The Hidden Horse

Indeed, why does a painting or sketch of something often look better than the thing itself?

I don't know the precise answer. But I am reminded of an anecdote an old friend of mine had once shared with me.

In one of those North European countries (I don't remember which), there happens to be a community of artisans specialised in making wooden toys. My friend, one day during one of his trips to the place, stood watching a person making a wooden horse with fascinating precision and speed, almost hard to believe. After a while, my friend couldn't contain himself and asked the craftsman how he managed to do such a hard thing (building toy horses) with such ease. The good natured man smiled and said in his accented and broken English: "Not hard at all. Not hard at all." Then picking up a block of wood, he said: "Here's wood. You just have to remove what is not horse. And there! You have your horse!"

...and this story seems to be a block of wood hidden in which seems to lie the horse -- the answer to the big question: 'Why does a painting look better than a scenery?'

In every block of wood that passes before our eyes, there's hidden a horse. An artist, in some way or another, just takes that horse out and presents it to you. In every scene that passes before us, there's a painting hidden. An artist just takes that painting out for us. By highlighting what's interesting. Abstracting away the rest. Often, he highlights what could be interesting.

An Artist's Pledge

• That my service to the world will be to give people the faith that the world they live in is full of infinite beauty, by helping them see the beauty that's there all around them.
• That my work will not merely be a display of my skill and precision, in fact far from it. Rather, it will be the translation of nature's subtle language into the visual/literal language that humans understand.

Related:

A library of own drawings and the work of some of my favourite contemporary artists

Vigyan's Points of View

Eyes-Cold

Vigyan (while eating): Mamma! Today, in school, Sameeksha was saying ice is hot.

Shilpi: He he! Is ice ever hot?

Vigyan and Shilpi in chorus: No!

Sujit and Shilpi (being very happy at their son's intellectual progress) : See! How fast he is learning!

Vigyan: Baba! Look! (points to his eyes) My eyes is cold. I know that eyes is cold.

Cinderella Story

Once there was a girl called Cinderella. Her mom was very badmaash. Her didi's were also very badmaash. One day the horseman said: 'Hear, hear, hear.' Didis were happy. They dressed up and went to palace. Then another didi came. Her name was Pari. He moved her stick with a star on it. Tling! Then Cinderella went to palace. There there was marriage of Cinderella and prince. Then Cinderella saw it was 8 O'clock. She ran home. Her shoe fell on the staircase. Then that badmaash didi wore it. But it was too small. Then Cinderella wore it. It fit. So, Cinderella and prince sat on a horse. And they got married. And they were happy.

Related:

Chhotu and Storytelling

How Should We Dine at a Food Court?

Daivik Grows

Vinoba Bhave's Thoughts on Education

In brief ...

I summarise some of Acharya Vinoba Bhave's thoughts on education (named Nai Talim). I find its strengths in education's well-grounded and practical nature and it being treated as an ennobling agent, both traits missing in any explicit terms in present day mainstream education. I however have doubts about the practicality of such a way. It results in a society which, though internally developed, is vulnerable to external attacks and desertion by its weaker and/or ambitious members. It also seems to undermine the importance of intense intellectual pursuits like abstract science, philosophy or arts. It is hard to imagine that something like Nai Talim (an abstract concept of significant intellect) itself could emerge from such a system.

Nai Talim

I recently came across a very interesting take on education while going through a compilation of Acharya Vinoba Bhave's thoughts on education. I purchased the book for Rs. 35 at Bapu Kuti in Sevagram. The concepts are given the name Nai Talim (new learning). The concept and the term originated from Mahatma Gandhi. In gist, here are a few points which come up repeatedly as salient:

• It talks predominantly about rural education in India.
• The education is craft-based.
• Work and learning can't be separated. This is called integrated learning.
• Obsessive pursuit of knowledge isn't advocated. A pragmatic approach is proposed where knowledge is used as a tool of improving life.
• Distinction between intellectual work and labour work is discouraged.
• Overall personality and character development is emphasised.

Tones of spiritualism, socialism and non-violence are mixed at all times in the explanation of the concept. The model of development seems to weigh self-reliance and organic growth over speed of development or modernisation.

Praise

In spirit, I find myself partial to this way of learning, living and developing. I find the following as the strengths:

Education as a Value Add to Life. Over-specialisation seems to be a bane of our current way of educating our children. Students spend all their learning years gaining an expertise which is useful in a setting which isn't native to him. For example, after more than 20 years of devoted effort, all I seem to know is to work on a computer. Through a series of technological world events, computers are now placed centrally in our lives. Yet, I don't see anything natural or fundamental in this situation. How well am I educated to continue leading a meaningful, satisfied and dignified life if some of the key material aspects of my work are altered, for example, say, computer disappear?

