Embracing Imperfection

This morning after what seems to me a millennial hiatus, I stepped into my patio to inhale the fresh air and enjoy the wintry landscape for a while. In the summer I had made it a quotidian habit to sit outside every morning and write for an hour. The habit had proved extremely beneficial in that not only I observed the diurnal march of nature, but also imbibed its daily sights and sounds steeped in the hustle of work-life that surrounded it to the fullest. With the advent of winter, however, the habit had to break, and, like all broken habits, it soon ceased to bother me any longer.  I added one more leaf to my archive of forgotten habits and lived happily until today when a terrible discomfort in the being caused by the stifling conditioned airwaves inside the apartment, and the absence of my lovingly paternal spouse forever worried about by health and well-being, I decided to step out for a breather. Upholstered from head to toe in winter garments and carrying a cup of caffeinated beverage and my writing book I walked out. I cleaned my red chair littered with dead leaves and dust and sat on it and almost bewilderingly observed the changed landscape surrounding me. The green trees of summer have given way to slightly shivering nude branches with flakes of dead brown leaves clinging to them like barely-there lingerie. The uncovered few bird nests looked like once comfortable homes destroyed by some mighty storm. Still, despite it all, the whole area seemed dear and calm. Having just returned from a skyscraperized city where people diverted by industrial glitter rarely notice the constellations in the sky, this imperfect landscape of broken branches, dilapidated bird nests and cloudy skies beckoned me warmly. The warmth of the chilly winter wind soothed the sinews and the whole atmosphere felt romantically somniferous.  I closed my eyes and breathed while the voice in my head composed lines that waited to be written. 

Poetry is what I wrote today, rhymed lines dedicated to an imperfect beauty. The lines came naturally, not one artificial pressure stroke was imposed on the process of creation today--the work was natural, organic. As I wrote, I wondered about the landscape more and more: I wondered how it had looked a century back, tried to imagine its uninhabited past and pondered the essence of the industrial revolution and modern virtual insurgency that has robbed a sizable portion of contemporary human beings of the finer sense of appreciating something as organic and simple as Nature. We drive to distant lands to catch its glimpse, yet we turn a deaf ear to its knock on our own door. As I observed the gray, wintry sky with sheets of clouds blanketing it, I couldn’t help but feel contented at having retained a bit of that old romantic sense in me. I don't know how many of you can afford the simplest joys of daily life any more being so much blinded and sidetracked by your enormous web-presence where joy starts with seeing yourself under the virtual limelight, calumniating a less intelligent individual, mocking him for an advertent or an inadvertent mistake, or taking part in ceaseless discussions that never reach a saturation point. Under this wintry firmament I felt all the stress of expectation, the fear of denunciation, the need to prove my might fade into annihilation. A sense of peace overcame me richer than all the riches of the world combined, truer than even the force of true ambition. In a moment everything worldly seemed so futile; the need to present myself under narcissistic limelight, to constantly provoke arguments by words or actions, all seemed fruitless. The thought made me happy instantly; my limited resources seemed sufficient, my own imperfect, blemished face seemed beautiful to the greatest degree. Yes, in the presence of imperfection, under the hood of chill and rain, I felt beautiful and happy and found myself reciting, once again, those oft quoted lines from Wordsworth's, I wandered lonely as a cloud:

"For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils."

This morning I welcomed my philosophical didactic self to play on its pedantic music and allowed it to compose a verse that has no purpose but to please myself. And pleased I was, to the fullest, to the degree humanly possible. Today I was happy to feel that in my life I am done pleasing others, done forgetting myself in the virtual deluge of opinions and constant meaningless exchanges with strangers. Today I felt complete and happy for what I am and not what I shall be.

The Presence of Faith

              

  

I had originally planned to give you a hypotyposis of my journey to the New York City in this heart-melting winter and my experience at watching the taping of The Daily Show on February 2^nd, 2011 in the form of an epical travelogue, yet here I begin with a subject that has little or nothing to do with my actual Big Apple tour. I cannot fancy my reason behind composing this philosophical account, but starting from the time I disembarked at the Nashville airport my mind has been caught up in an eagre of faith related queries. A moment of epiphany illuminated me yesterday leading to the poor, agnostic self finding its answers in a way it had least anticipated. And I wished to write to write about it.

