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Are They The Devil in our Abode?

“Sexuality is like a cloud -it takes different forms, shapes, structures and appears to be almost amoebic. It divides and multiplies without actually changing its natural core” said Siddharth (A dear friend and mentor) during one of our many conversations over cups of steaming chai at the Alternative Law Forum (ALF). The more I thought about what he had said; I began to question the ambiguity of what sexuality is and what it meant in society’s imagination. Sexuality today is defined by forces like morality, ethics, religion and social norms, but isn’t sexuality fluid and natural? Isn’t Sexuality a biological desire, or an expression of our natural state, though it may take on varied forms?

I pondered over these very questions as an intern at ALF. This new understanding of sexuality consumed me; it made me analyse everything I had assumed to be a part of my world view. The issue that I worked on as an intern was one of multiple facets¬-- It was the treatment meted out to homosexuals in India. I was responsible for recording the conversations that took place in a forum called Good As You. It was a forum created for members of the LGBT community to discuss their problems and obtain some support. It was a unique window for me into the lives and struggles of these incredible people.

It was during the third week of my internship at ALF, that I was given a chance to attend the weekly meeting of Good As You. I vividly remember my first meeting; it was in a tiny room filled with mattresses and a dim lamp above the corner wall. The corner wall was embellished with images of gay rights movements, like the Stonewall riots and the Bangalore Gay Pride March. There were three men and one woman. Each wore an expression of fear, angst and confusion. There was one among them who looked particularly disturbed. Noticing this Siddharth began to ease him in to a discussion. His lips quivered as he uttered these words, “I have been thrown out of my home as my mother thinks I am bringing the devil to our abode.” I always believed that a mother’s love was unconditional. He continued “I told them that I am in love, they were happy, they were celebrating. Once I confessed that I loved a man and not woman things changed.”

Homosexuality was a word that began to be used only in the late 18th century and before this, there existed no dichotomy, between Homosexuality and Heterosexuality. Foucault in his book ‘The History of Sexuality’ speaks of this phenomenon where sexuality was never defined, it was left ambiguous till the 18th century. It was then that society began to categorize different sexual acts. Sodomy was associated with homosexuality and through this differentiation came discrimination. I believe that Foucault’s view was largely correct but also incomplete, as this issue, is also plagued by this conflict between the natural role which is defined for us (an element of ourselves we cannot choose like the way we look or our sexual orientation) and society’s need to standardize these natural roles. If I may elaborate, through most of the interviews at the sessions of Good As You, I came to realise that homosexuality was not a matter of choice. It was the way they were born, it was a part of their natural identity which came into existence because of forces beyond their control, yet society seeks to discriminate them on these very grounds. It is this constant friction between our natural tendencies and society’s expectations of it or rather society’s need to restrain it that leads to this form of discrimination.

The girl was now eager to voice her problem. She was clenching her teeth in an attempt to calm her nerves. She had her hands folded tightly just like the chains in the cover of Foucault’s book. She mildly smiled as she began to narrate her tale of isolation. “My name is Rama and I have always known that I was attracted to women. I was once asked in school which boy do you like. I knew I did not like anyone but I lied. This habit of adorning (sic) a mask of heterosexuality went on. I was once attracted to this girl in college but I slapped myself black and blue to chase away those feelings which were not normal. I was frustrated and I had to tell somebody who I thought I can trust. I confessed my true identity in a dear friend and confidante Tarun. He assured me that he would not tell a soul but that was not the case. He had placed posters up in college with images of me doing perverse acts. , I was called upon by my principal who said that I better change the way I am or I would be asked to leave as there was no room for a freak in this prestigious engineering institution. How do I convince them that I cannot change? Why can they not let me be? My parents were called and it was a mess. Girls in college call me “ Chakka” without even understanding what is my sexual identity. I am caught between these two worlds. One which demands that I restrict my sexuality to the norm or the other that if I do not I have to suffer complete isolation.”

I was moved by her story and thought of this dilemma of natural and unnatural, the normal and the abnormal, the socially accepted and rejected, the outlier and the ideal. It was clear to me now that it was not prudent to place them in watertight compartments especially when our sexuality is being debated. Is it not difficult to enforce a universal sexual norm on a sexually diverse community? I also wonder at the futility of organising society along sexual lines, as society flourishes with diversity. It is this mentality that if diversity is encouraged, chaos will result, this needs to change. The fact remains that if societal interests from different corners are ignored it results in more instability than harmony. Foucault states “What is important is that sex was not only a question of sensation and pleasure, of law and interdiction, but also of the true and the false” (Vol. I, p. 76).It is important to question the elements of truth and false in our understanding of sexuality. The truth that sexuality can exist in many forms is suppressed by the false understanding that heterosexuality is the norm. It is society’s demands to reject the truth of one’s identity and replace it with the falsity of pretention that is at the core of this issue. If homosexuals are required to remain in hiding to be true to their identity, their opportunity to contribute to society will be curtailed. However, if they wish to be a part of society and contribute constructively it would have to come at the cost of sacrificing their true and natural state. This is an unreasonable trade off and we should not compartmentalize our opportunities on grounds which are natural as they cannot morph into the preexisting mold that society has to define sexuality.

Siddharth once said “The change cannot come from our side as we are who we are; it has to be society that takes the first step to accept us”. As I remember these words, I recollect the Bhutanese painting of The Four Friends. It was an image I saw in a friend’s picture album from his trip to Bhutan. He had captured a painting of this epic tale of four friends. As I looked at the picture, I noticed the delicate balance of the Elephant at the bottom, the monkey, rabbit and partridge on top. They were connected by the fruit from the brilliant green tree in the centre of the painting. The Elephant had his trunk held high to receive the fruit from the monkey, the rabbit handing over the fruit to the monkey and twisting his neck to do so. The partridge on the other hand was enjoying easy access to the nectarine. Yet she was dropping the fruits down for the benefit of the other creatures. I then came to realise that this fruit or benefit of society can be shared by all only by recognising the importance of each individual’s role in society, as opposed to restricting one’s ability to contribute on mere grounds of his natural identity.

