Vala / Karu

GOD makes everything so easily. so easy, rather. Here I am trying to
compose a leter in my arabian scrawl and in sruts the boy servant,
humming. his name (and here the spanish is more accurate, for i only
know, rather, what they call him) is Vala, or Karu ("blackie"). he is
a slight child of 9 or 10 who spends his days scrubbing the floors,
brining people water, and -- most demandingly -- moving pillows and
thin indian matresses (matices?) upstairs in the morning and
downstairs in the evening, to and from my room (the storeroom). which
is to say he watches a lot of television and serves as a sort of
existential therapist for my aunts, who can release the stress of
middle class living (it's tough oppressing people and living off of
the blood of the masses. and i'm not being sarcastic. it is tough. i
do it too. in an unjust world, everybody suffers -- because the many
are one -- it's just the textures that look different in the
spectacle).

so they can yell at him and order him to do things and even be nice to
him and all of it. it's a good service he does for them (god's work)
and a good service they do for him (god's work), taking a kid out of
school, home, and family to work and support his own.

if there was a point i could localize beneath the general WHOA of life
here and pervasive background crushing feeling of it being out of
mango season, it's that Vala comes in this morning and sees me writing
and I fumble for the words (what's it called for the thoughts that
come in your sleep?) and tell him I'm writing down my dreams. Which is
true for an hour ago and more interesting then love letters by a long
view anyways.

So he's "ooh" interested and I'm lie, "yeah, you know, it's pretty
important because when you're sleping your mind is shut so all the
thoughts when they do come where do they come from not me and not you
but from well it must be god." And he "ooh"s, still interested and
sure it's not exactly true but if i could translate the level of
detail to which i understand the distinction between (there are no
distinctions, mr. shah) conscious and unconscious selves, selves and
the Self, or what in my meditations ("go see mali"), dreams ("go to
brazil"), travels ("plant trees at LMO"), and trips ("BE LOVE TO ALL
AMAZON NOW") come from which God where and what percentage was buried
desire or higher self, well, it wouldn't be exactly true either.

"ooh" still interested. do you read? turns out slight Vala is
fourteen-fifteen (it's how he said it) and doesn't read in english,
gujarati, or hindi (this with some sadness, he said) and has been
serving here for five months and been working in general now some five
years maybe.

my language skills are still tumble dry of course but enough to want
to teach him gujarati those hours of the day he's wathing televesion,
and to know that i'm not really the man for the job, that dealing with
the criticism of the other servants and masters will require a more
eloquent saint than me. luckily i am bien enchufado in the world of
little gandhis and teresitas and im sure ill find one tonight during
my shift at the Seva Cafe. the key would be for the tutor to come to
the house at the downtimes, so the master wouldnt feel they were
losing their safetym their comfort, their opwer. they'd probably
clamour for attention at first with commandeering distractions but
eventually -- like all children when faced with a new game -- want to
join in and help with the play soon after.

after which maybe the little gandhi teresa figure could go to the next
house or hood ("society", as they say here, by which they can tell
your class status and whether marriage would be a step up or down)
where Vala's brother (literally, biologically) works, leaving a trail
of intimate master-servant pedagogistry in his/her holy wake. that's
the lotus that bloooms in my mind at least, always brashly searching
for a way out of a good situation, making sure the operator has my
exit in hand.

last week erik poiunted out that with such a vareity of projects and
concerns and localities and affinities in tumult in my
spacetimebodymind (for lack of the appopriate german term) I really
could use a partner. his way of telling me to "settle down" perhaps.
but i can take anything well from erik and it is No Small Wonder to me
that i've basically -- somehow, wittingly or not -- arranged my life
in ignorance or defiance of that principle, and yet despite
everything, throughout it all there have been people to love and to
support me, wanting and trying so hard to be my partner in whatever
capacity i needed.

again, this false antagonism of the sacred and profane persists -- in
seeing this i see those moments of overwhelming GRATITUDE in biblical
inundation as rivulets in a vast and desolate landscape of
incommensurate SCORN.

--
do you eat? www.somethingconstructive.net/jamanta