A Collage of Poems

Wanted: A Broom is a poem by the Tamil poet Chandrakanti. It is a simple narrative poem that describes the pangs of a woman, who details out her suffering. The poem voices the opposition to ‘Sthree-dhanam’- a kind of groom-price offered by the family of the bride to the groom at the time of marriage. The speaker of the poem is a woman. It seems that the woman was in love with a man. When they were in love, the man did not much ponder over the prospect of money. However, when he has decided to enter into the conjugal bliss with her, he enumerates the things that he expects from her or from her family. The list includes gold, money, utensils and goes on to include a broom to sweep the floor. Much angered by this act, the woman says that it is too much and she definitely needs a broom to sweep him off her heart and put him in trash. The woman considers such type of conjugality is only a corporate venture and not life. She is not crazy or a fool to cement such business tie with any male.

Street Dog is a poem by the Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam. It details the failed conjugal relationship between a man and a woman. The separation happened a long time ago and the speaker of the poem, the wife, keeps in her memory only a gruesome act that the separation went to engender. The poem begins with the act of separation. The pair decided to go on their separate ways and to do everything that would leave no trace of their past union. The woman ruminates on the events that happened as they decided to part. They put up their house on sale and started vacating it by scattering their things on the verandah. The woman felt that those things gazed at them and some of them, kept topsy-turvy, decided to cover their heads in shame. She looked at the vine that they had reared and thought that it was trying to say something to them or making a complaint to the water tap. The wife says that none of those things strikes her now and then; conversely she is often reminded of how a straying street dog that had entered into their empty home and was trapped inside and was found on the third day lying dead, when the wife went to show the house to a prospective owner. She is smitten by that sin often, which also serves as an appalling reminder of her erstwhile married-life.

S Usha is a popular Kannada writer. Her prescribed poem To Mother was translated by the notable Indian poet A K Ramanujan. It is a simple narrative poem that speaks out a woman’s mind. The speaker of the poem is a young girl who rises against tradition. She confronts her mother and pleads her to listen to what she has to say. According to the daughter, the traditional fixtures act as a veil to her rising. She wants her mother to take the sari of tradition off to pave way for sunlight and greenery. The mother snubs the daughter of often as the girl has reached seventeen and should not flash her dress in the street, should not look into the eyes of men and should put on girlish character. The daughter pleads to her mother not to play that tune that has been played for years by generations of mothers. She says that she cannot do things like circumambulating the holy plant in the yard, drawing kolams to go to heaven. She wants to go unleashed and unchecked and heed to only her raw energy and to live very different from her mother. The poem ends with the phrase, ‘let go, make way’. The tone of the speaker is one of exhaustion and dismay.

The Handicapped Caught in a Camera is Raghuvir Sahay’s poem that highlights the plight of the differently-abled in the world of able-bodied men and women. There is masochistic pleasure for the strong in humiliating the handicapped. The poet portrays a television programme in which a poor blind man is asked hurting questions. There are questions that want the blind person to answer how he has got that handicap, how it pains and hurts, and how he feels himself a deprived in the world of marauders. The presenter of the programme has only the intention of making the programme interesting. By putting embarrassing questions to elicit response from the participant, he succeeds in reducing him to tears. The success lies in making both the eyes glint with tear-dews. The show takes a nasty turn as it blows up the handicap several times big by close-up angles. The television channel will then gloat at creating awareness after gruelling the poor soul. The poem has an aversive tone that dismisses all these cruel practices in the name of modernity or creating awareness.

Guido Cavalcanti is a Thirteenth century Italian poet. His are simple nature poems with picturesque descriptions. Concerning a Shepherd Maid is narrated by a man who happens to meet a maid in a copse. She is a shepherdess and very beautiful, fairer than any star. She holds a wand in her hand to which the sheep magically oblige. She is rosy and cheerful with waving tresses. The speaker of the poem greets her and is amazed at seeing her all alone in the valley and she replies that she is lonely and when the birds sing she desires for company. At that moment, the birds begin to chirp rousing the maid’s longing for a company. The speaker decides to assuage her longing and offers himself for her kissing and embracing. The remarks of the poet has made her amorous and with a comprehensive willingness she takes him to a natural, flowery abode, where they make love and the speaker could sense the very presence of ‘love’ there.

A Rapture Concerning His Lady is the second of Cavalcanti’s prescribed poems. The poem talks about a good-looking woman. The speaker describes the furore that her presence does. The arrival of her makes the place bright and tremulous. No man could have a gorging sight to ogle her wholesomely. The speaker wants ‘love’ to discourse on her beauty and her looks on the left and right sides of hers. She is of such nature that in the eyes of men all women look ugly. All the virtuous things are under her command and all beautiful things on the world consider her their deity. The men have never been granted this boon by the greater power that they would know her perfectly.

