The painting had fallen. Loose. Hook. A woman's face looked up. It was a face I was familiar with from its inception. I was not the artist. Nor the art. I had seen the work before. Somewhere. Then it was with me. Some said it was me. I knew it was not. The yellow hair was not meant to be blonde. It was just yellow. Like an egg hatched midair. Strands, like feathers, flew away from face. The happiness of yellow did not change the mood. The woman wanted something. Somewhere. Was she me? Her eyes were searching. But they were too small. Or narrowed? I often wanted to slap her.
The painting had fallen. I touched the glass at the edges. It peeled. Did glass peel? It was cellophane. It let me see through. The wood of the frame was intact. I thought I’d scratch out the cover. It bled. Or I did. It was not cellophane. Not the whole at least. The cellophane was just to keep everything in place – the yellow, the wood, the glass, the woman, her hair, her eyes, her mouth painted black, half open as though she had just exhaled or said something silent. Whispered. I slapped her. Red on palms.
The painting had fallen. Someone managed to break the glass. There is no wall between us now. The yellow does not reflect light, her eyes do not fake a gleam, and lips do not glisten. I have placed her behind a door, half visible. She is matte and dry.
The painting had fallen. She was never me. Or mine.
18 comments:
Is it weird that you may be hurting but I find this delightful?
If you were on fuckbook I could just have clicked the like button on this and continued to digest this quietly/slowly. But here I have to say something immediately(pressure) otherwise it feels like the moments passed...
I can only lamely say I really love it.
Meriam:
I find it delightful, too. Well, not delightful but pleasurable?
Where is the hurry to comment? You can digest it quietly and then do so. Let the moments pass, and return.
Btw, is fuckbook one word or two? My decision would depend on that :)
Oneword...
*gulp*
hope I havent destroyed the chances of youjoining...
*waiting*
Meriam,
>>hope I havent destroyed the chances of youjoining<<
http://tarnationizzat.com/misc/fvscreenshot.jpg
The "recommend" buttons appended to the end of her posts may suggest Farzana's (or Google's) hypocrisy knows some bounds. :D
>>Is it weird that you may be hurting but I find this delightful?<<
My sisters and I share memories of the "tickle-game" from when we were kids. It entailed a chase through the house and a merciless tickling if one was caught ('merciless,' in that beyond a certain threshold tickling can become quite painful). As I recall, "you may be hurting but I find this delightful" was the general attitude of him/her doing the tickling . . .
While the 'mood' of "Yellow Woman" does suggest a sort of threshold to me, the sense I get is not of pain/pleasure, mirth/anger, sad/happy and other such sweet 'n sour blendings of emotion, but of a singular satisfaction. "Someone managed to break the glass," reads somewhat more contrived than inadvertent: A conscious thought followed by a successful execution.
"The painting had fallen," the way I read it, does not belie the consciousness of the act, it merely emphasizes -- thrice (as with Muslim divorce?) -- how the event will be remembered.
Mark
Mark,
I'm wary of using those buttons for fear of having my likes becoming public.
"While the 'mood' of "Yellow Woman" does suggest a sort of threshold to me, the sense I get is not of pain/pleasure, mirth/anger, sad/happy and other such sweet 'n sour blendings of emotion, but of a singular satisfaction. "Someone managed to break the glass," reads somewhat more contrived than inadvertent: A conscious thought followed by a successful execution."
Very well put, I agree. I think I understood it the same way...but more abstractly...again...I just love it...the confrontation and the putting behind of whatever it was that was bothering her. Delightful :)
Meriam:
I do not think the shot of the 'recommend' button was to make you click on in - Mark mentioned Google's/my hypocrisy.
Mark (addressing you directly):
I do not see how that is so. I have not joined Facebook or any social networking site, but there are people who link some of my work there, and not many are even visitors to this blog. There are other places where I am published and I guess it is hypocrisy that I do not put in a clause that they should remove the recommend buttons on my pieces.
Is it also my hyocrisy when someone impersonates me?
http://farzana-versey.blogspot.com/2010/08/impersonators.html
Of course, I use the handy tools. Only because I am not in the kitchen does not mean I must not eat.
Meriam again:
I will not analyse the analysis, but the word 'contrived' is usually used to suggest manoevre and artifice.
This was not the case....
