To shave or not to shave?

 

Many hundreds of years ago, the fictitious Hamlet was given these famed lines to cogitate over by the bard that gave him life, Shakespeare,

 

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

 

Hamlet was agitated over his fate. And I stand agitated over the fuzz I see growing on my son’s face. So, these are lines I dedicate to all the men who think the unkempt, unshaven look makes them appear macho… or men who are just too lazy to shave!

 

To shave or not shave… that is the question…

Whether it is nobler in the face to suffer

The pricks of fuzzy growth,

Or to take arms against a sea of hair,

And by shaving end them?

 

It has become my sorrow to see my twenty-year-old son’s handsome face concealed by a hairy outcropping most days of the week. When I tell him to shave, he grunts, and it rarely gets done…

And yet, I remember a long, long time ago, when my son was three-years-old and he had lovely smooth skin, he jumped with delight to see his father shave. He wanted so much to shave on a daily basis that he tried it on his own soft cheeks… luckily we caught him before any disaster struck. I occasionally try to revive his interest in shaving by recalling this incident. But, he just walks out saying,” Mamma!” in a tone laced with embarrassment and reprimand!

My friend had better luck with her seventeen-year-old. She whispered to him that he looked like an unkempt terrorist with his fungal growth. He went to the bathroom and came back clean-shaven.

I tried the same with my son…It failed.

When he was a child, I remember reading to him from a book called the Thingummajigs Book of Manners. In that book Thingummajigs were described as creatures with beards and long hair who rarely bathed and had very bad manners. It was in verse with colourful pictures of these creatures. He even enjoyed reading it himself. And he was so convinced by the book that he used to wonder if every long haired and unshaven man was a Thingummajig. We had to keep telling him they were not.

Then, there were the Twits, created by Roald Dahl, where the husband has mice, stale food and all kinds of filthy things in his unkempt facial hirsute outcropping! A book which all of us enjoyed and I would have thought it would have impacted my son for life…to shave regularly…But in vain!

And now he talks of Movember. That has become a reason not to shave… in May?! I googled Movember…It happens only every November… Actually Movember is about growing a nice, neat, trimmed, well-shaped moustache in the month of November to “change the face of men’s health”.

I, personally, cannot empathize with a moustache either…

I, like Tennyson, would like to mourn. He mourned the loss of his friend, Arthur Hallum, and I weep for the loss of the smooth, clean cheeks of my twenty-year-old. With due apologies to Tennyson’s poetic genius, I adapt his famous concluding lines from Break, Break, Break to express the sorrow of parting with my son’s smooth cheeks…

 

Shave, shave, shave

         At the root of thy beard, O Son!

But the tender face of the past that is gone

         Will never come back to me.

 

 

Towards Driving to a Century…

What was it like to wake up the day after having crossed half a century?

Did I become wiser, greyer, more dynamic or more decrepit?

I woke up looking forward to finishing the new play on Harry Potter co-authored by JK Rowling. It was again a racy read after many days. I also reached a new high score while playing Sudoku on my ipad and started writing this piece.

Many might say what frivolous preoccupations or how childish! But, believe me, nothing could be better than tucking up with a new Harry Potter at the end of half a century of earthly existence.

And an interesting earthly existence I have had over the last half a century…

The last decade I walked the Great Wall four times, wrote and published my first book, fought with publishers (a number of them), decided I preferred being labeled a mom and wife to all things. By thirty, I was a first time mom and by forty, I had two kids. Thirty to forty was a great decade…went frolicking with my twosome and did things with them, for them and appreciated handiwork by them. I tried being a democratic and docile parent and my sons appreciated it by telling me I had the makings of a great dictator! The thing is most kids would not tell their mother that they were like dictators. Mine could, did and still do!

Twenty to thirty was the period I fell in love. What could be more enticing! I also published poetry and many pieces of somewhat immature writing in newspapers, quit journalism in disgust…went to universities, did theatre, travelled on university funding (a profoundly happy experience). Ten to twenty…I grew up…climbed trees, broke rules, had fun, almost got kidnapped once, fell down a number of times, fought with people, made some fabulous long lasting friends who never forget to greet me on my birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Zero to ten… I dreamt, sang (a trifle off scale) sitting on trees with my best friend (who sang more out of tune than me), danced, played games and pranks, fought and generally thought I would turn into a blonde-blue eyed princess when I grew up.

I definitely did not turn blonde unless you can refer to my silver grey hair (which I dye dark) as ash blonde…and my eyes remained a steady brown but I lived my life the way I wanted, the way I thought was right, with personal integrity. I lived out my dreams…a trifle differently perhaps… always wanted to write a book on China and did.

I keep writing … have done that from grade three. I miss writing when I don’t the way you miss a favourite TV show.

Now, as I browse over the old Harry Potters and write about the magical completion of my fiftieth year, I wonder if Nicholas Flamel of Philosopher Stone fame felt as I do. Did he also think that fifty was the start of life? Did he want to learn on at fifty? After all …. I just feel I am at the brink of life in its prime. In some Asimov’s, there are people that are a few hundred years old. So, fifty is really sixteen for them! Even in Hobbits, adulthood starts very late in years compared to our current society. So, life does start at fifty and learning an essential skill at that age is just great! The essential skill that I talk of is driving!

