Paradise Gained

Back to literature, back to learning, back to life

I am on cloud nine...

Indonesia

Life is too short; there are many things to do and to see. Want to spend at least one month in Indonesia, especially at Bali. The thought of my walking on the Indonesian beaches, visiting temples over there, knowing its culture and breathing Balinese air just thrills me. Company of someone special (if he really exists) would make the experience even more delightful.  Want to see legong dancers, want to visit Buddhist temples over there, want to visit Nihiwatu beach and want to learn their language. Hope the blissful time comes soon...

Happened to ponder over Metamorphosis again. Surprisingly got answers of the questions that were perplexing me when I read the book for the first time. I could see Kafka more clearly this time and ended with 'ahmmm'!!! Is it the sign of 'growing wise'?  Wisdom and wise are no words for me (I know I am disappointing the Saturn, but helpless in this case!!!) so the only thing that comes to mind is growing. Is it the sign of growing??? If it is, it is not acceptable to me. I object...I do, I do, I do...Oh Lord, please have mercy upon me

I am so very much  jealous of Peter Pan and again helpless in this case.

Life, Love, Loss and Amnesia...

“I asked him (God) for happiness and he (God) refused to grant me amnesia.” 

Can amnesia and happiness be synonyms of each other??? The strange question came to my mind after watching Acid Factory, a rare Indian movie with a typical end, but an atypical theme (and my appreciation of Dino Morea was also atypical. He really looks cool in the movie because of his cowboy look, I think.) Well before the article turns out to be a review of Acid Factory, let me come to the main point. Yeah, the question – can amnesia and happiness be synonyms of each other? Well, I don’t think so. To discuss it in general, no one would like to develop loss of identity, but the good part is that one can forget even painful moments of one’s life. What if one can choose to forget one’s self along with all miserable events occurred in one’s life? Well, for forgetting few sad incidences how can one afford to forget precious and beautiful moments of one’s life? But what if it is ‘lacunar amnesia’? Lacunar amnesia is a gap in one’s memory because of which one forgets a particular phase or a particular incidence of one’s life. Just think of a magical eraser which could delete unwanted parts from your memory note book!!! Wow, it sounds interesting, but not worth trying, I guess, because life is interesting only when it has all colours (dark and light) and all tastes (sweet and bitter). Soothing love is valued only when pain of hatred is experienced. Sweets are sweet only when one has tasted bitter things. Light is appreciated only when darkness is dreadful. One will become blasé about pleasure if only sweetness and comfort is around. But still these things look good only in story books and in spiritual lectures. Who would not love to delete all pain causing and nightmarish memories??? – A masochist, perhaps. A lover who has developed insomnia because his beloved has left him or a husband and a wife, who when got married were ideal for each other and after marriage think they are living deadly lives because of incompatibility between each other, would think that the magical eraser deleting memory would work like elixir and would bring back a joyful life to them. Can it really be so? Well, in my view, no. The magical eraser may make one forget painful moments, but can not bring one happiness. Certain moments, good or bad, are engraved in heart and not in brain and that is why what the brain wants to the forget, heart wants to cherish, however painful it is. The same thing happened with the hero and heroine of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Joel and Clementine got married and spent two years with each other and then realized that they were completely different from each other, so much different that living together was becoming a problem. Realizing this Clementine decided to go for a process which would delete her memories of her relationship with Joel. Clementine thought it was the only way to become happy then. She took help of Lacuna Inc. and finally decided to end her relationship with Joel by forgetting the time spent with him. Joel when came to know about Clementine’s decision was highly shocked and he too decided to forget Clementine in the same way. They went for a kind of surgery by which they could delete all memories of their relationship from their mind. But what about those indelible spots of love which were there on their hearts? Well their brains forgot each other, but not their hearts and that is why after the surgery, when they met each other as strangers on long island railroad train they felt strangely attracted towards each other. Really, love is very strange, even its pain gives one comfort. Tennyson has rightly said, “‘it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Well when I think of love and amnesia how can I forget to mention Shakuntala and Dushyant. Kalidas has depicted the story in a fantabulous way (unfortunately, because of Sanskrit illiteracy I have not been able to enjoy the charm of the original writing). I think Kalidas took the plot from Mahabharat. While on a hunting trip, Dushyant meets Shakuntala. They fall in love with each other (wow, love at first sight- so exciting!!!). They marry each other and when Dushyant(a king actually) departs for his state, gives a ring to Shakuntala as a sign of their love. He promises Shakuntala that his cohorts would come to take her to his state. (Poor) Shakuntala thinks of Dushyant all the time. She becomes so engrossed in his thoughts that she can not hear the call of Durvasa, a choleric hermit known for his anger and his devastating curses, and Durvasa becomes angry and curses her that he in whose thoughts she is lost will forget her. Shakuntala and her friends implore the hermit to forgive her and to take his curse back. Durvasa tells them that he can not take his curse back, however he says that Dushyant will remember Shakuntala if he happens to see their sign of love. Shakuntala waits for Dushyant’s cohorts to come, but no one comes. Finally her father decides to send her to the state where Dushyant lived. She travels across a river and loses her ring given by Dushyant in the river. When she meets Dushyant, under the spell of the curse, he refuses to recognize her. Finally, a fisherman happens to find the ring and he presents the same to Shakuntala and after seeing the ring Dushyant remembers everything. He apologizes and Shakuntala forgives him and both live happily. Love conquers all…..

