Flex Mentallo

Condition matters - unread is best. I haven't been actively collecting these for a while but I still have a few faves...

Exactly what I was trying to say, but you put it so much better, thank you. What would feel like a significant loss in other circumstances instead feels like a - how can I express it? - yes, a blessing.

So why post that? A bid for sainthood perhaps? Not really - not at all in fact. I do fear that it seems like using another person's situation to enhance my own. But that's not it. If I looked at myself and saw that - well, you wouldnt see me anymore. So it's a carefully considered risk. All the way through Serendip, I suppose there has been this intertwining of events and motifs. Life is not a comic book. True heroes/heroines are scarce. We have a few round these boards, we'd all agree. And I am definitely not one of them. But I'd like to think we all want to be bringers of fire. And sometimes, if we are very lucky, we find ourselves in a position to do just that. Lucina, Mridula, Lija, Nirmal, Mohan (who was murdered before I ever met him) - and all the rest in this small village - they were the gift - - they brought fire to me. And what do you do when someone brings you the gift of fire? You run through the streets with a torch, to light a beacon.

[font:Century Gothic]For Lija[/font] [font:Century Gothic]Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love. [/font] from Lullaby, by WH Audin

In order to prepare for any eventuality, including - however unlikely - going to India if need be, I concluded that rebalancing my finances by selling one big book was the most straightforward response. But in similar circumstances, anyone would do the same wouldn't they? Initially I had no thought of sharing this with more than a handful of friends. It's just that on the boards we are generally showing books we've acquired, rather than let go. Love in reverse.

In January 2013 at the tender age of 17, Lija's father decided to marry her off. The way Lucina tells it, the husband is a notorious womaniser who lost no time in getting her pregnant. What else he did, Lucina did not go into detail, but certainly she was emotionally abused while the husband went on with his extra marital amours. Lija ran back to her parents house with her new born baby. At about which point her father conveniently decides to take a second wife, as Muslim men are lawfully allowed to do, and promptly moves out of the family home. Apparently he's hardly seen anymore, and his long-suffering first wife, Asma, is now the sole breadwinner for her four daughters, as well as Lija's baby. Lucina is doing what she can to help, but it sounds as if Asma cant find regular work, and they are probably pretty destitute. So I'm waiting on Lucina's further report.

I just naturally regard them as family.

I used to take her out with her cousins Lucina and Lilufar to help me buy crafts for our gallery here.

Now I haven't been to the village in 5 years, so she would have been about 13 years of age here. I think you can see, she is a very sweet-natured girl, a bit reserved and somewhat shy.

Lucina messaged me a couple of days ago - first time we've hooked up in the past six months. Good news from her regarding her situation - she has triumphed in her studies, is doing a PhD, and as I mentioned in the Serendip thread some time ago, excelled in a national exam, coming in the top thirty out of hundreds of thousands of students. (She likes to say that's thanks to me but I know better - it's all down to her intelligence and work ethic, both of which set her apart from the usual laid back village mind set.) Her father is unwell, so she is the breadwinner for the family now as well, so of course her position is thereby much stronger than a young village woman's ordinarily would be. No more pressure to be married off to a stranger in Singapore. So just as I'm breathing a sigh of relief, she tells me about Lija.

and Tina.... As well as Lucina, Lilufar and her brother Arif.

Lija...

Chunku (seen here with Asma)...

Nasir and Asma's Priyanka...

..and Feka...

Three households, including 10 children (some now grown, like Lucina), all of whom I just adore. They include Poppi...

Lucina is Mridula's brother-in-law's daughter, and this is how I met her, learned of her difficulties, and came to pay for her higher education in the following years (though I could never have dreamed how well she'd do). And that part of the story I've already told as you'll know if you read the Serendip thread. The compound where they live is called Mir para, after the three Mir brothers Latif, Lutfar and Nasir, whose families all live there.

When Mridula was a young girl in the early to mid-eighties, I taught her English as a foreign language. I lost touch with her and the village for about ten years, but I knew who she'd married, a guy called Mir Latif, and when I returned to the village in 2005, I was able to track her down, by which time she and Latif had a family.

[font:Century Gothic]One Art by Elizabeth Bishop[/font] [font:Century Gothic]The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.[/font]

Anyway, as many of you know, I've just bought this wonderful book. It's truly a thrilling cover, especially in this remarkable condition. I love the surreal image, it's like a dream of flying, or a painting by Magritte. Pretentious though it may seem, for some inexplicable reason it's glacial beauty reminds me of these lines from Auden: But it is only human to believe The little lady of the glacier lake has fallen In love with the rare bather whom she drowns Maybe that's because it's a killer book. I just love it to bits. And having owned it for all of two months, and fallen completely in love with it, I've sold it back to Mr Bedrock, for reasons unexpected that leave me very grateful to him. So let me tell you a story, and you'll understand. But first, let me mourn the book.