One of the reasons I do not possess a valid driving license is that driving instructors do not quiet appreciate my skills. I am very considerate. I was one of those people who stopped in the middle of a road (in the training school) when I saw a trainee driver driving in front of me. I merely gave way to a newcomer. My instructor mistook my consideration for panic!! He assured me what others achieved in five lessons, I would not achieve in fifteen. He did not appreciate my concerns about the other driver’s nerves.

Obviously, the instructor did not know my father used to get jumpy when I drove at eighteen. I had a valid driving license then. And somewhere along the way it expired and I had my husband to drive me…Finally, when I went for a refresher course, my instructor lacked the necessary attitude to teach me! Then, because I was expecting a baby, the doctor banned me from driving. I think I saw my instructor heave a sigh of relief when I gave him the news. Then, we moved to China where we were not allowed to drive but were given a chauffeur driven vehicle 24/7. Being docile and obedient by nature, I was happy to comply!

The joys of being driven is great! You never need to know the way to anywhere. You do not need to know left from right. This has always been a challenge for me. My husband has his first ride on the bike with me indelibly etched on his memory… He was driving and I was directing. I was saying right and pointing left. He figured out early in life left could be right and right could be right too. And left could be left or right. After all these are all names. And as Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose


By any other name would smell as sweet.

My husband had it all figured out then itself…. more than twenty-six years ago….before we tied the knot.

He used his common sense. There was no right turn and he turned into the only available turning, which was on the left.

Now that I am out of China, I have resorted to taking cabs when I go out on my own. I figured out cab drivers are not familiar with Shakespeare. The problem with cab drivers is that they ask for directions and get angry when you give them your own directions. They seem to lose their calm if you say left instead of right. They get even angrier if you mix up names of places and roads!

It has come to a point where I am thinking of self-reliance as an option. What better age to start at than my present one … fantastic, fabulous fifty!

Surely, despite automatic self-driven cars, my newly acquired driving skills will be well honed by the time I hit a century!

 

 

 

Travel

Camels in Cambodia

Believe me, I did not see any camels in Cambodia and I did not go to look for camels. After we returned from our trip to Siem Reap in Cambodia, somebody told us we should have bought black peppers from there as the country is famous for this spice. We did not buy black peppers either.

Then people will wonder, what did we do in Cambodia? We sunned our bodies in ancient buildings that housed history more than a thousand years ago. We went to see Angkor Wat and saw a whole bunch of very unique things and had unique experiences, including very severe traveller’s diarrhea.

We were received at the airport by a driver who made a deal that he would take us around during our stay in Cambodia. He had been sent by the hotel.

The first day we wanted to see a unique site at Phnom Kulen , a little mountain just outside Siem Reap. They had underwater carvings of deities and the Shiva linga dating back to about 802 CE, when Jayavarman II founded the kingdom of Kambuja. First, we had to buy tickets priced at US$20 each at a ticketing office in town.

Here I must make a minor diversion to clarify that in Siem Reap, in the true spirit of internationalism, local people prefer using US dollars to the Cambodian riel. When I asked our driver why people prefer the USD, he explained that as 1 USD was equal to 4000 riels, it was more practical to do transactions in USD. The interesting thing was the transactions were always in terms of dollars and never in terms of cents. For example, the driver charged us US$100 for a trip to Phnom Kulen. Lunch cost us another US$48… never a transaction in cents or riel. This was really an interesting phenomenon in context of the current revival of nationalistic fervour among the voters for Brexit and the trumpeting of Trumpian followers.

To get back on track to Phnom Kulen, we traversed dusty uphill roads. The dust was orangish-red in colour. The driver told us he needed to turn off the air conditioning to make it up the path. The ride was like a roller coaster ride through hills and dales of untouched roads where modern machinery had not dared to trample. I felt like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft out on a new adventure!

We parked on a riverbed and walked to the Siem Reap river where we saw ancient carvings. Some of it was very clear and some, we could not figure out…

A few urchins followed us from the parking area. They were evidently trying to earn a few US dollars for their families. They were too poor to attend free schools provided by the government and had to try to supplement the family income otherwise they would starve, the driver told us. They need to work so that the families can eat! We gave them a dollar for photographing our whole family. They did a great job and were very enthused. They followed us uphill to the Buddha temple that had been built by later Buddhist kings. They looked after our shoes when we went to the temple and earned a few more US dollars.

It was interesting to see the way Buddhism had mingled with Hinduism here and had paved the way for a strange new set of myths. I read that the Hinduism that they followed in ancient Cambodia was tinged further by their local religious beliefs! Below the Buddhist temple on the hill was a statue of an apsara ( a heavenly maiden) drying the ocean with her hair to save drowned sailors . A Shiva linga stood next to it. And upstairs was a huge reclining Buddha. You could see a man taking care of the linga and a Buddhist monk praying and blessing people beside him. It was truly wonderful to see this harmonious existence of different religions.

After the temple, we went to the waterfalls. The water was cool, fresh and untamed. You could see nature at it’s best. Many local families could be seen picnicking there. We returned by a road built by Koreans for the locals. It was a great, smooth ride.

That evening, we went for the Apsara dance show at the Kulen 2 restaurant in Siem Reap. We had to give the hotel US$18 per head to get us tickets the day before. One thing I did learn in Cambodia was you could never make unplanned trips. Everything that savoured of local flavour was done against booking and tickets. The music and dance performances were interesting and the buffet the most sumptuous I saw in Cambodia.

