The Meaning of a Myth

 Akshay Tritiya is often the occasion for buying gold in many a household. Given the current sky-rocketing prices of the yellow metal, one wonders who would manage that feat this year. Well, why must people be buying it anyways? Apparently, it is believed that all the activities performed on this day are "akshay", that is, without any decrease/loss.

The notion is rooted in a tale from 'Mahabharata'. The Pandavas have to abdicate their throne after the game of the dice, and are forced to live in the forest. Nothing can please the wicked Duryodhana more. Just to harass them still further, he consciously sends Rishi Durwasa with his entire retinue to visit the poor Pandavas.

It is already late in the evening. The wicked idea that Duryodhana is harbouring is that the Pandavas would have to host all these guests which they would not manage, and given the notorious bad temper of Rishi Durwasa, a curse would surely follow, thereby making the tough life of the Pandavas still more difficult.

Draupadi has just cleaned up all the vessels when the tired and hungry guests reach the doorstep. She is in a terrible fix. Lord Krishna, her saviour forever, notices her discomfort. Carefully, he looks at all the vessels. In one of these, he locates a miniscule most tiny leaf of the vegetable cooked for the last supper. He eats it with utmost joy, and belches with complete contentment. That very minute, all the guests, too, feel fulfilled. Krishna blesses Draupadi that this "akshay patra" would always be full.

What could be the significance of the myth? For one thing, it means that the rishi and his retinue, pure souls basically, are fulfilled when the Lord is happy. That munificence should be the real "akshay patra." Does the myth mean that a woman should be better at the management of her household? I would rather say that the tale tells you that 'never be a Duryodhana, no use it is' as the entire universe itself will conspire to help the good. In my opinion, that eternal contentment is the real magic Krishna performs! 

Hope the very many dastardly Duryodhana's bustling busily in each and every corner of the private space and the public sphere would take this cue so that normal life would be "akshay", and forever!

Pratima@ There is an Armenian tale, it seems. Three apples fell from the heaven, one for the narrator of a story, one for the listener, and the last and the best for the person who took it to heart!

His Masterful Voice

 In the world of Bollywood music, which is now more and more automated, once upon a time, not so very long ago, there used to be simply gems of songs you could hear umpteen times, and yet you would feel like listening to them yet once more.

Especially unique would be a pair, a face that would lip-sync on screen a marvel of a rendition. Madhubala, for instance, insisted on Lata Mangeshkar as her singing voice. Such masterful couples have been quite a few. Most people love, for example, the Raj Kapoor-Mukesh version.

In my opinion, one such superb pairing is Kishore Kumar and Rajesh Khanna. True, Kishore Kumar, the great genius, even when he was not deep in to the classical base, could enliven any wooden face with his soulful rendition.

Yet it is with Rajesh Khanna, despite Khanna's horrible mannerisms, that Kishore Kumar's  voice seems to emote best. May be, Khanna's repetitive gestures so-called as acting, needed a soul, and Kishore Kumar's voice seems to grant it.

The list is endless. Can you think of "Amar Prem" without Kishore Kumar? If it were any other singer, Khanna's phoney acting would have been impossible to bear, right? Remember the pathos of "Zindagi ke safar me"? But impossible without Kishore Kumar, right? The very many songs could be played in loop endlessly, right?

Actually, there is a quartet to such renditions, if one listens carefully. Sure, Kishore Kumar could create a wonder like "woh sham kuch ajeeb thi" under Hemant Kumar's brilliant direction. But it is mostly R.D. Burman who takes the Kishore-Khanna duets to great heights.

Did I talk of a quartet? Well, very rarely does the common man kind of audience remember the lyricists when it comes to Hindi film music, right? Mostly, it is the actor, followed by the singer, and, at times, the music director in such a hierarchisation.

It is the "words, words, words", however, that cast the real spell. It is noteworthy, hence, that it is mostly Anand Bakshi who has penned the Kishore-R.D.-Khanna greats.  What masterful renditions indeed!