Ode to Retirement is a philosophical poem by the sixteenth century Spanish poet Luis De Leon. The poem features places that promise everlasting happiness. The speaker of the poem is of the opinion that the person who flies away from the noise and cry of the mundane world would be happier, who has chosen the way that leads his soul to virtue and God. He will be calm as he has seen the eternal glitter of the abode of God. In order to reach the feet of God, one has to adhere to the following. One has to disdain flattery and the trump of fame, pageantry of power, and the gaze of the crowds. Having been tormented by all these, the soul wants to escape and fly to God. The prayer of the speaker to God is to lead him from the frowning eyes of the rich that see poverty indifferently and to live all alone in comfort that the heaven could bestow. The dream of the speaker is to live in a garden by the mountainside that is watered by the cascading rill and being amidst the flowers and chirping of birds. However, there at night the howling wind renders the timber and cries rise upward, though they fail in rousing fear in him, as he has given up all earthly things. He reclines in natural abode trying to catch the heavenly tune orchestrated by the master-hands.


Pirate’s Song is another of Spanish poems by the nineteenth century poet of fame Jose De Espronceda. The speaker of the poem is a sea-pirate, who ridicules the customs of the people who never take to sea for their livelihood. The ship of the pirate is known as ‘Dreaded’ by all and she has ten cannons on her board and she is known for greater speed. Its course is towards Istanbul, an historic Turkish port. The ship is dauntless as she has the mettle to face all. The captain of the ship, the pirate, sings that he has conquered a score of ships and hundreds of lords have surrendered to him. He says that his credos are that liberty is his god, the ship is his treasure and the sea is his governed. He considers the land as trifle. He gloats at how others on seeing ‘Dreaded’ veer off the course. He laughs at death and considers howling wind as players of lute. He lulls to sleep by the roll of thunder and growl of the winds.

The Cow is a beautiful ballad by Victor Hugo and has been rendered in English by William Frederic Giese. The setting of the poem is a farm at noon. It is an idyllic scene with clucking hens and mongrels. A cow of superb reddish brown skin and huge in size stands nearby the old man who has chosen to amble in the afternoon heat. She leads her fawn and deliberately lets a group of urchins follow her. The udder of the cow is pendent in shape as it has passed the time to milk. The urchins that have marble teeth and unkempt air squeeze the udder and spurt the milk onto their faces in an attempt to drink. The derelict maid would be without the afternoon quota of milk. The cow is not perturbed as it has allowed the greedy mouths to drink from its udder. She has done it deliberately as a fecund nurse would feed her offspring. The poet finishes the poem with the remark that the cow’s gaze wanders in regions void of thought unmindful to the furore there.

More Strong than Time is a poem by Victor Hugo that depicts the strong will of the male-lover. The male lover who also is the speaker of the poem is courageous to encounter ‘time’. He enumerates the things that have made him achieve such virility. The lover has enjoyed the lips of his lover, has laid his pale face between her hands, has known the soul of hers and its bloom by allowing himself to travel into it. He has also listened patiently to the voice of her heart as it has spoken of its mysterious things. He has also enlivened by her sorrow and happiness. He has seen and imbibed the star-light of hers hanging over his head. More importantly, a rose petal from her heart and days has fallen to him and he has secured it. All these things give him courage to say to the passing time that he will never grow old and as he has a rose in his heart that can never be plucked by the passing of time. The wings of time may hit him but it would never spill the cup fulfilled with love. The poem ends with two remarks of the speaker. He says that his heart more fire and more love than time could frost and make him forget respectively.

Samson and Delila

Samson and Delila, a 2009 Australian film that won the Camera dOr at Cannes in the same year, is a film featuring the lives of three Australian Aborigines. There is an upcountry Aborigines settlement very interior into the deep part of Australia. The small settlement has power connection and people live in a kind of 'antediluvian' open tenements, however has been made up of modern material, that have only a roof over them. Delila lives with her grandmother who suffers from senility and old-age diseases, for which she is getting treated in the mobile-makeshift hospital. Samson, our hero, has the unusual habit of sniffing petrol very often, on one occasion, he steals petrol from a car and does not use it when his vehicle runs out of the fuel. He wakes up every morning and sniffs petrol and comes out of his house to snatch his brother's guitar and plays on it blaring. He is enamored of Delila, who lives on the native art of making rugs, quilts and mats, along with her grandmother.

