Second Thoughts on August 16

Went for an one-day-belated Independence Day program. Was pleasantly surprised to see male classical dancers that were not at all effeminate.

I'm not sure I understand classical Indian dance too much. As in I get which people are playing the elephants and which are playing the jewels. But it gets a little difficult to figure out when the jewels become the land and the elephants become the people. Maybe someday I will understand it all better.

There was this lady (and I've forgotten her name after trying to memorize it so many times) who performed excerpts from a play which looked at the final battle of the Mahabharata from the point of view of the widows and the child-bereft mothers. It really was goosebump worthy. The woman in the play asks, "Did Gandhari take off her blindfold to count all her dead sons?" Then she recounts that another woman (Dushshala, if I'm not mistaken) ran helter-skelter looking for the head that had been severed from her husband's body. At the end of the day, it was a plea for "Let's Do Away With War", and it worked. After war, comes peace. But what kind of a peace is it if all that is left is destruction and loss?

All this is very dark and deep, like Robert Frost's woods... The one where he had all those promises to keep, and miles to go before he slept. So to lighten the darkness, here are six lines from a Bing Crosby song:
When I'm worried and I can't sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And I fall asleep counting my blessings
When my bankroll is getting small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep counting my blessings.

Count your blessings instead of sheep... Have tried it, it does put you to sleep faster. But then I usually have great trouble counting sheep. Takes too much concentration, and all the sheep look alike! Blessings are easier to count (1, 2, 3, 4,...) and they aren't quite as similar either!