Someday I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap….
(Seamus Heaney, The Tollund Man)
It will not be far-fetched to imagine certain commonalities between travelling and writing. The adage of inscribing our footprints on the sands of time speaks volumes about the physical mobility in travelling which can be poetically read as ‘ecrits a la pays’. May be it is precisely due to this instinct of literarily coalescing the physical and mental travails in travelling, that people write when they travel. Of course, if not everyone, at least most of us try to record strange lands, stranger peoples and cultures in our mind and the awe, shock, wonder and fascination that new landscapes and new faces provide, are immense and enlightening. When the British wrote about the ‘ghastly’ Indian summers and the ‘unrecognizable, homogenous, khaki chunk of Indian people’, it was nothing but the inscription of their peripheral confrontation (and incomprehension) with a totally different set of cultures, clime and people. It is the same curiosity and interest in people and cultures that make me write about all the places I travel as well. In this article, I shall be exploring Arhus, a small city in Denmark, where I happened to stay for a few days and feel at home as never before. To quote Heaney’s poetic paradox yet again, “lost, unhappy and at home”.
Arhus, meaning the river mouth, was one of the oldest cities of Scandinavia, and now the second largest city in Denmark. It is almost in the geographical centre of Denmark and when the plane touched down the airport at nine pm, on a lovely August evening, I was almost surprised to see twilight spreading over the scarred islands on the sea. The sky and sea were two distinct shades of grey and on the ground spread a greasy dappled land which took a deeper greyish hue. To accentuate the dullness, there was this blizzard which cut into my skin, the very moment I set foot on Arhus air port. This was my first experience; I could see fellow passengers run for cover mumbling that this is most unusual in August (Danish summer). From the airport it was a 45 minutes bus journey to my hotel and in the warm interiors of the hotel I snuggled on to my quit, dreaming and missing the warmth of my children beside me.
The morning was fresh and promising, I was just near the port and I took a long walk to the University of Arhus, after a fresh shower. I was walking a neat small town, lined with brick buildings over grown with ivy. The traffic was not very heavy though all the vehicles blaring past came to an astounding halt the moment I stepped off tangent on to the road, in my typical hap-hazardly Indian manner. No road-rage at all, though I came close to being spread out like a streak of viscous honey on tarmac. I got a few polite nods asking me to be more careful. I realized that it was the left hand drive and traffic that confused me and stopped my frantic search of directions whenever I reached a zebra path. I just moved on majestically at red lights, as the traffic stopped with a graceful ease; I felt as if the world stopped for me as I moved.
Almost all the Danes I spoke to knew English, though there were a few working class people who didn’t. In my racial confusion, I could not make out, who is who and the first person whom I asked for directions, knew no English at all. Still he stopped to help. He was a puckered young man, with shoulder- length hair and denim jacket, straight out of the hippie 60s. He could catch ‘university’ from my query and though he was carrying a huge gunny bag, he shoved it on his back and guided me through a road that sloped upwards to the horizon without panting at all. It was a pleasant sunny day; he stopped and pointed at the university. It was a sprawling green space lined with trees that filtered the diaphanous veil of sunlight and brick buildings centered with an artificial pond with frolicking geese. I could see students relax and study near the green, mossy pond with a book or two in hand. My escort left me there with a smile and indicated that he has to go the opposite direction and I was left with a meek and apologetic ‘Mange tak’ (thank you so much), for having inconvenienced him.
Hamlet’s Grave
I couldn’t wait for the evening, when the seminar organizers were supposed to take us on a Hamlet tour. According to history, the birthplace of Prince Hamlet was Denmark, and as any lover of literature, I was curiously looking forward to the tour to visit Hamlet’s grave. I had an excellent guide Inger, who was a student of the University, whose versatility and historical precision were heartening. An amazing thing about her was the way she interspersed self critique and sarcasm into her narratives, that she had all the tourists on the splits throughout the tour. Like everyone else, I was looking forward to see a huge sarcophagus with the embellishment and grandeur of fame to mark the glory of Prince Hamlet.
Though Inger promised us a big surprise at the place of the grave, I was not ready for what I saw. The grave was nothing but a huge tomb stone erected on a sprawling land, which was part meadow and part bog land. Inger strode on confidently to the stone and narrated the story to all of us whose jaws dropped beyond belief. She told us the story of Prince Hamlet, which was different from that of the protagonist who was dramatized by Shakespeare. The real Prince Hamlet lived around 7th century AD and of course he had a step father, his mother’s paramour, who had murdered Hamlet’s father. But, of course the real Hamlet’s life had less masala than Shakespeare had imaginatively depicted. Hamlet is supposed to have killed his step-father without any qualms and of course he seems not to have doubted or in the least have had any dilemmas about: “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, /And by opposing end them?” The legends say that Prince Hamlet supposedly overcame all the impediments he faced with an iron hand and ruled the country until his old age. According to Inger, the large hewn stone epitaph of Prince Hamlet also had a hilarious anecdote behind it as it stands as a lampoon on the touristic curiosity and culture of any traveller. According to Inger, the historical fact that Hamlet’s fort existed in Arhus once upon a time, invited many a curious travellers to Arhus. In 1930, there was this particular American tourist who was in search of the relics of Hamlet. The local people seem to have capitulated fast on this element of curiosity and they are supposed to have erected a large menhir-like monolith with an epitaph inscribed on it. This was the story of the fake tomb stone of Hamlet, which everybody knew as fake, and due to its sheer outright forgery and duplicity won considerable authenticity and tourist attraction over a period of time. Instead of being disappointed, we went back amused and full of awe in the way history was blatantly doctored to challenge the touristic impulses.
Rosenholm
Our next destination was Rosenholm, the seventeenth century castle which belonged to Rosencrantz. The Rosencrantz and Guildenstern we know are again characters straight out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet; they were the sycophantic courtiers who were the Prince’s childhood friends, who were dispatched with a letter to murder Hamlet. In the play, Hamlet finds the letter and rewrites it in such a manner that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are in turn killed by the King of England. Though sources say that Rosencrantz was a common name among the nobility of Denmark during the Seventeenth century, Shakespeare borrowed the name from one particular Rosencrantz who was a noble man who owned the castle Rosenholm. It was built around a magnificent moat with green lawns.
