Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Further..

I'm reading Mistry's A Fine Balance a second time, and only last night noticed that after a gap of some ten years, I was waiting for certain details to make a reappearance.  To wit, Omprakash's affliction with both head lice and tape worms; and too, the horrible emergency government round-up resulting in forced labor, and the sad denouement where the two main characters become beggars.
     I was saddened by the contrast between the distractions I seem afflicted by in developing a reading habit and the ease and analytical insight I've come to enjoy watching movies.  Every film seems to break down into easy, directorial segments, making my future destiny as a film director believable (ahem).  Anyway, I think all of this constitutes a pleasure zone, i.e. when we have the luxury of sinking into an experience and let it take over.  For after all, the fiction writers enjoy their craft, otherwise why...
     

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Rohinton Mistry

I'm unsure how to handle blog posts on anything more frequently than monthly, but I'll try.
     Reading A Fine Balance, and this for the second time, my train of thought heads in the direction of a writer's awareness of what works...and doesn't. Although I must say, all of Mistry's craft has its desired effect.
     The last episode dealt with a political rally.  Endless buses picking up endless shanty town dwellers, if not of their own volition, then with some not-so-gentle coaxing with police batons. As the thousands assemble, the pageantry begins and the hot air balloons dispense their cargo of rose petals, sometimes reaching their destinations of stage and crowds, sometimes missing the mark and providing some local goatherds with an unexpected blessing. What is impressive is the dishevelment and mayhem of the subcontinent of India.  Shocking to the Western reader is that despite the chaos of the struggle for survival, the human prevails.  The routine of emptying one's bowels at the nearest assembly of train tracks is no more than the writer's opportunity to elaborate dialogue, and the sordid search for a place to hang one's hat an opportunity to provide details of the sordid accumulation of debris and trash that a slum dweller simply takes in stride.
     Now what do I do to end a post?  Sudden death?

Thursday, January 1, 2015

I'M BACK, AND RECOUPING LOST GROUND

Picking up a pencil, it seems, in order to write a blog.  My life has been dishevel and in arrears since last winter, and things have gotten behind.
     What did I want to write about?  It was March, the end of Lent, and on Easter weekend there were a number of documentaries on the Holy Land going back to the time of Jesus.
     In one notable moment, Jesus was shown rubbing his thumbs over the eyes of a blind man.  I liked this Jesus:  he was kind of frumpy.  His hair made him seem like he could've been a homeless man in any American city.  I reflected on the classic image of Jesus in commercial depictions.  Vidal Sassoon...was this his stylist?!
     I suppose it was from that moment that I formed a different conception of this man's life.  Yes, he was in all ways unremarkable, unremarkable except that he healed the sick, made the blind to see and raised the dead to life.  A man so unremarkable, in fact, that in the end there were no misgivings about delivering him to the same gruesome execution reserved for thieves and blackguards.
     This, then, is the revelation of the Christian faith, now no longer a mystery.  How unremarkable we all are until the moment when we can see one another, relieved of dross and cloaked in glory.  I further reflected, in avoiding the conventional obsession with the crucifixion, that surely it was the resurrection and not his death that constituted our liberation; but then, what about those of us who have abased ourselves with mayhem and butchery?  Alas, being nailed to a cross couldn't be avoided.
     Buddhists don't have a gory revelation at the center of their theology, only frightening ones.  I think fondly of Mahakhala as the deity who kicks our asses if we somehow upend the Dharma.
     So it remains a mystery how we are redeemed from suffering by being made to focus on it.  But then, is there any worse destiny than to not be forgiven?  Isn't this what hell is made of?