I would certainly prefer to appreciate Shakuntala to Clementine because the former brings her husband’s memory back and reminds him of their love whereas the later yields to amnesia and chooses to forget her husband and their love.

Lacunar amnesia, I think, would make life dull and depreciate happiness and amnesia can not ever be a boon. Loosing sweetness of good memories in order to forget the bitterness of bad memories would certainly be a bad deal. If bad memories are pain, good memories would work as a comforting mollifier. Reminiscing the glorious past can make one forget the dull present. “Dard mein bhi yeh lab muskura jate hain, bite lamhe hame jab bhi yaad aate hain”.

But what if horrible past does not let one sleep today? What if echo of someone’s words pierces in ears and kills one every moment? Well, the solution is not forgetting it, but to recollect heavenly happenings, to recall the sweet words told by someone which create magical music and the piercing of the echo disappears. Living under the burden of doleful moments of past is like experiencing dreadful death every moment and living with iridescent memories of past is like experiencing paradise in the midst of challenging present. It is in one’s own hand what one prefers, proceeding with courage and exuberance towards bright future using past experiences as signposts or sticking to dark past and blinded by the dusty wind of painful memories never seeing door towards the luminous future.

Celebration...

The earth seemed very happy today as she had been waiting for this day eagerly…. trees were swaying, with arms spread open, as if they were performing a welcome dance. Orange – a bit red shaded gulmohur flowers left their lofty abodes and jumped down to the earth in order to share her happiness… covered with those gulmohur flowers, it seemed that, the earth was blushing…the smell of wet soil was conveying the message of the earth’s happiness to all directions… Zephyr was inviting all earthly beings to get mesmerized by the magic the sky was performing on the earth… it seemed that the nature was enjoying its existence to the fullest… the spell dissipated after some time and the azure sky turned crimson…it was blushing too, now after meeting its beloved…time started moving again…

but leaves of the trees were still dripping tears and they were tears of joy…

it rained today, the first rain of the season….

