An Old lady among Wise Men and Women (with apologies to Keats and Eliot)

                                            An Old lady among Wise Men and Women

                                                  (with apologies to Keats and Eliot)

I was pleasantly surprised on opening my inbox to get an e-invitation to attend a seminar. I had retired eight years ago after a pedestrian innings as an academic for nearly four decades that had a silver lining at the fag end when I was elevated to the position of a Principal and Dean in the University of Delhi. Eight years are too long to be in anyone’s memory. Even Gandhiji and Nehruji are remembered only twice a year on their birth and death anniversaries. Of course periodical references to these two great men are made in seminars and from political platforms by ‘humble’ speakers who with false modesty speak about their small steps as compared to their giant strides.  It is a well known truism that out of sight is out of mind. Hence the e-invite put the fizz back in me and I swirled round as though I was thirty-seven and not seventy-three. People at my age pride themselves of being polite and courteous sending prompt reply mails, forgetting the truth that we have nothing else to do. So I promptly replied effusively expressing my happiness and gratitude for being remembered and that I was more than willing to contribute to the seminar my hoary  wisdom accumulated over four decades in my academic profession.

I was there at the seminar hall on time lest I should be noticed making a late entry. Little did I realize that times are not what they were even as back as a decade.  Today all celebrity speakers come late and make a grand entry so that they are well and truly noticed.  Small made that I am , looking frail as my age warranted, I felt a pipsqueak to sit alone at the empty circular conference table that had chairs for nearly thirty participants. I took a back seat behind the chairs and waited for someone to recognize me, greet me and say the usual polite words(even if they are not true) :”Oh, we are so glad that you could make it despite your busy schedule. Please be seated in the front row”. No such luck for me and the clock kept tick- tocking to prove that time and tide wait for none.

     After what seemed an interminable waiting, a few voices were heard repeating those words that I had been waiting for – but addressed to those celebrity arrivals who entered in casual attire with uncombed hair and rugged appearance becoming of intellectuals and seminarists.  In contrast I had put on a well ironed saree, stiff and starched and had my thin hair in place in a neat bun,  in keeping with the intellectual solemnity of the day. I looked an odd member there and the forty odd years of teaching Keats came to my mind as I wished to ‘ fade far away, dissolve and be forgotten’. The number of seminarists at the table was not enough to fill even the radius of the circular table and to my disbelief, I was suddenly recognized and requested to come to the front though by no stretch of spreading myself thin, I could have filled the rest of the chairs.

    The proceedings started with an apology from the organizer for the delay, citing the chaotic traffic on the roads as the villain that brought a wry smile, a sneer and a mournful ‘ha’ from the celebrities. Then there was an interminably long speech by the chairperson reading out of the printed papers (that had already been circulated to everyone in the audience) about the scope and objectives of the seminar. As the speaker droned on, it was time for the tea boy to make his appearance. He came deftly juggling a tray in one hand with cups and plates-with ‘chai’and samosa, cashewnuts and biscuits with the other hand carrying two jugs of coffee and tea. I was fascinated by his deft handling of the jugs –a four finger exercise and wondered why there was such a fuss about Ekalavya who was asked by Dronacharya to sever his thumb.

.   The eyes of the seminarists were diverted from the concept paper to the cup and plates with someone thanking the organizer for such a thoughtful idea of not breaking for tea and allowing the group to attend simultaneously to the twin tasks of energizing the mind and the body.

    Amidst the tea cups and samosas, the chairperson concluded his speech saying the house was open for discussion. He looked well pleased with his hour long speech ,grtaified with the polite clapping of hands  and wisely turned to those who were sipping tea (and not munching the eats)  to come forward to lend their words of wisdom. All were unanimous in singing paeans to the organizers for their wisdom and foresight in organizing a seminar on the topic of the times and its great relevance to society and nation and how they were really not well equipped to speak  though they could not refuse the kind solicitation of the chairperson and would therefore make a brief observation. I noticed that during these ‘brief’ observations everyone else was furiously scribbling on their notepads that were given to them in an attractive Rajasthani cloth folder.  My neighbor nudged me and asked me slyly whether I intended taking the notepad to my grandchildren as I had not used it. I smiled vacantly as I did not understand this quirkish remark. He continued in a low tone that everyone unlike me was busy writing out his/her own intervention and  that I should also get ready without wasting my time listening to the speeches. His remarks made me look around and recognize  in Keatsian language   ‘the weariness, fever  and the fret of  men(and women) who  sit and hear each other groan till their time came to offer  their pearls of wisdom.

    It was well past the lunch hour and I was the only one at the table who had not lent my smart wisecrack. Even as everyone started closing their folders and fidgeting, out of courtesy, the Chairperson called out my name as the last speaker of the day. Since everyone had rehearsed their speech when others were speaking, I felt discomfited to speak out of an empty notepad. I felt as foolish as Alfred Prufrock. Eliot’s lines blocked my thought process and kept hammering as words dried in my mouth. 

     And indeed there will be time

     To wonder,  “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

     Time to turn back and descend the stair,

     With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—        

     (They will say: “How her hair is growing thin!”)

    My stiff starched saree, my neck hanging loosely from the chin

   My saree folds in vertical rows asserted by a simple pin—

   (They will say: “But how her arms and legs are thin!”)

   Do I dare

   Disturb their  universe?

. And I have known the eyes already, known them all—      

  The eyes that fix me in a formulated phrase,

 And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

 When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

 Then how should I begin

 To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

 I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

 I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

 And I have seen all holding their folders and bags and snicker,        

 And in short, I was afraid.