The old man by the side of the road

Every morning on my way to work I see the old man by the side of the road. He sits on the footpath, or what’s left of it, at a junction where traffic from the western suburbs pours onto a one-way street leading to the central business district. It’s a vantage point of some sort, with a sizable pedestrian traffic moving to and fro in several directions. That’s why, I suppose, the old man chooses to use this particular spot.

Unperturbed by the traffic, the noise and the heat of the morning sun, when temperatures can rise up to 30-degrees Celsius, the old man sits there on the bare broken concrete with his tools, three makeshift knives of varying sizes, and several dried fronds of coconut trees lying at his feet. A somewhat spare workplace, I reflect, compared to my carpeted air-conditioned fluorescent silent office with its computers and wi-fi connection.

From what I reckon, the old man is a local; his dark leathery skin, for years, wrinkled from staying out in the sun too long, and a two-week grey stubble, leading from his chin to a closely-cropped grey mop on his head, are set off against his dark face. From a distance it looks as if, head to jaw, he is wrapped in a bandage. A mere loincloth of what-once-must-have-white cotton suffices as his entire attire.

Patiently, and with remarkable precision, the old man strips off the coconut fronds with his knife: shaving the leaves into narrow ribbons which curl into confetti the moment they hit the ground, and the solid stems into long thin wire-like straws, sharp enough to cut my skin. When he has a substantial heap of shavings at his feet, the result of an invisible calculation and human toil, the old man puts aside his knife.

He then gathers up the shavings with both hands, bunching them together into a cylindrical column, shaking and tapping one end of the column on the ground in a vertical rhythm until the column is configured to a uniform shape. Holding the column at one end, as the other flares out like a brush, he swiftly binds the end with the remaining ribbons to form a grip, securing it tightly into a short sturdy handle.

And, right before my eyes, I see the old man holding a common warehouse broom used to clean porches, courtyards, streets and construction sites. Picking up his knife once more, the old man trims the edges of the broom, meticulously crafting a rough-hewn broom into a work of art. Only then does he display it by his side on the footpath and offer it for sale to the passers-by.

Revolution

“Most revolutions have two phases. First comes a struggle for freedom, then a struggle for power. The first makes the human spirit soar and brings out the best in people. The second unleashes the worst: envy, intrigue, greed, suspicion, and the urge for revenge.”

– Adam Michnik in ‘The Polish Witch-Hunt’, The New York Review of Books, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 11, translated from the Polish by Irena Grudzinska Gross

Hermit-like

Every now and then, I break contact with society. Hermit-like, I become a recluse, staying away from friends and business associates. I disappear from their social circles. I switch off my mobilephone, making them angry. I miss their birthdays and anniversaries, hurting their feelings because they know I’m not the kind to forget.

No matter how much I try to pull myself out of this reverie, I fall right back in… into an abyss of silence. Until someone or something brings me to consciousness. Then I see the world as it is, with its beauty and sorrow, waiting to accept me as I am. And I wonder where I had been.

Reality, life, death

Reality is there. It is for us to perceive it, absorb it, understand it and learn from it. Our whole life’s project is to do just that. Only to die in the end.

Apparently, Tibetan Buddhists believe that life is a preparation for death. That, life’s mission is to prepare us for death. Could this be true?

Impossible

[With apologies to ‘Adidas. Impossible Is Nothing.’]

My father was a brute of a man. My mother, a perfect neurotic. They were irrational, paranoid, critical and abusive towards each other – and their children. They were self-obsessed, carrying personal failures and frustrations to their very end. They ignored solutions to their problems, even when those solutions stared them in their faces. They did not care what became of their children. Everything revolved around their problems.

As I grew up, I learnt to shun them. Not to be like them, in spite of their blood running through my veins. I knew life was impossible with them. I knew it was impossible for me to become like them, then or in the future. To me, impossible became something. It became a goal to achieve.

My fortune, according to nerve.com

Libra (Sept. 22 - Oct. 22)
There comes a time in everyone’s life when you long to belong to something bigger than yourself. In your case, this ‘something bigger’ could just be a desire to make out with larger body parts of your choice. Go forth — these plus-sized attributes are out there! After that, if you still feel empty inside, join a gym or something.

I like their humour. Something to chuckle over for the rest of the day.

Holding up

It’s not every day, or as in this case, every year that we get to celebrate something as delicate or fashionable or as sensual as this. It has been a part of every woman’s life and fantasy – and in every man’s fantasy too – from adolescence to old age.

It’s the bra; and according to this article, ‘Holding Up’, by Samantha Gilewicz in the latest issue of Nylon Magazine, the bra turns 100 this year.

Apparently, says Ms Gilewicz, “While it was Parisian couturier Paul Poiret who first convinced Vogue that the corset was no longer cool, American socialite Mary Phelps Jacob fashioned the first patented brassiere in 1913 from two silk handkerchiefs and spare ribbon.”

Handkerchiefs and ribbon? Hmm. Nice improvisation.

Debate

I had read somewhere that the word ‘debate’ originally meant ‘to beat down’ your opponent. Here’s a fine example of that:


A debate in the Turkish parliament in Ankara on May 28, 2007. Photo courtesy Reuters/Nuri Kaymar and Activate issue 50.