New Books
14 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Books, god, India, Reading Tags: Book of Ram, Devdutt, Devdutt Pattanaik, Jaya, Mahabharata, Shiva to Shankara
I was thrilled to see – not one, but two packets from flipkart waiting for me. I didn’t even have to look at the cover to figure who had sent me the books. It has to be my husband! You will find him here.
This is what I received today. All three books have been written by Devdutt Pattnaik. Anyone who has read these, please share your thoughts:
PAAR – STORY ART
06 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in India, Indian Movies, Movie Review, Movies, philosophy Tags: 1984 Award winning movie, Hindi Movie, Naeeruddin Shah, Paar, Shabana Azmi
This is a Hindi movie set in then contemporary India – the year I was born.
The most common perception is that this movie is about the struggles in Bihar of labourers i.e. farm labourers. The labourers peacefully demanded higher wages. The landlord (played by Utpal Dutt) had political aspirations that failed, thanks to a candidate of the lower caste who won the election. There is a benevolent school teacher who helps the labourers think and educates them about the minimum wages fixed by the government. Of course, the landlord would not even pay the labourers the minimum wages due.
The labourers in keeping with the school teachers’ instructions are not violent and make quiet demands, go on strike etc. Losing the election is the last straw on the camel’s back for the land lord. His son decides to get rid of school teacher and kills him in a road accident.
Our protagonist (Nseeruddin Shah) is enraged by the death of his mentor and chooses to kill the landlord’s son. After this all hell breaks loose. The landlord is set to kill all youngsters in the village who may have caused the death of his son. People are murdered within the village temple. Its a gory bloodbath.
Politicians and the government offer some support at the time. Om Puri, plays the village mukhiya (head of the village) and narrates most of the story leading to the blood bath.
So Narangiya and his wife escape from this mayhem and reach the house of the benevolent school teacher’s wife. She gives them some money and an address of a friend to whom they are referred. The friend sends them to Calcutta to work in a jute mill factory.
The rest of the movie revolves around Narangiya and his wife’s struggle to cope with the huge monstrous city that Calcutta is. There is no job in the jute mill and many labourers are out of jobs. Finally they get a job worth Rs. 20 (which was a lot of money in those days) after commission. They need to get some pigs about 3 dozens across the river. The entire struggle of getting the pigs across is the essence of Paar. Paar literally means crossing or across in Hindi.
Throughout the movie, the wife is pregnant and thinks this time she will lose her child. But the movie ends on a happy note. They get Rs. 20 and some tips. The baby is alive. Everyone is happy.
Paar – also has a philosophical meaning. “Nadiya paar” literally means deliverance by God. A literal depiction of symbolism. All actors are brilliant.The cinematography is bleak to match with the reality of the persons the story revolves around. Many of the scenes are shot in darkness and in silhouettes. Even Calcutta is shown as seen from the perception of Mrs. and Mr. Narangiya.
On the whole a worthwhile experience. It was 2 hours well spent.
VOLUNTARY DEATH – IS DEATH AN OPTION
04 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Absurdity, Death, India, legal issues, Life, philosophy, Thoughts Tags: choice, pro-life, Samadhi, Suicide, Voluntary death, war
The first argument I ever had with this person who went on to be my best friend and now my husband is – whether suicide is okay.
He argued for the right to kill oneself as being a part of, a sort of sub-sect of the right to live. I was 18 then. I couldn’t grasp what possibly life could become, how intolerable it could be for some people and how some people just live life because its there.
Animals have self-preservation in their instinct. But humans, we are capable of a rational choice. This is not a justification for every child who fails an exam and hangs from the fan. But I am speaking of a calculated choice.
What if something happens in your life, which makes living or continuing to live, meaningless? I know of one such thing in my life. I would not want to live if the thing I dread the most happens as it would have belied everything I stood for and everything my husband stands for and what we i.e. me and him represent.
It would not be out of failure or dejection or depression, so much as it would be out of not wanting to live beyond.
I am not advocating suicide or escape from life. My proposition is simple. I should be able to take a cold, rational choice to end my life. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami keeps coming back to me. Now that I think of it, the female protagonist in the novel, tries hard to live, to justify her living and her life. But she is unable to sustain it. After her boyfriend killed himself, she tries to live life, but cannot. So at some point she ends it.
I, as a living being, breathe. I, unfortunately cannot stop breathing when I feel like and therefore, if I wish to stop living a gruesome intervention is required. Is this the reason people abhor suicide – because it is an external intervention. Is it only the goriness of it all? The means of death are not natural and trouble the minds of those left behind, is that why suicide is shunned? Can the means of doing something justify the desirability or the undesirability of an end?
