Oak.....

I was looking at random movie clips on youtube and found the adaptation of Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. This lead to memories of my reading the book for no reason other than passing my bachelors,.But by the time I got to the middle of the book,I had fallen in love with Oak,the man of the story.It's been long since then and I had quite forgotten about the whole thing.Yesterday when I was seeing the clips,the affair began all over again and this time to stay I believe.Thankfully the man who has played Oak in the movie has been chosen well and looks the part.

Anyways what matters most I think is that i needed no image and still need no visuals for this affair.The magic the personality exudes in words and therefore in imagination is quite enough.What a man! He has spoilt all my chances of hope at finding a man on earth!

What makes him absolutely attraction worthy is his likeness to the oriental idea of a detached man of strength and succor.Yes a man with his desires but tied down by none of them.A man who can "toss his winnings at a turn of pitch and toss and will not breathe a word about his loss" !
With all the sheep and his whole future fallen over the cliff, he has only a sigh in response and then a move away from the place in search of work almost immediately!! A strength beyond measure!

Next is the need to be bailiff at the farm of his love,who left his attentions unrequited and a cool acceptance of this fate.No ego,no resentments and can demarcate well between love and duty or cannot at all!
He was head of farm at his village and a mere server now to Bathsheba in her newly inherited farm, and still no change in the man's principles or lookout towards Bathsheba .All is seen as a course of life to be lived until the body drops to naught.To see oneself in this position of giver and giver alone, even in thought seems tormenting.
He still holds concerns for Bathsheba's happiness in his heart and works with an easy focus privy to men who have nothing to lose and all to gain.
Through all her senseless affairs and impulsive mistakes,he is calm and wise.He sees all her troubles with a detached eye and discerns the vanity at every step.No complaints,no harsh words and no mockery! Stays away and does his part and it's only Basthsheba,even through her tribulations drooling for attention from this almost saintly man and yet too proud to say it out loud.

Her play with the stoic Boldwood (neighbour farmer of a good age) for which she gets into deep trouble and then her passionate affair and disastrous marriage to the handsome Troy,all elicit very little from Oak in terms of an assured reaction of hostility.He loves her too much to even care to leave and of course he cannot think of leaving his fellow workers in the lurch at the hands of Bathsheba and her precarious decisions.

And of course in the end he accepts her,for all the farmer friends and for the good of the village and also to help Bathsheba lead a fruitful life from here onward.No man forgives so much! But it's not just his dealings with his lady love,it's the nature of his perception of people around him and his capability of endurance that makes him superlatively noble.
A man who can be unnerved by no one,is brilliant at what he does for he cares for no consequence,a doer of perfection of any little thing he engages with,a lover of humanity and yet needs not a farthing from them,not afraid of perishing therefore lives fully.

I am travelling around the world with all the money behind my back,not a care in the world,beautiful,smart,dexterous in mind and hand of all things complex and most importantly independent and totally in control of all and everything.Beautiful places,enough charisma to impress the elite and poised,language of wordsworth and coleridge to redeem the bitterness of popian belligerence.At home with every culture and quick with the ways and manners of men,abreast of all happenings and known to every field of work and the same time with a halo of knowledge that transcends these limitations or the slavery that is a consequence of them.This is my imagination of the highest sort when it comes to what I want to be in life.My past is a shameful opposite defined by dependence of the most mean type,cowardliness,weakness,bratness,of complete lack of dignity and self respect balanced by charity and self defintion.I have encouraged the wrath and hate of most around me and have brought it to a state where even the ones at home expect no more than a troubless day from me.
Though my dreams are idealistic,my 'NOW' is daunting.The effort to keep alive is the most difficult in the world to pursue, from minute to minute.To be aware of yourself every moment is an impossibility except to the strong willed.Here I dont mean the selfish ego that brings attention to one's personality at times of embarrassment,misery or praise but that self awareness at the presence of which even intense grief seems separate from you.A few gain this after abject misery at the hands of nature and after being left with nothing more to lose.But a few get the honor of reaching there in this way.what about the rest of us?
when this becomes most conspicuous is when you have nothing to do and are free.this gives you the time to mull over a bit.Each passing minute will go by at the mercy of your utter helplessness at stopping it.So many thoughts haunt you,so many are remembered,so many regrets and that helplessness that underlies it all.
Beneath this layer as well, there is another that stays quite still and watches. unmoved,poised,calm,
without a ripple,conscious in the most intense way.This is the only state that seems common to all moods that the mind goes through.The state that has to just be.
what can be done to ever be aware of it and not be lost in everyday concerns?
what can be done to just be alive?
what should be done to just be?
The restlessness of youth and the mundanity that it exhorts is blinding and so limiting that something "large" in you is never given a chance.But the chance it asks for is risky and like "walking on the edge of a sword".It is literally killing yourself.Are we ready to do that when there is so much going on about "you" around you?is it possible to give up superfluity? and be content with seeking naked truth?
what about the others you are in awe of.what becomes of that?what about that you who everybody expects to see.what about a lot of firsts that come your way?

