Welcome folks to Wonderland!
The Mad Hatter will now bombard you with frangipani, serenade you with Kecak and then take you on a guided tour of the subterranean world called Wonderland.
The journey begins through the portals of deluded minds past apparitions of elderly women dressed like teeny boppers. These images assault the senses at every turn of the corner…Halloween the year round.
It is a waistland here. Some sport pot bellies like Vietnamese pigs, other decorate them with rings, beads and tattoos afraid they may misplace their waistland or allow aliens to infiltrate their personal air space.
The plumage of the Wonderlanders range from the conventional (sarongs preciously draped for the right look) to shorts that leave nothing to the imagination…biceps and triceps in various formats guaranteed to enthrall first time onlookers.
Often one may witness aerial displays of matted tresses riding a two-wheeler and the captivating ‘art installation’ of a comforting cup of herbal tea delicately balanced between filigreed fingers and pierced lips.
However, there are divisions in this society and it is not by age.
Caution: Age should never be mentioned here for retribution is swift – like being bludgeoned by a pork spare rib or worse still by having a baguette strategically placed to give the offender maximum physical discomfort.
Participating in the numerous rituals is essential to becoming a part of the ‘loose talk’ that every now and then creates a flutter among the Harts or elsewhere. In both cases, damage is superficial as the attention span of the perpetrator/s is limited to normally two martinis or four beers. This depends on the generosity of the person footing the bill.
Wonderland society is divided into basically two parts – Haves and Have-nots. The Haves are the seasonal folk who are akin to migratory birds. They roost here for the winter and flee home come summer. The Have-nots are the scroungers who are, in a manner of speaking, limpets that sustain themselves by latching onto ‘various schemes and dreams’ to earn megabucks or money for the next month’s rent.
A sub-division of the Haves are successful business persons who had graduated from Have-nots by tenacity, ingenuity and optimal use of brain power.
In Wonderland one must be prudent not to make genderisations. One cannot always assume that one is speaking to a male or female. Individuality borders on a sublimity that questions the tenets of an ordered society.
Over indulgence is the stream of consciousness which carries endless emotive aspects that constantly erupt all over the land like pimples on a teenager’s face. In essence its adults with raging hormones.
There is always someone, somewhere being verbally vandalized, exonerated or exalted. In fact, every living moment, stone, color or event is analyzed, dissected and bisected to obtain a significant meaning to one’s life. An ordinary day does not exist in this world.
And now to top it all are the culinary concoctions that intoxicate the pheromones and create a mystical rendition of excess and in excess. Every twist and burn generates another reaction to all that prevails in Wonderland.
The rouse to circumnavigate sensibilities always ends in being juxta- positioned between sanity and insanity.
Wonderland is a place that is cocooned in the Universe; everything, everywhere including the denizens remain unique and insular to the bigger picture.
If you are here and now in this place then you are blessed. For nothing is more exclusive in a strange sort of way than being part of this world.
For me Wonderland is the neutrality shelter of co-existence in a swirling world of political and religious intolerance.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om
marculyseas 