Mar 31, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories
Beloved Conman–A Vignette
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Past midnight, March 31st / early April 1st, 2013
He was a conman.
He lived to convince. He exuded confidence. He was absolutely and utterly right, all of the time.
He didn’t know it. They never do, those conmen. How else would they convince anyone else of their sincerity, unless they had already bought their own story? They buy their own stories so fully that they would be hurt, surprised, outraged that their story could be anything but true.
He had the smile of an angel. He loved others, so it seemed. They loved him back, fully, devotedly, forgivingly.
Sometime early in his youth, he had been betrayed by life. And although he wasn’t the type to nurse long-standing grudges against people, he had held a grudge against life. Life owed him, you see. It owed him, and all it had ever done was take from him.
So he took revenge, and took from life.
Unfortunately, others, real people, living beings, were often hurt by his decisions. He rode, rough-shod, over people’s advice, proferring his own, convinced he was right. And when he was wrong, as he often turned out to be, in his business dealings, which resulted in huge losses for others, and lost fortune for his family, he found many, many convincing, frighteningly plausible excuses.
Everyone, but everyone bought his story. They were moved by his angelic smile, his baby-faced sweetness. Often, however, when he wasn’t aware, his son caught a glimpse of deep sadness, a regret that was so monumental that she was sure his spirit was struggling, dying under the punishing weight of so many errors of judgement, so many tragedies wrought by his confidence in what he was doing, and his still-convincing story of why things had not worked out.
Admitting that one is wrong is painful. Admitting that one has been wrong one’s whole life can be devastating.
What can one take with one at the end, before the final curtain?
A story? The truth? The unsaid things? The heart-break?
For you see, when he tried, sometimes, to venture to suggest that he had been wrong, everyone rushed to reassure him that it had not been his fault. No one could bear to cause him more heartbreak than he had already endured.
He was saved from being totally disingenuous. He had a sense of humor. He could make everyone laugh, make people happy, make people glow with pleasure when he praised them.
He had helped many. He had a kind heart. He forgave easily. He saw the best in others. He had an elephantine memory, a gigantic intellect. He was all of these things, and more. He was both orthodox and free-thinking, bound by tradition regarding his life and wife, but eager to have his children break free of them. He was quick to anger, but equally quick to apologize for his anger. He was affectionate and gave hugs easily, and was cuddly with his children.
His beaming face attracted everyone. Wherever he went, he drew the attention of people, who saw in him a saint, or a sage, and if they thought about it, they would have said that he was Santa Claus personified.
He had been a good son and brother. He had helped his parents out and had them stay with him and his family in the twilight of their years; he had helped his four brothers get high-paying jobs, he had arranged for his three sisters to have good marriages, and had created a beautiful working atmosphere for his underlings at work.
He knew he had been good. He had done all that he was supposed to do. Now, in his middle years, he felt like taking his risks. What was life for?
So, he leaped into calamity, eyes closed, and all of his ventures ended in disaster. He had to flee abroad to make money. No one knew where he had gone, until a letter arrived. His family had to make do, selling away their gold or silver, books or furniture, whittling their life down to essentials.
Then, he returned. And he tried to do the right thing. Except that he failed again and again. A demon seemed forever hunched over his back, digging its talons into his fate.
He sorrowed secretly. Perhaps, he told his wife about his sorrows. No one knew, and his wife certainly wasn’t about to share anything. Secrecy was her middle name. Outwardly, he maintained his bonhomie and confidence. He continued to weave the myth of his life, with tales rewritten for easy digestion by his listeners. Everyone suspected that he was conning them, but there was enough honesty and humor that they revised their opinion.
If one looked carefully, there was regret being etched into the leathery skin around his eyes, his liquid eyes that were wide and innocent, but in unguarded moments, shrouded in secrecy, removed and disconnected from whoever was looking at him. He looked inward, and what he saw he did not like.
And if one continued to watch him undercover, one would notice that his face would lighten, and the lines would fade away, and his smile would come from the depths of his soul — for he saw something else there that he did like.
Through all the loss of fortune, the calamities he had heaped upon his family, his wife, his siblings, his friends, he knew he had done something else.
He had, just by being his beaming self, spread happiness.
So what if he had conned everyone around him about his mistakes? So what if he had deliberately taken risks with his family’s savings, and risked his children’s future? So what that he had sold his family’s gold and diamonds, copper and silver? So what if he had taken out massive loans that his children had to pay back?
So what that some others, faceless and unknown to his family, had their fortunes squandered by his partners whom the conman had trusted with their fortunes? There is no one more gullible than a conman, and one would laugh at that, if it weren’t so tragic.