Samson follows wherever Delila goes. The old woman also suggests her of accepting him as her husband. All of a sudden the old woman dies, in her sleep, and the girl performs the act of cutting her lock, and is get beaten by neighbourhood woman for not caring the old woman. Samson steals a car of the neighbourhood and takes Delila with him to some city. There they meet an Australian vagabond who lives under a bridge and who also offers them food. They try to live out the days by stealing from a departmental stores and making attempts to sell Delila's decorated wall hangings and rugs. One day as they walk by, a group of white young men kidnaps Delila, rapes and leaves her to her fate. On another occasion, she is hit by a car and fractures her left leg. Unknown of her whereabouts, Samson resigns himself underneath the bridge and swoons out of fasting. Delila returns in a car to carry him to her native tenement, that is not the one she has shared with her grandmother, and the movie ends Delila doing everything to keep the almost invalid Samson up.

Samson seldom speaks in the movie. He deprives himself of his handicap of stammering when he is forced to utter his name for food from the vagabond Australian, the only occasion he has had the opportunity to speak. The movie portrays some of the customs of the aborigines, as Samson also cuts his hair as he has not found Delila as she has met with the accident. The final ritual of burying or cremating the dead is not shown in the movie. The dead grandmother is left there in her bed as the scene jumps to Delila cutting her locks and is getting beaten by the neighbours. The movie also includes scenes that show how the aborigine Delila is finding her art-works difficult to be sold. Whereas a 'Native Items Stores' display quotes a high price for the quilt that Delila's grandmother has made, along with her photograph. As far as the writer of this article is concerned, the movie gives out an opening into the livelihoods of the aborigines as they are torn between their nativity and the invaded cultural traits.

Why was i in a kind of hiatus?

Why was i in a kind of hiatus? These are the reasons.

LOSING

Losing anything is good. As a matter of fact the loss would put anyone in the state of regression and try to take a reversal of the progress. Many would contradict. A sudden loss of life of a bread-winner of a family would never be a good thing. It is costly and will never be easily supplanted. Still it is good. It would definitely pave way for some new blossoms and horizons. Losing something would surely upset one's rhythm, i.e. the rhythm of the kind of routine that one has learned to adopt for a period of time. The routine would never be congenital and would be dismounted at any time. One picks up a style of routine, on many occasions unconsciously, by periods of doldrums. However the act of losing or for that matter losing itself will seldom be goodness as a whole. It comes with a mixture of things. It sometimes puts the losers stagnate and rooted to ground and makes them ponder over their immobility.

'La Belle Noiseuse'

Honore de Balzac's 'The Unknown Masterpiece' is the title of his French short story 'Le Chefd' Oeuvre inconnu', in English. Nicolas Poussin is a young and upcoming painter who is not sure of his talent and has had an obsession of indescribable nature with his success as a renowned painter. The story opens with Nicolas sauntering before the chateau of a famous painter Porbus. He is reluctant to get in. His poverty is one of the reasons for his stagnancy. It is the Paris of 1612 that has drawn the poor painter from his native place hoping to find a foothold in the world of artists. One of his friends, who is rich enough to support him has seen to it that Nicolas reaches Paris safely. It usually happens to gifted individuals in the world. Within a very short while from his arrival, he is spotted by a very beautiful, rich young woman Gillette. Gillette is that sort of a young girl who would do anything for a poor artist who wants to realise his dream. She falls in love with the young man and sheds all her riches to be with the hapless artist. His intention to meet Porbus is to get inspiration and promotion in the field of art as he has nothing but a few canvasses, pieces of chalk and charcoal and not palette with paints and brushes.

A stranger overtakes Nicolas on the flight of staircase and knocks at the atelier. It is opened by an emaciated man and Nicolas gets a feeling that the figure is Porbus. The stranger is old and bald-headed and has a promising visage and spirit in his eyes. The stranger looks at the canvass at the easel, that upholds a recently done portrait of St. Mary of Egypt at a boat with a boatman. Porbus is all ears as the old man begins a discourse on painting, use of light and tint and bringing life into the painting. He dismisses any painting that merely copies things as they are, which is nothing but a prising of objects off nature and making them lifeless. He wants the veins of women in portraits blush with flowing blood. Nicolas is roused by the criticism as he finds the portrait promising. He intervenes with a raddled face to praise the painting. The old man wants Nicolas to prove his mettle as a connoisseur of art and Nicolas draws a line drawing, a reproduction of St. Mary of Egypt and signs on the canvass as Nicolas Poussin. The old man and Porbus admire his talent and approve him of a painter and the old man begins his lesson of improving the portrait of Porbus. The old man is Frenhofer, a student of a great artist, Mabuse. Mabuse taught him about the employment of light and shade on portraits. Frenhofer was rich enough to sponsor Mabuse and learn everything from him. He starts working like a possessed spirit on Porbus' portrait and improves it with his magical brush-strokes.

