Thursday, December 28, 2006

The adventures of Peter Pan

She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.

"Surely you know what a kiss is?" she asked, aghast.

"I shall know when you give it to me," he replied stiffly, and not to hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.

"Now," said he, "shall I give you a kiss?" and she replied with a slight primness, "If you please." She made herself rather cheap by inclining her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain around her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to save her life.

When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask each other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England.

"I don't know," he replied uneasily, "but I am quite young." He really knew nothing about it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a venture, "Wendy, I ran away the day I was born."

Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he could sit nearer her.

"It was because I heard father and mother," he explained in a low voice, "talking about what I was to be when I became a man." He was extraordinarily agitated now. "I don't want ever to be a man," he said with passion. "I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the fairies."

She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies. Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as quite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise, for they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on, and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding [spanking]. Still, he liked them on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.

"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.

"And so," he went on good-naturedly, "there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl."

"Ought to be? Isn't there?"

"No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, `I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

...........
Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.

So great indeed was their faith in a mother's love that they felt they could afford to be callous for a bit longer.

But there was one there who knew better, and when Wendy finished he uttered a hollow groan.

"What is it, Peter?" she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. "Where is it, Peter?"

"It isn't that kind of pain," Peter replied darkly.

"Then what kind is it?"

"Wendy, you are wrong about mothers."

They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation; and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.

"Long ago," he said, "I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed."

I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it scared them.

"Are you sure mothers are like that?"

"Yes."

So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!

Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child when he should give in. "Wendy, let us [let's] go home," cried John and Michael together.

"Yes," she said, clutching them.

"Not to-night?" asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't.

"At once," Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come to her: "Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time."

This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and she said to him rather sharply, "Peter, will you make the necessary arrangements?"

"If you wish it," he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass the nuts.

Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.

But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Expectations

I spoke to a friend yesterday and he said

" There is nothing wrong if a male friend and a female friend act according to their whims. If they will be both satisfied, I don't see a reason why they should hold it back"

Well... I thought, when I share myself with someone and leave no space for expectations, something dies in me... but then, what expectations are there, if any?

Sunday, December 24, 2006

There was little I could do

I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me. (Bertolt Brecht)

I don't seem to be enjoying anything. A feeling of indifference again which seems to never end. It is no longer a stage, it is a continous feeling that doesnt leave me. I can think of nothing that can give me enjoyment.

All the news seem to add to this feeling, one hears of mass tortures, massacres, imprisonments, children thrown on train tracks ...
when I first hear the news a feeling of numbness and disbelief falls upon me, then I try to imagine what it is like to be in the victim's shoes, but my mind doesnt grasp it and I can only feel some pain. I try to force myself not to think about it and get some peace of mind, when I am able to do so I feel numb again.

With the second piece of news and the third and the fourth... I stop my self from thinking before the pain and before imagining. I block my mind from thinking and go directly to the numbness stage. The feeling of numbness doesnt fade away. I am neither happy nor sad nor in pain, I am just indifferent.

I can't stand the feeling. I must fall in love I think, may be this will fill me with passion. but then how to do so when no one moves me. Just like I feel no pain, I feel no passion. With people I know I care... I cared about him but I could also let him go so easily. I probably didn't care that much... I can't tell anymore.

When I am able to go into the streets and scream that I am unsatisfied, that I am not contempt with what is going on around me, when I can find someone to blame for the massacres and the tortures and the wars, that's when I feel again. When I am able to scream I feel passion again and the numbness fades away, but only for a while and then returns when I stop screaming and realize that nothing has changed. But still I keep on doing this, even when I know that after its over I will realize again that nothing has changed.

people ask 'why do you do so then? Is this not mere stupidity? You put yourself in danger and you waste your time and for what?' well.... Brecht wrote

"In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me."

Yes, if they are less secure I am more satisfied. And am I really wasting my time? Which time do I waste? that which I spend in indifference?

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Poor Fellows

What it takes on this planet,
to make love to each other in peace.
Everyone pries under your sheets,
everyone interferes with your loving.
They say terrible things about a man and a woman,
who after much milling about,
all sorts of compunctions,
do something unique,
they both lie with each other in one bed.
I ask myself whether frogs are so furtive,
or sneeze as they please.
Whether they whisper to each other in swamps about illegitimate frogs,
or the joys of amphibious living.
I ask myself if birds single out enemy birds,
or bulls gossip with bullocks before they go out in public with cows.
Even the roads have eyes and the parks their police.
Hotels spy on their guests,
windows name names,
canons and squadrons debark on missions to liquidate love.
All those ears and those jaws working incessantly,
till a man and his girl
have to raise their climax,
full tilt,
on a bicycle.

(Pablo Neruda)

Monday, December 18, 2006

Thinking

"Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent." (Virginia Woolf)

I just read this quote recently and for some reason it didnt leave my mind. I have never really conformed to the wider society I would say. Not out of choice, but simply due to the fact that I have been nurtured differently than the wider society, atleast I would say so. I have actually tried so hard for a long time to conform to the wider society, to imitate the lifestyles of the people I see around me, whether at school or later on at work. Still, I never totally fitted in. Yet, I conformed to one thing; I have become one of the most skilled at hiding what I really think. Gradually, after I have become an expert in showing no signs of inner emotions (no weakness, no pain and hardly any sympathy) but instead being always strong, flickery and fun, I often feel that I am becoming "all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous and indifferent"

However, at other times I feel the complete opposite. I am not at all empty but instead this quote explains it, I feel that " My own Brain to me the most unaccountable of machinery- always buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving, and then burried in mud. And Why? Whats this passion for?" (Virginia Woolf)