Master and Mongrel

There has been a ruckus in the court. The judge brings down his mallet to mark his presence there. The plaintiff, a droopy looking being, is very tense as all eyes are on him. He has registered a case against the use of the expletive 'animalistic pleasure' by the defendant. It hurts his feelings very much. Moreover, the context in which the phrase has been employed by the defendant is incongruous. No such thing is happening in the fauna-world. The faunal shows a decency that the defendant refuses to honour and carries a rather parochial attitude towards them. The defendant, happens to be an odd figure in the court of law, is not nervous as he carries a lot of protective gear. The judges adjusts his spectacles with an air of self-importance and asks the plaintiff to present his views.

The plaintiff rises rather gingerly and ahems his gullet to produce a declamation to be heard by the huge gathering. 'My Lord, the gentleman standing opposite me, is accused of using a rather derogatory remark to bring defile on the whole faunal race. I think he uses the expletive to refer to such a filthy human behaviour prevalent among most of their species, of deflowering girls who has not even attained puberty and seducing them in an age at that they never understand what rape or sex is all about. I strongly condemn the usage. I agree that the masculine beings of the animal world resort to uncouth measures, while the circumstances trigger them to procreate. It is simply an urge due to changing levels of chemical compositions in their bodies. There is also a dearth of partners and the male species has to vie with others in finding a partner of its preference and channelise his pleasure urge. It is common in the animal world that the male has to fight it out to get the best of the partners. The feminine gender of the animal world has got a choice to choose their partner on the basis of capabilities that vary according to the species. I assert here that the human female does not even enjoy such a freedom. I would like to reiterate here that there has been subjection of female in the animal world at the time of making love. However i strongly assert that there has never been any case of juvenile raping in the animal world.'

"My Lord, you are a learned one. You know everything. The male of the species look for a triggering scent in their counter part. They themselves try to exude such a scent through urination by marking territories and spraying the liquid on odd objects. The male will be triggered only when it smells the scent that it looks for and any female that has not attained puberty has been treated with all reverence. I do not deny the fact that there has been a practice of homosexuality but the thing that is subjudicious here, i declare, is unheard of. With these words, i conclude my arguement, thank you." The plaintiff saunters back to his seat. It has been an unnerving experience for him as he a mutt has to contest a case against his own master. The defendant does not want to say anything.

Judge Hippo makes himself sure that there has been no cross examination and no more tirade from the defendant. He takes his pen and writes something. He finishes his act and begins pronouncing his judgement. "After hearing to both parties, the apex court of the jungle pronounces that the race of humans is forbidden, from now on to use the expletive that has been put to contest so far, to refer to the ugly act of humans that is not prevalent among the animals. I leave the human, as he happens to be the master of our plaintiff, with a reprimand. Any act of non-compliance to the law will be sternly dealt with in future. The court is adjouned for the day."

The master and the mongrel come out of the court and the master does not look the way he used to be. He stealthily puts his hand in his coat pocket and slowly unravels a hand gun. The mongrel expects a command from his master to go on. He gets a nod and goes near by and is only blinded by a point blank shot. The bullet pries his heart and he dies howling. The master wades through a huge gathering of animals wielding his weapon, unharmed.

Draupadi and Agaligai

Draupathi and Agaligai. Two great women. The favourites of Lord Vishnu. In two of His incarnations, He did the great act of rescuing them both. As Krishna, in the Mahabharatha, He comes to the help of Draupathi, who has been stripped publicly, and salvages her by supplying her with yards and yards of saree. Ducchadanan, the younger brother of Duriyodana, the arch-enemy of the Pandavas, feels exhausted as the great hour of seeing her Full-Monty, as she was born, is interminably deferred. In the Ramayana, as Ram, He salvages the wife of the great sage, Gautama; Agaligai, who had turned stone on realising her infidelity, or rather had been punished by her husband for her being unfaithful to him.