Frenhofer's talent is admirable and uncanny. He compares this with his life-time work, 'Belle Noiseuse', as he has been working on it for ten years, and it titles itself to be his masterpiece. It is a portrait of a courtezan, Catherine Lescault, that remains incomplete as Frenhofer is incapable of combining light with shade and cannot produce shape of the body successfully. He does not want to show the portrait to his hosts, as he takes Porbus and Nicolas for a drink to his studio, where Nicolas is flabbergasted by the portrait of Georgina, as he considers the figure of the woman as his lover, he her creator, lover and husband. Three months pass and the man could not finish his masterpiece, as his efforts to perfect it on seeing the paintings of great masters and he is in dire requirement of a perfect model. Porbus meets him and tries to strike a deal with him. Gillette is conveyed of Nicolas' admiration for Frenhofer and his masterpiece and is requested by Nicolas to pose for the completion of it. Gillette does not want to do so. However her love for Nicolas and the future of Poussin drive her to accept the proposal. The deal of Porbus is that Frenhofer should show his masterpiece as they swap women, Gillette for Noiseuse.

Though Poussin initiates the suggestion of Gillette posing for the portrait, he rues for his decision as he sees the eyes of the old painter gain unusual energy on seeing the silhoutte of Gillette's body. She wants Poussin to wait outside the studio with a dagger in his hand, strongly clutching its hilt and rush in if hears a squeal from her. After waiting for several hours, the gentlemen are let in to find a hazy, foggy portrait, that Frenhofer claims shrouding the figure of a fantastic woman. Poussin and Porbus point out the artist's failure that Frenhofer refuses to accept and accuses of them trying to cheat him. The artist Poussin is distracted by the cry of Gillette and the lover in him wakes up to take her out of the atelier. Frenhofer is discombobulated and bids a nasty farewell. The story ends the very next day when Porbus discovers that Frenhofer died the previous night after setting his portraits on fire including his masterpiece.

In 1991, Jacques Rivette, a French director made a film La Belle Noiseuse, a very liberal adaptation of Balzec's twenty page short story. It is a near to four hour film extensively detaililing the recuperative artistic energy of Frenhofer. The film begins in a village inn with Marianne and Nicolas (Gillette is Marianne in the film), as they are waiting for Porbus to take them to the chateau of Frenhofer. Marianne is interested as Nicolas talks a lot about the painter and has given arresting looks while looking at the portraits of him. She does not know much of the painter nor has she been acquainted with his paintings. The painter lives with his ex-model wife Liz, who has been the painter's model for many of his famous paintings and he has later confined her beauty to himself by not letting her pose after the marriage. Marianne is good looking and lures the painter's chances of reviving his effort to produce the la belle noiseuse masterpiece. Unlike in the story, Marianne has many a modelling session with Frenhofer for almost a week, visiting the chateau everyday, much to the discomfiture of Nicolas from the third day onwards. In the film, Liz warns Marianne not to see the finished product and which is snubbed by Marianne. The finished masterpiece is not shown to the audience and is known only to Marianne, who gets angered by the portrait, Liz and the servant-maid's daughter. Frenhofer seals the portrait with bricks and mortar on a wall and shows the nude back and buttocks of a woman as his masterpiece. The director takes a lot of liberty with Balzac's story as the film has a model-ex-lover to Nicolas. The film ends with a scathing opinion of Nicolas on Frenhofer's masterpiece as a lampoon and anti-climactic comic relief.

A great feature of the film is, it depicts real-time sketching of portraits with the lending of hand by the painter Bernard Dufour, a French painter notable for abstract painting.

The Bull

The Bull

See an old unhappy bull,

Sick in soul and body both,

Slouching in the undergrowth

Of the forest beautiful,

Banished from the herd he led,

Bulls and cows a thousand head.

Cranes and gaudy parrots go

Up and down the burning sky;

Tree-top cats purr drowsily

In the dim-day green below;

And troops of monkeys, nutting, some,

All disputing, go and come;

And things abominable sit

Picking offal buck or swine,

On the mess and over it

Burnished flies and beetles shine,

And spiders big as bladders lie

Under hemlocks ten foot high;

And a dotted serpent curled

Round and round and round a tree,

Yellowing its greenery,

Keeps a watch on all the world,

All the world and this old bull

In the forest beautiful.

Bravely by his fall he came:

One he led, a bull of blood

Newly come to lustihood,

Fought and put his prince to shame,

Snuffed and pawed the prostrate head

Tameless even while it bled.

There they left him, every one,

Left him there without a lick,

Left him for the birds to pick,

Left him there for carrion,

Vilely from their bosom cast

Wisdom, worth and love at last.