No doubt that the faceless unfortunates had cursed him in several languages. No doubt that they wished ill upon him and his family, so that his sons would suffer, and his sons’ sons would suffer. No doubt that they had been destroyed by his and his partner’s risk-taking and their deliberate playing with their money. The conman never benefited from any of this. His family spiralled down into penury, and stayed poor. The conman must have been racked by guilt, but he sent cheerful letters home, describing the places where he’d been, and the people he’d met.
Then he came home, and several tragedies occurred. Losses, deaths, more losses, ill-health. That’s a different story for a different time. The tragedies, however, brought him back and kept him closer to his wife and children. The conman’s face had become marked by suffering, which simply vanished when he smiled. It was as if a boulder had been removed, and the light streamed into a cave that had been shut.
But still, the conman’s children grieved in their own way when the conman suffered, and the conman grieved when he saw his children grow older and take on their own mantles of suffering, unique in their way.
There is no balm for the soul of a parent who watches her or his child struggle and fail, struggle and be hurt, over and over again.
But his children forgave him long ago, though. They had loved him. Each had nursed some anger, but dealt with it separately, privately. Anger is heavy. Some deal with the burden of it. Some shift it from side to side. Some put it down, and walk away, leaving it to disintegrate into atoms.
It was easy for his children and his wife to put it down and walk away. They had bought the conman’s mythology. Each played a role in the Greek tragedy of his life, some willing, and some unwilling, participants.
He made it easy for them. He had always been loving and lovable, and scattered his lightness of spirit in different ways. Each child received some part of his genius, the only wealth he could give.
And his wife? She was glad that she had him, finally, in the twilight of his years. He was bed-ridden now, but he was finally hers, not anyone else’s.
For although she saw through his tricks, she had always loved him. He was the heart of her heart, the joy of her life, the one to whom she had given her eternal, unshakeable love.
And he knew it, and wanted her to go with him when he went.
But that was where she drew the line. She refused. The children needed her.
And so he went, fighting death the whole way. Life had cheated him out of many things, too many to enumerate. Disease claimed him, as it seems to claim everyone in this world.
And perhaps, he saw the truth, shining and clear, like a fixed star, before he went. He stared, mesmerized into space, seeming to commune with certain Ones.
And then he went, transparent and peaceful, and everyone stood at his bedside, held his hands, gave him their love, and sent him on his way.
And he was received lovingly into the spirit world, by those of his siblings who had gone on, whom he loved and continued to love, where he and his parents, and his brothers and his sisters were one family again — which is perhaps what he’d always wanted.
And his wife and children carried on, perpetuating the myth of the man he had been.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Family, character sketch, conman portrait
Mar 30, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories
Loneliness — A Vignette
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 30th, 2013
The old woman sat, enshrouded in sadness and loneliness.
Her spirit was young, gay, schoolgirilish. Her mind was brilliant, but old. Her heart was carunculated, folded over and over by memories of grief, loss, hatred, jealousy and despair. Her body, though old, was strong, and her face was beautiful, like a translucent paper-covered lamp.
She had always been on the outside looking in. She had never fully understood herself. She understood others, but as an alien might, through long observation, experimentation, attempts to blend in with the locals, and even achieving a measure of success in that, but always with a sense of strange isolation. Humor and a biting wit had sustained her through all that. Faith gave her some comfort, but her mind always interfered.
She was generous with her gifts, but longed for acknowledgement, which she felt she had never got, at least, not enough.
She took care of herself, never imposed on anyone, was independent, hard-working, good and moral. She gave of herself to all who came to her. She sought, and got, contradictions, arguments, verbal sparring. She loved that, but didn’t understand that it distressed others. She was often critical, very critical of others, because no one could match her standards, not even she. This left her feeling desolate and always dissatisfied.
She could never stand anyone for too long. People irked her. They felt like burrs on her clothing, clinging madly, like little irritants, feeling poky and interfering. Yet, it was she who would long for their company, and would ask for it. Now, they bothered her at every turn. She felt as if they interfered, but it was she who interfered when she had a chance to, correcting others, expecting a weird sort of subservience, and hating it at the same time, positively glowing with impish delight when she caused distress of some kind, or disturbed people’s equanimity.
She was a mass of contradictions: A pillow stuffed with confidence and anxieties, pleasures and sorrows, losses and grief, indifference, affection, detachment and attachment, delight and irritation, love and hate.
And she was the loneliest person on the planet. Always, in her mind, her own dead mother’s voice spoke, critical and caustic, seemingly unloving and cold with a Puritan coldness.
The tragedy was that the old lady didn’t love herself. And though she felt herself to be the loneliest person on the planet, she was loved. She just didn’t fully know it, and always rejected a little while after she encountered it. After all, or so it seemed to her, if others loved her, then they didn’t really have any good taste, because she was unlovable. Therefore, she could reject them with ease.
