'Fishy' Tale

I have recently visited a makeshift aquarium. It is not an aquarium in itself as it contains primordial tanks of gargantuan size and shape. All these tanks have water, full to their brim, and are used to breed and hatch fish of all varieties. The whole place stinks with live fish and the frogs, considered to be potential killers of breeding fish, sing with croaking tenor to exhibit their presence in the slosh nearby. It is a fine establishment of fish nursery as the owner has successfully established himself a fish tycoon. The place is haunted with potential buyers, especially children and teenagers who come, choose and pack the fish of their likings. As I was roaming around the place, i found two or three fish of different varieties swimming in more or less like a cesspit tank of water of a microcosmic size. I wanted to find out how they came in there, as a gutter disgorged its contents into that cesspit tank. Then on closer examination, i found a few fishes were swimming in the outlet passage of water from the cesspit tank. I was quite shocked to find a few fish floating on the surface of the water. As the gutter emptied itself to the cesspit tank, that had a very minimum capacity for the volume of water to be held in it, it was emptying the overfilled water into the outlet passage. As a few fish were fond of adventurism, they found themselves let into the outlet passage and suffocating. Some were in limbo, as they were dangling between the rim of the cesspit tank and the cascading water off it. On enquiry, i learned that they had escaped from their respective tanks while they were trawled for transportation to a different home. When i reported the fate of the fish to the employees and also to the owner, i found them giving a very casual reply as they were approaching the fish as commodity and not as one of life. I strongly believe that the buyers of fancy fish, for to be kept in aquarium, would share the same temperament and bent of mind. I felt nauseating not by the stench that the place produced but by the attitude that the humans who were there exuded.

An Unusual Lesson

A couple of days ago, i witnessed a daring act. As usual, i was in a bus (many of my adventures, whether they are predetermined or co-incidental, happen when i am travelling on a bus or in a bus for a reason not under the perspicacity of mine), sitting juxtaposed with the driver and very close to the windscreen. As the bus was pacing at around fifty kilometres per hour, on the hot tarmac, a strange movement was spotted in the middle of the road, some three hundred metres from where the bus was, and in front of it. A turtle (surely not a tortoise, as there were water bodies on either side of the road) was in the middle of the road practicing jay-walking from the right of the bus to the other side. It was pensive as it took a lot of time to move its transporting tentacles. On the opposite, as contra-flow, a truck was pacing at a steady pace. The driver of my bus saw the movement and avoided the tyres of the bus trampling over the turtle. I also saw in the rear view mirror on driver's side that the contra flowing truck also showed munificence. The driver commented that no driver would run over such creatures. I quipped that only when they had seen the turtle, as it was very tiny and its movement was slow, there was a possibility of not seeing it.

That made me stumble on something. I never gave much thought over watching my foot movement as i walked. Once accidentaly, i watched where i put my foot. To my surprise, i found several tiny creatures using the path to tread as well. I found millipedes crossing, ants scuttling and gastropods slithering past. Then i started wondering about their courage, in a world of formidable marauders, though the marauders did not eat them, they caused peril to them inadvertently. Could the turtle make it to the other side? I do not know. It is possible. Once i thought of preventing my friend from stepping over an ant scurrying past before us. I checked myself to see what would happen, as my friend who was looking at me while walking with me, while i was looking down on the earth. His step did just miss the ant and it continued its journey unhurt, as my friend, who was unaware of his escape from a kind of grave sin, ambled with me enthusiastically narrating an incident. I learnt through these things that there would not be necessary in the world any kind of watch-over on anything. Things happen as per planning, that is, if there is any such planning.

Is there God?

Is there God? In one of my lecturing sessions, i kick started a heated argument amongst students. Some students felt offended as i spoke more of a heretic rather than a believer in god. As some of them started questioning my outlook as i usually daub my forehead with the holy ash, vermilion and sandalwood paste. I told them i was introduced to all these things when i was very young. I have not still come out of them as i myself am not sure of the belief in god nor the disbelief grows powerful enough to detach me completely from those practices. I honestly am not sure of any certainties on the existence or non-existence of a phenomenon called God. The belief system is old and powerful and has evolved long to reach its full-grown state. Such things could not have been built on flimsy ideologies. That makes it difficult for anyone to throw away the system impulsively. Or if its done by somebody, then he or she is absolutely whimsical. I am still learning more on this subject through the day to day happenings. On occasions my heretical speech is the outcome of trying to remove the possible definitions that falsely promise one as the happenings of god. Or the attempts of someone to firmly entrench the concept of God by showing certain material success as acts of god. The quest is endless and requires one's lifetime or more than that to come out with anything apparently decisive.