When the lion left his lair

And roared his beauty through the hills,

And the vultures pecked their quills

And flew into the middle air,

Then this prince no more to reign

Came to life and lived again.

He snuffed the herd in far retreat,

He saw the blood upon the ground,

And snuffed the burning airs around

Still with beevish odours sweet,

While the blood ran down his head

And his mouth ran slaver red.

Pity him, this fallen chief,

All his spendour, all his strength,

All his body's breadth and length

Dwindled down with shame and grief,

Half the bull he was before,

Bones and leather, nothing more.

See him standing dewlap-deep

In the rushes at the lake,

Surly, stupid, half asleep,

Waiting for his heart to break

And the birds to join the flies

Feasting at his bloodshot eyes, -

Standing with his head hung down

In a stupor dreaming things:

Green savannas, jungles brown,

Battlefields and bellowings,

Bulls undone and lions dead

And vultures flapping overhead.

Dreaming things: of days he spent

With his mother gaunt and lean

In the valley warm and green,

Full of baby wonderment,

Blinking out of silly eyes

At a hundred mysteries;

Dreaming over once again

How he wandered with a throng

Of bulls and cows a thousand strong,

Wandered on from plain to plain,

Up the hill and down the dale,

Always at his mother's tail;

How he lagged behind the herd,

Lagged and tottered, weak of limb,

And she turned and ran to him

Blaring at the loathly bird

Stationed always in the skies,

Waiting for the flesh that dies.

Dreaming maybe of a day

When her drained and drying paps

Turned him to the sweets and saps,

Richer fountains by the way,

And she left the bull she bore

And he looked on her no more;

And his little frame grew stout,

And his little legs grew strong,

And the way was not so long;

And his little horns came out,

And he played at butting trees

And boulder-stones and tortoises,

Joined a game of knobby skulls

With the youngsters of his year,

All the other little bulls,

Learning both to bruise and bear,

Learning how to stand a shock

Like a little bull of rock.

Dreaming of a day less dim,

Dreaming of a time less far,

When the faint but certain star

Of destiny burned clear for him,

And a fierce and wild unrest

Broke the quiet of his breast,

And the gristles of his youth

Hardened in his comely pow,

And he came to fighting growth,

Beat his bull and won his cow,

And flew his tail and trampled off

Past the tallest, vain enough,

And curved about in spendour full

And curved again and snuffed the airs

As who should say Come out who dares!

And all beheld a bull, a Bull,

And knew that here was surely one

That backed for no bull, fearing none.

And the leader of the herd

Looked and saw, and beat the ground,

And shook the forest with his sound,

Bellowed at the loathly bird

Stationed always in the skies,

Wating for the flesh that dies.

Dreaming, this old bull forlorn,

Surely dreaming of the hour

When he came to sultan power,

And they owned him master-horn,

Chiefest bull of all among

Bulls and cows a thousand strong.

And in all the tramping herd

Not a bull that barred his way,

Not a cow that said him nay,

Not a bull or cow that erred

In the furnace of his look

Dared a second, worse rebuke;

Not in all the forest wide,

Jungle, thicket, pasture, fen,

Not another dared him then,

Dared him and again defied;

Not a sovereign buck or boar

Came a second time for more.

Not a serpent that survived

Once the terrors of his hoof

Risked a second time reproof,

Came a second time and lived,

Not serpent in its skin

Came again for discipline;

Not a leopard brght as flame,

Flashing fingerhooks of steel,

That a wooden tree might feel,

Met his fury once and came

For second reprimand,

Not a leopard in the land.

Not a lion of them all,

Not a lion of the hills,

Hero of a thousand kills,

Dared a second fight and fall,

Dared that ram terrific twice,

Paid a second time the price. . . .

Pity him, this dupe of dream,

Leader of the heard again

Only in his daft old brain,

Once again the bull supreme

And bull enough to bear the part

Only in his tameless heart.

Pity him that he must wake;

Even now the swarm of flies

Blackening his bloodshot eyes

Bursts and blusters round the lake,

Scattered from the feast half-fed,

By great shadows overhead.

And the dreamer turns away

From his visionary herds

And his splendid yesterday,

Turns to meet the loathly birds

Flocking round him from the skies,

Waiting for the flesh that dies.

Ralph Hodgson


Ralph Hodgson is a Georgian Poet. Georgian Poets are those whose poems have been published in anthologies named Georgian Poetry. There have been five anthologies under this title and the major poets include D H Lawrence, Rupert Brooke and Robert Graves. Hodgson is not much of a celebrated poet of the Georgian School, however has reached greater depths in his selection of themes and presentation. He went on to teach English and poetry in Japan in Tohoku University. He is credited with the theme of being more pastoral in his poems. ‘The Bull’ sketches the poignant life of an old bull, that was once sturdy, powerful and a ruler of a herd. The poem is more of a depiction of the agony of old age and the loss of support.