 Hovering over the snow-layered landscape underneath my feet, I was at one point mulling over human omnipresence priding myself at the idea that the world cannot hide its secrets from me anymore and the other feeling vulnerable and insecure at the thought that judging from the ground level this Wright-marvel is just a speck of blue and red, when the flight hit an air-pocket and started to shake. From where I sat I had a good view of the large right-wing, and seeing it shiver as if stricken by some demonic fear, I was a bit scared. I turned my face away and began confabulating with my spouse. A second later the seatbelt sign was on and we were instructed by the pilot to buckle up and grab our seats as we would hit some more air-pocket areas. No sooner had he issued the ominous warnings than we hit another jerky spot, the whole flight shook like a plaything in the hands of a child; I closed my eyes. A terrible weight followed by a sudden emptiness hit my heart as the flight shook and free-fell a bit and then regained balance only to lose it a trice later. I grabbed my husband's hand and waited for the worst. The flight became steady and stopped oscillating; I disentangled myself and brushed my off my fears. A moment later the fluctuations began once again, and this time the back of the flight where we were sitting shook real hard; a child began crying, and I caught sight of a middle-aged woman on the left side of the aisle wearing bright red polished nails sitting with clasped hands placed upon her lap looking out the window.  Somehow her posture made me think she was praying. As I appraised her, it struck me that I had not once thought of praying in this scary moment. The flight continued to shake and each jerk made me think of terrible things: a flight accident, death, a fire, a heap of rubble, news headlines, and then, amnesia. I wondered how it would feel to die in a man made aerodynamic zeppelin, a brightly painted metal box with wings! Will it hurt, the burning? Will I feel the pain? I saw my husband laugh at my fear-stricken face and that made me even sadder. "It's nothing," he said adding that he had experienced more jerky air travels in his life and that I was lucky not to be been caught up in an air-pocket situation before. But at this point even his words could not alleviate my fears; some time back I had been to Disney World, Florida, and, against my better judgment, rode the The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror thrill ride. The bumpy airplane brought back brutal memories of that awful thrill ride, and I grew even paler. Having no option at hand to calm myself I began to pray. I couldn’t tell you if everything turned out miraculously for the better or not, but I did buck up eventually. I started feeling warm, my cold, sweaty palms normalized, and before I knew it the bouncy drive gave way to a smooth landing at the Baltimore airport. The relief on disembarking the flight was stupendous. I called my mother in India and told her how much I had missed her; she was pretty startled and I was a bit embarrassed, still I did it. I wanted to call my sister-- my best friend with whom I have no physical resemblance, yet who is closer to me than a Siamese twin--but it being very late I decided to chuck it.

All the way home yesterday I thought about faith and the overwhelming presence of it in human lives. I have been a newly-formed agnostic who has very recently started to doubt the presence of God and the importance of religion in human lives. With Scientific theories presenting explanations for natural and unnatural phenomena, pointing out the attendance of the known unknowns more deftly, and getting ready to study the unknown unknowns, the future of solemn faith in divinity has began to look bleak and uncreative. A commonplace atheism has forked the once religious or agnostic minds of the people of our generation. The left liberal principle silently entails devotion to Darwin and the Goddess of knowledge and undermines, inaudibly, a loyalty to a divine spirit. A.N. Wilson in his God's Funeral says, "The closing decades of the nineteenth century were the true ere of the 'death of God.'" And I cannot agree with him more. The rise of Science and Technology has undermined the rise of Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon era. The barbarians of the past are dead; future is glittering in the glassy-palms of Science--the new God with explanations and answers brimming inside its cranium.

Logically speaking, faith has suffered terrible setbacks over the past couple of decades and with the virtual world usurping its altar; it has now been reduced to a trite impulse. The bloody wars and terror attacks have presented to us the dark side of faith and pointed to devotion as the reason propelling unhealthy causes and has further alienated Homo sapiens from the pulpit-world. Belief in afterlife and Judgment Day though still linger in the minds of the quadragenarians, but we duogenarians seldom give the tip of the hat to God. Even people with deep religious backgrounds have rebelled against the presence of an invisible God calling him listless, uncaring and tyrannical. The crumbling images of mythology could no longer bolster its tenement; religion is similar to a dying gadget like cassette players of tape recorders. A sociologist called Mark Chaves in a 1999 study pointed out that only a mere twenty-eight percent of Roman Catholics attend Mass on a given weekend. People prefer to be pontificated over the television and the internet. And whatever religion prevails, at least in the USA, it is a friendlier, less dignified service. My life in the buckle of the Bible belt, however, has proved otherwise. I see groups of deeply religious folks attending services every Sunday. These groups upholstered in dainty Sunday clothing will reinstate in your mind the presence of faith, but after a while you cannot help testifying to the fact that modern religion is highly democratic; we are free to belief and free to relinquish faith.