Farzana,
Believe it or not, the 'contrived' in Marks post did make me pause but it was late and I decided I agreed with the general theme of his point that Yellow Woman has an air of "singular satisfaction". So I let it go. But I've never found ANYTHING you've written to be contrived. You should know that :)
However, as a writer you DO you have the right/freedom to manoeuvre and use artifice in your non/news pieces I think :)
As for the buttons, I have no problem liking you publicly, have linked your articles on FB before, I just dont want my likes (or dislikes) to become GENERAL public knowledge. I dont want to become clickable.
Eid Muabarak?
Meriam:
Eid Mubarak to you, too.
If I were writing fiction or something that wasn't as real, then I could manoeuvre 'language', but not the emotion. The word contrived has a negative connotation, somehow. It is quite possible that the intent was different and I have over-reacted.
But, then the recommend buttons bit was there and I was pissed off. Heck, I have never asked anyone to link anything anywhere and that they do so is kind of them.
Anyway, today I wore a lace dupatta from Lahore and Kashmiri embroidery on my kameez. My sandals were from the Mid-East...at the end I gave myself a sharia-sanctioned whack ;) That was my Eid...
Hi Meriam,
I find your wariness well-placed. Presumably this also lends to your reluctance to elaborate further on how you understood Farzana's wayward thought "more abstractly"? And certainly such would tend to suggest you too are pulling Farzana's leg vis a vis the FB (which is how I read your conjoined "hope I havent destroyed the chances of youjoining...", lol).
Otoh, in light of your response, you may have meant to suggest you find much less to be wary of on FB where, apparently, folk can better (or more safely) express themselves clicking on "like" buttons as compared to "recommend" buttons offered here on blogspot!?! Can you elaborate a bit more? Farzana would appear to have offered a venue above . . .
M.
Hi Farzana,
I must have missed "The Impersonators" as I can't imagine not commenting -- which is not to say your seeming low boil versus FB did not come through (albeit not nearly as directly) in subsequent posts . . .
>>the word 'contrived' is usually used to suggest manoevre and artifice<<
"Someone managed to break the glass," following the third refrain of "[t]he painting had fallen," simply struck me as intimating of a deliberate act. In the first paragraph is a sort of confession ("I often wanted to slap her"). In the second paragraph, she, as they say, 'acts out' that want, "[r]ed on palms." Having discovered the painting thus fallen, there is the suggestion an opportunity merely presented itself whereby she might sort of 'seize the moment' and get her licks in.
For all we know, the painting may have hung -- and quite poetically, I might add -- with broken glass for years.
No, not manoevre and artifice precisely; but "contrived" does captures a certain sense of the word "managed" that seems relevant, however fortuitous the circumstance or impromptu the act. As my dad used to say, "I don't mind being managed, as long as it's done nicely." :)
Mark
Farzana:
Cutie, you actually dressed up?? Wow. I greeted guests in my jammys :P
Mark: Not reluctant to elaborate further, I just dont have anything to add really :) Like I mentioned before, I'm pretty illiterate and so I cant explain what or how I understand something clearly...it's all kind of nebulous to me too unfortunately. I like the way you read it though. Very systematic.
Not pulling Farzanas leg at all. I WOULD like for her to join. Prefer recommending articles through MY account to MY specific friends and not random people on the net. Clear enough? :)
Not really, Meriam, but it doesn't matter. Enjoy! :)
Mark,
Sorry!
Farzana,
Do YOU understand what I'm trying to say??
Meriam:
I understand what you are saying about the post but I have no clue what is this continuous thing about FB. Is it an inside joke that I am not supposed to get? You want me on FB (why does Mark imply a LOL in it?), others have said so here as well, besides of course through the regular route. Why is it a matter of such import and I am still wondering where the hypocrisy is between having ‘recommend’ buttons here or a ‘like’ there.
I did not even think your reading “more abstractly” amounts to wariness. It was written in an abstract style, and there were metaphors, as they almost always are in my personal pieces. Anyhow, I’ll take him up on that.
