Chris Benoit

Those of us who grew up watching wrestling will remember, as we progress through the years, how our perspectives towards the great profession evolved while the constancy of our passion always remained. As children we cheered the on-screen heroes and jeered the villians, having no inkling of the backstage politics and manoeuvring which provides the world of professional wrestling with its charming ambiguities and intoxicating blends of fantasy and reality. As we grow up we acquire the lens of skepticism and begin to dissect the parodies, dramas and social critiques, or simply laugh our heads off at those priceless moments of wrestling ludicrity. To me, wrestling is such a lure because the squared circle represents a melting pot, where you throw in all of reality's burdens, conflicts and desires, project them onto outlandish human prototypes and resolve them via simple dichotomies of A versus B, as if righteousness or evil or sin or lust carried themselves in neat 300-pound packages. It is this grevious but intentional misunderstanding of wrestlers, and what they truly mean to the world inside and outside of the ring, that brings me such a bolt of pain and confusion upon hearing the news that Chris Benoit has died, bearing suspicion of murdering his wife and kids and commiting suicide thereafter. The accursed Vince McMahon death angle, the chilling no-show at Vengeance PPV, then the bombshell; another dastardly attempt by Fate to paint a portrait of connections out of human misery. If Benoit really carried that enormous emotional baggage around, finding little solace from his onscreen character and compelling himself to live out the Rabid Wolverine while suppressing the wretched soul beneath, should we who are still alive today move on with renewed respect for the great man and the business he has fought his entire life for, or should we come to turns with our endless tryst with professional wrestling, and come to realise that afterall, the squared circle is but a haunting microcosm of our hapless world?

Dance

As we live in the stolid, callous material world we might develop a nagging suspicion that some undiscovered truth lies in the intangible portions of our dwelling. A draught of wind, a ripple upon some pebble's intrusion into water, or a strange sound from the bellows of a musical instrument from a hitherto unknown culture. Indeed what is culture itself but an increasing and inherited accumulation of perceived differences, even as the intangible common essence of humanity struggles to rip apart the veil! What a noble testament to the ability of music to sabotage the seams, when I behold a nymphette gyrating to the Conga while no part of her yellow drips away. For all we can surmise, the gift of tongues might have befallen on the raptured audience, who begin to acquire a thick Hispanic accent in praise of our supreme dancer. Watch as she transforms each sashay into a mudra, showering endless meanings upon your desires. How much would you give to partake of this fascinating trance, to enter this mystical moment of intangibility, whereupon a nibble of undiscovered truth may seek audience with the Majesty of your mind?

A New Dwelling

Creatures that fly pack up their meagre possessions and memories, seek new pastures every now and then and venture off into unexplored territories. Never do they desire to linger, for they effortlessly every ounce of the old experience into the new, rejecting any break in the continuity of their sanguine existence. How remote the likelihood of us following suit! For every moment in our stride connects with solid ground; every unintentional caress of the earth an embodied manifestation of our togetherness with the soil. Never can packaged, ephemeral sentiments and memories disassociate themselves with the physicality of our presence. Sing a new tribute to the anima loci! Can there be any remaining doubt to the wistful question of our inability to saunter the skies like sparrows; to traverse the plains like lions; to glide through the oceans like whales, savouring freedom each step of the way? Or must we interrogate every poet, every songwriter, every craftsman and wring their necks demanding an explanation for the excesses of their longing, their hatred for the noble art of forgetting?

Till the Beginning

Surely it must have been the most delightful of melodies that first pierced our forefather's dusty eardrums; the sweetest of aromas that first wafted into his curious nostrils; the first drops of dew from an infinitely early sunrise that first tickled his poetic fancies; the first brush with fire that tantalized him with the mystique of passion. As with all other sentiments and understandings that we label the precursors of our emotions and intellect, what sage can capture the overwhelming essence of Beginning? In all that we do, while we train our eyes forward and spur our dreams and fantasies to that point in time we call the End, how foolish we are to turn our backs on the Chief recaller of memories; the bestower of melody, harbinger of scent, author of aesthetic inspirations! Yet imagine our mortal surprise, when we are rafted back to one magical beginning after another, and begin to realise that a glance over our shoulders is all it takes, for every Beginning and End to reconcile in a cosmic embrace!