This has several implications. Firstly, it makes me vulnerable to social and technological changes on which I have no control, and which may be centred so far away from me that I have no way to feel connected to them. Secondly, it tends to drain away my faith in education. Most students struggle for all their academic years to identify practical motivations for the activity they spend most of their waking hours in: studying. Some keep an eye on the next examination. Some have the target of getting into a top university. Some vie for a high paying job. Some of a respectable degree. All these are extrinsic and artificial motivations for doing something we aren't convinced about the real use of. Most of our learning (training) happens for the service of a complex world we have no clue about.

I feel, in the least, my education must equip me to apply my thoughts to the improvement of my own life directly. My training should enable me to solve problems of physical, analytical, emotional, social, economic and ethical nature. Nai talim seems to address that.

Education as an Ennobler. Education, as we have it today, doesn't seem to ennoble anyone. It should. In fact, this objective should be given as much importance as, if not more than, intellectual development. More educated people aren't necessarily less selfish, less corrupt, more courageous or less violent. They should be. This is dealt with in the Nai Talim.

Critique

However, I also have some doubts which render the practicality of such a system like Nai Talim questionable.

1. Vulerability. Firstly, this concept seems to be in line with an age-old Indian tradition of learning. We all know of its merits. It rightly keeps our attention away from blind materialism and focuses on inner development of people, which is what development really is. The model results in a peaceful, harmonious, robust and sustainable society, at least in theory. In a world where all civilisations, nations and races are prepared to honour, if not follow, this way of living and learning, no problems will arise. However, in a world comprising of other methods of learning and development, this way appears very vulnerable. This vulnerability has more than one forms.

1.1 External Vulnerability. Consider yourself an educated and elevated society of people leading a peaceful life in harmony with their surroundings. Any expansion is done only when bidden by necessity. So, visible signs of modernisation and technology aren't many. The real development is of course in the people: they are nobler, less aggressive, and in general happier. All hunky-dory! In comes a bellicose element: an external invader, an imperialist, a mining magnate. He is spiritually bankrupt, but has made immense strides in material development. And to drive his world at its ever increasing pace, he needs all sorts of fuels: minerals, wood, cheap labour, sex workers. He gives a damn about your inner peace and spiritual elevation; he isn't educated to believe that such things can exist. All he cares about is your mines, forests, your healthy youth and your attractive women. How do you stop him? Your military capabilities never progressed, because you never needed them so far. So, he tramples on you, kills you, destroys your monuments, burns your scriptures, rules over you for centuries, turns your lot into an intellectual and cultural morgue. He even uses his influence to convince the world that this was the barbaric tribe he was here to civilise.

A method like Nai Talim doesn't provide any protection against this effect. And we know that this form of attact happens: colonialism, atrocities on tribal villages in India and, if you will allow my including a fictional case, invasion of humans on Pandora in the film Avatar.

1.2 Internal Vulnerability. Here's another form of the vulnerability. Whatever you might say, your spiritual way of living is a bit dull, a bit slow, even boring. To enjoy it itself requires certain degree of training and orientation. On the other hand, that bellicose invader, that imperialist, makes sure to flash before everyone every evidence that his people lead an exciting life, materially fulfilled, intellectually free. He erects billboards showing beautiful models loving men due to something they wear, or possess, even though, both the beautiful model and that man posed because they got paid for it; and probably they actually hate each other in their lives. He tells stories about his most brilliant scientists. The reality may be that the scientist invented his stuff because his government wanted to bomb another nation. The scientist may have been a parasite plagearising on others' work. Or he may have been a homosexual recluse who killed himself after leading a life of unbearable persecution. But the stories told would  be of their towering scientific accomplishments as if they were all a result of an irrepressible creative urge. For a society with statistically significant population, there is bound to be a section of the population which would be swayed by this propaganda. Some will leave because they think material and sexual fulfilment is more easily available elsewhere. Some will leave because they think it's more cool to design a nuclear bomb than to till the soil. Even if you have answers to the first form of vulnerability, it's this second form which deals a deathblow to the idea of a harmonious, self contained society, because it brings forth a very important and fundamental characteristic of large collection of humans: they can never all be the same.

1.3 Way Back to Aggressiveness. And if the state tries to intervene to mitigate any of the above vulnerabilities, either through protectionist acts, strong military or iron-fisted law and order, what we have is not a spiritual society, but an equally aggressive state which is a breeding ground of inefficiency, corruption and eventually revolution.

2. Contradiction. There's one final negative factor, which I wouldn't even call a vulnerability. It's something else, something more. It's that such a way of education seems to address a large majority of people for whom imposed knowledge is an unbearable burden. For them, connecting every piece of knowledge gained with a practical experience has the potential of phenomenally increasing the outreach of education. However, there's a minority which would pursue knowledge and learning out of sheer nature. A good many of these would probably be having only one healthy organ in their body: their brain. Restricting the domain on which they are supposed to apply their thoughts would probably be okay. But to declare that mere thinking or pursuit of knowledge is of no value if not accompanied by craft based activity would paralyse these people, because, by nature, these people are probably good in only that. And it's not just about rendering these intellectual lot useless. I don't care much about sophisticated technology. But abstract mathematics and philosophy, astronomy, art, ..., I am yet to see how dedicated, passionate pursuit of such subjects would ever develop in a Nai Talim like environment. I even say the Vinoba himself falls in this category. Not in the sense that he wasn't any good in any crafts, but in the sense that many of his visions are based on his ability (and keenness) to use abstractions which he didn't need to develop as a part of his craft.

