Plexus

There is always a new book awaiting. One I have just finished; The Box by Gunter Grass. I stand up from my office chair. Like all office chairs it’s comfortable in a profane sense. It always seduces me to sleep; makes me work one minute less than the time to finish. It loves me lazy. I hate it. But it stood by me this time, partially oaring me to an unknown island of sleep; flashes of faces, words spoken in English, a fairy tale divulged each time; and partially fixing me where I am, with the hard cover volume in my hand. I love the later part.

When my feet feel swollen, I stand up and contort my body once or twice, and then sit down, pushing forth my eyes on the white paper, only to find how familiar words dance to some mysterious tune to concoct the most fascinating potion of literary alchemy.

This time I stand up again; take a stroll around my chair in a ritual to warm up my legs. I finished the book, which I have been reading from the previous week. A thread sized stream of contentment oozes down into my mind. A smile spreads on my lips that takes a rightward move and settles on the right side for some time.

Another irritable pleasure I seek is to return this book at the library. I imagine my walk to library; contented, poised, with the same right corner smile. I may meet my students there, too. One inexplicable advantage of teaching profession; you get a tremendous amount of spare time. It is two in the afternoon, and I still have two and half hours left, which I can spend in the library. Thursdays are usually off days for me, due to some technical requirements, in order to balance the total hours of lecturing among other teachers: a whole day between me and my muse.    

My colleagues raise their weary glances up at me, while I pass their cabins as a traveler just back from his inter-continental mission, content.

The library is not as crowded as I expected. I see the librarian lady passing a curious glace at the stack of papers in my hand: a short story I downloaded from the internet. She hands over my library ticket, which I have to exchange with each book I take. But today I have no intention to take another book. The Box was a hard read. Words dancing, changing into voices and creating a mysterious alchemy.

The short story with me serves for another plan. It forms part of my creative writing practices. The story is by a writer who is new to my reading universe, so I am keen in observing him in action.

I am standing among the bookshelves now. I feel my legs need a real nice stretch. A stroll is needed, at least. So I take a round among the shelves, just dab my fingers over the covers of books, leaf through some and just move from shelf to shelf. The reason why I don’t want to take a book today is that I already have one at home; the biography of C. G. Jung, which seems to be a good one, though I haven’t started reading it yet. Some books create an impression upon us even before a page is turned.

Henry Miller: Plexus: the cover read. It was just a brown cover with the title in white with red bordering. I have been searching for any book by Henry Miller for a long time. Though, enough attempts were made I could not succeed. Somehow his books are not in many numbers in libraries; not even present in most of them, neither at book stores around in Kannur. May be the reason is their covers with pictures of naked women on most of them. That is why the cover of this edition catches my attention. It is a 1963 edition by Granada publishing company.

I take it in my hands, look at it and put it back from where it is taken. Promises have to be kept; I decided not to take a book today. I take it once again; turn the pages; they are yellow with time and the print is crammed. I put it back. Promises are promises, even if they are made to oneself. I am walking out of the library after 4.30, with a paper stack and a brown covered book. Plexus.

Sometimes it’s ok to take a chance if it’s worth it…I guess.    

[Image courtesy: Image 1, and 2: Google images]

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A Drop of Love

A dewdrop found itself resting on the petal of a rose. That was the only memory of the drop. It was born there, separated from a cloud of fog and felt happy to be there.

There was something that lured the drop; a pull towards the heart of the flower since the petal was sloppy. The dew felt its destiny already marked out.

It said to the rose, “What would happen if I slid into your heart?”

The flower looked at the drop. There was a peculiar grace to the dewdrop. And the sun was sharing its gleam with the crystal soul of the drop. The flower fell in love with the dewdrop all at once. “I will…” the flower blushed, “I will receive you into my soul and transform you into honey.”  

