Come again...NOOO!!!!

Come again...NOOO!!!!
3, 4 …5. She seems finally convinced that I have finally understood that she is finally unhappy with her maid servant. And that she has finally decided that she can manage her work herself. Finally being the operative word. Trust me it is not the height of entertainment to be the interpreter between my Northie neighbour and her Tamil speaking maid. Repetition is bad enough, angry repetition disturbs the count I keep of the number of times an idea is repeated. That is the best to do, I have discovered, when copies of the same oral output succeed each other.
Repetition, says Wikipedia, is a major rhetorical strategy for producing emphasis, clarity, amplification, or emotional effect. Emotional blackmail almost I would say, going by my neighbour’s rhetorics. Never mind that the servant is least moved and retorts in one word answers-once.
Disjunctio, epanodos, epimone, exergasia, expolitio, homiologia, hypozeuxis, palilogia, synonimia, scesis onomaton, tautologia….quite an alluring assortment of names for something as repetitive as repetition. It is interesting though that there are so many nuances to repetition-from ‘similar idea expressed with different verbs’, ‘persistent repetition of the same plea in much the same words’, ‘augmentation by repeating the same thought in many figures’ to ‘tedious and inane repetition’ ( isn’t all repetition tedious and inane?).At least the creator of these various avatars of repetitions chose intriguing names for them!
writing a sentence a hundred times to atone for one distracted mistake was my bane of school years. By the fiftieth time, the mind began to wander-by the seventieth time, the effort would shift to finding different ways to copy the words and by the hundredth the mind was firmly futuristic. A couple of these ‘impositions’ no doubt sowed the seeds of hatred for repetition in me.
And think of it yourself. Even a joke loses its sparkle when repeated. The same forwarded e-mail from different sources irks. A juicy bit of gossip loses its spiciness when circulated like conditioned air. An advice loses its solemnity when repeated by father, mother and aunt. Repeated threats lose their potential sting. ‘I love you’s’ lose their magic when repeated (to the same person that is!) Repetition is the weak weapon of the creatively challenged. Nothing new to say? Just hash the old and rehash the same content contently! Do habitual repetitors have a narcissist streak which makes them love their own voice? To them though it is newness all the time.
Wait a minute though, say the ‘repetitionists’…Repetition in a different context promotes understanding and easier acceptance of an idea. Whether addressing a wayward offspring or a crowd ready to overthrow a dictator, an idea aptly repeated amongst others puts it in relief. ‘don’t lose the gold chain I have lent you’ woven in deftly 3 times in a conversation may ensure its safety. Refrains in songs and hymns are built-in highlighters and underliners. Man’s wisdom dictates that oft-repeated prayers to the powers-that-be bear fruit. ‘Chant this line 108 times’ specifies a recipe to salvation. On 9 full-moon nights, repeat these prayers n times to achieve what you want…is the listener of the above petitions more repetition-tolerant than I am? Or do prayers and chants get more intense, like condensing milk, with each repetition? What would I do if I got boon- granting power? ‘Be precise, concise and say JUST ONCE what you want’ would say my manual.On a more terrestrial plane, repetition or refrain is seen as an effective tool. To make a public speech effective, ‘pick a powerful statement or quote and repeat it throughout your talk, inviting the audience to repeat it along with you. As they say, this gets everyone in the group singing off the same page of the hymn book. It is very powerful.’ says a treatise on repetition..er…effective talking. One of the best-known examples of repetition is Martin Luther King's inspired use of "I have a dream," in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 Civil rights March on Washington. The speech had rising momentum, punctuated by the repeated refrains.
Hmmm…guess in today’s fast paced life, repetition is invaluable and inevitable. It may no more be about being reminded by the wife to post a letter, but repeatedly seeing ‘don’t give away your credit card number or your password’ may ring a bell of caution somewhere sometime. Repeated instructions are intrinsic to an automated world. Isn’t the feminine voice which instructs the user to close the lift door perhaps more appealing than a droopy liftman? Would alluring, repetitive voices take care of the many woes which stalk humanity today? ‘ahem! 2 teaspoons of oil will do’, ‘hiya-dump the junk-eat healthy’, ‘homework time sweetie’, ‘ U-turn here? Think it over’, ‘the queue is a queue and you too have your place in it’ or ‘eyeing what is not yours can bring you viruses’, ‘this is a wall hello!, not a public urinal’, ‘ dude-you are paying through the nose for an e-mail scam’, ‘ stealing another’s identity? Will take you only as far as the prison gates’ ‘you are about to leave carbon footprints-wipe your feet and think’ could be modern day commandments uttered sweetly again and again.‘The world evolves only through repetition’ asserts a friend. ‘You perceive it as tedium, for others it is a natural process’…

