A Kite, A String and A Bridge..

 

There is this famous story about the first suspension bridge over the Niagara River. It is the tale of a 16 year old kite flyer Homan Walsh and supervisor of building works Theodore Hulett. As the legend goes, post the War of 1812, a conflict between the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its own allies, the relation between the USA and Canada had reached a bottomless nadir. But by 1847, the relationship between the two huge North American countries had thawed enough due to two reasons - a booming economy south of the Niagara River, and great economic potential up north. A bridge spanning the gorge was envisioned to provide a highway over the gorge and allow commerce and people to pass more freely between Canada and the United States. A bridge was needed to span the turbulent river that marked the border between the British Empire (Canada) and the nation that had declared its independence from Great Britain just 70 years earlier (USA).

An engineering firm was hired to design the first suspension bridge over what was deemed an unbridgeable and treacherous chasm—the Whirlpool Rapids, just above the famous Falls. Charles Ellet, Jr. was hired to construct the bridge. At 800 feet across, and 225 feet above the water, it was the narrowest point between the two sides. Ellet and his colleagues held a dinner meeting at the Eagle Hotel in the Village of Niagara Falls, to brainstorm the problem. Ellet proposed the use of a rocket. A bombshell hurled by a cannon was also suggested. Local ironworker, Theodore G. Hulett, suggested offering a cash prize to the first boy who could fly his kite to the opposite bank. Depending on which version of the story you prefer, supervisor of the building works Theodore Hulett either personally solved the architectural puzzle of how the bridge could be built, or else got his brainstorm from watching boys fly kites out over the Whirlpool Rapids.

Hulett organized a kite-flying contest for January, the coldest month of the winter, with the goal of landing a kite—and its string—on the other side of the chasm. Dozens of Canadian and American boys responded to the challenge, which included a prize of $5, worth more than $150 in both Canadian and U.S. currencies today. One talented kite-flyer, 16-year old Homan Walsh, crossed the river well above the rapids and successfully landed his kite on the American side early in the contest, only to have the string break. Marooned by bad weather on the Canadian side of the Niagara for more than a week, Walsh finally retrieved his kite and tried again two weeks later, letting out hundreds of feet of string as the prevailing westerly Canadian winds carried his kite—symbolically named “Union”—out over the swirling rapids. Toward nightfall, as the winds died down, “Union” settled in a tree on the U.S., and the string was secured by Hullet’s associates.

And over that string, Hulett’s engineers drew a slightly heavier string, riding on a silver ring. And over the slightly heavier string, an even heavier string. And over the heavier string, a rope. And over the rope, the first, thin metal wire—until strand by strand, one small step at a time, incrementally but irresistibly, the foundation for the first suspension bridge over the Niagara River was built.

And it all rested on a kite string.

Yes, let it be said: there’s a string—a kite string—beneath all hopeful moments when our broken, proud humanity makes peace with other broken, proud human beings. Someone swallows hard, and deliberately puts aside the memory of the latest injury to send an olive branch—or just a twig—to an opponent on the other side …..

The 'Hairy' Story...

 

This is a 'hairy' situation, amidst these pandemic times...

And trust me when I say this - the bristling possibilities of your moustache fills up my thoughts day in and day out. The wispy strands have managed to give me sleepless nights and jittery days!

Wise men - in all probability with flowing healthy well- nourished moustaches - say that the Greek word 'mastax' was purloined by the chivalrous Scots and mutated it to 'mystax', which means mouth or lips. Later in the course of history, the Greeks retrieved their word and rechristened it 'moustakion'. The Italians called it 'mostaccio'. Finally the French gentlemen conquered the prized word and gave the word ' moustache', sometime around the last quarter of the sixteenth century...

I have been trying to understand your recent attachment to those bristles on your upper lip..Maybe you took inspiration from the knights of the Dark Ages who, as they say, used custom-made helmets to keep their flowing moustaches safe. 