The dewdrop could not decide what to choose. The company of the flower was mesmerizing. Its fragrance was unique. But what it said was dubious. It said it will transform the dewdrop into honey. ‘What is honey?’ The dewdrop thought. ‘Would it mean I have to disappear? Whom shall I ask?’  

Then, as if the thought of the dewdrop came to life, a sweet little humming was heard. The flower and the plant danced with slight tremor. The drop did not see anyone. But there came a question, “Who are you looking for?”

“Who are you?” The dewdrop asked. It was a surprise that still there was no one in sight.

“I am the breeze,” said the voice, still invisible.

“Why are you invisible?” asked the drop.

“This is how I am, if you are born with your guileless soul, I am born with the cloak of invisibility.”

“Can you help me?” asked the dewdrop.  

“Sure, tell me how.”

“What shall I do? The flower asked me to come inside her bosom, and she would transform me into honey. I do not know what to do. Do I have another choice? If I go out of the petal, I will fall down into hell,” the voice of the dewdrop was sad when it said this.

There was silence for the next moment. Then the breeze said, “Down below, there is the earth, not hell. However, you have another choice; you can contemplate the sun and when its rays are powerful enough they will lift you up to the heavens and take you back to the place where you were born.”

“Am I not born here?” the drop asked.

“No, you are taken here, from the sky. The sky is your birthplace.”

“Then I do not want to go back,” said the dewdrop, “I want to live and experience the most beautiful thing in life. How can I do it, breeze? Can you guide me please?” When it said it, the dewdrop’s soul took a ray from the sun and reflected it in a thousand colours.

“The flower is in love with you and is ready to transform you into the sweetest thing within its heart; how foolish you are not to realize it,” whispered the breeze, which the dewdrop could not hear. “How easy it is for someone to ignore the transforming power of love.”

“I will help you,” said the breeze.

The dewdrop felt the tremor once again, this time much powerful; and it felt itself gliding down slowly. Before the next moment, the dewdrop embraced the heart of the flower. There was a trail of chill left on the petal. The flower smiled at the dewdrop and the dewdrop felt happy for the touch of love. It didn’t ask anything else, for by then it new everything to be known. 

[Image Courtesy-all three images: Google Images]

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Poetry

If what you know leads you to the unknown,

What you know is poetry.

If what you experienced takes you beyond-

Your expectations,

You have experienced poetry.

If the words on a paper makes you wonder,

How you wrote it,

You have written poetry. 

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The Shooting Star

It is said that those who die, become a star in the sky. This story is dedicated to that star who told me several wonderful stories, and enlightened my mind; my grand mother. May her soul rest in peace.         

Anna, my grand mother. She passed away on 26-11-2011

“Silence is the language of the cosmos. From the smallest stone to the sun itself, they all communicate through silence, greatly rich with meaning and deep, very deep. In order to understand it, we need to have a special mind. You have it, don’t you?” A pair of eyes, surrounded by numerous wrinkles, slowly connected themselves with the boy’s.

He was silent for the next half of a minute. Yet another story! Why do old people tell so many stories? How do they remember a great many of these details? And how on earth does she know about the language of the cosmos? He thought.

“I don’t know,” He answered.

“Yes, you know. You are like that small stone that wandered all around the cosmos to find an answer to what puzzled him for a long time,” the grand mother said.

“What stone? A meteorite?” The boy looked up at her; the old face smiled with the creases of old age forming an art work of smile, with least effort.

“Yes,” She said. “The stone was wandering in the universe, asking for an answer. It wanted to know how to make others happy.” Then there was a pause. There was something that the old woman wanted to read from the face of the young boy. But the boy looked away.

“The little stone, met the Saturn. Saturn offered the stone a place in his colorful and vast belt of stones. But the stone wanted an answer. How to make others happy? Then it saw a gas planet. But the gas planet offered the stone a passage through it and said something the stone could not understand. Remember, silence is the language of the cosmos, and therefore no one can evade an answer. Something has to be told, something you will listen. That deep is silence.” She paused. The boy was now looking at her as if bewildered at the magical depth of silence.

