BEAUTY

Sakshi: Why should anyone admire female beauty?

Chiru: I don’t know about others but I personally like it because I don’t possess it. Generally we love most of such things which we lack at our level. I believe the most admirable and fascinating phenomenon God created in this world is exceptional female beauty. It arrests my attention within seconds perhaps because I am healthy at body and mind. I don’t know much about your tendencies toward handsome boys. Get treated. Better late than never.

Sakshi: Did I ever authorize you to touch my personal angle of likes and dislikes?

Chiru: Did sun ever ask us to use and delight in his free sunshine across regions. Did ever a cuckoo ask a poet or dreamer to run after it. It is the basic instinct of every ordinary human being to pull the leg of the opposite gender whenever there is a little chance. It would be my privilege to pull your leg. Why not?

Sakshi: How do you celebrate the “International Women’s Day” this time?

Chiru: It falls on the 8th of March every year. Just to enhance your general knowledge. I heard that you are a poor girl at many things! I have been serving women ever since I understood their power on me and this world. I wrote love letters to them. I was chased by them. I wrote stories for them. I keep admiring them forever. I think it is not enough if I always think about and fight for their issues and causes. There are many innocent and neglected girls and women in this world who need somebody to praise their qualities, features and lives also. I like this honorary position in their deemed university. India is a spectacular place with abundant beauty of females. We need more poets, writers, singers, musicians and admirers to sing and dance for them and to entertain them in every possible way. I am one of the luckiest persons in this world because I was born in a land of exceptional female beauty. Seeing beauty is a matter of great satisfaction and fulfillment for many.

Sakshi: What do you mean by exceptional female beauty?

Chiru: Exceptional female beauty is such that which arrests the attention of a male or female beholder in a matter of seconds. It imprints a strong image in the mind of the beholder even after he or she goes away from that particular person. He or she feels like seeing her once again. He or she regrets knowing the fact that it may not be possible again. He or she develops a kind of abstract bond with that unique beauty. That fascination is beyond the considerations of region, language, race and religion. It is like a powerful magnet configured and beautified specially by God. It is one of the great assets of the earth planet.

Sakshi: Body loses its beauty one day or the other. Why such madness for it?

Chiru: We know that many of the attractions in this world that we witness daily get lost one day or the other. Birth entails death in most of the cases. Nothing is permanent in this world. Still we develop attachments, admiration and fascination for many things in this world. It means we can’t make our life happier and comfortable in this world unless we learn to love and live with lies and shadows also. We try every day to protect ourselves to live until death reaches us naturally. It implies that as materialists our tendency is to love many transitory things taking them as permanent. It is all a result of Maya, the fictitious layer of magic and darkness carved out by God to set on us to make us love it and live for it. A materialist can never be happy as long as he questions the rationality, purity and durability of everything he loves and craves for. It is good to keep going without questioning many things.

Sakshi: How do you feel when a girl like me abuses you like a tyrant and dictator?

Chiru: How do you feel when one of your pups bites you one fine morning when you fail to keep its food in its little bowl in time? You may feel angry at it for a while but soon recognize the mistake you committed toward it. My love for girls that abuse me with serious words is similar. I simply think, “There is much for this girl to understand me. Let time attend this cause”. Somebody dislikes us only when he or she fails to understand us properly. Understanding a person needs a lot of time and patience. In some cases, there is no need of understanding another at all. We don’t take time to love beautiful gardens, flowers, animals, birds and mountains. I think that one that represents the qualities of these natural beauties can be admired by many without rationality. Both of us must try to reach that high position of human outlook and practice. A state of mind and existence where we can love many as they are and without their invitation or notice at all. Then, the best quality of a good person is to forget anything serious posed by another person within seconds, minutes or days. We disturb ourselves maintaining anger or hatred or aversion to a particular person or thing for a long time. We must use that time to understand, love and attract that person instead. It creates a happy and healthy network of friends and well-wishers around us.

Sakshi: I like to gift you some pups out of my generosity or curiosity…

Chiru: When I was touring Xugumona Ghats in 1985 with my sweetheart Lomisopa Dilora for an extensive study of bird calls and natural falls to finish my book “Bombora Siguloma”, she proposed me to take all those trees and bushes and take home as her memorable gift. I said, “Thank you for your deep concern and care for me!”. Similarly, I can’t accept such soft gifts from serious girls like you. What if one day you complain to the UNO saying that I stole your set of pups while you were deep asleep? I like little creatures as long as they are little only. If you give me a legal bond stating that your pups never grow up but always remain with the same age and cuteness and innocence, I am ready to take all your pups at a time. Who can bother with them once they grow up like you? They move out in search of friends and well-wishers. I can’t maintain their strong bonds and sentiments formed with outside creatures after this stage of bodily and mental maturity. Since your parents and friends considered you a child, they left you forever with that good lot. Why do you plan to transfer that beautiful burden on to my head?

Sakshi: I am on my way to interview Senior Most Scientist Kokiri Bombidam. He recently invented a medicine to keep pups always little in size arresting their growth. Why did you come my way and disturb my mind with this dose of talk.

Chiru: I remember my close association with Junior Tailor Mongi Rogasi during my school days after this funny complaint by you. Those were the days of introduction of French fashion styles and manners into our cursed street. He was seriously devoted to make a mark of his own in stitching domain in our region those days. He fell in love with local girl Kisumiyu Bumbu at that time. He wanted to stitch a special dress for her to reach that great message of his achievement to all. He spent days cutting a variety of clothes in a range of styles to materialize his major project. He never succeeded in that attempt because I was also in the race to attract that particular girl by hook or crook. Every time he showed me a fragment of the dress he finished for her and consulted me for my honest and decent comments, I would say, “She may not like it because I deeply know her interests and pursuits day and night beyond your notice and concentration!”. Eventually he dropped from the race in the middle and gave way to me. He suspected her character based on my manipulated, cruel, villainous, fake, biased and fine-tuned comments and criticism. Where there is a strong doubt, there are weak relationships and attachments at work. Likewise, I often fail to accurately distinguish between my invitation to others to interact with me and their interference in my way not giving me a choice. If I came this way, is it my mistake or is it your blunder to face me unknowingly and indulge in this little casual chat program in the open air. If you throw a half-fired cigarette near a stack of hay, it is probable that fire may arise there in due course of time. It is human tendency to interact with unwanted creatures also now and then out of curiosity or boredom. You can paint the picture as you like when the brush is in your hands.

Sakshi: I did not really understand the rational link between your past and my present.

Chiru: I always asked my English teacher at school, “When do I understand past, present and future tenses perfectly?” She used to kill my budding enthusiasm to learn a foreign language with simple explanations like, “A day comes in your future when you hate your past and crave to get the best from the present. Perhaps that would be the right day in your life when you can differentiate between good and bad and day and night”. I did not understand her deep insights even to this day. As children we were not supposed to pose deep questions to our teachers those days. As grown-ups we are not encouraged to think and behave like children to understand their psychology to better our lives from that angle these days. So, I never worried to check if my comparisons made sense to others or not. When half of this world and most of our lives are tentative or troublesome, why should we try to add fuel to the flame of our endless questions and incomprehensible answers from others?

Sakshi is a senior journalist and critic based at Lonavla in Maharashtra. Her frequent lonely expeditions in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to study the lifestyles of forest creatures attracted wide public applause and constructive criticism from many quarters in India. She often calls herself, “A Woman with Thousand Hearts”. I often feared to face her considering her stature and future as a crusader for social and political causes. I happened to come across her at a high-altitude military base airport in the remote jungles of Tingyo Kokikoo. The above is an offshoot of her interaction with me during that time.