So what have I been occupied with during my last 41 posts?

I created a Wordle today for my blog posts
to see the word games my mind's been playing until now.

Who dares wins

First, we let deprivation kill them; then when they understood what was really happening and tried to snatch away what was their moral- and, to mention in passing, constitutional- right to choose a decent life, we let the state kill them.

Winning at games

We are witnessing weird games being played in Lalgarh. The state, propped up by a silent 'us', with its frustrated and raging forces is engaged in a combat game against the Maoists, anti-bourgeoisie radicals who are standing up with all their might for the indigenous tribals. These people remain peripheral to our imagination even after six decades of 'free democracy'. Now that these rebels have goaded the beast within the state into action, it is only a matter of 'who dares, wins'- as we know what has happened to innumerable social movements that dared to challenge the very logic of democracy in this country.

Basic premiss of the state

We have reacted to the news of the clashes in Lalgarh in the media with a general acceptance of their 'genuine grievances' but rejection of their violent means. But do we really care? Or, could we have cared had it not been for this 'violence'? We have always remained cold to ideas that call for an upheaval and instead settle down for tokens of 'change'. When some men and women on the 'lunatic fringe' try to bring the much-needed revolutionary changes, we prefer being silent and accepting the statist doctrine of right and wrong. And what is that doctrine based upon? Might is right.

Will the dharma yuddha pay off?

And will this dharma yuddha by the Maoists make the original inhabitants of this land a better lot? I don't have an answer to that but I fear that their grievances will become a collateral damage of the on-going repression of their movement. As has been the case before.

Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai (Green shoots in undies?)

For people of my age, the pink chaddi campaign seemed no less than a revolution. Girls coming out to hit back at the cultural vigilantes in the most profane of ways. It was, it seemed, a new beginning for this country's youth- even though few among them seem to support it, coming up with such a novel and ingenious method up of protests. Until I read Githa Hariharan's article in the morning today, this was how I felt about this sacrilegous campaign. But it seems women in this country have always been far ahead of their menfolk insofaras modernity is concerned. Women learnt pulling down chaddis (read the article) to protest against reactionary culturalists long back. In India, revolutions have always been flowering in chaddis!

The Great Leap Backward

Could he or couldn't he? The Telegraph tells us that people in the Left Front are busy with historical what-if analyses. I was too small to know this Great Helmsman's name, forget his politics, when I was in Calcutta. And by the time I was old enough to understand and be interested in these things I left for Pilani. And for the next six years knew nothing about the developments in the political landscape of Bengal. When I came back in 2006 to study at Presidency, I did hear my friends in SFI talking about him with great respect and admiration that Mamata could never have pulled off a moral victory, of sorts in Singur had he been alive. That he was also responsible for the rot that Bengal is today was news to me.
And India is an amazing country: where else do you think Amartya Sen's advice in policy affairs would be rejected so casually, even if he hadn't won a Nobel then? Today he gives lectures in seminars organised by the very same state government.

Scientific Communism

This happened in a People's state. Though there's no evidence that the Proletarian state was in anyway involved in such a stupidity, what is clear is that it doesn't feel it has got anything to do with it. That such an incident could materialise despite the dictatorship of the Proletariat can only mean that either it has failed to raise the consciousness of its masses or an embourgeoisement of the classes has taken place while the party was inebriated with Bengal Premium Lager.

Why are things the way they are?

Hanna Schmitz prefers being read to a sentence for imprisonment for life than letting people discover that she can't read. Its strange how sometimes some of our emotions overpower us in bizarre ways-should I call it irrational, but what would a 'rational person' mean then: homo economicus? Her feeling of shame is so strong that she can accept being branded a Nazi, but not uneducated.

I remember reading Kafka's Trial which portrays a man who thinks that he has done no wrong but still on being charged is filled with guilt and tries everything that can be done to clear himself of the allegations that have been wrongly made about him, only to die without ever knowing what it was that he was charged of and by whom. Though, this angle was opened to me only when I was reading Basu's Prelude to Political Economy. Another similarity is the way Hanna conflates legality and morality that Michael's professor discusses in one of the seminars at the law school. Hanna doesn't understand how she could have done anything wrong when all she had done was stick to the law of the land; Josef K gets so worked up on being charged and his righteous indignation at being alleged of something that smears his otherwise record of obedience only reminds us how people in their lives confuse 'legal' with 'moral', and its not just because "before the law sits a gatekeeper": the individual has an inner feeling of guilt , too, that makes it even easier for the law to overpower her sense of rebellion and revolt.

