Or just an intriguing sea squid?
Have a look at its tentacles,
On of many Nature's spectacles,
Or is it that Nature just flipped?
Flipped, as on its own law it tripped
A fishy little thing on a plant?!
For metal birds I’d have never thought,
That proper words would e'er be sought
for poetic composition!
But on an urn did John Keats cry
And Blake, on "fearful symmetry",
Quest'ning with Powerful passion!
Can we too ask if, when or whether,
With birds of steel, so stiff of feather,
A poem could e’er be urged?
They watch unseeing, the electric wire,
which no words, e'en fleeting, inspire.
On the morning’s wistful shadows though, words splurge!
I would be wary
Calling that a canary
Cos I'm not so friendly with birds!
But if boards they would carry
Saying "Tom", "Dick" or "Harry"
I would certainly cry, "How absurd!"
For unknown they’d all like to be,
And care nought for or-n’-tho-lo-gy
They'll greet you each morning
With their chirping at dawning
Regardless of Doc Salim Ali!!
The promise of a fine day dawning,
Hidden in a grey-haze morning,
And the half-smile of a little girl!
The memories of yesteryear,
The laughter, the occasional tear,
Flit off the half-smile of a little girl.
A half-smile is perhaps a token
Of pleasure or pain, mostly, unspoken,
But, mark you, it sets your mind awhirl.
Ah, somewhere a glorious dawn doth break
And someone’s breath away doth take!
As ever, the brilliant sun shall rise
While night crawls to its corner, and dies.
Sometime then, my darkened soul, to light awake.
To light awake!
We see a hen with feathers of gold
And remember
that fabled goose of old!
But what we
ignore
Though well
we all know
That goose wasn’t
much to behold.
If you could
judge a book by its cover
Or a man by
his polished demeanour
Or a woman
by virtue
Of what she
tells you
He stands upon the ears of grain,
For birds of prey his eyes do strain;
Twixt "fight or flight"
It's only slight:
His chance of standing here again.
But life goes on from day to day,
As flitting around for wisps of hay
He builds the nest
And keeps the rest
In His Good Hands, ... and whistles away.
Musings on Victory-in-Europe DAY, 2020
I woke up this morning,
And found myself humming
The strains of a World War II song;
Which dreamt of birds over
The white cliffs of Dover,
“Tomorrow…” when peace came along,
With joy and with laughter,
And peace ever after…
“Tomorrow…”, sighed this wistful song.
‘Twas then German Fascists,
Those self-declared racists,
Who’ brought the free world to its knee;
Now a germ, a new virus,
Unseen and insidious,
Spreads quickly with fe-ro-city.
Sans rifle or cannon
This unbridled dragon
Does kill with such impunity.
Are we in the mood then,
To dream of a time when
We’ll wake to a challenging day?
Or shall we just dream on
Of blue birds, a bright dawn,
And live through another “locked” day?
Tennyson wrote of the Light Brigade
That charged amid cannons a-thundering;
‘Twas an ode to obedient but valiant six
hundred,
Valiant that fell still a-wondering.
All those who march in battle formation,
Carrying arms for offence or defence,
With the glamourous aim of “Saving the
Nation!”
Aren’t the only great soldiers, my
friends.
Thousands there are in their sanitised
robes
In corridors of care, and of angst,
Flitting amongst a million microbes.
You don’t know what you’re up against.
And when the dark virus from China
dropped in
And little about it was known,
These soldiers took arms, dug the
trenches, jumped in,
And like Tennyson’s soldiers, fought on.
Ill-informed they were, there was no
‘marking time’
Ill-equipped, they went gingerly on,
Oblivious of breathers or mealtimes or
shift-time
To the Line of Control, they held on.
They entered the battle with ne'er a
sound,
Abhimanyu was better prepared;
Little was known of the real battleground
And everyone did as they dared.
The chakra-vyuha they entered,
unfazed,
Not knowing what happens thereafter,
But bleary of eye and sallow of face,
They fought on, averted disaster.
