Chatty-Kutty Bang Bong, Almost!

It is both fair and wise, Bhikku, to treat women the same as men. Avoid both.

-- The Diary, 19th May, 485 BC

Let me say, upfront, that I have nothing against women. Some of my best friends are married to women. Indeed, I am a great lover of women. I likes women, I admirers them, I respects them, I reveres them. And when that noor-e-Dallas S~ comes to the cafeteria in that tightish white shirt of hers, I speechlessly marvel at them, 'them' being women of course. But let me admit, painful as it is to me, that women are not without their faults.

The biggest problem with women is that deep down, they are men too. Women want to nuke countries for fun, just as much as we do. Hillary Clinton says so. They want to kick some liberal ass just as much as we do. Ann Coulter says so. They want to screw over the poor just as much as we do. Maggie Thatcher said so. They want to exterminate the damn Mussalmans just as much as we do. Uma Bharti says so. They want to drink some nice Hindu blood just as much as we do. Many women in Pakistan would say so, if only they were allowed to say so. To sum it up, women want to be absolute bastards just as much we do. Lots of incredibly hot and incredibly obnoxious babes on Fox News say so.

It's clear as day: women are no better than men. It's just that they haven't been themselves, because we have been oppressing them for centuries. Which is not to say we were / are right to oppress women. They should, of course, have exactly the same rights as us. The pity is that they are using those rights to do exactly what we are doing.

My highly intellectual friend, who has read far too many books for her own good, finds it natural that empowered women should behave like men. In her words, it is an integral part of the dialectic between institutional disenfranchisement and individual empowerment, leading the empowered individual to seek identification with the institutional Other. That is rot, of course. But since it is in English and one does not quite know what it means, one is not allowed to call it rot. One is supposed instead to take it seriously and debate it, if possible in public. And so I took it seriously, and started looking for a difference, any difference, between men and women. It took me a while, but I can now announce that I've hit paydirt.

Men understand the digital revolution, women do not.

Ask a woman a multiple-choice question, and she will always give you an essay type answer. Not that I'm complaining. There's nothing quite like feminine chatter in the background to help one's dinner settle. But alas, charming as it is, the eloquence of women regularly destroys lives, as illustrated by the great tragedy that befell my dear friend, that great son of Bengal, S~ D~.

In the summer of 2004, on July 13th to be precise, S~D~ walked into the lab, and spoke to me thus. Those who bother to listen to his words will realize that they are pretty strong ones. Another man might have gotten offended by them. But I am not another man. I am B~, one of the most understanding chaps I have ever known. And sure enough, like all understanding chaps, I understood immediately that on that fateful afternoon, S~D~ was not himself. His heart had been hurt, or as he himself would poot eet, his hurt had bin haart. At that very moment, his hearthrob O-vhilasa was with going to the mall with her brand-new boyfriend. That brand-new boyfriend could so easily have been S~D~, but it was not. And all this merely because he talked to a woman, and, by God, she had replied.

But perhaps I should tell you the entire story.

O-vhilasa would be known to most brown people as Abhilasha, but among the Bhadralok, she was firmly entrenched as O-vhilasa. O-vhilasa was like a pi-meson, i.e., she was highly unstable when left to herself. Brown boys were her anti-particle. As soon as she could find one, she paired with him, and destroyed his life forever. Brown boys being abundant on these shores, O-vhilasa was seldom unpaired. However, brown people are modern these days and they do break up every now and then, just for fun. And so it chanced that O-vhilasa was briefly single between 11:56 am and 1:04 pm on the 13th of July, 2004. What's more, it was on this very afternoon that O-vhilasa had arranged to meet S~D~, so that he could do her homework and pay for her lunch. Now, S~D~ has a clean track-record: Whenever he talks to a girl for more than 5 minutes, he always finishes up by proposing to her. Imagine then, this combination of unpaired O-vhilasa and unimpaired S~D~. It was a match just waiting just to catch.

Alas, it was not meant to be. S~D~ did not propose to O-vhilasa, because he did not meet her for lunch on the 13th of July, 2004. He did not meet her for lunch, because he was listening instead to Poulomi, which, I swear, is a real Bengali name, Godpromise- Motherpromise- Studiespromise. S~D~ was listening to Poulomi, because she was explaining to him why they should be jaast freynds. She was doing so because S~D~ had just proposed to her. He had proposed to her because he had reasoned as follows: "Poulo looooks maach preytier than O-vhi. I'll trai praapuseeng to Poulo on the way. If she aacseipts, goood. Eef naat, I'll go praapus to O-vhi. Naatheeng to luse." It was a miscalculation. Poulo refused S~D~, and spent two hours explaining why, in gruesome detail.

