over the last couple of months I have seen my self transgress from a man to a drone going through the motions. it may be winter ennui. it could be the listless work but its quite apparent there's been a lack of passion in the things I do.
on sunday, i noticed my little son spend time dismantling things meticulously with his cycle. Whatever he was doing looked laboriously boring to me but passionate to him . His sole aim was to grind crayons under his tricycle wheel.
The gameplan was simple, the execution near perfect. the result disastorous for the crayons and his parents but triumphic for him.
within 30 minutes, he had ground a dozen crayons and had also dirtied the marble flooring not to mention his tri cycle wheels. He had also incurred grandmother caution, maternal wrath and father's look of annoyance.
On a casual note, the crayons were all gone but he didn't think so. it was quite apparent to him that life did lurk within those wasted objects. Life which had to be dealt with. he grouped the dismembered crayons together and drove the cycle all over it again.
This bought to mind something I had seen on CNN during the war on terror. An highly sophisticated million dollar stealth pounding foot solidiers or soldiers on cycles.
Anyway that was something one does not explain to a hyper 3 year old.
Here are some poems which made sense pre and post chianti stupor...
Regina Derieva - All My Life
============================
All my life
I sought
an angel.
And he appeared
in order to say:
"I am no angel !"
Matsuo Basho - How admirable
============================
How admirable!
to see lightning and not think
life is fleeting.
Wislawa Szymborska - Going Home
================================
He came home. Said nothing.
It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong.
He lay down fully dressed.
Pulled the blanket over his head.
Tucked up his knees.
He's nearly forty, but not at the moment.
He exists just as he did inside his mother's womb,
clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness.
Tomorrow he'll give a lecture
on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics.
For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Monday, March 07, 2005
bronzed days
come the weekend and my life follows a routine.saturday is mostly spent on finishing the domestic chores and the inevitable trip to the supermarket.
on sundays life continues between limbo (read that as inactivity, wine and sloth) and guilt ridden pangs of spending more time with the clan.
into this state of non perfect nirvana ,rhetoric questions of how creativity has been wasted has been surreptiously seeping in.
one of the things i have been noticing about is the number of bronze and brass figurines at home. i see them all over blackened by years of neglect and the sorry state of this world's pollution problem.
as i was contemplating about how these figurines must have looked before they all darkened,i decided to find out.
armed with economy size vats of brasso, silvo and other products which have sung and danced on television, i sat and laboured on the polishing. after nearly an hour of arm wrenching work peppered with with swear words as and when figurine has fallen on leg, i noticed they looked only slightly better.
2 clear options stood before me, give up and do something else like read a book or try something different.
the first looked good but would only induce pangs of guilty remorse later, hence i decided to do something different. Thinking back to what my grandmother, my mother and scores of indian women in the past would have done came to the rescue. voila - tamarind soaked in water (acidic prep...) and liberal use of dish washing powder later was the balm to instant polishing.
yes, i smelled terrible and would not be asked for a date by la lopez but the figurines glowed, the dirt and rust having disintegrated away.
next mission impossible - fix the ever growing army of my son's stuff with broken wheels, books without binders, etc.
here's a job for mr araldite man...
on sundays life continues between limbo (read that as inactivity, wine and sloth) and guilt ridden pangs of spending more time with the clan.
into this state of non perfect nirvana ,rhetoric questions of how creativity has been wasted has been surreptiously seeping in.
one of the things i have been noticing about is the number of bronze and brass figurines at home. i see them all over blackened by years of neglect and the sorry state of this world's pollution problem.
as i was contemplating about how these figurines must have looked before they all darkened,i decided to find out.
armed with economy size vats of brasso, silvo and other products which have sung and danced on television, i sat and laboured on the polishing. after nearly an hour of arm wrenching work peppered with with swear words as and when figurine has fallen on leg, i noticed they looked only slightly better.
2 clear options stood before me, give up and do something else like read a book or try something different.
the first looked good but would only induce pangs of guilty remorse later, hence i decided to do something different. Thinking back to what my grandmother, my mother and scores of indian women in the past would have done came to the rescue. voila - tamarind soaked in water (acidic prep...) and liberal use of dish washing powder later was the balm to instant polishing.
yes, i smelled terrible and would not be asked for a date by la lopez but the figurines glowed, the dirt and rust having disintegrated away.
next mission impossible - fix the ever growing army of my son's stuff with broken wheels, books without binders, etc.
here's a job for mr araldite man...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
