Conduits

Parker Pyne Investigates

“Mr. Pyne, what the heck have you done here?”

The dentist was glaring – there was fire in those eyes. The man across had slumped in his chair – pain writ large on his face. The shock of discovery had been too much for him.

“He is your patient – all I came for was my root canal, after all. I could have sworn he was hundred kicks.”

“What made you think so?”

“Well, he had all the attributes – heaps of praise, inability to think objectively, and perception of individuals as larger-than-life.”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately? And why hundred kicks?”

“He was the last one I saw who perfectly matched that description.”

“Little do you know – you who has not been around for months! Have you seen where that door leads to?”

I must confess I only have a vague recollection – from the last time. To the best of my recollection it is the door to the bathroom– connecting with the janitorial closet.

“Hah! When was your last visit for a clean-up?”

I was red-faced. I do have this habit of “forgetting” to set up my regular dental appointments.

“Didn’t anyone tell you? This place is under new management. We brook no nonsense any more – none of your amateurish stuff. We have a professional running it. And we have had a wholesale remodeling project going on.”

“What happened to the older bunch?”

“We fired them all. They were not up to the job – plus they were not following the building code.”

“You mean your code.”

“Whatever!”

“But on the outside, it looks the same.”

“There you go again, making rash judgment calls based on superficial appearances.”

She was dialing the security. For a moment, I had a sense of deja-vu – an imminent vision of being thrown out while held by the seat of my pants! But when those burly fat pigs showed up, she merely pointed to the body slumped in the chair from across.

“Carry the corpse to the morgue, this one is kaput!”

As they took the body away, I noticed that a wrist-band had fallen down. Clearly, the dentist had seen it too – for no sooner had the pigs left the area, she picked it up. She took one glance at it and walked over to the door. She opened the door and carelessly threw the wrist-band in – then slammed the door shut. I barely got a glimpse of what lay inside.

Indeed, little did I know!

The place was jam-packed with wrist-bands!

#16 Sanjay

Congratulations on your ``outing``.

#9 Jawahara

``Does anyone here live in such a conduit in India or Pakistan? I, of course, know now how it is to create conduits while living in the US but it would be good to get some insight from someone on the other side.``

I think I have met atleast one person in the subcontinent (that too in the blogosphere) who did live in such a conduit.

She belonged to a UP Muslim well-to-do family. Her grand-father,along with his family, moved to the other side of the border before partition. While they were there, Partition took place and they could not return back. Though they settled there half-heartedly but could not accept it as their country. The family had never known anything other land except what is called UP. Returning back was not only impossible but the stories of Hindu-Muslims communal cauldron on this side of the border further dampened their spirits.

I think the family finally found the way for the living in, what you call as, a Conduit. For their conduit ,one end was Pakistan and the other India. Though ,the lady was a Muslim and a Pakistani(now) but I have never never met a person in India or a Hindu who is so well versed in Hinduism and India. She knew everything about India and Hinduism. Everything was on her tips. I dont know what is the exact situation in Pakistan but secretly she had a wish that if and when reunification takes place, they will go back,which I came to know later on.

In that website,which was similar to chowk, I used to champion the cause of reunification which she used to balatantly oppose. But while she was leaving the website due to some personal reasons, much to my surprise, she asked me continue to champion the cause for reunification wherever possible. After she had left, I could reconstruct her conduit, went inside it and could feel what she used to feel.

Of course, I am not really sure whether her experience falls under the definition of your conduit. But if hers indeed was a conduit, then I must tell you that both sides of the conduit were engrossed in pain. Though there are many types of people in the world, but there are some people torn by their destinies ,whom nobody knows or cares.

Re: # 15
Speaking of physical imprint of the past - the pain, the dead, the hopelessness have the clearer share of the caricatures.
The realm of pain feels, sounds unlimited - the very positioning of the sun (for example)through the period of pain is painful and is implanted very clearly. It becomes a part of opposing pscyhe to disgrace and abhor it.

This is the preamble of what sets in later and termed as public and social relations.

#14 Mr.Kumar/ Jawahara

Ok..Ok..All is well which ends well.

But I have completely closed the shop of Bolta_aaina wef today.

I will be interacting(limited) with Chowk with my real name now onwards.