And so ended the romance of S~D~ with O-vhilasa, even before it began. In years to come, O-vhilasa will play in the beautiful gardens of Coalcotha with her lovely children Shudipthow, Showronyow, O-porno and Rowbindhrow. Shudipthow, the eldest, will be the first to tire. But he won't admit it, because he wants to be beeg and gronaap, just like his baba. Rowbindrow, the youngest, will be the first one to run to O-vhilasa. He will climb up her lap, and she will smile fondly at him. She will hug him, though it will soil her new saree, for such is a mother's love. She will think of Mrs. Mookkhopodhyay, whose car might be newer, but whose children were definitely not cute. She will shake her head, thinking, "Haaw seelly of me to kip kaampareeng with her," but anyway, she will hug Rowbindrow a little tighter, and tickle him, just to see him laugh. She will then remind herself that she must be firm with her children. She will call out to them, and even pretend to be angry with them. Slowly, they will come, and with triumph in her heart, O-vhilasa will herd her children back home. There they will wait for baba to caam home with swit Roashgullas. Alas! That Roashgulla-bearing baba will not be S~D~.

These days, S~D~ has taken heavily to drink. He blames his stupidity for his loss. As I keep telling him, it is not his fault. The problem is one of viewpoints. The way men see it, this whole proposal business should be a quickie. I propose to you. If you are saying no, I don't need to know why. I have things to do, other people to propose to. If you are saying yes, we have a whole lifetime to talk. What's the big tearing hurry? Alas, women see it differently. They imagine that refusal would hurt men, and that they can set it right by talking to them. In a way it does. It makes blokes realize that all they missed was some third-degree torture.

"She gave me a kela and started an explanation," said my friend C~ after one such conversation. "After an hour, it struck me that she had probably forgotten she had refused. I spent the next hour terrifed that she might accept in the end. She didn't, but if she had, I would have officially withdrawn my proposal. You can do that, right?"

Less patient men take more drastic measures. "It's not you, it's me," said R~'s old flame to him, and started explaining some more. "Yeah, that's what I thought," replied R~, "Maybe I should leave you alone to sort out your problems. Do take care." And with a gentle tap on her shoulder, he walked out. He is, unsurprisingly, still single.

We might as well face it. Equality is all very well, but men and women will never be the same.

"Man proposes, and Woman discourses,
And never the twain shall meet."

The Three Temptations Of Christ

The Gospel says Jesus Christ was tempted thrice by Satan, and thrice he refused. The temptations in the gospel are, in effect, pride, greed and populism. One would assume a great man like Jesus was beyond the first two at least, though the third is perhaps subtler.

Here's a variation on that theme. It is long even by the standards of this blog. People who would rather not waste time on amateur literature are encouraged to read instead The Grand Inquisitor, from which the idea was ripped; or The Prophet, whose majestic cadences I've tried, but failed, to imitate. Such people might also want to try The Sermon on the Mount, which is not at all a bad thing to read, in a week of Lebanon, Palestine, Baghdad and Mumbai.

Departure
Away he went one morning, the village carpenter. His chisel and his mallet lay in a corner, and they grew heavy from their sudden sloth. Half-made wheels lay neatly stacked. They looked like the corpses of children, struck down before they had blossomed to fulness. The village was annoyed the first day, curious the second, anxious the third and indifferent the fourth. But the carpenter had bid farewell to his waiting tools and his forgetful people.

Away he went, towards the desert. He went alone, seeking solitude to escape loneliness, for what is lonelier than company without love? But nay, in truth, he went not from love of solitude nor from distaste of company, for he had grown indifferent to both. He went seeking neither wisdom nor truth, for he no longer cared for either. He went neither with joy nor with sorrow, for he no longer felt either. Like an old coin and a worn parchment he went, for all his soul's variety had worn to sameness. Off he went to empty the great emptiness of his heart in the great emptiness of the desert. And when he came unto the desert, he smiled a wry smile. "Like this parched land is my heart, for vast and dry and featureless is this land, and vast and dry and featureless is my heart. Nay, this land glows as gold by day and shines as silver by night, while my heart is dull and grey. Not like this desert, but like an ocean under a cloud is my heart. But even as the darkest cloud over the greyest waters passes by and by, will this pall that shrouds my heart lift anon?"

And with a tremor in his heart, he entered the desert, and for forty days and forty nights he wandered its vastness.

The Desert
The desert burned by day and froze by night; for hell is home to the reddest fire and the whitest ice, and the desert, the forbidding proud desert, it held the horrors of hell in its small earthly palms.
With sands stretched without end, the desert watched his thirst with mute disdain; for hell is the indifference of towering Gods; and the desert, the forbidding proud desert, it held the horrors of hell in its small earthly palms.
On its sands lay shimmering illusions of water; for hell is the undying thirst for imagined pleasure, and the desert, the forbidding proud desert, it held the horrors of hell in its small earthly palms.
On the desert's face sprouted cacti like cancers and sores, but abruptly there bloomed a bright red flower that burned against the bright blue sky; for hell is the futile flowering of doomed hope, and the desert, the forbidding proud desert, it held the horrors of hell in its small earthy palms.

