Creative Writing

Moha Vaasal

The Door to Infatuation:

Ranja Kumar

The Devas in the celestial world ran to the God. The power of absolute devotion to the Lord by Visvamitra had made the halos around the Devas dwindle. A bewitching smile ran on the lips of the Lord. His eyes appeared intoxicated with a kind of vengeance.

As the sound of begging voices of the Devas calling "Deva...Deva...please protect us", the roaring sounds of all the oceans were reduced to a defeated silence.

The Lord ordered the Bhoothas to summon Madan (Cupid). Madan arrived with his bow made out of sugarcane and with scent of five flowers accompanied by Rathi who had her head looking down.

The dimple smile of the Lord broadened a little

Rathi was shivering. She was anxious that nothing bad should happen to her beloved. The anger of Visvamitra is known throughout the fourteen worlds. As his Thapas (hardened devotion to the Lord) resulted in more and more harm to the women, his fire of anger rolled into a ball of accelerated flame.

The Devas never gave up in their pursuit and the Rishis aided and abetted the begging of the Devas.

They were worried that if Kaushika Rajan could obtain the appellation of Brahmma Rishi possessing all the wealth and the four kinds of the armed forces and a big mass of a country, then what would happen...

They were worried and felt that Vashista would be reduced to naught from his pride. How true it is that turmoil in the world is caused by women. Whatever a cow she is, is not Sapalai is also of the female sex?

Was it not a fate that Kausika Rajan had to observe hardened fast and vigil as he earned the anger of Vashishta because of the infatuation he had over Sapalai?

Thinking of the women all the time, the anger in Vishvamitra was raging more and more.

The Devas also untiringly sent the Apsaras to entice him. The Sage lost his control and continued to curse the women. Visvamitra lost in seconds all his powers obtained from long days of thapas.

He attempted hard to suppress the eight gases like the pooraka resaka and the senses and tried to lay thinking of nothing. The Devas ran to the Lord over and over again.

The Lord summoned the Bootha Ganas to bring in Menaka,

The spring blossomed in the forest. The sweet scent of the flowers, the sweetened and intoxicating nectar filled everywhere. The joyous and cooing sounds of the forest birds and the hungry roar of wild animals echoed everywhere.

The thought process of the Muni was disturbed and staggering. Madan without losing the opportunity aimed correctly with his arrow. At the same time Menaka descended on the earth holding a lightening.

The Muni was electrified when he breathed the wind around her. He was dazzled out of animal instinct. Earlier wasn't he enjoying ceaselessly the oceans of lust while he was a monarch?

The Muni called out with lust "Menaka" The Devas were delighted and danced around. The Rishis enunciated the mantras mockingly.

A bewitching smile spread out in the Lord's lips. But his eyes showed vicious rage. Rathi gasped in relief and rested her body in her spouse's shoulders.

Down below Menaka was literally swallowing the Muni.

The Muni's vows were now restrained. His constant search for the real truth lessened itself. His life continued in the boring stereotyped path. And yet he was entangled with the body of Menaka until exhausted.

The Muni had to carry a baby when he should carry Gnanam (Knowledge)!

The baby shrieked and cried in the hands of the Muni. Fate laughed at him. The forest witnessing strange things in human life sighed and silenced. Menakai found the Muni boring.

She did not any more enthusiastically feel deeply entrenched in the Muni's hugging. Further she was musing what a luxury life of the world of Devas was? Where does this human who ate fruits and yams and slept in a kind of grass lie?

As time passed by, the yearning for lust dwindled in the Muni. For ages the suppressed genitals jumped away, having sex with a woman became increasingly mere mechanical. He felt that there was nothing fresh in the body of Menaka to fall for. She looked a mere ordinary woman. Looking at her felt dislike and boring.

The Muni blinked aimlessly.

The sound of the veena was heard at a distance. It was mixed with the sound of the clogs of Narada. He was well known for chaos and ridiculing.

The Muni literarily shrunk with shame and felt that he was wallowing in the deep Hades. Some spark struck his brain.