Adaptation

'The Man in a Case' is one of the beautiful stories of Chekhov. It begins late at night in a sleepy little village of Mironositskoe. Two gentlemen found lodging in the barn of the elderly man of the village, Prokofy. One of them is a school master who is well acquainted with the life in the village and begins discussing the wife of the elder. She is Mavra, an extremely well read and talented woman, however has confined herself to the village. One of the other gentlemen, a veterinary surgeon, expresses wonder on knowing that the woman has not seen a town or a railway line. Poked at that the school master begins describing a colleague of him known as Byelikov who almost lived all by himself. He always wore galoshes and kept every object that he used in a case. He was idiosyncratic as he was obsessed with the fear of violating rules and regulations. He made the whole of the school under himself as he expressed much fear in every possible act of both the masters and the pupils. He lived on the same storey on which the school master Burkin lived. His bed chamber was completely covered with mattresses and curtains and he used the curtains to sleep on in his bed and cocooned himself to a kind of atavistic behaviour of the primordial ancestors.

Ivan Ivanovitch, the veterinary surgeon, intercedes with the philosophy of life to the narration as he is of the opinion that the whole of the world and its populace spend their day to day existence in the same manner. In the case of Byelikov, it is an exhibition of extremism, as the man had the habit of visiting his friends and their colleagues in their tenements and spent an hour or two sitting glum and quiet observing their routine chores and exited with no manners. He is surprised to know that this figure of ridicule almost got married. A History teacher came to the school with his sister, who was almost thirty, however did not subject herself to the work of time on her beauty and complexion and retained a girlish behaviour. It only struck the acquaintances of Byelikov that he was very old enough to have got married and they too woke up to that on seeing a slim chance of uniting Byelikov with Varnika. The mill of marriage had begun its grinding and put the two together in the name of parties and outings. Byelikov procrastinated the marriage as he thought too much about family responsibility. The History teacher hated his intrusion into the private chambers and the deafening silence that he exhibited at such visits.

A naughty person came with a rue to make things public. He drew Byelikov and Varnika together under an umbrella and sent the pencil drawing to everyone. On one occasion, Byelikov, while walking with Burkin found the brother-sister duo cycling their way somewhere. He got horrified at the sight as he thought such an adventuristic display would create in students a tendency to freak out. He left school early the very next day, an act that was un-Byelikov, straight to Varnika's house to explain things and tender his apology for the pencil drawing involving himself and Varnika. The History teacher rose in temperament as Byelikov broached the matter of bicycling and gave a push to him from the top of the flight of the stairs. As he tumbled his way down off the balcony, found him a source of ridicule for Varnika, who came into the house while he was recovering himself from the fall. He became ill three days later and found himself in the bed of angels.

Wendy Wasserstein, a playwright of American fame, wrote a one act play, 'The Man in a Case' an adaptation of Chekhov's story. She makes use of only two characters in her play and alludes to the brother of Varnika. Wendy introduces them as joggers and meeting in a garden of the village of Mironositskoe. Varnika comes with apricots given in honour of the Greek and Latin school master Byelikov. He is annoyed at the fact that she goes on informing about their marriage to everyone and apricots give him hives. Varnika has fallen for him as he keeps everything in confinement including the leftover vegetables and fruits in covers. Byelikov is enamoured of their meeting and notes it down in his diary that he would place lilies on this day on his love's lock every year. As this requires celebration, Varnika wants to go to her brother's house on her bicycle and bring some cream. Startled to know about Varnika's arrival on bicycle, he sends her off on the pretext that he wants to work on the translation of Virgil's Aeneid and even tears the note that he has made a while ago down. Varnika leaves and the lights fade as Byelikov is found garnering the strewn pieces of his note. The play puts up a feministic reading of Chekhov's story and Wendy's adaptation never violates the original and gives a new thrust to the story on the contrary. Both texts provide a good reading.

Worldly Wisdom 2

‘The Umbrella Man’ is an enjoyable story of Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl is a British writer of Norwegian origin. He was a fighter pilot during the Second World War and served in the Air Force of England in prominent designations. He started his writing career in the 1940s during the war. He is a popular writer of children’s fiction. His popular novels include ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and ‘The Gremlins’. He is also credited with a lot of short stories too, written with the objective of reaching the children in mind. ‘The Umbrella Man’ is narrated by a twelve year old girl who accompanies her mother to a dentist in London.