The First Temptation : Conformity
And against the proud desert he fought, the village carpenter. He fought the heat and the cold, and he fought his thirst and hunger and his weary spirit. And as he feared for his life, he loved it anew. Thought still sang to him of the futility of life; but he did not heed her song, for harridan Death shrieked louder in his ear. Like a mountain-climber was he, and Thought was as a blanket of fog. It circled him and was never far away. But even as the climber cuts through the fog picking his way forward yard by yard, so did he snatch life hour by hour from the mists of numbing Thought. As a child clings to its mother, so did he cling to life. And as the child hates and loves and fears its father, so did he hate and love and fear the desert.

And even as he suffered, he felt a soaring joy. He had sought Life, and found her dancing with Death. And greedily, he embraced them both.

Drunk with the nearness of death, he wandered for a month. One evening, even as the western sky blushed red at the returning sun's brazen kiss, he reached an oasis. He drank the sweetest water and ate the tastiest fruit in the world, and into the world's softest sands he sank in slumber. At midnight, he dreamt. He was on a steep rockface on the oceanfront and near him lay a bird's nest. The bare, featherless russet-coloured chicks were hatching, but suddenly from the east, a snake slithered towards the nest. And he let go of his foothold and pounced on the snake and together they fell into the ocean. They struggled in the depths and at last, he killed the creature. And then he awoke and lay thinking. "Thought torments me. Like a blight, it kills all that blooms in my heart. Like a python does thought coil around my heart and smother all the life there is in me. And just as I slew the serpent under water, so will I drown thought in Life itself. Long have I shunned this world's strife for wealth and power, fame and fellowship. But perhaps that strife is the natural way for man, and my detachment is but a vice and the sin of pride."

He resolved to leave the next morning and return to the village. He lay planning his worldly life, and soon he slept again, and his dream continued. Having slain the serpent, he swam up and broke the surface, but the sun's light blinded him and the heat burned him and he gasped for air. Quickly he dived again into the ocean, and realized suddenly that he was now a fish. He started swimming, faster and faster. And as he swam, he felt a heady joy, but he muttered to himself, "How I miss the wet green moss on the rocks and the sun's light on the dancing waves." With a start, he awoke again, and spoke to the Heavens in tearful gratitude. "Father! I give you thanks, for you have saved me from sin, for what sin is greater than that of betraying oneself? This struggling world is but a tempest whose swift winds give relief from the heat of Thought. But am I not, as the petals of the golden laburnum, destined to burn in the heat of Thought? And even as the laburnum is blown away to dust by the cooling wind, will I not lose my true self in worldly strife? Lonely is the path of Thought, Father, but it is the path you have given me, and I will not leave it for fear of solitude."

He slept again and dreamt no more that night.

The Leper
The next morning, the carpenter rose with the sun and set to work. He waded into the oasis and dug out clay from its bottom. With the leaves of the trees, he wove two baskets. One he filled with fruit. The inside of the other he lined with the clay and left it in the sun. When it was dry, he filled it with water. And baskets in hand, he left the oasis and set out again.

Lonely was his path this time, for Death no longer shadowed his steps. And he thought : "Why does Thought torment me so? What is it I seek, that I roam these sands like a hungry beast?" And he soon saw that he wanted a Truth that was beyond interpretation and personality. He wanted to tear down the barrier of skin and flesh that stood between his self and the rest of Creation. And yet, just because he craved this union with all of Creation, his soul recoiled from the here and now, the part of Creation that breathed around him. Aye, what he truly desired was to drink off the fountain of life without wetting his lips. Aghast at the Satanic monstrosity of his spirit's lust, he walked for three days.

On the fourth day, he saw vultures feeding off fresh corpses. Horrified, he ran to the corpses and saw that they were lepers. One was still alive, and he gave her water. The leper came to, and cried out for her child. Then, slowly realizing where she was, she spoke of her life. She had an infant son, but even as he played at her breast, the disease had come. Like all lepers, she was driven out the town into the leper colony. There she lived for a month with other outcasts, and suddenly the famine came. The town merely suffered, but the lepers starved. Helpless, they left the town in search of another, but lost their way in the desert. Fortunate were the few that died soon. Those that survived were now as beasts: They fed off the flesh of the dead. She cried in shame and remorse, and her life ebbed from her. As she died, she looked to the skies with hatred and shrieked, "It is hell I will go to, and it is hell I want. I will defy God. Aye, I will sin with Satan and writhe in pleasure even as that whoreson God watches." Her ugly leper's face disfigured with hatred, she died.

