Idle musings

How utterly have we been reduced to mere numbers! Our door number, phone number, vehicle number, identification card number(s), passwords..and so on. It requires minimum effort to memorize, I suppose. W.H. Auden's The Unknown Citizen rings true in this age.

"God grant me The serenity to accept The things I cannot change, Courage To change the things I can, And wisdom always To tell the Difference." (The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr)  Can a book permeated with death and destruction make you laugh and leave you flummoxed at the same time? Yes, it can. Here I present to you,  Slaughterhouse 5 ( or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance with Death) , by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. Vonnegut warps our perception of time within the first few pages, to such an extent that we cannot distinguish where reality ends and fiction begins; or whether the current part of the novel is narrated by the writer himself, or the supposed hero, Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut states in the very first page that the war events described in the book really did take place, but that he has changed the names of all persons implicated.  He talks about death in all its forms, beginning with the cruelty to Christ, to the atrocities of the bombing ...

Sometimes the most unexpected people, or those whose company you prefer the least, end up having the best memory power. Or the worst, depending upon how you look at it, and the memories in question. We would rather remember that time when we earned a pat on the back from a teacher than when we faceplanted the floor, courtesy a careless stranger, right? So such distant acquaintances or foes(worst case scenario, God be with you) regale your companions with some long forgotten incident while you are left fumbling in the dark, either preferring not to remember, or wondering how you could ever forget.

A roar from afar Announced The arrival of rain, But the deluge Had other places to go, And rushed off With the wind, Its charioteer, As if murmuring To the eager earth- "Another hath my heart."

Pather Panchali : Song of the Road written by Bibhutibhushan Bandhopadhyay, endeared me even more to the narrative than the film had, if that is possible. If Satyajit Ray's masterpiece had captured my heart with its wonderful cast, music and the simplicity of village life, the novel took me even deeper into the world of Durga and Opu. Theirs is a small world, composed of their family of four and a few, scattered neighbours and relatives, annual religious festivals, all marked by stark poverty, which they seem to effortlessly take in their stride by engaging in all sorts of games, finding new friends and roaming around in the thickets and plains and jungles that surround their village, Nischindipur. The elderly Indir Thakrun(Chunibala Devi in the movie) holds a special place in my heart. Durga's solitary wanderings especially called to mind the character Raka from Anita Desai's  Fire on the Mountain . The inherent innocence at the heart of this tale will break your heart an...