Random Thoughts of a Perplexed Mind

DESTRUCTION….What does this one word remind you of? What images are conjured in your mind when you hear this word? Ones of immense jubilation, celebration and happiness….or ones of grief and sadness. I assume the choice is not very difficult. Now suppose this destruction is wrought on someone you deem to be your enemy. Suppose, that someone, is a proven criminal and has perpetrated innumerable crimes. Then, how would you respond to that enemy’s destruction? By joyous celebrations? By happiness unbound? Many of you will now not have to think much to answer in the affirmative. At the cost of sounding blasphemous, this thought process is something that I would like to question today. There might surely come such times when one feels that there is no option left than destruction. Such destruction, when it needs to be resorted to, is out of compulsion, it is out of a profoundly sad realization that this inconceivable option now needs to become a reality. Once resorted to, over and done with, what is it that is left behind? At least in me, what is left behind is an emptiness that refuses to fill up, a heart broken into pieces, those pieces refusing to believe that this brutal end was their destiny. The feelings of jubilation, rejoice and celebration don’t even think of coming near to this dejected heart. In the moment of your seeming ‘triumph’, you may be forgiven for that fleeting moment of joy that you might experience, for that pump fisting and that purposeful nod of the head, for a mission that you feel is accomplished, but that moment, if it lingers on and on, if you never feel satiated by your appetite for destruction, if you want more and more of it, if your celebrations refuse to die down, what then is to be inferred from it? That the last bout, that last laugh goes to death and destruction, that humans did start to believe that they had become the most ‘civilized and cultured’ beings, but the bluff has been called off uncovering the truth that had been hidden and banished into exile. But this, after all, may just be inevitable. That may be, creation and destruction indeed are two faces of the same coin, the existence of one face is neither possible in presence of, nor without the other.

Speaking of civilization and culture, the relationship between nature and culture seems to be forever antagonistic. Culture has built itself and flourished on the foundations provided by nature, and is now in a furious rush to cut those very foundations. That, however, may be a completely different discussion altogether. I want to dwell a bit more here on another aspect of the relationship between nature and culture. There has been a recent trend in our now ‘fully civilized’ civilizations to outlaw certain things, calling them unnatural. This reasoning has started to confuse me a lot lately. Homosexuality is something that has very recently been again declared as unlawful in our society, citing that it is against the laws of nature, and thereby against man-made laws as well. Just going back a few centuries to the great ‘Greek civilization’, the one to which Alexander the Great belonged, and the one where the ‘Olympics’ originated. I would like to share two anecdotes related to these two aspects of the Greek civilization. The Greeks, then, were very fond of wrestling, and the wrestling then, used to be practiced something like this: there were separate practice grounds for men and women where men and women of various age groups would practice wrestling, completely naked. This resulted in numerous homosexual relations, which anyway, were not regarded as ‘unnatural’ in any sense of the term. Secondly, Alexander the Great himself had a male lover, Hephaestion, who was with him till his death. Both of them also married separately, Alexander marrying a woman named Roxana. (Both these anecdotes are courtesy Andrew Marr’s ‘A Brief History of the World’). This is enough proof of Alexander’s bisexuality, and the ‘naturalness’ of such relationships at that time. Now, it can be argued that it is not mandatory that what might be considered lawful in one society should be considered so in another society as well. Quite rightly so. The only thing that confuses me here is the contradictory reasoning that is resorted to, in order to outlaw certain things. Homosexuality is outlawed because it is reasoned to be ‘unnatural’. Now as per my understanding, man has progressed from nature to culture linearly, so a society that existed centuries before can be said to be ‘less civilized’ and hence ‘more close to nature’. As societies developed, the cultural quotient increased and the natural quotient concomitantly decreased. The people that were closer to nature would be thought to be having a better understanding of what was ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’. Then how can something that was considered natural then become so completely unnatural now? The fact that many of us do-not want to own up is that homosexuality can by no stretch of mind be accused of being ‘unnatural’. Yes, the ‘cultural’ societies of today have a big problem with it because it doesn’t fit in with their elite ‘culture’ of dominance. The least that could be expected of such highly ‘civilized’ societies would be to own up to the truth and not garb their ‘civilizing instincts’ behind untenable positions.

The above examples take us to the importance of studying and understanding History and various different smaller histories that combine together to form the ‘History’. I had an idea of why and understanding of History was important, but the profoundness of its importance has dawned on me today, as if in a moment of insight, it is now as clear as it could ever be. Understanding History and various different histories, in their correct manifestations, is so very essential to the formation of any viewpoints that we may form. It is supremely essential to understand the nuances and the various different perspectives and narratives that situations can have. It is essential so that we just don’t take irresponsible and uninformed positions without a complete knowledge (if at all it is possible for any knowledge to be complete) of all the perspectives around a situation, and learn to be more responsible with our worldviews. Whether or not many of us want to be responsible and go to such an extent for acquiring that responsibility, is a different question altogether!

