An Open Letter to Kamalji (W)

Dear Kamalji:

You may not be aware that I have decided to write 3 categories of threads from now on. W, WW and WWW.

Words, Words-Words, Words-Words-Words.

The W types will be short and aimed at attracting fb's. I assume that people are at their commenting best when there is nothing to comment on. So, when I am comment hungry, I will put up a W.

Quite besides the point, this reminds me of a Lewis Carroll rhyme, probably for no reason at all:

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

Coming back to the issue at hand, this is a W post. And it is linked to your newspaper stuff again.

I noticed an ad in the TOI yesterday that you could use its columns to address your loved ones, but only those who had kicked the bucket. I also noticed that people had made use of this service. The cost is Rs. 50 per five lines and Rs. 100 per ten lines.

It seems, there is a clearly defined market price for the intensity of your feelings.

You could put up something like: "Dear Rukmini, On this day 85 years ago, you left this world making your yet to be born great grand children drown in an ocean of tears. We miss you everyday, even in our drowned state. Love from Chittu, Bittu, Kittu and our dear little pet dog Bhelpuri."

Now, I have a question for you Kamalji. Apart from you and I, who reads these "In Memoriam" pieces? In particular, does Rukmini read the TOI?

If TOI is right, then I will be around even after I am gone. I might even check if you choose the more expensive variety of remembrance. If you are too stingy, I may not be happy and start complaining about paucity of fb's all over again.

According to Cheeniya's latest post though, you needn't worry. He says I will be totally gone after I am pushed inside the burner. According to him, my non-existence will ensure that you can address me anyway you please.

A bit like my W thread idea. A thread is best read when it does not exist!!

Or, to go back to Carroll:

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

oj

PS Incidentally, this same Carroll rhyme contains the following stanza:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

It inspired Wodehouse to write his hilarious masterpiece "Pigs Have Wings".

 

Dear Kamal:

I have no hesitation or doubt in my mind when I say that Cheeniya and you are the two best friends I have found in my life. I haven't seen either of you and this, as was the case with my recently departed cyber friend Steven West, has made our bondage far stronger than it would have been otherwise. Friendship grows with distance, it increases in intensity if you never manage to see the person at all. Who knows? The friend may not even exist. It could all be your imagination. And imagination does not restrict you from showering all the love you possess on anyone you choose, real or unreal.

Cyber friendship is a bit like my W-posts, which are so short that you might even miss them. Yet, the friendship could be more powerful than a nuclear device. Or, even better, it's like homeopathic medicine. Say, Carbo Veg 30 vs. Carbo Veg 200. I am told that 30 contains more of the chemical than 200. In fact, scientific analysis has shown that the 200 stuff hardly contains any medicine at all. It's more like an illusion. But it's 200 that is considered to be the high potency drug and 30 the least potent.

I agree with every bit you have said about what people should do after the loved ones take their final leave. They should make merry in his memory and the good times they had together. And once you take this viewpoint, can you ever die? You live for ever, video or no video.

Having said all this though, there is one thing that I will not allow either Cheeniya or you to do. I prohibit you to leave the world before I do. You have to treat me as the King. You have to follow the King, he doesn't follow you.

Indeed, let's make this loud and clear.

I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU LEAVE BEFORE ME.

OJ

 

@ Cheeniya

Dear Sri:

What's happening to me? Why am I falling in love all over again and with so many people simultaneously? I am so small, with so little to offer. Yet, I want to give all I have to IL. Everything, everything, everything.

When I hear from you (or any other I'Lite for that matter) my heart overflows. Why should someone, who has never seen me in the real world, care for me so much that s/he actually takes her time to write a few beautiful lines all for my sake? It brings a lump to my throat. I know I am a highly emotional person. Stupid too. But why, why, why ...? This never happens in real life.

Of course I have noticed this quote in your profile. (In fact, before I forget, I also wondered why you didn't mention Wodehouse as one of your favourite authors in your profile!) Regarding the quote, I wonder if this is what gave me the W idea. As you know, I am fond of haikus too. Here is a haiku that you'll like in this context. Not by me of course, but by a Japanese great, Isaa:

But then, if W's are worth the effort, can WWW's be far behind. You say you are stuck with WWW's. Perhaps so. So was Vyasa himself. And his WWW was larger than all your WWW's put together. And believe me, Vyasa was no Krishna Menon. Just as you are no ordinary RAMBLER. At IL as well as outside, there are many who would consider being compared with you to be a Nobel award.

Yes, Kamal definitely belongs to WW and TV channels should invite him for his instant reactions to any event under the sun. They will make millions. Not through cheating, which appears to be the only way to make money these days, but through pure fun. I don't think I have come across a mind with so much fun at its disposal.