In conclusion, dedicated intellectual work of the most abstract kind are integral to the development of any society, not just the aggressive and bellicose ones, but even those which Acharyaji envisioned. This is because the concept of a large society, as large as a nation, doesn't emerge naturally from a tribal outlook that something like Nai Talim seems to advocate, but from man's inherent ability and nature to create abstractions.

Related:

Limits of Education

Small is Beautiful

Past the Midpoint

A few days ago, there was a re-union between old friends. It was a celebration of relation that had survived through thick and thin. Through countries and continents. Through relationships and breakups. Marriages. Kids. Graduations. Jobs. Lay-offs. Passionate pursuit of hobbies. Spiritual experiences, or the lack thereof. On the day of our re-union, we all had many stories to share and hide.

We talked about all that. We joked. We sang and played. We also talked about those things which used to fill up our conversations when we were all in our twenties. You could sum them up as change-the-world topics. It was so like 10 years back!

Except a starkly different topic. Receding hairlines. Mounting waistlines. Cholesterol. Indigestion. Aches and pains. About saving up. About settling down.

It was about ageing. All of them in the group are in their early thirties, except me. I am in my late thirties.

The discussion turned towards mid-life crisis. Though, I think, I had less to add about these topics than others, I could see glances intermittently turning towards me for more light. Have you been through it? How does it look? Those glances seemed to ask.

I joked, Ya, I think it happened to me sometime when I was sleeping!

And it's not just the above incident. This strain laces through all discussions among people of my age. When you are well into your thirties, the realisation of the finiteness of life starts dawning.

I am not going to assume an attitude of a saint who is above and beyond these very natural anxieties of human beings. I do agree that the thought of dying someday isn't very pleasant. Worse still is the idea of having to go through an old age filled with helplessness and disease. Talking about a possibly impending crisis isn't bad. It's probably the first step towards preparing oneself to meet the inevitable as gracefully as possible.

What would make these discussions less gloomy is a positive outlook towards ageing and death. We all know we are going to grow old and eventually die. All life culminates that way. All the trillions and trillions of living beings that have been here have gone out the same way. All of them who tread over the surface of the planet at this moment will follow thither. It's not something new that will ever happen to us. If we think a bit rationally, death isn't something to be afraid of. 

Similarly, age is not something to hide or be ashamed of. I feel all the jokes we crack (sometimes on ourselves) about someone being older than someone else are a bit in poor taste. Think about it. What exactly underlies the humour in age related jokes? Only those who think of life as something totally absurd, a universally lost chance, are the ones who can find having lived more of it as laughable. It seems like saying: 'A is a bigger loser than B because he is older.'  As if both are losers by the definition of being alive. How absurd!

How do we look at life? As a corpus of time to be spent until it runs out? Or as a wealth of experiences to be collected and treasured? In other words, does life deplete or grow with time? With the former perspective, life is doomed to look like a tragedy, an impending and inevitable disaster. And, just assuming that life's just that and nothing else, it's then quite sadistic to laugh at someone who is presumably closer than someone else to that disaster on account of being older. If, on the other hand, we look at life from the latter perspective, a person who has lived longer is likely to have a richer wealth of experiences. In what way then does an older age make him the butt of a joke?

Having settled that, I wish to return to my earlier stand that I am not beyond the fear of death. I won't prefer death over life today. Or tomorrow. It's unlikely I will ever find death more attractive than life. On the one hand, I don't see life as a wonderful, divine gift like a truly enlightened person would. There may be divinity in it, but I haven't seen it myself. I know there are moments of sheer joy with divinity almost poking its head out. But they come floating to us like twigs in an ocean of boredom, toil and even misery. On the other hand, I don't claim to belong to the existential lot who demand a right to be depressed, treating life as a natural accident they had no say in. I am somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. And my position only allows me to want to live more; to fear death; and while life lasts, to strive to make its beautiful moments more frequent.

Taking no sides whatever, I wish to engage in a moment's thought. What is it about death that we dread so much?  Of course, to a large extent, living organisms are wired to shun death. Even insentient creatures try and avert death. But that doesn't explain the unimaginable extent to which human-beings go to preserve life.

This article is going to remain unfinished, if, it having initiated this discussion, a decisive analysis on life and death is what would complete it. I hold no qualification, no credential, to embark on such a lofty enterprise. I want to leave you with just a thought that as soon as we devote a moment of serenity to this thought of life and death, we feel lightened, past the knee-jerk reaction of panic that's built into our biology at the mention of the inevitable.

