So unbecoming of you,Guv!

On 22 & 23rd October, our college organized a seminar sponsored by UGC on the occassion of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio's bicentennial. Governor of West Bengal, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, was present on the first day and he gave an address after Swapan Chakrabarty, JUDE and Rosinka Chaudhuri, CSSS had presented their papers on Derozio. A great speaker, no doubt. A handsome man, ask Simmy;besides, he was frequently combing his hands through his hair during those 5-10 minutes that he spoke- 14 was my count, correct me if I am wrong. He rightly pointed out the indiscipline of the audience in the Derozio Hall:it was truly unbecoming of Presidencians that we kept on talking with total disrespect for the speakers who had come so enthusiastically to read their papers. Given the hapless acoustics of the Hall, the chatter made it really difficult to appreciate or criticise the papers.
But I didn't expect this of Guv. Being a descendant of Bapu, he has taken very critical positions on various issues as the Governor of this state. Sometimes he's been praised, sometimes criticised as acting hysterically like when he tried to make a point in his own way-which was quintessentially the Gandhian way-on the recent spate of power cuts in Bengal. Irrespective of all that, he has made it to the hearts of the people and earned admiration and respect for his principled character. But it was missing this time-I don't know if anyone else noticed it. The first session of paper reading started after all speakers and guests-including the Governor- were invited on the dais. When the first speaker , Swapan Chakraborty, started reading his paper, the Governor decided to leave the dais and sit below amongst the audience. As he stood up to leave the dais, so did the Hall as a mark of respect to him. Being a Gandhi, didn't he realise that on the dais it is the speaker who was the most important, not the dignitary. I think Bapu would have made this point clear by requesting the audience to remain seated or instead, by sitting through at least, the first paper.

Isn't it, Gandhiji?

I keep standing behind the wilderness of her hair,

smiling on a road

that apparently never ends from a perspective which has forever turned its back on my life

that leans precariously on anticipations.

The Big Question(29.05.07)

It is very easy to criticize things going around you. In fact, ut us even simpler to criticize things you experience.Sitting comfortably under a security ensured by my Papa's hard-earned money and passionately voicing myself over the ills of religious fundamentalism, or, for that matter, even religion itself is no big deal. Easier again it is to criticize government services since not only do I have its first hand experience as a consumer but even a much better understanding from the producer's side by virtue of being the son of a central government employee.


Hearing from Papa the way work goes on in government offices, I am in a much better position to loath these places and hold them in contempt for their lethargy, inefficiency, procrastination, corruption and ignorance.But all this enthusiasn for change might be superficial.My revolutionary ideas(actually they're not mine--its just that I endorse them) may just turn out to be hypocritical when questions start becoming personal.


For example, if the government , too, picks up this reformist zeal and sets out to revamp the whole system gradually, I might do a volte-face. When my Papa's job is at stake(as it is always possible that he, too, might be one of the victins of reform), the hypocrisy in my reformist zeal at once becomes apparent and I might shamelessly endorse it, too. Perhaps, it is this kind of hypocrisy that Abhishek was succesful in uncovering in me and my big talks.Social ills, caste, religion as a problem-maker, hypocrisy in common life, blah, blah, blah. I can't stop.





* * *





Maybe, I won't stop. Ever.


Whatever my attitude appear to be, it is certainly not a stereotypical drawing-room endorsement of all those zillions of manufacturing defects colummists untiringly keep 'fretting' and 'sulking' about in the print media.


Still, he struck at the Achilles' heel. "In my contemporary society, what is that one thing that I'd like to begin wiyh?" Simple, yet profound. I keep talkimg about change. Stupidly bringing everyone fromJesus to Buddha and Joan of Arc to Ambedkar in my discussions when someone starts criticizing my complaints and questions as vacuos big talk. I never really I am clear about what I want to change. I just keep shirking the big question. Beating about the bush.





* * *





What should I want to change?


What?


