Book Moments #2: Bitter seeds and Batman

Our life changes all the time. We're not the same people we were last year or the year before it. And we can never say for sure what brought those changes - maybe we were victims of circumstances, or it was something more innate that's in our spirits, rebelling to surface and show itself. But sometimes Change swoops in so suddenly, it shakes and shifts your world, all without your consent, and you can do nothing but submit to its  unrelenting force. And when it's done it's purpose, it leaves you alone - but not before making a mark. Time would pass by and you could say you've made the best of it - that your wounds have healed and the scars are no longer visible, but you're not all the same inside.

And this very thought was best described in "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. When I'd first come across it, probably on Goodreads, I thought it was another of those abstract, Booker-Prize-material books that I could never quite get the hang of. But I was intrigued by the excerpts and decide to read it. And a good decision that was. I will not summarize or review it at length (both are on Wikipedia already and also, I'm lazy) but I'll give you enough to understand the setting and mood of my Moment in this book:

Aibileen, in the movie adaptation (The book was better !! )

Aibileen is an illiterate, black nurse in Mississippi in the 1960s, and one of the three narrators in the book. She had lost her son in an accident. And since it was a time when black people were still under oppression from slavery, the accident was not without bias. After a hard day's work, the tired skinny boy in his 20s had fallen off the loading dock onto the drive, and the driver of a tractor trailer, who hadn't seen him, ran over before he could move out of the way. The white driver then dumped his body in front of the hospital for "colored" people, and drove off. And the boy didn't make it.

"That was the day my whole world went black. Air look black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house. Minny came ever day to make sure I was still breathing, feed me food to keep me living. Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there. I was surprise to see the world didn't stop just cause my boy did.

Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a bed. I put on my white uniform and put my little gold cross back around my neck and I went to wait on Miss Leefolt cause she just have her baby girl. But it weren't too long before I seen something in me had changed. A bitter seed was planted inside a me. And I just didn't feel so accepting anymore."

(Note: It was a nice ploy of the author to write Aibileen's narrative just as how her character would - in the vernacular.)

Sometimes, when there’s a life-changing turn of events, the more unaccepting of us say “Why? Why me?” But for those who stoically come to terms with their destruction as a cruel twist of fate or the “ways of the world”, they may bury their emotions but can’t hide them forever. It’s as if we’d turned our suppressed anger on the unfairness of it all and our inability to control our own fate – to go back in time and change that one moment that brought our world tumbling down – inwards onto ourselves. And so our hearts become colder. We are less dazzled by the light and glitter, and become friendlier with shadows. We may move on, show the world we’re alive and well, but are wary and resentful inside. The feelings well up, like a bitter seed growing, until the day we can no longer pretend. And this is exactly what Aibileen’s simple, yet powerful words convey.

Much later, I couldn't help thinking that Bruce Wayne had a "bitter seed" in him too, that drove him to become Batman. He never forgave himself for his parents' death; had he endured his fear of bats that night, they might still be alive. Unable to move on, he bid his time seeking revenge on their killer, ready to become a killer himself, and an opportune moment presented itself nearly 2 decades later - and well, everyone knows what happened after that. The hero that he became, to rebuild his parents' city and restore its former glory - it was not because of some superhuman strength, but because of a vulnerability - that one incident, unforeseen, and the overwhelming guilt that came with it, affected him and his entire life. It would only seem fitting that the symbol he chose to plant fear in the hearts of his enemies was the very thing he was afraid of, the fear of which led him to blame himself for the death of his parents. Bitter seeds come from change; they grow inside us and bear fruit a long time after, and make us do things that change the course of our lives all over again.