After all, infatuation is just a door. It's an illuminating magic door that robs your eyes and mind. If one could pass the door steadily, the Muni felt, that there are no great surprises to occur expectantly.

Just for a momentary excitement that befalls when passing the lusty door, he felt worried that the halo around him that he built for years had been lost.

He feared that he would be subject to ridicule by Vashsita

The Muni called Menaka for the last time. There was something in his voice that not normal.

Menaka was in fear. She was ready to receive the curse of the Muni. She waited for the outcome with trembling lips.

But the Muni embraced her lightly as if he was carrying a baby and kissed her on her eyes and forehead.

"Go and comeback Menaka! You've opened for me the door of Gnanam.

The lightening began to descend to carry away Menaka to the Devaland.

"Swami. Your baby!"

"The baby is not mine, dear woman. It belongs to the earth. Let the earth protect her", said Visvamitra in a clear tone.

The Muni began again his journey with steadiness. He went towards the dark and deep forests snowy mountains.

Menaka looked towards the direction in which the Muni went and bowed her head and worshipped. She collected the dust of his feet and spread it over her head, and disappeared with a brilliant lightening.

The deserted child cried. The life before her frightened her. Let it cry!

Could anyone born in this earth refrain from crying?

The Devas put their heads on shame seeing the determined journey of Visvamitra. The Rishis were stunned.

A heavenly voice thundered "Hey! The senior Muni! You would attain your dearly seeking!"

The World of the Devas.

The Lord displayed a bewitching smile. His eyes were reddish with mischief.

The consort is all surprised. A doubt too.

"Dear, did you help the Muni? Or did you assist the Devas?"

"Nobody needs my help. Troubles. Let each one take his or her own path in one's own terms. I would play a little with them. There is a little pleasure within me. I must spend the time, shouldn't I?

The Lord said tiresomely.

Silence.

Translated from Tamil by K.S. Sivakumaran

Profile:

Novelist of symbols Paule Constant

ANUPAMA. R

French novelist Paule Constant's world goes well beyond feminist-feminine concerns. I have roughly 45 minutes with Paule Constant, Prix Goncourt-winning French novelist, essayist, critic and professor.

The first thing that strikes me is she is wearing two watches. "I try to know where I am," she says, weary from crossing several time zones. To me, the watches symbolised her need to be located in time and space. Indeed, Paule Constant is a novelist of symbols.

In a career spanning decades, Constant has written nine novels, essays and published several studies.

All the while, this widely translated writer has constantly used symbolism to her advantage. "I believe that to be a human being, is to be a symbol...90 per cent of what we do symbolises something," she explains. So, washing and cooking stand for something, she quickly adds. Everything tells a story.

The recourse to conventionally "feminine" activities such as cooking and washing also reflect a strong female consciousness in her work. Her best-known novel, Confidence Pour Confidence (Trading Secrets, Nebraska Press, 2000) portrays the feminine reality through the life of four European women, all delegates at a feminist conference.

Though "feminists", the protagonists need their men and their disillusion revolves around men. For this reason, perhaps the novel could be termed anti-feminist and feminist at the same time.

The novel is typical huis clos (no exit) with the action taking place in a claustrophobic kitchen in a sealed house in the U.S. The kitchen at once becomes a symbol of the dying feminist dream and the decaying American dream.

So why the U.S.? "After the Second World War, everything was, for us occidentals, American. We ate American, watched American movies. These European women (in the novel) concretise the American dream. This dream is not marvellous because, at the end, it's a kitchen," explains Constant, her elegant pearls shining in agreement.

The women are successful feminists but unsuccessful in their personal lives. And she doesn't really distinguish between the feminine and the feminist: "I showed women as they are, not extraordinary, not heroic... the way I saw them", says Constant who was in India on a French Embassy-sponsored tour.

Her path-breaking essay, "Un monde A l'usage des demoiselles" (1988) translated as "A world for the use of the young ladies", analysed "feminine virtues" as imposed on women by the Christian Church.