Image Courtesy: Google

The old woman continued, “the little stone met many planets, stars—hot and cold, but could not find an answer that made sense to it, and then it crossed Mars. ‘It’s futile to try to make others happy,’ the silence of Mars said. ‘Live your life with whatever you come across and make the best use of every opportunity to live your life.’ The message was great and the stone moved on.”

“—was that the answer it was looking for?” The boy intervened; with his eyes full of the same quest that of the meteorite.

“On its path to circle the sun, the stone then visited the Moon. And by that time the stone had grown wiser from meeting many planets, stars and clouds, and learning from them. It said to the Moon, ‘I know it’s impossible to make others happy, and I must live my life making use of the best of opportunities. However, this is the ultimate end that I see to my life; making others happy. This is the only thing I want to do. How can I do it?’

“The Moon smiled, spreading its golden rays around and said, ‘you are already doing it.’ The stone was confused at the reply of the Moon. It asked, ‘what do you say? I don’t understand.’ The Moon, seeing the confusion on the face of the stone, smiled again as if playfully teasing the stone. The stone’s face grew darker. ‘Don’t worry. You will see what I mean. Go to the Earth and ask her,’ the Moon said.”

“What was that the Moon said, Granny?” The boy asked.

The grand mother’s eyes gleamed. She resumed, “The stone approached the Earth. Before it could ask anything, there was something that took the attention of the stone; a bright line of gold upon the surface of the sea. It was the most beautiful sign the stone had ever seen. ‘What is that?’ the stone wondered. Then it found something else too; the creatures on the planet, humans and animals, all are waving up at him, smiling, praying, wishing, and happy. The sea was reflecting the shining air that the stone carried with it, its own golden tail wisdom. ‘You are already making everyone happy,’ the Moon’s silence echoed through the air.

“The stone was happy because it received the answer it had been searching for. Then the stone became a shooting star and shined down to meet the earth and disappeared in the air, leaving a tail of happiness forever.” The grand mother finished her story and looked at the boy. He was asleep, dreaming, perhaps searching for those shooting stars that wander in search of how to make others happy.

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Aiming the Impossible: An Artist's Memoir-VI

VI

When you are alone and feel like holding on to something, you’d better look for yourself. I was alone there, then, at the bus shelter.

Yet, I was visible and present. For me, being present meant something else too, other than just breathing, eating talking with people and writing exams: painting. I found myself in that pale and lonely night doing graffiti on the wall of the bus shelter.

The following morning brought some admirers with its first light for the graffiti; the picture of a man standing in front of a dark box within a pale background. For the ones who looked more closely there was a surprise too. Within the dark box, there was a pair of secret eyes, addressing directly at the admirers, leaving the observers with a horrible sense of vulnerability. But no, no artist is sure of what he had achieved with his work of art. His success is that single moment when he realizes his finished work. But I was sure of one thing; my father would come to the bus shelter for getting his bus to Kannur.

I left the shelter at nine in the morning, just one hour before the time my father would arrive at the bus shelter. And by the time I had earned about 50 rupees from the contributions made by the admirers of my graffiti work. Most of them were curious to see what the young man in their neighbourhood had done. For the villagers, I was not an artist, not the man with colours, but just a jobless young man, who now had done something curious on the wall of the public bus shelter. I was no way close to the real “I” in their eyes. Sometimes, strangely, what one becomes in life is inextricable from what others think of one, especially parents. Taking up this theory, the absence of the “I” was justified.

After spending the rest of the day in Kannur beach, in the evening I went to my usual road side tea shop. There I met the writer, who was there the day before yesterday as well. What I felt different about this person (in whose blog now you read these words), was his eye for wisdom.

“Writing is part inspiration and part memory,” the writer said. “The memory of a distant self that one believes once he was. But in my case, that self is a vague word, an apparition which at once scares me and fills me with hopelessness. There is no time in my life any more. The more I worry about making a living, the more time slips away leaving myself strayed from the path I wanted to walk; writing.”