The Second Temptation : Morality & Altruism
Numbed with shock, the carpenter walked on. He thought with shame of his selfishness when so much suffering surrounded him, unseen. "Selfish have I been to seek my meaningless Salvation. Even as a blind man sees only darkness in this world, so have I sought one Truth in all of Creation. Nay! There is Good and Evil in this world, and man's duty is to love what is Good and hate what is Evil. A sinner have I been to seek release for my Self. The Self is a stick of incense, and its purpose is to burn against injustice, in service of the meek and the poor and suffering. Aye, the path to God is the path of self-sacrifice, and it is that path I will take."

He turned back, to join again the fellowship of men. Pondering sin and sacrifice, he walked for nine days. On the ninth evening, he came upon a bush with a tender pink bud, shyly lambent like a young maiden. The carpenter beheld the bud and his heart overflowed with tenderness. He looked upon the sky and saw that a cloud had gathered. "I must be on the edge of the desert," he thought. "Just as this cloud's rain will nourish this tender bud, so will I shower my love on the meek, for they are God's most beautiful creation. And as this cloud will destroy itself in showering its bounty, so will I give myself unto the weak, even if be the end of me." And with lightness in his heart, he slept near the bush.

The cloud kept its promise, and lashed the land with rains all night. The carpenter awoke at daybreak, and in the ghostly light, saw that the bud had been washed away by the rains. A great sorrow gripped him. He fell on his knees in silent prayer. "Forgive me, Father, for I have erred again. Even as the cloud was I, too eager to give of my bounty. Great is the sin of coveting wealth, but greater is the sin of coveting poverty. The love of sacrifice is but a subtle love of the self. The cloud gave of itself, because of its lust for doing good. But even as the cloud cannot judge what is good for that tender bud, so can I not judge what is good and what is evil. Perhaps there are good and evil on Earth, and perhaps there are not. It is not mine to find out which. Great is the temptation to burn for the right, but I will yield to it no more. I will give only when Love leaves me helpless to not give. I will fight only when Love impels me to fight. And if it is destruction I wreak, Father, I will do so not as a champion of my faith, but as a vessel of your will." And with that, he turned his steps away from the desert.

The Third Temptation : Contempt
Forty days and forty nights had the carpenter spent in the desert, and he came again into the world of men. But now he saw it afresh, like a stranger in a strange land. He beheld that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill". He saw the strife of men, and it grieved him. He pitied the vanquished and the victors, for both foolishly played out the script written by Instinct. And with tenderness and love, he set about bringing what comfort he could.

But while he felt compassion for men, he felt no brotherhood with them. The rich and the powerful were arrogant and petty; The poor and the weak were full of greed and resentment. The folly of men pained him, but he kept his wisdom to himself, for he doubted if any would understand. "The Lord made the bird and the beast, and so the Lord made man. Just as the bird and the beast covet survival, so does man covet wealth, power and affection. And if there be no sin in the bird's greed and the beast's viciousness, what sin is there in man's rapacity? Nay, just as I would let the bird and the beast be themselves, so will I let man be himself."

So he lived among men, but stayed above them. He worked for them, yet not with them. And since he held no hope of reasoning with men, he answered injustice with violence. Where he saw great wrong, he fought the offender with fist and fury. And even as he gashed and cut, in his heart he suffered. Even as he drew another man's blood, it was himself he scarred deepest.

One day, while walking along a village, he saw two bitches fighting. With untempered ferocity, they bit and scratched at each other. He picked up a stone to throw at them and end their fight, but even as he threw it, he saw that one of the bitches was dying. The other bitch sniffed in triumph, baring her bloody teeth. Suddenly, he heard a pathetic squeal. The dead bitch had left behind a pup, and it came to her, and started sucking at her swollen unresponsive teats. He started looking for another stone, afraid that the other bitch would kill the pup. But as he found a stone and looked up, he stood startled. The other bitch, which had just slain the mother, tenderly licked the pup. And she lay down and offered her teat for the pup to suckle. Every time the pup bit into her, she growled and bristled, but only pushed the pup away softly.

The carpenter stood, with tears in his eyes. "Forgive me, Father, for judging your creation. You gave us an instinct for survival, but you also gave an instinct for love. Foolish have I been to condemn the one without admiring the other. You gave man Reason and he employs it in greed and violence, but through me, Father, you will teach him to employ it in love."

With fresh resolve, he walked on and reached the top of a hill, where a crowd was gathered. He climbed up the flat stump of a dead tree, and started speaking, without thinking about what he was going to say.

The words came.