For anyone who has enjoyed listening to the invigorating manic street preachers song "4st 7lb" , you may be interested to know that the little speech bit at the start is from this summer-spirited documentary about someone called "Caraline Neville-Lister", and it can be watched on the you tube.
the speech snippet quote itself is
I eat too much to die, and not enough to stay alive. I'm sitting in the middle waiting
and here is another way of doing things:
"Sallekhana is a beautiful thing. There is no distress or cruelty. As nuns our lives are peaceful, and giving up the body should also be peaceful . . . First you fast one day a week, then you eat only on alternate days: one day you take food, the next you fast. One by one, you give up different types of foodstuffs. You give up rice, then fruits, then vegetables, then juice, then buttermilk. Finally you take only water, and then you have that only on alternate days. Eventually, when you are ready, you give up on that too. If you do it very gradually, there is no suffering at all. The body is cooled down, so that you can concentrate inside on the soul and on erasing all your bad karma."
synchronistic ping! i'm currently reading the book from which this extract is taken. william dalrymple's 'nine lives'.
ReplyDeletedon't do it!
ade anon
I don't know where I got the quote of the starving nuns. I will read that book tho. Where is India. I am not able to be a nun and don't have such guts in general to manage their route. I thought the contrast interesting . I recommend the documentary of the bulimic lady. I am sure you are in the market for impossible sadness.
ReplyDelete"the brink swells at hard life"