And that's not because life's not worth living. I don't want to give you any impression of divinity which I myself haven't experienced. That would be like faking orgasm! I just want to remind you of those twigs and branches of ecstatic moments that float to us (or we swim to them) through the ocean of drudgery. If there's any divinity anywhere, it's hidden in those moments. Here's brief list:

• When a sip of tea suddenly seems to inject freshness right through your soul.
• When you jam with your friends.
• When a loved one sincerely expresses that you mean something to him/her. When you are able to express your love to someone and he/she understands.
• When a point of enduring confusion gets clarified. When the thought process that led to that clarity lies before your eyes like a tamed beast, like a well-laid out map. The beauty of it all!
• When a thought or word of yours brings the light of hope and clarity to someone's eyes.
• When you look at a creation -- a drawing, a song, a recipe, an essay, a discussion -- and the feeling comes to you: 'Yes! This is what I wanted to express!'
• Whenever a moment feels like just the way it should be.
• When you feel that you are exactly the way you would like to be.

The experience of these moments seems to completely offset the cost of all the drudgery and misery that interleave with them. In fact, just try this question: How much are you ready to pay for any of the above? And you will know the answer. It's almost stupid to try to attach a price tag to these experiences. These experiences are priceless! And any life that gives you a hope of these is every bit worth clinging on to.

But, there still seems nothing to fear anything that may put a sudden stop to it. Taking a moment off from my self-afflicted agnosticism, here's a prayer I feel like saying: Keep me sane enough to be able to remember what experiences I have had. Give me the good-sense to be thankful for them. Give me the hope and energy to try and fill my moments with these experiences.

... and. Give me the grace to be smiling when it's time to pack my bags.

Related:

Ageing Meaningfully

Man's Most Violent Invention

No:  It's not nuclear weapons. It's not industrialisation. It's not globalisation. Not stock markets. Nor money! 

By far the most violent war humans have waged against nature is by coining the term 'meditation'. Nature has designed us in every way to become fidgety, impatient, depressed, greedy, jealous, afraid, lazy... But here we are: lifelong struggling to be that happy and contented soul, perpetually alert, unprovokably non-violent. On the one hand, there's our imaginativeness that makes us believe such a thing is possible. On the other, there're stories of seers, saints, prophets and so on that we embellish and perpetuate through ages with our wishful thinking, which never lets us give up this unending struggle. Could there be anything more violent than this never-ending war waged against one's very own nature?

No: It's meditation. The most violent invention of humankind!

Related:

Pratising Presence

Limits of Education

Education is popularly compared with the glow of a lamp. A lamp lights another without going out itself. Thus spreads the light of learning.

I have seen many ways in which the above doesn't happen. Here are two of them:

One: Your being educated doesn't mean a dime to anyone.

If a friend comes back from a visit to a new place, we become eager to hear from him stories of his experiences there: what he saw, the people he met, what he ate, where all he went. We ask him to share his photos and so on. If someone visits a new restaurant, we ask him about his experience with the food and services there. But if someone comes from an educational journey, why is there so much silence around it? Quite surprisingly, I find the culture of sharing one's deepest and most insightful experiences with the near and dear ones completely missing around us. That's because we relate education and learning with achievements, not experiences. If something is treated as an experience, it pleases all when we share it with others. But when everyone looks at the same thing as an achievement, you must keep quiet about it, lest your sharing any of your thoughts gets construed as bragging. This way, your old friends, your loved ones distance themselves from you fearing you would make unsolicited display of your knowledge and learning to them.

The other one: I feel, is the more serious one. It's the inability of education to reach inward, towards the soul. Here's another long-remembered Sanskrit couplet for you:

विद्या ददाति विनयं , विनायाद्याती प्रातताम 

पात्रताद्धनमाप्नोति धनाद्धर्म ततस्सुखम 

(Education gives humility, humility gives deservingness. From deservingness comes wealth. Weath allows you to do good conduct. And that's happiness.)

I don't feel, education today is designed to give us humility. Just the opposite. It makes us more and more heavy with pride that we can't handle. Our ego, our primal competitive nature to be called the number one, to stay ahead in some or the other competition, finds its expression in our education. Lamentably, this fact gets corroborated in umpteen cases where people, otherwise well recognised as scholars, can't stand others of their creed. Look at the politics in the top academic departments of the country, for instance. How many instances of friendliness, leave alone deep friendship, do you see flourishing among the PhD students or professors of intellectual groups of stellar status? Hardly any? Thousand different things come in their way of sharing amicability: professional rivalry, intellectual rivalry, conflict of principles...While so-called ignorant people would succeed to make up for their differences easily, intellectuals part ways on the slightest of excuses, and nothing can then bring them back together to share the earlier relation.