Flagged

Early morning on a holiday at 09:50 I come to Cyber Cup hoping its open, and yes, it is. But before I enter Patuatola lane, where this cafe is located, I cannot stop myself from calling them names (of course, its all to myself; I don't shout: ARE YOU CRAZY?) who had hoisted all those red, etc flags over shops, people's homes, on the electric poles and anywhere they felt like. There's a CPM party office at the mouth of this lane but the flags are of all hues: and some say there's no democracy in Bengal,huh! All parties are free here to use my home, your home, my shop, your shop, my walls, your walls as their own for they are the People's representatives, real representatives.
I enter the cafe. Babai Da has just taken bath and is opening the attendance register for today's entries. I ask him, "Jhanda gulo nije lagiyecho na keo lagiye chole galo?". He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. I tell him to go out and look at the flags he apparently seems to endorse; he sees a TMC and a Congress flag on his gate and shop-window. He doesn't know who did this or when. There's a large CPM drape hanging at the other mouth of this lane. And all buildings in this lane can proudly claim to have at least one flag.

What is it with me early in the morning? As if I don't know this or they don't know this that I'm writing about. These are quotidian matters. Will I stop killing time like this on my blog?

A switch is a switch is a twitch

A few days ago I saw a Crabtree ad trying to sell itself as a brand of the classes. The woman in a couple driving in their sedan is arguing about the switches they intend to use in their home and she can't understand her husband's obsession with a brand in so trivial a matter. The husband doesn't answer but halts the car near a roadside tea-stall for a cup. The lady is discomposed at the very thought and shows an expression of horror which at the same time says to her husband, "touché!".


These chai ki dukans are a part and parcel of Indian life and ethos. And more than that this is a rozi-roti for many. When the opposition in Bengal raised doubts about the claim government and sections in media were making about the number of jobs Tatas would be able to create, it was these kind of jobs in the informal sector- "indirect jobs"- that they said would supplement the few jobs created by the car factory directly. And this argument was bought by the classes without any second thoughts.
I know I'm sounding moralish but doesn't it cause a pang in somewhere to see that this is what some people are being offered as subsistence for their lives and then those who sold these ideas to them slighting them?

Frontal moralism/Dorsal doublespeak

CPM is going in a search for the Holy Grail of Indian politics once again. A front that is free from all the muck of power play in the interests of the People. INC is tainted with corrupt leaders, who treat People as chattel. BJP is an anti-secular party for which People have a visceral hatred. Those who call themselves Maoists are no better than terrorists- they are wolves in the lamb's clothings who want to destroy the peaceful democratic system in India. Whether or no People vote for them, do they really think that people don't see through this rhetoric? That they don't see CPM's 'sagacious' politics working behind all this propaganda?

Buddha calls Maoists cowards in his campaigns; CPM is fighting the coming elections as a United(!) bloc with them in Bihar. Congress' politics is all about wheel and deal; Bardhan thinks Mayawati is being tainted by the elitists. BJP is out to divide the country once again in the name of religion; Vijayan can't see Madani isn't even acceptable to the Indian Union Muslim League, a party based on religion.

Never mind

I was a bit disappointed with Dev D, for its quintessentially a Bengali story and Anurag Kashyap moved it to Punjab. When the movie started I felt uneasy and it was hard for me to stomach the Jat landscape in which he transplanted the bhadralok's drama. But as the frames proceeded I stopped thinking about it, and truly speaking its a great movie. And its essence is beautifully brought out in the end credits which are first, shown upside down and then inverted to bring them in the right position. Basically, that's what this movie is about- a topsy-turvy retelling of the Bengali melodrama.

this, when indians are dying for entertainment!