Imprimis, the castle reverberated with many an unsung song of the heroics and fame the nobility had tried to build up as beau monde over the ages. The tapestries in the castle were priceless, so were the curios, medallions and trophies which were preserved right from 16th century onwards. In one of the drawing rooms, hung with Persian tapestries, Inger turned to us unexpectedly and asked if any of us felt invisible or the touch of a cold snout on our feet. At the mention, most of us felt something spooky and shifted on our feet uneasily. That reaction was psychological, yet almost instinctual, because Inger was good at the dramatically sensationalizing ‘stories’. Apparently, what was to be told by Inger was a gory tale which could not be easily digested. She told us about a particularly gory ritual, prevalent in Denmark, which was supposed to augur well for the Kingdom as such. According to the belief, whenever a new fortress was constructed, Virgin blood was used to congeal the mortar to reinforce the strength of the fort. This belief emanated from the basic belief that a virgin’s blood ensured the impenetrability of the fort. Rosencrantz’s daughter’s blood was mixed with Rosenholm’s mortar. For the public, she was slain for reinforcing the safety of the fort. But the inner circles knew that as she had an affair with a courtier and was impregnated with his child, Rosencrantz ruthlessly slew her in order to preserve the family honour. When she was killed, her pet dog was also killed along with her and it is believed that in that particular drawing room where we stood, their ghosts still roamed about and the pet dog often rubbed its cold snout against people’s ankles.
A pleasant twilight was setting in around Rosenholm. Despite the speechless grandeur the castle provided; there was also this gruesome, unsettling account of cruelty that remained hand in glove with the magnificence of fame and glory. It was indeed disturbing to face these dual propensities of glory and gore mixed together, but often attractions like fame, honour, grandeur, etc often speak about the power games and subtle politics that take devious and circuitous route to cruelty and oppression as well.
I was moody on my way back and of course was lucky to be seated near Constance Keinf, an Associate Professor who taught Business English at the Business School at the University of Arhus. We began talking about the upheavals and hazards that we faced in the profession, and then we got into personal details. Connie was betrothed a Danish gentleman, though she was originally American (of Jewish-German parents). She promised to take me to her fiancé’s house that evening. I was not in the least reluctant, for I wanted to go to a Danish house and probably enjoy the local hospitality. In the evening, Connie led me to a two-storied house, which opened to a warm and cozy interior. The house was full of smiling people, reminding me of the old joint families we had almost twenty years back. There were grandmothers and grand pas and grand aunts and an ageing mom and dad, shadowed by three sons and a daughter. I wondered if all Danish houses had such big families living inside them and Connie told me yet another story of family and relationships in Denmark. She said that the Danish have this ‘let-go policy’ for youngsters and teenagers. Once when the youngsters are in their teens and early youth, they are given a lot of freedom to choose their path and way of life. They are let free to find their own path through mischief, experimentation, trials and errors. Due to this unrestrained freedom given in the teens, Connie swears, most of the youth take a turn coat return to family and values related to fidelity and stability in the late youth. Once they return to the security of familial ethos, it seems there is no turning back.
The next day, our first destination was the Moesgaard museum and then the Women’s and Children’s Museum in Arhus. The Moesgaard museum was a delight for all kinds 0f avante garde architectural skills. Moesgaard also had this well preserved bog body of the Grauballe Man, preserved in the most acute of mummified corpse right from 4th century BC. The Grauballe Man was astonishingly well-preserved; he has his head and hair intact and just that his skin and hair were discolored because of the passage of time. This man was supposed to have died at a very young age of thirty and he was supposed to have been either executed or murdered because he had a fractured head and he seems to have been likely to have been drowned in quagmire as either a sacrifice or as part of effacing evidence. After seeing Grauballe Man, and after being breathtakingly overwhelmed in his ancient presence that mingled pre history, shreds of speculative history on the lives and times of ancient cultures, societies, etc, I made a quiet exit from the museum. I was overwhelmed at the sight of the ironic immortality of death staring right on my face.
Kvindemuseet i Danmark
From here, I went to Women’s Museum, Kvindemuseet i Danmark, a museum dedicated exclusively for women and children. This is one of the few women’s museums in the world and it’s a national museum focused on women’s lives and work through the last 200 years, but also with lines to the more distant past. The museum had many exciting games for children specially designed to kindle their interest in the past artifacts and details. It also had a varied display of items which ranged from their cradles, their chastity belts, the wedding trousseaus, health pads, kitchen utensils, art objects and scientific equipment either discovered or used by the women of yore. Every item had a secret history as well the user’s personal history entwined to it. Every item historicized the past of the women and children who lived ahead of us, their joys, struggles, achievements and contributions which have in fact led an easy path towards our present. I loved the way each and every small item of the women of the past were taken care of, listed and well preserved for posterity. Most of things we take for granted as mundane and quotidian in our grandmothers and mothers’ lives were treated with outmost respect and concern in the Museum. The best part of the museum visit was that, I was in the company of two exemplary women, Anne and Karla, from Finland and the Czech Republic, who were there with me telling us about their countries and the women’s spaces couched within those worlds.