And Jawahara, I think I am now trying to understand your thinking and feelings. You will find me more positive in future.

Bjkumar, just to clarify another aspect, these conduits are no longer just imaginary, no longer just dreams. They are actual physical reality as well....the mega-apartment complexes in India or the India Associations in countries outside India. The buildings are reality while the feelings and emotions people experience while in them are, I guess, the non-physical components of the conduit. Also, if you find the beautiful flowers let me know :-).

Bolta_aaina, I might be being dense here but why would you stop interacting just because someone asked a question or made a comment? Bjkumar`s comment didn`t seem offensive to me. Anyway, whatever you do is your decision but I do appreciate your interacts on my boards even though you rarely (ever) agree with what I say.

Kaptain #13: excellent point. Conduits of any kind (purely imaginary, physical or a combination) are almost always links to a perfectly imagined past. How real that perception is, is anyone`s guess since most of us tend to gloss over the problems in our past and try to capture some perfect essence of it. Which brings us to the question...how real are even the physical conduits?

Most often they are caricatures of what the person is trying to capture.

#12 Mirror

Dear Mirror, PLEASE don`t go!

(I like your ID. And, for the record, I also liked your #3 (Why else would I respond to it? (I always like things (and people) that bring out creativity in others. For the same reason, I like Jawahara`s write-ups also.)))

If you are (were) the person I hinted, that was intended as a compliment. If you are not, no big deal - I guess wrong all the time - and the world does not stop.

Those who are used to my interacts are well aware of the funny streak! Most have learnt to live with it - some do not think it is that funny (they are entitled to their opinion (even wrong opinions (they don`t know everything (perhaps anything)))).

One more thing, dear mirror, if you have been thinking of abandoning the web site - that is a spontaneous feeling many develop here (mostly temporary). Please don`t make this interactor an excuse for such a decision which usually has deeper roots - the proverbial straw that breaks the camel`s back.

This ain`t no strawman.

This article is talking about fanciful flights of imagination - and individual interactors have every right to come up with their own such flights - it is fully relevant to the topic at hand.

Farzana Versey, what the heck have you done to this place? Nobody laughs here any more. Wiped the smiles right off those darling faces!!! Alas, the good old days when laughter was the order of the day and mirth needed no midwives for its birth!

Where is the laughter, the joy, the twinkling inside the eyes?!! This place is not the same without it and you KNOW it!

All conduits must lead to a state of bliss and happiness - else they are little but useless!

Nobody likes a conduit that only leads to fire-breathing dragons! Bring back the beautiful flowers!

*..dang diyaan mannu raataan..*
*..lambi judaaee diyaan raataan..*
*..kithay gayyaan o mulaqaataan..*

conduits - a remake of past to perfection..with fond memories, the child in everybody is there to hold our hand and cross to the other side of the road and revisit the old testaments written firmly on sand..

we are what we think, the very subtle pain in the chest to have those moment come again, lives there - the doorway to backyard filled with moment ready to be relived again.

the very situation on the global arena makes us the rooks to be displaced and save the Queen..
Lord Save the Queen.

*..kithay gayee tairee haasee..*
*..mennu chair gayee udaasee..*
*..mairee akhiyaan cho mukki na udeek vay..*
(Song excerpt from Udeekaan - Jawad Kahlown & Shahzaman)

#11

I think you have made many conclusions without going into finer details.

Firstly, I have been responding to the articles of Jawahara in a particular way, I think she understands that pretty well. Unlike other writers on the Chowk, Jawahara writes about something which exists on the Mental Plane and not on the Physical Plane. She does not write about India/Pak, Politics, Religion etc. but she writes about mental effects like changes, blasphemies, diaspora etc. To understand the mind of such a writer, one has to go inside his/her world otherwise you may be writing many things but they may be inconsequential to him/her. Jawahara represents a particular group of diasporic Indians which are not only small in numbers and people like Jawahara are still smaller. Therefore, a person who is not diasporic either will have no interest in Jawahra`s thinking or if he wants to feel that way ,he has to make some kind of juggelery.

You found my Post at No.3 crazy, I found your comments on that funny. No such conduit exists for me. But to feel about what Jawahara is feeling, I had to construct one, howsoever artificial it is, and experience it first hand. So first I constructed that artifical conduit which took me somewhere, but when I could feel it, I abruptly abandoned it and commented at Post No.4. If I had not created that Cosmic Conduit, it would have been hard for me to visualise what Jawahara is talking about.