Pratima@The HMV records once had the logo of a doggie devotedly listening to a record. Hence the tagline, his master's voice. When it comes to such a quartet, the 'master'ful voice embellishes the lovely words set to great tunes that made the silver screen scintillate, right?

Why so (c)rude?

 This evening I got to watch a video, by the BBC at that, in which a rather famous, sorry to have to say so, but Marathi, actor was waxing eloquent about his trip to Pahalgam, immediately after the unfortunate tragedy! The sensitive etc etc etc soul was holding forth about the need not to make the poor (as usual, in all senses of this term!) locals feel lost which they would, if tourism were to collapse right in the beginning of the season, it seems.

How very lofty, no? Well, I do not think so at all. Well, the blood spilt there might not be still washed away. If this sensitive(!!!) soul were to sensibly look around, instead of showing other equally (c)rude people 'enjoying' themselves, he would have indicated the dismal signs of that terrible tragedy, right?

What he, and others of his ilk, are doing is downright disrespectful to those who suffered such a horrid tragedy. Their wounds are still raw. Why rub salt in to their injuries by glorifying the so-called "all is well, all is well" normalcy?

Sure, the locals must not suffer due to a handful extremists. Well, sorry to have to say this, but would the terrible tragedy have taken place at all if the locals were not at all involved? The culprits were very much present at the site beforehand, busy with an ugly reiki, and so on. Very many private videos (from Pune, too) have emerged to establish the locals coordinating, cooperating with those horrid terrorists! Look at the way they heckled and ill-treated, unlike the BBC journalist, Divya Tripathi who, too, was reporting!

If, for a week, tourism were suspended as a mark of respect for the innocent dead who unnecessarily lost lives, and for the grieving, suffering survivors who have thus got a lifetime of disturbing memories, the locals, too, would have learnt a valuable lesson, right? May be, at least for financial, if not for any idealistic, reasons, the locals would have avoided any truck with the terrorists, right?

Why frolic when someone else has been very recently and absolutely grievously wounded? Even animals do not go for such cruel crudities! Many animals mourn their dead! Would the tourists enjoying there or the sensitive etc etc etc actor, and others of his ilk, have behaved the same way if their near and dear ones had fallen victims to the AK 47 bullets of the terrorists?

Why be so (c)rude, while pretending to be oh-so-kind to Kashmiri's? Or is it the case that only local Kashmiri's suffer? And the unfortunate victims of a senseless terrorist attack, what about their emotional wounds? Money matters, one's (c)rude 'enjoyment' alone cannot always have the upper hand! As it is, it has already been established, the touristy season was advanced to an earlier date, and without the necessary permissions!!

Such (c)rude arrogance gives rise to the suspicion by many that an international narrative was involved in maligning India, especially because the American Vice- President had till then enjoyed a very happy feel-good tour of India with his young family.

Yes, one must be liberal, democratic, open. For SURE! But pretensions to that effect, which are extremely unjust to the suffering of others, do smack of (c)rude hypocrisy, right? 

A parallel would be so-called celebrities asking young impressionable minds to chase their dreams (which most often are acting, dancing, singing, stand-up comedy-ing) instead of following the well-meaning advice of those who genuinely care for them. Despite so very many reality shows on so very many channels, how many get a decent break, especially if they do not have a godfather or a fairy mother?!? The percentage would be truly dismal. Unhappy indeed is the society where so-called celebrities set awful agendas that are absolutely delusional!

Pratima@Yet another parallel would be the MPSC/UPSC dreams. I have taught (on a part-time basis) for three solid years in one such institute. Without a Plan B in place, young (wo)men from very poor families and rural background are led down the primrose path with absolutely tinsel tales. Indeed, why be so (c)rude?!?

 

Solace

 John Donne, one of the greatest poets ever, was a cleric as well. In the "memento mori" style which his clan, the Metaphysical Poetry movement, too, gloried in, he superbly mocks death as "Death, thou shalt die". That religious certainty is, however, best captured in his Meditations, XVII.

It is part of his "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions". He was himself down with fever then, had a close brush with death, and yet had to perform his duties as a cleric. Hence his island metaphor, loved even by those who have nothing to do with literature.

