The grand old man is dying. He is willing to die. He has had enough; seventy odd long years packed with weddings, funerals, births, famines, earth-quakes, wars abroad, in the family and in the country. Aren't these more than enough? He is willing, quite willing, even eager. Yes, he is dying to die. It is now some days since he has opened his eyes. He will not open them even to his wife's piteous entreaties.
His children, his grand children are by his bed-side. They have come rushing from practically the four corners of the world at the magic words, "He is sinking". They want to keep awake all night to smooth his pillow, to pour the last pious drops of Ganges water down his drying throat, to shed a tear or two at his death. Yet it seems they don't want him to die. A few more years of his precious life they plead to the powers above and below. At least one year more, they pray. They couldn't ask for a retrieve of less than a year, for then leave would be difficult and expenses impossible. Just a year more, they appeal to the God in his unhearing hearing. A bare twelve months, so that they might take him to Benaras in fulfillment of his oft-repeated and equally oft-unheeded wish. They plead the more devoutly, because they have heard the doctors say he can't live even one day.
Relatives are trickling in, to see him breathe his last! They are rather frank, they don't want the end to be delayed much longer; they cannot be expected to wait indefinitely. He must have the decency to wait till they come, and the gentlemanliness to die as soon as they have arrived. Gentlemen don't keep others waiting.
High time the old gentleman died. He knows it. He would not inconvenience anybody if he could help it. So perhaps, just to see whether everything is ready and everybody prepared, he opens his eyes. The gentlemen watchers at the bedside start, the ladies suppress their shrieks, the brahmins forgot their prayers, the oil lamp burning religiously and resignedly at his head suddenly blazes up and dies. And the dying gentleman (perfectly satisfied?) closes his eyes again.
Monstrous, unthinkable! So there is hope, which means that there is no hope of the old one saying his last, Good Night, Thank you. (Who will willingly say Good Night, the night being so dark, so lonely......?) Even the blood of his own blood and the flesh of his own flesh, who have spent sleepless days and nights by his bedside, forget their discretion for a moment and exclaim, 'How long, O Lord, how long!' All the wakeful days and nights taken to die will now be taken in the reverse process to live. Is there to be no end to their suffering? Some of his children are really angry and threaten to leave. Some others start drafting mentally, leave letters and medical certificates. His eldest boy, a sickly old man himself, adjourns to the neighbouring room to lie down for a while and rest. "Slow, very slow" he is murmuring. A nephew suddenly remembers that tea must be getting cold and, with other dry throats, moves to the dinning room. Another thinks it is time to take his bath and say his too long postponed prayers. One very loyal niece asks in all humility, asks if it is not wise to send for the doctor, now that there is a "change''. A few mere onlookers agree with gusto, inviting looks of annihilating contempt from true relatives. Still the doctor is sent for.
More and more of the near and dear ones are leaving his bedside. One or two remain only to yawn. A necessary, preliminary, surely, to going out to smoke.
The family doctor arriving finds the sick-room deserted and his patient dead.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
THE BIG HUNT AND THE GREAT KILL
Mosquitoes, it is said, go to bed in the morning. I am not sure they go to bed at all. If they do, they must, in the morning; for the nights, they spend carousing on warm human blood, mine and thine. We know that they get intoxicated with it and sing and dance like mad. Insatiable, they come down again and again, for another and another pull at us, poor human bottles. Often they see our now almost desperate hands descending like lightining but then they escape as neatly as, as, as mosquitoes, of course! Still occasionally they are content like good epicureans to die drinking. And then we foolishly exult over our unmerited triumph.
That other friend of ours, the bed bug has never to go to bed at all, never having had to leave it. They don't have to hunt or fish for their food either. Their food obligingly goes to them like mothers, and lies down with them, contentedly to be sucked dry. Still we, nursing mothers, call it treachery, name them the strangest, 'cruellest' bed fellows.
