I went on to pen something tongue-in-cheek, and it is all so farcical.
Yes, things happened. Sad. Happy. Angry. Disgusting. Depressing. Elevating.
Most emotions they evoked lacked introspection or the ability to inspire any. We live in superficial times, and any attempt to probe deeper seems an overstatement for those who may never grasp understatement.
Instead of skimming over such happenings and the people who mattered, I'll share stories about a couple of recent personal incidents.
* * *
While walking through a tiny lane, a lane I was familiar with long ago, I met somebody who was buying blankets. "This is from my zakat money," she said.
As some of you might remember, I've been a bit cynical about codified charity and days set aside for it. What after that, I would wonder.
This was before I saw the toothless man, his hands wrinkled, grasping one of those blankets offered to him. His need was immediate. It did not matter what time it was or what occasion or what the purpose was. For him, it was a blanket, warmth, a cover.
I am still not quite ready to let corporates off, but if money can get some people education, food, clothes, shelter and the dignity that comes from these, then how should one react? For the beneficiaries, words like exploitation, PR, photo opportunity do not make any sense. What they get is what they desperately need to be able to live.
And why only big business, small businesses use such philanthropy too. Ordinary folks too look for IT exemption; activists also want to exert power. Everybody is an exploiter. Or, perhaps everybody is a giver?
* * *
I was at the salon down the lane. The reason I had chosen the place at all was proximity to home. A few months ago I stopped visiting after they messed up on my appointments and their tardiness of service became inexcusable.
The other day, I went there again after confirming that they had a spare slot. They messed up again, in more damaging ways. As I waited to pay, they asked me to fill the feedback form, a routine they follow.
I ticked most boxes with good, and a couple with fair. After I left, i was very angry with myself. Why did I lie? To be honest, I did not think I was lying. I never tick 'excellent' or 'poor' anywhere. But they needed to be pulled up. With the good feedback I gave, I would not be able to register a legitimate complaint. The previous time, I decided not to visit. But is that a solution? Why did I hold back?
The young woman who was attending to me is one possible reason. She said she was new here. Was her job more important than the mucked up timings, ill-preparedness and in this case an untested product? I think so. She was not directly responsible for any of these.
However, my response led to some examination about my silences. That same afternoon walking down the familiar street of Christmasy cheer, I stopped at a stall selling home-made sweets. I picked up a few packets. The owner quickly did some calculations and quoted what seemed like a big amount. I had no example to go by, but when I raised my eyebrows he gave what looked like a hurt smile and asked, "Sabka hisaab doon kya, bharosa nahin hai (Do I have to give an account of each, don't you trust me)?" I felt chastised and paid up, as I would have anyway.
My query was legitimate because there were no labels. And why should I trust somebody who had set up a temporary stall and would not be there later? But his ruse worked.
In the evening, I brought out the sweets. Except for two, the rest were either inedible due to the strong essence or had gone bad. They could not be consumed or even be given away.
This is not the first time, and it won't be the last. I explain away such overcharging and sometimes cheating as their need to survive. When someone offers a discount saying they don't mind if they get a smaller margin of profit, there have been times I have returned to reimburse that discount. Somewhere along I begin to imagine a family of theirs that might do so much more with that money.
Only because we do not know about people's lives can we make assumptions about their compulsions?
* * *
Can we think about the rainbow in one colour? It is the hues that give it beauty and identity. The world is made of such different shades of people, of thoughts, of behaviour.
As we embark upon a new year, perhaps we can think about the rainbow. And living like one.
* * *
Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali goes up on the sidebar because the new does not have to mean burial of the old, but a reminder of lessons learned and to be understood.
---
Images:
1. Elderly Man on the Threshold of Eternity by Vincent Van Gogh
2. Rainbow Stallion by Deviant Art
I don't know if you have persistence of memory, but you certainly have persistence of writing. I can't think of anyone who has written as many commentaries, tweets, etc., as you have. Happy new year!
ReplyDeleteHi Michael:
ReplyDeleteMany of the commentaries could well be seen as a response to the persistence of the memories (and dust gathered!) ... and, yes, I do seem to write a lot.
A Happy New Year and much happiness to you!
the most difficult thing for a person is compulsion; there is no freedom in compulsion - A person who has been pushed to the extreme would do anything to survive - Happy New Year
ReplyDeleteThe free too sometimes push themselves to survive the rat race! Let us not assume the less privileged will do everything to survive.