The next day, we were to go our dream destination…the legendary Angkor Wat. Our driver picked us up by 9 am and we went to another ticket office. This time, the driver told all of us to disembark, as other than paying US$20 per ticket, we needed to have individual photographs on them! The tickets had our photos printed on them. I have never had a ticket with my photograph on it! The driver informed us that they did this so that we would not share the ticket with a friend…. not that we had one there… only the person with a picture on the ticket could explore the temples! And mind you there were security guards all along who checked and rechecked our tickets against our faces!

We could use this one ticket to visit all the temples in the Angkor region. We were told there were more than a thousand temples in Siem Reap alone. We made it to just three.

Angkor Wat looked fabulous from a distance but the carvings and the staircases were really worn out. It was made with rocks from Phnom Kulen. Because the rocks were porous, the carvings had partially eroded. I had seen the carvings in Ajanta and Ellora in India, temples and caves carved out of rock faces of mountains, and the carvings had stayed with me. Those were sixth century CE and older. The carvings at Angkor Wat were relatively new but were more worn out.

The temple also housed the mausoleum of Suryavarman II, the king who had the temple built in dedication to Vishnu.  The grave was covered with rocks placed over it like a pyramid. There were no inscriptions in English or any other language explaining the history of the temple. So, one really had to depend on a guide. We had a guide who left much to be desired. He was found by our driver and gave us an amazing interpretation of Hindu lore, told us how violent Buddhist rulers defaced the Hindu statues of Vishnu and Lakshmi, which in itself was an oxymoron as Buddhism is a religion of peace, love and kindness. He told us that the building was being restored by Germans and had been found by French. This sounded closer to what guide books said. Angkor Wat had been found by the botanist, Henri Mouhot, in the nineteenth century, though recently his role has come under flak. And a German team had been working on some of the bas relief structures. One of the libraries had been restored by Japan in 2005.

The next temple we visited was Ta Prohm. This was a welcome surprise! It had trees growing out of the building. The temple popularly is called the Tree temple and is dedicated to the tree spirits, the driver told us. However, when I googled, I found the temple was built by Jayavarman VII in 1186 AD and called Rajavihara. It was a Buddhist monastery. The restoration of this temple is being carried out by the Indian government. Ta Prohm, literally means ‘ancestor Brahma’.

This was an amazing temple with trees and a wild magnificence! It was so spectacular that it had been used to film Lara Croft and the Tomb Raiders. So, in a way I was reliving Lara Croft adventures as I had felt in Pnomh Kulen.

A group of musicians playing local instruments performed in the open, near the gate of Ta Prohm. They had a notice that said that these were all land mine victims trying to earn a living without begging. We had earlier seen land mine victims on the stairs of Phnom Kulen Temple. It was sad to see able-bodied men unable to eke out a decent living because soldiers dropped land mines all over half a century ago. I wonder why the men who made and sold the mines could not find a way of de mining the rice fields of Cambodia and Vietnam and making it safe for farmers. Maybe, because there are no camels and too many monkeys in Cambodia.

We saw a monkey snatch a packet of bananas from a tourist’s hand in the grounds of Angkor Wat . The couple were trying to get it back from the monkey in vain. Our macho temple guide, we discovered, was good at dealing with monkeys even if not too sound on historical matters. He jumped to the rescue! He chased away the monkey and restored the bananas to the young blonde couple, who started to munch on it.

The last temple we visited was in Angkor Thom. It had huge elephant carvings, which were again very worn out. The city of Angkor Thom was a huge complex built by Jayavarman VII. Unfortunately, the whole city was in ruins, except for the fabulous Bayon temple with it’s giant faces of the Bodhisattva towering over the horizon. The Bayon temple with it’s unique and striking architecture is being restored by Japan.

One of the things we found in common is very few sculptures were whole within the temples and the city ramparts. They were mostly missing heads. We did locate the missing heads in the Angkor museum the next day. Again we needed tickets but this time without photographs…the ones with pictures were only for temple visits!

The Angkor museum with it’s audio-visual displays did a great job in explaining what history of the region has been unearthed. A lot still needs to be done.

We had an amazing four-day experience.

Siem Reap was unique in many ways. They used dollars instead of local currency. We could never just drop into any historic place…tickets and official guides needed to be pre-booked. Local people were very laid back and accepted whatever came their way. They had hammocks outside homes, restaurants and shops so that they could take an afternoon siesta…we discovered our driver in one of these one day. I could be paying more than the price even if I bargained. I had a unique experience while buying a temple guide book from a local vendor. Our temple guide, the one who chased away monkeys for tourists, looked on as the whole transaction was carried out. The vendor started by telling me to to pay US$ 28 for the book.  To get rid of him, I said US$10. He agreed, but because I did not buy the book, still kept chasing us. Finally, my husband bought the book at US$10. Then we saw the same book being sold for US$5 at the back gate of Angkor Wat and for US$1 at Ta Prohm!

When it came to shopping, we were taken to very high-end emporiums. A packet of candles that cost S$2.50 in Singapore were being sold at US$ 25 there. The only justification was that the candles were made by handicapped people. Finally, we did our shopping in the Night Market, where bargaining is the only law. Buying souvenirs in Siem Reap was an exhausting experience…both for our pockets and our stamina!