Moving on to the ‘Great Derangement” that the world is suffering from (Courtesy: Amitav Ghosh, “The Great Derangement”). What do you think is the utmost challenge threatening the very existence of mankind today? Climate Change, would not have been on top of many of your lists. This is precisely the ‘Great Derangement’ that Amitav Ghosh talks about. The part that struck me like a flash of lightning was the culpability of the power politics in wanting to maintain the status quo, rather than trying to mitigate any of the threats that have emerged from climate change and global warming. Climate change is being seen not as a threat, but as a golden opportunity to fulfil the insatiable thirst of the ‘Power Demon’, for more and more power and authority over the world. And what better disguise than democracy to hide these base instincts? So, in effect, the power differential that climate change is bound to create is being fed into, using the weapons of denial and obfuscation of facts. So, on the one hand, the stark realities of climate change are being vociferously denied by the powers that be, on the other hand, covert preparations are on in full swing to prepare for the worst and inevitable eventualities (incidentally, climate change is on top of the list as a security threat for the US security agencies, whereas the political establishment leaves no stone unturned to mellow down and repudiate any voices that speak up against this inevitable phenomenon). It is being ensured that the power differentials are so completely widened by the time the worst descends, that the ‘Power Demon’ no longer has to hide behind the ‘democratic veil’ and can bare itself and reign supreme, leading back to the ‘age of empires’.

नामुमकिन

जहाँ मौत आंकड़ों का एक अनंत सिलसिला बस हो

जहाँ ज़िंदगी सिफर की क़ैद से निकलने की बस तमन्ना ही करती हो

जहाँ परचमों की उम्र लंबी करते करते

जाने कितनी ही साँसों की उम्र रह गयी बस चुनिन्दा हो

जहाँ हर आवाज़ कुछ कहने की जल्दी में हो

जहाँ हर इक सोच खुद से ही अजनबी सी हो

जहाँ ज़िंदगी पाना इतना आसां हो जाये

कि ज़िंदा रह पाना उतना ही मुश्किल हो

जहाँ सड़कों पे चलने वाला इंसान भी न कहला पाये

और महलों में रहने वाला भगवान से भी कुछ ज़्यादा ही हो

जहाँ तदबीर के अनगिनत लम्हे मिलकर भी

तकदीर के इक लम्हे के सामने बारहा शर्मिंदा ही हों

जहाँ मुसलसल मौत ज़िंदगी की तलाश में हो

और ज़िंदगी ऐसी हो कि हर पल मौत के सुकून को तरसे

जहाँ मिट्टी पर खिंची लकीरें तो बहुत मायने रखती हों

उसी मिट्टी से बने इंसान ही बस बेमायने हों

ऐसे इस जहाँ में हम सांसें लेते तो हैं पर हैं क्या ज़िंदा भी ?

इस सवाल का जवाब खोज पाना दिन ब दिन शायद और ज़्यादा नामुमकिन सा हो

An Empty Vessel Makes Much Noise!!

I am stupefied and disgusted by the repeated broadcast of radio advertisement that glorifies the UP government and talks about the progress made for tourism in UP and about the world class infrastructure made available to UP police.
Is this really the progress in true sense? See this about the displaced colonies -

In Muzaffarnagar, 82 per cent colonies do not have clean drinking water, 93 per cent no street lighting, 61 per cent no drainage and not a single colony has a public toilet. 
In Shamli, 97 per cent colonies lack drinking water, 76 per cent street lights, 70 per cent drainage and 97 per cent colonies have no public toilets.

And This -

 

 

