Fear - I

I tend to be scared of places rather than things.

Unpalatable things tend to evoke aversion but unpalatable places tend to evoke fear. 

* * *

There is an unfinished painting that I first saw in a dream many years ago that comes back to me now and then. 

It is a perfect rectangle, equal parts beige and maroon. There is a stick at either end, and there is a crudely, almost carelessly drawn body of a tribesman on the left side. The body occupies most of the space on the left side and there is some kind of ornament around the neck of the tribesman. His head is oblong, it is inclined at an angle with the upper boundary of the rectangle, and juts out of it most asymmetrically. 

The right side of the picture is incomplete. It also features a tribesman but the body of this tribesman is a little more irregular, almost fragmented. Most oddly, I cannot seem to form a clear picture of the second tribesman's head. I am convinced he must have one but, if I close my eyes, I cannot see it. 

Other minutiae, however, arrive at the door of my memory with ease.

His arm is twisted, almost broken. His legs look far weaker than those of his counterpart on the left side. They look almost cartoonish. He appears to be stretching his arm out and holding on to the stick to his left. Yet, because his body is so fragmented, I struggle to tell which hand he is holding on to the stick with. It just seems to be there. 

For the life of me, I cannot picture his head.

* * *

I am scared of the place upstairs. 

It evokes fear in a way I do not associate with any other place in the world. 

I have been downstairs, of course. I have been downstairs several times. For most of my life, I have thought of downstairs as my second home. I know the upstairs looks exactly like the downstairs. The house was designed that way. They were  mirror images of each other. 

Up until about twenty years ago, they used to be. But then the kitchen downstairs was broken down and expanded. The far bedroom downstairs was rebuilt from scratch. The bedroom across from the far bedroom was also refurbished. It is now occupied by other people. Both washrooms downstairs have been rebuilt on multiple occasions. They bear scant resemblance to the ones upstairs. The near bedroom downstairs has also seen much upheaval over the years.

In all this time, the rooms upstairs have also had hundreds of little changes and modifications; some approved and some not. The rooms upstairs have been occupied by several tenants. Some have stayed for years, some have stayed no longer than a few weeks. Each passing tenant has stapled their imprint on the rooms upstairs. Their electrical gadgets have tripped up the power lines once in a while. Their posters have peeled off a fair bit of plaster from the walls. Their peculiar habits have caused a fair bit of moaning and, on occasion, cursing. But there is one thing that has not changed a bit since the first time I remember going there.

Upstairs.

Upstairs is still exactly the way it was all those years ago. 

* * *

I went upstairs in late 1998.

We had just moved houses. There was much celebration in the family for several other reasons besides. My first recollection of upstairs is from the morning time: there was dust, there was the smell of termite-infested wood, there was a cool November breeze, and I recall that there were charcoal-black hoop-shaped grills on the windows.

There was a wedding.

There was a lot of chatter and a lot of dancing downstairs. I was upstairs with a few other people who were frantically trying to ensure that upstairs was set up for the wedding guests who were to arrive soon. I was instructed to run, upstairs and downstairs, ferrying as much as my eleven-and-a-half-year-old hands could carry at one go.

Apart from the happiness of the occasion, I remember nothing of consequence occurring on that night in late 1998.

We retired to bed around twelve.

I was the last one to leave and, as such, I was told to latch the door. The latch was a little stubborn but after struggling for a few seconds, I managed to secure it, aided in part by the dark yellow light thrown by an old bulb that was a few feet to my left.

I took a quick look around, first right, then left, and finally hurried back to sleep.

Downstairs. 

(to be continued)

Seven Questions about Section 15

Today, I'm going to rant about why nobody has deemed it necessary to supply some context - explanations, illustrations, examples, something - to the words "other matter of a non-distinctive character which does not substantially affect the identity of the trademark" in Section 15(3)(c) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999. 

I. Given that Section 15(2) requires every variation/representation of a series trademark to independently satisfy objective trademark criteria and given that Section 15(3) says "may be registered as a series", does the law even contemplate a situation where a series application is necessary and not merely more desirable/appropriate than a set of individual applications covering every different variation/representation?

II. Isn't a literal reading of Section 15(3)(a) rendered redundant purely by the facility (and I use that word carefully) of a multi-class application for the same trademark?

III. Is the reference to "other matter" in Section 15(3)(c) to be ejusdem generis'd with (a) and (b) (which cover the statement of goods/services and statement of number, price, quality or names of places respectively)? 

IV. If so, given that (a) and (b) are independent criteria, how exactly is ejusdem generis to be applied in this case? 

V. Assuming broad brush-strokes on the ejusdem generis, how does fixing different numbers on the same base trademark or prefixing/suffixing names of places on the same base trademark colour the "does not substantially affect the identity of the trademark" bit in Section 15(3)(c), in light of Carlsberg v. Radico Khaitan and Section 9(1)(b) respectively?

VI. Speaking of colour, does the inclusion of "colour" as an independent, later criteria under Section 15(3)(d) mean that it is not within the contours of "other matter of a non-distinctive character" in Section 15(3)(c)? 

If so, (1) on logic alone, why? (2) how is it to be reconciled with Section 10?

VII. Assuming even half-decent answers to all of the above questions, where does that leave the basic "resembling each other in the material particulars thereof" standard for a series trademark? 

Isn't it astonishing how a seemingly straightforward, rarely used 112-word sub-section can serve as the point of departure for endless discussion? It hasn't escaped my attention that the way I've framed these seven questions would fit snugly into an exam paper/hypothetical (complete with the entirely unnecessary Roman numerals). You have been warned. :-p