The tale of four friends is an engaging story of dependence, joy and harmony. It begins with a conflict- between an elephant, a monkey, a rabbit and a partridge. The conflict is about who owns the flowering tree. Each asserts his right to own the tree by commanding that their natural role was far superior to the others. The elephant in all his elegance claimed “I stamped the fruit into the ground, thus I am the reason the tree exists.” listening to this the monkey quipped” well, If I did not eat those fruits what would you have even stamped?” The rabbit now overcoming his shy disposition stated” No it is I who dug these holes thus it is I who owns the tree.” The partridge came flying from the corner overhearing this conversation and said” I pollinate the seeds and the tree is here because I flew across the forest. Thus I own this tree”. This futile exercise went on for a while, till they came to realise that each of them had an important role to play, for the tree to come into existence. The same holds for our misunderstanding of homosexuals. Though they are different due to their natural tendencies, they have an important role to play in the functioning of our society. Their contribution towards the greater common good is deeply stunted by such social rejection and if we recognize that diversity enriches our societal development we can be like the elephant, rabbit, monkey and partridge and benefit from such peaceful co-existence.

As I recollect the several conversations I shared with the members of the forum Good As You, I draw an analysis- that society should be shaped around our natural identities and not the other way round. The reason I say this is because our natural identities are not subject to change, they are constant and an integral part of us. Society on the other hand is constantly evolving based on man’s understanding of the world. This is however easier said than done, as Foucault eloquently relates, regarding the agenda behind sexual repression and power. For society to become so progressive it requires that varied forms of sexuality co-exist. This will change the power structure dramatically. Foucault believes that by repressing or denouncing alternative sexuality it gives the power hungry a tool to discriminate, and legitimizes their authority to do so, by creating a general bias against the idea. It is worth noting that sexuality and sexual preferences are a matter of private choice unless they are acted upon without consent, so I wonder whether society at large actually, has the authority to formulate a universal opinion on the right and wrong sexual practices? Is it not an aspect so personal that it should be devoid of public opinion? There are more questions than answers when I examine this issue and time will tell in which direction society evolves.

Through most of these stories I was given a chance to glimpse into the world of another culture, another perspective, another way of life which deserves its sovereignty and not illegality. I now firmly believe that they are different but not unnatural, they have their role to play in the way our society functions. I can even take a step further and say that they are essential for the functioning of our society. They are a group of colourful artists, writers, doctors, lawyers and many more. They make our society vibrant and they do not bring the devil to our abode.

Arpitha Upendra Kodiveri

Imperfect Turbulences

“Happy birthday to me

Happy birthday to me!

Happy birthday! Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to me”

The eyes become a bit moist as I blow that single candle out and cut that chocolate truffle pastry. There is no one around; and thus, I get to have the first bite of pastry from the birthday boy’s hands himself. Yippee! I had a little while ago bought a bottle of Coca Cola; “open happiness”, they proclaim, “with every bottle”. I try that, as I pour myself a glass mug full to the brim. Somehow it doesn’t seem to work. So with a full glass and an empty mind, I sit down on the floor of my room in a little corner. I take a sip or two and thoughts come rushing in. So do a few odd tears. But that’s alright; I was born crying, 22 years ago, on this day; can do away with a little re-enactment here; will do no harm and nobody will mind because, well, no one’s around. It’s just me and me alone. They say adversity introduces a man to himself. Maybe it does; but not as much as loneliness. Loneliness introduces to you not just yourself but also your worst fears, your insecurities and all those demons you wished to never face; you hoped to never exist, but they do. And you know it. And the worst part is you are still alone. This knowledge changes nothing.

Seven months. For seven months I was there in that huge metropolis, Hyderabad. A twin city over populated, it was like swimming in a sea of human faces and yet none seemed familiar. Waking up, the first thing I used to do was to play a song and check my g-mail account, fervently hoping for some new personalized mails to show up in the inbox. When none did, it used to hit something within. And thus, to counter, I subscribed to in-numerous newsletters and RSS-feeds, just like that, to keep me engaged and not think about it. It’s at least something in the inbox, so what if it’s from a machine regulated by me myself. So what if it is not personally addressed, it is still reciprocating someone’s thought process and I’m fine with it. Better than nothing perhaps. The song once done; had to travel a kilometre to buy some Idli/Vada/Upma chutney for breakfast. I used to look forward to these walks since this was one of the only times I left my room. The surroundings were beautiful with well-manicured greenery on each side of the grey dew-wet roads and the morning was a good time. But the food, it was routine. I tried changing at times to add a little variety of sorts - Idli instead of Vada or two in combination with Upma, sometimes Maggi. But still it was what it was, un-strikingly painfully bland. Cooked sometimes as well but there was no motivation to do something special. And thus never did. But still it was better than nothing perhaps.

Compared to nothing; that is what it was all about. Since the default mode was nothingness, it was all about keeping oneself a bit on the positive side. Otherwise the needle would have gravitated on the other side, which saddens and complicates the mind a lot more. I negated it by what I called ‘20 seconds of happiness’. A cold chocolate shake; an orange ice cream here and there; watching movies in IMAX with extra-large popcorn bucket in hand; going to book stores and smelling books; all accounted for it. If I can pull out enough 20 seconds to spice it up every now and then, my theory said it will all be worthwhile. The problem was that it is a bit difficult to fool one’s own self. After the 20 seconds get over, the mind speeds back to those areas you don’t want it to go and thus creates voids asking uncomforting questions. So overall it didn’t really work out but did provide me with a few odd moments to look back to and derive something out from them.