The Gift of Magi

“Today we are going to have a story review”, I announced in the class and expected to have some unexpected reactions and unexpectedly got the same. Very obediently my students’ eyes fell on the pile of books in my hands. I briefly introduced the books so that they could choose the one they found interesting. One of the books was titled 100 Selected Stories by O. Henry. “Well it’s just superb, many beautiful stories are there and O Henry is a very good writer; you would really enjoy reading him.”, I said (I knew it was not enough, but I did not find words, from my limited knowledge of vocabulary, that can serve my purpose of commenting the book and secondly the review was to be presented by my dear students so I just had to content myself by providing a ‘brief’ introduction of the book- a difficult task for a teacher). I gave each of them a book and announced that they were to read the story they liked and then present a review on it. Reviews were presented on various stories and one of the reviews was on “The Gift of the Magi”. I admire O. Henry and had read the story years back. A brief and nicely presented review when I heard of the story, I was tempted to read the story again. Well I started reading the story, ruminated over a few lines and thought that the day was just fantastic. Many a time I think that there are certain feelings or emotions that can’t be expressed by words because the words that they deserve for being expressed are not coined. However, I have been proved wrong many times, especially when I read some beautiful piece of writing, I feel that there are people who have mastered the art of reflecting colourful emotions through the mirror of words. Words are not read, when we read their artistic creations, we read their feelings, their emotions. “The Gift of the Magi” is one of such creations.
The story is about a married couple Della and Jim. The next day was Christmas and Della wanted to buy a Christmas gift for Jim, but she had only one dollar and eighty seven cents. She could not buy any good gift with such a meagre amount of money she had, nor could she be happy without giving a Christmas gift to her husband. As Henry mentions in the story, they were not well to do, but there were two possessions in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch which once belonged to his father and also to his grandfather and the other was Della’s hair. Della and Jim were one of those (fortunate) couples who had a lot of love for each other which was far more precious and valuable than any other material possession. Della saw herself in the mirror and pulled down her hair which reached below her knees. There was a glow in her eyes and after some moments a tear or two. The tears had disappeared, but the glow was still there in her eyes when she left her home and reached a place where the Sign read: “All types of hair goods”. She told a lady over there that she wanted to sell her hair. The lady observed Della’s hair and gave her twenty dollars for her hair. Now Della had twenty one dollars and eighty seven cents. She visited many stores to buy a fob for Jim’s gold watch, which then had a leather belt, depreciating the value of the watch. Finally she came across the one which she had been searching for. Now comes the magic of Henry, a wonderful description of the chain. This is how it reads. “It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation – as all good things do… As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value – the description applied to both.” It’s simply superb. I mean- proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation- as all good things do- VAAAHHH, well said, very well expressed.  Let’s go back to the story. Della bought the chain for twenty one dollars and went home. She was a bit worried by the thought of Jim’s reaction when he would see her. She started making them look better by making some curls. Again I would like to cite here what Henry says. “When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends – a mammoth task.” VAAAAHHH again, selling her hair was the intoxication of love (to which generosity was added) and adorning it to make it look better was the prudence. Henry beautifully describes love and reason here, just COOOOOOOOOOOOL. (Back to the story) Jim came to home. When he saw Della he carried none of the expressions on his face of which Della had been thinking, in fact there was no expression at all. Della started explaining. She said, “Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered’, she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you…” Jim, as if he were coming out of a trance, said, “Don’t make any mistake, Dell, about me. I don’t think there is anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you will unwrap that package you may see why you had me going awhile at first.” Jim gave Della her Christmas present. When she opened it, she saw a set of combs she had fancied a lot. It was nicely adorned with jeweled rims. Della had the combs, but the hair for which the combs were bought were no more there now. She said to Jim “…my hair grows awfully fast..” Meanwhile Della noticed that Jim had not yet seen his Christmas present. She unwrapped it for Jim and showed him the chain she had bought for his gold watch. She asked Jim to take out his gold watch. In reply, Jim took out his empty hand from his pocket and said that he had already sold the watch in order to buy her the set of combs!!!!
From the ordinary point of view their acts were foolish, but not so from that of Henry’s and even from mine. The title is rightly given “The Gift of the Magi”, as The Magi are considered the wisest gift givers. Della and Jim are as wise as the Magi, and truly so as they loved each other. No wisdom can surpass the one stemmed out of love…and I don’t think there can be any better Christmas gift than the one Della and Jim gave each other…

I wish I could have a story review everyday…

Reminiscence...

“Hors d’ oeuvres have always had a pathetic interest for me. They remind me of one’s childhood that one goes through, wondering what the next course is going to be like and during the rest of the menu one wishes one had eaten more of the hors d’ oeuvres.” – SAKI