The story has values to be imbibed by children. The mother of the twelve year old girl often concentrates on teaching her child through participation in life-events. The girl emphasizes her ability to adjudge people rather better than her mother through the revelation of her height in the story. Her mother is thirty-six and not much taller than her twelve year old daughter, an indication of mental growth of the girl. One fine afternoon, the mother and daughter duo embarks on a trip to London with the mission of filling in the tooth of the daughter. The girl is much pleased with the work of the dentist as she has felt no pain while the doctor filling the hole of a tooth. On their way back home, the duo enters a café and the girl enjoys a banana split. As they come out at about six o’clock in the evening, the rain begins its act of drenching the city of London. The mother has not brought an umbrella and wants to catch a taxi to take them home. The daughter relishes the idea of sheltering in the café and having another of her favourite banana split. Then a little old man approaches them as they are standing on the pavement and fancy themselves whisked away by an un-occupied taxi.

The mother always caution her daughter about strangers and her advice to her is if the stranger is more pleasing then she must be more wary of the stranger. The girl comforts herself on looking at the shoes of the stranger, since, as per her mother, one who wears a fine pair of shoes is a gentleman. The man is very old and has a fluffy mustache. He is holding a silk umbrella very high over his head. The mother puts on an expression one of hauteur as she considers such a one is right in dealing with unknown people. The old man has informed that he is not such type as the one who stops gentle ladies on road side and demand money. However, today he requires money to get back home in a taxi, as he has forgotten to come with his wallet. The mother is not pleased and enquired how he has come there. The man has informed her that it is his habit to take a stroll in the evenings and get back home in a taxi as his legs would not stand him for long. Since he has walked long already, he could not go on foot further and he is ready to offer the silk umbrella, worth twenty pound, for one pound and it is not gentlemanly for him to accept money from anybody. The daughter is upset with the offer as the mother could exploit the situation to grab the costly umbrella for a pittance. The mother is seen thawing and in the end gives out a pound and praises the act of the old man who is considerate enough to offer them the umbrella to shield them from rain.

The old man has accepted the money with gratitude and is only found hurrying on his legs. The act has upset the duo and the mother is pricked with the sense of disappointment of being cheated. They choose to follow the man who evading the evening crowd gracefully enters into a pub. It is not decent for women to enter into the pub and duo stations outside and peers into the glass on the man. The man reaches the bar and gulps treble whiskey for the pound and comes back to the dressing lounge to take one of the umbrellas put there by the pub-users. The mother and daughter are shocked by the act of the man and the man further travels to the very place where he has just now sold the silk umbrella to find another one of his victims, this time a man with no protection of a hat or coat from rain, to sell his stolen umbrella for a drink. Further, he chooses not to go back to the same pub this time. The duo is flabbergasted by the strategy of the old man for a draught. The story ends with the duo finding themselves recipients of worldly knowledge and wisdom.

Worldly Wisdom 1

Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta. His father was a businessman, who for sometime worked in the Bata Shoe Company of Bata Nagar, West Bengal. His mother was a lawyer, who studied Law in England. She went on to become the first woman chief justice of India of the state High Court of Simla. Seth studied in England the elementary and primary classes or rather spent his first six years after birth there and came back to India to do the higher level of schooling. He went back to London to enrol himself as a student of Economics in Corpus Christy College and found himself attracted to poetry and music instead. Seth is a polyglot who has learnt German, French, Mandarin dialect of Chinese and Urdu. He plays flute and cello and a librettist. The volume of poems ‘The Frog and the Nightingale’ was published in the year 1994. He started his writing career in 1986 with the publication of his musical or verse novel ‘The Golden Gate’ and is currently working on the sequel of ‘A Suitable Boy’ titled ‘A Suitable Girl’.

‘The Frog and the Nightingale’ is a simple poem that speaks out a simple moral. It is a nature poem and built on the style of an allegory or parable. The poem features an ignorant nightingale and a conniving frog that marauds the spirit of the bird. It starts with a customary introduction to any story. There is a swampy land and which is home to several creatures. There lives a frog in that bog that considers itself a crooner and expends the nights in blaring out. Its baritonal tenor pierces the ears of the occupants of the bog and they spend their nights hoping for a remedy. However there is no stopping to this ‘jive’, lest the arrival of a nightingale. The frog lives under a sumac tree and always looks forward to the setting of the sun. One night, there comes a nightingale and perching on the sumac tree it has started singing. The song has soothed the dry ears of all animals that have been battered by the dry ‘croaks’. The song of the bird has attracted ducks, swans and herons. The bird has received much praise from the dwellers of the bog.