Don’t expect anything and you won’t get hurt. Expectation is one of the worst parameter affecting a lonely soul. It is what I believed in and also something which got validated time and again. But no matter how hard you try expectations just found their way in, like a sapling growing from a concrete wall. You try harder convincing yourself of its logicality but the heart just won’t budge in and all you can do is exasperate frustratingly at your unsuccessful attempts. Mom and Dad promised to pay a visit but they almost always did and didn’t really fulfil; so I wasn’t anticipating wholeheartedly and they didn’t disappoint this time as well. I was sure I am not going to feel a thing on it and again I was wrong. Let it be, I told myself, let it go. And so I did but not unscarred.

Suppertime, I hated it! Food and expectations combined together to give me nightmares. Meet your regular companions for the dinner, the empty chairs on the other side of the table. They were there for the lunch as well and mostly will be around tomorrow also, irrespective of whatever. You try conversing; of random things, ideas, thoughts, opinions, events, whatever comes to your mind. No one’s judging here on your selection of topic. In fact you don’t even have to make the effort of speaking here. Your audience is telepathic. All you need to do is just think some thoughts. Sometimes you go a bit beyond and think out loud, often smirk or laugh attracting gazes from all across. It’s not very interactive and thus a bit hard but at least they don’t argue back without rhyme or reason. But then you are also not really sure either whether they are listening to you or not, whether they are with you on this. They don’t talk back, not even nod. It’s just your perceptions. And they stare so much! Makes you uncomfortable and cranky; why can’t they just give you some space.

Space! It all seems really fascinating in the start, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t lie to the fact that it’s exciting, joyful and pleasing the thought that you can live by yourself, just your own self. No one else required. And in some abstract screwed up sense we relate it to being independent. Well let me tell you, it’s not so. This is not independence. This is escapism. Later this turns sour. And when it does, it hurts. And then we don’t even ask for interventions or help. How can we? How boldly had we proclaimed, “We don’t need anyone” and that “We respect our space” How can then we go back on our grand words. It pricks our ego. Well it should because you have a barrage full and don’t need it. It needs to be let go of. But I won’t understand this. I am too darn hung up for my own good. I’ve made it so very difficult.

I hear so many people saying “Leave me alone” when they are upset over something. In all trueness, they don’t want to be left alone. They might think they do but they don’t. All they want is a little break space to process out certain things which are affecting them and being in company of people is not solving it for them. Nobody wants or should want to be left alone. Because if people really did leave them alone; all of theirs magnanimous upsetting concerns will turn microscopic in a jiffy. As each day passes by, a part of their soul will be excruciatingly chipped away and soon they will accept voids as a part of their lives. It won’t matter to them the gossips and the meanderings of the world. Emotions will cease to exhibit through them and there will be but monotonicity. Because they have by virtue of their loneliness stopped existing as a member of this world. They’ve gone in some other realm and it is all so grasping.

Grasped and transcending into other realms; artists do that a lot. They work alone. Are buggered by insecurities and have the ability to perceive turbulences in the calmest of all things. Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a favourite of mine, is a perfect example. And the way he went about it, his pre-responses and post-sayings just adds on to it. On first glance it is but a serene starlit night seen from the far wilderness. On closer look it speaks volumes on turbulences; in the wind patterns, the star formation, the moon, the tree, and the spiral circles amidst still village houses. Hideous chaos in pretentious solidarity – that’s me. Gogh after completing was not so happy, neither have I been. He remarked in a letter to his friend Theo, “In all this batch I think nothing at all good save the field of wheat, the mountain, the orchard, the olives with the blue hills and the portrait and the entrance to the Quarry, and the rest says nothing to me, because it lacks individual intention and feeling in the lines. Where these lines are close and deliberate it begins to be a picture, even if it is exaggerated. That is a little what Bernard and Gauguin feel, they do not ask the correct shape of a tree at all, but they insist absolutely that one can say if the shape is round or square - and my word, they are right, exasperated as they are by certain people's photographic and empty perfection.” Empty perfection; even the great Van Gogh was insecure. He was irked and yet he was able to create the perfect turbulence. Is it that only troubled minds can create perfect turbulences? Does loneliness add to it? Are the others just too sane for it?

With all the inherent sadness within due to that never ending phase of loneliness and that troubling bundle of insecurities, all I hope for is that somehow I can from somewhere find some inspiration to make good. And more than that know what it is. I don’t have much idea of what fairness is but I do think I wasn’t fair to myself back then. I could have tried; I should have tried. There are but regrets now. And regrets are unarguably the worst possession of all to have. I need to look at the future now minus all the previous mishaps and I have no inkling of thought as to how to do that. But I begin this moment, this very moment. And I wish to start by apologizing. This is from a ‘Vanity Card’ by Chuck Lorre titled ‘An open letter of Apology’, this is me:

Dear me,

Over the years, I have resented you for not being athletic enough, brave enough, funny enough, smart enough, talented enough, handsome enough, rich enough, admired enough, educated enough, New York enough, out-going enough, quiet enough, old enough, young enough, loving enough and loved enough. I have demanded perfection from you and have found you wanting. The result of this obsession with perfection has been to make you terrified of failure and ridicule, angry at any and all obstacles, and finally, incapable of enjoying the bounty that was not only around you, but within you as well. Well, all that's about to change. From now on, I'm going to make every effort to love and accept you as you are. But since bad habits die hard, I'll start with something easy. From now on, you're old enough.

