. 

He started digging a hole, kept on measuring it literally till the trench was big enough. Once the pit was big enough, he put the pup in it. What moved me to tears was the fact that he pushed the loose soil on the dead body not with his paws, but with his nose using it almost like a snout till the dead body was properly covered. Wondrous it was to watch as he never even once used the forepaws though he had obviously used them to dig up the soil.  There were tears in his eyes once the body was convered fully. The dog did not appear particularly trained, but what great solemnity in the face of death!

Compare it with the human behaviour. Even with the dead body just around, people continue to check their mobiles, they are not averse to loose talk, gossiping, cracking silly jokes. Till the funeral pyre is getting ready, I have myself heard women talking of ear-rings! The daughters-in-law continue chitchatting and gossiping even when they have just heard that their gentle mother-in-law died in another town. Rituals are finished off as a mere formality. 

Why such callous indifference? Death is  terrible. It is a stomach churning feel to realise that you would never ever get to see, hear, feel, touch this person whom you loved desperately.  Death is a void forever, a  vaccum that nothing can ever re-fill. In the face of such finality, why not be decent?  Well, most human beings are hardly worth being called one! Animals, especially dogs, are anyday much better, though human beings choose to call 'them' beastly!

Pratima@"Our dead are never dead to us," says Mary Ann Evans, "unless we choose to forget them."

Love to hate?

 I am sure all of us have read the following two stories. The first one is about the seven (in some versions, six) blind men and the elephant. Each one of them could feel, could touch only one small part of the animal, and thought it to be the whole big animal.

 The second story deals with an old man who has two daughters. The elder one is married to a farmer, and the younger to a potter. If the elder one wants her father to pray for rains, the other one wants him to pray for sunshine.  The poor father is thus eternally in a quandary. 

The European variety of the second story has a mother who is always crying because her elder daughter sells umbrellas, while the younger one makes noodles. If it rains, the younger one would go without any food as the noodles she makes would not dry. The other way round, the elder one would go hungry as none would require an umbrella!

Well, in my opinion, these two stories by Aesop are perfect parables for a proper perspective. Perspective indeed is a  great mental ability to have in my opinion. If we lack it, we love to hate, I would say.

Without perspective, we are literally blind to any other point of view. As a result, a kind of arrogant jingoism,  narrow narcissism and a solidified, rather ossified, prejudice poison our positioning. We stop thinking, and react hoarsely but most predictably to anything under the poor sun.

Let me give you an example. Yes, I am talking of the furore over "The Kashmir Files", and, to quite some extent, over  "Zund". The extreme negativities about the Agnihotri film are almost visceral, while one is almost forced in to liking the Manjule film.

I have watched neither. I would not hence comment on either. But I do find disgusting the entire politicking that is going on in the name of reactions which is rather a free for all. Any semblance to truth, any verification of actual facts, such issues are impossible in such a fish market of a debate. People are out with hatchets. Ideologies seem to blind people. I am a member of a wapp group that I would have liked to call progressive. Well, venom spews while attacking the director they do not like. 

Ideologies are inevitable. But if they breed hatreds through falsehoods that can be counter checked  even through a simple Wikipedia entry conveniently laughed at otherwise, we are indeed in the post truth era.

Personally I feel that if a film is passed by the censor, nobody should continue blue pencilling it, acting as a super censor. If you are viscerally opposed to a point of view, do not watch the film. 

Why the dirty politicking as consciously giving a film just One Credit and thus faking its response?  None can make anyone else, an adult with some experience of life,  like or dislike any film, or for that matter anything else, including a point of view. That, in fact, would be quite childish, rather, that would be the real fascism.

Anyone could always disagree with the other side, but with a perspective that they, too, have their own version of the truth. If a debate has to emerge, its language cannot be vitriolic. If we cannot agree to disagree decently, it is rather clear that we love to hate!

Pratima@ Hate, says Maya Angelou, has caused many problems in this world, but has not solved any!

Worrying Wounds

 A few years ago, I read a story by Eli Wiesel. A truly touching tale it was. I translated it later. The translation was published,  and most all readers loved it. 

