‘Change by itself is of no consequence – everything changes. The consciousness emerging from it is, I feel, of greater importance.’
– Savitri – P.S Rege
– The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories – Edited by Stephen Alter and Wimal Dissanayake
When I was twenty, many, many years ago, I waited for a while at the bus stop to get the bus to take me to my theatre training course (the buses were every hour and I never could quite time it right)
The bus stop was by a factory which was surrounded by deep and wild undergrowth, trees and bushes. While I stood there, I spotted some tiny golden scales in between the netted wire and the undergrowth. That evening when I got home, I casually mentioned the scales to my
dad. I’d captured his imagination and
before I knew it, under cover of darkness, (6p.m) me and he were at that
bus stop in question and busy fishing out these cute little
golden scales from underneath the netting/wire. I can’t remember
how exactly we got them out from the entanglement of all the weeds and thorns and wire but we did.
Jubilant, we took them home. My dad secreted the
special golden trinket into his wardrobe and that is where they
stayed, for a time. I thought maybe we
should at least have joint custody. Although, to be honest, he was
the one who took the time, effort and trouble to get them out from
behind that netting and by the time he got them home I think I’d
lost interest, or decided I should just let my dad keep his latest
favourite thing. He was more obsessed with them than I was.
I happened to mention the delightful scales to a colleague at the theatre training course and he told me that scales of that description were used by
drug dealers to measure out drugs. He had in his youth dabbled in drugs, so he knew about these things.
I casually mentioned this to my dad that evening.
The next day, when I passed by the kitchen, I saw him sitting on the linoleum
floor, newspaper spread underneath him. He was hacking away furiously at the Golden Scales with a manual saw.
Later on in the week, he casually told me that he’d managed to
break up the beautiful Golden Scales into tiny pieces and had put
each piece into a separate bin bag. He said this with the air of a
Drugs Baron who had got away with the execution of a major
international drugs haul, and that as long as he lay low for a
while, he might be okay.
I wished at that point that I’d kept the discovery of The
Golden Scales to myself. After all, they were probably just brass.
‘He was nothing at all when people tried to tell him what he was.’
‘We lived as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.’
‘It may be that you still ought to thank god; why, for all you know he may be preserving you for something. Be of great heart and fear less.’
‘I’m confident in my abilities and feel very good about how I handle things. In other words, I got this.’
‘Neither of us spoke, partly because it was safer not to speak; and partly I think because the beauty of the starry heaven had taken hold upon us both, filling our hearts with thoughts too big for words.’
‘I withdrew from places that are preoccupied with winning and losing.’
‘The Courage To Be Disliked’ – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
‘There was a lot I still had left to discover that night, when I was lost and felt God in the desert. But I knew that I wouldn’t let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.’
Things In My Head 