I have been born in a conservative Hindu family and in our plethora of deities have tried to find out a unifying force. My mother, a devoutly religious person, instructed me the ways of a religious life very early in my life. And every time I had found myself in the yellow walled prayer room in our Kolkata house with pictures of deities pegged to the walls, I have assented to the old Hindu mythological tales of gods and goddesses with four arms and three-eyes without the slightest sense of doubt. I have found belief in religion psychologically fitting and had not the wish to ever discard it. But reading scientific texts and taking part in discussions that point out the fallacies in a given religion, the invisibility of God, His or Her indifference to the fast-moving stream of pain we find ourselves drowning in, had sowed doubts in my mind.

But if religion has taught us anything is that it is more a quantum state than anything solidly made. It tends to become invisible when examined; it is our biggest known unknown. In my case my faith has suffered big set back in my immature past when I had falsely questioned the divine spirit to provide me answers as to why my in-laws always considered me a tchotchke; an unimportant part of their family life, unfit, unsuitable in many ways to their vainglorious lifestyle? Why after terrible efforts and an admission in a prestigious educational institution, my academic dreams were thwarted because of a dependent visa and lack of student assistantships in the English department?  I questioned my faith during those bleak hours and ended up turning away from it only to turn back when prospects seemed brighter, and new avenues made their presence known. I have tried to make amends for the past follies by following my mother's example and setting up a prayer room in my Nashville apartment and forcing myself to bow to the ancient Hindu religious practices ratified by academic and philosophical luminaries of the past.

Yesterday when I was caught up in the aeronautical adventure, I had turned to faith. Even though my husband pointed out all the scientific explanations to the oscillations that scared me stiff, he couldn’t reassure me. I had ultimately turned to the warm embracement of faith and found relief. I couldn’t locate a miracle in my disembarking safely at the airport; yet I found a miraculous silver lining in the idea that despite a fair chance of mishap threatening our lives everyday in so many ways, I am still alive and breathing. You could attribute it to Omega Point, but I decided to thank God for it all. In a moment of mild despair, I was happy to locate faith in me, and now I intend to stay on track and present myself as a moderately religious, left liberal.

Reference: The Future of Faith, Due Considerations: Essays and Criticism, By John Updike

What Ho! What Ho! --- A Wodehouse Enthusiast Speaks

P.G. Wodehouse

"It is a strange force that compels a writer to be a humorist," writers Dorothy Parker in her foreword to a collection of humorous writings by S.J. Perelman. Indeed, in a world where all we normally encounter is a cavalcade of grimaces and frowns, a host of un-humoristic happenings which opens up before us a horizon of intimidations imperviously beaded with rain drops of blind ignavia and hopelessness, we need some egress, some rest-room to run into and save ourselves from impending doom. And it is in this context of impenetrable gloom and despair that humor strikes up the flare of joy and gaiety by distracting us from the blemish-worn face of stark reality and focusing our attention on the lighter side of life. Humor is God's gift to a grief stricken heart, and humorists like P.G. Wodehouse are theandric beings, messengers of the divine father, that bring us the gift of comedy.  

Of late I have been making a study of Wodehouse's humorous tomes, and I must tell you that ever since I had finished the first chapter of Inimitable Jeeves there was no stopping me. After that time I have read and listened to a mixed bag of Wodehouse classics like Right ho, Jeeves, Code of Woosters, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Uncle Dynamite, Carry on, Jeeves, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, etc. I now proudly own a treasure trove of Woodhouse goodies that had cost me a fortune but are an investment for life. I am braced by the fact that if the unhappy maiden known to us by the sobriquet of grief, ever thinks of marking me as her own, I shall gallantly don the armor of Wodehouse-humor and sally forth.  Oh, what a mere stretch in the gallows of grief would do to me? I reckon I would voice, topping my words with a mocking laughter. With Wodehouse under my belt I am up for the ride, baby, I would say sticking out my tongue in the direction of the grief-maiden.

Having finished the omnibus collection of Wodehouse, I have come to the point that there are two kinds of people on earth: people who have read Wodehouse, and people who have not. My message to the folks who fall into the latter group is that they should go and boil their heads. I could not believe that there had even been a time when Bertie Wooster and his personal gentleman, the shrewd, Jeeves were not part of known literary circle. I am appalled, rather consternated, to even think that I too had once belonged to the unholy confederacy of Wodehouse agnostics. But now, having remedied that defect, I am well-groomed and even scholarly in Wodehouse literature. I have proudly digested all the facts that are there to know about Bertie and Jeeves and the band of other Wodehouse characters, and in the process have derived so much joy and fun that the painful facts of reality now seem faraway concerns to me. Thanks to Wodehouse, my natural disposition to being gloomy and cheerless has been replaced by the chummy atmosphere of prosperous gaiety. Also, reading Wodehouse has sharpened my tongue and added such words and phrases like "rally round," "insouciant," "chum," "bucks you up," etc., to my glossary of the English language.