My last day in Arhus was a memorable one, I had to catch a flight at 7 am and from the city the air port was a good 45 minutes away. There was a bus that left for air port at 5.00 am. I was up quite early and walked to the bus stop. But for a few cars which sped across, I had no company whatsoever. It was a lovely pre-dawn, with a light, bone-chilling drizzle, the streets were quiet and I was the only person who walked on the streets with such an assurance and feeling of safety which I could hardly feel in my home town. I reached the bus station and waited till 4. 45 and still there was no sight of the bus as well as other co-passengers. For the first time I started I looked at my ‘loneness’ with distaste. Suddenly a bread truck stopped opposite to me and the delivery man got out for opening his shop and delivering bread. I went to him and asked him where exactly I could find the bus to the air port. The man turned and looked at me disconcertedly and shook his head “No English, English No!” This was the wrong time to meet a person who knew no English and I desperately tried to choreograph a plane by opening my arms wide. Then he opened his truck door and indicated that I get in. After a moment’s hesitation, I was in and he drove me to a bus which was waiting impatiently to take passengers to the air port, I found out that I was waiting in the wrong bus station for the right bus! There I was, I shook his hands and bowed to him and said ‘TAK’, ‘Thanks a lot’. The bus departed within minutes of my taking seat inside and I remembered this bread delivery man as my savior, if I hadn’t taken this bus there would have been no other transport for another hour and I would have definitely missed my flight to Copenhagen to reach home. When I kissed good bye to Arhus, I had only good memories and more of a traveller’s itch to travel, explore the unknown and thus know more about oneself.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
A Yuppie Diary: One Night at Godavari Hostel
This is not my story; this is the story of a thief. I am just a path unto him. Anna Fernandez, M Phil Third semester, Centre for English, JNU.
• * *
Another day has passed quickly too. Today’s agenda is like this: after my quick afternoon nap (which I pompously call my Spanish siesta), a movie at Priya Cinema in the evening and a steaming cup of hot chocolate fudge at Nirulas. By the time I get back to campus, the mess will close. Only “Peechas” will be open at that time of the night. Their special dish is roast lamb with white sauce and noodles, something quite sumptuous for forty rupees. I’m drooling at the thought of it, but of late the VBVP boys had been creating quite a ruckus over “Peechas”, tarnishing their image, with all kinds of stories. One day even Dia, the Jughead gourmand, whispered to me, when I was in the middle of wolfing down chunks of meat. “Anna, have you ever wondered where all the mangy-ridden dogs of our campus disappear? I was wondering if their final journey is to the red hot tawas in Peechas!” I didn’t mind the racist rile, but the lamb chops definitely got stuck in my throat. I forgot to tell you, Peechas is run by a Tibetan refugee. On its dirty walls, there is a laminated photograph of His Highness the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere framed together with the owner caught in the most reverential of all his poses. Oh! That reminds me of some of the unsavoury specifics behind today’s movie watch.
I am going to watch the movie with a guilty conscience. Mostly I watch movies once a week with Dia, my constant companion. We used to cue up for hours and hours and sprint towards the hall after overcoming all the barriers like dividers, leering eyes extending as groping arms and the watchmen, who usually abuse the 10 rupee ticketeers for no obvious reason whatsoever. These hurdles were adventurous; though the real fun was in craning our necks in the first row over some pop corn and lots of sarcasm. I will be missing that on the one hand and on the other I shall be seeking the boring company of Vilok. Vilok meant ‘eternity’ or something as phoney as that. A ‘theory fad”, he is Eliot’s Carbuncular clerk personified. A nerd full of Eagleton, Said and Gramsci and of course, himself. Caution, if you criticise Tagore, he will strike like a ferocious lion. Only in moments like those does he discard his global identity just to don his parochial Bengali one. Many times, Dia and I have pooh-poohed Tagore’s works just to piss him off. Sorry, I’m off tangent a bit, but obviously my movie pal for the evening is this guy, Vilok. I vividly remember the time I joined for MPhil, our whole class trekked the campus reserves to spot a Nilgai, I told Vilok rather mischievously. “Hey Vilok, I know one Bengali sentence, shall I tell you?” I saw Dia roll her eyes in anticipated disgust. His curiosity popped out of his spectacles: “Yes, tell me.” “Ami tomakke bhalo vasshi, I love you,” I told him in corrupted Bengali playing up the coy part, but I added in haste: “But this is not meant for you”. I liked the way Vilok’s smile disappear in a split second and I ignored Dia mouth “coitus interruptus” in a seditious manner. Somewhere even I agree with Ganesh, my steady boy friend, who once told me in a rather concernedly, “Anna, I am worried about you. You are a terrible tease!”
Anyway, after this incident, Vilok became a frequent visitor to my hostel. During my Spanish siesta with my roomie Sengita, Naresh bhaiyya startled us with “ Owne faib faib , Anna Phernanndej, bisiter” (one five five, that is my room number). An irritated Sengita used to grumble “Teri Bengali aashik aagaya, ja jaldi nikal ja”, making sure to mirror all her irritation in her sleepy growl.
To tell you the truth, it’s really boring to chat up Vilok. The only interesting part was the fact that we used to sit under a dysfunctional architecture, a mammoth waste of a water tank and bitch about Tasia Jat, ignoring the bird poop scattered smelly all over. Tasia was the Assistant Prof of our centre, a fortyish sexy harpy. I was in awe of her pink cheeks till that day as Dia told me the truth: “Dumbo, that’s not natural. Its rouge!!” Though that came out of her exasperation, the story spread quickly enough to remain as one of my gawar legends on campus. There was something else which was as elusive as Tasia’s beauty that was her sexiness. I have also leered at her braless-duppattaless contours (her support for the burn-the-bra movement in the 70s continued in the 2oth century as well) with all the boys in our class. My eyes would trace her breasts which teased a glimpse of her nipples silhouetting through her thin kameez. When I woke up at this moment of envy and embarrassment, the whole class would be sitting hypnotised at that very shadowy glimpse. Whenever Tasia wears a saree, the cock tease reaches its crescendo as the pallu threatens to slip from her bosom at every move. The class would reach its dramatic heights at the end of the lecture, as the sari slips off her breasts; her hair also disentangles from its knot and falls over her shoulders with an almost perfect timing. Tasia makes sure to avenge our voyeurism by shooting a file of questions. You answer them or not, they hurt. One day when Vilok mumbled an answer, Tasia told him rather acridly, “I wonder how duds like you manage to step into this university”. When she turned to the board, Udit whispered an audible “asshole” which made the class go into convulsions.
How much ever Tasia insulted the boys, I have always seen them trying to impress her and make an ass of themselves. Vilok was no exception. The more he tried, the more she hurt his male ego. These comic reliefs were however short lived, because Tasia made it a point to puncture the less besotted girls like us in the class too.