What if I were to go into a forest and end my life there? (I am vegetarian. So in all probability I would starve to death.) What if my body became one with the earth, then would I be hailed as a saint?
What about soldiers? Don’t they choose to end their lives when they go into a war? Is that not a rational choice? I can fully imagine what the consequence of allowing people legally to end their lives would be in the world today – total anarchy. But it still does not make it an illegitimate demand.
Suppose I am 65 and find out that I have cancer. Well, I am not going into the euthanasia debate. So, if at 65 I find out I have cancer, and I am a doctor lets say. I know death for me is going to be a long painful affair. I am happy with my life and choose it be a peak of my life. I die.
In India, the saints and yogis and all the great spiritual masters have attained high stages of meditation. The ultimate stage is the Samadhi, where the saint or yogi, chooses the time and place of death (in common man terms). They go into a deep trance from which they never come back. Is that suicide? No.
So why, if I should choose to end my life, I shouldn’t be allowed to. The state like in the case of most other subjects has no answer to this. I would probably be shot for asking. That should serve my purpose, but that is not how I would want to go.
FIRAAQ – Separation or Quest
16 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
in Absurdity, god, India, Life, Movies, philosophy, Politics, Religion Tags: Firaaq, Godhra, Gujarat, hindu, Indian movies, Movies, Nandita Das, Naseeruddin Shah, Religion, riots in Gujarat
This is a movie by Nandita Das. Her debut.
The movie is shot as an ensemble of lives of people in Gujarat post the Godhra riots. The lives of a Gujarati woman who is subjected to violence in her own home, a woman who cannot get over the violence in the city. A woman whom the riot had shaken up, she could hear people knocking her door crying for help, at her window asking to be let in. People whom a mob was chasing to slaughter. Women and children who were burnt because they belonged to another religion.
The story of a muslim couple, an auto rickshaw driver and his wife, whose house was burnt down by Hindu fundamentalists. An old muslim singer, played by Naseeruddin Shah. A man older than independent India whose love for music does not leave any room for hatred. His music survives the attacks. But he is anguished by humans killing other humans.
A muslim businessman married to a Gujarati girl, whose shop is looted and plundered by the likes of the husband of the Gujarati woman I mentioned earlier.
A little muslim boy in search of his dead father.
These are all people whose lives are changed forever. Why? Because a mob decided that people of a religion should be killed. The Hindus decided the Muslims should be killed. Muslims decided Hindus should be killed.
Why? Why? Why? Ask them why and no one can give one concrete answer. There is none! The truth is no one knows why they have killed or raped. No one understands the anger or the hatred. What is the difference between gods that have form and gods that don’t. Haven’t Hindus been taught that God is omnipotent and omnipresent? God is present in everything. If God is present in everything, how come your belief allows you to accept that God is absent in a muslim?
Politicians are using this mob mentality and what do they gain – 5 more years of power. In the name of religion? Isn’t religion a private emotion? Isn’t my religion sacred to me? Why is my religion superior or inferior to yours? Do singers persecute all people who cannot sing? Do dancers persecute all people who cannot dance? What about painters?
What is this religion for a mass? Is it not my liberation as an individual? I don’t understand.
I was not in Gujarat. But I can hear the screaming, I can smell the fear of people. Why? What are we killing each other for?
After the riots in that defeaning silence, stench of blood who is happy? No one. Everyone has been affected in some way or the other.
When I finished watching the movie, I was shivering. The movie ends on a positive note. But leaves the reality clinging to your skin. The fact that murder was committed at such a scale. Is this not genocide? How come the international forces have turned a blind eye to this? Is it not genocide? What does it take for it to be declared a genocide? Why isn’t India being condemned?
Why is the leadership in India not being condemned? The international community doesn’t care. India is profitable and therefore no one is raising any hue and cry. Is this the country I live in? Is this the world I want to bring children into.
I don’t even know what happened at Godhra. I was hardly 18 when it happened. We wanted to believe that there was reason for the violence, there was none. I only saw burning trains, screaming reporters and crying women. Who knows what the truth is? The truth is what the media paints it to be. Can one hear over the noise of the media. Its all unintelligible sounds. Its cacophony. I don’t even want to know anymore what happened. Can I live with the fact that it did happen? I have to live with the fact that it happened.
There are some who confidently will tell me who actually started it, which is the best magazine to believe. Tehelka seems to be the most reliable account. Yet. It doesn’t explain the desire to burn human flesh, to massacre, to drink blood. I don’t think anyone can answer this question.
