On The Ning Nang Nong

The Advent of Holy Fool

Last last night, I was listening to Alexander McCall Smith's My Italian Bulldozer novel. Did I tell you that I have recently taken to audiobooks? I always had a thing for voice. But when the voice is the crisp lilt of Rupert Degas or Sir Timothy Ackroyd, I take to two things instead of one: handsome voice and sleek English.

The clock struck midnight. I wasn't reading MR James or HP Lovecraft. So cloud-barred skies and luminous nights hold no sinister beckoning in Smith's novels. Then suddenly ...in the next track ...'I look like a fool. Do you Italians have any patron saint for fools?' 'Yes, we do have St Simeon, the Holy Fool.' I have heard of St Nicholas the patron saint for lovers but St Simeon is unknown to me. I halted the track and swished wikipedia. Khul ja wiki!

Later Simeon was urged by inspiration of God, as some sources say, to move to Emesa to perform social and charitable services. Reportedly the saint asked the Lord to permit him to serve people in such a way that they should not acknowledge him. At Emesa, through simulating madness and upsetting conventional rules, he was able to bring many citizens to repentance, save many souls from sin and convert them to Christianity.

Simeon played all sorts of roles foolish and indecent, but language is not sufficient to paint a picture of his doings. For sometimes he pretended to have a limp, sometimes he jumped around, sometimes he dragged himself along on his buttocks, sometimes he stuck out his foot for someone running and tripped him. Other times when there was a new moon, he looked at the sky and fell down and thrashed about.

Such playing the fool made him subject to insults, abuse and beatings, which Simeon endured with patience. In spite of his seemingly strange behaviour, Simeon the Holy Fool healed many possessed people by his prayer, fed the hungry, preached the Gospel, and helped needy citizens of the town. Many of Simeon’s saintly deeds were done secretly

Aha! That man pretended to be a fool to renounce any credit for his benevolent acts. The Holy Fool reminded me of the folktales of Paramananda and his disciples. The story diverges in the confer of a fool. The disciples are originally wise men cursed in their wanderings. They are rehabilitated at Paramananda's retreat. Similar to our Holy Fool, these disciples bring about fortunate deeds with their goofy undertakings. Unlike the Christian Saint Simeon, these Hindu disciplines are transformed into fools rather than disguised as fools.

Did the medieval April Fool's Day have anything to do with this 'foolish but benevolent' trope? No clue. No time. Huzzah, Delia Smith has occupied so much of my time these days with her baking and roasting lessons that when clocks struck midnight, I think about the 'Holy Feasts', her quiches and tarts, than 'Holy Fools'.

Happy Belated Fool's Day!

 

Martians among us

I have the habit of corresponding with friends through emails. I have still retained that cultivated habit despite all of us connected in the real-time whatsapp. We don't use whatsapp for byzantine conversations. Yes, that stream of consciousness we hurl at each other.

I am thrilled each time my phone beeps 'you have new mail'. I know the sender. I could also predict the content. We pervade so much into each other's mind that it is glib for one to imitate the other. But still, that beep excites me. Few days back, I was reading one such email as part of a conversational topic, in which he writes: 'we must learn to laugh at the absurdities of life'. We must learn ....absurdities .....of ...life. I reflected on that line.

The other day I was reading about Martians. Not the slimy and nickelodeon-green aliens with gratuitous limbs. But the Hungarian Martians. The original story from György Marx's book: The Martians:

The universe is vast, containing myriads of stars, many of them not unlike our Sun. Many of these stars are likely to have planets circling around them. A fair fraction of these planets will have liquid water on their surface and a gaseous atmosphere. The energy pouring down from a star will cause the synthesis of organic compounds, turning the ocean into a thin, warm soup. These chemicals will join each other to produce a self-reproducing system. The simplest living things will multiply, evolve by natural selection and become more complicated till eventually active, thinking creatures will emerge. Civilization, science, and technology will follow. Then, yearning for fresh worlds, they will travel to neighboring planets, and later to planets of nearby stars. Eventually they should spread out all over the Galaxy. These highly exceptional and talented people could hardly overlook such a beautiful place as our Earth. – "And so, " – Fermi came to his overwhelming question, – "if all this has been happening, they should have arrived here by now, so where are they ? " – It was Leo Szilard, a man with an impish sense of humor, who supplied the perfect reply to the Fermi Paradox: – "They are among us," – he said, – "but they call themselves Hungarians."