“Owne faib faib”. Naresh bhaiyya’s voice can really make your hair stand on the end. I took a peek at the visitor's lounge and spotted Vilok in his kiddo pink sweatshirt and a purple back pack. I cursed my bad luck and set off covering myself with a thin Kashmiri shawl.
We skipped Priya that evening and went to see Barry John’s ‘Othello in Black and White’. When we took our last bus to campus, it was already eleven. Peechas was closed and Vilok invited me to his hostel over some sandwich and black tea. Chill was descending on campus with a vengeance that night. From Vilok’s Brahmaputra hostel to Godavari, there was at least two kilometres and to add to the misery of the night chill, there were no lampposts even. The way was pitch black and heavily forested. Having no other choice, I borrowed a baby blue sweater from him and ignored the stench of mildew and sweat caked in its armpits and walked towards Godavari, loyally escorted by Vilok. For once I felt considerate towards him and wondered if this escort is part of friendship or a budding romance. Oodles of nostalgia and loneliness drove many to love in the university. As some romanced forgetting the caste and regional boundaries; some were selective in their choices. There were affairs as stormy and radical as the Harry Brahmin and Kashmiri Muslim couple’s and as quotidian as a Nair-boy-falling-in-love-with-a-Nair-girl-from-the- neighbouring-villages-of-Palakkad and so on.
When we reached Godavari hostel, it was almost one o clock. Surprisingly lights were not put off in any of the rooms and there was a reasonably big crowd near the hostel. The hostel chowkidhar was shouting “Chor! Chor!” quite excitedly. All the Union leaders including the Students Union Chairman and General Secretary were all assembled there. I saw Senghita in the crowd and she informed me that there was an attempt to burglary in Vaijayanti Pai’s room. Vaijayanti alerted the chowkidar after steering the thief into the room and latching him in there. Later, the chowkidar and some group four officers subdued the thief in Vaijayanti’s room.
In the crowd, I saw him. ‘The thief’ stood there battered, with all the men around him taking a wild aim at his bony punch bag of a body. He also managed to look scared and indifferent at the same time. I had expected a filmi style burglar, at least. Considering the fact that he transgressed ladies hostel premises made me imagine that he would at least look like Pran with a pirate-eye. This Bihari thief was a disappointment, just a stick insect. On his skeletal remains of a chest a tattered sweater hung loose like rags on a scare crow. An equally tattered lungi hung on his waist ready to tousle at the next possible move. He must be one of those daily wage coolies camped near our campus, building a five star apartment here and a sports stadium there.
Now with the reality slowly dawning on him the thief looked rather confounded in seeing the crème de la crème of Indian intelligentsia gathered around him. He looked a bit embarrassed as well in having taken in so many beatings from their erudite hands at one go. Surrounding him were those socially conscious boys who gloated with gratification at the knowledge of having upheld the integrity and honesty on campus, especially in the girl’s hostel. Omair was also one among them (he was ‘Umer’ till the time as he went to attend a two week conference on Human rights in the University of Minnesota. On coming back he upgraded himself meticulously, carefully choosing his western and Indian outfits from Westside and Fab India to give the look of an Indian male in a transitive fusion. His name also underwent a phenomenal change as he started calling himself “Omair” stressing the ‘air’ part rather pompously, which was in turn hastily picked up and loyally chorused by many female fans). He spoke rather vociferously about this violation of female territories on campus, he said, “Only in the developing, third world countries like India would you see such mindless male transgression of female territories. Had it been the US, the thief wudda spent a life time in jail”. He smiled meaningfully at a bunch of fawning girls. Indrani Mukharjee, the hostel president, came out of the crowd sleepily and hushed Omair, “Well, all of us know what happened to the so called female territories last Christmas”. Many in the crowd could not suppress their delight at the reference, because the whole campus knew ‘Omair’s’ adventures clad in a burkha on the fourth floor of the girls hostel with his doting admirers of the opposite sex. We also heard tales of how he managed to hush up the chowkidar and Naresh bhaiyya with his expensive greasing. “Common everybody lets meet up for a GBM” Indrani directed.
GBM was the General Body Meeting of all student bodies, political / a political, and teachers and students who are interested in the debated issue. This was also one of the golden opportunities for the boys to gain entry to the girls’ hostel premises, as the GBM is usually held in the capacious mess halls. Within five minutes, everybody assembled in the mess hall. Vilok also joined the boys in the hall and positioned himself rather strategically so as to take a sweeping glance over all the good looking girls in the mess. The thief was tied on the mess column with Indrani’s dupatta. Many boys sighed and commented aloud that the thief is lucky at least that way. Suddenly there was a deluge of many coloured duppattas which wound the thief rather flamboyantly. Along with the blood stains and many coloured duppatas, the thief looked like an emaciated captive taken straight out a surreal dream.
Everybody looked up when the well known social activist and the Associate Professor of the Centre for Social Studies, Dr. Mohak Padvardhan cleared his throat. He began, “ Friends, the so called ‘thief’ you see right in front of you is not the sole victim of the evil effects of globalisation that has spread its cantankerous fangs all over our country. The disasters of globalisation have started affecting us locally also, to that extent that it has even spread towards Godavari. This man is a silent victim of capitalisation that has poisoned millions of suffering humanity in our country. In your lay parlance he is a ‘thief’ and a ‘burglar’, but I would like you to rethink on his unfortunate situation caught in the nefarious web of capitalisation, and I just wanted to give you an overall socio-political-and economic perspective to the whole incident.” Patvardhan was indeed quite pretentious with the kind of vocabulary that could impress. His speech won applause from all the sociology department girls. But VBVP loyalist and sidekick, Prakash Jha looked pretty worked up and he could not suppress his anger, “But this trespasser could have raped someone or stolen something valuable. Are you trying to white wash this man with your anti capitalist nonsense?” Jha’s aggression in upholding the honour of girls in campus, unsettled Patvardhan, he continued waveringly, “I agree that he had awful intentions behind the transgression, but I just wanted you to take a look at the circumstances which led him to this. Before you label him as an antisocial element, I want you to re-examine our own social penal codes which are basically capitalistic in nature”.
