Three Girls on the Bridge in Search of Identity

The Story of Three Girls On the Bridge in search of Identity

Edvard Munch at Tate Modern

Three girls decided to cross the bridge. The bridge was made of ropes and wooden planks. The planks were weathered and the rope was sick. They had no work on the other side of the bridge. They wanted to cross it for the sake of fun and adventure. When they were almost at the midway the bridge broke. One girl fell down in the river, one was hanging by holding the rope and the third one was still standing on the plank of the bridge that was about to give way. The Fallen, The Falling and About to Fall are three women(girls became women when bridge brakes) about whom the whole literature of the world has been written. The women were not insecure, only bridge was insecure. The juxtaposition created an illusion which women enjoyed.

The river beneath the bridge thronged with dead bodies of male. From above the bridge they looked dead, but actually they were not dead. They were at various stages of unconsciousness. Youth was unconscious and elders whimpered inaudibly in semi consciousness. There were no children. No literature in the world has ever portrayed the suffering and agony of the gender of this species. The Nausea had caused Metamorphosis in The Strangers. They all had similar faces. Why would anybody take interest in them. They were all archetypes of cave man wearing different masks. Civilization taught them to conceal their true-type. They were basically disorganized, aimless and inactive. 

Women were organized, active and focused by their natural gift of virginity, menstruation and menopause. They searched for identity since they knew they have one. The man was even unconscious about that. He  became active only when provoked by women.

The level of consciousness of the males changed due to Fallen girl. The Fallen girl had the role models of Anna Karenina, Moll Flanders, Constance Chatterley  and Madam Bovary. All these women had flouted the prescribed norms of the society and lived their life in their own way. The society looked with awe, but did not dare to condemn them. The readers loved them. Atwood would appreciate them for being Bad Women. They did not care two figs about anybody's opinion. They were all part of a stream, which was not unidirectional. Magnanimity and meanness are unconfined. The Fallen women had more magnanimity.

Read Burn Me Naked.

The Falling woman who was still sticking to unstranded rope, and each strand was breaking under the pressure, looked up and down. She was not afraid to fall, she was just waiting for all strands to break and then she would have a natural fall. She remembered the naked dance of Connie in the rain. Connie was in unison with nature. The dance was not an effort of celebration, it was a synchronization of her entire being with all the elements of nature. She danced like a peacock. The final strand would break by her will to power.

The one who still stood on the damaged wooden plank of the bridge was Emma. She had a conditioned mind, initially. She thought fallen are lower class, falling are middle class and she herself was upper class. After repeated mistakes she had learned her lessons. Now she knew her "matchmaking" was actually voyeuristic and she always took pleasure in imagining those couple copulating. Thus she herself had vicariously enjoyed the clandestine pleasure of proximity and copulation with almost all the male characters around her. Now, after getting married with Mr. Knightly, who was much older than her, she knew in her heart that Harriet and Robert Martin would supersede her in  carnal pleasure. So about to Fall was in no way different from Fallen and Falling.

Vipin Behari Goyal

Author

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ABSURD TALE OF FLYING CARPET

                           Only Absurd Is Meaningful

I do not know what went wrong. It has stopped flying. It was made to fly. I had few wonderful journeys on it. I do not know anyone who can make it fly again.

This is no ordinary flying carpet. Half of it is woven with the thread of idealism and rest half has threads of realism. Though both the sides have many patterns. Like realism has patterns of Socialist Realism, Naturalism and American Realism. The other half, which is made of idealism threads has many intrinsic and complicated patterns, some of which though look beautiful are difficult to understand.

These patterns are called Classical Idealism, Subjective Idealism, Transcendental Idealism, Objective Idealism and Actual Idealism. Each pattern has the name of craft man on the corner of design some of which are very famous like Kant and Hegel.

The World is Conical and horizontally divided into two unequal halves, but my carpet is equally divided in two. But apparently one side is far more superior in look, texture, colors, aesthetics and designs.

It has a wonderful mechanism. When I want to fly to my native country Utopia I had to sit on the Idealism side of the carpet. When I want to fly to Dystopia I had to sit on Realism side.

I do not why both the patterns together were called Absurdism by people.

The flying carpet was very shy of others. No one else could fly on it except me. I could carry only that single female with me who loved me unconditionally. Consequently, I found no partner to fly with.

Once Ayn Rand wanted to fly with me. When she took her famous oath of Selfishness, the carpet agreed to fly. This is the first time I saw him breaking the rules. His realism side became active and a flower pattern which was marked as Existentialism and petals were made of Kierkegaard, Kafka, Sartre and Albert Camus had one more flower of Objectivism. That time Realism had more glamour than Idealism.

The flying carpet was really impressed that I was not ready to sacrifice my Individualism and due to my faith in Utilitarianism I gave preference to quality of pleasure.

The carpet was quite an amoralist. He never passed judgments about something being morally right or wrong. In a way he was Shakespearian "Nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so".

Though sometimes he would tell sarcastic jokes, but he was never sarcastic about Black, Jews, Polacks, Blondes or Sardars. He was far above petty human weakness of Egoism.

I think that was his basic quality which enabled him to fly.

Once I heard about a strange country. It was known as Conscience. That was a beautiful island inhabited by a single individual who was a true replica of me. It sent me a message by telepathy that my carpet was infected with the  virus of Ego. I was shocked. I did not know how to cure it. Conscience told it had permanent remedy. He also told me how I can do some First-Aid to make it fly. Moreover the Flying Carpet did not know the location of Conscience. The Flying Carpet was thrilled that I would cure him. He was always afraid of ennui. He always loved new designs and patterns carved on it. Sometimes he allowed something new just because it was New, even if it did not have any relevance.

Flying Carpet would have looked more beautiful without any of pattern and weaved by single colored thread of Humanism. May be the source of that thread is not normal human intellect.

When I tried to convince him the superiority of quantity over quality and advantages of simplicity he became adamant.  He didactically tried to prove that simplicity is absence of quality, and is not a quality in itself.

Once he proposed me to find a way to increase his size. I told him that his size is just suitable for the purpose he has been made. He is obsessed with the conviction that Size does matter.

He became desolate and introvert after that conversation. Now I can correlate that so many pattern made him egoistic and that is why he wanted to increase his dimensions.

How was our journey to island of Conscience? How did we reach there? Could Conscience cure the virus of Ego? Or virus could infect the Conscience and tried to kill it.

Read more adventures of Flying Carpet in coming issues.

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© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India