Iyerviji is a darling to say the least. I have said this before, that she never fails to remind me of Tolstoy. Especially these lines from Father Sergius:

And thanks good friend for this:

I know I am partly insane. I know that my angularities, even in cyber space, are endless. Yet, if people like me, they fill me up with humility. I know that they are friends. Only friends can remain friends despite being aware of each others' shortcomings. I do not think I accept any other definition of friendship. (Including the one about one's presence next to the burning pyre.)

Regarding your delightful explanation of the sun shining in the other hemisphere. I am reminded of Sukumar Ray, Satyajit Ray's father. He was a humorist and wrote mainly for children, having been greatly influenced by Carroll. But he managed to Bengalify Carroll completely. His nonsense rhymes for children, like Carroll's own rhymes, are of course loaded with meaning and can be read by adults with great interest. Here's my feeble attempt to translate a couplet from one of his super rhymes. It's obviously influenced by the Carroll rhyme I quoted to Kamal.

Ah! Is that so? How stupid of me. I didn't see through the simplest of ploys. You put up an insertion in the paper to stake your claim to property! Is that so. How stupid of me indeed. And I call myself an economist. No wonder I didn't win the Nobel Prize.

Ha, ha! This reminds me of another of my favourites from a Bengali play written towards the late nineteenth century. It's called Shadhabar Ekadashi (Deenabandhu Mitra). A man there is described as follows:

Love.

oj

PS What paradox? Try doing what I asked you not to do and you'll see how I carry out my threat. No paradox in it. It'll all be real.

 

@ padmini

First, as far as I recall, The Walrus and the Carpenter is a rhyme from Through the Looking Glass, not Alice in Wonderland. However, that is unimportant. Secondly, quite clearly, the rhyme is delightful and yet sorrowful. It brings out the paradoxes in life.

Yes, you can surely interpret things the way you did. You can interpret a lot of other things in Alice in Wonderland too the same way. The greatness of Carroll lies in the fact that he can make you giggle and cry at the same time. And of course, artistically speaking, he had few parallels.

Now, I am willing to giggle and cry simultaneously. I have lived all my life with the contradiction of eating animals and feeling sad about killing animals at the same time. I don't feel like a criminal on account of this. If I did, then I would truly turn insane. For, as an economist I know that around 70 per cent of India's population "survives" on Rs. 20 a day. This is a greater paradox than Carrol's Walrus etc. Do I have the right to live the way I live? Even if I were to give up eating everything other than vegetables, where do I stand vis-a-vis the starving children of this country more than 60 years after independence? I don't blame politicians. I don't blame myself either, as I said. Even though I know that I can survive even if I were to give away 80 per cent of my income. I can't live the way I live, but I think I can survive the way a slum dweller lives her/his life.

I ask myself all the time why I enjoy the luxury of an air conditioned bedroom, when people live in misery, illiteracy, illness and utter hopelessness. If each one of us were to part with at least one half of our possessions in the interest of the poor, I doubt that politicians could prevent us. A lot of people could live like human beings rather than animals if we could do this. But few of us do it.

I have to admit that I am totally lost in art forms. So, Carroll's Walrus, despite the obvious moral it contains, appeals to me artistically more than anything else. In response to your question therefore, the most I can say is that I was thinking entirely in the abstract in my open letter to Kamal.

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

I quoted this to make a simple point. When I write almost nothing, there are sunny responses galore. And this is odd, because I'm sitting in the middle of total darkness.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

This had reference to my statement that a non-existent thread is the best one to be addressed. If there is nothing to address, no one can hold you responsible for misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, I said it using Carroll. Not just Carroll, but one of his most painfully funny creations. Perhaps I should have used a different Carroll rhyme. Such as,

He thought he saw a banker's clerk
Descending from the bus
He looked again and found it was
A hippopotamus.

My W posts could be banker's clerks or hippos. Doesn't matter. I guess I was making no more than this point.

I am not a deep thinker, nor socially conscious I suppose. But I have lived through paradoxes that few people in our middle class Indian society have. Or so I think. My life has been a rollercoaster journey. I rose through infinite labour and honesty to the 19th floor of a luxury apartment, having had started out from zero. And then I was forced to jump from that height to a slum at a moment's notice. I couldn't give up my love for beauty when everything about me was anything but beautiful. I was murdered at the age of 30 and had to live in a grave for 18 years to be reborn. Even Lazarus was dead for only 4 days.

Higher values, principles mean nothing to me at all. I have lived my entire life in less than the lifespan allotted to me. And all I am interested in is creativity.

Words, words, words. The fascinating attraction of words is what I live for. I have forgotten to fight, I have forgotten to protest. I have so little time left to live the time that I was forced not to live, that I don't know how I can answer questions such as yours.

Forgive me if I don't make sense. I know I can hardly ever make sense. Sense is not a luxury God had sent my way. Someday I might tell you my story. It could remind you of the oysters that were not there to answer the Carpenter.

Uselessly yours,

oj-da