Sita verma, the Secretary of Women against Atrocities Cell, got up with a visible shiver, “Dr. Patvardhan, I agree to disagree with you in this account. As a woman I have the right to consider the ladies hostel as a private space for women and women alone. Any man trespassing these spaces without permission, let him be the victim of anything, capitalism or materialism or anything, deserves punishment in the strictest sense. His transgression is equivalent to physical misdemeanour. It is equivalent to sexual harassment and rape!” This torrent brought plenty of tears to Sita’s unusually large eyes and she shivered from head to toe due to an excess of emotional upheaval. Dia, who was standing near me, haughtily imitated that shiver with a half smile.
Silence prevailed in a split second, and Sita’s emotional appeal silenced everyone rather effectively. Only the thief looked unfazed, because there was a general air of incomprehension around him. Moitree Malhotra, who was doing her research in Criminal psychology of Dalits and Oppressed was not willing to give in that easily. She addressed the crowd in general and Sita in particular, “Sita, I wonder how you can talk like this. You should remember that the values you talk about transgression, et al are very middle class in nature. They are taken right out of the British bureaucracy and caste feudalism of the Great Indian middle class. Those values are yours and yours alone and especially for somebody hailing from as feudal a background as yours, it is difficult to imagine even. The kind of feminism you talk about is every elitist in nature and it is palatable only to your kind of nouveau riche middle class sensibilities.” Though Prakash Jha missed out on the essence of the speech, he joined the cheering crowd. Even Dr. Patvardhan nodded feebly and whispered something officiously to the Students Union General Secretary.
Moitree looked at Sita rather triumphantly as she looked visibly shaken. Sita’s Achilles heel was her bourgeoisie caste and class background and even among the staunch feminists, her commitment to the movement was monitored with suspicion. Moitree, after hitting the bull’s eye, cleared her throat once again and Prakash Jha, in anticipation of more action and suspense among the feminist warriors moved closer to Vilok and put his arm across his shoulders. This unexpected friendship unsettled Vilok and he looked at Dia and me rather sheepishly. Moitree continued in the same aggressive vein, “It is just not the feudalistic impact of capitalism that is problematised here. We should also take a look at the greater implications of this phenomenon on the psyche of mankind. If we take a raison d’être of human beings actions we can see his most cavernous and insidious of his thoughts hidden deep within him. This thief is not the only wrong doer here, there is a criminal and assassin safely nestled within us. These elements are on the constant action within and even without us realising this even, the criminal in us may resurface at anytime, embarrassing our middle class sensibilities from deep within. I would ask you all those who haven’t sinned to cast the first stone.” This eloquence won a ‘wow’ even from Jha, and the way Moitree poeticised the whole thing impressed the crowd beyond compare. A sudden flash of hope flickered in the thief’s eyes too. Moitree seeing the effect of her articulacy continued: “Considering this, if we delve into our ‘selves’, we can see that if for a moment if we loosen the reins of our mind, we too will traverse the moral boundaries with an inexplicable ease. Take for example any moralist, he or she will be the first to violate the fringes of ethics and principles vociferously propagated by him or her. Dear friends, the nameless, characterless ‘thief’ here needs a drop of empathy and oodles of help from educated people like you.” That was the last laugh. Many girls had tears in their eyes. Omair hurriedly untied the dupatta knots wound on the thief’s body. He collapsed like a heap of old clothes on the mess floor.
Only Sita was not willing to give up that easily. She continued in her garrulous tone: “So, women’s mental and physical spaces have no dignity or value whatsoever? A woman is born as a bundle of flesh, when she grows up she grows up as two boobs and a ****. She grows up with the guilt of bearing her biological differences in mind. The only spaces where she is allowed to expand and grow mentally are those democratic spaces like Universities where she gets a chance to look at herself and widen herself mentally and physically. The society we are all concerned about is an incriminating ground for women, and only in democratic spaces like ours can a woman grow out of her complexes, diffidence, etc.” Sita, in her emotional excess, fumbled for words. She continued, “If these spaces which promote egalitarian ethos of the society deny the expression of women, my friends, she will be denied expression everywhere in the world!” There was a standing ovation for Sita from her supporters. The only person who looked desolate in the mayhem was the thief. Slowly the mess divided itself into many groups and argued amongst themselves about the pros and cons of capitalism and globalisation and the question of women’s empowerment was also heard from many quarters. Many boys fizzled out of the mess due to the anti climax the whole drama provided. A sleepy Patvardhan, drew the crowd again, “It is two o clock. What is the final decision?”
Dia intercepted, she said seriously, “Send him for counselling friends. Instead of talking bullshit about capitalism, male chauvinism, etc, please give this man the needed psychiatric help all of you.” She looked very angry and serious for a change, and I saw many people nodding in unison when she suggested thus.
“No! Police station, take him to station. “ A group of mischief mongers shouted from nowhere. Patwardhan and his followers countered them rather furiously, and the whole mess divided itself into groups trying to prove their point.
In the dim light, the thief’s eyes shone like anything else. Slowly, tear drops started falling; the first droplets became a deluge soon, accompanied by his sobbing. Then the rhythm of sobbing changed to a heart breaking wail, which took a different dimension as hysterical screams.
The mess came to a freezing stillness. Everybody’s eyes were fixed on the thief. He rose staggeringly and with joined palms he looked at everyone pleadingly. “Pardon me I am sorry!” He bellowed yet again.
He stopped rather dramatically in the middle and looked at every one imploringly once gain. He pleaded, “Bhaiyon aur bahanom, I do not understand anything you say. Your big big words go right above my head. Please don’t fight among yourselves for me, please send me to jail”.
Silence all over, only the thief’s bellows reverberated
“All of you send me to the jail, please I beg you....”
His wail rose over the Godavari mess and diffused like fog over the tall buildings of JNU.