Why was it so universally appealing? It was an introspective narrative told retrospectively. It talked of a young Jewish boy who gets a gold wristwatch as a gift for his  'mitzwah'  ceremony. For a boy just in to his very early teenage, it is indeed absolutely precious.

That very evening, like all the other Jews in the vicinity, his family, too, is rounded up to be taken to the concentration camp. Just before marching off to an extremely uncertain future, everybody in the ghetto is busy burying his/her most precious possession. Why, even the kid sis of the narrator buries her favourite doll. The child narrator tries to bury deep the valued watch. 

After the harrowing experiences in the concentration camp, the narrator, now a young man, returns to his hometown. Everybody else in his small, little family is dead. Suddenly, he is at the gulley where he once lived. His heart starts beating fast as he wants to find out if the watch is still there.

He is perfectly aware that the non-Jewish population of the town raided the ghetto for the valuables even before the ill fated train taking the victims to the concentration camp left the platform.

Yet hope beats eternal in the human heart. Furtively looking around, he starts digg fting. And, voila, the wristwatch is there, the day/date/time frozen in to an eternity.  Does he take the fancy wristwatch?

The end is truly touching. The tale stays with  us forever. Why? In my opinion, that is because it opens up, pries open wounds which never healed.

Each of us has such shattering wounds, for example, harassment due to jealousy, envy, sadism, or due to the sheer wonky idea of fun of the perpetrator. One does not even need to worry the wound. Scratched a little, the pain flows unstoppably.  Much worse is the sense of helplessness, especially because everybody else chose to look on despite knowing the wickedness. You can neither forgive nor forget the whole of the tragic memory even when you bravely carry on with life.

Remembered all this because read about, heard interviews about the Kashmir Pandit exodus and genocide. Hope to see the movie that opens up a chapter that just cannot be justified any which way.

Pratima@numbing the pain for a while makes it bitter when you feel it later, says J.K. Rowling 

Fusspot!?!

 Well, despite being a trueblue "literary classics" disciple, I am not exactly averse to reading 'pop lit' or 'pulp lit' as it is known. In other words, I may not exactly enjoy an "M-n-B" or a Barbara Cartland  or a Harold Robbins. I may not repeat a Danielle Steele either. I am not allergic though to occasionally reading a Stephen King or a Robin Cook or a Jeffrey Archer, for instance. 

It gives me an adrenaline high to find out how J. K. Rowling is a petered down version of the great Charles Dickens or how Paulo Coelho writes  "how to" versions of easy spirituality. In brief, despite being a hardcore Lit. Crit enthusiast, I unashamedly own up liking a Chetan Bhagat. 

It is in this context that I found this particular scurrilous attack on Dan Brown a little funny. His novel "Da Vinci Code" is quite some read in my opinion. There was this article blasting the book and the author. One of the objections was his loose hold over the  sentence structure in English. 

Indeed, it is important to write well, to construct ideal sentences. The current insistence on the primacy of communication alone, the constant objections to prioritising the standard language, et al, are partially relevant, but partly problematic as well. Indeed, the 'everything goes' , the 'juggad' tendency is not exactly my cup of tea to use a mixed metaphor.

And yet I found the attack on Dan Brown quite a puzzle. Both his content and his style were lambasted in that article. That set me thinking. Where does purism end, and where does pedantic nitpicking start? Is an insistence on stylistic perfection a kind of literary ocd/obsessive compulsive disorder? Is it being scrupulous or is it being a literary dictator with megalomania, and, perhaps, envy cloaked as disgust? 

Actually, populism can be located in every ideology, too. The Left, for instance, has its own populist modes, too. Given such realities, is it right to be a snooty 'nose in the air' quibbler? Or is it better to understand and learn from the skills of the oh-sooh-low pop lit? Even if one loves Eisenstein or de Sica, what is wrong in appreciating a Bhansali despite all the facile faux-pas therein?

 I believe in self-reflexivity, and in locating my lacunae rather than looking at the moat in the eyes or "I's" of others. I hence find pathetic the punditry of narcissists who glibly dismiss the democratically  elected governments or authors much loved by millions!

