Both emulous Bilqis, in the Quran, and envious Duryodhana, in the Mahabharata, mistake a highly polished marble floor for a pool of water. The former lifts her skirts- giving rise to a 'free show' for King Solomon who, thus impassioned, becomes instrumental in the breaking of her waters and thus, millennia later, for the providential provision, to the Muhajir Meccan Hanif, of secure refuge in Ethiopia- the Negus being a nested image of Solomon's mingling, in that mirror of stone, with the nethers' of the Gospel's'Queen of the South' who '
shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.'
Duryodhana, on the other hand, visiting his
nouveau riche cousins in Indraprastha, first won't step on stone, thinking it water, then falls into a pool thinking it stone. Because Draupati ridicules him for having inherited the blindness of his father- that final pool of water in which Duryodhana takes refuge sets also- like Sagara addressing Ram in Tulsi's masterwork- a merely tribal and thymotic limit to the nature of the Ethical agon set in motion by that mirror of stone or gallehault of mimetic desire.
A more obvious place to look for Girardian motifs, in the Mahabharata. is Chitrangada's battle with his namesake. Bhishma doesn't intervene. Why? The one thing he won't do battle to protect his family from is disease- where the body struggles with itself. Is it the case that Adaa Vijaa, Adi Vigyan,- the casting off of one's ills onto one's image in the mirror- but, in Ind, the Gemini are healers by their mutual harmony not their homicidal rage to furnish a korban or Homo Sacer- is also at the root of Chitrangada, the Gandharva's, battle challenge to Chitrangada, the Mortal? The Human image must fight its Divine namesake- for only one can survive to attest the extensionless, therefore infinite, reverse mereology of (
Maryada Bhakti's) Pure Name.
But, on Earth, at least in proper English, at marriage, two come together to boast the same name. The esteemed (hopefully, soon to be) wife of Mr. Vivek Iyer is not properly addressed as Mrs. Honeytits Iyer but as Mrs. Vivek Iyer simply. If some allusion must be made to her nominal haecceity, as for example if I were polygynous, then the correct form, surely, would be 'Honeytits, Mrs. Vivek Iyer'. Otherwise, people might think the blameless damsel, and lapdancer, in question was actually descended from the impure wombs of, my second cousins, the
arriviste, for ICS gotra, Honeytits Iyers of Hampstead Heath.
Indeed, every sacral form of marriage involves a shared and shyly darted glance into 'Ayn ul Bibi Maryam'- Mary's mirror- where groom and bride see themselves as they will be seen in Heaven, the more securely univocal for freed of all earthly blemishes.
Only thus should be read Tagore's Chitrangada or the Mahabharata's reversal of the Rustam /Sohrab, or Cuchulain/ Connia, outcome of Arjuna's unknowing duel with his son whereby- husband resurrected by reflection in a water nymph's marble of co-motherhood- the miracle Krishna works for posthumous Parikshit, but firmly, is put in its place.
What has all this to do with the Gita?
Is the answer not obvious?
No?
Really, no?
Well, in that case, I suppose I'd better add something to round this off 'fore chowing down on my tonight's meed of Microwaved Takeaway.
Too much information?
Meh!
Drinking my iced Rum & Coke, in the glorious gloaming of the one Summery day afforded me by this unlucky year- so far has my way of life fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf- I suddenly think of what a son once said to his handsome father admiring himself in the mirror- 'You haven't seen Mum's true beauty' Hubby rushes off to wrathfully upbraid wifey for wrongfully withholding dowry.
Wifey says 'who sees my true beauty will die in a fraticidal struggle.'
'But that is your own son!' Hubby is shocked.'You jus' cursed your own son, Hon!'
Heeding mother's cry of pain, God says, listen Luv, I can make an exception for your lad.
Mum says- no, make an exception for every other mother's son- not mine.
Who was that mother who could recognize herself so in the Ayn-ul-Bibi-Maryam?
Kunti?
Sure.
Why not?
Actually yes- if you read Gita properly.
I don't.
Tareque Masud is dead. I'm alive. God fucking hates us.