The Supreme Architect

There are several things that decide a buying. I am talking about buying books. Once in a classroom of adult boys and girls of about eighteen or more years of age, i put the question of eliciting their response about buying books. So many hands went up when i had asked them whether they had bought any books in a book-shop. As i narrowed down the point of my knowing i began seeing the raised hands deplete. I pruned or re-phrased my question to know whether any of them bought any book without the book being suggested by any source, like prescribed text piece, recommended by elders or friends, a popular best seller, a much advertised one or something that was the need of the hour. I hardly came across any hoisted hand dangling in the air afore me. The question was a tricky one as it tried to find out the act of voluntary choosing of one in being a book-consumer.

What decides a book-buying? With my very little experience as a buyer of books, all i can suggest is that a supreme force that is beyond the grasp of any earthly perception. I have never felt sorry for choosing any book. I often go through the first page of any book that describes a little about the writer as well as the book. On all occasions i feel an urge in me to choose the book in prospect of being bought. There are occasions that i left the book-shop, after spending several minutes, without buying even a single book. And, there are occasions that i chose books in a matter of seconds and left the stores instantly. For these two contrasting behaviour, i believe only chance can answer. I pray to that supreme force, a Deist term i believe, to confer the ever fierce flame of desire to buy books burn in me.

Epic Endeavour

As my mother asked me to take the dry towel, that had been wet for sometime, that was dry now, off the clothesline, i ended not only taking the towel off the clothesline but also disturbing the smooth file of ants that were shuttling between two mysterious destinations en route the clothesline. For a moment i did not know what to do as i stood transfixed thinking about the onslaught that i would trigger did i disturb their smooth passage. My mother got frustrated at the slackness of my pace at the duty rather dutifully entrusted on my hands from her. She began worrying about my diligence at working out errands. I stood before her as dunce who was incapable of performing a task that would be easy even for a moron.

What made me stood bamboozled was the kind of disaster that would befall on those ants that were traveling on the towel at that time. If i took off the towel, then they would end up as refugees on some unknown territory, finding themselves completely alienated from their colony. I thought about their decimation for a while and even thought about their possible reunion though in the end i ended up disturbing their union. I took the towel off and shirked it rather violently to shed the possible ants that were clinging on to the towel, i did not know how could have i taken the towel off lest disturbing the smooth march of them. It was impossible to stop the oncoming ant to step on to the towel off the clothesline and to speed up the one that was already on its course on the towel.

After ruining their smooth passage, i decided to find out where they were heading using the clothesline as a cantilever bridge. The journey of them started from a teeny-weeny chink in the wood window frame of the window of the kitchen wall, from where the one end of the clothesline began, to another of the teeny-weeny chinks of yet another wood window frame of another window of the dining hall wall, where it ended. On a closer examination i found them transporting chunks of food and chunks of eggs, quite wary of the oncoming monsoon. I did not know the difference between the abodes of these two colonies of them. There would have been differences between the two tunnels that they had built into the wood window frame. I also found out that the detour on the clothesline had saved thousands of miles on the part of the ants to travel. They would embark on an arduous journey crossing water-bodies of the sizes of puddles, lakes and mounds as big as the Himalayas were there no clothesline. I was awestruck at the level of their intelligence as they found a wonderful short-cut to take them safe, quick and in exhaustive. As the clothesline arrived at that spot only a fortnight ago as my mother thought of drying up the clothes under some shade, an act of ingenuity on her part, during the monsoon season. It showed the adaptability of them to the changing ambiance. I felt sorry for those who were stranded off the course by my callous act. I have not obtained any knowledge so far whether they made up their journey to reach their colonies.

'Enjoyable' Trips

I travel much on public locomotives, buses especially. So many hours of my life is spent on buses. It is not an interesting journey that anyone embarks on if what the journey, destination and the route one chooses are quite mundane and drab. On occasions i think of converting hours long bus travel into anything productive. The first of my effort was to look for places on the way and know them fully well, an added wisdom thanks to years of travelling. Second i started noting down the numbers of the buses and their seating capacity and the years of their make. Third i thought of travelling on all the buses that shuttle between the destinations i travel regularly, though the work time does not permit that. Fourth i subjected myself to severe experience of forcibly undergoing a reverie each time i travel on the buses. It was of some use to me when i was doing some research work on some literary pieces as some flashes appeared all of a sudden and opened up new fjords. Then i started concentrating on the timing of buses and the chasm between the first and the successive ones. Next i started reading while travelling and amazed at the books i devoured during these travels, i had to abandon this act as it gave too much strain to my eyes. Seventh and final, i have befriended a lot of conductors and drivers and as a result have become a patron of them.

Befriending the workforce that runs buses has taken me to a lot of interesting anecdotes having been told by them. A few days ago when i was travelling, a motor-bike rider misbehaved or violated the rules of traffic and blamed the driver of the bus for the act. The driver, a young man, angered much by the biker's act was on the verge of starting a tiff with him and the pillion. The public intervened and saved the rider from receiving blows. This act led to a series of stories being told by the driver about the misbehaviour of both road users and people who travel on buses. It is quite alright in the morning, barring some stray incidents of male caressing and fondling the female in crowded buses. Whereas night travel offers a treasure trove of incidents. Some time ago in a bus a man was misbehaving with two girls who were sitting in the parallel pews in the bus. A stern warning from the driver made the man sit quiet all through the journey afterwards. On another occasion a man, heavily drunk and almost not in right senses, was sitting in the seat behind and was fondling the woman who was sitting before him. No one could do anything and the woman too lost faith in the stopping of the act. She did a very interesting thing of taking the ring off the finger of the man and as he was drunk and in the ugly act of physical debauchery, he did not know that. The woman waved to him as he got off the bus the ring. There were also acts committed by drivers and conductors who are supposed to run the buses providing safety to the passengers. I was quite shocked to listen to these stories. Though there is a scarce doubt that pops up in my brain as i ruminate these acts. In atleast a few acts like these the women too enjoy the 'ugly' thing. I may be wrong. There are occasions that force them to be incapacitated. However the doubt lingers on. I thought of writing something else. Somehow i embarked on this not so decent journey.