Now, in the closing darkness of the noon, she longed again to be understood. She called her son, and got her daughter-in-law.
Her daughter-in-law, inexplicably, loved her. They both loved one other, even though they each might have got on the other’s nerves from time to time. They spoke. The old lady stated her thoughts about what she had been through recently. Her daughter-in-law assured her that everything would be all right, and reassured her of the love of her children for her. After a few sweet reminiscences about other things, the old lady said goodbye and hung up.
And after that ‘phone call, the daughter-in-law knew this much: Her mother-in-law had achieved a lot in her life, but all that had faded away with the onset of years. Age is a thief, an inexorable, ruthless and hateful thief. It takes away and takes away. When the daughter-in-law was young, she thought it would be lovely to grow old. Perhaps, for some, it might be, but she saw, first-hand that this romanticising of age was just that: A romantic notion. Age was cruel. Loneliness looms large. Loss and sadness linger.
For the sad truth remains: All of one’s achievements are naught beside the huge, pervasive threat of imminent amnesia and death.
So it is with the old lady, and so it will be for all of us, except, perhaps, those who seek immortality through art and music, because, as Nabokov said about Lolita in his immortal, shocking, dark and deeply moving book: I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita.
Finally, this: Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Age, #Death, #Loneliness, #Love, Amnesia, Despair, immortality through art, Long Life, Nabokov, Ozymandias
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Reading, Writing, Thinking
Death, and all that Dark Stuff …
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013
The dead are never really far from us.
I imagine them around me every day.
When I shut my eyes at night, and sink, awake, into the blackness under my eyelids, I feel a momentary sense of terror, as if I’m floating away, unanchored, into space. Then follows a quiet exhilaration. I know sleep will follow, and that’s a lovely, glowing, cushiony thought.
I wonder whether the dead feel this way upon dying. Do they float around in inky blackness, wondering when they’ll awake, but knowing they never will, and so, they burrow under our subconscious and visit us in our dreams, just to feel at home, if only for a night?
Or, do the dead just drift away?
Can we accept the word of those who’ve “come back” just because they came back? How do they know what happens after? They’ve come back, haven’t they? So, they didn’t venture that far.
If only one could write after death. I would love that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~That’s all, folks!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal
Jamun — A Fictional Walk Through *Purple Prose
©By Vijaya Sundaram
(Written in India on Friday, July 16, 2010)
The bleeding, purple heart of the jamun fruit crushed under heedless footsteps colored the sidewalks of the streets, as I wandered aimlessly, endlessly, fruitlessly.
All I saw was desolation everywhere amidst the greenery — broken fruit, broken windows, cracked buildings, spit-covered walls. And yet, the fruit, the fruit … all that crushed purple bleeding profusely on the patient sidewalk!
I looked up. The trees, the flaming flowers of the flaming-flower tree (what the hell is it called, anyway?), the delicately blossomed perfumed flowers of the “night queen” tree, and the gigantic jack fruit trees swayed sensuously in the still air. Still air? Then, whence the swaying? A freak wind? I stood still, mouth agape, thoughts stilled. After a sigh (mine? the breeze?), I resumed my meandering.
(*Thanks, Oscar Wilde, for a phrase that has forever become a part of the English language. Your “purple prose” always thrilled me!)
Tags: Fictional Walk, India, Jamun Fruit, Pune, Purple Prose
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
Bees Abuzz
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Written in India (on Friday, July 16, 2010)
We went to the bazaar today, and I had my head spun around like cotton candy by the incandescent colors and iridescent clothes I saw. My daughter showed discernment and good taste, except when it came to certain hair clips which possessed a gaudiness that defied description. I, on the other hand, well, I hesitated long and hard over certain things, and made snap decisions over others.
Shopping for clothes and accessories is both elevating and depressing. It’s like a quick buzz you get from certain substances, but after all is said and done, what you crave is the oldness of things you’ve always worn. The new things, gleaming and gauzy, lie like treasures waiting to be claimed. Months go by, and you go back to the Egyptian cotton blouses of plain prints you’ve always preferred over the glittering over-worked, highly decorated, over-priced dresses you’ve picked up in a moment of infatuation and uncertainty under bright lights.
And thus, women spend their days, going from one buzz to another, like so many bees among artificial flowers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~That’s all, folks!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Colors, Comfortable old clothes, gaudy things, Shopping in India, women and shopping
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Reading, Writing, Thinking
On Neil Gaiman and Fearlessness
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013
Ever since the day I first encountered The Sandman series, I have loved and admired that possessed writer-and-venturer into perilous territory — Neil Gaiman.