Lastly, you seem to have some problem with my ID. Dont lose your sleep over it. I have stopped interacting in Chowk. I have decided that I will only interact with Jawahara on this forum and with nobody else. So if you dont like my presence, either you have to skip atleast Jawahara`s column or ask her to relieve me so that I can say good bye to chowk for ever.

Have a good day.

The way you describe, there appear to be two requirements for your ``conduit`` - a certain amount/storehouse of (fond) memories and a yearning to go back to them. Therefore, it must always be retrospective. Which explains why desis living in India are not likely to have similar thoughts - most people settled over there have simply not developed those memories for this place. It might start changing with the next generation of desis. By the third generation, the same process would happen in reverse (provided those children go and stay in the subcontinent for prolonged periods) - which is why it is generally the rule of thumb that it takes immigrants three generations to fully ``assimilate``.

What the talking mirror saw and expressed here (the preceding phrase sounds rather lyrical and I am almost tempted to come up with another i-log, but I already have too many in the pipeline and must regretfully desist) is not exactly the conduit that you described - which has a much narrower scope - he refers to the more generic version of ``day-dreaming``. I quote the following from a web site.

``Daydreaming is so commonplace that we usually think little about what it is, why we do it, how it affects us or what sets off the particular content of our fleeting excursions away from the here and now. But it`s an important, intriguing-- and for psychologists, challenging--part of our mental life.

Our minds constantly flit from one thought to another and one type of daydream to another. Indeed, the types are so varied that there is still no definition of daydreamaing that all researchers agree upon. But psychologists usually label thoughts as daydreams if they are about something apart from the person`s immediate situation, are spontaneous and are fanciful (with things happening in ways that are contrary to reality).``

#9 Jawahara,
Two word answer to your question.
HINDI MOVIES.

Does anyone here live in such a conduit in India or Pakistan? I, of course, know now how it is to create conduits while living in the US but it would be good to get some insight from someone on the other side.

These are some of the dangerous points of ``conduits`` which I mentioned in my Post No.4.

Such conduits start from the real world and end in the fool`s world. The person entering such conduits does not know where is going, what is he doing or what is he upto.

Simply put, just waste of time, energy and space.

How I wish this kind of `little door` existed:( I would be gone......

Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective

The nurse gave me a highly disapproving look.

“Mr. Pyne, you are late, as usual! The doctor is busy. Please take a seat.”

There was little point in explaining the circumstances of the delay. The last thing you want to do is to get the dentist’s secretary madder when awaiting a root canal. And the tooth was hurting like crazy.

Ouch!

As I reached for a magazine, I looked at the guy sitting across from me. His pain appeared to be far worse than mine – his eyes were fixed at the side door, as if it were some type of escape route (I knew from a previous visit that it was just the bathroom entrance). As I bent lower to pick up the magazine, I could hear him mumble.

“Pardon me?”

He did not respond, as if in another world. He kept eyeing the door and the mumbling went on.

“…galaxies, stars … planets ….”

“What was that, again?”

“… stand on a meteorite … sit on the head of a comet …”

Sitting on a comet’s head? Now that gets my attention, for sure.

“… a blue spot … swim in the vast ocean of emptiness…”

It was amazing.

“… meet someone special… God…”

For Pete’s sake, he was about to meet his dentist!

“Wow, kitna maza ayega…”

Perhaps this was his first root canal!

It is just my luck. No matter how much I try to keep away from seedy characters, they keep bumping into me at every step. A particularly severe case, this one!

A sudden ray of suspicion emerged. I thought back of my case files and a series of mugshots floated before my eyes – all criminals from the past –of varying degrees – and one particular face stuck out – somebody who was thought to have been shot down long ago.

“Hundred kicks, its’ not you, is it?”

He gulped – I could sense his rising panic. He had trouble speaking.

“You are thinking of a different world, Mr. Pyne!”

Call it intuition, but I find it highly suspicious when I see a person talking to his own mirror.

There was no real way to pin down the fellow – some of these crooks are sneaky as a slinky and slithery as a snake – and have access to so many conduits of escape that it’s not even funny – this joint is crawling with such creatures.