If our education is making us more and more intolerant, irritable, self-centred and narrow-minded, why on earth would we want others to get educated like us? This education, which doesn't teach us to look at it as a joyful experience but a toilsomely gained achievement, is like a disease. If it makes us forget to love and share, to be happy, to live, it's better to remain uneducated. Instead of spreading light, it draws out what light we naturally have in our souls, and leaves darkness there. Such an education can be shown off to others to make them jealous. It can't be used to make us one bit happier.

Is there a way to become learned which doesn't erect walls: between the learned and unlearned; and between the learned and learned?

Related:

Fallacy of Influencing Others

The Enemy Within

6 Vices

Through the 5 years of my Sanskrit education, I scored very high in that subject, by pure mugging up. I did pick up parts of the language, but nowhere enough to be able to claim that I know it. I terribly repent it!

Parts of it have stuck with me. And that gives me the hope that probably someday...

Anyway, here's a sloka I remember from my school days:

षट् दोषाः पुरुषेन हातव्या भूतिमिच्छति .

निद्रा तन्द्रा भयं क्रोदः आलस्य दीर्घसूत्रता 

6 vices try to kill man: sleep, drowsiness, fear, anger, laziness, procrastination.

Probably sleep, drowsiness, laziness and procrastination are related and similar. The other 2 -- fear and anger -- are related too. Anger is often a display of deep fear and insecurity. As Master Yoda says:

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

That's all for now. See, sometimes, I too am capable to deal out small morsels of thoughts! But, do chew on it a bit please! ;)

2012 Balance Sheet

2012 Balance Sheet

Plus

1. Got a job which almost completely matches my notions of intellectual freedom.
2. Learned swimming. Breast stroke and front crawl (free style).
3. Started using public transport as a daily commute
4. Shilpi started her PhD, something she always wanted to do.
5. Shifted to Electronic City and like it a lot here. It has the useful Bangalore to its north, and the wilderness that I love to its south.
6. Didn't travel by air at all.
7. Books read: Fountainhead (Ayn Rand), Pursuasion (Jane Austen), one Dale Carnegie (why not?), Return of the Native (Thomas Hardy).
8. Currently reading: Cousin Bette (Balzac), Thoughts on Education (Vinoba Bhave).
9. Learned a bit about functional programming. Read a few chapters of SICP. Am continuing with it. A very engaging book.
10. Got rid of my pining for research and publication. Now I am partly comfortable with the idea that certain things happen at their own pace, and needn't be considered the only parameter for one's self-judgement.
11. Got back to Electrical Engineering after 15 years. Was pleasantly surprised to find that I haven't lost much of the touch.
12. Taught a class of students for the first time. I feel more confident that I am a good teacher.
13. Met with many old friends and acquaintances.

Minus

1. Started living very far from office. More than 4 hours daily office commute.
2. Started living a routine devoid of any fitness activity.
3. Gained my lost 3 kgs. Am back on on 73. I don't feel too fit too.
4. My touch with drawing plummeted. I almost feel lost in my endeavours to become a water colourist. But for the fact that there's no such thing called giving up, there would have been no salvage for me. Of course, I'll keep getting back.

  

Lessons learned

1. Don't react. Let the moment pass.
2. Practice and preparation are a key to solving difficult problems and good performance.
3. It's not important to be the best. But it's important to try and be good. It's even more important to love it.
4. Don't undermine the importance of idle contemplation. It's pure hard work.

Related:

2011 Balance Sheet

2012 on Scratchpad of Life:

The Fallacy of Influencing Others

Balancing between Conservation and Consumption

Scientist or Engineer

Getting Rid of Stale Relations

Ageing Meaningfully

And Ode to Mediocrity

The Grand Unifying Theory of Crime and Punishment


One Thing Good About Being a Celebrity

The Grand Unifying Theory of Crime and Punishment

A 23 year old girl was gang raped this Sunday night in Delhi. She was brutally beaten and thrown off the bus, in which 6 people raped her. She was brought to the Safdarjang Hospital in a critical state where her condition has deteriorated since then. She has been in coma. Her infected intestines have been all but removed through surgery. There are speculations as to whether she'll survive. Probably, we don't even dare to start speculating how her life will be if she survives.

India is enraged. There are demonstrations. There's a flurry of activity on the Web condemning the heinous act, demanding strict punishment to the perpetrators. Blogs. Facebook posts. Petitions. Demands: Fast track court. Extended sentence. Death by hanging. Death by starving...

Since a day or two, I have got entangled in a discussion (on facebook) where, in the current state, I am shamefully defending myself against rude remarks by one of the members in the discussion. Reason: she thinks that such harsh punishments as castration, gallows etc. should be meted out to the perpetrators. I expressed my disagreement, though only after ample expression to my own agony about whatever has happened, whatever is happening. I had to face the charge of sharing a camaraderie with the criminals. What a shame! I want to join hands with everyone in the world to express my disgust and anger about how we treat our women. But look at what I am wasting my energies in: in refuting comments from another person agonised like me, the harshness towards me that shows in her comments towards me being entirely founded on a genuine distress. A distress we all feel. Equally!