He takes his books, his themes and characters far afield, into terrible, sometimes disgusting, sometimes amazing territory, but somehow, he tends to bring our favorite people safely home, and as in Coleridge’s poem, his characters and his readers often wake up, “sadder and wiser” on the “morrow morn.”
I love how he shares his work, his advice and his ideas so generously. Like all true writers, he seems to sense that we draw from the same deep well of stories that have moved, nourished or startled our spirits since time began.
I recognized Neil as a fellow-dreamer when I first read The Sandman series. I, too, had strange dreams. I, too, imagined the Lord of Dreams, because I had steeped myself in Greek mythology since I was a young girl. I wrote stories and songs about these well before I had read his work. Then, I read him, and he blew my mind with his tender blend of love and terror. His imagination is completely unfettered, and his intellect is a joy to behold.
And he always goes farther into scarier territory than many writers (and I don’t mean in the realms of horror, per se, just imagination), farther than I have dared in any of my stories — and his books, The Sandman series, American Gods, Neverwhere, Coraline and The Graveyard Book have pushed the edges of the story-telling universe.
And he inspires me to find my own way into those places — and again, I don’t mean horror, just daring, the kind of daring that makes a person take one step back, and then take a flying leap into the abyss, with absolute certainty that he will land on his feet.
Thank you, Mr. Gaiman!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: Creativity, Fearlessness, Neil Gaiman, Writing
Mar 19, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
Snow Day–A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 19th, 2013
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Woke up today to snow!
No school!
Feel like a child …
Alas, the feeling ends there.
Work calls.
I cover my ears
Pretend not to hear.
Nope. It’s insistent,
Like an unwanted visitor
Leaning on the doorbell.
Silence in the house.
No pulse stirs the walls,
Breath is suspended.
Lips parted, couched in bed, I wait,
Willing my intruder to vanish
Into the snow whence it came,
But it waits. It is patient.
I grumble and grouse.
I stop my ears with my fingers.
I go, la, la, la, la, la.
I arise, drink coffee, look out
See all that piled up snow.
I tend to my child,
Listen to my husband playing guitar.
But work always waits.
Quiet, brutally determined,
Work waits, arms crossed,
Infinitely aged and weary.
And I long for the quietude
Of my final rest.
I yearn, I yearn, I yearn
For my final rest.
Alas, I know my work
Will follow me there.
It is not to be spurned, rejected
Cast aside. It is wedded to me.
Sighing, I get up, allow my breath
To resume its rise and fall
And, with rueful smile,
I open the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Original Poetry, #Procrastination, Snow Day, Work
Mar 17, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Essays on Music and Musicians
Roots Music
(Pune, India, 1994) – An Original Poem
©Vijaya Sundaram, March 17th, 2013
To get to the roots of things,
We dug deep, drenched in song.
At times, things were rich,
Saturated, awash in light.
At others, rocks shouldered through,
Got wrenched out of the way.
That was the year when
Unexplained sorrow burst
Through inexplicable joy,
Escaped, became song.
Sometimes dreams came,
Pursued by demons,
Effaced by the gods.
That was a good year,
Full of magic realism, when
Dreams came on winged backs
And bore me away, and
A three-faced Goddess
Showed me favor,
As I ran, carrying a fish in a jug.
That was the year to rise,
Untrammelled by the mundane.
Above the struggle, we leaped
Into a space of pure spirit.
That was the year we distilled
Our music-minds, mined the ether.
That was the year, when,
Lighter than air, lighter than light,
We rose, embryonic-winged
For we were ruled by spirit,
And our spirits were weightless.
~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Music, #Original Poetry, #Vijaya Sundaram, #Warren Senders, Antigravity, India, Pune
Mar 16, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
I wondered whether to use the “rate this” widget, tried it, felt embarrassed, and took it down again.
I guess I’ll never be a hugely popular blogger!
Ah well! I write because I love to write. If you like my blogs, please be sure to let me know. This is a strangely connected-and-disconnected world — the world of the blogger!
Thanks for reading!
More coming soon.
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Mar 16, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Parenting/ Home-schooling / Family Music and other Notes
On the Road, in Kerala
©A Short Poem by Vijaya Sundaram
March 16th, 2013
____________________________________________________
It whispers in like mist
Swirls softly around the edges
Of a tired consciousness,
Descends, in folds of subtle silk.
The moving scenes outside
Drift away in Dopplerian shifts:
Hills clad in ecstatic green,
Small dwellings on the roadside,
Palm trees and flowering plants
Whoosh away in bursts of color.
Dogs, curious and incurious,
On the sides of roads, and hills
Roosters and chickens, pigs and cows
Cluttering the fringes of things.
As eyes close, and breath settles
Into a pattern, calm, rhythmic.
And, full of purpose and beauty,
My child slips quietly into sleep.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, India, Kerala, On the Road in Car