IS IT TIME TO GET REAL?
By: Poonam Chawla
Tags: Reality, Opinion, Writer, Life Lessons

IS IT TIME TO GET REAL?

I seldom pay attention to opinion posts unless they are truly beautiful or intensely abhorrent — like the Orange Man’s tweets.

But recently, I came across two posts on FB that have me somewhat riled up.

The first is a black-and-white photograph of a village scene in India.

Yes. It is gorgeous. A single pot of water. Light smeared on the portico of a hutment. A tattered red scarf, like a brave flag, tied to a tree.

But it is the caption below that makes me furious:

“Ah! How I miss traveling through the villages of yesteryear. A way of life that was indescribably beautiful.”

Seriously? I have lived in a village. I have seen those hutments up close.

They are empty. Empty of water, electricity, food. A family of four or seven or ten sleeps side by side on the floor without beds and without coverlets.

Without hope.

Yes. Nature has a way of making all things luminous.

Who hasn’t seen the face of a tribal woman, weathered as a tree, reminiscent of the inextirpable mountains, captured by a photographer — possibly on National Geographic or some other Travel brochure?

But the photographer knows to not comment on the woman’s way of life. He does not pretend to know anything of her life except intuitively, that it was inexorably harsh.

The second post is a long, meandering essay written by someone I recently friended on FaceBook. A writer, according to his profile. Usually, once I start to read, I get through the entire post. Having read the post, I thought I would move on.

Well, my finger did. His opinion (couched in flowery language and many literary allusions), however, prickled then bloomed like a rash that just won’t go away.

It is now a week since he made his ruminations public and I am still scratching.

Here is his opinion-post in a nutshell:

The writer is attracted to a homeless man — there is a spontaneity, a sense of joy about him, that he believes is extraordinary.

Perhaps a glutton for experiences, he spends time with the beggar. Buys him a beer. A meal. Then moves on.

From time to time, he feels compelled to seek out the beggar, share a joint. They seldom talk, he says. They sit in silence. Companionably.

The dilemma?

He is afraid, he will lose his sometimes companion, to well-meaning activists, social workers who believe the homeless man needs a clean bed, a shower, some dignity.

He is afraid, once the homeless man gets a taste of comfort he will not want to return to his previous Zen-like existence. And the writer will lose this karmic connection with the minor character in his writing life.

Does this story bother you in any way, dear Reader? I for one can taste the bile in my mouth, even as I write.

The writer fears the loss of a beggar’s way of life? Fears that a superior quality of life — by superior I mean, three meals a day and a real bed — will alter the man’s mute acceptance of his shitty fate and send him on a downward spiral of food-comfort-shelter-dignity?

Like many writers, I borrow my characters from real life. But surely, I should want more for the downtrodden than have them remain like fixed points in a place and a page of my life? Surely, they ought to be more than literary fodder for self-absorbed dreamers?

Gather all the ambiance you want for your novel, I want to tell my FB friend. But don’t be so naïve as to romanticize the lives of others. Unless you have been in their ravaged feet, their flea-ridden mats, their watered-down meals, do not pretend you know them.

A shared meal. A beer. A joint does not make you brothers under your skin. The reason the homeless man sits in silence is that he needs the respite of a cigarette. Or because he is hungry. He does not need you. He may not remember you until it’s time for another meal. It is you who needs him — for your work of fiction.

In order to make a difference, we need to get real.