Affectionately,
Me

If one can age with solitude, mistakes and experiences, I guess I am old enough. But how enough will that enough be is something unknown. If it’s about a mind-set I’m on it, if it’s not I still will be. What is it? Seems like a big jigsaw puzzle, with many pieces missing; one piece at a time then. One day it will all make sense. One day the turbulences will be near perfect from this troubled mind. It’s all what I hope for

Raghav Mimani

Life and times of Death



Let us begin with a strikingly vivid painting of a harsh barren landscape, centering a fading creature seemingly in the throes of death and its accompanying absolution. Pocket watches lay scattered over the landscape, their shiny metallic surfaces melting, dangling in liquid defeat from a branch or spread out over a ledge or the disappearing creature. I came across this iconic painting entitled ‘The persistence of memory’ by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali in the form of a poster in the room of a chance acquaintance, and immediately I knew I had found the painting that resonated with my own deep insecurities about the nature of time, of life and finally of death. The melting clocks seemed to address the impossibility of nailing time, as well as the fluidity of its perception in human consciousness. Indeed as Salvador Dali himself noted, "The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order" Moreover the harshness of the climate, the undefined creature in the pose of death and the notion of time itself put me in mind of our conception of mortality, views on the transience of life and the ramifications of contemplating our own death, all topics that have long fascinated me.

The first time I realized I was going to die and that this our life would not last forever, despite what the distractions of our surroundings may seem to suggest, was at the age of seven, when my grandmother passed away and I was confronted with the idea that I too may one day cease to exist. The bewildering emotions rising within me at the time, haltingly, imperfectly expressed in my mother’s ear, were quieted with the thought of an afterlife, rebirth, the amusing possibility of being reborn as my own granddaughter’s child. My imagination was captured and distracted by the comical dilemma of needing to call one’s own daughter ‘grandma’, as my mother drew parallels between me and her own late grandmother to illustrate the point. For the moment thus I was saved from peering into the chasm that the realization of death would bring.

It is interesting that one’s first brush with death in childhood almost always gets hurriedly suppressed by concerned family and relatives. Rather than explaining death as a natural process and acclimatizing the growing consciousness to it they lull us into a false security where death is denied, so that the realization, when it comes, is that much more unacceptable. Children’s fiction has managed to challenge this trend only recently. However for the longest time fiction for children was carefully selected and filtered, rooting out all elements that would illustrate too harsh a reality, especially all topics concerning death. The earliest media we were regaled with, whether quaint Enid Blyton worlds with everlasting magical creatures and children who never grew old, or a Tom and Jerry cartoon where scrapes are funny but never lethal, were all in on this benevolent conspiracy.

Death became a familiar figure in the years that followed, whether through fiction or the world around me. However the enormity of what it entailed never encroached upon my consciousness until one defining incident during a family vacation in Goa. The day of our particular adventure the water was somewhat choppy, but the guide waived aside our doubts and launched us along with a father son duo onto the one-manned boat. By this time the waves were starting to get bigger, and the boat struggled to combat each crushing wall of water as it came along, its engine spluttering valiantly against the force. The boat managed to overcome the first few waves after much lurching, and for a moment we thought we had made it into the clear calm waters of the ocean, but then a sneak current suddenly buffeted us back as another wave rose up to meet us, an enormous monster of gruesome scope. The single seaman navigating our boat had stiffened, his eyes staring glassily. He clearly knew what was coming, for we could see the dilemma in his eyes as he contemplated abandoning ship to somehow getting us through. The wave came; crushingly huge, spanking our exposed faces and arms and making it sting with salt. The boat stayed, but just about. Its engine had been torn away by the force of the hit, and a gaping hole had water gushing in towards the back of the vessel. Meanwhile another wave was readying itself to finish what was left undone, and didn’t even need the seaman’s strangled cry to know what he had to do. He screamed to jump ship, and that’s precisely what we did after a moment of frozen panic. Everyone jumped off the side nearest to them, which for me, sitting on the center right meant jumping around the rigging of the boat. This turned out to be a mistake, as I realized a split-second later, for I found my neck and torso tangled in the thick coiled ropes of the boat. I would have strangled right there and then if the boat hadn’t capsized at the same time and in the same direction, causing me to be trapped directly under the upturned boat by its tenacious coils, the lengths of which prevented me from striking out from either side and breaking surface. It was then, as the oxygen ran out and water threatened to enter my lungs, as each movement of the boat buffeted by the waves threatened to either knock me out or strangle me by tightening its hold around my throat that I appreciated once and for all the true terror of knowing I might die, or rather knowing I will die. It was a truly sobering realization. There were no romantic flashbacks of the past as popularized in fiction, nor any great insight into the meaning of life. The only emotion I remember is abject terror, translated into a desperate quest to save myself. I struggled against the ropes in every way possible, kicking at the boat to dislodge its hold, all to no avail. I was tiring out fast, and my movements getting feebler under the pressure of the current. My eyes stung in the salty sandy water and my skin was already breaking into bruises and scratches which I wouldn’t feel until much later. Just as the weight of my aching neck and head grew too much to bear and I began to lose the will to fight that sheer coincidence sent a merciful wave at just the right angle to dislodge the choking hold of the rope around my neck and free one of my arms. With newfound urgency I managed to wrench out of the harness and kicked off the side of the boat at the same time as a wave shoved it to the other side. The first lungful of cool sea air that followed was the best thing I’d ever experienced. It hurt to breathe but each gulp full had me thankful anew to be breathing it. It took a while to orient myself to my surroundings. There were swimmers and divers all around, fighting the waves to reach us. Not more than a few minutes must have passed since the boat capsized, yet I felt as though I had emerged after months of struggle. Gasping and weak, I allowed a swimmer who reached me to pull me back away from the sea, this time using the waves to move us faster back to shore. My sister had been rescued first it seemed, for she was already on shore by the time I reached. My father came close after. He’d escaped safely too but hung back shouting himself hoarse for my sister, not knowing she had been rescued first. I chose not to think about the fact that he never looked for my whereabouts. I had been the last to be rescued; being trapped under the boat they had not been able to locate me. The thought brought home full force the realization that I could have died but for sheer chance circumstances, a thought that had evaded me again in the heat of the rescue operations.