Of course, we have reason to be distressed, and distraught. Our blood up we vow destruction and death for them, the first thing in the morning. Our bed-fellows hear our vows and with the wise lark, the mother of the young ones of the fable, laugh inwardly. 'When a man or a thing bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself or itself but when he or it laughs inwardly, it bodes no good for other people.' said Mark Twain. But nobody hears the laugh, and the rosy-fingered morn peeps in and our good bed-mates are safe. Who among us are resolute enough or vindictive enough to remember the night's resolutions or revolutions or revelations in the morning? We have not had the opportunity of sleeping over them either. With us fools, as with Macbeth, 'They should die, hereafter, tomorrow and tomorrow.' Or more philosophic than even that old murderer, we tell our-selves that when we kill bugs we are shedding our own innocent blood. We feed them and then we kill them. Why be destroyers and preservers at the same time?
But days of agony in our chairs, and nights of tossing anguish in our beds might at last make us spring out of bed shouting 'Today', woe to them indeed then!
It is a mighty chase now and a bloody hunt. Blood naturally will have blood. Boiling blood will not be content with anything less than buckets of it. The hue and cry raised, the mattress turned upside down, and the first blood drawn, it is a world war three, an allout war to the finish, even though it be a war of one against many, so many! Even in the thick of it is a hair-raising thing to see the things, the blood suckers in their thousands the Jungis Khan hordes scurrying in all directions. A single pair of hands aided by just one pair of eyes which have unfortunately only one sight between them, how can it deal with these crawling, Chinese millions, the hit and race cowards now on the run. Many escape. It is then that we find our hearts, our minds, even our bodies, on fire. There is a demon in us. The dirty scum that specialise in the stab in the back now get their due.
But even in their death they plague us. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten our little hands even if our 'crime' be only the murder of a single villainous bug. Such stench never human nostrils have breathed. Murder even of foul enemies, is murder still and will stink. The whole room, the whole world, will stink' who knows how long
No not for that long. Not even for a week perhaps The pall-bearers are arriving, I mean the ants. Can man ever take part in or ever witness such an august and solemn funeral procession as follows. At the head and then at regular intervals are the bearers, holding the venerable dead shoulder high. In between, and for a long distance behind are the mourners, silent and sad. Moving up and down on either side of the procession are the junior officer busy-bodies apparently doing a lot because they have actually to do nothing. Where is the procession heading? When is the last post to be sounded? Who cares whether they are buried in ant-bellies or worm-bellies?
It is true some of these undertakers, in their zeal, carry away to their graves bodies that are still not quite dead. Much might, much must, be excused in a clean and disciplined race which in spite of occasional excesses, is easily the most efficient of the world's sanitary staff. Haste and sincerity, let us remember, can and will never be divorced. And sincerity covers a multitude of sins.
That other friend of ours, the bed bug has never to go to bed at all, never having had to leave it. They don't have to hunt or fish for their food either. Their food obligingly goes to them like mothers, and lies down with them, contentedly to be sucked dry. Still we, nursing mothers, call it treachery, name them the strangest, 'cruellest' bed fellows.
Of course, we have reason to be distressed, and distraught. Our blood up we vow destruction and death for them, the first thing in the morning. Our bed-fellows hear our vows and with the wise lark, the mother of the young ones of the fable, laugh inwardly. 'When a man or a thing bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself or itself but when he or it laughs inwardly, it bodes no good for other people.' said Mark Twain. But nobody hears the laugh, and the rosy-fingered morn peeps in and our good bed-mates are safe. Who among us are resolute enough or vindictive enough to remember the night's resolutions or revolutions or revelations in the morning? We have not had the opportunity of sleeping over them either. With us fools, as with Macbeth, 'They should die, hereafter, tomorrow and tomorrow.' Or more philosophic than even that old murderer, we tell our-selves that when we kill bugs we are shedding our own innocent blood. We feed them and then we kill them. Why be destroyers and preservers at the same time?
But days of agony in our chairs, and nights of tossing anguish in our beds might at last make us spring out of bed shouting 'Today', woe to them indeed then!