There are so many things. So many complex things. How do I begin? Sit down and make a list, perhaps? Well, that way I'd die with an unfinished list. Just go out and start with any simple thing that I think needs to be changed and I come across first? There is a very large probability that I'd be beaten to death; ostracized maybe or even cleverly pressurized into accepting everything as before by some shrewd well-wisher. Moreover, things I might take to be 'simple' are really not so simple. Its just my ignorance that makes them seem simple. Start all this idea of change with myself following Gandhian emphasis on change in individuals first? Surely, this time I'll be 'wiped out' wit few repenting over my loss.


So, is it all hypocrisy? Genuine middle-class mentality?


no.Certainly not.Then?


True, when I was faced with this question, I tried to evade it with all sorts of lame excuses(hypocrisy, once again?). Perhaps, I'd have kept up my defence-in-excuses

unless Abhishek forgot, or stopped talking about it. But the question would still have remained.

***

Questions disturb me, my peace of mind. It is possible that I may answer some wrongly.But once I've known I was wrong I can try and improve.That is not bad, for, as they say, they are the stepping stones to success.But questions that go unanswered, that I fail to answer, those I am incapable of comprehending despite having the background to understand them, disturb me deeply. Most of the times. I might relegate them to recesses of my mind for sometime but they'll haunt me everytime relevant situations and pertinent issues come up. It would've been the same with Abhishek's problem. A poor fate that would've been. Luckily, I found something better. Or, maybe stumbled on to it. Still, it was no less than a Eureka-moment for me.

* * * *

Our fault, according to me, lies in our perception. Both those who want to change and those who want to remain. Change, for all those who want to, mean this and that. For those, who don't want to, aversion arises out of their lack of personal experiences. And, very naturally, both these perceptions are intertwined. We try to change when we've had some personal, first-hand experience that was not to our liking; most of the times. It is rarely(never?) the big picture. Again, mostly when we resist change we don't understand, or even want to, because we've not had such experiences(was that Abhishek?). It is possible that both be the same person. But here there is involved a much deeper and confounding debate which is much more important as a factor in deciding my answer, and even others', to the question of changing-but-what.

* * * *

They say in French, the more it changes, the more it remains the same. I might change this-and-that without comprehending consequences and eventualites. I might breed in my heart an atheist's zeal about doing away with religion and dismiss religion simply as 'opium of the masses' but then, what support-system do I substitute it with?

There is no stronger moral support than a belief in an all-powerful God in times of despair, even though it might be false. Religion might have created deep divisions in society but then people unendingly try to use religions as a cohesive force by understanding that basically all religions are same:only idiots and fanatics are Hindus, Muslims or Christians. So, everytime I propose a change as a solution to any problem, I do so without knowing what more problems it could create.

Another problem of great import is my notion of change. Human beings are not mechanical constructs of nature.

We think and act organically. Moreover, we think and act individually and never collectively. That is, we think along different lines. As such, when we think of change, we generally think of something better. Or, at least, expect better. Our usage of the word 'chnage' always betrays connotations of betterment-- that which is to our liking, for our benefit. Hence, we use 'develop' or 'progress' more. Maybe, someone thinks that better which benefits the society as a whole but still no one would like one's life to be ruined uselessly for a change that one personally thinks is not going to be in the interest of all.

How to decide, then, what change or idea of change should we opt? An unending debate. But certainly not fruitless. Being a social and thinking animal makes it even more difficult. An individual cannot go on as he or she likes nor can one simply concede.

Then, as always, the whole things boils down to choices. We need to make a choice socially;determined to defend, with an open mind, though, our choice. Also we need to preserve and conserve those arguing against it so that they might help us understand our new problems, critically analyse and even exemplify them goodly now that they are visible.

But, here lies the greatest problem. A Herculean task.

Most of us don't want to make the choices of change. Back to square one. And, so, here's my answer: I'd like to begin with this aversion to change.

Eureka,anyone?

Thinking Of You

How can I think of anything else
when
my mind remains lost in your fantasy?
when
your breath spells my imagination?
when
your touch sparks my beginning, and
when
your whims mark my end?
when
your smile writes my hossanas, and
when
your frown brings my laments?

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is a fascinating book that answers all your questions and doubts about why there certainly is no reason yet to believe in a God. Even if there is one.