As long as we explored the ancient temples, we did not feel the need for camels in Cambodia. But when it came to shopping, or listening to our guides, or avoiding stomach issues, a long camel ride out of adventure land avoiding all monkey antics would have been what perhaps Lara Croft would have done. And then, of course, she would take a warp speed plane back to the Brexit land of Britain.

 

On the Fatness of Being

Over the years, I have collected a wealth of wisdom, which has translated itself into layers of adipose that rest on my formerly frail frame, gently insulating me from low temperatures and hard surfaces. People envy me my layers of adipose for whenever I walk into shops, salesgirls come forward with slimming teas and creams. I find their behaviour a trifle peculiar as they try to persuade me to get rid of the layers of carefully nurtured wisdom. It is the same wisdom you can see in the laughing Buddha, the symbol of happiness and contentment.

One of the things that most people nowadays find difficult to comprehend is that necessarily a well-proportioned individual may not be a sick individual. They take it for granted that everyone needs to be of a certain weight-height ratio…something they call the Body Mass Index. This is all a matter of statistics. I used to fall sick every month when I had a slim and svelte figure…twenty years and two kids down the lane, my weight has almost doubled but I rarely fall sick. Earlier, doctors called me underweight. Now, they call me overweight. Will they ever be satisfied?

Recently, a friend who is slim and was an exercise freak had a major bypass. She had shooting chest pains. And, now, she is not allowed to exercise or travel or eat as she likes despite her lack of adipose. Whereas I am allowed to exercise (or not exercise as a matter of choice), travel and eat what I like despite my layers of wisdom. Doctors keep nagging but it is their nature to nag, exercise and diet. I have heard of a few cases where people died while exercising and some even developed anorexia nervosa while dieting.

I do not want to take risks and feel happy the way I am. I want a long life to enjoy the wonders of the universe. I want to read all the fascinating books I find around me. I want to travel to different places…Egypt…on camel back to the pyramids; Easter Island…to stand in the middle of the circle of rocks like an ancient druid and feel the rays of the rising sun bathe my portly being; the golden fort of Jaisalmer …on camel back again wearing a ghagra like a Rajasthani princess. Here, I must pause to let people know that riding on a camel back is not a hobby as you might think. Camel rides are bumpy and, as I learnt from my experiences in China and India, these creatures can make you feel your innards are all dislocated when they start to jog or run. Never underestimate a camel!

The reason I want to be on a camel is to savour the flavour of the locale.

One of the major advantages of accepting my ample proportions and not fearing life-threatening illnesses is that I can enjoy the world around me. If I go for a walk, it is to enjoy the good weather or the scenery around me. If I see a butterfly or an exquisite sunrise, I feel relaxed. When I hear waves lapping or the breeze whispering through trees, it is like soothing music to my ears. The span of a human life is less than a dot in the lifespan of the universe. Is it worthwhile to spend ones life worrying over our BMI or fearing illnesses?

I wonder if Shakespeare, Tagore or Khayyam ever jogged for fitness or worried about their BMI index. Yet they have left behind a heritage of writing which trancends their lives and times. They have eternalised their existence in the history of mankind.  Shakespeare lived a little over half a century. The other two were octogenarians. Reading their works makes me happy and content.

Finding happiness to me has become synonymous with enjoying the wonders of the universe, including my family and children and mankind’s fantastic existence. I want to live life to the full. Perhaps this quatrain of Khayyam’s best sums up my stance towards the fatness of being…

 

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring,

The Winter Garment of Repentance fling

The Bird of Time has but a little way 

To fly — and Lo! the Bird is on it’s Wing.

 

 

 

 

 

Book of the Week

 

Title: 41 Stories by O. Henry
Author: O. Henry

O. Henry is the pen name of William Sydney Porter(1862-1910). His first collection of short stories appeared in 1904. He continues to be one of the greatest short story writers of the world in my opinion. He could find the extraordinary in the ordinariness of everyday life and bring out the excellence of common men from different cultures who had come to seek a new life in America.

One of my favourites, The Last Leaf, is the story of how an old, unknown artist,  Behrman, painted a leaf on a tree to perfection to give hope to his young tenant, Johnsy.  Behrman rented rooms to Sue and Johnsy. Sue and Johnsy were poor artists too. All of them, including the old man, looked foward to painting a masterpiece at some point. In winter, Johnsy developed pneumonia. She felt hopeless and thought she would die when the last leaf fell from the ivy that clung to the wall outside her window. When old  Behrman heard this story from Sue, he stayed out all night to paint a leaf on the wall that would not fall. It was a wet, cold night.  Behrman caught pneumonia and died while Johnsy, seeing the painted last leaf survive regained hope and recovered. And as Sue tells Johnsy of Behrman’s demise, she says

 …look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it’s Behrman’s masterpiece — he painted it on the night that last leaf fell.

The story is poignant and beautiful. It reminds me of St Valentine’s life. When he was imprisoned to be executed for being a christian, he healed his jailer’s  blind daughter. He did for others out of kindness as did Behrman, who on the surface, pretended to be gruff and harsh.

