The art of saying goodbye

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake
And no birds sing

Keats

When during our peregrinations we make the mistake of spending the weekend with an old friend, knowing that a parting is inevitable, the ecstasy of the meeting is followed by a sense of loss, dismay and hopelessness. Nothing will alleviate the pain of the parting, the knowledge that life will go back to its rhythm. Here’s what I’ve learnt in the last 48 hours.
The sense of loss will pass. Don’t fight it. There will come a time when you will open your eyes in the morning and find yourself whole. In the meantime…
Get drunk. I’ve never believed in boring others with emotions. So meet a few friends, get drunk and go to sleep. (Drink a glass of water before you hit the sack. It helps with the hangover).
Brace yourself. You will find yourself in such a situation again. You have two choices – become Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci and you’ll never again drown in that overwhelming sense of loss. Or, enjoy the memories, knowing that to love, to meet and to part is inevitable. I prefer the latter, though I have been accused by many of being the former.
Get on with life. There are more important things than living in the past. There will be new experiences, new adventures, and of course… new pain. But then, no one said life is easy. There are worse things than having to say goodbye.

Oh, those Martian women

It’s back to the drawing board for sci-fi writers and movie producers. Aliens are not little green men, and they’re certainly not slime-ridden creatures with extra large eyes. We now have proof that they’re hirsute women. NASA’s Spirit has captured a Martian woman sunning herself on a red rock, in a pose quite similar to the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.

On Earth, however, very few societies allow their women to walk around in all their hairy glory – that’s the prerogative of the men. But from this image we can infer that among the Martians at least, hair is in. Julia Roberts should be happy. Images of her hairy armpit still evoke horror and revulsion.

Of course, rationalists are quick to dismiss the Martian woman as the product of an overactive imagination. They attribute it to pareidolia, where people tend to see human faces in inanimate objects. Some say it’s a trick of light and shadow. But that’s what rationalists are about. They’ll use reason and logic to justify the boring view of the universe.

And then we would have to go back to little green men and slimy creatures. I like the idea of a hairy Martian woman. She lives in a world where torturous procedures like waxing and threading do not exist. And when she’s not abducting Americans for medical experiments, she likes to sit on a rock and watch the sun set.

Oft-used words

There are some words we journalists should never use. Here's my list of pet peeves
Interestingly: There's nothing interesting about a policeman talking about Mumbai's traffic snarls. There's nothing interesting in anything we have to report. If by some miracle, we do have someting interesting to say, let the reader be the judge.
Ironically: Read Zoe Williams's witty essay The Final Irony which appeared in The Guardian newspaper a few years ago. [The link: www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,985375,00.html]. So no, a man dying two minutes before he turns 100 is not irony. And their's no irony in being caught in a traffic jam whether you're running late or are two hours too early. And no, life need not be full of ironical twists and turns.
Poignant: The word 'poignant' is used to review almost any book. Yes, yes, the story is touching, but enough with the poignancy.
There are many more, but these really get my goat.

The flight of the bird (a short story)

It arrived at her parent's home in a green envelope, with the words 'Do not bend' written in the corner. He sent her the picture, the one that caught her rare smile. Her white shirt was blowing in the wind, and she was trying to brush away the locks of her unruly hair from her face. They were laughing in the picture. His copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy was lying open next to them; the camera had caught the pages swaying to the tune of the salty sea breeze.

She knew where the bookmark had been. There are some things she cannot forget. There are some things she did not want to forget.

She could taste the salty sea breeze, or was it an errant tear? “Come with me,” he had said all those years ago. “I’ll build you a beach house and we can stay there.”

She laughed: “Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater. Had a wife but couldn’t keep her.”

“Come with me,” he insisted. “I’ll keep you safe.”

On that beach she had a brief glimpse of happiness. A loss of the self… her mind was alive, and her skin awake. To be happy is to not worry about the unknown future. To know happiness is to know freedom. To experience it is to forget it all.

But happiness is ephemeral. Both freedom and happiness are shackled by the chains of restriction and consequence. After glimpsing happiness, there can be no going back. The world looks staid and stale. The happiness is gone. And the throbbing ache will never subside. No amount of codeine can numb the pain.

“What blame have I in thy nefarious life?” he had raged, as she ran away all those years ago.

On the back of the picture there was a summons. Meet me on the beach. You know which one, I’ll be there. Come with me.