I feel a strong kinship with the celebrated novelist Mulk Raj Anand today. I allowed myself to dig the ‘scary and ‘hairy’ dungeon of my rusted memory to reminisce about Anand’s famous short story, A Pair Of Mustachios, and recollected the various categories of the ‘ornament’ which you are obsessed with at the moment. Anand classified moustaches into different categories. The lion moustache is upstanding symbol of that great order of resplendent rajas, maharajas, nawabs and English army generals; the tiger moustache - the uncanny, several-pointed moustache worn by the unbending, unchanging survivals from the ranks of the feudal gentry who have nothing left but pride in their greatness and a few mementoes of past glory; the goat moustache—a rather unsure brand, worn by the newly-rich, the new commercial class and the shopkeeper category who somehow don’t belong. Then there is the Charlie Chaplin moustache worn by the lower middle class, by clerks and professional men, a kind of half-and-half affair, deliberately designed as a ‘compromise between the traditional full moustache and the clean-shaven Curzon cut of the sahibs like them to keep mustachios at all’; the sheep moustache of the coolies and the lower orders the mouse moustache of the peasants, and so on…

While the Indian men seem to have equated the ‘health’ of their moustaches with virility and muscularity fairly early in history, the British picked up the cue later (like you did in your middle-age). British military adventurers started getting orders to grow facial hair to stay fighting fit in cold climates and to command respect from their new subjects in Asian colonies. The modern Indian military is also very conscious of the ‘moustache saga’. The Indian Navy only places grooming restrictions on facial hair, banning neither the beard nor the moustache, and Sikh servicemen have always been exempt from the beard ban. In Indian Air Force, you can retain a beard and moustache if you enter the service wearing these.  Across the border, many Pakistani servicemen are allowed to keep beards, but some have clashed with their superior officers, and even gone to court, over service rules that rigidly control the length and style of these beards. You can see quite magnificent whiskers in certain Army units, like the Madras Regiment and the Rajput Regiment. And when the Indian Air Force's Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman crossed over to Attari in India from Wagah in Pakistan, his gunslinger whiskers charmed the entire nation. His whiskers became more popular than the tales of his stint in Pakistani captivity, and even more famous than his tea-sipping ceremony in enemy land. Many consumer brands piggybacked on Abhinandan’s resplendent moustache. Barber shops bombarded prospective customers with posters of his face. The famous brand  Amul resurrected a four-year-old commercial, encouraging Indians to drink milk and dedicated it “To Abhinandan" - wand capped with a slogan that is also a popular Indian maxim—“mooch nahin to kuch nahin”. The safe return of the moustache, and also the wing commander (yes, in that order), created an unprecedented wave of mass hysteria . While I had not foreseen this sort of obsession with a few hard facial hairs on the tense morning of India- Pakistan’s air battle, over the last few months I have realized how these bristles can make or break destinies...

I have really wondered, and wondered seriously, about one thing – why have you decided to sport a moustache (irrespective of its state of ‘natural growth’) instead of a full-bodied beard?  The answers I dwelled upon were of different genres. Unlike beards, the moustache is rarely a sign of orthodoxy or religious inclination. Maybe you were inspired by the Rajputs, who are synonymous with valor and power; they are historically depicted with moustaches rather than beards. Also, the beard is always serious (remember the bearded Bhishma of Mahabharata with a face-full of white beard?) while the moustache seems youthful and mischievous. Those bygone gentlemen look like they enjoyed their virile innocence, born of a time when beards were beards and men were men, when pathetic bristles did not  make gentlemen sheepish.

For me, facial hair is both funny and strange - it’s a weed that grows across the borderlands of folly and fashion. Maybe it has to do something with the fact that I am a female and can never grow a moustache. A luscious handlebar or an unimpressive patch, any form of moustache  is a great bane for me. Appreciating one is even more taxing. Some intellectuals may imagine that moustaches add gravitas to their already-blooming persona. Sometimes I wonder if a sizeable ration of  moustachioed gentlemen around me wear fake moustaches!!

Words!