Our mind attempts to protect us, by denying death or distracting us from our contemplation of it. However traumatizing the experience, my own consciousness hurried to cover up my close encounter with death, concentrating on the exciting experience rather than relive that terror which comes from absolute certainty. Ever since, I occasionally wake up in the middle of the night, or get a jolt of fear while awake and deep in thought, when a vision of absolute nothingness rises before my eyes with the sudden damning conviction that there is nothing after death and our life is but a tiny spark in the midst of eternal meaningless darkness. The thought of such insignificance and meaninglessness is so daunting, and the idea of the world carrying on irrespective of our existence so unbearable, that our mind hurries to close the idea up again, with the result that the vision or realization disappears as soon as it appeared, leaving only the cold clammy feeling of an uncertain dread in its place. The realization of our miniscule existence in the enormous scheme of things can’t fail to be accompanied by a lack of faith in the meaningfulness of our insignificant lives. It’s an idea probed time and again by writers and artists alike, yet it is one that can yield no answers. It causes us to question the nature of existence itself, and the justification behind its repetitive mundane pursuits. Albert Camus’ defining work Myth of Sisyphus provides the classic metaphor to represent this confusion. Our life and its pointless endeavors get compared to the mythological Sisyphus’ eternal task of fruitlessly rolling a rock uphill only to have it roll back down again. Dali’s Persistence of Memory too speaks to me of the nature of time and life, of death and continuity. It portrays time as envisioned in human context and imagination, and the result is unreliable, liquid, time and life a melting entity rather than their rigid and structured conventional representation. The painting and its theme reminds me of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, which has perhaps more aptly been previously named ‘The Hours’. The novel follows multiple stream of consciousness narratives of multiple characters that all overlap in space and time, time in their imagination being no linear entity but rather a flexible, capricious one, molded through perception and emotion before finally culminating abruptly with death. As with my near death experience, when a few minutes of terror seemed to last a very long time indeed, here too the relativity of time is represented as an essential fact of human existence, making the attempt to quantify and structure time narratives, though the recurrent imagery of the chiming of the hours, seem unnecessary and absurd. Woolf herself, much like her protagonist Clarissa Dalloway, was obsessed with life and death, and like her other protagonist, Septimus Smith, actually chose suicide as a means out of her struggles with life.

Ultimately what Dali, Woolf, Camus, and even the writers of children’s fiction in avoiding the subject dealt with is man’s inability to contemplate his own transience without tremor, resulting in his constant struggle to justify a temporary fleeting existence, the necessary obsession with what comes next and the desperate quest to justify what came before. What is left is an eternal cycle of repeated events, of action with no possible reaction save more of the same. Hence does our mind distract us from contemplating an end, hence do I go on quite contentedly with life despite questioning its validity, hence do we all stop ourselves from curling in terror at the thought of an absolute end, but beguile ourselves with worldly distractions and pretty myths. Time is an illusion, death an inconceivable absolute, and all we have is today, and more of today. If that is absurd, so be it. Whoever promised us meaning in any case? What we can do, is just continue. A scene from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot comes to minds, wherein the two characters Vladimir and Estragon, stuck in a cycle of repetitive events they cannot escape, have the following altercation:

“VLADIMIR:

Well? Shall we go?

ESTRAGON:

Yes, let's go.

They do not move”

Pragya Mukherjee

Disillusionment and My Quest for Truth

I was seated in a cushy chair with 500-odd others in that splendidly decorated air-conditioned auditorium. Everyone was uniformly garbed in maroon hoods with cream and gold colored borders at the sleeves and down the front, and capes of a darker shade. My parents were seated in cushy chairs several rows behind me, in the gallery, along with many other parents. It was the 48th Convocation of a premier technological institute. I was sandwiched between two classmates – a round, easy-going fellow and a blustering, pompous chap. The one on the left was telling me of the combined finances he earns from being a scientist at a space research center during the day and a mathematics tutor for pre-university students in the evenings. The one on the right was just beginning to boast about someone he knew through someone else he knew when I broke it to them that I had joined the Young India Fellowship instead of the job that was offered me while on campus. Lo and behold! A volley of questions was fired my way from all directions. “A program in liberal arts?” “What will it get you?” Some speculated, “Oh, you want to be a social worker?” They just couldn‟t get over their disbelief at the absurdity of what I had done – given up a coveted, lucrative career for a program in liberal arts! I only smiled in answer, for I knew they wouldn‟t understand my reasons.

The ceremony began. There we were – another batch of five hundred engineers, products of a world-class factory, our brains processed and quality-tested at multiple stages, and packaged neatly to be shipped to some prestigious multinational corporation or a far-away university. We were being called up onto the stage one by one. As I saw the symphony orchestra of engineers around me, waiting with alacrity to be conferred with their letters of graduation – their passport to a dizzying ride in the glitzy world of heavy paychecks, steep growth trajectories, B-school admits and heavier paychecks and steeper growth trajectories – I instantly knew I no longer was one of them. I am an engineer, alright, like the rest of them. I know how to estimate ratcheting strain in a nuclear vessel; I can calculate the number of vertical hangers needed to support a coal gasifier. But I could also recite verses by Walt Whitman, enjoy Camus‟ La Chute, and deconstruct Hindu philosophy. As my friend remarked, I was “yet another engineer, but with a human touch.” I mastered machines but they did not master me.

I am, perhaps, the hooded figure in M.C. Escher‟s sketch „Ascending and Descending‟ that sits outside the edifice, staring wistfully away from the uniformly-dressed figures that are involved in an incessant ritual of stair-climbing. This climbing is, however, illusionary and meaningless for Escher constructs the staircase so artfully that a person could climb it forever, yet never get any higher. Would it be narrow minded of me to say these stair climbing men are symbolic of the „modern man‟ – conditioned in thought and action and response and reaction, on the incessant treadmill of material success never pausing to think of its meaning and purpose – that my classmates have become? One can argue that the incessant march could mean any of those numerous acts of noble sacrifice of individual will to fall in tune with the collective; or that it depicts how we need a section of people – watchmen, the police, our own parents – to constantly toil, day or night, to keep afloat our social constructs; or for that matter, that it is a ritual of rhythm and a means for one to express his solidarity. However, the metallic hoods and faceless masks of those figures, and the fact that the race is more insane today than ever before, make me stick to my earlier assessment.