What women want

The female of the species is believed to be more deadly than the male. And there is some truth to this, because most women simply don’t know what they want. We think we want it all, or some of it: eternal love, the great career, the passionate romance, a close circle of friends like the Ya Ya sisters, the perfect body. Once we have it, we discard it. For some reason it’s not enough.

Our needs never get satiated. Many of them are irrational and illogical, but we roam the cityscape hunting for that elusive Holy Grail. Some give up and draw consolation from mediocrity, from the mundane. Others seek the highs of instant gratification. But the problem with this is that it is instant, it is transient. It will fade into obscurity and then you have to begin your search anew for the next new high.

Find me a happy and satisfied woman, and I’ll break the carefully nurtured sham that society has inflicted on her. Despair, desire and delirium are always lurking in the background. My greatest fear is that this is as good as it will ever get. In desperation, I search for the next adrenaline rush, sifting through the remnants of my broken dreams.

I am loved, but it’s not enough. I have a great body, but my tummy isn’t flat enough. I’ve read a bit, but there’s so much more to learn. My job gives me plenty of freedom, but it fails to satisfy. Mood altering drugs simply don’t cut it for me anymore. I draw no comfort from my memories which are intangible reminders of the past. So I walk alone looking for the next big high. What if I don’t find it? Or worse still, what if I find it just to discover in the cold light of day that it’s just not enough. What then?

Leave the dead alone

Talk about flogging a dead horse. Now Diana’s butler, Paul Burrell, has testified that the princess had no intention of marrying Dodi Fayed. Does it matter anymore? Why does a nation with its fair share of problems -- Northern Rock, missing CDs of people’s lives, Gordon Brown -- insist on dredging up the past? The princess is dead, maybe it’s time for the rest of the world to get on with their lives. After all, her former husband and her children seem to have moved on.

A few good tears

Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip? And how is it that I don't get any sympathy when I shed a few tears. My husband has no time for my tears, and refuses to talk to me when I throw a hissy fit. My friends have never seen my cry -- and for good reason, too. I look horrible, complete with a red nose and puffy eyes.

We were taught to hide our tears. "Cry, I was told. But in private. The world does not want to see your tears." And so the bathroom became a haven. I would shed my tears, sing a mournful song or two, have a shower, and emerge dry-eyed.

But these days, public display of emotion is the order of the day. It helped Hillary get the votes she needed. Maybe I will shed a tear or two tonight... and see where that gets me. But I'm not holding my breath. The people I know wouldn't fall for it. Perhaps that's why I'm no politician, no leader, no social butterfly. I simply blink and move on.

The Diary

I have been lazy, but that is the nature of the indolent. I go with the flow, living my life aimlessly… simply bowing down to the winds of change. The sense of purpose eludes me -- do I want to change the world? Do I want to improve my lot? Or do I simply want to curl up in bed, reading my books as the world passes me by. The latter sounds peaceful. If I can’t attain happiness, then peace is the next best thing.

Cartoon of the day

The great Chinese firewall

I can’t imagine life before YouTube -- the video-sharing site that in many ways revolutionised the way we saw the world. But those in China might soon have to say goodbye to the quirky website that attracts millions of users worldwide. The powers that be in China have decided that they will no longer tolerate the “broadcast of degenerate thinking” on the Internet. Henceforth, all video-sharing sites must have government approval before they can be accessed by Chinese surfers.

Fine, most of the videos posted are guilty of mindlessness and banality. But then, that’s entertainment. I do not go to YouTube to listen to philosophers talk about existentialism. And I certainly don’t go to the site for reference on my dissertation. Instead, I go there for the mindlessness, which is more thought provoking than comments in newspapers and inane debates on television.

But in China, which is reported to have more that 150 million internet users, it’s time to end the banality.

And in India? In India, we’ll wait till someone does a spoof on Shivaji or Gandhi… many, many months later some politician with his or her own agenda will take up cudgels for us and fight for the country’s cultural rights. Sites like YouTube will be banned. Those who care will not have the power to do much except write about it. How’s that for optimism?

The Diary

Insane in the membrane, insane in the brain… that’s me. I’m standing in a corner, I’ve lost my religion, and now I’m losing my mind. My psychiatrist wants to put me on medication, I think she’s over-reacting. My ex lover thinks I need to be rescued, and has dutifully planned a rescue mission, which I’m hoping to evade. My friends have decided to conform to society and are dutifully getting married or having babies. So I’m standing in the corner taking a deep breath. If that doesn’t help, I’ll down a bottle of white wine. Le chaim.

