the fickle finger of fate

beholding sun, sending gold sunshine

I began filling stream-cut, steep ravine

with light and power, illuminating

dark, dead, eroded corners of mind.

then fetched water from blue heaven

frecking with abundance and passion,

to let soft roses and tulips blossom,

in an ancient, hardened eye garden.

without no reason no rhyme

gambling all to create sublime

I invoked letters from the psyche

in dabs of soulful, undying rhyme  

to define love worthy of Gods,

that’d soothe and succor souls

with just the power to override,

Aphrodite’s jealousy and pride.

but destroy all that I create,

thou, the fickle finger of fate.

I’d build beauty structures again,

La Vive! O ye fickle finger of fate.

James Joyce's Exiles

James Joyce is, perhaps, the most read and discussed author of the twentieth-century English Literature. An Irish novelist and dramatist, Joyce left Dublin in 1904 and except for some brief visits in 1909 and 1912, he never returned back. The play, Exiles, seems to revolve around his supposition and conjecture about what might have happened had he returned to Ireland and stayed there.

A play with very few characters, Exiles has Richard Rowan as the protagonist, who can be easily identified as the reflection of Joyce himself. Then we have Bertha, Richard's common law wife; their son Archie; Richard’s cousin Beatrice Justice, who is also Archie’s music teacher; their maid Brigid; and Robert Hand, with whom Richard shares a complicated old friendship.

From the plot (which will be carefully revealed in this blog), Joyce expected to fight stormy inner challenges and doubts more than external resistance and economic concerns had he returned to Ireland. Amongst other things, these doubts and suspicions are predictably directed against his wife, whom he even forces to be let alone with his friend Robert on a rainy (read: romantic) night. Richard is aware of Robert’s deep-seated, secret and passionate love for Bertha, and rightly suspects that Bertha doesn’t completely reject the idea of love with him either.

Why O why on earth would he let that happen between a friend he envies and a wife he loves? He is a complex character, as you have guessed already. When asked if he fears Bertha would cheat on him, he says this:

Richard: Not that fear. But that I will reproach myself then for having taken all for myself because I would not suffer her to give another what was hers and not mine to give, because I accepted from her, her loyalty and made her life poorer in love. That is my fear. That I stand between her and you, between her and anyone, between her and anything.

So Richard lets Robert call Bertha to his cottage in the suburbs one evening, where Robert tries really hard to convince Bertha to consummate their not-so-secret-anymore love. And it looks like they will do it. You know. The room turning darker. The curtains blocking lamplight. The stormy weather. Robert kissing Bertha's arms, caressing her hair. And ending of the act with the instance of sun rise next morning. Had it been an archetypical Bollywood movie, this was it. But, no. We are told in the end of the play Bertha remained loyal to Richard even during such heated moment. 

Loyalty? Hmm…can't say. We smell fishiness. Why would she go to meet him alone in such a sexy place in the first place. And doesn't denounce him when he touches and kisses her. Well, there's abstractness around the justification of it, and I'd rather call it halfbaked.

The themes of freedom, betrayal and confinement are spread portentously throughout the play, be it Richard’s seemingly confused correspondence with Beatrice or Robert’s transparent advances towards Bertha. Besides, one of the recurrent themes about labor and toils of having an artistic vocation appears strongly in the play, as it does in almost all Joyce’s works I’ve heard of.

  

Joyce wrote only three plays in his lifetime, and Exiles is his only extant play today, and yet it is not considered to be his best of works, which sounds very depressing from Joyce’s lens. Sandwiched between much popular and substantial works Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Exiles is a pretty easy, comfortable and conventional work. Not to say that it's not likeable, but the play lacks rich language and has a rather fateful tone. All the characters are grave and solemn, with the exception of Robert, perhaps, who says wonderful things (I mean, things which lack solemnity).

Robert: …I feel too natural, too common. After all, what is the most attractive in even the most beautiful woman?

Richard: What?

Robert: Not those qualities, which she has and other women have not, but the qualities, which she has in common with them. I mean the…commonest. I mean how her body develops heat when it is pressed, the movement of her blood, how quickly she changes by digestion what she eats into- what shall be nameless.

And then in the Act 2-

Robert: For all. That a woman, too, has the right to try with many men until she finds love. An immoral idea, is it not? I wanted to write a book about it… 

Covertly, then, Robert's character is diametrical to that of Richard’s.

Robert: O, Richard, why did you do that?