Wodehouse Characters by Kevin Cornell

Hyperlink: http://www.bearskinrug.co.uk/_articles/2006/12/06/wodehouse_characters_01/

I was once asked by another avid Wodehouse reader, a personal friend, which Wodehouse book is my favorite. At the time I had been pretty baffled by her query, and had failed to choose one singular classic in a company of thousand sparkling pieces of Wodehouse's humor writings. The situation of failing to choose one in a million has not changed for me; however, after careful consideration, I give my tip of the hat to Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves--a novel where Wodehouse, I think, has surpassed himself. Of his myriad characters I am in love with Roderick Spode, the self-proclaimed leader of the Black Shorts, the proprietor of UlilyJ, the ventripotent, anger-rich dictator who worships Madeline Basset. I give my second vote of approval to the newt-fancier, orange juice addict, fish-faced lover of Madeline Basset, Gussy Fink-Nottle; and trailing behind him in the third position is the lady Basset herself, filled with such outrageous fancies as stars being "God's daisy chain" and rabbits being "gnomes in attendance to the Fairy Queen". This "droopy, saucer-eyed blonde" is an example of Wodehouse's brilliant sense of humor. In her we see the "squashy soupiness" of the delicately nurtured female species, a group of women, I think, we modern Amazons unanimously despise.

Now, those of you who are so bucked up by my generous praises of Wodehouse literature and cannot wait before you head for the library, or the bookstore, I urge them to wait and listen up. If you are not a bibliophile, I advise you to stay away from the heavy-weight hardbacks and buy the dramatized versions of Wodehouse classics presented by BBC starring Richard Briers as Bertie Wooster and  Michael Hordern as Bertie's man-servant, the inimitable Jeeves. You can also try the sitcom Jeeves and Wooster to get the feeling; however, I found the series a tad frivolous, and annoying, too, at times. They had changed the subject matter of several of the stories a good deal and in the process had jettisoned much of the meaty-bits, if you will, that had made the original stories comic masterpieces. Yet, it is a good respite from the rotten Jersey Shore culture; you might also learn some classic British words in the process and use them in your quotidian speech.

I hope you have a great weekend.

,

Happy New Year

Resolutions and poor me!

1

Around this time every year a chunk of overwrought Homo Sapiens, make it a point to look back (in anger?) at the rotten residuum of their past eccentricities. New Year's Eve of late has transmogrified to a day when skeletons of the past years are exhumed, and you know what that means! People run for their desks and pencil down their to-do lists of things which will act as their salvation in the upcoming New Year. Hence, whole lists of resolutions are platted out with the intention of reinventing oneself and giving oneself another chance in the upcoming year. But keeping up with the resolutions has proved to be as difficult as keeping up with the Kardashians, for though written with the best of intentions, we slowly and steadily always manage to find out ways to break these promises to self. Not civil, you may say, and I agree in total with you. But think of resolutions as our nasty parents judging us with their censorious and austere looks; when faced with eyes like that, baby, you chuck it and run for your lives. Take it or leave it resolution lists are a bit elaborate, and without a doubt, stuff that are easy to make but difficult, if not impossible, to follow. Then why on earth do we make them, you ask? Because we very well want us to be better, nobler, finer individuals, and this wish becomes strong and overwhelming around the time of the bottom of the year thereby inducing us to create lists of worthwhile resolutions.

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This year I have managed to curve on the imaginary stone a random list of resolutions I have promised myself to keep by hook or by crook.  Having undergone a pitiless self-scrutiny, I have realized that my life needs order. More often than not I have felt myself suffer from the lack of appreciation of routines. I hate monotony, and the fact that monotony on a daily scale is otherwise referred to as routine, gives me the pip. A daily order is just what the physician would prescribe, provided I visit a physician with my problem, that is, still routine is what I need. A well laid out daily time table with strict headlines from the start of the day till I head for the dreamless is getting the first spot in my resolution list. The requirement for getting up early, writing for one whole hour everyday, eating a proper breakfast, and generally speaking living a wholesome life are things the first resolution entails.