In the NOW is the answer.To never care a farth for anything but the now and live in it clutching its feet so as not to be at the mercy of anything else,so that even if death approaches it is in the now and becomes an experience by itself rather than a fear of the unknown.

Escape...

On my way to university I happened to see a group of construction workers having their breakfast.It looked like a not very delicious curry and dry pieces of chapati.They were sitting in a circle and relishing the same with some easy banter.I was given to thought for a while after that.It was predictably on the dilemma of poverty and a low key life so called.Easily forgetting all this in a while in the bustle of the day,I was reminded of it with fuller force only at the village trip that I had been to from college.To see fellowmen in these conditions is uneasy to take and gulp but you most of the time give yourself enough reasons to convince yourself of whats generally called "God's Work" or them being used to that kind of life.You give yourself assurances about their strength to assimilate more strength in dire situations and say if God has put them there,he must have given them the strength to take it.This theory may be true,but the motive with which we gain refuge in it is false.This is done to acclimatize to the shock of seeing something or someone in whose situation we cant imagine to be.Even sympathy tends to flower from these feelings of empathy so called, so that somewhere someone up in the heavens will laud and therefore reward our generous hearts.And fear is the best remedy assumed to keep away from facing reality per se.

In the chaos of today,it is a norm for the youth to entertain weakening emotions such as sympathy and fear towards harsh realities or just forget them as soon as possible and get back to the rosy side of life.Romance,money,everyday schedule,the thousand casual doubts and meetings that help us spend the day and be done with it.The focus so mostly tends to be on what to become and what to gain.Where to go or how to be,because these processes help us forget the present and provide circumvention from the ugliness that the present holds in its sway.Too many troubles to engage with,innumerable obstacles and challenges to deal with,and not a thing seems to be going the way we want it to.So what can be done except escape? therefore the fantasies,desires,complaints,imperfections,flaws,fears and rest of the story.

The secret lies in the fact that the gain is not outside but within.Another saint in the making you are thinking? No.Seems to be true even at the most reasonable level.The outside is imperfect and is meant to be,as all is matter and matter.A state  of perfection is a futile fantasy when imbalance is the principle behind existence itself.For every good,there is equal bad in ordinary parlance.So every ideology and every ideal will have a flaw.Its inevitable.Their expression has proved a basic flaw that has made the same possible .To be conceived by the mind is in itself degradation as it automatically comes within the purview of the senses.So only that which is beyond,is beyond taint even.So the theory that the senses cannot reach it.Logically it follows that there is nowhere to go,nothing to be ,but ,ALREADY IS.The delay is in the unveiling of it.Removing superfluity and thereby exposing the nakedness of what is and not has to be.,

Its been long since I wrote for the blog.There has been enough writing in the English course I am pursuing and therefore the brain saps at the thought of still extra writing.But I can resist no more...

