YOU LIVE ONLY IN TIME

YOU LIVE ONLY IN TIME

by Fazal Rahman on Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 11:25pm ·

           ‘Eternal’ is fake.
            Life sans death is no life;
           ‘In time’ is the thing.

xxxxxxxxxx

Sibyl failed to ask for eternal youth.  Bad? Yes, under the circumstances. But what if she hadn't? Would it have mitigated her suffering? How would one feel being young when he/she sees his/her dear ones going the natural cycle of life from birth through childhood, youth, old age and death, getting what is due to them from time to time? The veneration of old age? The agonies and ecstasies of life? Would he/she be able to think: “oh, the lucky me! To be quiet unaffected by such ups and downs!” Would he/she feel at home with the newer generations replacing the older ones with whom he/she lived thus far? How far will one be able to put up with an on-looker status, no matter he/she looks an Adonis/Venus? In all probability he/she would sooner than later run the risk of acute depression and cry out: “Give me my normal wear tear back, give me my cross.....!Take away this aging youth from me and give me my own old age...! Give me my death...!”

They say childhood is a blissful time. Yes, when it comes when it should come. Else, it is torture. Was Benjamin Button happy, moving reverse from old age to youth to adolescence to childhood....and an innocent infantile death...? No, he suffered, suffered like hell. Those who grope in the dark alleys of memory loss, tenants of long forsaken tenements with no key, are mistakenly thought of as children reborn... But what are they? Relics of a ghost land lost in shadow worlds, fleeting images of memories pinning them down to their parched existence like nails into the wood of the cross: Santiago gasping: “Ay...!”. Caught in the twilight zone of births and rebirths, Appukkili was always restless, in communion with meanings the world of the sane was denied of. That is why he has to vanish for days and re-emerge from his keeping company for the dead, unscathed by the epidemic or the general grief over it.

Was Oskar Matzerath contented, chose as he did of his own accord, to stop growing at the age of three?  No, he fancied of watching the world of the grownups, from the detached point of view of the self-willed child, but ended up just the opposite: a child with the involved conscience of an overgrown intellectual, the ironies and absurdities of what he saw around him gnawing into his psyche, his very existence. His fate is to end up practically a genome, in a mental institution.

Life, with all its imperfections, is one stream. No theatrical standstills and resumptions, no maudlin protract ions or frozen sharp cuts, no flash backs, no fast forward gimmicks. No matter where it springs, and whereby it flows- it has to reach its confluence... in time. It’s pure Aristotle: it should have a beginning, a middle and an end. It’s a big joke. It’s very serious.

XXXX

( Sibyl of Cumae of the ancient legends, Oskar Matzerath of 'Tin Drum', Benjamin Button of the Story by Fitzgerald and the Movie, Appukkili of O V Vijayan's masterpiece, Santiago from Hemingway are remembered.)

LITTLE CHAMPS ARE NOT TERRIFIED

LITTLE CHAMPS ARE NOT TERRIFIED

by Fazal Rahman on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 6:39pm ·

          Fear is a grown-ups’ disease.
         They don’t freeze at anything:
          the little champs.


Beautiful.  Angelic.  Six months old. On a visit to his neighbors' in the arms of his beautiful mother.  My beautiful niece, short of ten by two-three years, stretches her arms to get him. But the little fellow would none of it.  Instead he kicks his legs against his mother, eying me. Stretches his little arms to me.  I am amazed at his sense of beauty, ‘excellent taste!’ as it were. You will have to wait, honey, I make aside to my niece, to reckon with him, and your charms playing on him; it’s just a matter of timing.

Chubby fingers explore the rugged contours of a face. Fiddling. His mother, herself barely out of her teens, blushes. Makes a shy excuse: “He thinks it’s (my) father...!” Possibly so. Her father, my friend, the little man's grandfather, too has of late begun to sport a beard. Little squeals, god's own language, two bright tiny stars in clear eyes.  Droplets of honey dew saliva soaking my shirt shoulders.  He has a jolly good time.

My wife finds some ice cubes to prepare soft drinks. I offer the tray to the little fellow. Chubby hands approach the tray. One touch and he pulls back, horror in face. We wait. Was it our laughing?  Or was it the elemental curiosity?  The young man brings his right hand closer to the tray again. Again the same reaction.  Repeat. This time the reaction is a little slow. A few more trials and he is home.  With both hands.

Nothing terrifies little champs for long.

He is on his way to make an important discovery. A sensation new to him. Of course he might not store it in his memory yet.  He wouldn’t name it either right now.  That would come some other time.

I recollect that immortal opening line: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice!”

My wife reprimands me: “Silly, he is not going to face anything like that!”

I know. This little champ here won't ever have to face the firing squad as such. But he too will have to face the firing squads of daily existence... in time.

SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS

SUMMER RAINS ARE FOR THATCHED ROOFS

by Fazal Rahman on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 11:16pm ·

Wanna know summer rain?
Live under a thatched roof
where it leaks in profusely.

