Home

My young journalist friend, Rohini, writes:

There was a sense of disorientation. There was nausea. There were dust allergies. Unlike the previous times, this time, the shift was going to be a permanent one. We would no longer be returning to 11/4 Konark Nagar as our home after the holidays. A different address would have to be given to the autowalla at the airport in Vimannagar, Pune, when we'd go back in July to begin the last year of college
… 
… 
From the moment I gave up my keys to our home, what would now have to be called a 'house' I once lived in, I knew it was closure. Things you want to stay permanent never do quite stay that way, do they?
… 
… 

The cartons were all packed. The suitcases ready to be taken back home. Home. Wasn't this a home away from home? Was Calcutta home because the immediate family stayed there? Were my flat mates with whom I shared 2/3rds of my year under the same roof not immediate family too? They were. They are. I ought to feel happy that I have so many homes. But the memories with each are too starkly different, making it a discomfort more than a consolation. The difference only lies in the familiarity. And in the face of the person you turn to when you wake up...

Read the complete entry at Shifting.

hmm… As it happens, it was just today, a few hours ago, and again now, as I read her entry, that I find myself at home with the fact that there is no closure, ever. It's been a month now since I left the campus, which, when I used the expression 'home' in the past four years, was what I referred to. And I say campus, not hostels (or halls as they called them there) or rooms. Sometimes it was the streets, sometimes my room, a friend's room, an institute building, corridors, a foyer, an auditorium, an eatery… And now I return to where my family resides, a house where I have never really lived, had a room, or spent more than a few weeks (We moved in here shortly before my admission). And in a big city with roads (not streets) that don't care about me, and ask me to watch my way, and before setting step, to look at the time of the day (I bite back by not caring about them either). Now I have an office too, though I am not required to attend more than once a week. And there are a few other establishments I work with, some in other cities as well, and they all have their buildings, and associated lodgings, and friends with flats, which I may go and occupy, if I so please.

And so I move, from having a few buildings and many a homes, to lots of buildings, and no home.

Peace…

Confirmation

In a recent interview, Christopher Hitchens, currently suffering from oesophageal cancer, expressed great appreciation for the many letters he has received in the last few months. In his own words:

I’ve had an amazing number of letters from people, I still get them. Hand written ones to my house, as well as emails to my office in New York. Saying really, the nicest things, most of them… not all. And trying to assure me that, in their minds, my life hasn’t been a waste of time, even if it ends prematurely. I’m 62 in April, if I make it that far. And believe me, that’s been encouraging.

I’ve learned something from it, which is of course, like most of the things one knows that are important, already known to me, but I really know it now. Never put off writing a letter to one who is in distress. It is always very much appreciated. I’m not asking for more people to write to me, but if they have someone in mind, or someone known to them, and they haven’t quite gotten around to it yet… I’d urge them to do it.

It has been a terrific help to me, I must say. And I’m not a particularly vulnerable person in that way, not that easily stirred. But this has been very moving for me, very confirming.”

This is a bit surprising coming from an internationally renowned media figure like Hitchens.

Peace...

The King's Speech

Sometimes, when I ride through the streets and see, you know, the common man staring at me, I’m struck by how little I know of his life, and how little he knows of mine.

King George VI, The King's Speech (2010)

When his brother David - who has ascended to the throne reigning over a quarter of the planet's residents, and soon going to war with the rest, as Edward VIII - abdicates it in 1936, the Duke of York must reluctantly accept the crown, taking his father’s name to become King George VI. And with the advent of radio and newsreels, and the tense times, it is vital that the nation’s figurehead can speak with firmness. And clarity. And resolve. And NOT stammers punctuated with tortured silences..

"If I am to be king… where is my power? May I form a government, levy a tax or declare a war? No! Yet I am the seat of all authority. Why? Because the nation believes when I speak, I speak for them. Yet I cannot speak!"

So what does our King, portrayed by the oh-so-brilliant and oh-so-Brit Colin Firth, do? We have Lionel Logue, self-taught speech therapist, to the rescue, played appealingly by Geoffrey Rush.

The movie touches a number of interesting themes. A sucker for British royalty as I am, I see the film continue with the post-Diana mode à la The Queen, reminiscent that despite being subject to very human emotions, desires and limitations, the royals are not like you and me, or at least they aren't supposed to be. Even stammering royals, and royals wishing for the beloved common man's privilege of being able to marry a divorced woman, cannot withstand a commoner's treatment. Not because of arrogance, just because that's the bell jar they've been raised in. A divine right. The tension is ever more visible with the Australian Logue's dismissal of protocol, calling His Majesty The King Albert Frederick Arthur George, "Bertie".

Once over these hurdles, we begin to see the real reasons why Bertie was the way he was. The pressures of a royal childhood, a strict father, the repression of his natural left-handedness, a painful treatment with metal splints for his knock-knees; and a nanny who favoured his elder brother, deliberately pinching Albert at the daily presentations, unsettling him and making him cry, so his parents would allot less time to him and more of their attention to David. "You know, Lionel, you're the first ordinary Englishman... [Lionel whispers, Australian.] ...I've ever really talked to."

If only a few more people had been able to call him Bertie, if only he hadn't had his childhood fears and failings so brutally criticised by his father... Lionel is not merely a medical practitioner (which in fact he isn't at all), but a friend, a confidant!

With 14 BAFTA and 12 Academy Award nominations, a lot many more speeches need to be prepared for.