Summer has already started. Morning 7 is the time when I go for my work. It takes me around 20 mins. to reach to my work place. I enjoy this 20 minute ride and so I tend to drive my scooter very slow. But for last few days I have had a feeling of something missing. I could not make it out at first, but then I realized that those huge yellow buses full of lovely kids were not seen on the roads any more and the auto rickshaws full of those naughty creatures were also missing. Today as it’s Sunday I am home. This Sunday afternoon is unusually halcyon because two little monsters from my neighborhood have gone out to their uncle’s place to infect it with their wickedly adventurous deeds.
These all emboss the cooler side of summer in my mind. Summer is generally seen at as the season when the Sun God pours his rage on earthlings, but seeing from the other side, summer too is a cool season. The estival heat also brings cool things with it. You may disagree, but I have strong grounds to stand. To start with, the fruit which would have tempted even Adam and Eve away from the fruit of knowledge, had it been there- yes it’s none other than Mango. Mango would never be there if there were no summer. Next comes ice cream and ice golas…yeah yeah I know, for having ice cream you do not require any particular season, you can have it any time you wish. But the fun it gives to your taste buds and the relief that it gives to your stomach can not be matched when you have it in any other season!!! Then comes Yummy pickles which are made in summer and then are preserved for the rest of the year. More than anything else summer brings with it the long awaited vacation, the time I used to wait for when I was in school. Summer is the season redolent of childhood. It reminds me of those early morning walks that we friends used to take in summer vacation. It reminds me of those restless afternoons when impervious to severe heat and careless about our complexions, we used to play hide and seek. It reminds me of those summer training camps where learning craft was a real fun. Summer used to be the time when there was no home work to be done, no teacher to be faced, no school to be attended and there was just fun, vacationing, friends, books (other than syllabus, of course), T.V., Video games, and most important ‘Mama nu ghar’. Indifferent to any worldly concerns, I, rather we, used to enjoy summer more than any other season. Perhaps, people start disliking summer when they grow up because the fun part about summer disappears and what remains there is a bit less funny. Summer is enjoyable even now, but not as much as it used to be. Summer doesn’t change, people change, they grow up. They worry about their complexions, they worry about their clothes and the people around when the melted ice cream or the juice from ice gola fall on their clothes. May be even they can enjoy summer vacation the way kids do, but they learn to prioritize the things when they grow up. They feel complacent only with ice cream and mangoes and pickles. The vacation part may not be there in their priorities as they now compete against clocks. It's very much natural, the course of time brings with it maturity and the trivial worries about exams and home work change into concerns regarding career and life. Most of the time that used to be spent on playing with puppies, on grounds is now spent in offices. It's very much true that however older a person grows there is a child in him. But a grown up person can be childish or childlike but not a child. Because a child enjoys its dependence and for a grown up dependence is a curse. A child enjoys the life as it comes and a grown up plans for his life. A child does not bother about future and a grown up lives for his future. Childhood is a phase that comes only once and passes very fast.  What remains there is a childish grown up.
It is rightly said by Calvin- "Childhood is temporary and maturity is forever."

Can’t everyone be a Peter Pan?

Migration

Finally switching to Blogspot...
It's  more fun here...delighted by the amenities...
Changed the name as well...'Cornucopia'  is now 'The Soul unto Itself'.
Shifting all my older posts as soon as possible...

Big Fish

"There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue...."

At times people fight and they win and if they don't win they again fight and they fight again for many times; they either win or surrender.  They surrender because they can't stand the test of time. By the time they reach the sea they find the ship already sailed and they make a wise decision of  giving up the thought of journey. If somebody tries to chase the ship they would laugh at them considering them fool. So called wise people would definitely agree with the quote above, but the quote is incomplete. The actual quote is :

"There's a time when a man needs to fight, and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny is lost... the ship has sailed and only a fool would continue. Truth is... I've always been a fool. "

The quote above is a dialogue from the movie Big Fish. The movie is a pure fantasy so the 'only reality' people may not like it, but for fantasy loving souls the movie is a real fun. Whenever you are tired or need some pills of inspiration do not turn to any conventionally motivational lecture or any inspiring videos, do watch the movie. Impossible looking things are actually possible if we change our way of looking at them. Fantastic looking things can be real and the movie depicts it well and that too without any heavy doses of  'word of wisdom'.

The movie is fantastic though realistic. It has wit and humour in its dialogues. There is a first sight love and there is persistent, selfless labours of years to gain the love. There are stories about haunted house and monstrous creature, and there are stories about depth of relations. Big Fish is a story of a man who prefers to choose the road less traveled.   It is a story of a story teller and his son and that of myths and truths. Big Fish is a story of a big fish who is touched by something extra and is never caught.

All in all, a must watch movie.

They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up.  From: Big Fish