Rather accidentally, this very thing probably summarises what I came here to say. Whenever something disturbing happens, we get enraged. We start throwing our rage about. We, the perennial idol worshippers, catch someone to empty our rage on, an effigy to burn. When there's a bomb-blast, we want to throw out all Muslims from India. For increasing crimes in South India, South Indians want to bash up North Indians. When there's rampant corruption, we point our fingers at politicians. There's a technical name of this behaviour: Racism!

When the fact that women aren't treated well in our country reveals through such horrendous incidents, we quickly find another race to persecute: Males.

Nothing happens. Terrorists keep bombing our cities. Muggers keep making our streets less and less safe to walk on. Our women keep getting treated worse and worse. After a few days, we forget. We move on. A bit more benumbed. A bit more de-sensitised. A bit more cynical and hopeless.

Nothing will happen. Keep thrashing about. Keep screaming at the top of your voice. Keep calling any person with any single attribute matching the perpetrator, a traitor and an accomplice. Spend yourself out. Appease your conscience that you did your bit. But nothing will happen.

Nothing will help. But through a process that entails the realisation that criminals grow from amongst us. They are dangerously similar to us. We create them. We feed them. They breed from amongst us.

That criminal is in us. That part of us which makes us first think of nipping away our yet unborn girl-child. It's that person in us which takes the morsel out from our daughter's mouth -- the pencil out from our girl's hand -- and gives it to the son. The criminals takes birth, grows stronger, when we attribute someone's lack in mathematical aptitude to her being a girl. It happens when women think that having food after their husband is what exemplifies their womanhood. It happens when a woman finds it beyond her will and ability to hold meaningful conversations, solve hard problems, build things. It happens when a dad demands dowry for his son's marriage, and another dad agrees to give dowry for his daughter's marriage. It happens when a man finds it OK to screw around with various women before marriage -- and sometimes after marriage -- and wishes to marry a village virgin who remains oblivious of his escapades, and true to him. It happens when a woman thinks that it's unwomanly for her to talk and care about anything beyond the subjects of her family, apparels and accessories, or it's her prerogative to talk depravingly about her mom-in-law or daughter-in-law. It happens when curves of the body of a stranger women we see in the bus, train, office or market, look more interesting to us than the expression of purpose, ambition, worry, attachment, and every other human emotion that shows on her face. It happens every time anyone -- a man or a woman -- does anything to put the fact of someone's being a man or a woman before that of their being a human being.

Sorry. But nothing will happen. Not at least today. nor tomorrow. Human civilisation wasn't built in a day. Nothing of consequence and beauty has ever been erected in a day. A safe and secure society, where the beasts in our minds have been carefully bound and leashed, and only the elevated, intellectual aspects of us find open expression -- a society of that kind is a thing of beauty. It's not a natural phenomenon; in fact far far from it. It's that one tiny little point of stability that lies hidden between an infinite space of instability. It can't exist by itself. It has to be imaginatively dreamt, creatively conceptualised, carefully built, patiently maintained over hot, blazing days, and has to be watched over through long wakeful nights. And if we allow ourselves to pass into a slumber, to gradually drift away from that point of stability -- the way we seem to have done today -- we can't wake up one day and wish away the reality with a loud roar of rage. Our rage can't warp the space. It can't blow away, like a mist, the night we spent sleeping. 

We have only one choice: to start walking back. A step at a time. Slowly. Without protest. Saving our energies to make good the resurrection of the old order, and not squander it in beating our fists on our chests like frustrated apes. And one input that we can't avoid giving to this only restorative act: time.

We can leave the question of whether noodles cause promiscuity to qualified medical researchers. We can allow our psychologists to deal with the grand issue of whether excessive fraternisation between the sexes instigates criminal thoughts. We, the ordinary mortals, the dull-wits of highest order, aren't capable of dealing with such technical topics. We should just try to educate ourselves of one single, simple rule. A rule that is agnostic to the concept of sexes and sexual crimes, about races and racism, about economies and class conflicts, about nations and wars. A rule that is the constituent atom of every man-made structure that has stood against the dissipative forces of nature. That rule is the rule of respecting each other's right to live with respect. There's but one rule here. Only one rule to be followed. Only one rule that can ever be broken. All crimes in this world are instances of this one rule being broken: taking bribes, breaking a traffic law, teasing a woman, or littering the public places, or polluting the environment.

A man who will refrain from attacking a woman from the fear of castration or lynching can't be stopped from going back home and abusing his wife or daughter who, he is sure, will keep quiet because they love him. But a man -- or a woman -- who passes each act of his or her through the acid test of respect and justice will create a more beautiful world with every thought articulated, every word spoken, every move made.

I, the non-specialist in rape-cases, the one born to the cursed race of males -- I, the idiot who has nothing but his little common-sense to hang on to in this age of chaos, rage, cynicism and hopelessness -- I, the poor human being, rest my case.

