THE MAHAL'S STORY

It was a may day – hot and sultry- and I was just out of routine. Theory and history have taken a toll on my sense of real and practical – ‘ities’. I was home and it had just rained the previous day. Thunder showers are a reprieve, some say but it has to rain heavily in order to entirely realize the respite. It rained. The night was dark, power-less as well as mosquito-less. However, the next morning was hot and sultry, un-respite-fully.

We went to a betrothal - My Uncle’s. He was a chemist in the Arab emirates. He was a guy who went the hard way up. The Mahal wore a festive look. There were songs in the air. The spicy chicken masala’s sailed past our noses. Noices, cries, whispers and confusion. Everything happened except the betrothal. For they were waiting … actually… were made to wait.

The bride-to-be was nowhere to be seen. The man-to-be was anxious. Actually the ambience made him act that way. There were allegations and the tones that rose, arose to create only problems. However, nothing deterred the would-be couple. They acted the way they ought to. Then the unexpected happened.

The power went off. The Mahal was filled with exhaled heat and mouthed clatters. It was de-silenced. If the Mahal had a story to tell, would it distinguish between the many functions it witnessed? How many festivities? – Grand and casual; People of different castes and classes; regions and religions; cultures and ethnicities. The Mahal knew none. However, it could have recognized a pattern in all the proceedings; A dramatic outline in the revelry. And it is performance that drives the social-real in. The Mahal of course has stories and it must be a million tales of a particular version. If its walls had had ears and its fans eyes; the versions we could have known might have been disturbing.

Ah the bride arrives… along with the noises/voices.
Lenny.

SHADOW-S

Loose baggy pants, yellowish white shirt, unkempt receding hair, head stooped down, dull eyes that looked over the spectacles, a bag on the shoulders - a shadow of depression, of unknown hatred and of uncertain confusion.

The shadow cycled the roads, everyday. The house to the school and back, to tuition centers, to special classes, to church, to Sunday school, to hospital … the shadow was diseased. Tied and fettered. It thought nothing was free; that everything had an investment, an amount to be paid – one liked it or not. Actually, it never thought. It was made to think. It was always shown an ideal to look up to. Whatever it did was practiced. It had lost its ability to create and think for itself. The shadow literally lost its source of existence and creativity. It became what it was projected – a shadow.

But the shadow had a dream, a hope. The more it was subjected unto, the more it dreamt of freeing itself from the projection. One day the shadow unfettered itself. It moved away, without any reason it escaped. It went in search of its identity – its self but it had lost it, forever.

The shadow had dreamt of fleeing free into the skies. Now it is captured in the maze of words inside four walls, stuck between a chair and a desk, in front of a screen – glued, its fingers danced according to many tunes. And it thought it dreamt freely.

The shadow now thinks it has realized its dream. It has actually learnt how to transform into many shadows. Shadows for different surroundings, for very many reasons. It had lost its source forever. Perhaps, the source itself was just a shadow!

The shadow became what it is.

BE PRE-CAUTIOUS!

BE PRE-CAUTIOUS!

We take pre-cautions: A lot of them just to escape danger. We plan our life just to avoid danger, don’t we? We walk on pavements, exactly paved for us. Doing this ensures as well as conforms. It ensures safety from disaster as it conforms to an existing pattern of normality.

Anything chaotic is abnormal and dangerous as it disturbs the existing pattern. The pattern has been paved for a larger purpose. This purpose is something the commoners cannot understand. We are just made to follow it. One may protest yet ONE HAS TO OBEY.

Fear, my friend, works through notions of safety and normality: What if something goes wrong? What if someone dies? What if one is the cause for a disturbance? Everything now is fine, right? Then why disturb? Why do you anyway think of something that disturbs the existing pattern? - Why? What if? How could one?

These seeds are planted through a wonderful discourse of fear. Safety rules, anti-viruses, insurances, university degrees – all these institute a larger plan that ensures a feeling of safety and execute conformity. One eventually feels happy to accomplish these pre-cautions since it successfully evades us from danger.

Now, who really is the cause of danger? In accurate terms, who constructs this fear of danger and why?

For instance, I installed an anti-virus, last month. I spent a lump sum amount. I feared therefore I did: ensure and conform. This fear is caused by someone – a fear of being affected by a virus. This constructed fear comes with a hope of an antidote: an anti-virus. Apparently, fear and hope are two sides of the same coin. One cannot work without the other. One has to fear in order to see hope. Hence both fear and hope are constructed by the same person for a larger purpose – actually their purpose.

‘Trust me… Thou shall not fear, if you fear ME!’

interro'N'ation

Nationalism and Nation-state: what are they? and how do they relate to my immediacy of the moment?
The right wing invests on the emotional quotient of an imagiNation, the left wing on the economic relationships and positions that emerge from a political, economic unit called state. Now I - a commoner, as Nasrudeen shah reflects in 'a wednesday': a stupid common man, without a face - can i relate with these concepts?

we live in our 'own' localized problems and solutions. we need a structural crisis to feel with the nation. for instance, we need a 26/11 or an Indo-pak war to feel what is to be an Indian. Primarily, through emotions and feelings, we shun our localities to participate in the larger structural conformities. It is always good to feel that we are part of a larger group: a group that always stays in the imagination.

i have read somewhere 'the theory of evolution' structurally works through an assumption. This assumption works on the imagination of time. hence, Can we materially know 10000 years. No, It can only be imagined. it's always imagined - It cannot be realized nor observed.

Hence, the monolithic national public is always an imagination. what is considered a national conscience is actually a dominant 'local' conscience. the Nation, perhaps is a conspiracy!