Richard: Betray her?

Robert: No. But tell her, waken from her sleep to tell her. It was piercing her heart…this is not you as you are. (But) A moment of weakness.

You should read it if you liked these randomly chosen excerpts. Plus, the play definitely has more to it than meets the eye.

What Do You Find in a Gym?

This blog comes from a short 2-day trip (sadly not an hour longer than that) to one of the branches of Gold’s gym recently that revived all my memories of a gymming environment. I wish I could be there for some more time, but it’s Karma that has kicked me hard in the butt; so, I am not allowed by life to continue this any longer at the moment.

To answer the title question, I'd say you'll find training equipment and people in the gym (How-Can-I-Write-Such-A-Sleep-Inducing-Boring-Answer!). There are great sites that'll tell you about machines you'll find in a gym. I want to talk about people...gym people (is it legitimate to use this phrase?)

You know gym people are altogether a different variety of the human race (don’t ya include yourself in if you took an annual membership and went ONLY for 2 days).

Let’s start with the most archetypical thing in the gym- tall (and, may be, short), giant, muscular men lifting heavy iron rods. You see them screaming and badly sweating at every instance of their practice session. They make you cry, “Please. Stop. Don’t torture yourself. It isn’t really a life-and -death situation” (although most of them passionately believe it is).

Next are cute aunties, wearing loose cotton suits and big sports shoes (the look is inspired by Kapil aka Bittu Sharma’s dadi). They will smile at you and bless you if you’re in decent clothing. But you have to digest their holy wrath and sanskari anger if any of your actions has crossed an unknown, non-standardized Indian-girl limit. Va Va Vrooom! Anyways, it’s pretty embarrassing to see them doing leg raising exercises in suit-salwar. I wish there was a set code of clothing in the gym for everyone’s good.

Next. Uhm… Let’s include those skinny girls here (we’re not going in ANY order). They aren’t interested in any kind of exercise actually. May be they come to kill time. Many a times, they stand at the center and shout, “we want to reduce weight”. In reply, the curse-sicken, hardworking, fat ladies want to kill them…with some butter chicken, gulab jamun and fried rice.

Let me be not sexist. Skinny boys also come to the gym. But they would genuinely try to gain weight and be muscular. That’s fine! We can excuse them. In teenage, kids think those kind of looks are important to look bindass and to get girlfriends.

Somehow I feel it isn’t a good idea to flaunt your assets in a gym (in front of crazy, half-naked, fitness freaks). But here we have some sexy, curvy women who would wear Nike hot shorts and spaghetti tops or racer backs, and do all envious things. Their stretching and body spinning exercises are quite a distraction for mostly everyone in the gym (why are men reading this paragraph twice?)

Kids. Really Fat Kids. They’ll make you wonder what can a 12-year old possibly eat to be that giant sized. It’s quite piteous to see them getting tortured by trainers. Often I feel they don’t like to be treated like that in front of adults. But, those poor souls are usually forced to push themselves hard by their parents, who are in turn forced by the taunts of their friends, neighbors and relatives – that’s a long chain (fatty acid? Oopsie. I forgot Chemistry. Or I never knew it. I ain't Sarthak).

You’ll also find trainers in the gym (C’mon! Forgive me for this dangerously obvious one). I’d love to generalize them as perverts (I hope I don’t have a gym trainer-cum-bog reader here). First of all, all of them love training women. They feel so happy when women do exercises wrongly. They are extra ready to give ANY lady ANY kind of extra help. Their prevent-frustration and tanhayee mantra! Every extra minute is precious, not to be wasted on the same sex.

We also have people (both men and women) who have flabby tummies, large hips and loose thighs (I’m sorry for that cruel description!). It’s frightening to see all that stuff packed tightly in tights (really tight, no skin breathing, suffocating clothes). They try really hard, hardest of all sometimes… but almost with no improvement (hm...that’s very unfair). Although, I'm not sure of the fashion component of gym-wear with that fit, I guess its good to stick to comfortable clothing in a gym. 

Well, I saved the best for the last. These people enter the gym with a chubby, unfit, inflexible body and leave with increased stamina, endurance and a fit and flexibility body. It's good to see them change and improve everyday.

The “penner” had spent a considerable time of her youth in a gym. After writing this blog, she's been constantly thinking of the category in which she can perfectly place herself. May be, she'll have to introduce another category. Whatever it is, you can mail her your honest suggestions.