Pratima@ I believe that it is better to have a head high in the stars, but the feet better be solidly planted on terra firma!

The Colours Speak

 Do colours have a language of their own? Yes, apparently! Yellow-  its golden, ochre-ish shades Aai liked quite a bit - is supposed to be a colour that signifies enthusiasm, positivity and optimism, for instance. Well, actually, yellow is not even the base colour. It is a mix of red and green.

Which are the primary colours then? They are three: red, green and blue. Is not it most interesting that these are the most natural colours of the most primal things in nature? Red is the colour of the dawn, of the morn, of the sunrise and the sunset, of all the most natural phenomena in the universe. It is the colour of the fire that once upon a time, eons ago, helped mankind overcome the fear of the dark. 

Once the primal instinct of survival was thus taken care of, more complex feels, emotions and intellectual possibilities could emerge, making our ancestors better primates, and truly human. No wonder, red is the colour of all new beginnings, of the very blood coursing in our veins, giving us the live-ly feel. No wonder, it is the colour of love, too.

Green, similarly is the colour of the entire verdant scenario around us, of the lovely forests, of the mysterious woods, dark and deep, and of the crops serving us, human beings, and many amongst our animal friends our basic nourishment.

Blue is the colour of the sky that is our companion wherever we may roam. It is the colour of the infinity, rather like the ocean that seems to stretch the very concept of the horizon . As blue thus surrounds us, up, above and around us, it has a very protective, supportive and yet deeply intense, intellectual, spiritual and emotional feel. 

Well, in a way, is not it us, human beings, who give such symbolic meanings to neutral colours? For example, in Marathi weddings, the bride wears green bangles and a yellow saree as a symbol of a new beginning while,  in the West, the bridal dress is white. 

 While the all ending death is symbolised by black, actually the absence of any colour, in our part of the world, in the West, it is white, like the all engulfing snow, symbolising the end. 

Well, whatever symbolic meanings we may thus assign them, one thing is for sure. Indeed the colours do speak‌, a language close to our primal feels, a language most normal and natural.

Pratima@ Colours add dreams to dreary existence, right?

All that glitters ...

 In our life, we often meet people who pretend to be nice. Most often such people are very tiptop in their looks.  Such people would also wear the cloak of friendliness. But often as dirty and ugly is their inner aspect as attractive would be their appearance.

Appearances are always absolutely deceptive though. It is most often all shine outside, but no light inside. In fact, often such is the (he)art of such darkness-es  that "horror, horror, horror"  would not often be enough of a scream to depict, to describe that  dungeon.

Wildest beastly passions would roam unfettered darkly in such dull deserts.  The seven deadly sins, as described in the Bible and other religious texts, would absolutely be not enough to describe such dumb terrors. Well, a (wo)man may laugh and laugh, and yet be a villain/vamp.

How to deal with such people? To begin with, be aware of who they truly are and accept that truth about them without any stupid demands by your hyper functional emotions, or rather sentiments.

Next never ever react. Always provide proactive responses. Be extremely creative in honestly, genuinely and sincerely dealing with your own life goals, your own dreams intelligently and wisely. It is only thus that the poison spewing in the false speeches and crude cruel deeds of such people simply cannot destroy you.

Pratima@ Aai chose a great name for me, "प्रति मा"! It would thus mean " against (प्रति ) never (मा).

Future Continuous

 It is such a great feel when the next generation achieves a milestone in life. It can be education, it can be career, but, I suppose, the real game changer is the marriage of your gen next, right? 

Why? Are you asking that question? Well, in my opinion, our kids are thus entering a new territory. It is an absolutely new continent they are exploring. Mind you, it is not only with the partner alone, though that indeed is the capital (in all senses of the term) region. 

It is a beautiful experience to see your small one exploring most pleasantly new relationships, lovely bonds, and it is such a pleasure to see someone you have always considered a little imp be so mature, and adult, and all!

It is, moreover, an unchartered territory of multiple bonds. A marriage gifts your little one so many new relatives and relationships, ready made at that. It is such a wonderful experience to feel a responsible adult emerge from the small kid who is finely negotiating new spaces, and, you know very well, is going to continue  shouldering newer responsibilities. A future continuous forever!

