Wednesday, January 26, 2011

POST MORTEM

As per the dictionary definition, POST MORTEM means a medical examination of a dead body and /or an event , informally, a review or analysis of a finished event. In my personal experience , it seems to imply the latter. So much for any attempt to make this fictional or purely coincidental.
Post mortem means subjecting a previously living and breathing entity in your life, to a cold, objective, pedantic magnifying glass and dissecting its constituent elements into minute particles, until the moment of absolute, blessed insanity( which some call sanity) strikes , where all essence of this entity is lost.
Post mortem also means, eradicating any humane aspects to that entity, for the higher purpose of some perverted kind of catharsis, because after all knowing is fulfilling.( the sarcasm-ignorant are not meant for this writing). Add a few sprinkles of existential, futile, self-deprecating questions, a dash of never-ending insecurity about the temporality and uncertainty of anything anymore, and we have our very own recipe for self-destruction.
This entity may be a human body, or in most cases, a dead end relationship, hanging by a thin thread, needing some material desecration, since all emotional and philosophical ones fail to provide, what Rachel wittingly calls, "cllllllosssure".
" So what if he/she needs space, i mean its the 21st century, time is money, who needs a man/woman who actuallly wants to love me and is not confounded by mommy/daddy/commitent/bachelor issues?" Denial is everywhere, it precipitates the Post Mortem, just like evaporation precedes condensation.
Post Mortem is not so much about the dead, lifeless entity as it is about the examiner, his/her need for validation, the immensely important necessity for the futile knowledge, that "its wasn't all in vain, there had to be some 'productive' aspect to it'."
As i sit and think about the 'advantageous' hindsight, i wonder, does it help at all? Does knowing how things will eventually pan out change us from being our usual, neurotic, insecure, victimizing, melodramatic selves? No, nothing can prevent human beings from the gift/curse of the glorified 'assessment', or what us soon-to-be journalists would like to call, "deconstruction".
Grieving. Another big word used way too often, mostly inappropriately.Grieving is not cherishing your loved moments with this dead entity (i prefer HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED) and adopting the bourgeoise way of moving onto the next form of self-validation. Grieving is not about living every moment of life to the hilt in search for some previously denied nirvana. Grieving is also not writing a note about it on facebook.
Grieving is a painful process, of shouting, screeching, howling, till your insides want to jump out of your stomach, it means yelling to enlarge your trachea in order to allow some air back into your system, it is crying for hours till every ounce or drop of salt in your body is utilised and nothing is left but a deep sense of emptyness. And this emptyness,this vaccum, as P.B Shelley prophecied, provides the potential for some weird, twisted yet realistic kind of ritualistic filing up, where you know you'll never be the same again, feel the same again, but there is beauty in that.
Change and not Knowledge may be empowering.
Or not.

LAND LOST

Where white was virgin white was pure

White is black; the black of fear

Where time shouts “all you here 

Come close, come hear”

The zombies of history stand

Poker faces, frozen hands

Dumb before the dazzling white

Stunned by the red beacon light

They stand upon their cowardly shame

Time knows they are to blame.  

On the nascent throbbing brain

Like a fresh drop on a window pane

Warped history some figures made

Ensured the sham would never fade

Made certain to annul every date

With time; history’s older mate

For dignity clothed in robes so chaste

Defiled, would flee in vulgar haste

From the nascent throbbing brain

Reckless in its stupor, but not insane

Not so young now, not the same

Would turn the pages, feel the shame

See through the twisting corridor of lies

Walls smudged with tears that echo with cries

Over foul dumps of vices reveling like flies

They will forever stand forever rejoice

Anger Management 2011.

I woke up on a lazy Republic day. No shrill voices of my family interrupting my much needed sleep, pestering me to watch the parade that was almost a ritual in New Delhi. No restrospective guilt for having woken up at the almost sinful hour of one in the afternoon, contemplating my brunch when half the world had already wrapped up their patriotic addresses/ speeches/tweets/facebook posts/ bbm status statuses and a then some, pedestalizing a 61 year old constitution that was India; a resilient economy, that has survived a global meltdown, some twenty scams and scandals and a barrage of corrupt politicians, media personalities and corporate lobbyists who received their fifteen minutes of fame this year.

I flipped through the pages of our resident badboy daily, The Times of India, looking for more of this glorified patriotism, imbued with a dash of nationalistic fervour and some political pandering to decadent ideologies. To my great shock, disgust and anger, I read about the attack on Dr. Talwar, by a labelled 'lunatic'. For what? Well, that little snippet of information is open to speculation and gossip, just like the climax to a Shakespearean tragedy.

Was this man angry? Was he just your average stifled man, struggling with daily nitigrities, so suffocated with the failures in his profession, so betrayed by the ideals of constitutional India that he attacked a man probably fighting for justice for his lost child? The operative term, here being- PROBABLY.

No. This 'lunatic' was a graduate from the prestigious National Institute of Design and had previously attacked former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore, accused in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.What truly shocks me, is not the act itself, but the way this man chooses to play out his violent outbursts. Does he sneak in from the backdoor and slash someones neck? Does he send out some goons to roughen up a speculated victim/ defendant in a high profile crime? NO. He attacks in public, in the glare of the media, in the eyes of the common man.
I'm not trying to exhibit some kind of reluctant awe for this alleged criminal or somehow insult the family members of Aarushi Talwar. I just want to use this example to highlight the ANGER of the common man. Governmental failure to probe into any unjust crime, the complete failure of a 61 year old republic to grant justice to a victim, the insensitive reportage of all media houses on these issues- all this and more has made the average sane individual reconcile with the innate brute in man, as Rousseau ad Descartes suggested.
ANGER is the emotion reverberating in the consciousness of every citizen this year. Unfortunately, the lack of outlets to voice these strangulated emotions results in acts of institutionalized lunacy , as seen in the attack on Dr Rajesh Talwar.
We need answers and fast. We need expedient justice. We need eradication of the Kalmadis and the Rajas.
We need to redefine sedition. We need to sensitize the media. We need a self-reflexive look unto ourselves.
Then again, Rome was not bult in a day.
 SO MUCH FOR EVOLUTION.