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.

New Year Special

What is special about a New Year's Day?

1. Those who wake up at 8o'clock everyday wake up very early. (some prefer to stay awake throughout the night, celebrating the English New Year at 12o' clock)

2. Those who never visit a temple think of reaching the feet of God in the wee hours on that day.

3. Those who never draw Rangoli, wake up early to draw gargantuan Rangoli at the entrance of their houses.

4. Those who get tipsy always choose to declare holiday on the day of New Year to consumption of alcohol. (some prefer the night before New Year to get tipsy)

5. Some choose to do a good act on the day of New Year (only on that day).

6. Some start up with resolutions and soon end up not living up to them.

7. Some pass the day peacefully abstaining from bad activities reserving their energy for the upcoming days.

There are more...

A few more


8. Theatres that feature pornography all through the year declare them pure by showing some decent stuff on the New Year's Day. (Like the Indian Tradition of showing a Hindu God at the beginning of a film that depicts all wickedness) And the rest of the year they feature ugly stuff with impunity.

9. A thing to ponder over: whether any of those employees who immerse themselves in bribe abstain from it on the New Year's Day? Unluckily it happens to be a holiday. Had it been a working day how things would be?