Verisimilitude

 I needed scores. Everyone needed it. Why wouldn't we open this diary, which as of now was at a whoopping 4683 views over 15 years, and put it out there just so that we might earn that 1 pointer in API. As they say, little strokes fell... modesty! In making the most of a rather rare opportunity that presented itself after a tiring semester, where one could sit around and chew the cud in company rather than the usual practice of gobbling lunch up and letting your rumen ferment it into dough, the three of us sat around and appraised the past few days and ruminated what mattered to whom and how in that year's cycle.

I said, "Maybe we could blog. Scores baby!" and immediately set out to find a long lost trinket in the chasms of the net. I just remembered 'kulavaazha' only to be directed to a sea of blue on botany pages and then I remembered James Joyce who pedastalled  the word to my quotidian verbal parlay, 'epiphany'. Lo and behold, my blog 'when epiphany follows every bat of the eye'. Quite epiphanic, prophetic! 

The other two hyenas guffawed and immediately swooped in to rid me of any remaining modesty; second lunch on the table; putrid flesh, 15 years old. Feast! Scrolled through the limited morsels, smacked their lips at the aggrandised content delivery, nipped at the self deprecatory tone and slurped at the superfluous didactic dandyism. Aged and pungent but still moist from the tender heart that felt writing would ease the pain of the reality of living. Liars- Teachers.

No sooner my friend gushed, "You wouldn't believe the kind of things I had written as a teen". Lunch No.3. Felt we were in a lunch loop and nothing could satiate the year long famishment of unrestrained laughter. Didn't need St. Joyce to guide the way this time. Keyed in her name and her blog was the second hit on the internet. LOL!

Our narrator for the afternoon was the third. She lapped up every bit of information as new light shed over uncharted territory. Piecing together whisps of memory, and weaving her cartographic tapestry of lands and of people she need to now better, the times gone by, what is and what was to be. She was no less than a modern Penolope. The oracle mediated the content and dramatised it for the audience. Some she chanted in choral synergy to charm the ear, the others transformed to darts in her arsenal for future sieges. 

The very first post she read aloud got all of us cracking already. It was nothing short of the pangs of a teenage heart, besought with love and vexed by the labour of the performance of it. She cried and sued dear heavens for her trials. Of how she churned a dissertation in a subject alien to her, for her lover, only to be given the cold shoulder. Of how happily ever after was just stock print material for fairytales. She blushed and asked us to stop, forced to relive her time and also to think of it through years of wisdom hence.

And it hit me, I had one blog of the exact same material. At an Orsinouique phase in life, I too had bemoaned Love's Labour's Lost. Of how I churned a dissertation in a subject alien to me, for my lover, only for her to never be satisfied with it. Of how for me too, happily ever after was just stock print material for fairytales. The uncanny resemblance it had to my friends whining caught all three of us off guard. States apart, years apart, young adult life remained the same and for us to have discovered this in unison on a lazy afternoon was in fact a rarity. 

The Oracle at her afternoon choral communion.

The Simba of hearts

Could it be possible that the kingdom Animalia hold more secrets than we thought it contained? What if animals possessed the power of reason to a level, more than what the human intellect had attributed to them till now? The documentary Christian, the Lion at World’s End/ Christian the Lion, set me thinking about how little one still knows about animals. It is not a scientists or a researcher’s account of an aberration observed in a wild animal’s usual behaviour, but is rather a warm household account of two men in the 1970’s and their experiences with a baby lion.

I was first drawn to the documentary when in the process of changing channels on the television I chanced upon a footage on animal planet which at that precise moment showed a huge lion throwing its humungous weight onto two young men standing and dressed like hippies from the 1970’s. What intrigued me was the fact that the video was neither shot in the confines of a cage nor did it hint at the location resembling anything remotely circus like. Curiously it gave the feeling that the lion and the men were in the open, and not just anywhere but in the “African Wild.”

The next shot was of an old frail looking man being interviewed in the comforts of a London home. Mr. John Rendall said that when they first bought Christian from the famous Harrod’s department store, the shop keeper was all the more relieved to have a mischievous lion cub taken off his hands. Rendall then goes on to describe animatedly their stay in London back in the 1970’s, with the feline as their pet cat.

Christian with Ace and John

This was all the introduction that I had needed and I sat stead fast through the rest of the documentary. John Rendall and Anthony Ace Bourke were travelling Australian friends who when in London happened to make an impulsive purchase from Harrod’s department store at Chelsea. Out of the odd assortment of artefacts in the store they had eyes only for a week old Lion cub. They never thought twice to christen it Christian. May be trying to pull the legs of the biblical belief of Christians being thrown to the lions as punishment. They brought up the cub in the basement of their furniture workshop incidentally named Sophosticat. Acquiring permission from a nearby church, Christian had his daily exercises and courtesy calls with local  residents at the church yard. The Lion cub soon grew up to believe it was people and a popular personality among people too. But as time passed John and Ace found it difficult to manage a rapidly growing bag of razor sharp tooth and not to mention its maintenance costs. As fate would have it an accidental visit of Virginia Mckenna and Bill Travers of the Born Free fame helped them to get in contact with renowned conservationist and biological researcher George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson from the Kora National Reserve in Kenya.