Two modern writers, one is alive and one has joined the world of the dear departed, have taken up these events from the great epics and subject these two events to different angles. One is Mahasweta Devi, a Bengali writer and the other one is Puthumaipithan, a Tamil writer. Mahasweta Devi's short story 'Draupadi' features a woman protagonist. She is known as Dopdi Mejnun and Draupadi. She is one of the Naxal women. She snoops around the regiments of the soldiers and tips her own men. She is on the list of the most wanted criminals. Her crime, she had been part of the gang that killed the local rich man, who never allowed the oppressed to draw water from his well. Draupadi has never been lousy except housing a litter of them in her tresses. She applies kerosene to her lock to kill them all. The government police force looks for the scent of kerosene in rivulets to nab her. She has been warned by her fellow villagers to be wary. As the police force has been ingenious, they nab her by catching hold of one of the Naxals as defaulter to their tenets. As she has made them suffer in woods and other places the members of the police force decide to have a feast on her. She is subjected to continuous rape by innumerable men of the special task force. She is bleeding profusely in her vagina and she is to be presented to the chief of the special task force. In order to make it happen, they dress her and cudgel her to the tent of the chief. All of a sudden, Draupadi cries and howls and throws away the draping cloth and stands naked before the chief, inviting him to be the next in the line of rapers. The chief asks the subordinates to cover her, to which she never budges herself and she makes them conclude that she is in her wit's end.

Puthumaipitthan's short story 'Papa Vimoshanam' (Salvation from Sin) commences with a warning from the writer, that the story may not be enjoyed by those who relish the Ramayana. It starts with the description of a life-like statue of a beautiful woman. The statue stands testimony to the skill of the sculptor, that has a tendency to make all men come away from their lascivious looks to perceive the dismay of the woman in her countenance. Then two boys saunter on the way ushered in by a sage, who are none but Ram and Lakshman. As they are playing on the muddy and ruddy track, there rises a lot of dust and which cascades the vision of them both making Ram trip on the stone. Ram is bamboozled at the appearance of a good looking woman. The sage Viswamitra explains everything to Ram and that the woman is Agaligai and her husband is Gautama. Gautama and Agaligai restart their life. She cannot stay as plain as she used to be before her sin. She is afraid that any word of hers would cause pain in Gautama. She is also subjected to mental torture by the wives of other sages, who distance themselves from her. Agaligai feels wounded as she suffers for the fault of not her own. Indra, the king of Indralokam has disguised himself as Gautama and enjoyed her. She cannot make out the difference between the caressing of her husband and a stranger. Days roll by and they get information about Ram's departure to the woods and the accompaniment of Sita and Lakshman. Gautama and Agaligai wait for their return. Sita and Ram visit them on the banks of the river Sarayu and Sita narrates the story of her ordeal to Agaligai. Agaligai is dumbfounded and she asks Sita why she has accepted to undergo the ordeal. Sita, imperturbed, says that it has to be proved to the world. Agaligai does not know who the world is. Ram and Gautama return from the stroll that they have embarked on leaving Sita with Agaligai. After the departure of the Royal couple, Gautama feels a great void in his hut. He thinks that the presence of children would assuage the situation. He approaches Agaligai to make love and Agaligai has already become a living stone. She cannot bear the disparity in treatment between her and Sita. Sita has been subjected to the ordeal of expiation of crime that she has never committed and Agaligai has been salvaged from the sin of adultery only after the act. She cannot understand the Gods and decides to lead a stony life.

A Cataract Surgery

I happened to come across a short story collection. It is a collection of translated short stories from various Indian languages into the English. I chanced upon reading a story by a Malayalee woman writer (since i just opened the book and found myself in the page of that story). The writer is a famous one in Kerala (I realised only after having spent sometime in searching for her in various web sites). She is Lalithambigai Antharjanam, a Namboodri Brahmin, who has contributed a lot to Malayalam Literature.

The protagonist of the story is a powerful politician who holds a very high post in the government of Kerala. As the story opens, the politician is found rather busy to sacrifice even his food. It is after four o'clock in the evening and he has not had his lunch yet. He is just back from a programme and is still to undergo the same ordeal of meetings and programmes. He is very tired and indisposed. He summons his secretary to cancel the appointments that he has given already. He sips coffee and is moved by the surging crowd outside his residence. He tells his secretary to send them in one by one. Time passes by quickly and he lags behind his schedule. As he is about to get over his vis-a-vis confabulation with the members of the public, who elected him out for the Assembly, the secretary whispers in his ear that an old lady has been waiting outside since morning to see him. The politician gets wild. He berates at his secretary for some time and then consents to his request.