Pratima@ It is on such stellar occasions when you understand that you absolutely accept  Khaleel Gibran on children. Indeed they are the sun beams that promise a newer, brighter tomorrow.

March 8

 March 8. The day began. As usual, there were many posts flooding the inbox. Some of them were deeply touching. They sensitively addressed the fix of being a woman.

Despite such beauties, has the day dwindled in to a duty? Has it got dwindled in to a kind of tokenism? Most often, has it got reduced to a ritual? 

Not to be missed is the fact that the market has overtaken the chores, too.  The moment any event becomes a consumerist gala, it mostly loses its meaning.

The girls of the millennial and the post millennial generation do not think greatly of the event as most of the rights the earlier generation fought for are ready on a platter for them.

There is a need to re-imagine the women's day. There is an urgent necessity to re-invest in the movement. Only then would the day have real meaning in the era today when technology is creating new imprisonments for women. Only then can women's day be truly meaningful.

Pratima@ Long Live March 8.

An Armour anti Crime

 Yes, I do not mind owning it up. Well, yes, I do like to read detective stories. I adore Sherlock Holmes. On the one hand, it is an intelligent literary construction. Actually, the plot is so structured that if you are a brilliant observer, there is an Ariadne's thread, right at the beginning, unmistakable, glaring at you, and yet most often missed. The detective stories are an intellectual joy. Seeking the hidden is a superb skill and the detective stories, be it Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and many such other literary giants, they provide a great conceptual adrenaline bottled in a smart presentation. 

Now a days, however, such stories and their dramatizations serve another purpose. We live in quite horrid times wherein foul is  vicious, sinful, horrid, and yet lacking subtlety. In great literature, there is superb depiction of villains and vamps, Iago, Gilbert Osmond, Madame Merle, to mention a few.

Unfortunately, however, the criminality now is complex in a dirty way, and yet quite in the face. Take any field, and this truth holds a mirror to our times. Hence watching such dramatisations is actually protecting oneself. These are not psychologically subtle,yet they have a behavioural truth. Knowing it is indeed an alternative source of energy!

Pratima@ Given the current culture of dishonesty, better to wear such an armour!

Peacenik!

 That video said a lot. The hurriedly called, secret meeting of the Ukraine politicos was on. Off the dais, but in focus was the president of Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky, getting himself a chair!

He is in the age group of world leaders like Mr. Justin Trudeau of Canada, Mr. Emannuel Macron of France, Ms. Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand. Unlike them, however, he comes to politics from the show business. Apparently, he was a stand-up comic.

Hence he would know the relevance of the 'bottom up' approach to the status quo, right? No wonder, he is so very comfortable in his skin. He can drag a chair for himself. Without standing on any ceremony, he can directly be with his soldiers on the war ravaged streets. He has the gumption to tell the Nato how the organization has betrayed Ukraine, with the mighty Russia in its backyard precisely because of the Nato issue.

Hope that such wisdom makes him a peacenik. It is very sad to have to read Kiev, Odessa, places one liked because one loves Russian literature and Eisenstein films, getting bombarded, destroyed, raized to dust heaps. Much worse is the imminent threat of the atomic war as an almost certain possibility. 

Hope Mr. Zelensky sees the ugliness of the black humour of the Ukrainian condition. Ditched by Nato (and, of course, the Big Bro, the U.S.) and attacked by the Elder Bro, Russia, Ukraine needs a peaceful, happy ending soon. Hope the erstwhile comic realises  that all that ends soon may end less tragically!

Pratima @As an act, war brings neither a laugh at the lips, nor a smile in the heart!

Astrology?!?

 Is there any astrological influence indeed? Why is it then that nobody (as I have not read Nostradamus, I would not know about his 'revered' predictions) could foretell either the Corona caused pandemic or the Ukraine crisis?

Poor distant planets and stars! They rotate as per their given routes. Why blame them when actually people around are much much worse than all the saturn's, and all the other evil planets put together? 