The Adamsons were successful in rehabilitating the Lioness Elsa into the wild. They agreed to look into Christian’s matter too. No sooner Ace and John flew Christian to Kenya. Christian’s initial years at Kora has been systematically videotaped. The documentary vividly shows how in trying to create the nucleus of a new pride Christian was introduced to an older male Lion ‘Boy’ and another female. He is apprehensive and defensive at first, but soon his lion instincts get the better of his domesticated London ways and he jams right in with the other wild cats. But the untimely death of Boy leaves him estranged as Ace and John leave him in the care of George and return to London.

The Rendezvous:

The following year in 1972 they flew back to meet their feline friend. Though George warns them and suggests the possibility of Christian having forgotten them, since a year had passed with Christian having not seen them, the documentary bears evidence to something else.

Atop a hill Christian catches sight of the two men. He halts, standing still. We get the distinct feeling that the creature is raking its memory to solidify wisps of long gone events from its childhood. Though apprehensive at first he soon picks up pace and charging towards them, pounces onto the shoulders of the two men. He has recognised them. Standing on his hind paws, Christian licks up every inch of their face and playfully shoves his humungous weight onto his masters.

I was moved beyond anything. It had so much of an emotional appeal that I couldn’t do without writing about it. What is most interesting is that neither was this creature ailing from some sort of a Cancer nor was it at its wits ends, to have so rapturously held my attention. More over taking cue from Christian, Lisa and Mona, two entirely wild Lionesses and a cub named Super Cub, acts as if they too had been in the caring of Ace and John, all these years. They nudge and twitch their slender tails around the two men in ardent embrace. I believe it is the extra ordinary relationship between the Lion and the two men that sets you in silent contemplation. You sit with bated breath, watching the Lion speeding towards the duo and the next moment you are filled with awe having witnessed a remarkable reunion just as Mckkenna narrates, “They sit together just to enjoy friendship without the formalities of tiresome words.” It is truly beyond any verbal articulation and you feel sorry for the three having lost a year in-between their friendship.

This remarkable story came to the limelight when a five minute video of the reunion was posted on the social networking site You tube. It was an instant hit and went on to be viewed by millions. It even premiered on the Oprah Winfrey show. The astounding complete story behind the documentary came to be known to the world through the interviews of the two owners and their experiences with the Lion. It is a must watch for all nature lovers, for the message of an imminent need to boost conservation of wildlife pervades through the whole documentary. Ever more is the bonding between nature and Man. Just as Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson said, “It reminds us that love can transcend bounds.”

JNU blues

          How little does one know of the imminent next moment. What's new in that, you may ask, but it was only yesterday that I was hit full in the face by this particular question. Having thought about it a hundred times(on varying occasions , mind you), it rendered itself eligible for careful consideration and explication. What triggered it off now? Well let's say a question in an exam paper at a tense moment in my life.

          Having completed graduation in English from the "ever so reputed" B.P.C College, I had all the time in the world to go through various institutions that I considered befitting a person of my calibere to pursue higher studies at. It shortly dawned on me that nothing less than the likes of JNU would be good and immediately set off to register for the earliest entrance exams scheduled by the University. Intend on qualifying the exams , I started studying intensely well before the exams commenced (read , 3 days).

          Came down to Trivandrum, all alone , expecting to book my ticket for New Delhi, soon after the exams. Oh! come on. I am bound to clear the entrance. The exam day was pretty much as usual as the other days with the exception that , 3 long hours had been wasted with me staring at a list of questions on a musty off white sheet of paper. Ironically the questions were easy to answer and I should confess having written more to an answer than the examiner would expect. Then surely the only thing to be evaluated was it's relevancy. As soon as I got out of the exam hall, I was sure of one thing. Delhi remained a distant dream. My reason: if the exam was easy for an average guy like me, everybody who took the exam might have fared in a similar manner. The success percentage, then would solely be determined by the in depth knowledge and vivacity a candidate was able to concoct with the perfect language he used to answer the relatively simple questions. In short I had failed, even before the answer sheets reached Delhi.

          Now this incident came back in all its moribund glory, the other day, I was going through Unni's XIIth Std. CBSE English text book. The last chapter included was titled "Aunt Jennifer' Tigers" by  Adrienne Rich.  I did not have to go through the entire poem  to realise where else I had seen the work. But then , only the short poem devoid of its heading or the author's name was in front of me. It was this same poem in Unni's text book, that was printed on the JNU entrance exam question paper followed by a series of comprehension questions. May be the poem was a famous work, but I never knew. I cursed all the benign stars. If only had I learned the poem as part of my syllabus back in 2006. It is not that having no prior knowledge of the poem hindered my answering the questions, it is just that I would have had an edge over the others , if I had learned it from a knowledgeable teacher. But then again, so would have many other CBSE products.