The Worm and God

I was on a bus. I was dreamy, sullen and worn over. I could not be a standee. I looked for a seat and found myself wedging between two pudgy humans. They tried to squeeze me out of my already spent spirit. The whirring began and the bus jolted to proceed. The thudding of the gear-lever organised the pack of humans that cringed into seats. A fresh not cold breeze wafted the receding locks on the crania. My senses succumbed to the breeze and began to withdraw to coldness. I suddenly noticed a worm climbing on to the pantaloons of mine with extraordinary energy and life. I floundered for a moment and was about to swat it. Something in me stopped that and i was just allowing it to cross over to my bag and find another long iron rail to continue its cat-walk. I slipped to a jerky siesta. I forgot about the worm. As I had woken up to a cranky shriek, i found the same worm on its spirited enterprise of climbing onto my pantaloons once again. The undeterred voyage made me think about its goal. I thought it was searching for its abode, that i still think, is a leaf. Where could it find a leaf on a bus? The thought shuddered me. On the other hand, the worm had not given up, not defeated and was full of energy on its pursuit. As a human with a greater level of intelligence, i could say that the search was unfructifying. The worm was too dull to comprehend my prescience. A thought struck me at that moment. I considered myself a worm and was in a desperate search for my goal. I often got defeated and felt annoyed as i could not get through something successfully. I never comprehended the ideology behind one's success and failure. The worm taught me that i was too dull to comprehend that. It also taught me that like a human who watched the desperate attempt of the worm, there could be a super-intelligent personality, who knew everything, for some, in fact many, that being was God.

Hwal - The Bow

'The Bow' a very fine Korean film directed by Kim Ki duk, is a film that i have only recently seen. The film came in 2005. The film deals with the relationship of two people: a young girl of seventeen and an old man. As the film opens, the director shows up a bow being prepared for a lute. The old man is an expert in both playing the lute and firing arrows with his bow. The old man and the teenage girl live on a big boat moored at a deep part of a sea. The old man makes a living by inviting amateur fish-catchers, who catch fish as pastime, to his boat and spend the days on end there and enjoy fishing. He has another skiff to ferry himself between the deep part of the sea and the shore both for provisions and ferrying the partime fishermen. The rich and affluent who come to the moored boat give a lot of money for both fishing and staying on the boat. The old man lives with a seventeen year old girl. It is rumoured that he sleeps with the girl every night. The old man is also credited with soothsaying. If some one wants him to predict his future, the old man sends the girl down a row of iron stiles fitted to the hull of the ship to reach a swing suspended from the aft. He positions himself on the skiff and darts arrow at the girl, who swings rather casually. The arrows pass the girl and pierces a Godly figure drawn on the hulk. Based on the piercings the girl whispers the fortune into the ear of the old man, who in turn whispers into the fortune seeker's ear.

It has been a characteristic feature that both the old man and the girl never talk in the film for they are not dumb. The girl spends her pastime playing the bow-lute, when the old man goes away for provisions and ferrying people. Once there has been an attempt on her virginity by two of the visitors. The girl manages to escape and even darts arrows at them. The visage of the girl does not deprive her of her inner feelings. She is always found with a beady smile, even at the time of being chased by the two lechers. The old man does not allow her moving with anyone, young people in particular. Every day the old man bathes the girl in a plastic tub with hot water. She sits in the tub, nude and enjoys the ceremonious bathing and pleating of her hair. Each day, the old man marks off days on a monthly calender expecting the day of the wedding. It does not hint at a possible marriage between the girl and him. A young man along with his father forms part of a group that visits the boat for fishing. The girl begins liking the young man and expressing her interest in him, that is strongly reproached by the old man. In a conversation with his father, the young man learns that the girl was found by the old man some where on the main land when she was only six or seven and she had lived on the boat more than a decade not once stinting to the main land.

