Seb's Peps: The Seasoned Youth TIPS FOR TURNING YOUR WHOLENESS INTO YOUR MOMENTS-NESS

A metamorphosis is neither an event of luck nor destiny; a metamorphosis is an occasion where one is intrinsically, suddenly and brightly swallowed up in one’s own inner mystery.

I was a boy once, or at least, I think I was. Nineteen and a half, and with a dumbfounded joy of anything perilous; 18 kilometres southwest of Chennai, India, in the middle of a humidly uncertain night, I chased the mad bellowing of drums calling my curiosity in whole, rhythmic, glorious beatings.

Crisp burnt umber was the colour of the specks of the dirt that was trapped on my moist ankles. The closer I approached the source of spectacle, the more cautious my knees bent, the more distinct I felt my bright browned shorts brush against my flexed thigh of agog.

A great malice of wonder! I have been robbed of all eternal awe that mortality can bestow on me! I, the transient amongst the shadows of thought! There was the saavu kuthu at the realm of the deity: the death dance only performed by males amid the drumming devoted to Mariamman!

The pelvic thrusting was entrancing, encompassed, enslaved to the might of every man’s will. They all were situated in pairs as they rotated partners to meet a higher calling: a challenger worthy of their loins of passion. I thought to myself, in rhythm of the instruments no less, “What is my challenge worthy of passion sprouted from my own loins?”

It was then that an answer found its way in front of my mesmerized face, and a man asked “Do you know what these are?” I immediately thought to think of witty comeback concerning such a silly question, such as “Oranges because they are of no other colour!”

Yet, I stopped I realised the precise moment of becoming a man of character: the overcoming of fear is not by being fearless but by embracing that fear. My fear was being a human being without thought. I am no longer afraid, for now I feel, and not alone think.

I said to the man: “No. What is it?”