Eighteen year old men
Ariza | 28 June 2006, 6:09pm
Was reading a book about war today. The author was eighteen years old when he was shipped off to the world war. He describes his experiences in the book. There is a particular scene which stands out. The author and his friend are in the trenches waiting for an attack to come when they start having a conversation.
"I had a great life. I dont know if I would ever see it again."
"You will. Dont worry." the author says.
"It's just that, now that I have seen this destruction the whole thing stands out in contrast. You see I had a great life. I never got to know that then, always had something to crib about and I only got engaged hoping to get laid. And now I might die alone. Now, from here, I am in love."
Talk like that in trenches might sound like a bad idea because it makes everyone emotional and then it becomes difficult to kill. But I dont think so. In the above line you can see the fellow wanted to live, that he wanted to see life. That is a good reason. Hell, it is as good a reason as any to fight a war and kill a man: TO LIVE.
In our country the movies made on war are about nationalism and patriotism. How many times have we had soldiers lecturing about their love for the country while they die. I remember J.P Dutta's LOC. Somehow, I am not convinced. Patriotism is a good enough reason to go to war but it is not the thing that keeps you alive. Ofcourse, a man could turn back and run and then he would be alive. Catch 22's Yossarian would agree. But a man cannot live to be a coward and we are always aware of the cowardice inside us. So between these extremes you end up fighting and in a war, in the trench waiting for the enemy, it is better to know that you have to be alive to go back home.
Ofcourse home is never the same. We, who have gone through eighteen rebelling and drooling after girls can never understand this. A simple near death experience can change us. War is more than that. There must always be the fear of death and change must breed inside this. In this book there is a character who sleeps with his gun in his hand. They keep warning him that one day he'll blow his head off. He says he is liable to do that if he didnt have his gun beside him, that the fear was too goddam much. The gun gives him comfort, keeps him sane.
I wonder how does he come home. What happens to his fear? What happens to that place in his heart where once there was fear.
Ofcourse we can never understand that.
Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: Vijaypath
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Accident
Ariza | 26 June 2006, 1:34pm
The scooter in grey cut right across the road and turned up in front of the bike. The bike swerved in trying to avoid the scooter, skidded and scraped past the scooter throwing it down. Then it fell and still skidding came to halt at a little distance. The woman on the bike was underneath it while the man was thrown a little further. He collected himself and ran to help the woman with frightened concern. "Are you all right? Oh my god are you all right? You!"he said turning to the man on the scooter in anger and was animated, but the woman had to be helped. Someone came up from the road and helped him lift the bike and all the while he kept asking with painful concern "Are you alright? Are you alright baby?" Someone noticed that his hand had started bleeding. The woman was in a shock. She was led away to the pavement holding her hip. Her man wasnt going to let this go. "You bastard. Cant you see you bastard!" The man in the scooter had taken a fall but he had collected himself. He had been examing himself when the other walked up to him. "What did you call me?" "I called you a bastard!" At this the other man jumped on him and we heard a whack but didnt see anything. There was already a crowd there but no one tried to help yet. Both of them rushed out of the crowd holding on to each other. The man on the bike still had his arm bleeding and he was trying to kick with his knee. But the other was stronger and he kept hitting him on the head. The bike-man was giving up, his upward thrusts of the knee were meek and he was loosing ground. The traffic came to a crowded halt. Some found a way through and didnt bother with the scene, others craned their heads over to see where the fight was, while still others parked their vehicles and started to watch. A small crowd followed the men and the woman began to scream. Her man was getting it hard on the head and she was asking someone to stop them. We could see the strong blows the man was getting on his head. And then he gave in and fell to the ground. We saw the scooter-man, the one who had been reckless, scream something at him and get him in the stomach. Something else began to bleed. Someothers came in now and held onto the man and asked him to stop. "Did you hear what he called me? You bastard. Your family bastard." Someone suggested that the man on the ground needed to be rushed to the hospital. The scooter-man was looking at his scooter. He was looking to slip away. They lifted the bike-man on their shoulders. His woman stood shouting at the scooter-man. She got into the auto. Her man could barely walk and they brought him on shoulders to the auto. Someone slipped a key into his pocket and his hand was bleeding onto the road. The scooter-man hadnt left. He had gotten brave. He came up to the auto and screamed at the couple: "Dont call me a bastard! That is what happens!" Then something happened. The injured man in the auto jumped out and swung his leg hard. We could see it from the pavement through the crowd. The blow landed between the other mans legs and we heard the sound it made. The man went down in a hurry.
Current Mood: Angry
Current Music: Beethoven
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Saturday
Ariza | 24 June 2006, 11:14am
It is a saturday again and the old beggar is here. He comes with his wife who sits on a wodden cart that runs on ball-bearings. You can hear them coming but we dont notice. He stands outside the gate and calls us out. The routine has been fixed long ago. First he calls for the customary "Amma!" And then he calls out "Babu?" I take out a five rupee coin and go out. He enquires about everyone. I say everyone is fine. He lifts his hand, thanks me and walks away. Behind him and through the gate I can see his wife grinning. She doesnt have good teeth.
I dont like him asking about my family. I am sure he doesnt know how many people are in it. He will come next saturday and I will give him another five-rupee coin. Then, I will not answer his question.