I've always maintained that there aren't just 2 sides to the coin: true and false or truth and lies, like everyone else says. There's secrets too. I guess you could argue that a secret is actually a "truth that you're not telling." But then, lies are also “truths told wrong" – you know a lie is a lie when there is a predetermined and incontrovertible basis for truth. They all define each other. A secret is like a beautiful tropical island between the devil and the deep blue sea. But the island is dangerous – and lonely too. Secrets are painful to keep – the pain is the price for keeping them away from the rest of the world. When you do want to let one out into the world, you have to make a choice: say it right, as a truth; or say it wrong, as a lie. Anyway, what provoked this banter about an abstract subject was something that caught my attention while reading today (The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield), a very tasteful description of the painful process of keeping a secret, likening it to restraining a stubborn teenager fighting for freedom:

“The boy has been on my mind lately. ‘Tell me the truth.’ And lately I have felt again that strange inner stirring. There is something growing inside me, dividing and multiplying. I can feel it, in my stomach, round and hard, about the life of a grapefruit. It sucks the air out of my lungs and gnaws the marrow from my bones. The long dormancy has changed it. From being a meek and biddable thing, it has become a bully. It refuses all negotiation, blocks discussion, insists on its rights. It won’t take no for an answer. The truth, it echoes, calling after the boy, watching his departing back.”

"No praise, no blame, just so"

Its a Zen saying that means working for the "general good" rather than wasting time either eulogizing or pointing fingers at someone. And that's exactly what I feel like saying when a team or a group of friends disagree over something (its also exactly what our politicians nowadays need to be told). I really liked this quote - its like, it said so much in so little words. I came across it in the most unlikely place: a zombie novel (it was terrible: at the climax, the girl kisses the zombie who then magically "becomes a human", as if transformed  by the kiss. Talk about a modern day retelling of The Princess and the Frog.. blechh).

Too many times nowadays I daydream about being unemployed and ridiculously rich. Or rather, self-employed and ridiculously rich. Job jitters, I guess!

...

I really, really want to see a real ghost once in my lifetime!

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I wonder if our first impressions of people are always correct... In my case, I've almost always been right about the people I thought I wouldn't get on well with. I would sometimes dismiss the negative vibes as a figment of my imagination and try to be friendly... But in the end my instincts would be proved correct. And then:

"You know when, sometimes you meet someone so beautiful, and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later, they’re as dull as a brick? Then there’s other people, and you meet them and you think, ‘Not bad; they’re okay.’ And then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality is written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful."

...

Book Moments #1: Plucking & Planting Dreams

A thought is only as tangible as the words that are used to describe it. And those who can do it in a way that no part of it is obscured or shadowed truly have a gift. Seldom have I come across a “moment” in a book that is so profound it leaves me spellbound – I read the words over and over again, letting them sink in, until that moment is impressed in my memory. I wanted to share all such moments through a series of posts – not everyone may have the time or patience to read an entire book, but they sure can read a paragraph that can probably inspire them the same way it did me.

#1 is from the most influential book I read this year so far – “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini. His “Kiterunner” takes the credit for bringing me out of the fantasy fiction world. You see, Mr. Hosseini’s books talk of a different kind of magic – the magic of relationships. Not in the looming, dull and tragic way some writers do (that make you depressed and fed up with life if you already aren’t), but in one that speaks of their beauty and fragility with such depth, it moves your heart. Though his stories are for the most part set in the faraway land of Afghanistan, the actions and psyche of the characters are universal. That said, and giving the green signal for “No Spoiler Alert ahead”, this is That Moment in ATME:

“When I was a little girl, my father and I had a nightly ritual. After I’d said my twenty-one Bismillahs and he had tucked me into bed, he would sit at my side and pluck bad dreams from my head with his thumb and forefinger. His fingers would hop from my forehead to my temples, patiently searching behind my ears, at the back of my head, and he’d make a pop sound—like a bottle being uncorked—with each nightmare he purged from my brain. He stashed the dreams, one by one, into an invisible sack in his lap and pulled the drawstring tightly. He would then scour the air, looking for happy dreams to replace the ones he had sequestered away. I watched as he cocked his head slightly and frowned, his eyes roaming side to side, like he was straining to hear distant music. I held my breath, waiting for the moment when my father’s face unfurled into a smile, when he sang, Ah, here is one, when he cupped his hands, let the dream land in his palms like a petal slowly twirling down from a tree. Gently, then, so very gently—my father said all good things in life were fragile and easily lost—he would raise his hands to my face, rub his palms against my brow and happiness into my head.”

Fills me with warmth every time I read it. And the rest of the book too is as splendid. Highly recommended!