In O.Henry’s best known story, Gift of the Magi, Jim and Della sell each other’s most precious possessions to buy a gift for each other on christmas! Jim sells his ancestral gold watch and Della her beautiful tresses. Jim buys tortoise shell combs for Della’s hair and Della buys a platinum chain for the watch. It is again a very touching story. And just as you feel your heart fill with warmth towards Jim and Della, O.Henry writes,

Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they( Jim and Della) are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

And, in one sense, they are because they value love and giving over their own possessions, a rare gift in today’s world.

Some of O. Henry’s stories are really witty and funny like The Princess and the Puma and Hostages to Momus. The Princess and the Puma is a story about early American settlers in Texas. The princess, a wealthy girl of mixed origins, and tough, is not taken in by a quick witted ranger’s glib tongue but plays along with him. Hostages to Momus is a story about two conmen who feed and feast theIr hostage only to discover he cannot afford the ransom.

Each one of the forty  stories has a surprise ending and is really endearing. The stories explore and unify the diversity of cultures that existed in one land with their irony, humor and empathy towards human nature.

They bring out the best in human nature as does the celebration of diverse festivals (Chinese New Year, Valentine’s day, Family day, Basant Panchami and Saraswati Puja) all over the globe this weekend. 41 Stories by O. Henry reiterates the spirit of giving, kindness, humaneness and multi-cultural coexistence in our one world as do these festivals with their celebration of happiness, spring, wisdom, prosperity and goodness.

Book of the Week

 

Title: Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Author: Jules Verne

Published in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre in 1864, Journey to the Centre of the Earth first appeared in English in 1871. Since then, there have been a number of translations and movies made of the original.

I have loved this story from my childhood for the uniqueness of the adventurer. Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew, Axel, and guide, Hans, journey to the centre of a volcano in Iceland in the footsteps of Arne Saknussemm, a fictitious, famous alchemist of the sixteenth century. Saknussemm claimed to have discovered the passage to the centre of the Earth through an extinct volcano in Iceland called Snaefellsjokull. Lidenbrock deciphers his writing in the ancient runic script and follows in his footsteps with Alex and Hans.

They discover a fantastic world. The interior of the earth seems to be lighted up by strange electrical impulses and has brown coloured vegetation( explained by lack of sunlight), streams, caves and an ocean. They discover bones of dead animals, mummies, strange plants and prehistoric fishes, some of which are eyeless. They sail on a raft in an underground ocean, watch dinosaurs battle and run away from a twelve-foot giant grazing a herd of mastodons. The spirit of the book is one of hope and adventure. While they ride on a raft of mummified wood on a hot solution of water and magma in hope of exiting the volcano by being thrown out with an eruption, Alex thinks they will surely die. The professor remains eternally hopeful. He says:

As long as this heart goes on beating, I can’t admit that any creature endowed with will-power should ever despair. 

The Professor is an eternal optimist who lives for his dreams. He does not pursue wealth or power as an end.

The three of them finally exit through Stromboli in Italy, thrown out by an eruption.

The book has an unusual and gripping storyline. There are some home truths that are spelt out by Professor Lidenbrock very well. Here is a sample I really liked.

Science, my boy, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.

This is a perspective that is borne true by discoveries made by greats like Steven Hawkins even today. That truth is a perception at a given point of time of a reality as perceived by a person and is mutable, that there are no black and whites in real life is so well borne out by this observation made by the professor.

We have had a number of Hollywood productions on this book and on this theme. I remember watching another movie called The Core. This had a journey to the centre of the Earth as well for different reasons. The scientists ride on a vehicle with a giant drill that  bores through the Earth to it’s centre as the planet has stopped spinning. People are dying and the weather is turning violent. A team, dedicated to help mankind, journey to the centre to help restart the spinning. The centre of the Earth is shown to be made of magma and is very hot. Some of the team die while trying to do the job. It is rather bleak.

Verne’s novel is less obvious, more gripping and less gory. Both the storylines had to do with courage and heroism. But, I found Verne’s story more appealing for it’s sense of values, creativity and adventure. It had a more imaginative approach and a sense of fun. If I were to reread the book or rewatch the movie I would select the book, Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

 

 

 

Book of the week

 

 

Title: Man and Superman and Three Other Plays
Playwright: George Bernard Shaw(1856- 1950)

 

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world,” stated George Bernard Shaw. That is exactly what he does in all his writing…tell the truth as he perceives it. And most of it is really funny.

In Man and Superman, you have a writer of The Revolutionists Handbook and probably Shaw’s mouthpiece, John Tanner; a woman full of vitality who is in pursuit of a husband, Ann, and a bunch of English ladies and gentlemen with a couple of Americans, French and Spanish thrown in. Tanner has been appointed a guardian of Ann and her sister by her father, who has just passed on. He tries to rebel and run away from Ann. She is bent on marrying him.

Tanner, a believer in Life Force, sets out on his motor with his driver and ends up getting kidnapped by a brigand, Mendoza, who talks of working in office hours, socialism and his love with a passion. Mendoza, an ex-savoy waiter, has become a socialist kidnapper after being disappointed in love. He and his gang have Robin Hood-like pretensions. They rob rich motorists (as only the rich could afford cars at the turn of the nineteenth century when this play was written) and give to the poor, they say… They do not use guns or knives but throw nails on the roads and puncture the tyres. Then they capture the motorists and demand a ransom.

Ann follows literally in another car and they are rescued by soldiers. Tanner rescues Mendoza from the law by claiming that the troop of brigands are his companions, which in a sense thet are as they are all socialists at heart. Ann finally wheedles Tanner to marry her.

