My mother, the Great Dictator… Saul Bellow’s Herzog

My mother is a fashionista; nobody cares for her diktats, but I have to. Because I am her son. Actually, I am one (the last) of her five sons. The others are married, and my mother leaves the choice of what the other fellers wear to the judgment of their wives, and since I am not married, she takes it upon herself to dictate what I should wear and should not.

Years ago, when I was in Delhi, my parents came by for a couple of weeks: I came back from work and found that my pile of clothes (I did not have a wardrobe, just a cupboard in which I dumped my stuff) depleted considerably. I asked my mother if she gave them for washing or something. My father was sitting there – smiling. I smelt a rat, or a fish. I asked him what happened. He kept quiet.

My mother went into the kitchen and came back with a steel vessel (you know the kind in which you boil milk and all that). She said: This is what I got for your miserable clothes. I really don’t know what all she got rid off: whatever she didn’t like in the pile – old, new, recent, blah – she gave off. And got the vessel.

It is a wonder really because she cannot speak a word of Hindi. My father, who was there all along, when she was giving away the clothes and ‘negotiated’ the deal, never intervened, though he knew Hindi alright. He was amused about the whole thing; my stuff being given away, and a silly steel vessel being gotten in exchange. He was still smiling when I threw a fit and asked my mother what all she gave away: she did not have an idea; I don’t have an idea! I still look for a T-shirt which should be in my ‘collection’ and I know, it was gone in Delhi that fateful day.

There is only one time my mother said – hey, this is a good shirt. It made my day. I still wear it: once in a month, to make it last as long as I can! I cannot think of anything I said or did to make her happy in decades, other than that time she said I got a decent shirt.

The other day I set out to office in one of those ‘slim-fit’ shirts: my mother said you cannot go out of this house in that shirt, not to office. I sat down; said ok, I will not go to office. I will take leave. I will sit in front of you in this shirt the whole day. Then she said, get lost. And promptly, I got out.

Ma tujhe salaam… Amma tujhe salaam…

Ideas to depopulate the world

Saul Bellow, in Herzog, has this line: Ideas to depopulate the world. It is amazing. He doesn’t talk further about it. Just that one line. And in 1996, a website was set up: www.vhemt.org. I came to know of it many years later, maybe in 2000 or later. It is an excellent site – all it says is: “thank you for not breeding”.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the site is promoting the cause of voluntary human extinction movement. That is, let us live long and die out. It is best for all of us on the planet. Us includes other species as well, of course.

There is some argument on whether the movement is valid and blah; that is countered in:
http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm#oppose