"No man is island/entire of itself," asserts John Donne. Everyone is a piece of the continent, part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, he states further, Europe is the less. He concludes with one of the most poignant declarations, "every death diminishes me." Hence his injunction, "never, therefore, send to know/for whom the bell tolls/for it tolls for thee."

Death has been hovering in the very air since the Pahalgam incident. The heart wrenching wails of the young bride who turned a widow in the very first week of her marriage, the terrible tales told by the other survivors are tough to bear.

This evening, moreover, I got to hear the sad news of the death of my friend's father. Just two days back, we had discussed his fragile health which must be extremely painful for him as he was in his mid-nineties. There would be countless happy memories which would now be Varsha's succour and support.

Yet the news saddened me deeply. Yes, there is no true solace, I think, when someone very close passes away. Absolutely intensely, truly acutely is felt the loss. Yes, every death creates a hole in the soul. But when a parent passes away, one truly feels disconsolate. Whatever be your age, you suddenly feel absolutely orphaned. 

Yes, you know everything. Your parent's life was ideal, was good, was fulfilled. Yet the feel that this presence who was with you right from your birth is no more is somehow hard to bear. Every dose, every pill of the medicine to be fed at a given time hurts as if you have to yourself swallow it painfully.

Sure, time is the only solution to every loss. Yet the moment the scab which you thought had hardened, if not healed, is worried open, you realise the wound is raw beneath. The darkest night sure ends, the bright sun brilliantly burns. Yet the tender grace of a day that is no more never returns!

Pratima@"Our dead are never dead to us as we have never forgotten them". My favourite most author, George Eliot, would sure forgive me the minor change I made in her famous assertion.

Such a Soulful Song

  A song is never merely beautiful words set to a lovely tune. A song is always a memory, ma(r)king a mood. Yes, it is April 26 today, Aai's mensual death anniversary, and as usual, I would keep a fast today as I do every month, and on every twenty-first as that date marks Papa's death anniversary.

Today I would like to talk of a song she greatly loved. During her last stay in the Mangeshkar hospital, I played it once, and literally there was a unique feel then as if that song got played, as if in another world, with the ultimate sweetness accessible to Lataji's divine voice. That moment etched in  my very being gives me goosebumps even today.

Yes, the song I am referring to is "Aap ki nazron ne samza" from the film "Anapadh" (1961). It was her favourite. For many reasons! They were newly married, a little settled in life, blessed with toddlers, and, oh, yes, the simply exquisite words of this great ghazal capture that total, complete devotion, surrendering self, which the early phase of love pulsates with. 

Of course, every lyrical word by Raja Mahdi Ali Khan is set in this song to a literally hypnotic tune by the one and only Madan Mohan. The flute bar with which this song begins, I suppose, sets the magical mood of the intensity of a deeply felt love which permeates every line of each stanza of this great ghazal. 

One of the songs which make you fall in love with love itself! Each time I hear it, which is quite often, it floods my mindscape with an intense storm of most pleasantly painful feelings. No wonder, Shelley wrote, "music when soft voices die/lingers in the memory."

Pratima@Earlier once when she was hospitalised there, her gerontologist came for the usual morning round. As usual, my mobile was on the eternal music mode. Poor guy, he found it hard to concentrate while diagnosing his patient! 

Rather stiffly, and quite sternly,  he asked me to please switch the music off. While I did so immediately, within myself I burst with a huge laugh at the slight irony! Songs sure have souls which live on, long past any ''as it happened once upon a time"! 

Readers, they love her!

 Those of my readers who love literature, especially English literature, would instantly recognise that the title of our blog today is a take-off on one of the most famous last lines in world literature. Yes, typically literature enthusiasts love the first lines of many literary texts. But some authors have the powerful appeal that holds their readers till the last line which they make simply (in all possible senses of this term) memorable.

Charlotte Bronte, whose birth anniversary falls on April 21, is one such author, and  "Reader, I married him" is the last sentence of one of the most loved novels in  world literature, "Jane Eyre" (published in 1847), especially as far as writing by women authors goes.