PS: Not only did I dress up, but I even put on a “face to meet the faces that we meet” (thanks, Eliot). Too old to get away with jammys, and old enough not to bother about getting myself in a jam :)
Mark:
Let me explain the Yellow Woman, despite your interpretation. There is such a painting. It did fall. I felt the thoughts I have expressed. The refrain of “the painting had fallen” is almost like a chant, something I had to come to grips with, for I was seeing it there on the ground. My wanting to slap her had been pre-empted. Its fall was preordained. The “red on palms” is the palpability of touch, of the real. The glass had not broken before. I know. It was with me. “Someone managed to break the glass” not because it is contrived or artifice to “seize the moment”, but to hang it again, get it fixed and not let the glass pieces spread further. So, if you insist, it was “managed” but not by me and not only for me. The painting has great sentimental value.
Incidentally, you did not comment on the reflection from the glass. If there was anything that ‘spoke’ beyond the obvious, it was this.
PS: The reference to ‘The Impersonators’ was because of the FB overkill. I have no problems with people doing FB, being there and have just expressed reluctance. The impersonation had nothing to do with my decision, and I could change my mind. Hypcorisy? Indeed! I still do not know how you reached the conclusion earlier.
Farzana,
Honestly dont know what he meant by the 'lol' or the buttons. And if this fb thing is an inside joke I'm just as lost as you are.
Your receipt of my poor interpretation of "Yellow Woman" has been most kind, Farzana, thank you. While I am certain you're aware of a particular school of literary thought which holds to the dictum that "the author is dead" -- i.e. where even the stated meaning and intentionality of the works of as yet living authors (irrespective of disavowals and protestations to the contrary) are held as questionable at best -- I don't subscribe to that view.
Words ("contrived" and "hypocrisy" most notably, lol) and colors (yellow woman, red on palms), when they are employed in a work, have, if not entirely different, certainly varying shades of meanings for different folk. Thus, certainly, they may stimulate one's emotions variously. Further, you and I may agree, for example, that the tri-color, saffron, white and green banner, with wheel centered, symbolizes India -- we may indeed share a knowledge as to the stated significances of each of the characteristics of this flag, their dimensions, how they are placed (saffron above, white at center, green below, etc.) -- and yet, irrespective of all that, the emotions (if any) stirred by this symbol may be quite remarkably different from one person to the next.
I accept your explanation for the Yellow Woman -- to an extent, I stand corrected. By and large, however, I'm fairly certain I only offered a read on how your wayward thought struck me. :)
>>you did not comment on the reflection from the glass<<
I did; but indirectly. While one certainly might suggest a mild hypocrisy in the sporting of a "share" or "recommend" button linked to an outfit one has often disparraged (albeit with cause, imo) -- and while certainly one is entitled to change ones mind without explanation (though -- as one who has all too often partaken of crow -- not without consequence, it seems to me) -- the line, "My hypocrisy knows no bounds," is uttered early-on by Val Kilmer's character Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone (recommended). By the end of the film, he changes his mind.
Perhaps we come to know our hypocrisy by the reflection from the glass?
M.
Mark:
We have discussed interpretations a few times before, so I do not dispute your way of seeing. I found the implication of ‘contrived’ off, and habve explained why. If you still think so, it is fine.
The symbolism of the flag is in some ways sacrosanct and embedded in the consciousness. The emotive reactions to it may vary, as also verisons of patriotism.
While one certainly might suggest a mild hypocrisy in the sporting of a "share" or "recommend" button linked to an outfit one has often disparraged (albeit with cause, imo) -- and while certainly one is entitled to change ones mind without explanation…
Amazing that you are still at it! I have spoken and continue to speak against several things in my country. Does that make me not Indian? Several commentators, even in the US, have questioned in recent times the simplistic manner in which social networking revolutions are seen; their op-ed pieces and blogs have the follow and share buttons. I know some of my friends diss these sites while they are there, which is a good thing. I fail to see any hypocrisy and most certainly do not see why I would have to proffer an explanation to anyone if I change my mind. I do so when I have regarding any issue that is of public interest. Or if I change my ideology at any point, I would do so. I mean, you did not even address me, but someone else and kept badgering her about it.
Perhaps we come to know our hypocrisy by the reflection from the glass?
I suppose we are made to think it is hypocrisy when someone has been breathing hard on that glass and blurring it while watching the painting :)
PS: I am done with this, please. I should hope you get another such opportunity. So unlike you, though….
- - -
Meriam:
I thought this was some westernised joke that a desi wouldn’t be able to figure out. It’s fine.
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