The following night when the bird is ready to sing, the frog has made its appearance by offering a critique on her last night’s performance. The frog introduces himself as the baritonal expert of the bog and has long been a successful practitioner of tenor. There the bird is attracted to commit first of its foibles. It enquires to the frog about her last night’s performance. The critic in the frog has come alive with the comments of the song being lengthy and the voice being too feeble to reach the possible listeners of the bog. The nightingale confesses that the song is not lofty but one of her creativity. The frog comes forward to teach the right methods of singing so as to improve the voice of the bird, and not for free of course, for a reasonable fee. As the bird has begun singing, with much energy and spirit to please the frog, a good crowd gathers and the frog fills its purse with a fee of admittance. The frog expresses his dissatisfaction and commences training in the following morning in the drenching rain. The nightingale, not used to swagger in rain, finds itself very uncomfortable. It is advised to put on a scarf and sash and imitate the cacophonic blaring of the frog. The frog is always hard to be pleased and wants the bird to reach a bass voice. The morning’s ordeal has exhausted the bird and the cool moon of the night has revived her spirit and voice. She sings in a high tone to attract and please the frog. However the animals could only listen to a dispirited voice of hers. She has been sold songs by the frog and advice too for emulating the baritone of it. The sorrowful nightingale can never please the frog and ‘raise’ herself to the level of the frog and she breathes herself last with an unfulfilled wish of hers. The angry frog announces to the animals that the wit-less bird is incapable of comprehending his lessons and dies out instead. So the bog has come back to the reign of croaking, screeching melody of the frog.

The poem deals with the concept of knowing oneself and knowing the world. The bird is unaware of its melodious voice and has heeded to the advice of a selfish, arrogant and inconsiderate figure of a frog. The bird is presented as a humble figure. However, humility at the expense of ignorance is dangerous. The poet makes use of ten-lined stanzas and the discipline of it gets violated here and there in the poem. The rhyme scheme is aa, bb, cc, dd, ee. There is an additional line tagging itself to a few stanzas to complement the meaning of them. The poet is selective in his choice of words and diction. ‘The frog and the nightingale’ is a fine poem indeed.

A Cliched Process

The act of suffrage, for many a long fought or a won-over privilege, as far as i am concerned, has lost its value. Gone are the days when the system was considered honorary, and a bestowed franchise on the citizens of a state, as the privilege is exercised equally, not being influenced by social diversity. Today, the exercise of suffrage is more or less a casual act as visiting a pub or a movie-theatre. The voters have lost sense of the right that they have been provided with and only think of monetary compromises at the time of exercising their mandate. Not all the wrong rests with the voters and the franchisers take up a prominent part in the blame-game. On the part of the voters, it is sheer indifference that has led them to hanker after the freebies and currency countermanding of their franchise. The elected show an uninterested attitude towards service to society and uplifting the poor. They are obdurate, callous and unmindful of the voters. They set their minds on only two things: money and cynosure. When it comes to facing elections, they unleash the arrogant power of money and extortion and try to bully the process of getting re-elected. In the recent Assembly elections to the state assembly of Tamilnadu, around twenty-four thousand people have exercised the option of not liking any candidate who contest in the election from a constituency. It means roughly, there are one hundred people in a constituency in the state of Tamilnadu who do not prefer to give the mandate to any of the contesting candidates. The elected never care to improve the basic infrastructural facilities. The free-noon-meal tenements are dilapidating and the rulers of the future are left to lurch in them. Many promises are given at the time of elections and they are immediately forgotten. The poor stay poor and the rich grow to a richer state, widening the gap between them, and also between togetherness, equality and harmony. India try to balance between people, who are inexhaustible with the liking for Cricket matches and spend a lot of money to get entertained and inexhaustible with the energy in search for staple food at least once a day. Only here, that the granary could feed rodents and reptiles and ignore the biped sapiens. Only here that tens and thousands of rupees is spent in deciding the winners of cricket matches and nothing to mend the hovels of the poor. India live up to its cliched definition of 'unity in diversity' in all walks of life.

'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.

The Onslaught

The fifth of January Two Thousand and Eleven, a black day in my world. My world is a miniscule world of my family, people, town and life. On this day the eighteen year old Flame Tree was ruthlessly murdered by Town Planners, who want to keep the town 'spick and span'. The tree had been planted some eigteen years ago along with its cousin who also breathed his last today. It had been a wonderful source of shade and food for humans and animals and animals respectively. It was serving as a Hanging Bridge for chipmunks to travel from the parapet of my house to the corrugated roof of the house opposite. A few crows chose the tree as the abode for their descendants as they built their nest in it. Some prescient bees had for sometime using the tree as the storage store of their honey and vacated the place. The blooming season of the tree gave it a great outlook and dressed it in sanguine red and it came on it today in an unseason time. Some wood peckers divined the housing of insects of the tree and freed itself of them. Now the tree itself had freed itself of its existence.