The 'God' question....and Humanity

It is the same “God” question again! In some part of my brain I feel the uselessness of dwelling on this question again and again, because in some part of my brain I feel there can never be “the one correct” answer to this question. But so it is with just about everything in life isn’t it? It is all a game of perspectives and alternatives. To quote an example I heard in one of my lectures as part of my post-graduation course in Elementary Education, suppose you are sitting in a room and there is a glass of water lying in front of you on a table. After some time, you vacate the room and go out. Keeping all the other things constant, will that glass continue to lie on the table? At first glance, this question seems childishly simple to the extent of being silly. What does your presence or absence have to do with the existence of that glass? How can your going out of the room change the location of a glass of water in any manner? As clear and factual as it sounds, let me give you another perspective that we discussed that day in class, but the import of which is fully clear to me only now. How do you know in the first place that the glass is kept on the table? Because you can see it lying there and hence, your brain/mind (I will be using both interchangeably here) tells you so. If your mind didn’t tell you, you would have no way of knowing it. Let us consider for a moment, you don’t have a mind. In that case, you can argue that you may still know about the existence of the glass if others told you so and you trusted them firmly. Let us suppose again for a second that this is a legitimate way (although I strongly disagree) to know something (I am not referring in any way here to physical disabilities like blindness. A blind person can know things through other sense organs like touch, smell etc.). Even in that case, the other person will still have to go through your mind in the first place. Blind belief also would require your mind to agree to believe blindly in the first place. This proves that the existence of a mind is a prerequisite for existence itself to be real. Everything that you experience requires the faculty of your mind for that expericence to exist in the first place. Now, let us go back to the case of the room and the glass, where we started off. Once you leave the room, you are no longer able to experience/see the existence of that glass. So, how can you say that it still exists there? You can at best conjecture that keeping everything else constant it still has to be there. But how can you say this with as much certainty as when you could say it when you were in the room? At least to my understanding, you cannot. (I would be happy if I am provided an explanation that proves to the contrary, may be that will answer many of my questions). If something as simple as the existence of a glass that is as close to a fact as can be, can have another perspective attached to it, then how can we claim that any other thing will not?

Coming back to the “God” question, is there an all-powerful being that created everything that is? If yes, why did it do so? For some solid concrete reason, or just for fun? Why did it create such diversity of everything - inequality being the sole essence of all existence? Why did it create everything in opposite pairs – life and death, happiness and sorrow, high and low, night and day….and the list can go on and on….if it is the all-powerful, all-benevolent, all-righteous one, why did it not choose to not create fear, hunger, poverty, suffering, anger, malaise, ego, and all the innumerable ‘vices’ and ‘miseries’ in the first place? The answer that usually follows these questions is the ‘theory of karma’. All that is happening to you, all sorrow that you are reaping is not ‘God’s’ doing, but your own…because every action has an equal and opposite reaction, whatever you sow, so shall you reap. Then why do we see innocents, even infants who don’t know even the meaning of happiness or sorrow, suffering untold miseries. The next explanation: their ‘karma’ form their previous births. At some time, some place, in some history that cannot be established or verified, that can exist only on faith, because you choose to believe in it, in some such history, this individual would have done something really notorious to deserve all that is happening to it today. It is but natural that such a proposition can exist only on faith, because reason can never have anything to do with something like this. Then why do so many of us believe in this? May be because we are compelled to attribute a reason to something that belies our understanding. May be because we need to still keep on breathing and moving and living despite all the million absurdities hitting at us from all directions. May be because we have attributed such all-encompassing stature to our “God” that we cannot attribute this inexplicable misery to it at the same time. So we do the next best thing. Attribute it to ourselves. Own up everything. The good or the bad. All our own doing. If not in this birth, then in some previous unknown birth that is sure to have existed. As true as that glass on the table in that room.

This is all good isn’t it? Everything explained away. Everything understood. Then why does it not feel so? Why is it that there is that huge ball of indigested questions churning up inside all the time? May be because something somewhere just does not add up. If “God” is “THE ONE”, then why did this world have to be the way it is? And if all this is our own doing, then how is that entity “THE ONE”? How is it all powerful? How can an all-powerful entity allow anything like this to go on, without batting an eyelid? Why does everything have to have a cyclical reasoning that throws oneself into a vicious circle of uncertainty? Just for instance, suppose something terrible happens to a person, which she has done nothing to deserve. What does she do after all the initial wails and cries for help? What does she do when living with this terrible feeling is becoming impossible? She needs to desperately find the reason for this madness. It has to be something, somewhere just hidden from her eyes. And then it strikes. Yes! It was her own doing, may be not in this birth but some random previous birth somewhere. She definitely has deserved it. Not only that, whatever has happened has happened for the good because it has only rid the burden of a sin from her tainted being. She has to repay one loan less now. What is the choice available to her if she doesn’t believe this? Is there any real choice? How does she go on living? Holding on to this thought with all her might comforts her, at least lets her move on. But if it is all ‘karma’, then what is the need for ‘God’? Why do we need to believe in an all-powerful entity? Why are we desperate to hold on to something at times of need? May be because we are human. That is the mantra…we are ‘HUMAN’ and being human, before anything else, means that our first and foremost value needs to be ‘HUMANITY’, plain and simple, HUMANITY. Why not, just for once, stick to the creed of humanity? Why not live by it and die by it? All the good, the bad and the ugly, is it not created by us? Is it not in our hands to try and choose wisely and steer the world towards that sunlit path of hope, of love, of prosperity? Is it that impossible to create a world that swears to live by and die by that creed of ‘HUMANITY’? Is it really, if each and every one of us willingly and positively and sincerely set out to do so? It is for each one for us to answer for ourselves….