It is a mighty chase now and a bloody hunt. Blood naturally will have blood. Boiling blood will not be content with anything less than buckets of it. The hue and cry raised, the mattress turned upside down, and the first blood drawn, it is a world war three, an allout war to the finish, even though it be a war of one against many, so many! Even in the thick of it is a hair-raising thing to see the things, the blood suckers in their thousands the Jungis Khan hordes scurrying in all directions. A single pair of hands aided by just one pair of eyes which have unfortunately only one sight between them, how can it deal with these crawling, Chinese millions, the hit and race cowards now on the run. Many escape. It is then that we find our hearts, our minds, even our bodies, on fire. There is a demon in us. The dirty scum that specialise in the stab in the back now get their due.
But even in their death they plague us. All the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten our little hands even if our 'crime' be only the murder of a single villainous bug. Such stench never human nostrils have breathed. Murder even of foul enemies, is murder still and will stink. The whole room, the whole world, will stink' who knows how long
No not for that long. Not even for a week perhaps The pall-bearers are arriving, I mean the ants. Can man ever take part in or ever witness such an august and solemn funeral procession as follows. At the head and then at regular intervals are the bearers, holding the venerable dead shoulder high. In between, and for a long distance behind are the mourners, silent and sad. Moving up and down on either side of the procession are the junior officer busy-bodies apparently doing a lot because they have actually to do nothing. Where is the procession heading? When is the last post to be sounded? Who cares whether they are buried in ant-bellies or worm-bellies?
It is true some of these undertakers, in their zeal, carry away to their graves bodies that are still not quite dead. Much might, much must, be excused in a clean and disciplined race which in spite of occasional excesses, is easily the most efficient of the world's sanitary staff. Haste and sincerity, let us remember, can and will never be divorced. And sincerity covers a multitude of sins.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
FOUNDATION – STONES
For the last ten years, or more, I have been obliged, on my way to and from work, to pass and 're-pass' by a vast stone with inscriptions, dates, on which a magnificent Municipal Building or Town Hall was to have risen many years ago. That stone has obstinately refused to grow in spite of the affectionate attentions of boy and bird and beast. Remember it was laid by Hope. Nevertheless it remains so hopeless and helpless. How our Hopes come down in this wicked world! Yet perhaps the thing was not so useless: I have often seen an unfortunate man afflicted in the head delivering sermon after sermon from that not too elevated mount.
In another compound not so public are two or three stones in different stages of growth and still far from completion. They are going easy, having comparatively lighter burdens to bear than expected. The crows, in whose dictionary the word 'useless' finds no place, polish their beaks on them. One of these was laid by a great nationalist and another by a big white Sahib. When the Congress first came to power the nationalist stone showed some activity. But better times intervened and the other stone got its turn of luck, (Kind fate be thanked) for a short while. But now, with independence and a feeling of having arrived, both have ceased to trouble about growth and are now content to dream of 'what might have been.'
One foundation-stone in a remote village, meant to develop into a wonderful sanatorium, is now a gaily or-namented, vermilion-painted, bright and beaming, wonder-working idol. It cures more people than the hospital would have. And very cheap too, one cocoanut per cure on its lusty head. Buildings have come up around it, raised by the hand of piety and the greed of trade. Foundation-stone "well and truly laid", I say.
A friend, who I find some difficulty in disbelieving, tells me that a stone in his village, long deserted, has become so venerable with its mossy head and fading inscriptions that historians are being attracted by it. No wonder! Let no wise Pickwicks smile. Stones, especially heavy stones must attract, otherwise what will happen to Newton's law of gravity! My hope is that the Archaeological Department at least, being heavier, will be saved.
All this is nobody's fault. It is this new democracy, this independence that many have fought for and died for, some like myself have merely lived for, that has accelerated so phenomenally this stonelaying (or brick-laying?) activity. No minister is allowed to leave home or office without laying a stone on the way. But no strutting cock or humble hen ever comes out of these stones. Our friends who are organizing these foundation laying ceremonies seem to labour under the impression that the fathers of these stones could be expected to be not entirely indifferent to the fortunes of the young ones they have laid; that a stone laid by an education minister immediately becomes the favourite of the education department and cannot but be 'granted' all prayers. But they must remember that love of children is not in direct but in inverse proportion to the number of them one is encumbered with. Let them re-read the chapters on the laws of diminishing love. Let them not complain that they asked for a school and got a stone, or that they begged on bended knees or a hospital and got a 'concrete' block!