An Exercise in Excise
02 Jun 2007 Leave a Comment
in Absurdity, Current Affairs, India, Law, legal issues, Politics, Thoughts Tags: Excise Duty, Excise Laws, India, Taxes
When I speak here, I speak as a layman and not as a member of the legal profession. I find it amusing that a State should tax manufacture. That’s what excise is all about.
I make goods – say shoes for instance. I am expected to shell out a percentage of the costs of making the shoes to the Government! Why should I do that? I already pay a percentage of my profits (income tax); I also pay for the same when sold (sales tax), why should I pay for manufacture?
For a society that wishes to promote the greatest good of the greatest number through increasing availability of goods and services – the State is not really helping to achieve that end. I find it absurd that while one gets income tax deductions etc. to help save profits for productive concerns – how is taxing the activity of manufacture of any use? Yes, it does add to the coffers of the Government– but at what cost?
I understand that it helps make exports more competitive, but why do we have to still have such high rates of excise – 16%. To this absurd philosophy of the State, all I can say is that excise should be phased out and no manufacturing unit should be taxed for being productive. But that is never going to happen.
Absurdity, Man and Religion
24 May 2007 3 Comments
in Absurdity, Existentialism, India, Life, philosophy, Religion, Thoughts Tags: Absurdity, Fate, Hindi Movies, Religion, Religious Wars
There is a certain absurdity in the way fate operates. One can never know why one was born into a certain place. Why did a man rest at a particular place while travelling and why not at another?
You mix this general absurdity of fate with man’s irrational behaviour (including religious behaviour) and one doesn’t know what will become of it. The consequences are extrapolated into unimaginable dimensions. Unfortunately, I am not the best of writers and will have to resort to an example to make my case.
This is an Indian set up, say in the interiors where the religious strife is high, coupled with ill informed villagers and gullible townsmen; who would believe anything. A Muslim boy decides to rest for the night in a temple. He loves temples and is researching on them. But the reason he rests there is because he is unable to get a grip on the fact that he was the cause of the death of the girl most dear to him. She committed suicide because the non-Muslim boy she loved was murdered by her relatives (who were informed by our hero of their elopement). When the Muslim boy is seen inside the temple, he is immediately assumed to be a terrorist and the police is waiting to gun him down and people from all over the state are gathered to lynch him. He walks out of the temple after two days. He is shot dead.
Notice the absurdity of the whole situation. Starting from their birth, all the three – the muslim girl, muslim boy and non-muslim boy had no reason to be born as such. The lover need not have been killed, the boy need not have been found at a temple…
The force that acted on these seemingly unconnected absurd events, was man and his irrational behaviour. Thus it is not good enough to say that life is absurd and we can do nothing about it. The absurdity has at all times to be balanced out by rationality. Man’s rational behaviour – conscious and thinking behaviour can cancel out or rather balance all absurdity in the world.
Where does religion fit into whatever I have said so far? Religion does the very opposite of rationality consequently extrapolating absurdity. The boy got killed because he did not belong to the same religion as the girl. There is no rational in that. It has, if at all, magnified absurdity. The same goes for all religious feud, whether it is the Hindus (banning Valentine’s Day) or Christians with their forced conversions or any other religion with its respective idiosyncrasies. Bach has said – that when spiritual knowledge becomes public and is taught it becomes a religion and then the knowledge is lost. Therefore, any knowledge has to passed on to individuals and not the masses. This is what is happening today. Absurdity is getting magnified to be all consuming and to fight this unknown, uncomprehensible absurdity man resorts to God. Man must if at all, resort to his reason.
(Please note that whole concept of absurdity being balanced out by rationality was something I discovered during an argument with a friend, all due credit for this thought process of mine is to go to him.)
GROUND LEVEL ZERO
22 May 2007 1 Comment
in Current Affairs, Education, India, philosophy, Thoughts Tags: Education, Marx, Mumbai University
Someone said to me that The Mumbai University is a great ‘leveller’. I did not think about it much then. Yesterday, over a cup of coffee, a friend suddenly said – “You know people think too much of themselves these days, it’s not that they are really good at anything in particular, but they just seem to have an air about themselves and it’s becoming impossible to communicate with them!”
So I said, may be it is lack of humility. He agreed.
I started thinking about it and could not help laughing about it. Marx would have been happiest today. He probably never imagined the effects of over capitalism or shall we say ‘over-corporatisation’ is congruous to his intended effect of equality for all, through socialism. Let me explain.