.I just watched a documentary on Women who had to take up male-oriented jobs during world war 2 to survive and help the men engage wholemindedly in the war.They spoke about what it was to be a woman then,to work,love,relish every moment,lose their men and so on.To the end of the short film there was this one Grand old lady who said ' todays young take so much for granted and are greedy for more.They dont understand what it was to live then and to be content.They get it easy'.
I find this truth etched in every moment of my life.I deem my share of struggles to be intense and moan over every damned inconvenience,when everything from paste in the morning to bedsheets for the bed are provided for.Working is not mandatory,playing is.cooking is not a must,eating is.stitching is an art and wearing a colorful wardrobe dignity.No nonsense is tolerated and very possession is guarded as if last.Nobody condones a trivial error by another towards them as its a matter of "hauteur".how dare he say that to me? how dare she do that to me? is the stance taken.We do not know what it is like to live for a meal,to clothe for safety,to speak for survival and to work for peace. Frivolity and a false sense of self importance prevails in the youth today and the moment the edifice of the assumed support is taken off,all is gone.Its just that nobody dares to think of it and take it for granted that life will not change its face towards them.They revel in their secure loneliness and the ambience of family flattery..For all the arguments being engaged in in classrooms and restaurants,to live and live truly is different and no child's game.

SHOULD I....

This is for the agitation in me.The spurs of the intellect that refuse to mature into self-effacing oblivion.I find myself confused about the right way of life and if I would be able to begin the journey if I found a theory sustained by popular examples.Life metes out joy and sorrow in affordable measures to most.Seeing people around handle their share does give one a peep into human ways and their possibilities and limitations,though superficially. Ofcourse, there are the great men,the exceptions whose circumstances make them genius or genius,extraordinary. what if one is not given either .what if one is just given a few glimpses of inspiration ,now and then ,that is far from being strong enough to defy the weaker counterpart;yet sufficient to cause guilt and repulsion towards ordinary life.Everyday is a day nearer to the end,every moment a second nearer to the end of the day.Every circumstance an opportunity,every situation a poke at discrimination.Yet the eye watches helpless,the intellect dazed and the higher mind numbed and indifferent,procrastinating in illusion the judgement moment.There is a restlessness gnawing at your insides,every part in search of greatness ill acquired.Desires abundant,passions in a frenzy,intellect all twisted,circumstances ill formed,fears unfathomable yet an instinct towards what is right and lofty.These peeps into loftiness and its splendor of being its own evidence dont let us underrate the pricks in them.When witnessing the fault of others,I say to myself that I dont want to be this way at the same time as falling beneath it.
I must decide and decide now,which way I want to go.Whether the one of frivolity or of the courageous.To answer to people or the heavens above and then surrender myself completely to its tenets.

I will decide soon.........

Ganesha-The begining

Yesterday,i had been to my relative's home with my family.Camaraderie re-established and preliminaries adhered to,we got to chatting and reminiscing.After wiling away some time in talk and play (caroms),and when happiness at meeting loved ones was starting to slip into boredom,my aunt suggested that we go to the market and shop for flowers for the festival.(ganesh chathurthi).
My aunt,mum and i went on to realise the idea,the others being indifferent to it.

Malleshwaram market is a well known place and aunt and mum were familiar with the chaos.
"I" was not and was in for a surprise.Clearly the festival season had begun!!!
Rows of flowers of various kinds and garlands were piled in the footpaths,at a stretch,for more than a kilometer on both sides of the road.The colors of them ranging from,white ( red , yellow , pink) to violet.I am at a loss to think of their English names .
As privy to the Indian mentality,bargaining was on at every corner,the flower men for more money and the buyers for more flowers.
But then something,rather somebody caught my aunt's eye.It was a small boy of maybe 5 or 6 yrs,trying to sell his pile of lotuses.To try the situation in good humor, my aunt started to bargain,but did not have to press for discount as the boy immediately agreed to the price that she offered.We had a good laugh at the boy's selling abilities and his cuteness ,when a man approached us and said "each costs Rs 20 and nothing less".we understood.