The most interesting part of this play in my opinion is the time Tanner spends with Mendoza as his captive. The dialogues and situation are witty and hilarious. Mendoza is a philosopher of sorts as are his crew,which includes anarchists and social democrats. Mendoza is also a poet who bores the party to sleep with his love poetry, literally. They all have a strange, allegorical dream of afterlife in hell. The Devil resembles Mendoza and is a lover of fine life. He has walked out of heaven voluntarily. The other characters in the dream are Don Juan, who resembles Tanner, The Statue, who resembles Ann’s father and Ana, who resembles Ann.

The Statue, who has been designated to heaven has taken a transfer to hell as he finds heaven tedious. Don Juan, bored by the pursuit of fine life in Earth and hell, is thinking of a transfer to heaven, which is filled with uninteresting philosophical people. Don Juan thinks the pleasures are a mirage. He is more interested in pursuing the contemplation of Life Force, the passion which drives men. Most people who are contemplative prefer heaven. Ana, who has just died and been sent to Hell wants to go to heaven as she feels it is virtuous to do so and ultimately in quest for the right father for the Superman. The concept of Life Force and Superman as opposed to an erring, fallible man are discussed in the dream sequence. Tanner also observes;

“That(art, culture etc) is the family secret of the governing caste; and if we who are of that caste aimed at more Life for the world instead of more power and luxury for our miserable selves, that secret would make us great.”

Written more than a century ago, I think this observation is valid in the present day context too.

The other three plays, Mrs Warren’s Profession, Candida and Devil’s Disciple are shorter, very Shavian in their perceptions and humour. Each one has a protagonist who perceives the world a little differently from others, who looks beyond money, culture and art to something more vital. Each of these characters are unconventional in their thought process and bring out the decadence of certain social norms.

Mrs Warren’s Profession is to do with prostitution, Candida with middle class morality and romance, Devil’s disciple, set during the American War of Independence, is to do with a man’s sudden discovery of goodness and leadership in himself…if I may, I would like to say getting in touch with the Superman in himself.

My favourite out of these four is Man and Superman. I find the banter between Tanner and the other characters really amusing and interesting.

Shaw is perhaps best known for his play Pygmalion, which was made into My Fair Lady, a hollywood classic with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925 and the academy award for best screenplay( for My Fair Lady) in 1938.

Perhaps, a revival of his values and thought process might make this world a happier place to live in… His plays are like sunshine, witty, bright, cheerful, warm, honest and happy…a wonderful read for all and sundry.

On Nearing Fifty…

I have started pondering over my life as I head for the completion of half-a-century of my earthly existence. Do I reminiscence … look back in time?

I do miss my childhood a little bit…. But, at some point, I got stuck on the age of sixteen. My eleven-and-a-half-year-old son told me I was more like an eleven-year-old. My irritated neighbour in China once told me I behaved like a twelve-year-old. I myself prefer sixteen as the sweetest of all ages because that is when between the threshold of childhood and adulthood, life holds out maximum possibilities. One has not pinned down on what exactly one wants to do in life but one is getting there. One looks and feels energetic and beautiful. One feels like an empress who can conquer the whole world. There is nothing to lose by expressing oneself as one is. At the threshold of fifty, I feel pretty much the same.

Life with it’s endless possibilities is starting out for me again. My children are growing up into independent young men. I look forward to their future and revel in it. My eighteen-year-old is now like a friend. I can talk politics, literature, history, discovery and exploration with him. My husband started out as a good friend and continues through life as my closest one. I am like an empress in a household of geeky men who cannot manage without me. I pretty much feel as I did at sixteen, tyrannical and beautiful…give or take forty odd kilos of weight added on to me through my years of wisdom and truth.

The whole world is open to me. I can go where I please once my younger son is a little older. Right now, I travel vicariously with Marco Polo and with Captain Nemo. I read and dream without having the necessity to worry about my future. The three men in my life worry about theirs and mine too ! So, I live in the moment and carpe diem.

I am not in fact sure if I do want to travel physically to all the most scenic spots in the world as the plumbing and the hotels may not meet up to my stringent standards. For instance, Easter Island looks most inviting with it’s bare elemental beauty and the fantastic rock formations, yet the hotels seem more like seaside resorts by the beach. I know some do not have air conditioning. While some travellers wrote that they found a volcanic rock jutting out in the middle of their room exciting, I prefer to relish such things outdoor. I have dust allergy, need clean air and air-conditioning to be comfortable every night. So, such an excursion may not be my cup of tea.

I would love to go to the Antarctica base and shake the staid penguins’ hands/ wings. However, I would not want face the bone-chilling cold. I would love to travel in space but I do not want to travel for more than a few hours. So, travelling vicariously does very well for me.

I have developed a bad left knee that would not be an asset if I wanted to go to Machu Picchu or travel on camel back across the Egyptian sands to visit Tutankhamen’s fabulous tomb. There are so many places I would love to visit and see. I wish teleporting like in Star Trek were a reality. Then, I could visit all the fabulous places of the world from the comfort of my home.

I can eat what I like… Of course doctors tell you otherwise, but the ultimate choice is mine. When I was a child, my mother used to force me to down an egg, toast, fruits and milk at the start of each sunshiny school day. Now, I am free to eat what I like…black coffee at breakfast each day…and a sweet biscuit or a chocolate with it. I can try different kinds of cheeses on my toast and eat no fruit and eggs at breakfast!