26/04/2012

Summer rain always brought fond memories to me…memories of good old sad days. Living under the thatched roof where it leaked in profusely, it was kind of ‘catch-me-before-I- shatter’ challenge for us kids, with kitchen utensils to collect water, lest it drenched the cold mud floor. Father and mother, we could see, were worried extremely just as rain was in the air, because they were bothered about the precarious state of the less-than-moderate household, badly wanting renewed thatching which was not in their prospect to afford. But for us, with the ‘country urchins’ mindset, nothing seemed more exciting than being free to have an abandoned outing to the torrential downpour, which could put an end to the oppressive summer heat. Here again, boys had a clean edge over girls, who couldn’t even think of an out-door rain bath.

But summer rain held more prospects for us. Within the household itself, it created a kind of haven of domestic bliss. It invariably meant a gathering of all the family members to the safest corner within where the roof leaked least, probably some alley where the coconut fronds of the thatch were somewhat new. The close huddling invariably ended up in mother’s retelling some interesting stories or anecdotes out of the blue, as it were. Father was not very communicative, in the old ‘keep-aloof’ patriarchal fashion, though his love and affection for his brood was obvious for all of us to see. Mother, on the contrary, was an amazing treasure house stories, anecdotes and worldly wisdom, illiterate as she was. Moreover, she was, unlike father, not affected by any sort of skepticism, the kill-joy of a child’s world. All sort of wonderful creatures, like geniis, spirits, miracle-performing god men, and heroes of folk legends formed part of her personal mythology. Plus, she came from a renowned ancient family which could truly boast of participation in movements that decided the fate of the country. Ancestors from those worthy times often came alive in her stories. While it was raining hail and storm outside, we kids felt protected in the Noah’s ark of her wonderful tales. As it approached the meager lunch time and to go to sleep, we felt sorry to part with our wonder world. I would secretly conspire with my immediate elder sister, the ‘little big-sister’, my special favorite, to conjure up a gentle genii to lull us into sleep.

Today I wonder if mother is still ready with her stories in the other world, where her listeners are yet to find entrance. I can see father, close by, fondly mock-berating her for the ‘nonsense superstitions’ she is cramming his kids with. I can see several of my play mates, drenched in summer rain, frolicking the vales of no return.

Today, watching the rain shattering against window panes from within my concrete jungle, I miss the thatched roof. I miss the vast expanse of landscapes where puddles of water in mud holes forms little ponds to frolic in at the slightest provocation of single heavy rain, my fellow urchins to turn the clean water into a mess, … my good old sad days.

Thatched roofs are where you know rain.

MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE

MY AUTHORS SMELL KEROSENE

by Fazal Rahman on Friday, April 27, 2012 at 5:02pm ·

Down memory lane
they all smell kerosene:
my great authors.

Village ways extended to the Shornur – Nilambur railway track. Just two passenger trains every day. An occasional goods train. Practically a fine, shortest-route pedestrian path. Six kilometers north-ward and you reached the Pattikkad Rural Library. Five kilometers south-ward was the Desasevini Vayanasala, Angadippuram, which was, and still is, a very good one of the kind. One day to north, one day to south. A cherished routine, especially on holidays and vacation times. Books never tired you out, especially in those pre-television sane days.

Reaching Angadippuram Reading room by 03-30 pm had an added attraction: you are just in time for the good old radio, a rarity of the days, to chime: “Radio Srilanka” which ensued one full hour of the best-ever of Malayalam cinema songs. It was the heyday of the best cinema songs- the unforgettable -'70-s. North-ward destination had already ceased to excite me, as I graduated from Muttathu Varkey and Kottaym Pushpanath to the likes of Basheer, Vijayan, VKN and MT. Hemingway, Emily Bronte, Victor Hugo, and George Orwell, of course in translations. I seldom took Basheer, my all-time favorite, home.  His books were very small.  Instead, I would take one, a special generosity on the part of the librarian to the skinny boy with eyes to gorge the entire shelves, and read it then and there, one full hour.  Ears to the melody King, KJ Yesudas, eyes to the Sultan of story telling; heart to both. No problem, no ego clash between the two within...A boy's heart has as many rooms within as there are dear ones to accommodate. I still remember those days I read O V Vijayan's Dharmapuranam in its original version serialized in the since extinct Malayalnadu Weekly.  04-30 pm and it is back-home trot. Mind fully set on the treasure in hand, and legs agile lest you missed the 'tournament' in the fields.  Out there your team mates wouldn't understand what it was to grab the book. They wouldn't wait.

One particular day is vividly etched in my memory:  that day’s pick was Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, in Malayalam translation.  It was quite abruptly that heavy downpour broke out.  With no umbrella and no shelter in sight, there was nothing I could do about it.  Drenched completely.   It is funny now to hark back how I managed to get the book comparatively unscathed.  One of the reasons I ever felt so close to Robert Jordan, Maria and Anselmo might be this.  My mother was to comment half-mockingly: “he wouldn’t protect even his child like that..!”

Night. Time to immerse in the treasure hunt. The kerosene lamp to the left. The night is young to the wee hours. Father, awake for some primary needs, mumbles something about the lamp still burning. Again the stillness of the night.  In good company. Then, sometime into the wee hours, you fell asleep, the story-teller also at rest for the day.

Today the eye doctor diagnoses me 'bi-focal'. That's fine. Kerosene lamps are not very doctor-friendly.

My Hemingway still smells kerosene.