Providence

In his essay The Over-Soul, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the nineteenth century American Transcendentalist philosopher writes of his belief in Providence:

The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you, that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.

Many a time, I have seen the gifts of Providence in this life. Blessings were placed in my way so beautifully that all I had to do was just to open the door and see the miracle that was before me. When I see before me what I have always wanted, I recognize that a benevolent spirit provides you with the right answers throughout life.

Books, friends, help and a lot of other blessings have come at the right time so many times that rather than asking God for anything in particular I have always asked to give me the right thing at the right time. For who can say that you are praying for your needs?

It has happened to me that a lot of things that I pray for in life become superfluous once I get them. Such a situation is more like praying for a variable in this world of rapid changes.

This life has seen the world for a little less than three decades but I guess every little thing counts. So next time you before you start regretting the past, you need to sit still in the present and count your blessings!

A Spring without voices

On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962 was about the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the environment . It is a fable on the environmental apocalypse of the modern age. The title denotes the silence that comes over nature as the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird species have become extinct.It was a spring without voices.

Carson, a marine biologist pointed out that the reason for this destruction of the environment in the United States was the uncontrolled use of organic pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and dieldrin used to control pest insects in agriculture. Though these compounds led to agricultural benefits, they posed serious threats to animal and human life as Carson proves by giving scientific evidence.

This book was a clarion call for greater awareness about the great destruction that human beings were causing to the Earth.

A True Gift in Green

To know the mind of woman, he has to know first, the mind of the land.

Sarah Joseph is one of the celebrated women novelists of Malayalam literature and she has he has received numerous awards and honours such as Kendra Sahitya Academy Award, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award, Vayalar Award, Cherukad Award and O.V. Vijayan Sahitya Puraskaram. Her Malayalam novel Aathi was published simultaneously with its English translation Gift in Green by Valson Thampu in 2011. In her interview with Valson Thampu, Joseph speaks about how she modelled the land of Aathi on a island Valanthakkadu in Ernakulam district of Kerala. She was amazed by the lives of the people who subsisted in fishing, picking mussels and farming Pokkali rice. They earned as much as Rs. 300 a day picking mussels but never fished for more than that as they count on the fish and mussels as their fixed deposits. The author praises the subsistence perspective of the people of Valanthakkadu by basing a novel on their simple life.

The land of Aathi is pristine covered with water on all sides. The people lived the water-life, drawing sustenance from the water and the fields. Their water-life meant that their daily immediate needs were met from earth and water as they could collect enough food to feed the whole family just by working till noon everyday. The mangroves that surrounded the land of Aathi contained plenty of fish, which the people used to catch with their bare hands. During high tide, these fish and prawns were carried across to the rice fields, from where the people caught them. They also knew the secret of growing rice in salty waters. In Aathi, people from the ancient times lived the water-life, harvesting only what they need from nature.

The destruction of the pristine, land, water and its people starts with the advent of Kumaran, a business tycoon who sees in Aathi, the means of making money. With his coming, the modes of living such as the water-life and farming are replaced by construction of buildings resulting in pollution, creation of toxic waste and destruction of natural habitat. The novel also shows the environmentalist concerns of the writer as she describes the present-day issues of Kerala such as water contamination, lack of proper waste disposal systems, dumping of biomedical waste in rivers and waterbodies, the use of endosulfan to ensure profit in farming, the problems of landfilling, destruction of marshes disposal of plastic and biomedical waste and so on. However, nature cannot be exploited and contaminated forever and the waters of Aathi rise in a flood and purify the whole land.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

