Can pyromania surface as a fascination for candlelight? A kind of sublimation of the fierce urge to set fire to things and then
watch them burn, and burn.
Perhaps. Who knows. And Freud is no longer here to
enlighten us.
“I love watching it quiver ever so lightly, it
almost seems to be smiling and nodding at something,” this is what I had told
Omar once. It must have happened when I was in one of my candle-light-roof-top
party moods. Omar had looked at me
askance, as he tends to do when he seems to be having second thoughts about my credentials
as a learned-wise-adult.
But in spite of his doubts, my sublimated pyromania
must have appealed to Omar’s equally wayward imagination.
I am not prepared, not in this hot sauna-like
evening, for an invitation to a candlelight tea party.
“Look! Thirty candles. I have brought thirty
candles, and they are scented. I have bought a colourful dinner set for
our parties. You will light the candles, you will have your tea, and I will
have a glass of lemonade,” Omar tells me about the party that I have to attend, and
arrange.
Notice the ‘will.’
“Omar, don’t you think it is too hot? It's the load
shedding hour so there won’t be any air conditioner to make it bearable. The
fan will blow out the candles,” I tell him.
“Of Course, we will not switch on the fan. If you
don’t want to have tea, you can have coffee. But hurry up. I have also arranged
for something to eat.”
Do I have a choice!
So here I sit with Omar, sipping tea, and looking at
the thirty flames, wondering what are they smiling at and who are they nodding
too.
The heat bothers. But Omar is happy, he tells me
that I am the best, and this more than makes up for the hot evening made hotter
by the wafting heat from the candle flames.
The sublimated form of pyromania seems to run in the
family.
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