Are marriages ever decided as per the planetary confluence? That is just a fig leaf. Most marriages are nothing  but a heinous trade(-off). Some parties sell themselves for an easy life, and, also, may be, because without the monies, their ambitions would not be 'affected', while the other half buy respectability, I suppose. 

Horribly garish - I saw two such eyesores recently- are the photos of such weddings. Sheer tinsel stuff it is. Absolutely in bad taste is the vulgar show-off of monies. When a camera zooms in on a jewellery box/item, not to miss the avid, greedy and gloating expression on the face of the person in question, especially the receiver, and the rudely proud, arrogantly smirky expression on the face  of the giver, one pities all the so-called 'rasm', the anyway empty rituals rendered further meaningless thus, which absolutely lose all their purity, sheen, beauty.

Do people influence each other or the poor distant planets and stars? If one is in the constant company of a crude person, would not that make a person crass, rather than some poor planet? 

Once I saw two lovely videos of how rhythmic, beautiful patterns are designed by the rotations of the planets. So vibrant were the patterns that I actually was ready to accept the medieval notion of the music universalis or the music of spheres.  Why blame such wonders for human vices and frailties? The huge telescopes are further exploring the wonders of more and more milky ways. Why blame these distant beauties for blemishes in human behaviour, right? Indeed, why 'make the sun, the moon, and stars guilty' of human prevarication?

Pratima @ "the fault is not in our stars, but in us".

Marvelous Melody

 This evening I had a great time. To begin with, I was listening to a superb song, the great ghazal, "main kya janu?" It is one of my all time favourites. This 1940 song  is written by Kedar Sharma. There is nothing simply unusual in the poetic composition actually. It is mostly made of monosyllabic, rather folksy, quite simple Hindi like vocabulary, unlike the other heavily urdu-ised diction of "ghazals".

The music composition is by Pankaj Mullick who has built it along the Yaman notations. What makes this paean to the beloved's eyes truly melodious is its rendition.

This evening I heard it sung in three scintillating voices, the original Saigal version, the Lata adoption and the Rahul adaptation. All the three are indeed unique and special.

Saigal's is a superb presentation which explains why he is the singers' singer. I love it despite the old fashioned pronunciation for the unmistakable passion pored out in that lilting voice of his. when Lataji sings it, it must have been her heydays, her soft yet crystal clear and sharp melodious voice makes the song in to manna for the ears.  Rahul Deshpande's version is an exploration, novel though raag-based. 

Each version is unparalleled. If Saigal's flows like a string of illustrious, precious pearls, Lata's is like a unique diamond, brilliant and priceless, simply one of a kind. Rahul Deshpande's classical rendition is sheer gold. 

As a listener, it is my sheer luck that I get to hear these unique renditions, not to mention many more by Lucky Ali, for instance. Music is indeed a very rich and soul satisfying accomplishment, a symbiosis that enriches the lyricist, the composer, the singer, and the audience. No wonder, now it is a great therapy, too.  Long live listening to such marvelous melodies!

Pratima@Aai-Papa loved it, too.

Affinity

 Affinity with animals, togetherness with the flora and the fauna, that is what makes the real world. Have we forgotten that empathy? Luckily, may be, some ten to twenty per cent people care for their pets and their terrace gardens. Most, however, have forgotten the "il faut cultiver notre jardin", the Candide message of Voltaire with its quasi-Edenic echoes.

We need to revive that feel for our own survival. If animal species become extinct, if certain plants/trees die, we, too, would not survive. In the current consumerist lust for using every inch of any scenic beauty, many sea shores have lost the mangroves, for example. The rising sea water hence would drown metros like Mumbai. When hunters kill a lion or a tiger for fun or for some imagined medicinal value of their body parts, they are actually killing an entire life chain!

Last year I used to teach a great 1854 text entitled " A Simple Philosophy ". It was a letter written by Seathl, the Chief of the Native American Suquamish tribe of the state of Washington. Addressed to the White President of the USA, it talked of the beasts of the land as brothers and the earth as the mother. It ended with " this earth is precious to God, who is the God of All, and even the white man cannot escape this common destiny."

