the question of rape

some time back, when the media was full of reports about the gruesome rape in new delhi and the nationwide outrage it created, a friend asked me what did i think of the issue. he was of the view rapists should be given capital punishment.

i was confused what to say. but the question reminded me of the only time my father beat me, which was a long time back when i was six or seven years old. i have recorded it elsewhere in my blog: (http://venusnotebook.blogspot.in/2011/08/only-time-my-father-beat-me.html )
he did not tell me why he beat me; but there was an unsaid message in the incident from a father to his son, at a very tender age...

then my wife was telling me the other day about a seminar on the subject in her college and how there were reputed speakers at the programme, who all disappointed her with shallow speeches.

she says no one speaks about the core thing. no mother who had brought up her son with love will want to continue her life after hearing her son has committed rape. he is raping her first when he is raping a woman.

and just now, while reading Adhyatma Ramayana, i come to the place where Sumithra gives her son Lakshmana a few words of advice as he prepares to leave Ayodhya with Rama and Sita for 14 years' banishment in the forests. I shall roughly translate the lines as folows:

always be with your elder brother serving him, never separating from him. hold him in your heart as you do with love your father Dasharadhan. take Sita for your loving mother, and always see the forests where you go as Ayodhya itself.

this, i think, is the key. for our sons not to become rapists, blinded by ignorance and lust, they should come to understand what true love is, who a woman is, what the relationship between man and woman is. this understanding can come only when they experience true love at home and receive good eduction, which is not in the degrees they win in the universities.

*****

from the hectic to the static

the first change i notice, on shifting pace in life from the hectic to the static, is this dramatic drop in my personal expenses.

i cannot disclose the sum since my wife too occasionally reads this blog. it is sufficient to state that the amount involved is significant when considered in relation to my income.

i don't have to pay for petrol now. that was one major daily expense... also, i don't have to ask prakash, our friend at the cellar, how much was the bill for the day.

the stunning fact is that my personal expenses have come down to zero. i don't spend any money nowadays even for the cigarettes i smoke, because my friends bring them free to me!

*****

Appooppa, tell me another story!

Neha was staying with us till yesterday evening, having come on February 8 hearing about Appooppa falling down broken-legged and crying. From the time of Appooppa's discharge from hospital, she had been taking good care of him at home. She would run errants from the sickroom to the kitchen to bring oranges and so on (even a matchbox) and tell him nice stories from morning to evening. She would also frequently ask Appooppa to tell her 'yet another story'.

She had to leave for Kannur with her parents yesterday because she had already lost many days' class at her playschool for being with Appooppa in his hour of sorrow.

Her ma'am telephoned her mother even yesterday to express her concern over Neha missing so many classes. She had taught Neha's friends many new things during the past one week. When Neha goes back to school the coming Monday, she will have a heavy load of "activities" pending to be done. But she will surely handle the problem very efficiently. She has to catch up with her classmates!

One of the new things they were taught during Neha's absence was how to stick bird pictures in a noteook. Pictures of the crow, the peacock, the duck, the parrot and the kite, not to mention the kingfisher and the woodpecker.

Neha can do all these things in double quick time! Ma'am does not know these little secrets! Ha ha ha!!!

*****

Shyness

Questioner: Why do you feel so shy?

Krishnamurti: You know, it is an extraordinary thing in life to be anonymous--not to be famous or great, not to be very learned, not to be a tremendous reformer or revolutionary, just to be nobody; and when one really feels that way, to be suddenly surrounded by a lot of curious people creates a sense of withdrawal. That is all.

(From the book 'Think on These Things', consisting of J. Krishnamurti's talks and discussions with students, teachers and parents in India.)

********

a stage still beyond

then will come a stage (i said)
when i am not disturbed
when with global warming and all that sort of thing
the tides rise sweeping away all that is dear and close to me;

a stage (i told her),
when i am not disturbed
and am a man of perfect poise
even when i don't get a cigarette after my supper.

*****

Update

On January 7, while playing for my organisation in the annual cricket tournament of the Press Club of Thiruvananthapuram, I injured my right foot. I hadn't thought the injury serious and had been limping along in pain hoping the foot will mend by itself. Then on February 5, while stepping out of the Cellar where we journalists meet nightly to share the day's gossip over a few drinks, my legs buckled and I had to sit on the pavement. My friends took me immediately to a nearby hospital. The next day the doctors conducted a surgery on my leg to tie up the broken ends of the achilles tendon, which had ruptured. I was discharged from the hospital on February 8, with advice not to put the injured foot on the ground for two months. A tendon injury takes longer than a bone injury to heal; and Dr. Kailas Viswanath, who led the surgery, said my foot was in a very bad condtion. He was surprised how I had carried on with the injury for nearly a month.

So, the long and short of the thing is I am to take rest for around three months. My daughter bought me a laptop computer and these are the first lines I am typing on it. I have started reading Thunchath Ezhuthachan's Adhyatma Ramayana. I look forward to finishing it in a couple of weeks and moving on to the other books I had always wanted to read. It is a pleasant feeling to be without the pressure of work. I started my working career on May 27, 1977, the day after I finished my BSc exams. First I was a supervisor in a Spinning Mill and it was on December 15, 1978, I began my long career in The Hindu. I have less than 4 years left before retiring from my job. I haven't had a break all these years. So now I am taking a break...