He seemed wanting to talk about something that worried his life. Perhaps he was looking for a companion to share his problems. I was not sure if this was the same thought that went through his mind. However, it was the same I thought of doing then. But something stopped me at first in sharing my story with the writer. I always felt that in order to share something, I must first take care of the proud emotional self. That proud self might find it degrading me sharing something. It's always concerned if I could go vulnerable once I shared something crucial. I could not tell him what I am, jobless, since it unravels the wounds of the proud emotional self. So I lied. “I am an art teacher, at the Art College, in Kannur. I do it for money, for sustaining my life. Being an artist and art teacher are different things, entirely.”

I was, I thought.

“Nobody knows what I feel in my mind. Perhaps you would know, because you are an artist, too.” I said.

He seemed lost in thoughts for sometime. Then he said something that I could not make out. But one word caught my attention: “Write.” It was an imperative. A sense of happiness came over me, euphoria. Sometimes what we feel is like how we deal with seasons. We live through every season, have been aware of all the measures that should be taken during each season and know what should be sowed and reaped in each season. But each time, each season leaves us bewildered, with its unpredictability.

Pacha’s memoir concludes here.

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(Contd.) Aiming the Impossible: An Artist's Memoir

V

“Prakash Pacha is dead!”

“Artist Pacha passed away.”

I visualized these headlines in my mind. One was more proximate, the first headline. The second seemed much far away; the artist, which I could never be.

Though the visualization itself had no material grounding and just a hypothetical exercise in order to find an answer to a question that never existed, the process of imagining these titles gave me some sort of satisfaction. Peace. But then an acute sense of tragedy overwhelmed me. I was the tragedy. If I die now, my death would be a suicide. And suicides would be reported as ‘suicides’ not “death” or “passed away”, moreover, which news paper would cover my death. I was nothing, which I still am, for that matter. The sense of this tragic nothingness pushed me even harder than my genitor.

“What are you saying? Are you hoping God would help you? Then spread your hands and wait; let me see who would come to help you.”

My ears never rang, but that day.

My self had been divided into two; logical and emotional. My mind had reached the end of a monotonous indifference. For no specific reason, I felt slightly uplifted. I felt a delicate smile trailing through the right end of my lips, the euphoria of a warrior running towards his enemy soldier to kill or get killed. My logic had been forcing me to go back home. It showed me the fear of the wall my absence could build inside my family. It made me think about the lack of any sleeping space, and free food in the future; being an outcast sounded luxury. I trusted none of my friends to come for my help in hard time. Not because I was unfaithful to them or they are not good people, but they had their own problems to deal with and life had its own betrayal games to play with them.

No. I do not blame any of my dear and near. I love my family. I love all of them. I am the culprit. I could not face them. I realized I was slipping into a dark dungeon. My smile had vanished. The pale light seemed to diminish. I sat down on the concrete slab in the shelter. It was my emotional self, reminding me of another sort of loss, a loss that I could never be able to fill; the loss of love. My beloved ones are abandoning me because I pursued a path that was deemed impossible. I saw in the dim light the distant shape of a temple. I closed my eyes and prayed. I apologized, to a God that was darkness in the pale street light, for what I had done to my family. We sometimes say sorry and hardly mean it. That was one of such moments in my life.   

I got off the bus that dropped me close to my home, in the local bus station. The rest of the distance home should be walked. But my feet stood still. There was a bus shelter nearby. I went in.

There were very few people in the bus station, as it was half past nine at night. I wanted to hold on to someone or something. I wanted to be looked at by some empathetic eye. And I found a pair of eyes at the shelter looking unfriendly at the new arrival in the limited space. Perhaps it was a beggar. I could not see in the dim light inside the shelter.