If only our great men knew the ancient history of foundation-stone-laying they would have thought twice, and shuddered thrice, before approaching a stone. Our savage forefathers thought that no town, no bridge, in short, nothing that was meant to endure, could so endure unless a human being was sacrificed under it. Or to convert it into philosophical jargon, that nothing could endure that was not built on blood, on sacrifice, on sweat, on tears... The idea probably was that the person so sacrificed became a protecting spirit, the only true foundation for anything great. In those days people were not unwilling to die for their town, bridge, etc especially as they lived for ever after as Gods. When willing victims became scarce first strangers and then the mere shadows of people were substituted; the owners of the shadows died soon after. In some places even the measurement of the shadow of the person put under the stone was sufficient to fix the thing and secure his ghost for it. This murderous bloodstained business is what has developed into the innocent festivity of foundation-stone laying, with no harm to layer, to the 'layee' or the flock looking on in enthusiastic admiration and hope.
One thing remarkable about these foundation-stones is passing unnoticed, that they are no longer foundation stones. They are not content to do their selfless work under the ground unseen unhonoured. By the way, who is? I have seen foundation stones five, ten, even twenty feet above ground. I hope to see them well above the first floor shortly. An understandable principle this, that foundation stones are not to support but to be supported, nay, held aloft. Do you think, in these days of world wide publicity for everything, that a great stone laid by a great man would willingly bury itself under the earth, supporting huge edifices? (The foundation stones of our homes, our solid women, even they are not so content to remain). I won't start objecting till after these have become coping-stones or weather-cocks or revolving lights on roof-tops beckoning ships to 1 heir doom.
Occasionally a foundation-stone has the good fortune, in its own life-time, to see the building complete itself. Verify, very verily, does its heart rejoice then. It sees the well-dressed crowds gather again to witness another ceremony, the grand Opening ceremony. But often the opening is long before the structure is complete, before it has any doors or windows, except the one hastily provided for the occasion, to open. More often the opening is too long delayed, classes have been in full swing, the doors and windows have been opened and closed a thousand times by active little urchins, the building itself is being subjected to analysis and parsing, when the august personage arrives. Doors are closed again to be really opened with acclamations and heaven-shaking music.
This is of course inevitable and ought not to be too much lamented. Buildings must wait, like maids, though decaying, till the great man arrives. How else we are to honour, and be honoured by our great man? Institutions can be opened but once, and except in schools there is no 'reopening'. Within my knowledge, (I seem to know a little too much, don't I?) a few (very few, thank God) institutions have been opened more than once, first by a local grandee, and then suddenly an all-province figure swimming into view, by this new figure. Neither the local population, nor the proud edifice is known to have protested even slightly. Prize distributions in schools too are sometimes conducted twice in similar inevitable circumstances but without additional expense.
I understand the opening of buildings. But when they talk of opening bridges, I am horrified. Bridges built at enormous cost to cover up dangerous streams being 'opened again'! and men, women to drop down to take holy dips, their last! Do they sometimes ask people to open innocent little children's stomachs?
In another compound not so public are two or three stones in different stages of growth and still far from completion. They are going easy, having comparatively lighter burdens to bear than expected. The crows, in whose dictionary the word 'useless' finds no place, polish their beaks on them. One of these was laid by a great nationalist and another by a big white Sahib. When the Congress first came to power the nationalist stone showed some activity. But better times intervened and the other stone got its turn of luck, (Kind fate be thanked) for a short while. But now, with independence and a feeling of having arrived, both have ceased to trouble about growth and are now content to dream of 'what might have been.'
One foundation-stone in a remote village, meant to develop into a wonderful sanatorium, is now a gaily or-namented, vermilion-painted, bright and beaming, wonder-working idol. It cures more people than the hospital would have. And very cheap too, one cocoanut per cure on its lusty head. Buildings have come up around it, raised by the hand of piety and the greed of trade. Foundation-stone "well and truly laid", I say.