Who are these terrestrial Martians? "The Martians" were a group of prominent Hungarian scientists of Jewish descent (mostly, but not exclusively, physicists and mathematicians) who emigrated to the United States in the early half of the 20th century. They included, among others, Theodore von Kármán, John von Neumann, Paul Halmos, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, George Pólya, John G. Kemeny and Paul Erdős. They received the name from a fellow Martian Leó Szilárd, who jokingly suggested that Hungary was a front for aliens from Mars. In an answer to the question of why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth despite the probability of it existing Szilárd responded: "They are already here among us – they just call themselves: Hungarians."

That's the long and short of the infiltration of Martians among us. Many people ask me: How could facts help in better living? This happened. That day. I correct: Facts are impotent. On their own, they stagger and perish. However, the sequence and context of these facts brightens their existence.

Knowing how the upbeat and persecuted scientists joked about their own lives transcends you to similarly overturn the pettiness in life. You are no longer bogged down by the mundane and petty stuff in life. You delight in the broad canopy of life. You will start seeing your colleagues as confounding and not conniving, your parents as quirky and not unmanageable, your friends as ecstatic and not unhinged. You start seeing life with a difference. One day, you might be able to pass on the message: 'we must learn to laugh at the absurdities of life'.

 

Many lunar cycles ago, when Ira's waist was twenty six inches and her weight was now-elusive 48 kilos, she was averse to cooking. She hated the thought of sweating in the kitchen. Cooking is for lumpens and not for glowbirds like her! I don't know how but she gradually fell in love with pots and ladles.

During one of those svelte and mooney days, she would invite herself to all her friends' houses.

'Why don't you invite me for lunch at your place?'

'It's awkward. You are not my girlfriend and if I invite you home my mom would get suspicious that you are.'

'Fine. I can pretend to be your girlfriend for a day.'

'Invite me home if your mom cooks as well as you tell she does.'

'My mom will go postal if I bring a girl home, any girl.'

'Does not matter to me even if your mom house arrests you after I tuck into the dessert.'

Finally, the face-off arrived. He invited her, ahem, she wrestled an invite out of him. She hated the kitchen. She hated cooking. But she loves to eat. And she had no special love for cauliflower.

Ira, you must learn how to cook cauliflower. Cauliflower is bland. You must mix it with a vibrant veggie. Ira was counting the lambs in her mind in that vegetarian household. Ira, you must learn cooking. A girl of your disposition will enjoy cooking. My disposition? Whatever she divined, ain't happening! She minced cauliflower with some other vegetable. Food was lush! His mom's cooking was, indeed, lip-smacking.

Roll the lustrous moons, a lot, many moons on the memory screen, and last night Ira cooked cauliflower and mango fry which sparked this youthful memory. Today, she minced cauliflower and mango and created the same dish albeit in a softened texture. People come and go! Moms get suspicious and abate! Cauliflowers sprout and perish!

But, memories stay intact, goofy memories of togetherness in the midst of transience.

 

Last night, yes, literally last night, no fool's night, I was talking to a friend on phone when I realized in between the conversation that I was choked for vocabulary. You might be amused, Ira and loss of words. But, truth!

I blanked out on words. I didn't know how to convey my thoughts. I was groping for speech. Then I reflected, what was odd about the conversation.

I figured out. The conversation was on a 'solemn' topic. I cannot hold a solemn conversation. Yes, I lack the gene that encodes for a 'solemn' protein. I cannot invoke words to convey a poignant or formal emotion. I am defective! I am abnormal!