Being an artist and an art work oneself are two different things. The latter is more threatening. I felt one at that time; the portrait of a confused young man, inside a dark cubbyhole, the bus shelter, with a pale background. It was the street bulb. I was ever more visible in that picture than at any other point in time. It was confusing too. I was alone, but with a beggar who is just a patch in the darkness of the portrait. But still I was visible more than being with all those who belonged in my family, those streaks of brilliant colours.

I thought of my painting at home about the “Impossible Flight”. The pigeon that took the flight had the form of an eagle. A pigeon transformed into an eagle. “When you follow something no one else believed worth following, you will undergo tremendous transformation.” John Varghese had said.

The pale colour was also the colour of uncertainty, or that was how I fixed it in my mind. There was no such accepted notion I hear anywhere which defined the colour between yellow and white as the colour of uncertainty. It was my decision, my choice. It is ridiculous how we all cling to our obstinacy to live on when the ground below our feet skips away mercilessly. Perhaps it is life that makes us adamant. Life is a teacher that teaches thorough a series of betrayals.

John Varghese had said something else too. What Varghese said did not fit proper with any of my divided selves. It was altogether a different situation. “Transformation means resurrection too,” John Varghese had said.

So I chose.

I decided not to go back home.
{Will be continued in the next post}

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Live from London: Book Review

The essential ingredients for writing a best selling chick lit are: a feisty protagonist, some personality quirks that would essentially land her into troubles, her misadventures, and as the final nail, an exotic setting. In Live from London, you find nothing.

In this grossly irritating Indian English misadventure, the writer has pathetically failed to strike any cords with the readers. Parinda Joshi sets her story--I mean if we can presume what is described in the book a story-- in London. The novel lacks a well structured plot, good characters, fine dialogues, events that show some sort of connection with each other and anything else that can be worthy of pursuing in the process of reading a novel.

This is not due to my frustration of wasting time reading this worthless crap of a book, but rather a sort of brotherly and friendly warning to all those who decide to spend a couple of hundreds to buy this book from market and investing their precious time reading. The book costs Rs 195. And the only worth paragraph that strikes you could be seen in page number 131. The second paragraph; which goes like this: “I was devastated, I lay crying on my couch all evening. I could feel the flames from the fireplace swallowing me. Every tear brought back memories; his smile, his touch and his promises. My favourite poster of him that used to be the highlight of my desk at work was now hanging on my celery green wall. I continued to stare at it with numerous silent questions in my eyes and he looked back at me from that poster, his eyes still piercing, not saying a thing.”

The reason why I quoted the whole paragraph here is simple; it is an unwritten rule that in order to write a good book review, one should address the positive sides of the book rather than just ranting at the negatives. Here, I found myself in a predicament. The situation I was in held multisided impacts. One was the time I spent with this book. That I never am going to get back. The second concern was the positive side; there was none worth mentioning. Then this paragraph came to me like a soothing breeze. Indeed, that is the metaphor I must use for this paragraph. In the eerie sterility of the novel, this paragraph stands out with its touch of melancholy and consistency in its feel and basic idea, something that you should not expect in Live from London, a soothing breeze.   

Scenes move from paragraph to paragraph giving no hint at where and when what had happened. The novel opens with the protagonist’s failure in Britain’s Got Talent reality show. She then lands up as an intern in a music label company. There she gets into a relationship with Nick Navjot Chapman, a young Indo-Canadian singer. Due to some misunderstandings and also due to couple of other reasons Nishi Gupta, the protagonist returns to India. She starts a new career as an anchor in one of India’s biggest reality shows. Wow! I summarized the novel quite well. But do not expect half the fun if you actually intend to read the book.

The guitar that is shown in the cover page too has no crucial role in the story. Nishi plays it in the Britain’s Got Talent show and miserably fails, and at intervals the author tries to make it a point to tell us that Nishi is a guitarist, as if saying Lord Voldemort has his powers hidden in his wand.

This book reminded me of some of the best chick lits I have ever read: The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella, but only to feel lost and disappointed. 

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

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