Much water has flown under the bridge thence. Be it colonisation or consumerist consumption, the historical march of political economy is an eternal fast forward to mindless destruction. Unfortunately, it is self destruction, too, which we choose to overlook in our colonising of the skyscape via the sky'scrap'ers or of the very galactic space now as plots on the Moon and the Mars are already on sale.

If at all we put up a "show off" for caring the fauna and the flora, easy photo-op's are sexy. So we choose to save the tiger, but who would bother for the city vanquished bats or sparrows? They are hardly that attractive, right? When we ignore such details, we invite  nature's wrath, be it the changed seasonal cycle or wild fires (when they are 'not' planted, of course).

Well, we are not eroding the soil, for example. We are erasing our own future generations to extinction. Hope we wake up, listen to the fervent cry of the wild life on this day dedicated to its conservation, and beyond.

Pratima@ save other species to save the human species!

Sadism

 There is apparently this quote by Ovid which maintains that no pleasure is great unless it involves someone else's pain. Perfect definition of sadism it is. Sadistic people cannot be happy unless and until someone else is harassed, bothered, ill-treated, and, mind you, this ill treatment is absolutely conscious.

How to counter it? One should never ever be masochistic. Masochism is taking pleasure in one's harassment. It is the other side of the sadism coin. There is this psychological typology that talks of people who are silently aggressive. In other words, their behaviour is apparently meek, but just underneath the veneer, they are passive-aggressive, the worst form of the sadistic taxonomy.

How to counter sadism?  I feel the best response is to be found in "1984" by George Orwell.  O'Brien, that subtlest of the villains, almost Iago-like, defines sadism indirectly. It is the best image of power. It is an eternal boot trying to crush a face, a human face underneath. 

Therein lies the panacea to counter sadism in my opinion.When one can see, can feel that boot approaching your face  to  squash it, to squish it to pulp, remove yourself , your face from there. Even if you manage to budge an inch, the knee, the boot bearing the foot would hurt itself badly, and would ten times think before harassing you.

Indeed, it is no use being a martyr to a crook. A Hitler would not understand or listen to a Gandhi. No use offering poems and/or flowers to a barrel of a gun. It would the best to just remove yourself away from others' power politics victimising you!

Pratima@It is indeed important to be just and nice to one's own self, too!

Not merely 'not', but 'anti'

 It is the Mahashivaratra today. The fast is a celebration of  'Shiva', the pure, the elemental, the core of/in the universe. Shiva, the 'pater familias' of Lord Gajanana  and Lord Kartikeya, and the peerless consort of Pavati, who 'chose' to be his, despite stiff opposition, is all that is superb and grand every which way. No wonder, the great, grand Himalayas are Lord Shiva's abode. Everything about Lord Shiva is unique, pure, holy.

If we were to look at the Shiva principle a little differently, we would realise that His basic thematic, His narrative, if you want it in that fashion, is hugely inclusive. He is the God of the gods. Yet even ghosts, devils, demons could worship him. Look at his flock of  the  countless 'gana's' . That would clarify my point. The human, the non-human, the sub-human, all He acknowledges, accepts as his devotees. Often, in the mythology, his wedding procession is presented as terrifying, as it is absolutely inclusive. Well, this is not the scholarly platform to discuss how/when the Shiva principle emerged, how it got authenticated in the pantheon, and in history, for instance, though.

This notion of inclusion is the day's theme,too, according to the U.N. It is a day dedicated to a critique that questions discrimination on any basis, be it class, gender, age (ace-ing currently), caste (post-Mandal in a BIG way in India), region, religion, language, profession, preferences of any type, food, for example, the list can continue as nauseam.

The real need of the day is not merely being non-. One must now be anti-. Let me now give the example that I had so far saved to establish my choice of the right prefix. Look at the concept of race. Now is the time to assert an active agency. 

Now is the time to be proactive. So you can not be merely non-racist, you are anti-racist. Similarly, you are anti-war, too, given the current context. An active and assertive stance that brooks no nonsense is the position demanded of each and everyone now. That is the way we would be truly inclusive in preaching and praxis, like the Shiva principle.

Pratima@ Inclusion is far better than identity politics