Doctors would call me obese but I would call myself mature and plump. My doctor told me I had misused my knee…it is getting better with a herbal supplement that my elder son picked up at the supermarket, Shallaki or Boswellia. Maybe, I will do the steep ascent of Machu Picchu after all… Of course a good hotel near at hand is a must.

My threesome are very keen to visit and spend a few days in the Kruger National Park in South Africa. I am not. Some of our friends went there and hobnobbed with monkeys and foxes and whatnots at breakfast, lunch and dinner. My brother-in-law who lives nearby in Johannesburg found a lion lounging in a bathroom in Kruger Park. As animals are not my favorite creatures and I do not fancy dancing with elephants, I would prefer not to live inside the park…

The best part of closing in on fifty will be that I will get closer to sixty than I have ever been. I really want to hit sixty because a fortune teller in China told me I will be very happy and attain great things in the sixtieth year of my existence. Could it be success as an author or grandchildren or would I be thrilled to turn a silver blonde and leave my hair undyed? Which would it be? After all, hairdressers are the only people who ask me if I am thirty something! I can never explain to them I am sixteen at heart and forty-nine in real years…

I am sure an elephant in Kruger National Park would understand!

Short Story

The Fortune Teller

Rhonda was dark, beautiful and svelte with a perfect hourglass figure. She had it all…health, wealth and vigour. She was a glamorous divorcee with a passion for gambling. Casinos were her undoing and the undoing of her brief, childless marriage. Her alimony was swallowed… She was falling into a debt … She had to think of a way to make quick money. She had taken loans from her coterie of friends, mortgaged her car and apartment but the casino kept guzzling all the money she poured in. Rhonda was at the end of her tether. Now banks and people expected her to return the loans. But the money never came back to her, so repayment was becoming a major issue. She didnot want to end up in a debtor’s prison.

Rhonda approached the casino owner, Mark, with the hope he would give her a job. After all she had poured all her money into his concern. On the contrary, Mark had nothing for her except harsh words. ” If you do not have enough money, you cannot play. I will be forced to throw you out.” Rhonda left disappointed. It was becoming difficult for her to continue among the jet set of the town. She still had a few friends among feminists who felt the men had been unjust to Rhonda and treated her badly because they considered women inferior.

One day Rhonda went to a charity fun fair organised by one of her wealthy feminist cronies. As she walked around desolately, she came across a stall marked, ” Madame Stella… The fortune teller”. Madam Stella would tell her client’s future against a small donation. Rhonda watched her. She would mumble something and touch a crystal ball which would become cloudy and then she would peer in it and in a hoarse voice, describe a brilliant future for all her customers. As the fair wound up, Rhonda discovered the ball was one of those rigged up gadgets that functioned with batteries and Madame Stella was no other than Minerva of the jet set gang.

This gave Rhonda an idea. She could be a fortune teller. People liked to have their futures foretold. But, who would be her clientele? The rich and the famous, the jet set gang. Rhonda had seen poor men read fortunes for a pittance in villages in India. She recalled the fortune teller, who charged Rs1,000 in a five star resort but said nothing concrete, and the village palm reader, who charged only Rs 2 in a little fair adjoining the five star resort, but gave a fairly accurate reading. A fortune teller from a village was what she needed to get started.

The only hitch was she needed capital. Where could she get capital? She had the answer immediately…from charity fairs/ events, like the one in which she had seen Minerva taking on the role of a fortune teller. She knew the women who raised funds and what they looked for. So, she launched out as a non-government organisation(NGO). She prepared her case that a neighbouring village needed money for development. They needed to start schools, dispensaries and welfare homes for abused women. The village she used was that of her housekeeper, Radha. It was not difficult. Radha, a well-respected member of her village community, helped her approach the village elders. From there, Rhonda got all the statistics and made a report.

Then, she went to her feminist friend who organised charities, Anita. ” I have come with a proposal,” Rhonda said.” In my housekeeper’s village, people are very poor. They need schools, dispensaries and a welfare organisation for abused women. I have a report here based on a study conducted by the panchayats. They need money. Perhaps, you can help me fund raise for them.”

Anita was ever ready to help the needy. Stories of poverty and deprivation, especially among women, brought tears to her eyes. From the next fund raiser she organised, a large chunk went to the needy in Radha’s village. The cheque was handed to Rhonda and the village chief. Rhonda had opened a special account for the village development fund. She was the director of the organisation she had set up to help the villagers. Radha was the secretary and the village chief was the treasurer. They needed money to invest in resources. The director and the treasurer drew money from the account to invest in these resources. Rhonda ‘borrowed’ from the money she had withdrawn to pay back the loan sharks partly. It silenced them temporarily. The treasurer used his money to buy a brand new car. A transport was a must to travel between the town and the village and also along the bumpy roads within the community to visit the homes of the needy.

Rhonda used the rest of the money to buy software and advertisement space on Facebook. She set up an account. She found Manik, a young astrologer from Radha’s village. Manik moved into her home. He lived in a room adjoining Radha’s. He read fortunes from the birth dates and details of clients Rhonda provided. She paid him a salary of Rs 10,000 and sent him for driving lessons. He was thrilled with the package! This was the start of manpower development!