As someone who has been an avid bibliophile since as far as I can remember, I have read many books in both my mother tongue Assamese as well in the language I did my schooling, that is English. I have realized that every language has an incredibly complex nature, and word-for-word translation often becomes difficult. While translator galore have done incredible jobs of translating an array of Assamese literary works into English, I have come across innumerable Assamese words which is yet to get its apt English counterpart…

Long before ‘babes, ‘bae’, ‘honey’, ‘darlo’,  etc. came into vogue, husbands and wives addressed each other as heri(হেৰি)  and hera (হেৰা) ; no English word can match the ‘feel’ of hera/heri. This was way before the husband was addressed by the wife with the former’s first name; anyone who did so was considered as too ‘modern’ for those times. Heri and hera are almost lost entities now, with some distant great aunt ringing dwindling memories of those forgotten childhood days by addressing her husband as ‘heri’.

Another word which I first encountered during high school days is mokkel (মক্কেল). The word supposedly means ‘client’ in English (please correct me if I am wrong). But in our daily life, ‘mokkel’ refers to someone disgusting and unlikeable. Also, the lingo of most Assamese people (both young and old) is almost incomplete with the endearing ‘bey’ (বে) which has no appropriate English counterpart. Likewise, it will be gross injustice if we even attempt to translate ‘kamur’ (কামুৰ/কামোৰ) to English – though the word implies ‘bite’ in the colonial language, it cannot match the feeling with which we address a person as ‘kamur’ in Assamese, which is used to refer to someone who is immensely, totally and unbelievably boring in nature…

We have also embraced some words from other languages and have groomed them with our vernacular zeal. Take the word ‘level’ (লেভেল) for instance. ‘Level’, for an average Assamese, is not a position on a scale or a horizontal plane; it implies impudence and false pride or narcissism. And ‘kosom’ (কচম্) for us is much more than the patriotic tirade of Sunny Deol in Gaddar-Ek Prem Katha. It is the emotional meltdown of many a drunken dreams. Allow me to venture into this some more and dig up the word ‘seni’ (চেনি). While for a toddler who has just started to vocalize ‘seni’ will mean ‘sugar’ in English, for the hormonally charged teenagers or the luscious dames, ‘seni’ will simply imply an overtly flirty and cheesy male.

Be it immense wealth or ethanol of any kind (local/branded) or an utterly glamorous and attractive woman, genuine appreciation will be meted out only by addressing the same as ‘maal’ (মাল). While the word was considered insulting and casual in the days of yore, ‘maal’ has become an integral part of conversations these days. On the same vein, when we say ‘baah khale’ (বাঁহ খালে), we do not mean that the person we have addressed has stared chewing on bamboo shafts! (‘Baah’ is the Assamese word for bamboo). We use this phrase to refer to a loser, or someone who has been cheated or taken for a ride. And while ‘tenga’ means ‘sour taste’ in Assamese, it is popularly used to refer to an undesirable and unsatisfactory situation or person.

Imagine a situation where you bump into an old friend and he/she gives you the grand ignorance. How will you narrate the situation to your peers later? You will of course say that you ‘ghenta’ care for people like those. I was unable to find an appropriate English word for ‘ghenta’, but it means something akin to insouciance. Now take the word ‘lilimai’ (লিলিমাই) – it is neither the name of some exotic orchid nor does it refer to any known entity. As far as my understanding about the word goes, ‘lilimai’ means doing something aimlessly, or without any meaning or purpose.

Then there are a few words whose literal translation from Assamese to English will be hilarious, if not abominable. For instance, there is an insect which we commonly call gubarua (গুবৰুৱা); if we go by the literal meaning of this, it will translate to ‘stool-Barua’ in English, with ‘Barua’ being a common surname in Assam (and in some parts of West Bengal too).

“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”,
remarked  the great philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. I guess life would not have been so vibrant and diverse without these words. Rather than losing the actual meaning of some words in translation, we need to embrace them whole heartedly in their vernacular form. And now, let me cap my pen before you label me a ‘kamur’!