The secretary ushers in an old woman, who is wearing only a cloth to cover herself, that is between an overall and a mini skirt. She comes with a boy of seven. The politician is highly irritated at the sight of the woman who is almost in rags. He shouts at the woman with the words of enquiry. To his repetitive interrogation, the old lady responds and uses a term that is only familiar with the close family circle of the politician. To his shock, he recognises her to be the Namboodri woman of his own village who helped him many a time in his childhood days. In fact, she is very much responsible for his education and his being a big-shot in society now. When this man as a politician and representative of a political party is fighting those people who own much in terms of cultivable land and property, here is a woman belonging to the very race that this man opposes, has spent her entire life in helping the poor. She lost all her property and her elder son is a cripple and she does not have money to educate her grandson. The purpose of her visit is to plead to her son-like protagonist to do something for the grandson.

The politician cancels all his appointments and chooses to spend the evening with the old woman. He learns from her that she did not stop her charity even in days of penury. Her wealth dwindled but not her intentions to serve the needy. The politician feels ashamed of himself as he is fighting the very race that has made him come up in his life. It dawns on him that not every landowner and rich and upper caste is cruel.

'முனியாண்டி விலாஸ் முனியாண்டி'

The readers of this blog should be familiar with the chain of hotels that the title refers to. When I was a kid, i wondered at the number of hotels that God Muniyandi owned, with a prefix 'Madurai'. The name of the hotel would read 'Madurai Sri Muniyandi Vilas Non-vegetarian Hotel'. There are many such hotels existing all over Tamilnadu today, standing as a symbol of an unorganised sector in the world of restaurants. Each of the hotel is owned by a different person, belonging to different castes and even religions. I happened to read about the origin of the name for these meat-serving hotels. I bought an interesting Tamil book with the title 'Tamil-mannin Samikal' written by a very young and energetic writer 'Mana' (probably the short form of Manavalan).

The book tracks the Gods of the soils of the Tamil world. In it there is an interesting feature on this 'Muniyandi Vilas Muniyandi'. There is a small town near Madurai with a very religious past in its origin; Tirumangalam. Fourteen kilometer journey to further south would take to a small village 'Vadakampatti'. There lived a man there belonging to the community of 'Naidus'. He migrated from there over to a town near the famous 'Pillayarpatti'; Karaikudi and started a hotel. When a name was required for his venture, he remembered the god of his soil, 'Muniyandi' and with that he prefixed the known place of his nativity, 'Madurai'. Another one of the village of 'Vadakampatti', belonging to the community of 'Rayar' had migrated to the nearby village 'Kallikudi and started another eatery and naming it on his God of the soil and remembering to agglutinate the prefix, 'Madurai', with that. The eateries became popular amongst travellers and settlers from Madurai and other parts of the district of Madurai in various mushrooming satellite cities and each individual with an earnest interest to start an eatery found the name of Muniyandi catchy.

As the hotel owners flourished, they began celebrating their success with remembering the God. Every year on a particular auspicious day, they all flock to the village and conduct a big feast with meat and the delicious Mughal dish 'Briyani' to all villagers in honour of the powerful God 'Muniyandi'. A very interesting anecdote on the origin of chain of 'Muniyandi Vilas' hotels and so has made me share.

Inspiring Stories

The following is a write-up on two teenagers who had fantastic life-experience in their teens. One was thirteen and the other was sixteen when they had great opportunity to understand life and its intricacies. The first boy of thirteen is Langston Hughes, an American man of letters and the second boy of sixteen is Booker T Washington, another American many years senior to Langston, a great thinker, educationist and African-American activist. Both were Afro-Americans.

It was the year 1915. Hughes was thirteen years old. His aunt Reed took him very often to the church nearby, that was being patronised by her and his uncle. The church witnessed the visits of many a sinner and their expiation. As a frequenter, Hughes knew all these things. One fine day the aunt took him to church, as customary, and there Hughes found, to his great surprise, a congregation of boys and girls of his age and younger than he was. They were all made to sit in rows on pews and a priest along with many sisters and deacons was trying to initiate them into the world of Jesus Christ. He called one and all lambs and informed them that the holy shepherd Jesus Christ was due an appearance before them inviting them to be part of the flock Him. Every one of the boys and girls sat on pews in great devotion and expecting the arrival of Jesus Christ. Hughes had a lot of expectation in looking forward to seeing Jesus in person, as he was told and brought up by his uncle and aunt, with stories from the Bible and the miracles that Jesus was credited with and the Kind Shepherd's love for the human-lambs.