The essay that won the prestigious French Academy Award looked at how aristocratic women were educated to help men succeed in an androcentric society. But how relevant is the essay in the modern world where "feminine virtues" are passe, I ask rather impatiently. "It's a historical point of view and the principal arguments rest on religion.

These are, of course, not the virtues we would give the girls of today," she clarifies. However, Paule Constant's world goes well beyond feminist-feminine concerns.

From her first novel, Ouregano (1980) to La bete A chagrin (2007), we are confronted with a vision rooted in her childhood life in Africa, colonialism and justice. As she says, there's no "solitary novel"; what links them all is the autobiographical strain.

Ouregano (A Place in Africa) set in motion a series of African themes and also led her to write La fille du Gobernator, (The Governor's Daughter, 1998, Nebraska Press) a decade later. "With this I arrived in the sphere of justice; it's the same quest in Sucre et Secret, 2003, (Sugar and Secret) and La bete A chagrin (Animal of Sorrow)," says Constant. Many of these are mirror novels, with characters reappearing in consecutive novels.

"What troubles me is that we see an inverse image...in literature, it's a metaphor for a lie," she adds.

Equally engaging is the way Constant uses animals in her novels. "The deeper I go, the less difference I see between man and animal," she says.

Many of her characters communicate with animals - ants, monkeys, dogs. "I'm moved by humans, but I'm equally moved by animals that represent for me innocence."

It could be this compassion which Constant calls "the grandest sentiment" that draws her to writers like Patrick White, Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy. "I love France but I'm in permanent exile and when I see writers with such generosity, it's like a book is accepting me with open arms," she says.

The Hindu

Short Story:

The wedding invitation

R.L. Lalprema

Viola was overwhelmed with a sense of elation when she got an invitation to a wedding; she looked forward to the date; she was determined that she should not miss it for reasons known to her.

Her father, a long-standing member of the legal profession depended largely on notorial work for his income; hardly did he appear in a court of law in defence of a litigant or for other legal argument, which won fame for his colleagues.

It is not wrong to say that he had conveniently forgotten the rituals pertaining to law courts, since he finished his legal studies a long time ago.

Viola, his only daughter, with her feminine looks that could catch the fancy of any young man was passing her eligible age for marriage, though her father, from his profession alone, had collected a substantial income for her dowry.

Yet, countless proposals she had been inundated with failed to materialize because they did not pander to the whim of the old man. This left her feeling alone, bereft and finally, stubborn.

At last it so happened, paying little heed to her father, she fell head over heals in love with one of the suitors, a man of business, which ended in marriage. Subsequently she had to lead a life with her husband in another town separated from her father's ancestral abode.

The wedding invitation offered her a good opportunity to enjoy herself, because, for some time, she had stayed away from attending weddings and social functions. So she imagined what it would be like, with her sudden appearance in a gathering, mainly composed of her respectable relations and friends.

She conjectured her becoming the main focus of attention in the large crowd supposed to be present there. Hence she wanted to be attired keeping with her latest fashion and dignity to achieve her purpose.

She opened he wardrobe and tossed a pile of expensive sarees, which got strewn all over the bed. She spent a long time to finalise her choice putting each of them over her shoulder and posing before the full-length mirror. Then she rushed to the ironing board with it for finishing touches.

Throughout, she felt bright and cheerful. However, all of a sudden she stopped everything as if she were stung by a scorpion and hurried towards her husband's room; but without entering, sniffed out as if to make sure of something.

Immediately, there appeared a glum look on her face, which was so cheerful a moment before. Her eyes glittered with resentment. Back in her room, she threw herself on the bed headlong and burst into tears. She sobbed, "Damned with it. I am not going, I am not going."

Through tears welling up in her eyes she began to picture her past. She remembered the first day how she bought a bottle of expensive perfume for her husband, when he expressed his love to her.

Those were the days he was trying to woo her. After the marriage too, on occasions like birthdays, she made it a habit to make a gift of it. Besides, when it was finished a replacement was a certainty on her account before he saw the empty bottle.