A friend, who I find some difficulty in disbelieving, tells me that a stone in his village, long deserted, has become so venerable with its mossy head and fading inscriptions that historians are being attracted by it. No wonder! Let no wise Pickwicks smile. Stones, especially heavy stones must attract, otherwise what will happen to Newton's law of gravity! My hope is that the Archaeological Department at least, being heavier, will be saved.
All this is nobody's fault. It is this new democracy, this independence that many have fought for and died for, some like myself have merely lived for, that has accelerated so phenomenally this stonelaying (or brick-laying?) activity. No minister is allowed to leave home or office without laying a stone on the way. But no strutting cock or humble hen ever comes out of these stones. Our friends who are organizing these foundation laying ceremonies seem to labour under the impression that the fathers of these stones could be expected to be not entirely indifferent to the fortunes of the young ones they have laid; that a stone laid by an education minister immediately becomes the favourite of the education department and cannot but be 'granted' all prayers. But they must remember that love of children is not in direct but in inverse proportion to the number of them one is encumbered with. Let them re-read the chapters on the laws of diminishing love. Let them not complain that they asked for a school and got a stone, or that they begged on bended knees or a hospital and got a 'concrete' block!
If only our great men knew the ancient history of foundation-stone-laying they would have thought twice, and shuddered thrice, before approaching a stone. Our savage forefathers thought that no town, no bridge, in short, nothing that was meant to endure, could so endure unless a human being was sacrificed under it. Or to convert it into philosophical jargon, that nothing could endure that was not built on blood, on sacrifice, on sweat, on tears... The idea probably was that the person so sacrificed became a protecting spirit, the only true foundation for anything great. In those days people were not unwilling to die for their town, bridge, etc especially as they lived for ever after as Gods. When willing victims became scarce first strangers and then the mere shadows of people were substituted; the owners of the shadows died soon after. In some places even the measurement of the shadow of the person put under the stone was sufficient to fix the thing and secure his ghost for it. This murderous bloodstained business is what has developed into the innocent festivity of foundation-stone laying, with no harm to layer, to the 'layee' or the flock looking on in enthusiastic admiration and hope.
One thing remarkable about these foundation-stones is passing unnoticed, that they are no longer foundation stones. They are not content to do their selfless work under the ground unseen unhonoured. By the way, who is? I have seen foundation stones five, ten, even twenty feet above ground. I hope to see them well above the first floor shortly. An understandable principle this, that foundation stones are not to support but to be supported, nay, held aloft. Do you think, in these days of world wide publicity for everything, that a great stone laid by a great man would willingly bury itself under the earth, supporting huge edifices? (The foundation stones of our homes, our solid women, even they are not so content to remain). I won't start objecting till after these have become coping-stones or weather-cocks or revolving lights on roof-tops beckoning ships to 1 heir doom.
Occasionally a foundation-stone has the good fortune, in its own life-time, to see the building complete itself. Verify, very verily, does its heart rejoice then. It sees the well-dressed crowds gather again to witness another ceremony, the grand Opening ceremony. But often the opening is long before the structure is complete, before it has any doors or windows, except the one hastily provided for the occasion, to open. More often the opening is too long delayed, classes have been in full swing, the doors and windows have been opened and closed a thousand times by active little urchins, the building itself is being subjected to analysis and parsing, when the august personage arrives. Doors are closed again to be really opened with acclamations and heaven-shaking music.
This is of course inevitable and ought not to be too much lamented. Buildings must wait, like maids, though decaying, till the great man arrives. How else we are to honour, and be honoured by our great man? Institutions can be opened but once, and except in schools there is no 'reopening'. Within my knowledge, (I seem to know a little too much, don't I?) a few (very few, thank God) institutions have been opened more than once, first by a local grandee, and then suddenly an all-province figure swimming into view, by this new figure. Neither the local population, nor the proud edifice is known to have protested even slightly. Prize distributions in schools too are sometimes conducted twice in similar inevitable circumstances but without additional expense.
I understand the opening of buildings. But when they talk of opening bridges, I am horrified. Bridges built at enormous cost to cover up dangerous streams being 'opened again'! and men, women to drop down to take holy dips, their last! Do they sometimes ask people to open innocent little children's stomachs?
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