I don‟t pity such men, nor do I blame them. They might have never seen or known anything else but the rat-race, or even if they did, four years of engineering must have so torched competition into their system that they would have forgotten what „connect‟ or „collaborate‟ meant. They are like the prisoners in Plato‟s „Allegory of the Cave‟ whose hands, feet and heads are so chained that all they can see are shadows on the wall in front of them and all they can hear are echoes. For such men, Plato says, “truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images (293)”. They take shadows to be real people and the echoes as the voices of those people whom they conceive to be real. Can I, mercilessly, like Plato, discount the reality my classmates are a part of to be only a „shadow‟? I do not know, but this I know, that there are multiple versions of reality, and I am entitled to mine.

“The lifestyle that we today think is desirable will tomorrow become our biggest challenge”, opined the Chief Guest. Of course it will! If everyone ran the rat-race for more of everything, it would be a threat to our very existence. Chhotu was one of the few people I knew who saw that early enough. He is my close friend‟s younger brother, a graduate from one of the IITs, who left everything to be an Art of Living teacher, spreading the message of spirituality across villages and cities of India. I wondered if Chhotu too was like the figure in Escher‟s painting that sat on the front steps. What is so curious about this figure is the fact that one could see in it disenchantment and resentment at the same time – disenchantment because it sees the futility of the stair-climbing ritual, and resentment for it can do nothing more apart from refraining to take part in it. It is like a dog that is free to bark but not free to leave for it is leashed to a pole. Chhotu was disenchanted, but not resentful, for he had renounced the edifices that made up this world. I hadn‟t. I am still torn between „crazy‟ (that I now was in the eyes of most) and „mad‟ (that I shall be, if I severed the last strands that bind me to society with its various trappings).

There is a reason why I say „mad‟. When I see madmen walking, swaying and looking right through me while smiling to themselves, I am almost led to believe they are truly disenchanted. They have nothing to do with our petty everyday drudgery, they almost scoff at it. They have not those sheaths that shroud our vision. Kahlil Gibran in his parable, “How I became a Madman” writes, on being perceived a madman himself, “And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. (3)” Something is enslaved within us, for the society expects from us to act in conformity. And then we cease to be wisps of smoke or gusts of air, light and inconsequential in being. We matter. We are heavy, unlike madmen.

I have never met madmen but I have met children with autism once. There were six of them seated on little stools, their yellow T-shirts proclaiming “Different … And proud of it”. We sat between them, forming a circle, to keep them engaged in „Passing the Parcel‟ to the sound of music. They were interested in neither the parcel (which was a tattered monkey), nor the music (popular Bollywood songs). Some were deep in thought, smiling occasionally at a private joke they didn‟t chose to share with us; some were absorbed in spinning a small golden thread round and round till it almost became a blur. I was struck by their ability to sit transfixed, fiercely concentrating, even meditating, on I know not what. I can say this of children with autism, as Gibran says of men with madness, that they each have a divine pond, a Walden, inside their heads that they keep retreating to every now and then, and we, the ignoramus, interrupt them rather unceremoniously with our childish games of passing parcels. No wonder they are not interested! In the limitedness of my views, I went to the autistic school that afternoon to make these children feel „included‟ in society, to locate them somewhere in Escher‟s sketch, but I realized the folly of my act soon enough. They had transcended such sentiments. Their reality was different, just as my reality was different when viewed through my classmates‟ lenses, and the three hours that we spent there that afternoon perhaps helped more to make the parents of these children feel „included‟, than the children themselves.

“Different … And proud of it”. To be different, to not conform, would be to court the risk of censure, of ridicule and of ostracism. What gives people the courage to take the risk of non-conforming? Perhaps it is some streak of madness, or some vision of a higher truth. It is an unsettling thought that Plato leaves us with towards the end of his essay, when he likens the cave to our homes and the shadows to our possessions. If it so be, then how do we know what is „real‟? “If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then”, as Morpheus says in the movie The Matrix, “real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain”. Consider this: The world we take for real is instead a Matrix, a Matrix of our own making, a house of mirrors – our perceptions, choices and circumstances being the reflecting surfaces. Then my reality is a projection of my thoughts and ideas, and your reality yours. Is there, then, a Universal Reality? Perhaps, deep down, we all feel cheated by our house of mirrors to varying degrees, and are ready to risk non-conformity in search for our personal truth.

I wondered how many people sitting around me had ever questioned themselves so. Do they have the time? My classmates from college were neither mad, nor crazy. They were normal and perhaps, normal men like these are who Frances Cornford had in mind when he wrote:

“A young Apollo, golden-haired,

Stands dreaming on the brink of strife,

Magnificently unprepared

For the long littleness of life.”

Sitting in that hall that day, I was glad that I, for one, was relearning the very nuances of life itself and preparing myself for its “long littleness”.

The function was drawing to a close. Our row had taken their degrees. My classmates ask me once again why I was doing what I was doing. I decide to answer them, “I am searching for my truth.”

I dive headlong into the ocean

In search of pearls, and many a stone.

“Why do you”, they ask, “the ones on the shore,

The ones laid out for you, ignore?”

I have my excuse to offer.

“I want to experience underwater”

“Deluged by the sense of „I‟

You are pulled deeper into the mire.”