Starting from school, the best student would only be slightly higher than the mediocre ones, ‘coz the system is designed to help the dullest brains pass (no offence meant to anyone – neither the smartie nor the not so smart). Colleges, through their system of essay type examination also do the same. The guy who puts in 11 hours a day scores 10% more than the guy who maybe puts in 5. Now one may argue that maybe the guy who puts in 11 hrs is slow and dull, unlike the guy who puts in 5, who may grasp more in less time. The truth is always quite far from this assumption. The guy who is passionate to care about what he reads and tries to study in the best possible manner can never beat the guy who is not as smart but understands exactly what is needed. Maybe that’s why my friend talked about the University being a great leveller.
If one progressed beyond college to the job scenario – then again one would see a lot of levelling. The smartest guy chooses the best place for him which pays much less than a call centre (BPO/LPO) where probably only average skills are required. Therefore, to answer my friend’s question of why there is no humility left, it’s because of everything I have stated hereinabove. So people have begun to think that they are capable of earning as much as the smartest, most intelligent brain in class and therefore no deference of any kind is owed to anybody. Today in the age where everyone denounces materialism, is ironically the age of consumerism. Respect for goodness or greatness is also to be paid on materialist bases. Marx would be very happy to know that humanity is all at Ground Level Zero. One can only hope that life is not a great leveller.
Existentialism is looking the other way.
20 May 2007 4 Comments
in Existentialism, India, Life, philosophy, Reading, Thoughts Tags: Albert Camus, Camus, Existentialism
I have never read existentialism. But I have read about it. I can say with some humility that I am a Camus fan. I have read two books – The Stranger and the Rebel. But I am not sure if these two books count as core existentialist thought process.
The thing that interests me is the question – what is beyond this absurdity? Given that the world is absurd, and one conquers (for want of a better word) this absurdity, then where does it lead you. I was discussing this with a friend, who talked about nihilism. He said that the problem with existentialism and men especially, is the fact that they reach a point where there is nothingness and many men (not few) once they have reached that last step willingly let themselves get sucked into nihilism.
This is quite interesting. He also said that there comes a stage when thought gets turned to itself and life itself is self destructive. But thought turning to itself, for e.g. ‘prove proof’ is of no consequence. However, it has made me think and led me to believe that there is in fact an answer to the question – “if a tree falls in the middle of a forest and there is no one around, did the falling tree make any sound”. Now the tree itself being inanimate may not have realized it. However, a human being is a totally different ball game.
For instance, a human being while reading is not simply reading; if he concentrates hard enough he will be able to see that he is reading. He will be able to perceive that he is reading. Therefore, the concentration through observation of the happenings instead of leading the existentialist path to nihilism, takes one to complete consciousness. Instead of nothingness, there is ‘everythingness’. But this can be achieved only through conscious thought process and observation of oneself as a third person. What happens therefore is that A is writing and is therefore a conscious being. But if A is conscious of the fact that A is writing one has turned consciousness to itself. I think existentialism went the other way.
ADULT INDIAN AUDIENCE
16 May 2007 Leave a Comment
I don’t know how familiar you guys are with Winston (the protagonist of 1984 by George Orwell – not Churchill ofcourse!). He was a man who was alone in the world of madness under the watchfull eyes of Big Brother. He was alone because, no one else saw what he did. No one saw that someone was obliterating reality. He was alone in his knowledge and understanding.
Point is, I felt a glimpse of that when I had gone to watch an Indian movie with a friend. The audience for some reason found it amusing that the characters were about to have sex! There was an uproar of giggles (I don’t think that term has been used before) when the guy kisses the girl. This is an average “mature adult Indian audience”. There were some incidents that were genuinely funny in the movie but I think most missed the point ‘coz I was the only one giggling.
I guess what I am trying to say is that on the one hand we blame the theatre which does not produce world class drama but on the other hand suppose they do – then what is their end! They must shudder to think how their expression is recieved and how the most subtle theme would be trampled over by an imbecile audience. On another hand (a totally different political hand at that), we have moral policing that is against display of sexual expressions on screen.
I really want to ask them only one question – Is this really the class of people you want to protect? Are these people any more corruptible?
OBC
06 Apr 2007 Leave a Comment
in Current Affairs, India, Politics, Reservation
What is this incessant need to analyse and class people into several kinds of classifications. We apparently have some 3900 odd OBC in India. 3900! Why cant you solve problems unit wise? Why not make the classification purely geographical and eradicate poverty in every village by addressing issues relevant to those areas alone. What is this excessive obsessive need to classify people and put them in psuedo boundaries which have no relevance in real life. Is it not odd? Where did this start? More importantly, where will all this end. I think its time to close one’s eyes to facts that are on the face of it – baseless and immaterial.
The solution is simple – to take each issue and try to reach a logical conclusion. But are we today that simplistic. Lets take a complexity check in future. Let’s tell ourselves that we will only adopt those solutions and take those steps that are logical and simple. Can we rationalise simply.