Related:

With All Respect, No Apologies!

With All Respect, No Apologies!

In a recent discussion (over facebook), I had a brief involvement in a conversation over the lack of respect for women that's becoming an integral part of the Indian culture -- particularly in North India. There was the mention of a recent disturbing incident in Amritsar in which a policeman was shot dead because he tried to prevent a few eve-teasers from misbehaving with his daughter. The event indeed reflects the deplorable law and order condition. The tacit acceptance that eve teasing seems to get that emboldens molesters more and more seems to get worse and worse with passing time.

The solution suggested by one of the ladies in the discussion, most probably out of sheer frustration and disgust, was that boys should be brought up with a fear of dire consequences -- e.g death penalty -- if they behave badly with women. Probably she was right. Probably, to set things right tomorrow, there isn't any other way possible. Probably, replacing one form of disrespect with another is the only way to create a feeling of self-respect to our people. Probably, we aren't left with any other method of cleaning up, than just shifting our garbage dumps from one place to another. We have tried doing that before: by creating reservations to deal with the evils of casteism; by creating religion based politics to remove communal disharmony; by creating thick, burgeoning impenetrable concrete jungles to wipe out wilderness and desolation. We have been in the habit of creating 2 headed monsters to slay 1 headed ones. And look how successful we have been in making our lives any better!

I will not teach my son to be afraid of consequences. I will tell him that women are fellow creatures: sentient, intelligent, with self-will and self-respect. I will tell him that there is an experience that is to be got from interacting with a person who is a partner with you in making the life, the world, a more beautiful thing. It far exceeds, at least in the long run, the pleasure of finding partners in sin. I will tell him that the love that emerges from partnering with a person see a dream, to fulfil that dream, in being a part of a realisation of the self that's impossible for him/her alone -- that love is far superior, far more joyful that the momentary kick of falling into a pit of crime together. 

I will hope that he will believe me, though I haven't tried experiencing the rewards and penalties of thinking or behaving any other way. So, I have no first hand stories to tell him of the other side.

I won't ask him to be respectful of women. I will ask him to be respectful. I hope he will learn to see the potential beauty that exists in every human being. In old invalids as in a strong and physically attractive person; in a village simpleton as well as in an intelligent and sophisticated person. And I hope he will learn to see what a lethal blow a single act of disrespect, a single invitation to a fallen act, deals to this potential beauty, to the possibility of discovering that beautiful person.

If you will, even this could be called a fear of consequence. But it's not a fear of bodily harm, but it's the fear of a damage to that infinite possibility. I hope my son grows up with a faith in that possibility, learns to hold that possibility dear to his heart, and fears the destruction of that possibility. The possibility of seeing all people in their real beautiful self, the possibility of being their partners in the discovery of that hidden beauty in their own selves. In experiencing a love that's based on its logical foundation: respect.

Related:

Rapes and Women Dressing

Hindi - Is it a North Indian Language?

Thanks to Sudarshan Iyengar for starting this discussion on facebook. And apologies for lifting this up which started as my comment on the post, but as usual, grew too long to be posted as a comment.

I love Hindi. I don't care if it's a national language, a regional language, a world language or just a political bomb waiting to be detonated. It's the language which I use to converse with all my best friends. It's the language I read best of my stories in. It's probably the language I think in. And I don't like it when people talk negatively about it or its popularity.

But, in the interest of fairness, let's talk about the reasons for its popularity. Has Government done some propaganda to popularise Hindi? Yes, I think, it has.

I feel government shouldn't promote of suppress any language. Having said that, I feel Hindi has it in it to naturally grow. It doesn't mean it's better than any other language. Just that it did have a critical mass and following even at the time of independence for it to see a positive gradient in acceptance. It's hard to believe that its popularity today is all due to government propaganda. If you think you wouldn't have learned Hindi but for the government making you learn it, may be you are right. Don't mistake your case to be the representative case.

Hindi has adapted to changes well which is a sign of healthy language. I don't think, there's any need to call it a National language, nor is it important to argue on whether it's a regional language. A much more important fact is that it's by far the most spoken language in the country.

Hindi has found a good penetration in South India too. Though, not so much as in North India. Nor does it come close to any of the native South India languages in popularity in South India. But its acceptance is growing in South India. I remember that about 20 years ago I had almost got mugged in Chennai for uttering something in Hindi. Now, it's almost completely safe to converse in Hindi in Chennai. I don't think it's majorly due to government propaganda.

I feel it's got nothing to do with whether Hindi is a great language or not. All languages have their good and bad points. Each has a rich literature to boast of. There can be no distinction made between language on the basis of their inherent linguistic or literary quality. If these had been the main points, we all would have been conversing in Sanskrit or Latin today.

