Blank Gaze by Jose Luis Pixeto is one of the finest works of fiction that I have read in recent times.
The book is set in an obscure Portuguese village and pieces together some loosely linked stories.The characters do not stand out for their uniqueness. Rather they are very ordinary village dwellers albeit with some exceptions such as the devil and the Siamese twins joined at the tips of their little fingers and the grand old man Gabriel who has aged more than a century.
The book consists of two parts. On close reading one can discern that the second part is the retelling of the first part. A restatement of the monotonous cycle of human life.
It follows that we all are trapped in the same human condition. Our life goes on with the same pattern, of course with variations here and there. No body can escape that condition.
Pamuk writes that a man starts to grow old when he begins to imitate his father. I can relate myself to that statement. My father had a pair of reading glasses that he used to keep in a box provided by the optician. Every morning he got up , brushed his teeth, opened the box, brought out the pair of glasses and skimmed the newspaper over a hot cup of tea.
My life too begins the same way. The Same pattern. I have a pair of reading glasses that I keep gingerly in a box provided by the optician. I get up early in the morning,brush my teeth,open the box,bring out the pair of glasses and skim the news paper over a hot cup of tea. In other words I am imitating my father.(But hey! I am still young at heart!)
Maitreyi,Yajnavalkya's wife raised profoundly philosophical question:' shall I achieve immortality if the whole earth, full of wealth were to belong to me'?When Yajnavalkya answered in the negative, she remarked:'What shall I do with that by which I do not become immortal'? She too is trapped in the same human condition.
Every one is trapped in the same human condition. In our own time ,a minister or an official who has amassed astronomical wealth is not free from that either. There is no guarantee that he will not have diabetes or cancer or heart ailment. In other words he cannot achieve immortality .
Sathya Saibaba who was worshiped(he has property worth 40,000 crore rupees) as God by millions died this morning. The vital organs of his body refused to function as one day ours will do likewise. A God man for millions, alas! he could not achieve immortality.
We all are trapped in the same human condition.
I was just struck by a strange realization: In Saramago's "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" the Giant played a crucial role in Jesus being what he eventually became and in Piexoto's novel too the Giant demonstrates that 'the trap' cannot be transcended. One way or the other, our fates are already decided. We don't await our fates, our fates wait for us to complete our respective terms.
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