When I first read about this book in a Khushwant Singh column[1], I was overwhelmed. I too had my own ideas about why, logically, there could not be a God. My aversion to God was not some principled, thought out, introspected plan. It came on very quietly. Indeed, I didn’t even know at the time that I had started detesting those set of feelings that are conventionally associated with believers. All of a sudden (of course, this suddenness is only in retrospect) I started arguing, thinking, following all such ideas that had I known it then would not have been possible for me to understand, fathom or harbour (perhaps?). I say so because before these incipient transformations I was a very devout Hindu: till sometime I had made it a habit to eat my first meal in the day only after I had had a bath and, then, been to a temple. Even after I gave up on it I still used to discuss and cogitate on Hindu philosophy[2]: Vivekananda, Vedānta and all that jazz (crap?).Quite long after that, I had a discussion with a friend[3] about the possibility of the existence of God; it was the first time that I had tried to articulate my atheistic views, though I don’t think I was ready with even plausible arguments then (my friend wasn’t even capable of refuting those; it was not really an intellectual discussion). Actually, none of us had even an elementary training in either religious or philosophical matters. I was yet to come across any atheist literature.

My doubts were not of the kind of logical-end absurdity that usually puzzles people about God that if such a thing actually created everything, who created that thing? This is one of the principle questions that Dawkins raises in his book, though in slightly different and redoubtable manner.

All religions, as a general rule, hold the body, in general, and sex[4], in particular, in contempt. Death and abode of pain are the two general reasons for doing so. As a child, I grew up watching a banner showing the famous ‘niśkāma karma’ saying from Gitā-"karmanyevdhikāraste mā phaleshu kadācan".

When my ideas started showing a different indentation, I did not really have a problem with this logic-what troubled me was its unnaturalness and rarity. I never saw anyone doing something just like that, without any yearning, with no intention to get something out of it. Now, as some would say, that’s a very puerile attitude towards philosophy. Maybe, but I don’t understand how could you speculate usefully about something that had no existential import. You could say, its not that human beings are like computer programs that would follow a general principle like robots do in the Will Smith movie, these are principles underlying human behaviour. Just that people never brood on it. Well, that’s my point exactly, though what I’m saying is these might be underlying principles but there’s nothing in them that makes them the privileged set, there are a heck lot of principles out there which are getting left out. And the very reason we see ‘deviations’ is because perhaps, either we don’t factor in those other principles or just think them too ignoble to be considered. Most of the times, it is this ignobility that is characteristic of philosophers. All ignoble things are ‘deviations’. Men and women, being the creations of a being for who even the thought of the word ‘bad’ (what does that really mean but for our personal preferences?) is anathema or antagonistic, could never in principle be made up of these ‘deviations’. Sex is perhaps the greatest of these ‘deviations’. I could never see any logic in it. Sex is what drives evolution. It is the élan vital. We wouldn’t have been here, if it was not for this drive, hunger. You may argue that about prostitution, rape, molestation, paedophilia, harassment, abuse etc but that didn’t mean passion for sex was in itself unethical.

But there was another side to religion that made me ditch God.

Hinduism is a dickens of a religion.




[1] It was perhaps a Telegraph column.
[2] These discussions were with Abhinav Ashish.
[3] Shivam Tiwari
[4] I hadn’t yet read about Tantra and didn’t understand what paganism meant, in the context of either Hinduism or other religions.

A day

A day
I try to imagine without
the bright, burning hope
in the sky.



A day
I try to imagine without
the vivid, livid flowers
in the spring.



A day
I try to imagine without
the livening, flowing waters
in the rivers.



A day
I try to imagine without
the enlightening, amazing stars
in the night.



A day
I try to imagine without
the supporting, strengthening emotions
in the being.



A day
I try to imagine without
God
in the simple, humble believer.



A day
I try to imagine with
all impossible, unimaginable
horrors.
A day
I try...
But still I can't,
A day without you.

You ask me to

etch from scratch

A dream in words with

my mind's chalk.

You want me

to spill the blood of

my Muse,

Without cutting across

a part that had even mistakenly bled.

