Romancing the Moon

THERE ARE TWO moons. One is serene and light-hearted, the other divine.

History does not record whether the first couple Eve and Adam preferred a full moon on their date night, but I can see a practical hitch given their residence. Paradise is above the moon in cosmic geography. Romance looks up for the magnetic tug of the mystical moon: witness, for instance, Nargis and Raj Kapoor in Chori Chori singing “yeh chand pyara pyara”. It isn’t quite the same if you are looking down on the moon, is it? Maybe the eternal bonds between love and the moon started with the more earthy Gen 2.

Inevitably human beings, vulnerable to imbalance, slipped from adoration of luna (Latin for moon) to the haphazard deviations of lunacy. The ethereal, eternal moon is haunting and possessive. The sun is too strong for the eyes. The moon can bewitch you forever. But the moon has never been mad, even if Othello, heroic victim of lethal stupidity, blamed the lowering moon for making men insane. Masters of denial, men transferred their frailty to the moon’s power.

This power and influence has been both epic and bizarre, inspiring spectacular poetry and terrible verse. We turned the moon into a symbol of eternal love and the destination of witches riding a broom. We taught our children to laugh at the cow which jumped over the moon while a dish ran away with the spoon. We also made the moon into the primary source for a calendar as it was a perfect metaphor for time, for it changed, every day. The feckless moon waxes and wanes; Romeo pleads with Juliet not to swear by the moon for it is fickle and inconstant. This was the dark side of the moon.

The other side of duality was divinity, as Selene in Greece, Luna in Rome, Coyolxauhqui in Aztec Mexico, as Chandra or intoxicating Som in Sanskrit India. Chandra was steadfast and bountiful, lord of the nakshatras, parent of Lord Krishna’s lunar dynasty, child of Atri, who was born from Brahma’s mind; a subdued and glorious radiance across our world as Jyotsna, or Jyoti, the divine light. Every full moon, or Purnima, is cause for worship and celebration: Holi, Hanuman Jayanti, and worship of the Guru in the month of Ashada. Buddha was born, enlightened, and died on the full moon day of Baisakha. The moon is glimpse and embodiment of divine benevolence.

For Indians, Chandrayaan’s touchdown on the surface of the moon is something more than science. It is an encounter with the crust of faith and philosophy. The genius scientists who created the reverse umbilical cord to a mother goddess took us to an orb of magic spinning in the cosmos, and also to a cave of our imagination where live the mysteries of creation.

Scientists are the heroes of our age.

THE FRONT PAGE headline in a Goa newspaper on August 14 conveyed more about endemic waste in governance than many a tome by an economist. Auditors of the Central government could not find any proof of how the state government had spent over `2,000 crore of public funds. `1,618.5 crore disappeared from just four departments: panchayats, municipalities, education, and art and culture. Now you know which ministry to ask for when bidding starts for portfolio allocation. With a straight face and pious eyes, Goa’s finance ministry told the Auditor General of India that it would introduce measures to ensure that in future public funds were utilised for intended purposes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And what of the funds that have disappeared? Ask no questions, get no answers. If this is the laissez-faire spending in a small state what happens in the big ones?

SAD NEWS, FOR some of us. English, after being the primary vehicle of international conversation for two imperial centuries by ingesting and digesting words and phrases from any language it met on the way, has surrendered to 21st-century multinationals. A new language is already rampant, wreaking havoc on grammar, noun, verb, syntax with 13th-century Mongol ferocity.

The conqueror is Globlish, tongue of tech, lingua franca of mobiles and social media, a jumble of alphabets and icons without consonants, vowels or verbs: xint, tch, mm, brr, and if you are truly high-IQ, phpht. Tech has time only for the implicit. Last seen, Globlish, having received an upgrade from ChatGPT and allies, was audaciously seeking a route map to literature.

Globlish. When a revisionist historian tries to assign credit for this word elsewhere, remember that you read it here first. Did I hear an Oldie mumble that the correct term was Ghoulish, not Globlish? Did I hear myself argue that Artificial Intelligence will never subjugate Intelligence? Is it time for me to step aside and leave the debate alone? I remain an optimist. When some Chatbox writes an Agatha Christie or Leo Tolstoy, the intelligent human will buy a pirated edition for 10 cents. Why pay for the author? That will destroy the business model of Globlish.

WHY HAS NATIONAL Lazy Day, celebrated with such admirable devotion in America every August 10, escaped India’s attention? Indians know how to convert laziness into an art form. Our wonderful way of doing nothing is excitable gossip. Couch potatoes are for spuds. For us, dictatorship is not someone trying to regulate our life; it is about someone trying to regulate our chatter.

Some serious research into holidays, which means a quick look at Google, tells me that the average number of holidays in 165CE, the heyday of the Roman Empire, was 135. They did not have weekends. Instead, there were festivals, imperial birthdays, and trade union rights. Plumbers’ Day honoured their patron Saturn; merchants feasted on May 15 in the name of Mercury; in June it was the turn of bakers, and so on. Mars, the muscular god of war, and Fortuna, the tough goddess of luck, got multiple revels. Slaves were given the liberty to eat, drink and be merry on August 13. When the pious philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius tried to cut down celebrations, bureaucracy intervened, and the inverse happened. The number of holidays rose to 177.

THERE’S ALWAYS A gem sparkling somewhere in an intelligent magazine. Here is a gem from the Spectator. Vladimir Nabokov, author of Ada and Laughter in the Dark, gave only pre-written answers in interviews. Never undermined by modesty he told one journalist: “I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.” Unique. Grave. Candid. Alas, we who cannot claim the shield of genius must think on our feet, check what we write, and hope that distinguished editors will not sniff at columns sent for their consideration.

FIVE OF US met for lunch at Sai, a pleasant fish-without-frills restaurant in Corjim, a quiet and forgotten corner of Goa. A mobile rang. One friend got up with furrowed brow, spoke, returned to the table and told us with charming nonchalance that a cobra had entered her home while we were feasting on fish. Her house-help had not panicked, and the reptile had left with as little fuss as it had arrived. No one kills a snake in Corjim, or anywhere else in Goa. If it refuses to move, an emergency service catcher will take it away. We returned to fish and chat. The sangfroid wobbled when a picture followed on WhatsApp, but the moral of the story remains unchanged. Violence breeds violence. Respect nature and nature will respect you.

And keep the doors shut.

About The Author

MJ Akbar

MJ Akbar is the author of, among several titles, Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan. His latest book is Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns

•