The Right to Forget

PICTURE: © IMTIAZ CAJEE, WITS UNIVERSITY

Ahmed Timol died when my mother was still young. She knew him- they all did, she said- he had gotten himself involved in politics and things had changed for him.
'But weren't you horrified? Didn't it scare you? Weren't you sad?' I was in school, and I had just read the article of him in the Sunday Times Magazine. There was a a black and white picture of him on the cover, staring solemnly into the camera, looking staid and neat and - young.
Younger than my mother could ever be, it seemed then.
'Well?' I prodded, whilst she walked around the kitchen and stuck her finger in the curry, squinched her face.
'Not enough salt, ' She clicked her tongue, and reached for the spice rack.
I heard her sigh. She turned around, waved a hand distractedly in the air.
'Listen. Yes, we knew him. Yes, he was killed. Those things- it happened then. It was....' she paused, looking for the right word- ' it was bound to happen. And it happened often enough... for us to - move on. Now go get the salad things. And remember to dry your lettuce first! You always make it too soggy.'
I walked off in a huff, swatting the cupboards with my rolled up magazine.
I didn't understand her. She sounded callous and unconcerned and not even vaguely interested in the past that held us all aloft and asunder.
I wanted to cut out that article of him- his picture- for it was rare enough to have an Indian man on the magazine cover. But my mother might have found it, and I didn't quite know how to explain it's presence.
Monday morning strolled in, and crumpled up Ahmed Timol's face in the bin- and I didn't say a word.

A few years later I was paging through our prescribed poetry textbook, and came upon this :

In Detention

He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.

© Chris van Wyk

I hated it on first sight. It was a stilted, stupid poem, and it was absolute nonsense. Why was it even in our textbook? I hated it so much that I would read it everytime I shuffled the pages. Read it and curl my lip in disdain and search for e.e.cummings instead. Search for something that sounded better.
But mostly, I thought it was a stupid poem because I had forgotten about the man who had fallen from the ninth floor.
I don't even recall when I started to remember again. It was a gradual thing, reading this poem and thinking how stupid it was....to reading it and understanding it with something like a sob in my heart.
For it is a gradual process- to look and finally understand the wisdom behind the apparent stupidity of another person.
It took me years to read the words, and see the lies it contained- and call it for what it was.
And even then- someone will scoff and say - What a stupid poem. It doesn't even make sense!- and forget to connect the dots when they switch on the news at night and hear how a thousand people fell from the ninth floor and a thousand others slipped on a piece of soap.
Because the ninth floor and the soap and the hangings change names all the time.

And now - fifteen years later- I know why my mother shrugged and walked away. I know all about those phone calls that throw you into hysterical panic and force you into looking over your shoulder and wincing at every sound. I know the relief when it is someone else- and not the person you know- who has died.
And watching the news, adding up the losses ,day by day, and ignoring the excuses - I know how you can say-
It happens all the time. You get used to it.

We must look forward to survive, and to heal. To learn when to preserve our anger and indignation and pain- for when it counts.
It's alright to cry at poetry. To sniffle during a movie . To wince and shake your head during the Alcoholics Anonymous ads littering our broadcasting space.
It's worthy to worry about the homeless puppy when it rains, and gasp at the plight of pandas refusing to mate in a Chinese zoo.
It's alright.
It proves our humanity, without taking apart our hearts and wringing dry our souls.
(And if we become like placid, calm beasts nosing the ground for the next meal- so be it.)
But we're not like the others- who were slaughtered like animals, and gunned down like dogs.
We will never be them. We've evolved- with our opposable thumbs and our government issued foresight and the lack of tails .
No tails to catch the past, to make us peer behind, to scratch our ears and swat away the mass produced mist.
We've evolved- and we walk upright into the future.

Now all this introspectin' has made me hungry.

Feed me- please?

(And on a slightly different slant, here's a link down another timeline:
http://ridwanlaher.blogspot.com/2011/03/salsa-picante_17.html
Don't read if you're fasting, though... )