The young man presents his walk-man as he leaves and the old man is growing concerned about the relationship between the two. He rushes up the dates and tears even sheets of months to quicken the marriage. The young man comes back to inform the old man about the parents of the girl and their search for her. The girl decides to leave with the young man. The old man tows the skiff with the boat with a strong cordage rope and nooses the other end around his neck. As the cordage stiffens it begins choking his neck. Not bearing the pain, he cuts the cordage with a knife. The girl on the other hand does not want to leave and turns the boat to be with him. They marry in the presence of the young man, a rather fine ceremony of Korean practice of marriage. After the ceremony, they both travel on the skiff at sea to reach a secluded part and there the old man takes off his elaborate sartorial accoutrement and begins playing the lute. The girl is mesmerised and swoons to the music. The old man stops playing and takes up his bow to shoot an arrow, first he aims at the girl and then fires it at the sky. Then he jumps into sea to drown himself. The skiff, oared by a mysterious spirit, reaches the main boat, where the young man anxiously waits to see them both. The girl suddenly folds her legs and outstretches them to expose her pudenda and begins to succumb herself to act of love making with an invisible figure. The arrow returns and fixes itself at her groin. She wakes up with a blood stain on her cloth and starts her journey to the main land with the young man. It is highly symbolical that either the old man dies and makes love with her eerily or the girl matures of to puberty and the film ends there. The film is complemented by a lovely background score as well. A terrible film.

P S The boat follows the skiff to some distance and sinks and the girl waves good bye to it.

The Icarus Debate

Last week, two corporate trainers from Bangalore paid a visit to the department where i work as a member of faculty of English. The trainers spoke about Organisational Behaviour and Interpersonal Skills and how both of them have been part of a success-formula in corporate world. As the meeting was proceeding, one of the speakers bumped on to the myth of Icarus. She was using the myth to drive in the spirit of passion amongst the listeners. The use of it generated much dispute amongst the audience. She sought the help of the other presenter who spoke passionately about the hero of Icarus who lived for his passion and flew to his death and became a symbol of passion filled life.

I have chosen to write on the theme of the death of Icarus as i was the one who opposed the views expressed by the trainers on the occasion. A look into the myth of Icarus would provide a better understanding of the life of Icarus. The story of Icarus is one of the minor elements in the vast world of Greek Mythology. Icarus figures in the story of Theseus, Minos and Daedalus. Minos was the ruler of Crete and had the gift of having a master architect, Daedalus. Daedalus is credited with designing the world-famous labyrinth in Crete that housed the half-human and half-bull Minotaur.

The story of Icarus begins with the arrival of Theseus to Crete. Theseus is the son of Aegeus who ruled Athens and fathered Theseus through Aethra and left the Greek village much before Theseus was born. Aegeus made a plan in agreement with his wife that if the son grew to be strong, that is if the child were a boy, he could remove a boulder and take the sword underneath it and could pay a visit to the King's chamber. Theseus visited his father when he was young and strong enough to remove the sword and came to know about the terrible curse that had befallen the kingdom of Athens. The son of Minos, Androgeus once paid a visit to Athens and Aegeus sent him to kill a bull, where the son of Minos died fighting the bull. The angered Minos routed the city of Athens and pardoned the Athenians only on condition that they should send seven maidens and seven young men every nine years to be fed to Minotaur.

Minotaur is the son of Pasiphae, Minos' wife and a bull. The God of Sea, Poseidon, gave the bull to Minos to be sacrificed to Him. Minos could not bear to slay the bull and he kept it. Angered God of Sea made the bull fall in love with Minos's wife and the result was the half-human-half-bull baby. As the baby was born, Minos summoned the great architect Daedalus to design a labyrinth and put the baby in it. The fourteen youth that came from Athens were directly introduced into the labyrinth that was a tangled maze as all path led to the Minotaur. Theseus accompanied the youth and at the moment the troupe entered and paraded through Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, as luck would have it or as all myths would have it, fell head over heels in love with Theseus. She summoned Daedalus, as she never wished Theseus to die in the maze, and sought from him a strategy to escape. He advised her that Theseus should enter the maze with a spool of thread and tie it at the entrance door and unwind it as he would proceed into the maze. This Theseus did and as he was valorous could easily slay the Minotaur and escape with Ariadne.

