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'The Imp of the Perverse' is the title of a Poe story that stuck.
This chappie wanted to kill his victim and inherit his wealth with such finesse that he would never be caught. And he gets his clue from a French historical narrative in which a person gets smothered and killed by an accidental poison in his candle wax. So one night he deftly substitutes a poisoned candle at the bedside of his victim knowing well his bedtime reading habits. And by the morning the victim is gone (and so did the candle I guess). The coroner's verdict was that it was an act of the 'Hand of God'. After inheriting the phenomenal wealth and knowing that his act of subtlety would never be detected, he revels in it for some time.
But there was this gnawing itch...precisely....he is safe and no one can catch him...'unless he himself confesses'. This Imp of Confession grows on him and takes hold of him day after day and hour after hour. Till he no longer can conceal his secret within his bosom.
So, one day he goes about telling everyone how nicely he killed his uncle. And the Judge and the Jury are convinced of his confession and convict him to the prison and then the gallows.
At last...he feels free from his Impish Itch.
I come from a family of orthodox brahmins. My grandfathers on either side sported chutis on their scalp and wore dhutis and sacred threads and bindis or leopard stripes (vertical or horizontal) and were pure vegetarians denying themselves the pleasures of the palate like the onion and the garlic, got married at a tender age of innocence and stayed faithful to their wives and brought up half a dozen and more of kids who survived the ravages of pox and plague, with utmost discipline.
And they believed in astrology, kundalis, horoscope-matchings, talismans and chants, untouchability, widow-tonsure and such barbaric acts that go with it...sorry sirs!
One noon when I was in my Class VII in our seaside village Muthukur and playing monkey-drops from cashew trees, I was summoned home and given a hand-fan and asked to stand beside my Father's proprietary arm-chair which hosted a lean and mean Swamijee in ocher robes, and fan him vigorously.
And as I took to my unwilling duty, he was reading my horoscope that was handed to him by my mom who has this weakness to know not only her future but also of her only son. And the Swamijee with his Gandhi specs running onto his nose was predicting the future as well as the personality of his victim thus:
"The bearer of this kundali will turn out to be the black sheep of his family...he will pull out his sacred thread and garland it around the neck of the nearest pi-dog in the street...he will smoke, drink, dance, debauch, eat mutton, chicken, fish and perhaps hog and cow...he will not listen to the dictates of his parents...he has a perverse sense of fairness and scowl on the brahminical customs and rituals like widow-tonsure, untouchability, pujas, mantras, tantras and will not visit our ancestral temples like Tirupati...he will leave his home and hearth and settle down in an alien land where there is no vegetarian food for love or money and where brahmins eat fish, and goats are slaughtered in the holy precincts of their temples..."
...and so on and so forth...merrily.
After his duty done, he asked my mom whose horrorscope that was?
And she pointed to me standing by his side reverentially and fanning him with such fury that the in-house flies denounced me as a spoilsport.
Upon which the Swamijee got up and embraced me and asked me to forget what all he told as just a big joke...
...You all know how nicely and perversely I tried and toiled to make all his predictions come true...just to teach my mom a lesson...so she woouldn't show my son's kundali to her pet Swamijee...I don't know...I didn't ask her...
...Posted by Ishani
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'The Imp of the Perverse' is the title of a Poe story that stuck.
This chappie wanted to kill his victim and inherit his wealth with such finesse that he would never be caught. And he gets his clue from a French historical narrative in which a person gets smothered and killed by an accidental poison in his candle wax. So one night he deftly substitutes a poisoned candle at the bedside of his victim knowing well his bedtime reading habits. And by the morning the victim is gone (and so did the candle I guess). The coroner's verdict was that it was an act of the 'Hand of God'. After inheriting the phenomenal wealth and knowing that his act of subtlety would never be detected, he revels in it for some time.
But there was this gnawing itch...precisely....he is safe and no one can catch him...'unless he himself confesses'. This Imp of Confession grows on him and takes hold of him day after day and hour after hour. Till he no longer can conceal his secret within his bosom.
So, one day he goes about telling everyone how nicely he killed his uncle. And the Judge and the Jury are convinced of his confession and convict him to the prison and then the gallows.
At last...he feels free from his Impish Itch.
I come from a family of orthodox brahmins. My grandfathers on either side sported chutis on their scalp and wore dhutis and sacred threads and bindis or leopard stripes (vertical or horizontal) and were pure vegetarians denying themselves the pleasures of the palate like the onion and the garlic, got married at a tender age of innocence and stayed faithful to their wives and brought up half a dozen and more of kids who survived the ravages of pox and plague, with utmost discipline.
And they believed in astrology, kundalis, horoscope-matchings, talismans and chants, untouchability, widow-tonsure and such barbaric acts that go with it...sorry sirs!
One noon when I was in my Class VII in our seaside village Muthukur and playing monkey-drops from cashew trees, I was summoned home and given a hand-fan and asked to stand beside my Father's proprietary arm-chair which hosted a lean and mean Swamijee in ocher robes, and fan him vigorously.
And as I took to my unwilling duty, he was reading my horoscope that was handed to him by my mom who has this weakness to know not only her future but also of her only son. And the Swamijee with his Gandhi specs running onto his nose was predicting the future as well as the personality of his victim thus:
"The bearer of this kundali will turn out to be the black sheep of his family...he will pull out his sacred thread and garland it around the neck of the nearest pi-dog in the street...he will smoke, drink, dance, debauch, eat mutton, chicken, fish and perhaps hog and cow...he will not listen to the dictates of his parents...he has a perverse sense of fairness and scowl on the brahminical customs and rituals like widow-tonsure, untouchability, pujas, mantras, tantras and will not visit our ancestral temples like Tirupati...he will leave his home and hearth and settle down in an alien land where there is no vegetarian food for love or money and where brahmins eat fish, and goats are slaughtered in the holy precincts of their temples..."
...and so on and so forth...merrily.
After his duty done, he asked my mom whose horrorscope that was?
And she pointed to me standing by his side reverentially and fanning him with such fury that the in-house flies denounced me as a spoilsport.
Upon which the Swamijee got up and embraced me and asked me to forget what all he told as just a big joke...
...You all know how nicely and perversely I tried and toiled to make all his predictions come true...just to teach my mom a lesson...so she woouldn't show my son's kundali to her pet Swamijee...I don't know...I didn't ask her...
...Posted by Ishani
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