The virus has opened our eyes, no doubt,
To so much we had taken for granted;
And obviously ‘cause these soldiers
don’t shout
Their valour is never accounted.
No praises nor prizes could be adequate
And words are just never enough.
No money, no gifts could e’er compensate
For their deeds when the going got
tough.
So, here’s to the nurses, the doctors,
and all
Who fight all those undeclared wars,
Just be sure that you appreciate them
all
And give them a round of applause!
Applause! Applause!!
Let it be a resounding applause!
The migrant workers headed "home" to save
their dignity,
Regardless of the miles they'd roam, to flee iniquity,
Despairing for a “life” of sorts amongst their very
own,
Albeit have-nots, there's surety: they will not die
alone.
At each step, though, the mind's awhirl: Should I
go on or not?
If someone calls ‘em back again, perhaps they’d say:
Why not!
But on they trod in th’ burning sun, with fever
too, 'tis told,
And plod on through the dark of night despite the
bitter cold.
The single aim of reaching “there” is all that's on
their mind
The government's aid did come so late, it almost seems
unkind.
The colourful hopes of home so dear that in their
hearts they carry
On and on as zombies would; they’ll be there if only
they hurry!
But all their dreams of getting home will surely be
washed out
When they approach their borders, (their
energy all ebbed out),
They see the camp that'll be their home until
declare-d clean
Not knowing if the "home" ahead has
likely lost its sheen.
In weary fourteen days and nights of check n check
again,
Their hopes and dreams of home, should not, shall not
have been in vain.
For years they toiled in silv’r-edg’d dreams while
steeped in muck and grime;
They look back now and sadly say: That was a sordid
time.
The land now beckons, the family reckons that now
they won’t reject them.
But, post this purgatorial spell, no metro can
attract them,
Knowing that no “Minimum Wage” nor “E.S.I.” protect
them.
The joys of “working-for-your-home”, how sadly
we neglect them.
The first of my patients came in last month,
A sturdy young man he was;
His face was a picture of friendship and
warmth;
Don’t ask what his prognosis was.
By evening a bit of the wave could be
seen
The next day went by in a haze
We just had no time to sink all this in
As the hours of watch turned to days
We were promised some time off for
self-quarantine
Post the frenetic and dire multi-tasking,
Now while we’re putting our lives on the
line,
An ‘off’? We’re not even asking.
The protective cover they first gave us
Was taken from “HIV”;
There was no time for question or fuss
Our lives would in God’s hands be.
I have an ailing spouse at home,
A child who needs my care;
But by the time I’m allowed to go
I’ll be the worse for wear.
For one thing I know, I won’t sleep at
all
Whenever I do get out;
The constant buzz of the patients’ call
Will ring in my head, throughout.
I recall as yet that first young man
Who walked in a month ago
Or was it two …or a longer time span?
Let me get home. I don’t want to know.
STANLEY COUTINHO
composed in April 2020 soon after the panic started.
 |
A birdie and a squirrel had a quarrel O'er a toadstool that they found one early morn. For the bird it was a perch quite like a table But the squirrel thought 'twas breakfast right at dawn. The periphery he nibbled And drew the LOC; She stood her ground and quibbled Superciliously. The squirrel was with mushroom fully sated, (His greed wasn’t "human", as you’ll see); His anger just as soon dissipated The battle had no loss, no victory! |
VICTORIA EUGENIA HENAO
MRS ESCOBAR
MY LIFE WITH PABLO
Translated by Andrea Rosenberg
Penguin Random House UK 2019
Pp 526 price ₹599
PABLO ESCOBAR – THE DRUG LORD
Biographies of criminals only serve to prove that
“the evil that men do lives after them”; another despicable story gets recorded
for posterity – oftentimes in an attempt to show the “better side” of the criminal
(Bollywood hasn’t been far behind). Pablo Escobar (1949-1993), the “King
of Cocaine”, has been the subject of at least eight books, several feature/biographical
films and TV series including HBO, ESPN, Netflix, National Geographic; he now
appears in a biography written by his widow.