Every drop of heart drained in tears,

Any flesh and muscle having been pierced by

your angelic soul;

How do I make you know

that, having refused

the Gods,

even my Existence lets me down

in my such Labour, after your passing wish, that

belittle even the Herculean tasks.

Vir Sanghvi falls for the 'Bhaiyyas'

"I have respect too for the ordinary Biharis, who are truly the salt of India, going off to other states to create wealth for all of us."
-Counterpoint,Feb 23, 2008


Such sentimental disclosures only shock me.We are brought up on such education in our families that low-profile and silence and humility is what we need to carry on with to survive in states other than Bihar for almost anywhere and everywhere people resent our presence.We are considered uncouth, uncultured, 'abhadro' and vulgar by people of most communities.Though we die singing of Bihari merit, outside academic spheres hardly do the masses recognize us for it.And I really don't mind it 'coz in the first place, I can't help it; second, I know the kind of mess Bihar is in today, we couldn't expect anything more.This was how Indians were percieved before the superpower-in-waiting became a cliched refrain.And this is how we Indians percieve our Muslim and African counterparts today.
What shocks me that whenever I expect negatives, someone throws a positive at me, like Vir Sanghvi does here.Simmy(she's a Bengali) says that she finds Biharis sweet,simple and innocent(!!!).Again, when I was once looking for a PG in Kota, I came across a landlord that he preferred Bihari tenants because they were studious and did not create nuisance like their counterparts from Delhi or Haryana did(again,!!!).
I don't understand this duality.

How Shall You Remember Me Even After Years?

Some shall remember you
'cause they were denied;
Some shall remember you
'cause they could no
more
Than admire.

Me?
Who's still not sure,
Confused still as to
Where I,
In fact,
Stand,
How I actually
Fared;

Can only remember
Whenever I
Remember you:

'Cause to be true
More to myself
Than anyone
Else
I
Won't,ever
Forget you--
Won't,ever
Be
Able to.

What Is It That You Would Steal From Me?

What worth is it
If stole from you?

For, it is you that
Is its real worth.

Wouldn't it be
better, if I,
Instead
Stole you.
From everything
Else.

at sankarpur ghat

Last Sunday,on the 13th of Jan,Ward 3 of the Hindu hostel went for a picnic (they prefer to call it a tour) to Sankarpur ghat once again.It was same the last year too.I don't know since when we've been falling upon it as our final choice for a picnic but i'm sure this'll remain for the coming 3-4 years.That does not mean it is some hopeless place where you went once only to pledge never to return there.Anyone who's been to Digha shall vouch for the serenity and still-preserved calm of the place.Though, I fear how long it would still remain like that.Seniors tell us that not more than 3-4 years ago it was an out-of-the-world place.I wonder if it was much like a non-descript beach where the middle-class would come to enjoy on their weekends, but still talk about it condescendingly because it was not a vibrant place,it didn't have a life.Only some villagers,perhaps,and nothing more to talk about.Now,I do see that a hotel has come up where people from the well-to-do families flock in great numbers.
A little away from the place you see in the photo,at an ambling distance from this place,there's a small forest,of sorts.Around hundreds of trees spread in a small region.Besides the beach,this place is really romantic. Sitting here after a nice lunch in a siesta-mood with Ashu,I could understand the Wordsworthian grief.His repenting 'what Man has made of Man' and invocation of Milton confuses me at such times-whether i should be euphoric about Buddhobabu's zeal, after a dead spell of almost 3 decades.I dont share this romanticism about the bucolic life but while I was sitting there I could hear two sounds which made me ponder on my biases(that's what it is:not having any experience of the idyllic,village life or even a small town idleness what else could I call it?).Trying to sleep in the midst of those trees,I could hear birds chirping.Now,I don't understand these bird calls but those sounds are always soothing instead of that second disturbing sound of someone screaming on a mike farther, somewhere around that space.Those hellish noises would again and again press me to think about such things.Not that this was the first time I was thinking about these things-at Presi, you really can't make a bourgeois or even a romantic escape from such questions.
* * * * * *
We started coming back to our bus at around 5.30.We had to return that night.I came back to the bus after having helped Ritu and Saunabh bring their clothes drying on the roof of the bus.Most of the boys had gone for a stroll on the beach before we left.All of a sudden, someone came running to the bus shouting 'bawaal hoyeche!dekhi giye ki hocche?'I'm a lazy person who was not worried even when his board results were going to come out-good or bad,I'm the same kind at all times.I just went on the steps of the bus to have a view of the crowd. I could see most of the hostelers standing in a huddle,some of them shouting at the top of their voices.They were having an argument with a group of men and women.Earlier,I had seen my friends standing on the sacks of sands,above that group of people.Probably, with the intention of having a look(ogling?) at the womenfolk in their group.I quickly came to the conclusion that this was nothing but developments following their eve-teasing.So,instead of showing solidarity with my hostelers, I prefered staying back and cussing them('balbajari korle aar ki hobe?').