Reader's Corner

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith


It’s winter in Botswana, and Mma Ramotswe can’t do without her cup of bush tea. She needs a lot of it, too, grappling with domestic life and her detective agency, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Her assistant, the shoe-loving, bespectacled Grace Makutsi is thinking of moving on to a better job, after all, she did get a 97 per cent at the secretarial college. And her husband, the mild-mannered loveable Mr JLB Matekoni, the owner of Tlokweng Speedy Motors, is contemplating life as a detective. To add to her problems, Mma Ramotswe has been asked to look into the deaths of three patients at a local hospital.

But nothing can upset the rhythm of the “traditionally built” Mma Ramotswe, not even when Charlie, the apprentice mechanic, announces his decision to leave the garage and start the No. 1 Ladies Taxi Service.

The eighth book in the popular Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency series delights the reader with its upbeat take on life in Botswana. There’s always time for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and to acknowledge the beauty of life. Many readers may find the book isimplistic to the point of being trite, but McCall Smith's narrative style is uncomplicated and undemanding. He is not here to talk about the suffering and the wars that plague many countries in Africa. Instead, the books tell a different story. They tell a story of loyalty, hope, compassion, pride for the African way of life, and above all… love.

Cartoon of the day

This one's from Mike Keefe, The Denver Post

It’s the 31st: let’s attack some women

Here’s a story that happens every year: ‘women attacked my frenzied mob’. Last New Year’s Eve, it was at the Gateway of India. This year, two couples – one newly married – were attacked in Juhu. A group of 50 men simply pounced on them, and began molesting the women.

This is the psyche of Mumbai -- a city that’s touted to be safe, open-minded and cosmopolitan. But simmering under this veneer of coexistence and equality is a mentality that is chilling and menacing. Everyone, the rich and the poor, are guilty. You could be walking in a chawl or parting at a ritzy night club, either way you're not safe.

On New Year’s Eve, when everyone is under the influence of alcohol and roaming the streets looking for an angry fix; it takes little to excite the masses. The mob knows that there will be little or no consequences to their actions on this day; they are free to do as they please. And so, on December31st, if I’m in town, I flee to the safety of my home. The roads are not safe after 10.30 at night, and I have no faith in the police. I have forgotten what the roads look like on the 31st, and now, I no longer want to know.

In 1977, Anne Pride’s war cry rang out in Pittsburgh. Take Back the Night, she said, and the women of the world took up the chant. In Mumbai, we too, are shouting the slogan, but the night never did belong to us.

The Diary

Social networking sites allow you the perverse pleasure of watching others live their lives, while yours passes into futility and inanity. I am browsing through the snapshots of other people’s lives. Brithdays, holidays, family gatherings… And mine? I never take photographs, one day I may regret it, but I cannot bear to look at the stillness of the past.

The last three days have been perfect, that is if I erase my interactions with fellow human beings. After reading Virginia Woolf’s diaries, I have decided that I am quite jealous of her. DH Lawrence never surprises, but it is Moliere who makes me laugh the most. I would have loved to have met him. It seems he had a theatre company, where he was the only man.

People are talking to me; my phone keeps ringing. But I choose to ignore their voices. I cannot deal with emotions -- mine or theirs. Tomorrow I will listen. For now, life is a hazy dream, and I’m floating in a pool of serendipity.

The Diary

January 2, 2008
The New Year seems to be as flaccid as the last, but I’m still on the second day… so there’s hope. I haven’t had sex for 40 days, and at this point a bread stick would turn me on. To channel my energies, I have decided to exercise every morning. (Let’s not call it a resolution, I can never stick to those.) A bit of yoga, weight training and a run by the beach, should do me some good. But for now, I’ll settle with a glass of wine reading Alexander McCall Smith’s The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. I like McCall Smith, he paints a pleasant world, whether it's in Botswana or Scotland.

Cartoon of the day

Dying on the job

It’s official. A journalist’s job is no cakewalk. According to a report released by Reporters Without Borders, at least 86 journalists were killed around the world in 2007 -- the highest number since 1994 -- with Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan topping the list of most dangerous places, according to a report released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). More than half of the victims - 48 - were journalists from the Middle East, while 17 came from Asia, seven from the Americas and two from Europe and the former Soviet Union. And 90 per cent of all such killings go unpunished. Iraq remained the world's deadliest country for media workers, with 47 killed last year.
It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.