The Ball Poem

 (John Berryman, on "the epistemology of loss")

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do?  I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went.  I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless.  Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions.  People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back.  Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour... I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.

Still more Osho

We have forgotten how to wait; it is almost an abandoned space. And it is our greatest treasure to be able to wait for the right moment. The whole existence waits for the right moment. Even trees know it--when it is time to bring the flowers and when it is time to let go of all the leaves and stand naked against the sky. They are still beautiful in that nakedness, waiting for the new foliage with a great trust that the old has gone, and the new will soon be coming, and the new leaves will start growing. We have forgotten to wait, we want everything in a hurry. It is a great loss to humanity.... In silence and waiting something inside you goes on growing--your authentic being. And one day it jumps and becomes a flame, and your whole personality is shattered; you are a new man.

Dangerous Idiots: Lessons in desensitising through the new age media

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A classroom discussion today became almost cathartic, recall as it did some real-life blues. In an impressively perceptive essay, literary critic Christian Bok talks of the aestheticisation of violence in Michael Ondaatje's works. There is a conflict in Ondaatje, he says, between the withdrawal of the writer from society on the one hand and his social commitment on the other.

The argument made me turn to the glorification of violence in films, all the more pernicious for their immediate and overwhelming impact. You step out of the theatre after three hours of 'Three Idiots'. Your friend is visibly relieved the film is over -- the delivery scene nearly made her puke. Another friend is all praise for the film and the sound drubbing it issued to a competition-driven academia. You thought it was good in parts, but could have surely spared you some nauseating melodrama.

Twenty days later... what do you retain? The criticism, the 'message', the breathtaking shots of Shimla or a scene where students are lined up to submit to a most humiliating form of punishment that passes off as ragging? Add to the list recurrent motifs of literal pant-pulling and a funky brainer about putting the properties of salt water to good use. Remember Fungsuk Wangdu's school? This time around, it is children who display their precocious knowledge that salt water is a good conductor of electricity. But hey, wasn't this supposed to be a teach-those-cruel-seniors-a-lesson stunt? Those who have read Golding's Lord of the Flies would notice a similarity with Roger aiming a stone at the littluns.