By Khura Seraton
“What nice poses these body builders of our motherland are displaying in this cold winter evening. As I need not say, how cold the weather is today. The kinds of heavy jackets that we have put on are to keep ourselves warm. But look at these contestants! With bare minimum clothes on their bodies they are right now giving us treat of a beautiful choreography of the human body and their muscles `¦` I heard this commentary during live telecast of a body building competition which was held at the Gandhi Memorial Hall many moons back. To watch a body building competition is always a treat, especially during winter season when you are wrapped with layers and layers of clothes. The athletes give you assurance that you can still be alive with the small piece of cloth covering only the trunk. They along with their different physical stances enlighten you that your body can be shaped into a beautiful organic engine rumbling with energy and strength. Pointless to say anything more about their muscles; each parts which look neatly baked with desired shape and sizes inside an oven, pasted on their bodies with Super Glue especially for the competition. But that is not the case, not at all.
You know how hard these athletes work to make their bodies muscularly visible even from the last row seats of an auditorium. Now, coming back to the commentary that I have mentioned in the beginning, it continued like this, `Have a look, everybody, have a look `¦ they are the sons of the soil, on the stage right in front of you, flexing each and every muscles of their body `“ to bring about an egalitarian society in the land.` I was the lone audience of the television in the room that day. I was not sure if I heard it correctly about the `egalitarian society`™ in the commentary. Post dinner, I confirmed it from one of the neighbours who never miss live programmes on local television network. He also heard the same about the `egalitarian society`™ in the commentary. Since then, I have been paying attention, as much as I can, to most of the commentaries during body building competitions held in the vicinity either on live TV shows or event held elsewhere. But much to my chagrin, I am not been able to listen to the same commentary made on that wintry evening by a lively commentator. More particularly about the `egalitarian society`™ part of the commentary, which have remained in my ears since that day.
I have not tried to think much about building an egalitarian society by building our bodies and flexing our muscles in front of a large audience wearing bare minimum clothes. Neither have I tried sharing the idea with anyone. But I like that man, that unknown commentator who believed that our society can be shaped by shaping our bodies. Or was the statement just an offhand ornamentation of words to add more spark to his firework of commentaries?
In a different occasion, some moons after, I happened to attend a poetry reading session, invited by a close friend. In fact, it was a sort of book launching function. The book was an anthology of poems written by a budding poet, who had developed a penchant of writing poetry early into his mid-fifties. You fall into the poetry or the poetry falls into you, age is not a factor. This budding poet takes out time to write poems from his high profile government job in the finance department. That day, he told us that poems visit him at odd hours, even during a crucial departmental meeting. And as a poet, he made them sit on any sheets of paper available around, through his pen.
Well-known poets and some faintly-known poets were invited to speak on the book, more precisely on the poems written by the budding poet. The poets spoke, one after another. Meanwhile, I had gone for a while to the washroom. On my return, the newly released book which was distributed to every one of us present on the day was missing. I mean, the book that I got as one of the invitees was missing which I had left on my seat. I thought, I will request the organiser or the poet himself to hand me another copy, if I fail to find the book after the function. An invited-well-known poet was on the microphone. He was reading out some of the poems from the book. He appreciated the effort of the budding poet for his determination of writing beautiful poetries. He said, pointing to the some of the folded pages of the book `the folded pages are the selected poems of this book, which I think is striking to me. I have folded them the previous night`. He went on to speak for about ten minutes more. Next speaker was called out. After a while, the poet who just spoke came to me handed a book to me and said `don`™t mind that I have folded some pages of the book`, and he left with a smile.
I thought I have found the lost commentator.