• * *
Another day has passed quickly too. Today’s agenda is like this: after my quick afternoon nap (which I pompously call my Spanish siesta), a movie at Priya Cinema in the evening and a steaming cup of hot chocolate fudge at Nirulas. By the time I get back to campus, the mess will close. Only “Peechas” will be open at that time of the night. Their special dish is roast lamb with white sauce and noodles, something quite sumptuous for forty rupees. I’m drooling at the thought of it, but of late the VBVP boys had been creating quite a ruckus over “Peechas”, tarnishing their image, with all kinds of stories. One day even Dia, the Jughead gourmand, whispered to me, when I was in the middle of wolfing down chunks of meat. “Anna, have you ever wondered where all the mangy-ridden dogs of our campus disappear? I was wondering if their final journey is to the red hot tawas in Peechas!” I didn’t mind the racist rile, but the lamb chops definitely got stuck in my throat. I forgot to tell you, Peechas is run by a Tibetan refugee. On its dirty walls, there is a laminated photograph of His Highness the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere framed together with the owner caught in the most reverential of all his poses. Oh! That reminds me of some of the unsavoury specifics behind today’s movie watch.
I am going to watch the movie with a guilty conscience. Mostly I watch movies once a week with Dia, my constant companion. We used to cue up for hours and hours and sprint towards the hall after overcoming all the barriers like dividers, leering eyes extending as groping arms and the watchmen, who usually abuse the 10 rupee ticketeers for no obvious reason whatsoever. These hurdles were adventurous; though the real fun was in craning our necks in the first row over some pop corn and lots of sarcasm. I will be missing that on the one hand and on the other I shall be seeking the boring company of Vilok. Vilok meant ‘eternity’ or something as phoney as that. A ‘theory fad”, he is Eliot’s Carbuncular clerk personified. A nerd full of Eagleton, Said and Gramsci and of course, himself. Caution, if you criticise Tagore, he will strike like a ferocious lion. Only in moments like those does he discard his global identity just to don his parochial Bengali one. Many times, Dia and I have pooh-poohed Tagore’s works just to piss him off. Sorry, I’m off tangent a bit, but obviously my movie pal for the evening is this guy, Vilok. I vividly remember the time I joined for MPhil, our whole class trekked the campus reserves to spot a Nilgai, I told Vilok rather mischievously. “Hey Vilok, I know one Bengali sentence, shall I tell you?” I saw Dia roll her eyes in anticipated disgust. His curiosity popped out of his spectacles: “Yes, tell me.” “Ami tomakke bhalo vasshi, I love you,” I told him in corrupted Bengali playing up the coy part, but I added in haste: “But this is not meant for you”. I liked the way Vilok’s smile disappear in a split second and I ignored Dia mouth “coitus interruptus” in a seditious manner. Somewhere even I agree with Ganesh, my steady boy friend, who once told me in a rather concernedly, “Anna, I am worried about you. You are a terrible tease!”
Anyway, after this incident, Vilok became a frequent visitor to my hostel. During my Spanish siesta with my roomie Sengita, Naresh bhaiyya startled us with “ Owne faib faib , Anna Phernanndej, bisiter” (one five five, that is my room number). An irritated Sengita used to grumble “Teri Bengali aashik aagaya, ja jaldi nikal ja”, making sure to mirror all her irritation in her sleepy growl.
To tell you the truth, it’s really boring to chat up Vilok. The only interesting part was the fact that we used to sit under a dysfunctional architecture, a mammoth waste of a water tank and bitch about Tasia Jat, ignoring the bird poop scattered smelly all over. Tasia was the Assistant Prof of our centre, a fortyish sexy harpy. I was in awe of her pink cheeks till that day as Dia told me the truth: “Dumbo, that’s not natural. Its rouge!!” Though that came out of her exasperation, the story spread quickly enough to remain as one of my gawar legends on campus. There was something else which was as elusive as Tasia’s beauty that was her sexiness. I have also leered at her braless-duppattaless contours (her support for the burn-the-bra movement in the 70s continued in the 2oth century as well) with all the boys in our class. My eyes would trace her breasts which teased a glimpse of her nipples silhouetting through her thin kameez. When I woke up at this moment of envy and embarrassment, the whole class would be sitting hypnotised at that very shadowy glimpse. Whenever Tasia wears a saree, the cock tease reaches its crescendo as the pallu threatens to slip from her bosom at every move. The class would reach its dramatic heights at the end of the lecture, as the sari slips off her breasts; her hair also disentangles from its knot and falls over her shoulders with an almost perfect timing. Tasia makes sure to avenge our voyeurism by shooting a file of questions. You answer them or not, they hurt. One day when Vilok mumbled an answer, Tasia told him rather acridly, “I wonder how duds like you manage to step into this university”. When she turned to the board, Udit whispered an audible “asshole” which made the class go into convulsions.
How much ever Tasia insulted the boys, I have always seen them trying to impress her and make an ass of themselves. Vilok was no exception. The more he tried, the more she hurt his male ego. These comic reliefs were however short lived, because Tasia made it a point to puncture the less besotted girls like us in the class too.
“Owne faib faib”. Naresh bhaiyya’s voice can really make your hair stand on the end. I took a peek at the visitor's lounge and spotted Vilok in his kiddo pink sweatshirt and a purple back pack. I cursed my bad luck and set off covering myself with a thin Kashmiri shawl.
We skipped Priya that evening and went to see Barry John’s ‘Othello in Black and White’. When we took our last bus to campus, it was already eleven. Peechas was closed and Vilok invited me to his hostel over some sandwich and black tea. Chill was descending on campus with a vengeance that night. From Vilok’s Brahmaputra hostel to Godavari, there was at least two kilometres and to add to the misery of the night chill, there were no lampposts even. The way was pitch black and heavily forested. Having no other choice, I borrowed a baby blue sweater from him and ignored the stench of mildew and sweat caked in its armpits and walked towards Godavari, loyally escorted by Vilok. For once I felt considerate towards him and wondered if this escort is part of friendship or a budding romance. Oodles of nostalgia and loneliness drove many to love in the university. As some romanced forgetting the caste and regional boundaries; some were selective in their choices. There were affairs as stormy and radical as the Harry Brahmin and Kashmiri Muslim couple’s and as quotidian as a Nair-boy-falling-in-love-with-a-Nair-girl-from-the- neighbouring-villages-of-Palakkad and so on.