Mrudula N S

Raw

A fine story to tell my son some day. But first, we went out to Mayur Vihar Phase-1 Extension yesterday to look at the apartment. We liked it and decided to take it. So today I went out there to investigate gyms. Before going I did some research on-line and made a list of about five possible places. Having no access to a printer, I couldn’t print the Google map, so I drew one of my own on a piece of notebook paper, marking where the various gyms were. It was a fairly crude outline map of the enclave and its surrounding area.

Due to delays on the metro it took me about two hours to get Mayur Vihar from Safdarjung, where we were staying until we could move into the apartment. The first gym I went to check out was called Riverside Club, which on-line gave the impression of being an exclusive businessman’s club, but I figured it was worth a look. I hired a cycle to ride me down there, about half a kilometer. A guard outside the fairly hideous multi-story compound stopped me to enquire of my business. “The gym,” I said. “Gym closed,” he replied. So I said, “office,” and I signed my name and time, etc. in the ledger and made my way in, up a lift to the second floor, where a fat woman in a crude concrete office scowled at me and directed me to a man in a cubicle behind her. This man asked for my good name and bade me sit down. He asked what I wanted. I asked about the gym. He confirmed that there was a gym on the premises. I asked how one went about using it. “We never entertain guests,” he said. “You have to be a member.” “How do I become a member?” I asked. “You cannot become a member,” he replied. I stood up, thanked him, and promptly went on my way. None of this is the story I want to tell, but it sets the scene and establishes the themes.

After a couple of aloo parathas and a chai in the shade of the trees beside the market near the apartment complex we would soon be moving into, I set out to look for the other gyms on my map. Heading up the street, I found myself in a throng of school children in blue uniforms leaving school, hundreds of them, coming my way down the street. It was a nice sight, confirming for me that this was a pleasant neighborhood and that I had made the right choice choosing this apartment so far from the expat enclaves of South Delhi. At the end of the block I reached the entrance to the school compound out of which all the children were streaming. A tree-lined road led off to the left. I asked a boy if this was Queen Mary School. He seemed to say yes, but I couldn’t be sure. I was wearing my tan hiking pants, a light blue T-shirt, my white tennis cap, and sandals. My brown bag was over my shoulder. These details are perhaps relevant to the events about to unfold.

I walked a little way down the side of the street then noticed that there didn’t seem to be any intersections so I turned around, intending to backtrack and try a different route. Just then my mobile phone rang. I took it out of my bag and answered it. As far as I could tell from the barely intelligible voice, it was someone responding to one of the apartment queries I had posted on-line. I told him I had already found a place and hung up. This seemingly chance occurrence is also not without signficance.

I started back the way I had come. I had my map out, trying to get my bearings. The children were still all around me, exuberant to be out of school, curious about the lost-looking foreigner in their midst. I noticed a man in a yellow shirt and tan slacks, standing near a school bus, monitoring the children. He seemed to be observing me intently. I approached him for directions. I showed him my map and told him that I was looking for some gyms in the area, naming a few of them, but he didn’t seem to know English. Nor did he seem very friendly. Something about the map, about me, appeared to be troubling him. We went back and forth, me trying to explain that I was looking for gyms, him seeming to question the validity of my very existence. Seeing we were getting nowhere, I decided to forget it and head on my way. But as soon as I moved to leave he reached out and grabbed the map. He began tugging at it in the direction of the school. I tried to walk away but he grabbed my wrist pretty hard and pulled me, moving toward the school. I was thinking, maybe he’s just an irate guy, and he wants to take me in to someone who speaks English and can help me out. So I gave up resistance, let go of the map, and followed him back to the entrance of the school compound and into a building near the gate.

Upon entering the building, he handed the map to a man there, the principle perhaps, and immediately began telling him in Hindi about me having this map. I was able to make out that he was also telling him that I had been talking on my mobile phone. Suddenly there were about twelve people around me, men and women alike, all of them suspicious and a bit hostile. The principal, who spoke a certain amount of English, asked me what I was doing with this map. I said, “I live here, in Kala Vihar apartments,” and that I was looking for some gyms. I tried to point out the names of the gyms I had written on the map: Extreme Fitness, Energie, Hercules, etc. I thought it would easily be cleared up with someone who spoke English. But the mob that had formed around me kept peppering me with the same questions. Who are you? What are you doing here? Why do you have this map? Where have you come from? Where are you staying? All my answers seemed to pass through their brains completely uncomprehended. They were all speaking over each other now. The fact is, they weren’t interested in the answers I was giving. They had already made up their minds. The man in the yellow shirt had come in with a narrative that already contained the answers. His story was that I had been out there drawing this map, using a mobile phone. He had already tainted the jury.

I started getting frustrated, sensing that I had just been sucked into Kafkaland. I was guilty. My mounting agitation only reinforced it. One man asked me my name, and I told him. Sarcastically he said, “James Headley,” in reference to the American terror accomplice David Headley, recently on the news on the eve of Obama’s visit, scheduled for November 7th. I had to chuckle at that — the sheer absurdity of how I was being viewed in their eyes, through the prism of terrorism. There were broader reasons for this. The Commonwealth Games had just ended and Delhi had been in mass paranoia security mode to insure that no terrorism marred them, a real enough threat. Then, apparently, the previous week some guy had been picked up somewhere and turned out to be an ISI spy. The papers were full of stuff surrounding Obama’s visit, including heightened security at scores of markets nowhere near the venue. Then there was the ever present threat of children getting kidnapped. Delhi in general is a security permeated zone, with machine gun bunkers permanently positioned in the Metro stations, screening of all bags, metal detectors, guards at every apartment building and well-to-do home, guards in every shop in the mall, etc. All of this, and of course my foreignness, stacked the cards against me. Apparently, it was inconceivable to them that I could actually be a guy who had drawn a map of the area so he could find some gyms. In their world that would never happen. People don’t draw maps in India. They ask rickshaw wallahs where they are. One guy, who seemed to really be relishing his conviction that I was a terrorist, accused me of being an engineer, a complimentary reference to the precision of my drawing. A younger man, who knew good English, was given a chance to ask me some questions. He seemed to believe me, but none of the others did. Finally the principal decided to take me off to a higher authority. The young guy told me just to comply, tell them my story, and I would be fine. So I was escorted out the door, with a good number of the entourage in tow.