After a little time,this too passed like all those street-corner tiffs.

Everyone back into the bus discussing the incident-boisterous about their performance in the brawl;almost ready to get into a fight;what the hell could they have done 'jodi amra chollish jon nembe jetam?':ya, but the only problem were those women;its much better in bidesh where no such differences in behaviour towards women exist,blah,blah,blah!All this time I was disdainfully looking at each one entering the bus with a cryptic silence on my face.
Finally, I asked Ritu and Utpal-'case ta ki hoye chilo?'
And then I understood that I was gravely wrong,though, that did not mean I did away with my contempt as i found another reason for it!
Now,what actually happened is that this group of adults were behaving too 'liberally' amongst themselves-you know,when 'liberalism' tends to be too harsh on Indian-Victorian sensibilities and verges (or actually became in this case) on the vulgar.I'm told that men and women were behaving very lewdly in that group('ora ki nongrami korchilo,tui dekhechilish?').Perhaps,they were also dirtying the beach.Also,as they tell me,they were creating nuisance for other people too-they were disturbing passers-by in between their 'nongrami'.Hostelers decided to protest against this and told them to clean up the beach(this was an alibi to start a quarrel).Some in that crowd were drunk and impulsively,they replied with a threat to beat them up.Obviously,such a behaviour is bound to make anyone red under his collars,and this was a forty men-strong,testosterone-brimming,rowdy-young crowd.
It eventually started a 'bawaal'.
After having understood the actual facts,my initial reaction to Ritu and Utpal was little controlled.I told them that under prevalent Indian laws this was an illegal act,moreover if they were disturbing passers-by, then it was really wrong and punishable in the law of any land.I understand ,them disturbing others apart,their real anger rose from that 'nongrami'.so,initially I just viewed it as a conflict that has become common these days in our country.The tension between all those instances from DPS MMS to Husain's Bharatmata on one side and the people viewing these as threat to their idea of an Indian culture.My contempt was almost gone when I stumbled upon a deeper develpoment of our political system over so many years as a fallout of the failures of our judiciary.
Just when the bus was about to start,Saurabh Da had a little argument with Biman Da about the futility of the furore we raised on the beach.His argument was that since we could not prove what they were actually doing (I'm not talking about their dirtying the beach) ,there was no use if this argument took a serious turn and the police interfered.I too,then,had an argument with Biman Da, which was actually redundant since neither did he understand my viewpoint nor did I try to understand his question.We just started shouting at each other, then abruptly stopped and got back into our seats.
I was wondering whether they forgot the actual question in their spirited behaviour.True,their reaction was not unfounded but that was not their real aim.Had they tried to collect some evidence and then charge at them,they would have been more effective.The only reason I could find for this mob behaviour was their number.Our politics has reduced to a simplistic game of numbers.Since they were forty-strong,they protested in a loud voice.Alone,most of them would have ignored those people or would have meekly protested.And if anyone would have still been zealous enough to take an initiative, then I think he would have proceeded by first collecting some evidence so as to make them vulnerable.
This number of people around an issue,instead of leading to meaningful lobbying,slips down to muscle politics-'goondami' and 'gayer jor', just hooliganism.
And this was why I couldnt till last agree with them.As for my contempt:so be it.