DeleteHappy New year.
Hi Farzana,
ReplyDeleteCertainly the absence of knowledge prompts speculation, and we do tend to go with what seems most likely about people, given what we have observed. Take Van Gogh's "Elderly Man" portrayed above, for example. Apparently the painting attempts to reproduce (or revise) several sketches and an earlier lithograph he'd done on the same theme. He is also supposed to have said, "My intention with these two and with the first old man is one and the same, namely to express the special mood of Christmas and New Year."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Eternity%27s_Gate
Two months after completing this painting, on July 29, 1890, the artist was dead, apparently by his own hand. It would seem then that, for Van Gogh, the "special mood" brought on by the celebrations of Christmas and New Year was quite complex. On the one hand (and since the painting registers a snap-shot in time, as it were), we have the details we're given to observe. Head or face buried in hands is well-known as a spontaneous expression for sadness. Small children quickly learn that a concealed face is suggestive of concealed tears (and, indeed, some precociously learn exploit it, lol). On the other hand, precisely because such can be feigned (or mistaken, as involuntary expressions of joy or ecstasy can easily be mistaken for fear or pain), we look for additional clues, e.g., the fire in the hearth, a spare chair on bare boards scraped up next to it, the blue hued clothing enveloping his body, what appear to be well-worn work shoes attached to his feet. If a workman despairing of some lifelong drudgery, it could be morning or evening. If indeed an "Elderly Man on the Threshold of Eternity" (the title has been variously expressed, and one wonders if any were Van Gogh's), it could be any time of day, his cinched-up shoes perhaps then evocative of a willingness to work, but with the fire to which he's drawn up close suggestive of dwindling if not utterly extinguished prospects to maintain that warmth. It is obviously cold in the room; the chair alone, drawn up so close to the fire, makes it so. The effect of the blue, almost icy-blue color to his clothes make him seem even colder, approaching the hue of frozen death. For me, the fire, proximity of the chair and the chilly blue of his clothes banish the thought that this elderly man, "on the Threshold of Eternity," is despairing of anything he's done. Nay, rather, he is alone -- or, rather, head-in-hands, the suggestion is that it has only just now realized how utterly alone and without help he really is.
>>Everybody is an exploiter. Or, perhaps everybody is a giver?<<
Was such a devastatingly bleak outlook what Van Gogh sought to express in his painting? Or was that especially sought-for "mood of Christmas and New Year" to be found not so much in the old man's despair, but in the viewer's albeit seasonally charitable reaction to it? Van Gogh, a contemporary of Charles Dickens, is said to have greatly admired his novella, A Christmas Carol. Over his three versions of his "old man," might Van Gogh have sought to strike a similar chord with his own audience? Well, perhaps. Certainly there is room to find in his painting both a hand-to-mouth Bob Cratchit and a miserly Ebenezer Scrooge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebenezer_Scrooge#mediaviewer/File:Marley%27s_Ghost-John_Leech,_1843.jpg
Season's Greetings! :)
Mark
Mark:
DeleteI happened to see this painting recently again, and somehow it meshed with my musings, some of which are expressed in this post. However, I did not give it as much thought as you have done with your analysis.
{For me, the fire, proximity of the chair and the chilly blue of his clothes banish the thought that this elderly man, "on the Threshold of Eternity," is despairing of anything he's done. Nay, rather, he is alone -- or, rather, head-in-hands, the suggestion is that it has only just now realized how utterly alone and without help he really is.}
While one does not know where the various titles have come from, I'd like to go along with "eternity" to convey a longingness, a resurgence. Aloneness, as you describe his situation, is also about acceptance of the past and hope for the future. The painting worked on two counts in this post:
1. The incident of the old man getting a blanket. He seemed to have no history and only one thing mattered then, to him and to the giver.
2. The new year, as I mention in the last bit explaining "The persistence of memory", is not only the new. It has to drag the past along.
{>>Everybody is an exploiter. Or, perhaps everybody is a giver?<<
Was such a devastatingly bleak outlook what Van Gogh sought to express in his painting? Or was that especially sought-for "mood of Christmas and New Year" to be found not so much in the old man's despair, but in the viewer's albeit seasonally charitable reaction to it?}
I, of course, was talking only about how we perceive philanthropy as exploitation-giving. The painting was not factored in, but now that you put is so interestingly, perhaps Van Gogh was emotionally exploiting while giving an insight, a part of a grouse, his despair to be bought by understanding despair without experiencing it?