Riding low on that primary realisation, another step-in realisation, hit me. Perhaps, this is the inverse of Sapir–Whorf hypothesis which states that you cannot think in which you lack verbal expression. Similarly, or more aptly, inversely, in my case, I cannot express upon which I cannot think. I have lost the vocabulary to express solemn contemplation. I can only talk flippant and froth but when the topic bends towards a more contemplative tone, I stutter. I cannot talk SERIOUS!

That was quite a jolting observation. I mulled on it last night. Have I shed or never pubertized the ability to express formal and solemn with people. I can only silly chat and squawk and para tum pum poh! I don't know how to hold a flat and measured conversation. I didn't know what words to use. I was paralysed, as if my speech faculty was obliterated on the detection of minuscule of solemnity. Hmm, strange, I have to track this, if it is happening elsewhere.

I am muted out of voice when the topic turns grave. Is the inverse Sapir–Whorf possible? I cannot talk serious because I cannot think serious about anything on this planet. Mars is a different ballscape.

 

English Attention:

I enjoy shabby movies. Irresponsible and shabby movies that sink at the box office and reviled for their gross creativity. I like watching flops and duds over internationally acclaimed films. Why are the movies deemed flops? Such curiosity besets me. One such movie is Cool World by Ralph Bakshi. Brad Pitt is at his sandy best hairdo in the film.



OK, this is not a movie review. But tit-tat English anomaly that caught my attention.

In that movie, Holli, a cartoon character, the movie welds animation and live-action, let's not digress too much, Holli said: Here come the poppers. Popper to denote police? Few minutes into the film, she said: The Coppers are here.

Copper is a whimsy slang for a cop, but popper? I looked up popper, which is an informal term for 'press reporter'. Why did she say popper, that means press, to mean police? Did the film maker appropriate the word 'popper' to rhyme with 'copper' and give it a new meaning? Dubious!

Whilst the copper and popper fudge is disputed in my mind, beyond the film, and well into the Lemony Snicket series on Netflix, I was bolted by another anomaly.

This time, in a episode from A Series of Unfortunate Events: Season II, the commentary voiced: 'Slime dripping from the stalagmites', and the camera focused on the ragged ceiling. Heylo! How can slime drip ...stalagmites rise from below and stalactites lower from the top. She meant: Slime dripping from the stalactites. Rewind, play. Rewind, play. Volume. Yo lo! She definitely said 'stalagmites'. What if a bumbling nerd hears that and flunks in his English exam.



Coppers may disguise as Poppers but how can stalagmites be circled back on stalactites. Tsk tsk ..

 

Emotional Pornography

Recently, a friend used 'emotional pornography' during a conversation. He said: That's a lot of emotional pornography.

Is that an industry term to define a genre which reeks of obscene pathos in the writing style? I don't know. But I have come across books and articles that are bloated with sentimentalism and saline. One gaze, one page and you know how deep such treacly sentimentalism runs in the book. I have known that feeling but never had a token phrase to express that displeasure of grossing out on sentimental fever. Books that dignify pain and suffering and morality.

I look back and only have one thorn to prick my cognitive state. I was not 'naive', but I was 'stupid' in my teens. How could I get so carried away by the sentimental bling?

I would nod to acclaimed bestsellers. How did I even like that author? What was I even thinking when I read that book. Today, my tastes have been overturned by subtle writers. How much I was swayed by the 'troubled man' trope. What was I even back then? Such emotional pornography is delusional! There are definitely better books that build a wholesome and pragmatic character in you. Explore and discover!

 

Vidal Sassoon

While watching 'The Man from Earth' movie, I came across a reference of Vidal Sassoon, oh haired by Vidal Sassoon.

That sounds very whispery. Sassoon! The only Sassoon I had known prior to this hair stylist Sassoon was that poet Siegfried Sassoon.