’Learning happens through repetition,’ says a special educator…thinking of it, I would add, unlearning too happens through repetition. Lost your wallet? Got stabbed behind the back? Overshopped? Fought over the same issue yet again with the spouse? Just tell yourself many times in different forms of repetition ‘my wallet is gone’ (my favorite wallet got picked, wallets are made to be stolen) or ‘I have been stabbed behind my back’ ( my back hurts, how painful a back stab is) ‘I was a shoppoholic’ ( shopping alas! Runs in my blood, shopping is a pleasurable curse I tell you), ‘one day she will see my point’ (why cant she understand me like my mother?, the next time let me make it short and sweet) and get the sting out of the wherever it hurts the most. Then there are repeaters and ‘repetees’: those who love to say the same thing three times and those who can get a hang of a simple instruction only in its third edition. The Arabian Nights narrate, with good reasons, dramatic events unfolding on the third utterance of magical words. A bit like the yahoo ‘confirm password’?
Repeated thoughts on repetition, I find, have helped me make peace with it. In fact I have found new angles and uses to it. Then, perhaps all that my neighbour must do is try an adnominatio (Repeating a word, but in a different form.) instead of an epimone (Persistent repetition of the same plea in much the same words)…

Find us a match

To believe or not to believe is always the fundamental question-be it in God, in naturopathy or in arranged marriages. As with everything else that comes with belief, one’s personal experience tends to lend the defining colour to the subject.
Marriage being an amalgam of two sets of upbringings and philosophies, however close they may be to each other, can be hard to label as successful or otherwise. In India, a ‘know-all’ aunt, a common friend or a matrimonial site…match the big blocks: age, looks, social background, financial status, education…a horoscope match takes care of the fine-tuning of the compatibility of two personalities. Score 20/25 on the horoscope scale and you have cleared the matrimonial GRE!
As with every Indian institution, the system of arranged marriage is also caught in a flux. My grandmother was married at 3 to a boy of 8 and was sent ceremoniously to her husband’s house at puberty, became a mother at 15 and had her entire brood of 6 by age 24; she literally grew up imbibing her husband’s beliefs and her in-laws’ way of life; took charge of the children there, and by 35 was a shaven widow in white, brought up her children with the help of the extended family till her eldest son took charge of his family, evolved into a graceful matriarch, well looked after in her death bed. As I see it, except for the early widowhood bit, the arranged marriage worked. My grandmother didn’t have rebellious ideas of her own, accepted her new home and all that came with it, including a rough mother in law and epidemics as the norm and added her bit to make it a wholesome experience for all.

What is the scene today?
As with everything Indian, don’t we tend to value tradition and long to preserve it with the core gone?
‘Fair, tall and slim, convent –educated, well-mannered, home-loving…’are some of the epithets found in modern matrimonial columns; they either describe the parents’ description of their girl or the groom’s requirement. For his part the groom is described as ‘earning in 4 figures (or is it five?). Among specifications, besides caste and sub-caste are that the girl should be working. Guess that is today’s reality. Loans and EMIs are part of any marriage but in an arranged one occupy valuable calculated space.
That is more acceptable to purists who are repelled by today’s mall-like matrimonial scene: a Bong boy marrying a Tambram girl, who herself has a separated Mallu mother…like exclusive goods in exclusive shops, languages, cultures, cuisines and castes are to be accorded their right places and cultures are not to be mixed.
On another plane, an octogenarian aunt averred that she had never experienced the joy of physical intimacy with her husband despite 3 children. Do arranged marriages overlook body chemistry? Horoscopes are said to look into those volatile aspects too; but in many cases, once the novelty wears off, there is hardly any chemistry left to speak of; the prompt arrival of the first child transits the marriage into familyhood without giving the parents, as yet strangers, a chance to know each other. Cynicism can set in within a decade. Where naturally developed bonding lacks, a hastily developed family keeps the couple harnessed. Stability is the strength of a successful arranged marriage. A couple may live under the same roof for decades, nurture their progeny, get them married-and yet have a wall of ice in between them. That is arranged marriage too. There are the ‘God-made’ arranged marriage couples too; their life together rolls out like a velvet carpet without a skid or mishap.
Even in this decade when most young educated Indian girls work outside home, many look up to their parents to arrange them a match. If some young women do vehemently declare‘I am not an exhibit to be shown to prospective buyers’, there is hope for those who do not seem to find their partners on their own. If anything, the tension of finding the ‘right’ partner for their prized progeny today grips parents of boys as much as girls- there is no telling how temperamental a working girl will be or where she will divert her hard earned money. She can even think her parents have as much right as her in parents in law over joint resources… Yet, Indian parents or more importantly, uncles, aunts and friends, won’t shy away from the match-fixing duty. Parental help, support and at times life long intrusion are also part of the Indian arranged marriage.
But is this all marriage is about? Look at me! As a typically 'arranged married Indian' I am asking myself this question 3 decades after the event!
Did my grandmother know romance? Did she feel attracted to the prim and proper young man who qualified (by default) to be her life-long guide? No idea…
Anyways, when does a marriage qualify to have succeeded? During a flawless honeymoon? Or when the first baby (male of course!) has promptly arrived? When subsequent procreation pulls the couple this way and that? Or is it once the kids have flown the nest (finally!!)? On the silver jubilee wedding anniversary ? When the husband’s sister’s kids are helped to settle down in the absence of their father? When the FFs (frequent fights) provoke no more? Is it survival of the fitter or is it drowning in bits to surface in sync? Is marriage the blossoming of a timid personality or is it the subjugation of an independent one? Is it when a relationship acquires a sanctity which places it above the individuals that make it?
Sanctity, my foot! did you say? Well then… Is marriage like footwear, and a successful one the one which survives bites and bruises to the feet and moulds itself to make them cosy?

Never mind...one thing is certain. The Indian Arranged Marriage is a survivor which no other culture could hope to patent!