Is she trying to justify his activities? Is she trying to gain sympathy? It was unconditional love, she claims, laced with “fear, powerlessness and uncertainty about what would become of [us] without him.” The book all but begs to be allowed to live – without any reference to the man who mercilessly killed thousands and destroyed the lives of a whole generation with his drug trade (80% of cocaine entering USA was Pablo’s).
She married him at 15, against the admonitions of her family, and was a mother by the age of 16. Fourteen years later, she was widowed by the joint action of Colombian and US forces. She says that by the time she realised … the brutal reality around her, it was too late – a claim that is not quite acceptable. The young Pablo, one of seven children, had to buy a second-hand scooter on instalments (his mother a school-teacher, his father a security guard). Within the 15 years of their married life he had amassed over $30 billion. Her own collection of works of art (which included Dali and Rodin) was worth millions of dollars. And she claims ignorance – even when he gets elected to Parliament and dreams of becoming president….
After “settling” with Pablo’s rivals, she leaves Colombia with new names for herself and her two children (she signs the Preface with her original name though) – but the past has a way of catching up … It’s a book worth reading, if only for the first hand account of their fugitive lives.
OFF THE SHELF
ON BOOKS, BOOK PEOPLE AND PLACES
SRIDHAR BALAN
SPEAKING TIGER BOOKS 2019
₹399 Pages 246Reminiscences of a Book-lover
Sridhar Balan taught at JNU and the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, before he moved into publishing in the 1980s, denying his father’s wish for him to join the civil services; perhaps, underlining his assertion that a career in publishing may not be a conscious career choice for most people. Now a senior consultant with Ratna Sagar, he is involved in promoting reading in schools. This is his first book.
In this book, we meet Rieu, who was a “curious choice”, says Balan, while his successor, Roy Hawkins, (Hawk), joined OUP in 1930 “under some very curious circumstances”. We also have writeups on Ravi Dayal of OUP, Ram Advani, a bookseller in Hazratganj, Dhanesh Jain, (Managing Director of Ratna Sagar Publishing House till 2019), Dean Mahomed (“the first Indian author in English” who also ran a coffee house and massage parlour in London, and published his record of travels and adventures), Swami Vivekananda and Pandit Nehru’s meeting with Andre Malraux.
One can hardly disagree with his assertion that if reading itself is to be kept alive, we need to motivate our children. One would also lament with him over the general lack of importance given to books – in short, when we declutter our homes, the first casualty is books – and it hurts as “we lose our memories”; and that holding up a kindle is not quite the same as proudly displaying one’s library.
The real bonus in the book is the report on the First Folio, and the efforts of John Heminges and Henry Condell in publishing the first collection of Shakespeare!
Detailed
accounts of libraries in the various cities are available particularly the
Biblioteca Alexandrin. The outer wall of this library, is known to carry words “from
the languages and civilizations of the world” – apparently a random selection. But
Balan finds a character in Tamil (see the pic) – the last character of the word
“Kalyani” in the Tamil or Devanagari script, and arrogates it to Malayalam!
Then he translates the work to mean: “you”, and then waxes on the “plurality” of the centre of learning because the “you” includes everyone of “us”. The word for “you” both in Tamil and Malayalam is “nee” as it is found at the end of the word “Hindustani” in the Devanagari script. Even this is equivalent to the Hindi “tu” – an affectionate term when use with those close to us, and as an insult to others…and incidentally, “Company Bahadur” as used in the Moghul times, was the East India Company (not its officials) and Alexander was a Macedonian (not a Greek).
AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES
Chigozie Obioma
Hatchet 2019
₹ 599 Pp
512
THE BALANCE OF
FATE AND FREE-WILL
Of the several ways of telling a story, the detached, god-like narrator is the most popular. It gives the author the advantage of discerning the thoughts and intentions of all the characters. Obioma uses the chi to tell the story.