Charlotte, whose own life was chequered in very many ways, wrote of unusual, independent women when the Victorian era she wrote in idolised the "angel by the hearth" as the female role model. Yes, her heroines are truly unusual. They are not raging beauties. Nor do they come from highly connected, richie-rich families.

Yet these women are exceptionally  intelligent and truly ethical. However difficult may be their circumstances, these otherwise sweet, straightforward women refuse to compromise on their principles. In other words, Charlotte chooses to make her women characters lovable for their inner beauty and strength.

Her eponymous heroine, Jane Eyre, is one of the most interesting and much loved characters in world literature. Orphaned at birth, ill-treated by her maternal aunt and cousins in her early childhood, raised most frugally in an institute for the destitute, she trains herself to be a governess in an era when her own author had to take a pen name to write her story.

Just as she refuses to be the mistress of the man whom she loves and whom she finally marries despite all sorts of emotional travails and financial troubles, she disagrees to be pressurised in to marrying a man whom she does not love, however kosher his proposal might appear to everybody else.

Be it Lucie Snowie of "Villete", and certainly Jane Eyre, Charlotte's authentic heroines, whose stories she passionately narrated in unusual literary forms, have influenced generations of readers and women writers such as Jean Rhys whose "Wide Sargasso Sea" opens up Charlotte's vamp, Bertha Mason in "Jane Eyre", most interestingly from the post-colonial perspective. Hence the relevance of her novels written roughly two hundred years ago!

Pratima@ Literature indeed is the best teacher. No wonder, it is said, "Vyasochchishtam jagat sarvam", that is to say, there is nothing in this world that Vyas Muni, the arch author, did not deal with. 

Language Changes!

 Change, they say, is inevitable; growth, however, is optional. In no other human endeavour  is this axiom as visible as in language us(ag)e. Why, the Oxford University Press publishes annually the most effective word of the year.

In 2023, it was the Gen Z term "rizz" which meant the 'X' factor that makes one the ultimate charmer. In 2024, "brain rot" questioned the excessive consumption of low quality online material. Well, in 2025, a Tiktoker, named Jools LeBron, redefined the traditional "demure" to mean its absolute antonym, that is, sophisticated smarty pants! Apparently, that is how she perceives herself!

Beyond such slang (there is a regular online #has to be thus, right?# dictionary defining its usages, by the way!) and the WhatsApp-y "lmao" and "lol" and "ig" (no worries, nothing to do with the police! It simply means, 'i guess' which grammatically should have been 'igs', that is, 'i guess so'. Who is afraid of grammar these days though?), computers is another field that constantly re-constructs, re-constitutes, re-structures language!

Oh, such jokes as the dumbo secretary of the 'Admin' 'burning' a c.d. and afraid to keep a cat, given the 'mouse' her boss wants her to get urgently are loooong passe. 

Now the field has encroached on literature and zoology. Don't you believe me? Okay, lemme give ya eg's! Kafka! What does the word mean to you? A great German author, right? Or an interesting title by the "in'' litterateur, Haruki Murasaki-san of Japan, whom the Gen Z types love, okay?

What does the word 'zookeeper' mean in common parlance? Somebody who overlooks the Rajiv Gandhi zoo at Katraj near Pune, right? 

Well, ask any software type, and he/she would come up with meanings of these words which initially sure would appear to be sheer gobbledy-gook!

'Kafka' now refers to an open source online software platform, and 'zookeeper' in this 'Kafka' manages metadata! Well, it is the ex-Puneite, Neha Narkhede, who has thus re-named the two terms. Why she chose these two, she alone would know, I suppose! The Lord be thanked though that it is not 'Shakespeare' and 'guava' or 'Kalidasa' and 'kuttakam'!!

In brief, language changes, and how! Such language changes are more and more coterie terms, moreover. May be, one of the reasons it could be why communication breaks down, and often!

Pratima@The worst example of a breakdown of communication, however, is the Pahalgam Massacre where innocents died because a handful of terrifying terrorists, extremists actually, who insisted upon their "bloody" (in all senses of this term) language alone!