Rhonda had started her business…foretelling the client’s future, for only $50/ per case. Each US dollar is more than sixty Indian rupees. So, Manik’s monthly salary was about US$160. Rhonda made a huge profit because in the first month itself, she serviced at least a hundred people. Once Rhonda had the ready money, she repaid all her loans.

As her ‘business’ prospered, she had excess cash. More and more people wanted to have their futures foretold. They wanted to feel safe. Rhonda gave them what they wanted. Manik did some amount of fortune telling with the birthdate and time sent online by the client to Rhonda’s website. The rest Rhonda couched in language that made it imperative for her client to continue. She would write;”I am surprised how perfect the timing is. The next two months are really crucial to your success and, with my guidance, you could really achieve your target. I am shocked at the perfect timing of your coming together with me.” And then, there would be another form to fill and the money to be paid. If people wanted more in depth guidance and for a longer time, they would need to pay more money. The ‘business’ had really taken off.

Rhonda was now rich again. This time, instead of playing in the casino, she decided to buy one. She started with a small one and expanded till it became one of the most popular casino-cum-hotels. Manik’s salary went up. He lived in the hotel now.

Rhonda soon started a chain of casinos and hotels. She employed many people. Her casinos were doing so well that now Mark wanted to take her on as a partner. He admitted he had misjudged her.

Rhonda’s fortune telling website had become a big hit too. Politicians, diplomats, actors, actresses and a bunch of other ‘successful’ people used her services to achieve more success. No one is more insecure than the rich and famous. They are always threatened with the fear of becoming less rich and famous. They need the best money can buy to maintain their status. Being Rhonda’s client soon became a status symbol. People began offering more money to her to have their future fortold. Manik had a few understudies now.

From a socialite butterfly who could never hold onto money, Rhonda became a business magnate to be reckoned with. She also continued her work as an NGO. Many more abused women were being encouraged to lead separate lives, away from their husbands’ and in-laws’ unreasonable demands. Some of them were trained to work in the five star resort, club and casino opened in the village by Rhonda. Electric supply, water supply, internet and roads to the village had improved as more of the rich, powerful and jet set drove into Rhonda’s latest resort in the village. The villagers found jobs in the casino as support staff. Some of them learnt about fine wining and some about fine dining and others helped with the gambling in the casino. The strongmen became bouncers who threw out drunks and insolvents. Rhonda had indeed developed the village, provided employment by opening a casino cum hotel cum health resort in the most scenic spot of the village. She had even started a school which not only taught unlettered youngsters but also organised lessons with a view to train up the future employees of her resort.

The Feminine magazine set her up as a role model for younger women. They gave her the award for the entrepreneur of the year.

Recently, I read in a newspaper, Rhonda was planning to run for the chief ministership of the state!

The Conundrum

The Democrat

God opened a new factory…one for making labels.

His worker asked ,”Why have you opened this factory? What is it you want to establish? Most companies make their own labels or lease it out to a vendor nowadays to save costs. Then, why are we making only labels instead of products? For who are we making these labels?”

God answered,”Let us slow down and take one question at a time.”

God ,who had a fantastic recall said ,”Question one: Why have you opened this factory? Answer: To make labels. Question: What is it you want to establish? Answer: That is a good question. We will arrive at the answer by and by. Third question: Why are we making labels only instead of products? Answer: Because that is what mankind wants. Last question: For who are we making these labels? Answer : For mankind.”

The worker looked bemused and said: “I am still very confused. Do you not decide what mankind wants?”

“No. Mankind decides what they want. I was made by them, for them and of them.” said God.

“You sound like a democratic leader!” said the worker.

“Am I not?”asked God.

“I thought you were the creator of all mankind and all universe,”the worker mumbled. He was feeling more and more perplexed.

“I am,”said God with a smile.

“Then how is it you talk of servicing mankind?”asked the worker, now at the brink of a breakdown.

“Well. I was nothing and the universe came out of nothingness. I thought of my existence and I started existing. Then I thought of the Universe and Earth and it happened. Then I thought of night and day. Then, I thoughts of different life forms. They all happened. I was The Creator. I created. It was good fun! I thought and I made it happen… ”

“Then I made some of My most supreme creations…mind, thoughts, ideas…and they all happened. My creatures were thinking, questioning and praying. They wanted many things…one of them were their wishes fulfilled…for that, I needed to service them. From a creator, I became a fulfiller of wishes. When I created man, I gave him thoughts…led to needs…led to ideas…led to wishes and dreams….If I leave them unfulfilled, mankind will die of frustration… Don’t you see?”

“I understand. But that still doesnot explain this factory for labels,”said the perplexed worker.

“I am coming to that… When men and women started thinking, they started defining roles for themselves in society…like teacher, trader, doctor, engineer, priest, farmer…and they became labels that stuck to them for the rest of their lives. They trained for these roles in school. They did their utmost to fulfill these roles and create super-specialized labels,”said God.

“But your labels do not bear these names. They are called mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, brother, wife,husband…”said the worker.

God said: “I know. In quest for professional excellence, man forgot to sustain and nurture these relationships and roles. That is why I am making these labels…with the hope that mankind will again learn to redefine himself in essential human roles…”

“I do not think there will be any takers for these labels. These roles are always taken for granted,” said the worker.

“That is where media and art will come in…”said God. “Just watch. I am also the maker of dreams. “