When we reached Godavari hostel, it was almost one o clock. Surprisingly lights were not put off in any of the rooms and there was a reasonably big crowd near the hostel. The hostel chowkidhar was shouting “Chor! Chor!” quite excitedly. All the Union leaders including the Students Union Chairman and General Secretary were all assembled there. I saw Senghita in the crowd and she informed me that there was an attempt to burglary in Vaijayanti Pai’s room. Vaijayanti alerted the chowkidar after steering the thief into the room and latching him in there. Later, the chowkidar and some group four officers subdued the thief in Vaijayanti’s room.
In the crowd, I saw him. ‘The thief’ stood there battered, with all the men around him taking a wild aim at his bony punch bag of a body. He also managed to look scared and indifferent at the same time. I had expected a filmi style burglar, at least. Considering the fact that he transgressed ladies hostel premises made me imagine that he would at least look like Pran with a pirate-eye. This Bihari thief was a disappointment, just a stick insect. On his skeletal remains of a chest a tattered sweater hung loose like rags on a scare crow. An equally tattered lungi hung on his waist ready to tousle at the next possible move. He must be one of those daily wage coolies camped near our campus, building a five star apartment here and a sports stadium there.
Now with the reality slowly dawning on him the thief looked rather confounded in seeing the crème de la crème of Indian intelligentsia gathered around him. He looked a bit embarrassed as well in having taken in so many beatings from their erudite hands at one go. Surrounding him were those socially conscious boys who gloated with gratification at the knowledge of having upheld the integrity and honesty on campus, especially in the girl’s hostel. Omair was also one among them (he was ‘Umer’ till the time as he went to attend a two week conference on Human rights in the University of Minnesota. On coming back he upgraded himself meticulously, carefully choosing his western and Indian outfits from Westside and Fab India to give the look of an Indian male in a transitive fusion. His name also underwent a phenomenal change as he started calling himself “Omair” stressing the ‘air’ part rather pompously, which was in turn hastily picked up and loyally chorused by many female fans). He spoke rather vociferously about this violation of female territories on campus, he said, “Only in the developing, third world countries like India would you see such mindless male transgression of female territories. Had it been the US, the thief wudda spent a life time in jail”. He smiled meaningfully at a bunch of fawning girls. Indrani Mukharjee, the hostel president, came out of the crowd sleepily and hushed Omair, “Well, all of us know what happened to the so called female territories last Christmas”. Many in the crowd could not suppress their delight at the reference, because the whole campus knew ‘Omair’s’ adventures clad in a burkha on the fourth floor of the girls hostel with his doting admirers of the opposite sex. We also heard tales of how he managed to hush up the chowkidar and Naresh bhaiyya with his expensive greasing. “Common everybody lets meet up for a GBM” Indrani directed.
GBM was the General Body Meeting of all student bodies, political / a political, and teachers and students who are interested in the debated issue. This was also one of the golden opportunities for the boys to gain entry to the girls’ hostel premises, as the GBM is usually held in the capacious mess halls. Within five minutes, everybody assembled in the mess hall. Vilok also joined the boys in the hall and positioned himself rather strategically so as to take a sweeping glance over all the good looking girls in the mess. The thief was tied on the mess column with Indrani’s dupatta. Many boys sighed and commented aloud that the thief is lucky at least that way. Suddenly there was a deluge of many coloured duppattas which wound the thief rather flamboyantly. Along with the blood stains and many coloured duppatas, the thief looked like an emaciated captive taken straight out a surreal dream.
Everybody looked up when the well known social activist and the Associate Professor of the Centre for Social Studies, Dr. Mohak Padvardhan cleared his throat. He began, “ Friends, the so called ‘thief’ you see right in front of you is not the sole victim of the evil effects of globalisation that has spread its cantankerous fangs all over our country. The disasters of globalisation have started affecting us locally also, to that extent that it has even spread towards Godavari. This man is a silent victim of capitalisation that has poisoned millions of suffering humanity in our country. In your lay parlance he is a ‘thief’ and a ‘burglar’, but I would like you to rethink on his unfortunate situation caught in the nefarious web of capitalisation, and I just wanted to give you an overall socio-political-and economic perspective to the whole incident.” Patvardhan was indeed quite pretentious with the kind of vocabulary that could impress. His speech won applause from all the sociology department girls. But VBVP loyalist and sidekick, Prakash Jha looked pretty worked up and he could not suppress his anger, “But this trespasser could have raped someone or stolen something valuable. Are you trying to white wash this man with your anti capitalist nonsense?” Jha’s aggression in upholding the honour of girls in campus, unsettled Patvardhan, he continued waveringly, “I agree that he had awful intentions behind the transgression, but I just wanted you to take a look at the circumstances which led him to this. Before you label him as an antisocial element, I want you to re-examine our own social penal codes which are basically capitalistic in nature”.
Sita verma, the Secretary of Women against Atrocities Cell, got up with a visible shiver, “Dr. Patvardhan, I agree to disagree with you in this account. As a woman I have the right to consider the ladies hostel as a private space for women and women alone. Any man trespassing these spaces without permission, let him be the victim of anything, capitalism or materialism or anything, deserves punishment in the strictest sense. His transgression is equivalent to physical misdemeanour. It is equivalent to sexual harassment and rape!” This torrent brought plenty of tears to Sita’s unusually large eyes and she shivered from head to toe due to an excess of emotional upheaval. Dia, who was standing near me, haughtily imitated that shiver with a half smile.
Silence prevailed in a split second, and Sita’s emotional appeal silenced everyone rather effectively. Only the thief looked unfazed, because there was a general air of incomprehension around him. Moitree Malhotra, who was doing her research in Criminal psychology of Dalits and Oppressed was not willing to give in that easily. She addressed the crowd in general and Sita in particular, “Sita, I wonder how you can talk like this. You should remember that the values you talk about transgression, et al are very middle class in nature. They are taken right out of the British bureaucracy and caste feudalism of the Great Indian middle class. Those values are yours and yours alone and especially for somebody hailing from as feudal a background as yours, it is difficult to imagine even. The kind of feminism you talk about is every elitist in nature and it is palatable only to your kind of nouveau riche middle class sensibilities.” Though Prakash Jha missed out on the essence of the speech, he joined the cheering crowd. Even Dr. Patvardhan nodded feebly and whispered something officiously to the Students Union General Secretary.