The Great Indian Novel

I recently bought the novel The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor. It is a rather lenghthy novel of nearly four hundred and eighteen pages in the publication that i bought. The print of the book is rather minute and the size of the font is a little bit teeny-weeny. Had it been of a quite a big font size, comfortable for the old people to read with or without spectacles, the novel would have definitely gobbled up nearly six hundred pages. It was published in the year 1989, when Shashi was around thirty or in his early thirties. He spent most of his time in the UN and recently ended his career there. He also acquired a Ph d at the age of twenty-two.

The novel is based on two things. Tharoor would have been inspired by the great epic of The Mahabharatha that he had before him a lofty model to emulate. He himself gives out a foreword in the beginning to caution the readers, who would have bought the book with the expectation of reading through a great novel, that the title is a translation of The Mahabharatha into the English, that means the Great India. He has drawn the theme from the two things of the Mahabharatha and the political happenings between 1910 and 1980 in India. The novel begins with a tinge of parody of the conversion of the Brahma, one of the Hindu Trinity, into a tycoon and friend of VV, stands for Ved Vyas, another successful entrepreneur. It sails smoothly by simply retelling the Mahabharatha until the birth of the sons of Vyasa through Ambika and Ambalika. It swerves itself off its path all of sudden as Ganga Dutta, the man who has taken a terrible vow to abstain from climbing onto the throne: Bhishma, is identified with the Mahatma that India engendered. The novel also offers some interesting portraits of all national leaders including the former head of the political party that Shashi Tharoor now represents to have become the Member of Parliament. The novel also touches upon Indian life and views politics through the eyes of common man.

Tharoor can be appreciated for his fictitious selection of names like Manimir, Chakra and so on so forth. The novel depicts some important political happenings in India between 1910 and 1980. I think it is good for anyone who would love to taste History if it was told in the form of a story.

Lalithambigai Antharjanam+Kamala Das+Virginia Woolf+Deepa Mehta=Water

It is a strange title to any article. Four Women are equivalent to Water. The word, i owe a disclaimer to the reader, does not refer to the basic element required for the effloresence of nature and its rebirth. It is the title of the 2005 Deepa Mehta film Water. She started shooting the film after getting permission from the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2002 with her favorites Nanditha and Azmi. She had to abandon the project as the Hindu Groups claimed that the script of the film was anti-Hindu. She re-started the project with the help of a Canadian producer in 2004 in Sri Lanka. She had to drop her favorites as the script needs a young protagonist, i should say supporting protagonist, since the girl, eight year old Chuiya, is the protagonist of the story.

The title features four women. Three of them are writers, i should say four of them if i include Mehta also. None of the three writers is alive. The first one wrote in Malayalam; the second one in both Malayalam and English and the third one is British and eventually wrote in English. They appear in an order in the title as their influences are seen in the film of Deepa Mehta. The first of the influences has come from Antharjanam. 'Cast me out if you will' is a powerful phrase of hers that is employed by the protagonist of the story 'Admission of Guilt' (Kutta Sammadam)in which the protagonist, a Brahmin widow in her early thirties, is summoned by the elders of the community to take oath before them about her fidelity. She had been married at a very tender age even before she attained puberty to a sixty year old man. Her father exchanged her for a thirty year old daughter of that old man who had been included into the 'Nallukattu' as the fourth of the wives of the child's father. The sixty year old man was sick and the girl did not much stay in her husband's abode. She was brought back to her maternal house immediately. One day when she was playing hopscotch a messanger came and divined the dreadful news of the death of her husband. she lost her husband much before she attained puberty. She stepped into widowhood and had been a widow ever since. She is now found pregnant and the elders want to know the act of immorality on her part. She challenges every one with the phrase 'cast me out if you will', as she says she has been embraced by a divine figure in an unearthly hour when she has gone to have a bath, an ablution to be carried out before setting foot on the campus of temples. I see resemblances between her and the girl Chuiya in the movie Water.

Kamala Das is remembered through the film, as the keeper of the house of the widows decides to send the child to an old man who is in need of a nubile sexual partner. Kamala Das' 'A Doll for a Child Prostitute' is a terrible story that unravels the veneer of modesty of Indian traditional life and exposes scathingly the reality.

I could not help myself except thinking about Virginia Woolf as the supporting protagonist; Kalyani, played by the very beautiful Liza Ray, decides to commit suicide as the lover of hers, again a fine casting as John Abrahams playing the role of Narayan; a radical reformer influenced much by the teachings of Gandhi, happens to be the son of a local big-shot, who is also much entertained by the night visits of Kalyani, as that has become the only source of money for the widows to sustain themselves. Kalyani comes back to the house but the keeper of widows does not let her in. Kalyani takes a firm decision of walking into a water body and drowns herself very much like Virginia Woolf. I must say Kalyani is the predecessor as the film was set in 1938 whereas Woolf died only in 1941.

Deepa Mehta excels in the field of writing. The film is sheer poetry and India are ashamed of not letting her shoot in real setting. Sri Lanka does not resemble much of North India though it has remnants of the South of India. The sets though made with fine artistry and hard work create only an artificial back drop to the story. A good film.