A many-splendoured thing?

Love and Loss

Author: Malachi Edwin Vethamani

Maybe life has an innate plan to trap individuals. In the spring of youth, when hormones are raging high, we make hormonal-linked decisions that decide our futures. Somehow, hormones control rational thinking. The prefrontal cortex that controls analytical thinking is hijacked by impulses. We take the plunge dazed like a drunk monkey, like a prancing horse with blinkers, head on like sacrificial lambs, only to realise that we are in trouble deep when the dirt (or blood) hits the ceiling.

The path into this journey called love stirs all the primal suppressed emotions. It lights up so many intoxicating feel-good emotions within us that we never knew existed. We are swept off our feet, the world is a utopia, and we only see goodness in everything.

Maybe nature wants us to sow our seeds far and wide; perhaps it is just its way to improve the selection of traits. We lose interest. We get bored with the same routine and want freedom. We yearn to break taboos. We itch to push the boundaries of what is allowed than what is not.

What is this thing called love? Is it the constant high one gets at the sight of loved ones? Is it a societal duty that one performs to complete one's existence? This fulfilment of obligation is gifted with particular added delights, which are the carrot-dangling enticements to lure mankind.

Is it trapping to entice providers for generation next? A contractual obligation in return for an experience of a lifetime? Is successful love one which stands the test of time even though the committed players cannot stand the sight of each other after long but stay for the sake of wanting to uphold the holy institution of matrimony?

Sometimes the nectar of love turns sour. Or perhaps, it meets an unplanned end. The spiralling falling out of love or losing love can be as devastating as the act of falling in. If a loss is already filled with avalanches of emotions, it must be made more difficult with the complexities of 21st-century love.

Prof Malachi Edwin Vethamani's latest collection of poems describes these emotions in simple yet meaningful words that leave a zing that lasts. Many of us will relate to some of the joy, frustrations, cynicism, the wisdoms of hindsight that all the experiences bring us. With the expert craft of a wordsmith, with economical use of vocabulary, he opens the door to a world of literary bliss. A good read.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

People kill people, not guns?

If anything happens I love you! (2020)
Animated Short Film

This 11-minutes short film won itself an Academy Award in the Best Short Animated film category. In a concise graphic representation, the storytellers managed to capture the essence of emotions surrounding the loss of a young child. This emotional turmoil can make or break a family unit. The gamut of blaming, what-ifs, guilt and fault finding missions would eventually lead to a brick wall among the living but definitely not bring back the dead.

The death of a member of a family who has not lived his full potential, however, may invoke a myriad of responses. They say an addition to the family, especially the first-born, unites families. The sight of a newborn will make everyone all jello but strong enough to cement whatever minor frictions that may have been present in day-to-day dealings. It may make or break the bonds between the close relatives, especially parents, in the case of a young child.

This short film with no dialogue but a single song, 1950 by King Princess, tells the pain that a couple of parents endure when their pre-teen is killed in a random school shooting. The couple gradually grows apart with overpowering grief. All the while, their genuine emotions, feeling for each other and worries about each other are depicted by their shadows. When the door of their daughter's room, which they refuse to open all this while, suddenly opens, both parents enter the room to the sound of their daughter's favourite song. They reminisce about all the joyful times that they had together through a series of flashbacks. Finally, they shed their tears and reached a resolution.

The film highlights the problem of random shootings in the American public space, especially schools. Over the years, the interval between these types of shooting is getting shorter, and the types of weapons used are getting complex. It is no more pistols or hunting rifles. Instead, we are talking about assault rifles and semi-automatics. Pretty soon, the general public may be walking around with bazookas as it is their right to bear arms to protect themselves as permitted by the second amendment of the American Constitution. 

So many Presidents have come and gone promising to put a stop to all this gun violence. Even though many countries, the UK and Australia included, are testimony that this is indeed possible with very tight regulation of weapons ownership, such a situation will never happen in the US. The gun lobbying groups hold the purse string to the political parties. Being the central capital of weapon provider for the whole world to fight each other to maintain American interest and sustain despotic regimes worldwide, it will bad for business to put an all right ban on guns. 

Anti guns will continue doing their thing.  Aggrieved parties will pour their heartfelt disappointments, and the world will light an occasional candle at shooting sights, but the stock owners of Smith & Wesson and Colt's Defence will continue run laughing all the way to the bank. And they justify their rights by saying, "People kill people, not guns!" But, what they do not understand is that people just get a bruised face, dented ego or at most a broken rib with physical might. A gun has only one mission, to cause severe damage to the victim with minimal effort of its user.

All the loving feelings wither over the years. A child may make or break, not only by what turns out of them but in wanting to give the best for them. Differing parenting approaches and domineering-type of parenting accentuates drift. You ask yourself, "Is this the same woman that I married? "You coax yourself telling, "No, these are just battle wounds traversing the journey of life!"

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Last Kiss

What do you tell a full grown man who is wailing? How do you console him for his loss? The loss of the apple of his eye, upon whose shoulders of all his unrelinquished dream, rested on. The loss of a 31 years young son who just reached the pinnacle of his youth with a whole brand new life laid downed before him to savour. The loss of a son who was just an anecdotal statistic in the doctor's file as an atypical presentation of cancer.

What do you tell a man who went beyond the call of duty as a parent to scout for the best of the proven and unproven modalities of treatment to annihilate the tentacles of the spreading crab? And spent his lifetime and retirement savings doing it...

Just when the tides were turning in his favour, the enemy struck back in vengeance in full throttle. He fought a good fight but lost the war and the battle.
What do you tell his parents to soothe the pain? That their son is now free of pain in a better place? That their son is so good that the Maker wants the whole of him? That the Maker likes him more? That the Maker knows best? That it is fate? That whatever happened for a good reason!#*@? That he would want a good farewell, rather than doom and gloom surrounding his departure?

"Why did it happen," the father asks. "Where did I go wrong? Did I not do something right? Have I not been a good person? Have I not paid my dues in alms? Have I not did my penance? Is it a punishment? What about my regular prostrations at the lotus feet of the Almighty for pleas of continued blessings and peace on Earth and my family? Is it a curse or is it karma?"
There seem to be more questions than answers. The departed may not be around in person. The memories of his existence on Earth would linger on forever. His physical body may be gone but not the moments that were spent with the loved ones.

With so many unanswered questions, he bends down to kiss the cheeks of his beloved son for the last time before the cortege leaves... on a long journey back...