Moitree looked at Sita rather triumphantly as she looked visibly shaken. Sita’s Achilles heel was her bourgeoisie caste and class background and even among the staunch feminists, her commitment to the movement was monitored with suspicion. Moitree, after hitting the bull’s eye, cleared her throat once again and Prakash Jha, in anticipation of more action and suspense among the feminist warriors moved closer to Vilok and put his arm across his shoulders. This unexpected friendship unsettled Vilok and he looked at Dia and me rather sheepishly. Moitree continued in the same aggressive vein, “It is just not the feudalistic impact of capitalism that is problematised here. We should also take a look at the greater implications of this phenomenon on the psyche of mankind. If we take a raison d’être of human beings actions we can see his most cavernous and insidious of his thoughts hidden deep within him. This thief is not the only wrong doer here, there is a criminal and assassin safely nestled within us. These elements are on the constant action within and even without us realising this even, the criminal in us may resurface at anytime, embarrassing our middle class sensibilities from deep within. I would ask you all those who haven’t sinned to cast the first stone.” This eloquence won a ‘wow’ even from Jha, and the way Moitree poeticised the whole thing impressed the crowd beyond compare. A sudden flash of hope flickered in the thief’s eyes too. Moitree seeing the effect of her articulacy continued: “Considering this, if we delve into our ‘selves’, we can see that if for a moment if we loosen the reins of our mind, we too will traverse the moral boundaries with an inexplicable ease. Take for example any moralist, he or she will be the first to violate the fringes of ethics and principles vociferously propagated by him or her. Dear friends, the nameless, characterless ‘thief’ here needs a drop of empathy and oodles of help from educated people like you.” That was the last laugh. Many girls had tears in their eyes. Omair hurriedly untied the dupatta knots wound on the thief’s body. He collapsed like a heap of old clothes on the mess floor.
Only Sita was not willing to give up that easily. She continued in her garrulous tone: “So, women’s mental and physical spaces have no dignity or value whatsoever? A woman is born as a bundle of flesh, when she grows up she grows up as two boobs and a ****. She grows up with the guilt of bearing her biological differences in mind. The only spaces where she is allowed to expand and grow mentally are those democratic spaces like Universities where she gets a chance to look at herself and widen herself mentally and physically. The society we are all concerned about is an incriminating ground for women, and only in democratic spaces like ours can a woman grow out of her complexes, diffidence, etc.” Sita, in her emotional excess, fumbled for words. She continued, “If these spaces which promote egalitarian ethos of the society deny the expression of women, my friends, she will be denied expression everywhere in the world!” There was a standing ovation for Sita from her supporters. The only person who looked desolate in the mayhem was the thief. Slowly the mess divided itself into many groups and argued amongst themselves about the pros and cons of capitalism and globalisation and the question of women’s empowerment was also heard from many quarters. Many boys fizzled out of the mess due to the anti climax the whole drama provided. A sleepy Patvardhan, drew the crowd again, “It is two o clock. What is the final decision?”
Dia intercepted, she said seriously, “Send him for counselling friends. Instead of talking bullshit about capitalism, male chauvinism, etc, please give this man the needed psychiatric help all of you.” She looked very angry and serious for a change, and I saw many people nodding in unison when she suggested thus.
“No! Police station, take him to station. “ A group of mischief mongers shouted from nowhere. Patwardhan and his followers countered them rather furiously, and the whole mess divided itself into groups trying to prove their point.
In the dim light, the thief’s eyes shone like anything else. Slowly, tear drops started falling; the first droplets became a deluge soon, accompanied by his sobbing. Then the rhythm of sobbing changed to a heart breaking wail, which took a different dimension as hysterical screams.
The mess came to a freezing stillness. Everybody’s eyes were fixed on the thief. He rose staggeringly and with joined palms he looked at everyone pleadingly. “Pardon me I am sorry!” He bellowed yet again.
He stopped rather dramatically in the middle and looked at every one imploringly once gain. He pleaded, “Bhaiyon aur bahanom, I do not understand anything you say. Your big big words go right above my head. Please don’t fight among yourselves for me, please send me to jail”.
Silence all over, only the thief’s bellows reverberated
“All of you send me to the jail, please I beg you....”
His wail rose over the Godavari mess and diffused like fog over the tall buildings of JNU.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Migratory Effervascence
migration
winged the sky
this late evening
patchy clouds
drifted
to targets
unknown
birds soared
in unison
fondling
the nape
of ocean’s
horizon
winged the sky
this late evening
patchy clouds
drifted
to targets
unknown
birds soared
in unison
fondling
the nape
of ocean’s
horizon
Friday, December 28, 2007
some translations
Translation of Balu Pulinelli’s Poems from the anthology " madangivarunna kavithakal"
Shepherd
Shepherd
butcher’s
last prey
lamb glutted forests
and forest glutted lambs
drifted in the air
he who herded them,
hemming in the tear,
carved a flute.
He who sated hunger
sans bread
clothed the cosmos
with a loincloth
gave peace
to killers of
even the last lambs in flight
Love was the crime
that impaled him
to earth’s
venomous thorn
Even his corpse that did not conform
to what he did not desire
pulled down those holy canons to the mud
Shepherd
butcher’s
last prey
Shepherd
Shepherd
butcher’s
last prey
lamb glutted forests
and forest glutted lambs
drifted in the air
he who herded them,
hemming in the tear,
carved a flute.
He who sated hunger
sans bread
clothed the cosmos
with a loincloth
gave peace
to killers of
even the last lambs in flight
Love was the crime
that impaled him
to earth’s
venomous thorn
Even his corpse that did not conform
to what he did not desire
pulled down those holy canons to the mud
Shepherd
butcher’s
last prey
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