"dispatches took root on an olive farm in Provence, flourished on a Kashmiri houseboat, and was toasted into reality with champagne at the East Gate of Angkor Wat. Its founders are a photographer who believes his lens should not filter out humanity, a reporter who feels real news can only be seen from up close in its historical perspective, and a pharmaceutical executive who thinks entrepreneurs should do more than make money."



the Indian masses are only learning to handle a life that begins and ends with sound bites and breaking news pieces. And there's no doubt that they're game for more. this adrenaline-rush model where news items come into the public consciousness and go out of it only to be replaced with more news at the speed of sound, if not light is nothing new: its new only for us.

Anyway, what I’m talking about here is this new venture,or adventure rather since the American Journal Review characterises it as bucking the trend (. At a time when attention spans are falling from mins to secs to nanos to..., this group of gamblers brings out a piece of journalism that would seem counter intuitive to the dominant logic of market.

Even though papers, in the West, are becoming redundant, TVs endangered and Web seems to be calling the shots, or would be doing so, they really believe that they'll be able to pull off without the virtual resources. I won't say anymore, read it for yourself:

"Yet what matters still is what when news was chipped on cave walls and then scratched on parchment: the message."

Rejected!

"Long before any such understanding can be reached, the eyes of men begin to turn towards the distant light of the new age. Discernible at first only by the eyes of the man of genius, it must be focussed by him on the speculum of a work of art, and flashed back from that into the eyes of the common man."
-GBS, Preface to Plays Pleasant

Unfortunately, India as a nation-state has shown little enthusiasm for an artist's vision of the times to come. Instead, we have been much eager to dissociate ourselves, and even try and do away with our artists. To what extent India as peoples have been successful in tolerating them might be debatable, but is still, I think, full of hope. For attempts to garrote the creative voices, even though successful to some extent, have deeply divided our society-and its not just the intelligentsia that has taken up the cudgels.The common man was never ready to acquiesce to their leaders in such matters, otherwise the most popular leader of this country, Gandhi could have easily ensured that all 'obscene' sculptures around the country à la Khajuraho were removed from the imagination of this country, and the world, once and for all in the Bamiyanesque fashion. Husain might not be able to live in this country, but certainly he lives in the hearts of the artists of the nation, as well as in those who understand that life may not be for art but indeed, life couldn't be without art, too. Besides, even after what Husain suffered, if Baroda could happen then we needn't fret and whine. I have heard people talking derisively about Nasrin's literary standards in college, but even if someone thinks Penthouse a better read, I'd prefer Nirbachito Column under my pillow. And before anyone thinks my attitude as puerile, let me make myself clear that I don't dream of a day with unbridled freedom of speech where no one even cares what another says, forget offence. For such a heaven would be boring. As for offence, Ashish Nandy put it pithily when he remarked about Arundhati Roy-"It is the right of every independent thinker to think irresponsibly and hurt the sentiments of the majority on any issue."

Strange! Correspondents in The Telegraph and Hindustan Times, and Debak in Kolkata Mirror write that Richa Gupta(picture) is the second girl to be at the helm in Presi after someone in 1980s. But Sourav tells me that she should be the third after Ajanta Ghosh in early 1990s. He tells me he gathered this information from Dipanjan da, former G-Sec of PCU.

Tharoor,Tharoor,par kya yeh theek hai?

So the suave diplomat-author has finally decided to step out of his bureaucratic circles and jump in the murky world of politics. Papers say he's looking for a Congress ticket. Surely, at a time when the GOP of India is besmirched with allegations of buying MPs to stay in power, Tharoor would certainly help. Though after technocrat PM, this diplomat could become another punching bag as politicking in boardrooms of UN and international offices does not really prepare one for the Indian quandary of region, caste, religion and language. And if he takes the Rajya Sabha route, then neither is that good for him nor for us. Yes, considering his experience any party would say zaroor,zaroor! but the way he is being inducted into the system only shows how weak our political system has become today. That people like Tharoor do not come up the ladder in a party but need to be imported from outside and then thrust upon its workers, and the people of the country is not something we can feel proud about.

When my world begins

with you, and my

possessions end with you

you;

When my world of

possessions is identified

with your lilting

melody, and my

possessions of world are

expressed in your

momentary touch-

There's but one thing I

can, and want, to gift to you:

Me.

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.