          Well my point is, never in my sane sense had I thought of coming across the poem , without me having gone in search of it and still there it was, mocking me from the pages of a musty old book ornately decorated with Unni's study time musings. All of you might have had similar experiences, well I just found myself in one.

For those of you who want to have a peek of the culprit who made my day, here it is:

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Trauma and sustanence

Little did i know, that helping some one could really be a pain in the ass. For the past two weeks I have had some of the worst experiences in my life. Shut up in my hostel room, seeing no mates, going out for the occasional meals to the canteen, getting to Kolan's for a smoke , frequent visits to the lavatory are all that i seem to do these days. Oh! wait that isn't all there is someone, biting me from behind, nagging me to reek my brain and spill out bloody business concepts in modified English.  For humanity's sake leave me alone. Y did I ever agree to help in doing this rubbish? Wouldn't it have been better if someone else was made to carry all this sin? But sadly that's not all, in addition to all the help you offer you still remain the despicable speck of filth in front of the party and have to fall prey to all the spite and bad remarks from that side. So it is little wonder that i should state this that I do not believe having done so much sin in my life to deserve this, and so I say enough is enough. It is nothing more than saddism, if u know what I mean, to torture a poor sole to such an extend that he should wish for bitter death more than anything else in this world. Though fights are not a rarity between us two, rather it would be more appropriate if I said peace was a rarity among us, this has gone far beyond the levels of the normal petty fights and stuff we used to have on a normal day. But what really blows me off is the fact that it is the eleventh hour and the party is more into resolving the clueless banal crisis between us two than evincing any sort of interest in wanting to complete the project on time and hand it over to the university. It is at this sort of keen desire the party shows in matters concerning us both, that I bow my head in reverence. It seems like moving on with the relation at any cost was the prime focus and all else subsidiary. Needless to say my claims for a "rupture and a redoubling", to quote Derrida, in the relation are vetoed unopposed and I'm back to being the original, meek self that I am. It is truce for the time being and all is kisses between us two, but for how long and that is the real question.

 this is a picture of me performing in the street play for pratheeksha. behind me is Sudheesh in suites. thought this would be a suitable picture for the entry

 

...err wait a moment. The party is intending on taking up PhD. I am so Dead...

A time for the others

Selflessness perpetrates the words and actions of the humanitarian elite but could it be the same with the common mongrel? I wonder how people make a fine balance between their professional and social environments when the trend is always to be entangled in the quagmire of duty than to follow what ones heart desires. It is impossible then to even think of devoting ones time to the needs and let alone fancies of other people. Yet it is this alone that happens to me almost every time in my life. Its a miracle how people can induce me to agree with them in so few words and its even much more of a mystery as to how their needs become my own sole responsibilities even before you can say "help". I believe the art of persuasion is what every body has taken a degree in and i alone a dunce in the subject. Can't expect people to take notice of your trials when their own hands are full to the brim but could it be much if one asks for a bit of consideration on say, at least a humanitarian ground. I think what this society lacks is a feeling of empathy when one could find enough and more of plain old sympathy. To be in another persons shoe and to experience what it is for him that one learns the art of tolerance but sadly in our day people detests taking on others shoes even if it meant for a few seconds. Can't blame them for these shoes might be the last place u would want to shove your feet into. Pray at least lets hope in this digital age that a scene of mercy might evince moist eyes in the beholder. The following image is uploaded in the hope that at least this will induce your eyes to moisten itself, if at all for the wrong reasons...

dream on the 14th of august 2011

early morning, cocooned like a defensive lobster.

how do u build an aquarium for the culture of sharks? Here's how:

A relatively large room is to be converted into the said tank and in the dream there was an elderly man on whose guidance all the preparations were being done. There seemed to be what looked like tiny trap doors at either end of the room at exact opposite points but the logic of water seeping through them never occurred. how could it , this is a dream. water to the tank was being pumped through this huge pipe although it required the boiling of something exceedingly viscous and oily , the duty of which was taken up by my father and me, in an adjacent room. The resultant blue ablution was pumped , rather slowly n believe me, boringly into the tank via the pipe. I distinctly remember the room having a rather inconspicuous division in the middle that sort of divided the room int exact halves. assured by someone that the whole room was to be turned into the watery world, it no longer bothered me. There were also times when papa n me got in trouble with the brewing. The viscosity seemed to harden and then loosen conditioned to over low or overheating the liquid, and to find a balance between the two seemed to be hard job. All in all the thought of being able to stand in a tank that was meant for the free movement of vicious sharks was an exhilarating one.. not to mention a dream come true.

AND THE DAY:

-was uneventful except for the contrivance of a cold.

-woke up, daily chores, sat to study(xam time dumbheads!), with no much result untill evening.

-MC, Prasun, Arun pestering around as usual.

-started studyin properly from evening onwards.

-full fledged cold, just as i was about to have my dinner.

-took steam from a water heater borrowed from arun, twice.

-in between finished two chapters of RANDAAMOOZHAM.

-slept around two in the morning with the lights on and M.C at the laptop.