Emma's Story Part2. Chapter3

 The next day, after quickly transacting the business at the bank I looked at the watch. It was rather early to expect Emma and Charles as yet. But not to leave it to chance I decided to wait at the coffee shop. The sky was bright; it wasn't likely to rain. I took a seat close to the entrance . I ordered stuff that would keep me engaged at least for the next half an hour. 

I was looking attentively at the road outside until the first batch of school children appeared on the scene.. Their laughter drifted towards me on the breeze but Emma and Charles weren't among them. The sky that was bright some time ago was now cloudy and gray. As the time passed slowly I was getting restless with anxiety. I was feeling a bit awkward also sitting alone and having no idea as to how long I would be able to stay there idling away perhaps hours at a stretch. And I could not bury my head in a book pretending t read because My guests might pass that way and we would both miss each other. Everything seemed to be in danger of going wrong, the weather, the time, the day and my unreasonable longing to see them as if my life depended on that meeting. A chance acquaintance that happened to take place in some vacant hours, and if someone were to foresee the effect so deep I would not have given credence to it. 

Another group of children was coming and the augury was made by their playful kidding and laughter. I eagerly scanned their faces but could find Emma and Charles. I began to feel lost on the high sea now with nothing to see on the horizon. Where was I going to look for them except for this road and this coffee shop as my radar. Everything was perhaps to end as hastily and abruptly as it had begun. The flow of children walking to their school had stopped by now. I looked at the watch. I had spent half an hour already. It was not justifiable to prolong my presence at the coffee-shop beyond the next ten minutes.And if at all I chanced to meet them as I started walking back home they would be found in a tearing hurry to reach school. And did I wait here for them just to have a glimpse of them ? Honestly not. 

I decided to end the waiting and looked up finally giving up my long and steady vigilant watch over the road that was to bring Emma and Charles within my sight. As I stood up feeling into my pocket for the wallet I saw the lady at the shop counter watching me with curious eyes. It seemed she had noted my two earlier meetings with Emma and Charles earlier. and perhaps had guessed that I was waiting for them.

To be continued

A Day In The Life of a Rose

 THE HEART OF THE ROSE

Nothing is forever

and the rose

in the heart of it knows.

God then smiles upon

the knowing heart of the Rose.

And that's the reason why

the Rose smiles back at the God in his sky.

A day in the life of a Rose

is a lifetime that comes and goes.

Sushama Karnik.

 Faces behind the glass panels

staring at the snow or rain.
Children sticking their nose , snubbed against the glass,
and in their eyes the reflections
of sounds, the vistas of the world they imagine out of the reach,
and the longing that says "when shall I break out
into the world out there/"
At such moments the are just about to break the shell.
The growing pains when the body wants to know
the strange being inside, who is calling forth,
and they do not know who it is that was housed in the body,
waking up to the wonders of the miracles which the body is.

fawzi hejazi

Home

last month

 A new morning, time is still.

I let me fly. Your mansion shines

I cannot count its doors.

I would gladly enter through all of these,

but only one door for me at a time.

I shall be born again and again

to feel each door within my heart.

With each entry I shall be rich and richer ever.

It may take as many lives as there are doors; I do not mind;

but tell me God, "What is Your Mind?"

Sushama Karnik (c)

And you are always late

 And you are always late for the supper,

My tired moon, my darling moon.

Your place is reserved at the board

and I wait tirelessly, listless to hear

the sound of you entering the hall.

All the stars have come and gone.

I reserved your place and your share

knowing always, you are never in time for the supper..

That is the one recurring reason for the quarrels between us,

we fly into rage, skid the track and forget that it was all about the supper;

and you are always late.

And the gypsy moves ,
from a camp to another town,

over mountain hills
singing on the harp with a single string
a heart that beats in tune with the harp.


Sojourns, and camps,

that's all  there is
to the ties we form.
Togetherness, love and intimacy,
dreams of a night which melt with the day.
A stopover, we camp for a day and get ready
 to pack our things and move away.

The road still hides in a fog
.We grope our way
 through the unknown traps of destiny.
A bend, a corner, the road takes a turn
and we pause
to think
of those whom we left behind
and those who went ahead

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 The Agony of Power : The World We Are Living In

During 2005, Baudrillard wrote three short pieces and gave a brief magazine interview, all treating similar ideas; following his death in 2007, the four pieces were collected and published posthumously as The Agony of Power, a polemic against power itself.[26] The first piece From Domination to Hegemony contrasts its two subjects, modes of power; domination stands for historical, traditional power relations, while hegemony stands for modern, more sophisticated power relations as realized by states and businesses. Baudrillard decried the "cynicism" with which contemporary businesses openly state their business models. For example, he cited French television channel TF1 executive Patrick Le Lay who stated that his business' job was "to help Coca-Cola sell its products".[27] Baudrillard lamented that such honesty pre-empted and thus robbed the Left of its traditional role of critiquing governments and businesses: "In fact, Le Lay takes away the only power we had left. He steals our denunciation."[28] Consequently, Baudrillard stated that "Power itself must be abolished—and not solely in the refusal to be dominated [...] but also, just as violently, in the refusal to dominate..."[29]

The latter pieces included further analysis of the September 11 terrorist attacks, using the metaphor of the Native American potlatch to describe both American and Muslim societies, specifically the American state versus the hijackers. In the pieces' context, "potlatch" referred not to the gift-giving aspect of the ritual, but rather its wealth-destroying aspect: "The terrorists' potlatch against the West is their own death. Our potlatch is indignity, immodesty, obscenity, degredation and abjection."[30] This criticism of the West carried notes of Baudrillard's simulacrum, the above cynicism of business, and contrast between Muslim and Western societies: "We [the West] throw this indifference and abjection at others like a challenge: the challenge to defile themselves in return, to deny their values, to strip naked, confess, admit—to respond to a nihilism equal to our own."[31]

Note:

A Potlatch is an opulent ceremonial feast to celebrate an important event held by tribes of Northwest Indians of North America. A Potlatch is characterized by a ceremony in which possessions are given away, or destroyed, to display wealth, generosity and enhance prestige.