Just adjacent to the school was a wide security gate manned by two soldiers with machine guns slung over their shoulders. The principal spoke to the soldier, and the soldier opened the gate and escorted him to a nearby building inside the compound. Meanwhile I waited outside the gate with some of the people from the school. While I was waiting I had the presence of mind to call Vrinda Makvana, the lady who had shown us the apartment the day before. Luckily I had put her number on my mobile phone. I called her and said, “I’m in an interesting situation,” and explained what was happening. I was then made to end my call as I was escorted into the compound. I waited by one of the soldier’s checkpoints while the rest of the entourage went in. I seemed to be on the edge of a very large sector of dirt, nothing built up on it, stretching off into the visible distance. The only manmade structure, beside the nearby building, was a huge satellite dish a hundred meters away. A military jeep approached from within and was let out. The soldier checked my bag and gave it back to me. I appreciated his apparent lack of interest.

In time I was escorted into the office of a plain clothes official who had already been fed the narrative by the people from the school. I was relieved when I heard good English coming from his mouth, thinking that this well-educated man would surely see that it was all a ridiculous misunderstanding. But even before either of us had taken a seat at his desk, he asked me, “Why do you have this map?” and without waiting for an answer, he added, “this is very unusual.” So I told him. It was just he and I now, maybe one of his own functionaries hovering in the background. He started in with the questions. What was my full name? Why was I here? What country was I from? Where was I staying? At that moment my mind went blank on Radiant Apartments in Safdarjung, as I was nervous with adrenaline. Knowing this would be bad if I couldn’t even remember where I was staying, I fiddled with the mobile phone and asked for a second, as if I were occupied with something else, until it came to me. Why was I in Mayur Vihar if I was staying in Safdarjung? I explained again that I was on a reconnaisance mission looking for gyms. Even to me nothing I was saying made much sense. My story was unbelievable. He asked for my I.D., my passport. I didn’t have it on me. I never carry it, fearing the hassles that would ensue if I lost it. I told him it was in the apartment in Safdarjung. He asked my profession. Writer, I said. The most farfetched response yet. He was writing all my answers down on the back of the map in red ink.

Now I let out some of my own annoyance, with quips like: “Is it illegal to have a map in India?” At one point he said, “What would happen in your country if I was seen with a map like this?” apparently believing that such paranoia was universal. “Nothing,” I shot back. I was getting defensive, as I do, whenever I am questioned, particularly by authority. “So I can’t draw a map,” I said. “What’s the difference if I had just printed it out from Google?” He explained that he was just going off what the people from the school had told him, that I was drawing this map outside the school. “I wasn’t drawing it there,” I said, exasperated. “I made it before I came.” Back and forth we went.

Finally I asked him if he would like to speak to my landlady. He assented. I dialed Vrinda and handed the phone over to him. They talked for a while in Hindi. When they were finished he said she was coming down there. I don’t recall what transpired in the interim, but she only lived two minutes up the road. At some point, when he told me he would have to confiscate the map, I told him I would just draw another one and come back tomorrow.

Upon her arrival Vrinda and the official began to speak in Hindi. I could make out the key points about Deana, my wife, having an appointment at Delhi University, etc. As luck would have it, while they were speaking, Deana called to tell me she was thinking of heading off with Marlowe to the textile exhibit at the Indira Gandhi Centre. I made a humorous quip about presently being detained by intelligence services over my hand-drawn map of Mayur Vihar, and that Vrinda was with me sorting it out.

At last I was allowed to leave. As we left the building, the agent shook hands with the entourage from the school, thanking each of them for their good work. That disgusted me a bit. All those guys were patting each other on the back, still convinced that they had done their patriotic duty to protect the Motherland from suspicious foreigners, rather than having forcibly detained a guy looking for a gym. No apologies to me from anyone. I was still under suspicion.

Sure enough, while I was out with Vrinda’s driver (she had generously offered to have him drive me around to the gyms I was seeking), she called and told me these Intelligence people had called her and were pestering her for copies of my passport, etc. She was now implicated in it. Her thoughts, naturally enough, turned to protecting herself. She certainly didn’t want to be roped into some trouble with the Indian security establishment. I’d be surprised if it didn’t cross her mind at least once that maybe I actually was a terrorist. It certainly crossed my own mind. Then again, I would have to have been a completely idiotic terrorist to be standing outside an Indian Intelligence compound drawing a map. And how, physically, could I be drawing an aerial view map of several kilometers radius from ground level?

But every cloud has a silver lining. I ended up finding my gyms much faster than I would have had I not been detained, for the area I had drawn on the map was much bigger than I had realized. I had never been anywhere near the gym I was looking for.

I felt a bit disheartened on my long Metro ride back to Safdarjung, standing nose to nose amidst all the young Indian men in long-sleeve business shirts and slacks, no familiar face around, feeling the alien, wishing for the comforts and familiarity of home. Knowing as well that the feeling would pass. On balance, I think it was mainly an unlikely confluence of circumstances, a misinterpretation of certain symbols: foreigner, hand-drawn map, mobile phone, location, current events, that conspired to trap me in a false narrative.

I found out later that the organization where I was interrogated was the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of the Indian Intelligence Services. Wikipedia describes it thus: “The primary mission of RAW includes aggressive intelligence collection via espionage, psychological warfare, subversion and sabotage.” The entry stated that they had intercepted mobile phone calls from the 26/11 terrorists enroute to the Taj Hotel and had passed it on but it wasn’t acted on. I suppose they were determined not to repeat the mistake.

Gene Terry