The angry king of Crete, Minos suspected the hand of Daedalus in the act as he firmly believed in the mastery of Daedalus. He put Daedalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth. Though Daedalus designed the maze, he himself could not figure out the escape route out of it. He made wings using the available material and glued them to their bodies with wax. He advised his son not to fly close to the Sun or high in the air as the wax would melt and detach the wings. Daedalus wanted to escape to Sicily where he could get asylum. Not heeding to the words of his father and overcome by a sense of being carried away by the excitement of flying, Icarus flew close to the Sun and allowed the wings to melt and fell into a sea and died. The father on the other hand safely reached the shores of Sicily.

Icarus could have been passionate about flying as no one had a chance to do that. However with a father like Daedalus he could think of feeding his passion with more flying stints at a later period of time. He was in a rush and the maddening passion of urgency in flying resulted in his peril. A complete understanding of the story would never take for granted the idolising of Icarus as a model for passion. What he did was not only disobeying the words of a father but also a skilled artisan who knew everything about objects literally. The myth was used by the trainers to convey the idea that it was alright not to heed to the words of elders and one would personally testify everything and in doing so they would relish life passionately. The article is still open for discussion.

A Good Night

Marsha Norman's successful, Pulitzer Prize winning play "'night Mother" ran successfully for several days in Broadway Theatre. The word "'night" in the title is a shortened form of the word 'good night'. The play features only two women: Jessie, a woman in her late thirties or early forties and her mother in her sixties. The duration of the events depicted in the play is only two hours. The story starts at 8:00 PM and ends at 10:00 PM. Norman in her stage description and guide to production of the play wants the production to keep a clock in the room overlooking the audience and make it run throughout the performance. Jessie has just recovered from a mental illness and often falls into epilepsy. For a whole of a year she has not had epilepsy. When the curtain rises, Jessie is looking for a towel for her use and she is asking her mother whether she requires towels for her use. Slowly it is revealed that the daughter is arranging things for her old mother for her nice getting along in her absence. She has informed the suppliers of milk, grocery and medicine that she is taking vacation and will be back after sometime. Notwithstanding to her preparation for a holiday, she is going to commit suicide.

Jessie reveals her decision to her mother and she has already prepared a list of things to be done before she does the act. She looks for her father's gun in the attic and on her mother's enquiry, she says that it is for the prowlers. Her mother Thelma, referred to as Mama, has not heard of robbery in their vicinity. As per the list made the Mama requires manicure. Jessie wants her to be ready for it and urges her mother to be quick as it is getting late for her termination. The mother tries to dissuade her from committing suicide by talking about her son Ricky and her husband Cecil, who lives all alone after the divorce. As the conversation gets along the playwright describes the lives of Ricky, a good for nothing thug, Cecil, the husband who ditched her when he came to know that she was epileptic as she fell off the back of a horse and Dawson her brother who did a lot of help, as Jessie chose to come to live with her mother after the divorce, in carrying Jessie to bed after her epileptic attacks. The mother slowly brings Jessie to normalcy by talking about Dawson's wife and the past life. Jessie remained a spinster for long and the mother made her choose Cecil. Then there was a talk about how Jessie's mother and father got along and how the Mama never loved her husband. It is tantalisingly painful as the mother who hopes that she has won her daughter over that Jessie rushes into the room saying "'night mother' " and the shot of the gun is heard and the mother makes telephone calls to her son and her son-in-law whose number has been left by Jessie for her to make a call, and to her grandson too.

There has been a series of poignant scenes in the play as the mother questions Jessie on how she could allow her to commit suicide when she is informed of it already. She also seeks her advice in disposing of the body of hers. Jessie instructs her mother what to say to the police and what to Dawson, Cecil and Ricky and what to the neighbours. A unique feature of the play is the voicing of a person's decision to commit suicide and a record of what happens in the final moments of one's life. It is a final good night on Jessie's part not only to her mother but also to everyone in her life else.