What happens when Love Laws made by the society are broken? The laws which dictate who should be loved, how and how much. Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things shot the author into fame and bagged the 1997 Booker Prize. The scene is set in Ayemenem, a small town in Kottayam in Kerala of the 1960s, where caste system reigns high. Ammu Ipe, an aristocratic young divorcee falls in love with Velutha, an educated untouchable carpenter. The day they start their affair is also the day when Sophiemol, Ammu’s nice arrives from Britain only to drown herself to death in the River Meenachal while on an adventure with Ammu’s children. Their nocturnal trysts are discovered and the affair brought to a tragic end. They break all rules of conduct in a close-bound and rigid society. But the punishment does not stop with the death of the two lovers- the murder of Velutha or the slow death of Ammu. It has got serious reverberations on the lives of the people in the family as well as society. It takes various forms and in the family it takes the form of silence of Estha and the emptiness of Rahel- Ammu’s two-egg twins who get separated after the tragedy. Strangely their lives are joined once again in defiance against the Love Laws of society. The book has a complex structure because of its shifts in time. The language is unique and repetition adds to the pathos in the novel. Written in an engaging style the book offers a culture and a flavour that is definitely Indian. The novel describes a society which is hypocritical and patriarchal as well as politically corrupt.  

The Witches by Roald Dahl

One page of The Witches and am bewitched. Oh, why didnt I come across this writer before and now, why so late! The way he writes, the simplicity of his language, the flights of fancy when he writes about the qualities of the witches. What happens when the witches of the world unite to eliminate all children from the face of earth? One child a week equals fifty-two a year, squash them and squiggle them and make them disappear." With this motto in mind, the witches hold a convention. A seven-year old boy turns rescuer of all children with the help of his grandmother. 

A tale with its own mixture of humour,fantasy and the incredible, The Witches sound so real that it made me wonder whether there is really an organisation like that! You read the chapter describing how witches hide their real nature, how they put wigs over their bald heads, how they hide their expression of hatred behind kind, benevolent eyes...it's so amazingly real! A good read for children and for those who love children's books or those who keep the child's heart.

The Zahir

It ends with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. I read the cover of The Zahir. Not impressed yet. It is not the first time that I have thought of buying it. I read the short summary at the end- it’s about a famous writer who discovers to his horror that his wife of many years has left without saying a word.

I start thinking. What can this story mean to me? The thought of a wife leaving a husband under mysterious circumstances is that  fascinating to me. Nothing. In fact, I think that it is in contrast to The Alchemist that was about following your dream, or to give a kiss to a woman waiting for you miles away just by blowing it to the desert wind.  I hesitate and read the epigraph. It is from the Gospel of St.Luke. Still not as interesting as to own a copy of it.

Then I turn two more pages and I read :

“According to the writer Jorge Louis Borges, the idea of the Zahir comes from the Islamic tradition and is thought to have arisen at some point in the eighteenth century. Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness”.

Immediately I understand that it holds an answer to something that I was searching for.  Obsessions-ideas, people, songs and books- that's something I really identify with.

There are only a few books that I have read burning the midnight oil. The gripping, un-put-downable handful like Anna Karenina, Memoirs of a Geisha and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The Zahir was one such book.

It is not really a search for the absconding wife, just as The Alchemist is not about a shepherd boy’s journey for treasure. The Zahir is a tale of self-discovery after long years of wandering in search of love.

My Grandmother’s House by Kamala das

Do you carry the memory of a ‘home’ to which your heart retreats in times of anguish? Do you feel nostalgic at the thought of happy moments in the past?

Kamala Das, the Indian poetess recalls her ancestral home and her dead grandmother in the poem “My Grandmother’s House”. Kamala Das’ poems as well her imagery is extremely personal and drawn from life. This poem takes the form of a confession comparing her present broken state with that of being unconditionally loved by her grandmother.

Published in 1965 in Summer in Calcutta the poem is a reminiscence of the poetess’ grandmother and their ancestral home in Punnayurkulam in Kerala. Her memory of love she received from her grandmother is associated with the image of her ancestral home. With the death of her grandmother the house withdrew into silence. It became desolate and snakes crawled among books. Her blood became cold like the moon because there was none to love her the way she wanted.

Now, in another city, living another life, she longs to go back. She understands that she cannot reclaim the past but she wants to go back home and bring a handful of darkness to keep as a reminder of her past happiness. Now she is like a beggar going from one door to another asking for love in small change. Her need for love and approval is not satisfied in marriage and she goes after strangers for love at least in small quantity.

The poem springs from her own disillusionment with her expectation of unconditional love from the one she loves. In the poem, the image of the ancestral home stands for the strong support and unconditional love she received from her grandmother. The imagery is personal and beautifully articulates her plight in a loveless marriage.