Current Mood: Irreverent
Current Music: Souten
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After the rain
Ariza | 23 June 2006, 1:01pm
The rain had stopped for a moment and the sun came out shining. The wet terrace just outside my window started to glow and the thin leaves of the coconut trees started to glow. The breeze is still full of rain and I can smell the cool air blowing in. There is a cat curled up inside my helmet on my bed. I went to check on it. It has curled up nicely and it feels warm. It opened its eyes to my touch and looked at me from its sleep. I left it alone. The woman on the opposite building has had her clothes hanging in the balcony all day and they dont seem to have dried yet. The street is under soft mushy red mud that flowed out from the mounds by the side of the road that they had made while digging it up. I can hear the rubber tyres on the wet mud. I can hear the horns, the motor of the vehicles. The sun has disappeared again and it is wet everywhere. It is wet without the sunshine on it.
Current Mood: Cold
Current Music: Commando
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Kudos to the Courts
Ariza | 22 June 2006, 12:44pm
The high court's squashinging of the ban on the Da Vinci Code was appropriate to say the least. What made it even better was the wording of the order where the court asked the government not to meddle with individual choices. I mean people have chosen to pay a fee to watch the movie! Those who percieve the movie as hurtful to thier sentiments are free to avoid it and free to protest against it. No one is taking that right away from them, but to intrude into my privacy and dictate what I can watch is ridiculous (I mean I can vote! Choose my own Government but need to be told what to watch?) And it is simply a movie!
I think this debate isnt disappearing in a hurry. But what is amusing to note is that with this book and movie Dan Brown jumps into a league of writers that includes James Joyce and Salman Rushdie, both of whom had their books banned for various reasons .(Ulysses was obscene and Satanic Verses was well...you know) Brow, however, is nowhere close to either one of them as far as literary talents go. This additional publicity is only going to help him sell more books. It is a bad book and from what I hear a bad movie. (never-mind-the-cast)Now if only governments would leave it alone we could get over the curiousity of watching it and then forget it.
Current Mood: Preachy
Current Music: None
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Love and loss part I
Ariza | 19 June 2006, 10:45pm
If you live long enough, loss is inevitable. So when I began an informal friendship with an old anglo-indian neighbour of mine for a few free drinks in his yellow-light filled apartment I expected it to have no impact on me. But i suppose that in this life he was a stifled story-teller, a writer may be, and when he began recollecting his life in short glimpses for me I simply could not let it rest. These churned the half baked ideas inside my head and left me more battered than confused.
The theme that runs through all of them is Love. Mr.Miguel, childless, who lives alone in his flat now, loved his wife. It is a statement I can attest to with my own observation. Each day early in the morning I would see them walking down the road on their way to the church immersed deep in their conversation of what topics I could never make out. I remember one cold foggy winter day in particular: On their way back Mrs. Miguel met an old friend who offered to take her home on her two wheeler, Mrs.Miguel was suffering with a painful leg ailment then, and she agreed. It was only when I saw Mr.Miguel burst out of the fog looking like he had been hit by something and like he was rushing home to get it fixed did I realise what he was missing: his wife.
He hasnt been to the church since his wife died. Our association began that same year when he called me to fetch the christmas cakes with the same unchanged expression on his face and then to prove it that he was ok he asked me if I wanted a drink. We were on. The first story he ever told me was about a dinner soon after his marriage when he had asked some collegues home. He thought that it went well until late in the night when he woke up to find his young wife crying beside him.
"How could you do this to me?" she asked.
"do what?"
"You knew that I had an exam tommorow and you still called them. I have spent the whole evening cooking so that you dont look bad and now I am tired. My exam is ruined. A whole year gone."
He didnt know that. He tried to console her without much conviction and fell asleep thinking that she would get over it by morning. A little while later he woke up again when his wife came up to him and shook his sleep out for the night.
"Dont sleep like that now. Help me with it." He was reluctant. He had to go to the office and what would she do with a degree anyway? (1950's remember.) But he still hadnt lost his bachelor-hood shyness around her. He took the book and started asking her some questions.
"Soon", he later told me, "I was in it." "It was history and she told me fascinating stories about now-long-dead-kings. I realised what all this meant to her."
I think he saw the passion in her eyes. He never doubted it again. She needed it with more intensity than he needed to do his mundane job. He guessed my thoughts and added:
"It was a legendary night because thats when I realised that I had got myself a fire brand."
Another time he told me about her dreams.
"She always had a grand way of dreaming" he told me. "Then she would wake up early in the morning and tell me about it and I could see it sometimes, like I had been there with her and I would be in a fantastic place because she dreamed in bloody cinemascope." It was GGGRand with a capital G I realised.
"She would tell me about hundreds of funeral pyres on a desolate river bed or of a rain forest with sky high trees looking down on her with suspiscion in her eyes. Sometimes I would wake up by the force of her dreams!"
She had been infectious too.
Somewhere along the line we had agreed that I wouldnt ask any questions and Mr.Miguel liked it because of that. Often I found him lost with his glass in his hand and then his eyes had that expression that said he could see something happen right in front of him and I knew I could be lucky if he agreed to transcribe it for me.
(to be continued)
Current Mood: Feeling Better
Current Music: Old
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Things I dont know about Hyderabad.
Ariza | 2 June 2006, 8:34pm
Things I don
Current Mood: Confused
Current Music: kill bill
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