அப்போதே தந்துவிட்டேன் உம்மிடம்

என் உடல், பொருள், ஆவி அனைத்தையும்-

ஒன்று இல்லை இவ்வுலகில் வைத்துக்குள்ள என்னிடம்:

இவ்வனைத்துக்கும் பதிலாக நான் வாஞ்சிப்பது

அடியேன் என்னை நீர் ஏற்றுக்கொள்வது:

அப்போதே தந்துவிட்டேன் உம்மிடம்

என் உடல், பொருள், ஆவி அனைத்தையும்-

பகிரவோ, சேர்க்கவோ இன்னும் இருந்திருந்தால் என்னிடம்

நான் வள்ளல்கள் கொடுப்பதுபோல் கொடுத்திருப்பேன்,

கீழே குனியாமல், குமிந்ததை ஒதுக்காமல்;

அப்போதே தந்துவிட்டேன் உம்மிடம்

என் உடல், பொருள், ஆவி அனைத்தையும்-

என் உடல், பொருள், ஆவி அனைத்தையும்.

a poem by Henry Newboldt
translated by
Leonard, Dickens.M

THE CAGE AND THE SHOES

It was yet another day. The morning alarmed him back to consciousness. His eyes filtered the early morning light through the windows. Every day was a caged existence. He woke up to exist and then to sleep again. He was a routine. His mornings were automated. A bottle of water, a flush in the toilet, the gargle in the mouth, a flash on the face – his tryst with water in the morning would bid him good bye.

His eyes would then, search for The- morning –Hindu. He’d feel a part of India, every time he flipped through the pages. He negotiated and created an India of his own, every day, as he became a part of The– every day -Hindu.

But today was not to be yet another day. This morning was not be The Hindu’s. Today’s was The– unusual – times of India’s; An India with which he could not negotiate and relate with. The times of India were not his times. If at all, an India existed in it, it was not his India – he never wanted to negotiate with an India which was not an India of his times. For, he existed in a cage - a window, a table and a chair. His boundaries pre-determined his actions. He could not-NOT be caged. His space existed before him. Until his today was visited by a not-so-hindu times of India.

Her days were not to be the same anymore. Her frozen -black and white- smile smiled back to her. She kissed her smile with her nose. The print smell was still fresh. It filled her lungs. Her breath could suck it and exhale every bit of it. She loved doing it. She smiled back. The frozen smile reciprocated it from The – usual- Times of –her- India. Her games were not her sports; her play was not her act and her masks - not her roles; for she was a champion. She was the India she dreams; the India she acts. She was present in the times of India.

Her phone sang, her shoes got life and the road ran back as a drop sweated it. She ran fast, the roads retreated faster. She was of the roads, and they belonged to her. She hit them every day. They were a routine in her life. She could not just be frozen.

His c‘age’-ing eyes. Her fr(l)ee-ing shoes. They belonged to each in their own spaces: One over tables, frozen on a chair; another on the roads, freed by the shoes. One defeated by the ‘unusual’ times that portrayed the frozen smiles; the other enabled by the ‘shoes’ that freed her into the times of her India. His caged existence could not stop her freed exploration.

P.S: thoughts, words and phrases are stolen and used without acknowledgement.

TRADING TRADITION.

Any tourist spot means business. A small vacant land or a piece of log would be ‘museumised’ for eternity – a wonderful idea that makes business. Why do places/spaces demand this attention? What makes it different, so much so that, we rush to them spending the most, we possess? The simple available answer (that we love to think) is – ‘the place demands this necessity’ … or … do we create and attribute this necessity? For instance, a whole commercial system works around the aura of this place – exotica, if I’m allowed to pronounce this oft-repeated term. Who creates this place and generates this system of differential attributes? The travel agency, the government or the place itself? Perhaps, ‘WE’ do. We ‘want’ a place to be different – out of the ordinary. Difference -here perhaps- is commercial. We make it commercial. We attribute commerce. Hence we play an important role in constructing a commercial aura of a place. Hence, the habit of visiting places by spending money signifies a lot about human behavior.

Now, why do we visit places at all? Tourism – we know, is more about being at the right place at the right time rather than just experience ‘being travelled’. The destiny becomes important than the travel. Then why would we just spend money to 'be' in places? Perhaps, the concept of ‘spending’ here is conceived as an investment - be it time or money. It is an investment on an aura – a status – a good feeling – a feeling of superiority therefore, an investment on the sense of exclusion. This sense is a ‘want’ that has to be ‘cultivated’. This ‘want’ is a construct. A ‘want’ is an act of sophistication, not a ‘need’. Perhaps, the industry meticulously works in converting all the ‘wants’ into ‘needs’. And we happily play our parts in desiring the wants to be converted into needs.

What if the government of India comes with a law that would co-sponsor the citizens to necessarily ‘tour India’ at least once in their lifetime, so that they experience the idea called India? What would happen then?

What was then necessarily, an act of sophistication would be converted into a compulsory act of necessity. Conversely, the discourse of exclusion breaks down as every place would become a place to be toured and everyone would become a tourist. All ‘spots’ would become sites of repeated attendance. Touring would become an act of/by/for the people - the commons. ‘De-aura-fication’ happens. Chaos would rule. Tourism then, would become a wonderful ‘working idea’, just like democracy, wouldn’t – it?

A system of exclusion would be converted into a system of legalized inclusion. Tourism would then be a necessary practice. The mass – the people would give meaning to it. The aura of a tourist place would change; nevertheless, the ones who tour them also would change. Everything changes or... would it?

This discourse of hope we wish and promise: The hope of a not-so-‘business’-like- activity of ‘busy-ness’ is an idea which, would not seem to mean business.

Oh… what a business that’d make, sir jeeeeeeeeeee... perhaps what could be better traded than an act of tradition?