Both of them had a fondness for its exciting fragrance. Her husband never forgot to apply it during his daily routine. The whiff of perfume emanated from him made Viola emotional and romantic. Instances were not rare that her temptations fell short of resisting her from hugging and kissing him.

The delicate smell even after he left home spread through the house making her believe his presence about the place. In short it acted as a sentimental thread that tied them together in love never to break.

Meanwhile Viola showed signs of pregnancy, which was exhilarating news to her husband. At the same time he thought of the additional pressure of work ahead resulting from it.

Therefore, to put her at ease, he brought a sturdy village lass particularly, to help her in her house chore. Three months lapsed, to everybody's disappointment, Viola suffered a miscarriage and the doctors after investigation, pronounced that she was unlikely to conceive again. As the time went on the scar had healed to a great extent and the life took its own course.

One morning the housemaid was passing before her when she felt the scent of the perfume that she had bought for her husband's use. Through her long experience of breathing in its smell she identified it.

Soon she peeped into the husband's room where he was getting read to leave for office and she assured herself the fragrance would have come from him and not from the housemaid.

Viola was so enchanted that she could not resist her temptation to hold him in a warm embrace before he left. Therefore she had completely forgotten about the incident as a puny matter to which no importance should be attached.

Another day when the housemaid brought her morning bed tea the same smell wafted from her and this time Viola was a little puzzled. However, she kept a low profile when one night, she awoke from her sleep to get the smell of perfume.

In the dark she saw a figure surreptitiously moving out of the housemaid's room, none but her husband. On the following morning she quarrelled and demanded him that the housemaid be sent back to her village immediately. This being done they lived together in harmony for about a year and a half.

But a change in her behaviour seemed to take place. From that day hate welled up inside her, whenever she thought of the perfume smell and the related incident. The sweet smell of it once brought so much of pleasure to her married life, now stirred up a sensation of nausea.

Thenceforth she stopped making gifts of it for him. She took care to hide the bottle among her sarees in the wardrobe preventing her husband from using it any further.

Her husband having finished dressing himself in grandeur befitting the wedding, came into Viola's room to see if she was ready. On the contrary, he found her lying on the bed crying and sobbing uncontrollably. He could not believe as to what had come over her. She appeared to be in a fit of temper, which he least expected.

"Viola what's the matter? Are you not going?"

"No I am not going".

"Are you not well?"

"Yes I am sick of the scent you are basking in. I hate the smell"

"What scent?"

"As if you don't know. You sneaked it from my pile of sarees while I was ironing.

It evoked the sweet memories of your romance. Didn't it?"

"Oh! Let's forget all that and get ready soon."

"I won't come," she started crying.

He left the room and went towards the car. He heard her sob. Silence reigned. After some time Viola stepped towards the veranda and stood, her gaze fixed on the road along which her husband drove to attend the wedding. Her eyes were swollen.

She tried to make out a figure of a young woman carrying a baby in her arms coming towards the house. It was a beggar she thought and went inside to bring something to give her. As she came back she was confronted by the woman standing near the door. It was none but their housemaid. She started pleading innocently.

Madam, please have pity on me and this infant in my arms. You have every right to chase me out for I have been nasty to you. I am indebted to you and hence I thought if there was a way that I would be of help to you even by some small means.

I thought it is nothing, but right that I should compensate for what happened due to my foolishness and helplessness. As a solution to my present humiliating position. I have decided to go to the Middle East with no intention of coming back.

Next week I shall be leaving. Before that I have to give over this baby to someone for adoption. I know how languish you are. Hence I thought of consulting you first because this child is not an outsider but born of the blood of the master of the house.

This is only a humble request".

Meanwhile the baby started wriggling around her arms kicking his feet, giggling and gazing into Viola's face. She took the infant carefully in her arms from the woman. It pressed against her breast giving her a sensation more like a bundle that is warm and full of life. She held it to her lips. Her nostrils filled with a scent, a scent of milk, which she had not experienced before.

A tear rolled down the mother's cheek while watching the touching moment. Viola asked her to wait till her husband returned from the wedding.