Jellyfish

Small Aims, Ignoble Acts –

 The wedding is over, finally, after three days of public ceremonies. There might be private ones going on but since those are for the inner circle, that is, those who are actually wanted and generally together, people who were roped in to show faces to the public are out. The bride and bridegroom were royal for a few days, they are more human now living as a married couple with his parents and the others in the family. The facades have been maintained carefully and with success on the whole, and if people have been maligned behind their back some have been blissfully oblivious. 

 One such oblivious woman was pawed by a sister-in-law, in presence of (and presumably with consent of or even delight of) her mother-in-law, to the unannounced and undeclared purpose of "seeing her jewellery" - the younger one could do little taken by surprise and unaware then of the implications of the public show of their assumed right to examine her anywhere any which way they pleased, and rearrange her apparel as they pleased. She stood quietly and then just as quietly, determinedly, rearranged it to her own way, right there, while they possibly disapproved of the temerity of this younger woman. The younger one is over fifty, but unless she learns to be just as rude or lethal in more subtle and devious ways, she is helpless. She despises such ways and has to constantly fend off or be stung. 

 Once she was at a beach with some cousins and they were stung by transparent electric-blue threads wrapping around their ankles, most unusual in that part of the world at least till then. It was difficult to get the blue threads out and it took some time before she figured out it must have been jellyfish, something that looks so beautiful when quietly swimming in its own depth but so hurtful when encountering another species, such as humans. 

 This pawing elder sister-in-law is no different - she probably is considered charming somewhere, but she has certainly not imbibed the civilisation or culture of the still British colony she has lived in for a quarter of a century, and this is perhaps why she is happier visiting and parading as the virtuous one who keeps the old ways. If it is necessary to ask for any permission of a younger relative-in-law before pawing her and rearranging her stuff, she would scorn it conveniently - just as she would inform her new blond daughter-in-law not to consort with the one who goes in for the lib stuff; if she is not completely successful in the last one it is only an incentive to spur her efforts to keep the two younger ones related to her by their marriages apart from each other, so they do not make a union to defend themselves against her power over them. 

 The other one in the scene, the common relative, probably had more than one reason to have her not so young daughter-in-law pawed - one of course was about having her powerless in public and fuming, unable to be rude without notice, - and if she had been able to defend herself she would be looked at innocently and called touchy and rude at the very least, for certain - but the other was more insidious, that of having the pawed one's jewellery credited to herself (if the pawer was so interested in looking she went on touching and pulling and rearranging it is a wonder she never asked where it was bought and so forth - which amounts to having been told it was given by the common relatives), which is convenient way of getting credit and retaining power and so on. 

 The pawed one is disgusted but has little power herself - she is uninclined to play such games and her logic is of little use against the need of the husband to believe in his mother, and any more attempt to disillusion him would give him a heart attack or a blood pressure danger. The old woman knows and could not care less, about the supposedly her own son and his health or happiness. Any danger to him would bereave the woman she would love to see on street without shelter. 

 So the younger one is alone, cornered, successfully isolated from human contact and support. The old witch leaves no opportunity, no stone unturned to remind her of who is in power, who pulls the strings, who can deprive her of everything including dignity of her very person in public at public occasions without any finger pointed to her old self. She shows off the bridal wear she was given as gift by the pawer (for the happy occasion of having acquired the new blond daughter-in-law), she is wearing it at the wedding of her own granddaughter.

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 Another not so young daughter-in-law, a little younger than the pawed one, is impressed by her in spite of herself and seeks to get over it in various ways. She probably is given some handle, some backdoor information, that she tries to use - without success. She goes on then about the philosophy taught to her by someone, mentioning the text. The intended one gets the message and the picture in the background as well. She is disillusioned about having been recipient of a friendly approach. 

 The pawer makes a joke in public about taking the place of the husband of the pawed one, and is angry when retorted this time by the so far silent one to the effect that it is only in a chair in a public hall - she pretends shock and loudly proclaims her own innocence of what the pawed one means, and thereafter makes no effort undone to let everyone know she not only is not speaking to her but taking away anyone who does speak to the outsider.