Much to reflect upon...And Seasons Greetings to you too!
PS: Good to have you back, although technically I need a welcome back too :-)
>>I happened to see this painting recently again, and somehow it meshed with my musings, some of which are expressed in this post. However, I did not give it as much thought as you have done with your analysis.<<
DeleteI found your post packed with possibilities, Farzana. I only nibbled on a corner of it -- the corner that meshed with where my own musings had taken me. To explain, I've recently taken up as a school-teacher. To-morrow we start a month-long unit on Great Expectations; so I've been immersed with Dickens over the holidays. :)
>>While one does not know where the various titles have come from, I'd like to go along with "eternity" to convey a longingness, a resurgence. Aloneness, as you describe his situation, is also about acceptance of the past and hope for the future.<<
If I might further clarify? My parenthetical intent was not to imply judgement viz the title, "Elderly Man on the Threshold of Eternity;" it alluded solely to the transformative effect a title (whatever its provenance) can have on a given piece. With "the old man," Van Gogh's apparently shorthand reference to his subject, there is a powerful pathos to the scene, much as with your own old man:
"This was before I saw the toothless man, his hands wrinkled, grasping one of those blankets offered to him. His need was immediate. It did not matter what time it was or what occasion or what the purpose was. For him, it was a blanket, warmth, a cover."
And neither do we know anything more about the history of Van Gogh's subject; the appeal of the scene is entirely visceral (or instinctual, perhaps, as Rizwan observes). If there exists a common heart-string to be pulled, it only makes sense it would be found among our needs for survival. In placing this same old man "on the Threshold of Eternity," however, the scene's appeal changes -- or so it seems to me -- much as it does, if only incrementally, between the toothless one, salon attendant and sweets vendor.
>>Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali goes up on the sidebar because the new does not have to mean burial of the old, but a reminder of lessons learned and to be understood.<<
Indeed. For me, that's one way the appeal in the former scene changes.
>>Much to reflect upon...<<
As always, in season and out. :)
Mark:
DeleteIt is quite true, what you say about "the transformative effect a title (whatever its provenance) can have on a given piece". Such titles do veer us in a certain direction. Besides, one notices the tendency to state the obvious sometimes - old man, woman with fan, bathing women -- maybe to leave room for interpretation?
{In placing this same old man "on the Threshold of Eternity," however, the scene's appeal changes -- or so it seems to me -- much as it does, if only incrementally, between the toothless one, salon attendant and sweets vendor.}
It indeed does, but only in a matter of degree - the core remains pretty much the same. In the case of the post, it is my perception that is constant. I assume Van Gogh's empathy might have remained so irrespective of whether the destination was eternity or just the warmth of the fireplace.
PS: So Dickens it is for you? Sounds quite splendid. Do hope to occasionally have these exchanges with you, though. The Hamlet one is...!
>>It is quite true, what you say about "the transformative effect a title (whatever its provenance) can have on a given piece". Such titles do veer us in a certain direction. Besides, one notices the tendency to state the obvious sometimes - old man, woman with fan, bathing women -- maybe to leave room for interpretation?<<
ReplyDeleteOne certainly does. On the other hand, as you point out in your post, "We live in superficial times, and any attempt to probe deeper seems an overstatement for those who may never grasp understatement."
>>In the case of the post, it is my perception that is constant. I assume Van Gogh's empathy might have remained so irrespective of whether the destination was eternity or just the warmth of the fireplace.<<
Well, there are thresholds and there are thresholds. Literally, it refers to the plank or stone (the "sill," or lowest horizontal member of an upright frame) upon which one steps or *treads* in a doorway -- "thresh," referring to the treading or flailing action employed to beat out grain, not unlike the manner grapes are trod upon preliminary to making wine. Figuratively, it has come to mean a point of commencement or beginning.
>>PS: So Dickens it is for you? Sounds quite splendid.<<
While it does have a certain ring to it, and while he works some charming complications into the plot (the opening scene is an abandoned churchyard), I wouldn't exactly say it's for me -- not yet, at any rate. :)
>>Do hope to occasionally have these exchanges with you, though. The Hamlet one is...!<<
I thought it might be, Farzana, thank you. I have the Haider DVD on order.
M.