Why is that hair styled by Vidal Sassoon in the tease? I had to look up this man. The man invented bob haircut which liberated women from the gangly curls. He was renowned for his geometric hair cuts. Hair cuts are symmetric at the hair partition, but they are also disposed to be geometric, for aesthetics? I had no idea. I had to pull up images of hair wrought by his expert scissors to understand geometry in hair cuts.

 

Moral Indignation is jealousy with a halo

I can never hurl such clever quips. I didn't say that header, HG Wells did. The man of letters believed in free-love. I don't know what the conjugal strewing is called these days, open love or open marriage? HG Wells is an icon in science fiction. But little do we know about his drama novels. Recently, I chanced on his book The New Machiavelli which takes on from the medieval sensation Machiavelli who challenged traditional political savvy with his subversive book The Prince.

HG Wells, undoubtedly, inspired the word 'prodigious' to be invented to cast him in. He is a prodigious writer who churned out books like involuntary scribbles. His less-known book The New Machiavelli came across as interesting to me because that literary retaliation was the incisive parody and anguish of the Victorian morals. Well, he practised free or open love in which one is married to spouse, yet, that domestic alliance should not incapacitate one to broker more loves. He tastefully loved other women. That book is a no-veiled vilification of the uptight morality. Such characters amuse me, such works delight me.

Then comes the quote 'moral indignation is jealousy with a halo' (source: The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman). I loved that crunched-up yet down pat quote. Only HG Wells can do that. I have to give it to him across all times. His quips and dressed-up novels and quotes bear his trademark ingenuity alike. In India we might prefer to underpin that ideology in Miya biwi aur sautan razi toh kya karega kazi.

 

'Does this email make sense?'

'Nothing you say ever makes sense, so you mean to say, does this make whatsoever sense.'

'Uhm, something there there that kind ..'

'You type too fast and your mind races. It is incredible. But you need to slow down.'

'But I can only type thunder on frilly stuff. I don't know how to type or talk serious stuff.'

'Huh?'

'Believe me, ask me to write an essay on climate change or the nuclear war or the sixth extinction or ethics ..I will spaz out.'

'You have the selective ability to only race through Learian topics and not Learian topics.'

'The first was King Lear and the second was Edward Lear, right?'

'Not bad, your reflexes are sharp.'

'But that is not the point, the point is how should I write on seriousness of life ..'

'Don't write ...'

'Huh?!'

'You are not built for contemplation. Why injure your squishy brain with over-charged firing?'

'Uhmm..'

'What are you thinking?'

'Nothing.'

'Blurt it out, still waters run deep and your stillness cuts like a razor. What's it?'

'Nothing, thinking. Thinking nothing.'

'Well, in that case, slow down ...do you get it ? Slow down. You can flush out so much entangled think-thonk. Slow down, ok?'

'Uhmm.'

'When you regain more than the squirts of uhhs and umms, get back to me.'

'Hmm'

 

Apologia pro vita sua

I like these muscular sounding Latin phrases. When you sight them, you immediately recognise that these brawny phrases hold great sway. On what? You don't know. I didn't know. It means 'defence of one's life'. If I could rename this thread to something fancier, I would honour it with this Roman snore. Apologia ...wah!

Why would anyone embroil in such defences? Well, there are many heady folks who would defend their life choices and life styles and moral creed and cultural keepsakes. You name it, someone would defend it. But defending one's life sounds intimate than your regular defences.

Of late, I am curious about the literary outcasts, the writers whose works were banned or expunged or branded as delirium rants. Before these outcasts were strapped and wheeled away to mental asylums, the troubled writers in them gloriously breathed one last swan song in the form of their Apologia pro vita sua to defend their passionate madness.

Yes, it is cruel and inhumane to force everyone to conformity but that is the non-negotiable price one pays to dwell in a society. You relinquish your bracing and personal opinion for collective and mannered opinion. Apologia is not a squirming apology but a scathing defence. It is fascinating to dip my fingers in this not so-nicely demarcated genre.