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 The ceremonies go on undisturbed on the stage and people who take part are called as and when they need to. Down in the audience the life continues in a more human way than at a similar occasion conducted more formally elsewhere - while some people watch, others chat and go around to find friends or relatives they wish to meet, taking advantage of the occasion. 

 Here is where the various power games are played of course - who is allowed to speak with whom, who is spirited away when not allowed to speak to the one demonstrably being punished for being out of line, who is making a public show of being intimate friends while not interested in meeting the same person ever without a public show to account for, who is making a show of a gift for an occasion that is in fact paid for by the one being given the gift in public, .... on and on the Machiavellian maneuvers go. 

 A very close branch of the family is absent, and never so much as mentioned. If they were invited or not, whether they felt slighted by a lukewarm invitation - no clue whatsoever. Most of the guests are predominantly of one large branch of the family and the old woman in bridal wear, the grandmother of the bride, happily leaves her own in-laws unmentioned, unless they are working for her, silent, poor and meek. She has her scheme of the world fixed, and this one large branch rules over her and gives gifts while she rules over others. It has little to do with qualities of personae and more with other factors - chiefly about who she thinks is in power and whom she would allow that power.

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 The couple that was maneuvered into showing face and allowing the elaborate pretense of everything-is-well-and-we-are-bosom-friends is spurned privately when they offer to host an invitation, the young bride has been extremely rude on more than one occasion to them and while she is not averse to having them roped in to show themselves publicly she would keep her stance of repudiating any advances of a normalisation whatsoever. They give up the attempt at an invitation to the new couple and declare they don't care if the bride wears the ceremonial occasional gift they brought, in fact they would be quite happy is she did return the expensive object - she hits on the brilliant idea of wearing it and taking a photograph to thwart both the possibilities, so they are neither honoured by her wearing it for the occasion nor can claim it back and use it. She might throw it away or give it away after this but she knows they would not have it back, and the expense has been made clearly irrecoverable and useless as well as spurned. 

 They have been spurned successfully after having been roped for the show, and silently let know they can neither maintain a distance and their own peace nor have any relationship or intimacy - they are not on par with the old woman's in-laws used for work, is about it, but used and thrown away until next occasion they certainly are.

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 The bride had publicly declared that anyone claiming to have any non-rational experience "had something to do with their brain" - not clearly stating that she meant something wrong with the brain, but allowing the inference very clearly, and ready to deny it if asked, while pouncing on the one who would ask. Now for three days in public and certainly much more in private she has not only consented but happily gone along with the very religious ceremony, and she would be happy to explain it was for sake of others, not caring this exposes her as a fraud openly. Hypocrisy is not new to them - the old grandmother had advised the grandson be not tonsured but only have a lock slightly shopped, fashionably, on his occasion of a ceremony. So they distribute the sweets often from a popular temple in another state but throw a worshipped photograph of a great persona under feet to show the unwanted (roped in) relatives their stance without a word.

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The old woman had insisted on giving the ceremonial "gift" to the unwanted younger couple publicly, as a traditional "price of taking the traditional part in the ceremony". She instructs them to get what they would like and offers the younger couple for the purpose the money they had given her to enable her to spend for the ceremony, the whole being convoluted beyond possible pretense of honesty. The younger woman has been slighted once too often and this is not the occasion nor the manner of when she would accept the first gift from her mother-in-law. She makes it clear they do not need to make the convoluted money transaction, and the money they gave in the first place was for the purpose of the old woman to enable her to give gifts to her various other more fitting recipients - the bride, other grandchildren. They - or at least she - won't accept frauds.

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The memory of the jellyfish is still vivid in memory. That was a real jellyfish, accidentally thrown to the shore and defending itself, perhaps merely looking for food. Human forms of those that are cephalopods in spirit are not so easy to defend against or to get over. And besides, they are ready as soon as one recovers, to sting again.

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