Because Memory is a Bridge: Write... Edit... Publish...June 2017

It's time to return to Write...Edit...Publish... hosted by authors Denise and Yolanda, the sumptuous badges designed by Olga, and psst...prompt inputs by yerse troolee. Posting early to co-ordinate with Brisbane time. 

Gosh, I feel it's been ages since I was here last! The April challenge flew past and May and June I kind of tuned out, insanely out of routine. Kiddo's study leave/examtime is not good for mum's poetry writing, neither is Ramadan - the Muslim month of fasting, when working hours are reduced to six here. The males are home at unusual times, and I'm busy revelling in that rare commodity called family time, serving and being served coffee, and rather fattening snacks, at the oddest possible of hours. Oh, and we moved house, in the same neighbourhood, not across continents, merci bon Dieu for small mercies! School's out as of today, Ramadan's 3/4rs over, and summer's here, that's a bridge every year to go and visit family in India, we leave soon.  

The challenge for June is 'Bridges' and I'm back with a mixed up two-part post,  a bit of poetry, and mythology, and geology, and geography and folk traditions thrown in. Please read just the poem if you're pressed for time. Unless you're Donna, in which case you're requested to read the second, non-poetry, part :)

And I can't really think of the word 'bridge' without this song whooshing up instantly in the headspace. Because music too is a bridge...

Because memory is a bridge...

I see you leave for work from my window

and if you notice – as the glass is darkened –

you raise a hand, briefly wave as you go.

A shared language, carport, wall, to and fro

on the same bridges, but to different ends.

A gap closes the loop and rings a trench,

waves upwards like a tree and through its lace

drizzles peace and sunlight on the rusty bench.

We’re separated by feet, nothing strange

if a foot includes some lightyears in its space.

We meet again shopping at the same store

at some point in the vegetable aisle,

you raise a smiling eyebrow, somewhat more

than the morning - we’re closer, indoor - 

and I return that upswing with a smile.

There’s a scar on your pointer, looks quite fresh

and a film in your eyes I’ve never seen.

What bridges do we carry? burnt on our flesh

and behind us? the memories and their mesh,

past and present pixellated on-screen?

There’s no backstory that feels quite coherent

the arch of past as sparkly as a jewel.

Depends on where the sun’s at this moment

and where you’re sitting too, and the ambient

slant of shade and seat, there’s no one thumb rule.

I too have memories, feathery, and precious,

but I say nothing, keep them to myself.

Not everything can be shared between us.

We haunt the same cafés, but the baristas

turn to get separate cups from the shelf.

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And because in real life I don't have the sense to shut up 

while I'm ahead, and also because Donna gave me the idea, I will now proceed to tell you about a mythical bridge, from the 2500 year old Hindu epic Ramayana. 

A childless king kills the only son of a blind sage by mistake. The sage duly curses the king - that he too shall die brokenhearted at the loss of a son. Many years pass, and after various offerings to various gods, his three queens bear four sons - Ram, Bharat, Lakshman and Shatrughna. All is marching well, everyone is uberhappy, the brothers love each other dearly - no trace of sibling rivalry. Lakshman especially idolises Ram, they are inseparable. They grow up and get married to sundry princesses, Ram to a very virtuous lady called Sita. 

Ram's stepmother, Bharat's mother throws a spanner into this idyll while Bharat's away. She demands the king appoint Bharat as crown prince and exile Ram for fourteen years. The king for some unfathomable reason, does not bash the evil stepmother's face in, but instead reluctantly proceeds to follow her wishes due to some pledge he had given yonks ago, probably in the first flush of love or youth or some other giddiness. 

Ram leaves amidst widespread gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts and general mourning. Sita and Lakshman go with Ram. The old king obligingly dies of grief as per curse. Bharat gets back to all this chaos and is incandescent with rage. He gives his mother an earful ('have you never heard Mataji, about uneasy and heads and crowns?! I had my spare-heir lap of luxury all sorted - what were you thinking of?!'), then rushes off and begs Ram to come back. But Ram won't let his father's pledge become meaningless. Bharat returns alone and rules as vice-regent.

Ram and family live off the land, nomads in the forests of Central India somewhere. There, one day, the sister of King Ravan of present day Sri Lanka (Lanka in the epic) invites the brothers for a...um...quickie. Ancient Indian society was obviously sexually far more emancipated than now. Anyways, Ram politely excuses himself on account of wife being present. Lakshman excuses himself on grounds of being married, probably because he didn't fancy the lady too much. She persists, remember she's a princess, not used to such churlishness, whereupon an altercation ensues and Lakshman, annoyed, notches off her ears and nose, adding injury to insult. She marches off home and demands Ravan avenge her forthwith.

Ravan abducts Sita in retaliation and imprisons her. Ram and Lakshman search for her, and get to hear she has been seen with Ravan. They meet and befriend Sugriv the ape-king, and he places his ape-army at their disposal.  One of his subjects, Hanuman, flies over the strait and brings back news of Sita. Ram and Lakshman prepare for war.  

The ape-army lays boulders on the water to make a causeway/bridge so Ram can cross to Lanka. There a terrible war is fought to rescue Sita. Ravan the wifenapper is killed. Meanwhile, the fourteen years of exile get over, Ram, Sita and Lakshman come back to their own lands and Ram is anointed king. They then attempt to live HEA but public suspicions about Sita’s character intervene (which body parts has she had grabbed by an unrelated male? did she consent?) and it all ends in separation and tears spiking the happy, as it so often does in real life…

The Ramayana is a religious epic, a story of good winning over evil. Ram is an avatar (earthly form) of God Vishnu, Sita is the corresponding consort Lakshmi's avatar and the whole bristles with other minor deities and their progeny. The Ramayan is, like most epics, chock-full of strangely misogynist, unfair portrayals of women, don't want to start on that...

Many traditions stem from it - Deewali is a celebration of the night when Ram came back victorious to claim his kingdom. Durgapuja is rooted in Ram's original invocation of the Goddess before battle. Several local adaptations and traditions exist in Nepal, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Balinese wood carving of Ram and Sita

Source. The Royal Cambodian Ballet performing a dance-drama based on the Ramayana at the Bahrain National Theatre in 2014.

The causeway the ape-army built is called the Ram Setu (setu means bridge in Sanskrit and also in Hindi and Bengali). Mythology apart, the Ram Setu is actually a 50 km long chain of limestone shoals between India and Sri Lanka. Geological evidence shows it was a continuous land connection between the two - a natural causeway passable on foot. The sea channels deepened in the 15th century after a cyclone broke it up. Read more here. 

Source. 

Source 

Did Valmiki (the composer) travel to the southern tip of India, see the bridge and think to himself - right, just what I need? Or was it just a fortuitous fact he discovered afterwards? Come to think of it, mythology itself is a delicious seabridge, connecting us to our collective past.

Source: Pinterest

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