The chi of the Igbos of Nigeria is very specific – and yet confusing. It could be a person’s other identity in the spiritual world, as the Igbos believe that “nothing can stand alone, there must always be another thing standing beside it”. In the limitations of western thought, it could be the guardian angel. Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic, acknowledged as the Father of Modern African writing, wrote that “without an understanding of the nature of chi one could not begin to make sense of the Igbo world-view”. Using the chi of the central character for narration, Obioma gives a fair idea of what it is, its ability to influence the life of its “host”, and its relation to the Almighty (Chukwu).
Obioma, while studying in Cyprus, saw the plight of the Nigerian students – many of whom were duped by agents. His essay “Ghosts of My Student Years in North Cyprus which appeared in The Guardian (January 2016) is a sort of preview to the events described in the novel; he finds therein a sombre similarity between the “birdlime” that attracts and traps pigeons, and the “ambitious young men and women, their wings aching to fly, trapped,” some to die, some to wander aimlessly …
And then there’s the other analogy. The central character, a poultry farmer, falls in love with a girl from an “educated” background; the girl defies her parents, comes to live with him and chances upon the wailing of the chickens when one of them is snatched by a hawk. He calls it the orchestra of minorities, the mourning of the weaker persons or communities against the onslaught of the strong. A song that he himself sings at the end of the story – himself the perpetrator and the victim. Even as his chi pleads for him at the feet of Chukwe.
THE NICKEL BOYS
by
Colson Whitehead
Hachette 2019
Pages 211 ₹ 599
A SCHOOL OF HORROR
This book is not for the fainthearted.
The Arthur G Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida (a reformatory) was shut down in 2011 for its excesses. The survivors have a website – officialwhitehouseboys.org – and very few among us would go beyond the second or third of the blogs. Colson Whitehead recreates the school as the Nickel Academy with its “training” for conversion of delinquents into “honorable and honest men” … and the secret graveyard. The “White House” was the shed in which laws were made and implemented through steel-reinforced leather whips – both at Dozier and Nickel. The welts went beyond the skin.
Elwood Curtis, abandoned by his parents, grew up at his grandmother’s, accepting her practical responses to segregation while being inspired by the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. The decision in Brown vs. Board of Education had raised hopes that “all the invisible walls” would soon come down; that someday, Richmond Hotel would be open to “blacks” to stay and eat at. At Nickel, he was known as naïve and idealistic.
Decades later, a newspaper report carries a photograph of one of the Nickel supervisors, 95 years old, and decrepit, leaning on a cane, “but his cold steel eyes gave him a shiver”; when the secret graveyard is flashed on TV, he knows: “It wasn't far off at all. Never will be.” His wife recalls with anguish the nightmares that come to him, the ones he claimed not to remember – she took his head into her lap as he wept. She thought of how he could come out of “that place” and make something of himself, to become a man capable of loving her the way he did; the man she loved. He goes back for a reunion, and stays at the Richmond, now renamed Radisson, not realising that he was living out Elwood’s dream.
“Even in death the boys were trouble,” starts the Prologue, and the reader is drawn immediately to the skeletons unearthed by archaeology students; to the story of lives lived around segregation; and the single, innocent mistake that lands Elwood into the reformatory school; this is followed by tales of unsuccessful escape attempts and their terrible consequences; the punishments and abuses; the unlikely friendships and survivals, and then … there are faces missing at breakfast that none dared to even whisper about.
The story is woven around the dire goings-on at the Academy but the base is the myriad daily experiences of the African-American in southern US. In a soul-searching moment, Whitehead asks through one of his characters: “How do you get through if every indignity capsized you in a ditch? One learns to focus one's attention.” In the book under review as much as in his Pulitzer-prize winning novel “Underground Railroad”, (published in 2016) Whitehead tells of the horrors of slavery and the plight of their descendants – and their unending, hopeless search for freedom and justice, … and human resilience against inhumanity.