But I had my eyes on him and someday was going to sink my teeth in, too!

Ouch!

Jawahara

What is the drive, this urge that makes us create these conduits?

It’s the longing for a familiar surrounding that’s so comfortable, a deep desire to belong, to call it your own, which make people create conduits.

Fascinating thought...this conduit. Well done. You have a very tender soul.

Now to your question as to why do we make such conduits. The answers are complex though not impossible.

These are basically ``get-aways`` for us. They take us to what we miss in our lives. Thats one point. Secondly, we humans are always looking for change in their lives. These changes are not easy to come by. You cannot change your job or your house every now and then. And when the changes in our real lives are not possible, we do not stop. We bring them about in our mental lives or in our dream-worlds or in thought -process. These conduits represent nothing but our desire for a change.

I dont think that there can be any positive or negative side of these conduits. They remain in our minds. They cant change us normally but yes..they can play havoc with us if the longing for something or some place is too great. That it starts affecting our normal lives. Entering the conduit during bed-time is fine..or rather it will be healthy..but entering the same conduit during working or say during driving can be dangerous.

All in all ,I feel that these conduits are an essential part of our lives, a part of our self. They have remained with us always and will remain so.

Nothing harm in them. They are to be enjoyed..but yes..with some caution.

An interesting idea or thought.

If I had such a ``conduit`` or a ``gateway`` or simply``get-away`` where would I go?? America, Germany, Japan.....ammmm..no. I think I would expect my conduit to take me somewhere with a lightining speed and when I am out on the other end...I find myself.....wow...right in the middle of the Universe with galaxies, stars and planets shining in the dark sky all around me. I would stand on a meteorite with my hands stretched and move freely in the space. Sometimes, I would sit on the head of a comet and move around aimlessly. The Earth would look a blue spot at a great distance. Would I return back?? ....ammm No. Zameen ki roshiyon sey aasmaanon key andherey zyada acchey hain( The darkness of the skies is much better than the lights of the Earth). I will continue to swim in the vast ocean of emptiness..do I expect to meet someone special there.....whom on earth we know as God. If I do meet Him, would love to take a long interview ..the most unique interview ever in the histories of interviews...Wow,,kitna maza ayega...and that too when the creator is in the front of His creation.........and answering questions.......

Thank you Jawahara for giving us an opportunity to insight reality truly nostalgic and homey. I too used to see a door long long back when I was a very little kid. You will be taken aback to know it was then when I was potty trained and was given the opportunity to sit on flush just like my elder sibling who had been practicing this for quite a few years. Before that I was sitting outside his door on my potty pot waiting to scream when he used to finish.
Sitting in toilet is a very thought-provoking process and I figured that out gradually with time. Most of them time I would be shouting the little bits of Quranic ayats I read from school or listened from the Maulvi Saab. My mother became vexed at this and told me it’s not the place to say holy words. But my grandpa confirmed that it’s not a foul practice but quoted that some Imam said it’s very consecrated to remember god while you are in bathroom. Anyways that was one of un-necessary reasons of my long stays in washrooms.
But one day I saw that there is a little key-hole at wall in my right. I looked to it closely and then my imagination started to escape through it. It opened and I was in a secret room which has been eloquently furnished to amuse me. Red carpets, big sofas and long wide windows. The tables were filled with bunties, chocolates and chips. I had a secret agent who used to fill the edible junks every 15 minutes. I am surrounded by my favorite toys, horses and bears and I am lying on floor lazily and reading suspense novels. I and my secret-seven friends catch a criminal by our devious strengths and abilities to inspect and investigate every week with our binoculars hanging around neck.
That room was devoid of Baigan, Palak and other diverting veggies and no broken legged and extremely simple chairs and ugly looking noisy charpais in the main room. It was like everything to dream of to feel joyful.
I am into my imaginings through and wise out but sometimes when I dream deep I see myself in my old house imitating any hullabaloo making me feel at my dwell.

An interesting idea - this conduit. (I must confess I never imagined one personally.) A bit like eating the cake and having it, too. The article appears to be a bit rushed - I think you could have done a few more things with it. It especially appears to fizzle out toward the end. I personally feel that many times the image we carry in our minds stays stagnant while the old country keeps changing and every visit back ``home`` invariably calls for recalibration.