3

  

Trailing behind this painful ruling is another death-trap, a sordid resolution: spend less time on Facebook, Orkut, and less money on Amazon. I am sure I have spent a fortune on the aforementioned three, and sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if the new cool features on Amazon are the result of the capital I gladly transferred into their trouser pockets. Books uplift your mind; they are frigates that take you faraway, and they cost money! What can you do? Even mental fortification comes with a crispy dollar sign. And now, a word or two about Facebook, Orkut and other such rotten devices of distraction, Let me tell you something, dear friends, there is no better way to while away your time than social networking. The people who created them are geniuses of the first order. The websites are addictive, and even though you know very well that you care a rat about your friend’s notification and her change of status, you can’t help but have a peek. And one peek leads to another, and before you know it there you are skimming through the notification list or playing games, and generally speaking, polluting the virtual world with our own webtrash. I often feel that social-networking is like indulging in a decadent dessert; for although a medium dose of three teaspoon is the recommended intake, we tend to gorge in the entire the plate and hope for more. Well, I am about to give up my gluttonous web-apetite and head to the prospective life improvement forum, if you know what I mean. This is going to be very tough, I hear myself say. Let’s see how long you can put up with this nonsense says my skeptic meta-voice.

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The year of 2010, you would doubtless agree, had been a year which required us to defenestrate our prejudices and welcome a new tech-savvy life. In the last year we have seen innovations that even five years ago have been looked at as stuff of the dreams. After the rocking success of 3D, the i-Pad, etc, you cannot anymore ignore the importance of technology in our lives. This year I am making it a point to be tech-savvy and learn more about the marvels of scientific innovation and technology. I am amazed by the excogitations in the scientific world. Who would have thought that space travel could be a possibility? Or that one day we could chat with our distant world-neighbor residing on the other side of the face of the world via a computer! I mean, take it or leave it, technology is a booming new tradition, and I cannot allow myself to be a misoneist anymore. In the past I have often craved for a reboot of the vintage style, a time-travel back to that sepia-toned old-age life of retrograded prosperity. The above idea frequently haunted me after I had caught sight of Snookie and her gang romping in their debauched television series Jersey Shore. The very sight of Snookie, and the innumerable do-nothing housewives, always made me wish to run to the other end of the life quarter. I heard they thought of dropping Snookie last night in place of the crystal ball at the Times Square New Year bash. But alas, we weren’t that lucky!

5

 The most important resolution in my list has to be my fourth resolution: read more books. I have always considered myself an avid reader and generally find myself curled up with a good hardback or paperback before heading for the dreamless. But I realize that more hours of reading is what I require. I still have an unfinished Updike volume incubating on my bookshelf. You know what's funny, every time I pick up that collection of essays, and another book of words, I break the record for the most yawns in a minute. I mean I literally doze off. Not that Updike is uninteresting or anything or the words totally unrelated to modern life, it is just that those two tomes have proven to be highly somniferous for no apparent reason. And like them, I have a ton of others, including some travel treatises, a collection of Dostoevsky, which I have thankfully half-finished, and Tolstoy's War and Peace that must be read this year, provided I could keep myself awake.

In the personal quarter my year of 2010 has proved to be positively incandescent. I have had developed worthwhile relations with people of the same mental setup. This year I am thinking of broadening the social horizon. This is my fifth and final resolution. Getting to know people is what I think the call of the day. Give up sofalizing and bring in the good old spirit of hospice. Of course, a certain tact and diplomacy is called for when you are spreading your social wings, but I guess that last year has taught me some cool people handling tricks. I wish to exercise them.

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With the incomprehensive list of promises at hand I take my first step toward this New Year. 2011 and all its possibilities for better of for worse stare at me with an unblinking gaze, and I propose to walk on, holding my head high, my hand proudly displaying my wonder list of resolutions--my salvation that might help me survive in this topsy-turvy ride of existence in a modern era. My computer smiles at me tenderly. I haven’t touched the damned social-networking pages more than once since this morning. A voice inside me, a soft lingering tone, and what this lingering tone is telling me is that I might have a new update on Facebook. One click would take me there; just a click, isn’t that wonderful? One click won't harm me, will it? Just this one time perhaps…hmm… I wonder what it is that is waiting for me on Facebook!  Oh, dash it! Resolutions suck. Boo….

                                                                   Happy New Year!!!

1. CNN i-Report: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-535674
2. Open Salon: http://open.salon.com/blog/spectrum_voice/2011/01/01/resolutions_and_poor_me

Picture Courtesy: 1. ustmidlife.wordpress.com

                           2. downturk.info

                           3.  no-facebook.sosyomat.com

                           4. :cartoonaday.com

                           5 candycoateduniverse.wordpress.com

                           6.dreamscometrue.sulekha.com

                          Other pictures also from the internet.