TAKING THE ROPE FOR A SNAKE

I am saddened by the fact that my readers are getting used to me. Even when I make obvious gaffes they grit their teeth and go on with their reading.

But I do not wonder at it anymore now. When I wrote Eric Fromm instead of Eric Berne no one noticed. This happened several times. Not even a flicker of realization among my friends. The other day I made Jan Huizinga a Japanese gentleman (I really thought him to be Japanese you know. You would believe it won’t you?)

There is this interesting guy in our land. He is an intellectual. He was interviewed by one of our TV channels the other day. He says that he would do it first and think about it later. I whole heartedly support him you know. He is a real gem.

Well no reaction to my blunders at all. Sad, sad indeed. They should at least have stood up for the poor souls who were being misrepresented.

It is not easy to earn a name in the brutal world of intellectual pursuits. When one has earned it by the dint of hard work no one should deny them the stature they deserve.

Well the fact that I see every one the same does not relegate the issue at all. What if I make Idi Ameen an English gentleman in the coming days? I might you know, I just might. There are moments of forgetfulness in which I mistake the rope for a snake (I am yet to make the other mistake of taking the snake for a rope. That would have been dangerous)

Well the fact is that the things that I say do not weigh much in the sublime scale of human utterances. It is mostly an exercise in enunciating sounds or words to be exact.

Some say that words stand as symbols and also convey meanings. But to me words are just sounds and sounds are beautiful in themselves without any meanings attached to them.

I am delighted with words like ‘gullupullu’ “sangustu’ ‘ Aiopave’ and the like. I constructed them even now as I am typing these very lines. May be they have some sort of a meaning in some languages. Hence some may suggest that I look into them and start being wise for once.

Well what of “ Blushbloom” and “Plushgloom”. These could be terribly meaningful too. They might conjure up images in your mind. I beg to be excused from blame if they totally destroy your peace of mind.

There is this ancient theory in my land -The mantra sastra (the science of mantra). It bases its scheme on a simple (hmm) principle that every thing has a sound body. It follows that every sound has a form. If you vocalize any sound a considerable number of times it produces its form in the subtle and even the gross levels of the material universe. Combining different sounds could bring forth lethal forms.

These guys have discovered any number of such combinations in their meditative states and have been kind to let us know of them too.

Some of the words they use are just beyond compare.

“hraam hreem hroom hraim hraum hrahah” is one such. It is for bravery in battle.

(Did you quake? You should have, it is supposed to instill fear.

No wonder too, for if you start to intone it in front of your enemies they would either be so powerless with laughter or would take to their heels pitying you.

Just imagine the effort required to learn it by rote and vocalize it!)

Certain texts on the subject say that it would bring forth an ape god of immense power that some times you would be running from the guy all your life cursing the moment you thought of bringing him forth. (Don’t ever dare to recite them even in play. The results might surprise you.)

Joking aside I will let you into a secret. Most of our police men do recite these. It is supposed give them strength and guts. (Going by the paunches they sport they have enough guts already it seems!). Warriors of old seem to have done this. You don’t have to look further for the reasons of our defeat at the hands of every invader who came to this land.

Baber is said to have come to this land with around 25 cannons and two thousand men. The Indian army which met him had more elephants than Baber’s men. It seems that all real “hraam hreem hroom hraim hraum hrahah” was done by Baber’s cannons and the combined effect of a hundred thousand Indian warrior’s “hraam hreem hroom hraim hraum hrahah” was lost in the hoom hoom hoom mantra of the cannons.

A sad day it was for “hraam hreem hroom hraim hraum hrahah”!

Luckily other than our policemen none appears interested in learning it any more and they learn it more to camouflage their beauty burps.

“Hraehm”

They have a right to their privet sport too. This is a free country. No one has said that they can’t have paunches and burp once or twice during a whole minute.

To sum up, words may have meanings and meanings may have many words. But I won’t have both. I will let you have the meanings, but I will definitely have the words.

You see, I am not mean; I don’t want to have it all. That would be meaningless would it not?