The priest, the deacons and the sisters all sang choir songs in unison and prayed with avid. Slowly one after the other the boys and girls were responding to the call of the priest in joining him as each had been granted with the vision of Jesus. Only two boys, Langston and Westley were sitting there hoping for the vision of God. The relatives of the two boys began to worry much and the aunt of Langston came near him, knelt and started praying for the boy. Westley whispered to Langston that he felt bored sitting for hours and he could not sit any more and stood up and went over to join the other boys and girls who had already been seated opposite with adoration and reverence by the church-people. Now, only Langston remained. The aunt began crying, worrying about the boy. Langston was yet to feel the presence of Jesus. He had not appeared before him so far. He did not know what to do. He was afraid of joining them as Jesus might punish him for duplicating the act. At the same time, he found Westley, the rounder's (a security guard) son, sitting with the expiated, with a fine glow in his face. The gathering began joining everyone in praying for Langston. The priest calling out to Langston that Jesus had been asking him to join Him, but he only prevaricated. Langston decided not to bring much shame on the family. He stood up amidst great cheers and joined the group of the other side with the feeling of salvation. That night he wept in his bed. The aunt hearing him weep commented that he had been opened up to Jesus and seeing Jesus made him weep. But Langston wept for cheating his aunt and uncle and believing in Jesus and the fright in him that Jesus as of now never existed for him.

The second story began in 1872. Booker T Washington was sixteen and a miner. While working in the mine, he heard fellow miners discussing a centre for learning for the coloured, some where in Hampton, Virginia. The institution was the centre for higher learning for the coloured. He had himself seen some institutes, he had been part of a small school that he had been to when he was a little boy, but the thought of being a student of a higher education institute made him rapturous. He belonged to the South Western Virginia, that was far away from Richmond, the capital and Hampton. Still he decided to seek admission in the institute. He went home and informed his ailing mother about his dream. It was very hard on the mother who was frail due to illness and required great care. She yielded to the dream of her son. With very little money with him, Booker decided to trot the five hundred miles distance on foot or if he was lucky, hitching rides on some vehicles of transport.

He managed to reach Richmond several days after and found himself confounded by the mazy structure of the city. Moreover, he did not have any money on him. He went in search of some lodgings and found them available for only the moneyed. He decided to sleep the night somewhere. He was hungry too. In the end, he found a pavement near the road that could hide him from the sight of the passers by. He slept the night amidst the noise of footwear moving and tracking. He woke up the next morning to find himself near a ship yard. He approached a ship, from which cargo was being disembarked. He approached a white man, who was in charge of the unloading, and told him that he was hungry and wanted to do some work to fill his stomach with food. Impressed by the boy's openness the white man allowed him to work. Washington continued his work there for several days and spent the nights nearby the pavement and saved some money for his education and journey to Hampton that was some fifty miles away from the capital.

He reached Hampton and met the head mistress of the school. He was dirty and smelt sweat. His appearance did not guarantee a seat for him. She was admitting other boys but she did neither say no nor yes. After some time, she took him to the nearby recitation room that was dirty and in clutters. He was asked to clean the room. Washington became happy. He took that a chance to prove his mettle. He cleaned the room four times looking for places that never divulged dirt. The head mistress came back and used a white cloth to find dirt on the floor. She also reached places that housed dirt in secret. She had to satisfy herself with disappointment. She decided to take him in. That was how Booker T. Washington became a learned man.

Titbit

I happened to watch a programme on a Tamil television channel a couple of days ago. The programme was on culinary interests. I have not learned cooking yet. I love to cook though. Perhaps, the time has not come yet for me to plunge myself into the art of cooking. I love eating and consider cooking a form of art and must be paid a lot devotion to in nurturing it. The programme was a kind of fight between two sexes on the contention of resolving which of the sexes is better in terms of cooking. The organisers had invited celebrities of either sex to represent the vast sex populace. One of the women contenders was invited to prepare a kind of tasty dish to challenge the male community. The woman, i do not know her name, a popular singer though she is, had not braided her long tresses and started cooking with the cascading lock of hers. One of the anchors of the programme, a young and upcoming actress, was wearing a lot of baubles covering the entire arms of hers, was helping out to this celebrity in mixing things up for the preparation of the broth.

The thing that struck me was, those celebrities, can they not know the basic principles of cooking, like, one should not allow the hair unbraided, loose and cascading as there is a possiblity of allowing strands of hair fall into the food. Or has of late cooking become a fashion like the display of clothes, to be performed with all fine make-up and great touch of rouge. I am male. However, i do not support the male team and i am not an anti-feminist kind of a person. I convey the feeling of mine as an ordinary person, a simple eater that is all. I may sound old fashioned to some of you. However I look forward to reading a lot insightful comments from the readers of this blog.