Chalk the line

A friend of mine is very firm about not crossing the line, about sticking to preordained limits and being circumspect about behaviour and responses. There is, of course, some logic in this diktat, however irritating it may be and however unnecessary. But there is a simple point that my friend may not have taken into account when setting the rule: maybe there would be no need for the rule at all. Also, a little smudging of the chalk line, albeit mentally drawn, can always move it from the position it was originally meant to be in. and, since it is a rule, it can always be bent, if not broken.

Which is a good and worthy thing to do in today’s world, when following the rules to the proverbial T can be not just boring, but considered a display of a lack of initiative and ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. It happens very often in writing. Using a word out of its normal semantic framework, or changing its context to fit what you want to say rather than what it is normally supposed to say makes the story far more interesting. And there is a wonderful way in which words can be manipulated to “jump through hoops” – as I once told my fiction writing teacher in college – to mean one thing on the surface and another to those who have any intelligence. It’s a great way to be bitchy without sounding it!

There are, of course, obvious roles to break. Like traffic lights. And no-parking places. And one way streets. While I am fairly law-abiding where those are concerned, there have been moments when I peer furtively around to check on policemen and then zoom through the red light, down the wrong way to park just under a no-parking sign. My pet policeman in South Mumbai would aid and abet me when I was much younger and much less practiced at the game, even making sure that a rival didn’t get in before me, never mind that the car was closer to the space than mine was.

And then there are diet rules, which are perhaps the easiest to formulate the most difficult to keep to and the best to bend. Try keeping to the abysmal regimen of a high-fibre roti, boiled veggies and no chocolate and see how you suffer from everything from dizziness to an overactive colon to badtemperedness. And you will understand just how and why you wander over to the fridge after everyone else has gone to bed and can’t see you breaking the rules, dig into the leftover cheesy bake and that wonderfully dark chocolate and wreck whatever will power and calorie count you make have been determined to keep. And the next day, through the cloud of regret that you feel when you think about the inches you were supposed to be taking off your middle, you have a quiet sense of peace and satisfaction that only comes from doing something you should not have done.

Which comes in almost anything that you really want to do, and go out and do, rules or no rules. And that, my friend, is why the chalk line always moves!