Then what is the reason that Hindi is growing more popular, even in South? It's just that North Indians find it lucrative to move down south for jobs. And South Indian natives find it profitable to learn Hindi because this allows them to communicate with them. So, we are bent on attributing the growing popularity of Hindi, let's attribute it to the growing prosperity of the South. I feel, there can't be a healthier reason for people learning a language than economic profitability of doing so. If lots of Indians migrate to Europe and America, it will become profitable for them too to learn our languages, whether Hindi, Tamil or whatever.

 There's Bollywood too. Nothing more needs to be said about this.

Domination of all major languages of the world are based on cultural, economic, military domination of one culture on another, often accompanied with bloodshed. English, which people feeling a lot of animosity about Hindi, find it so natural to accept as their professional language, has imperialism and only imperialism to credit for its spread through the world. It would be so vain not to acknowledge the sheer pragmatic sense in learning it well on the basis of the violence and repression in its history. I feel, Hindi's spread through the India landscape hasn't been anywhere as violent. It's primarily economic prosperity of South and growth of Hindi entertainment industry. Government propaganda? Again, I won't buy that unless proved. There's as much probability of that being a political propaganda.

I have been in Bangalore for more than a decade. I have learnt Kannada to a fair extent (including its script). I find it interesting and useful. I won't ever go into unnecessary discussions about what a great language Kannada is or isn't. I feel, being here in Karnataka, it's a brilliant medium for me to learn about people here: their ways, their humour, their culture, their thoughts and emotions.

All the people reading this, gentle folks, please speak/learn/teach Hindi if you feel it's interesting and useful. Otherwise, forget it. Don't hate it. It's of course just another language. I feel our eagerness to learn and use a language should be rooted in our eagerness (whether due to economic, intellectual or emotional reasons) to connect to the people who use it. I feel, it's a lovely, beautiful reason to learn a language. Why let one's cultural and political biases cloud this innocent instinct? 

Therefore, I repeat: don't propagate Hindi. National Language status? To hell with it. But, don't stop yourself or anyone else around you from learning it by tagging it as a vehicle of North's dominance.

Which language does a child learn at home? The one used by his elders. Then, as he develops his own friendships, he learns the language he finds most useful for communicating with them. That's how languages are learned; that's how they should be learned. People are interesting or disinteresting, not languages. And if you wish to connect to the people, you learn their language. Government can favour a language over another. To think of it as a propaganda instead of an opportunity is unfortunate. And to think of your knowledge of a language as an evidence of your having been a victim of a political, linguistic or regional propaganda is an illogical thought, to use a mild adjective.

About Egoism, Selfishness, and Capitalism

One thing that can surely be said about Ayn Rand's writing is that it fills your head when you are reading it, and for a long time after you have finished. Her characters are strong and black and white. She writes lengthily, repeatedly and forcefully through the book on the distinction between the two distinct sets of characters in her stories: the creators and the second-handers. Even if you are quite numb or immune to getting affected through rhetoric, Rand just keeps saying it again and again. Eventually, for at least a few moments, for at least a few pages, you would want to liken yourself to John Galt or Howard Roark, and would like distinguish yourself from James Taggart or Elsworth Toohey.

I read Atlas Shrugged 15 years ago. In that highly impressionable phase of my life, the spell casted by the book lasted probably nearly an year after having finished reading it. I was then convinced that I belonged to the league of the creative people destined to changed the world. Ego, individualism, reason and selfishness mingled freely with my existing code. But, I couldn't get capitalism to fit anywhere. I really loved the book. To that extent that I remember myself having imitated the heroes of that story in certain aspects of my life for sometime. A fitting thing for a youngster to do who couldn't find his heroes on the bollywood screen or cricket fields.

I finished Fountainhead recently. I don't see any spell to speak of now. Only a revision of thoughts that have time and again visited me over these one and half decades about the contents and import of Rand's writing. Unlike 15 years ago, I don't any more consider myself a creative genius of any sort. I have got a sufficiently big collection of defeats and failures in my kitty to have no such illusions about myself. I am surely no Roark or Galt. But I don't see why that would automatically put me in the category of Toohey or Taggart. I belong to a large group of characters, a third group of characters, which doesn't have any place in Rand's books. Had she given some space to this third kind of characters, she wouldn't have found it so easy to give her stories such a taut shape. Good guys. Bad guys. Bad guys wage a war on the good guys. But the good eventually prevails. They would get all gooey and shapeless with people like us.

What is this third type of people Ayn Rand never speaks about? They are people who aren't creative geniuses, nor do they wish to destroy the creative geniuses. They are neither driven by their ego, nor are committing charity to fill their spiritual void. This third type is the normal human being. The person who is working hard. Sometimes for money, sometimes for happiness, sometimes for something he isn't sure about. This third type doesn't create creative marvels out of habit. But he is often creative, is capable of doing things which change the world in little ways. And he does so without attaching too much importance to it. In us normal people, the realisation of what creative fulfilment is and the jealousy and appreciation for our superiors exist healthily side by side.

The trick of trying to divide the people along the dimension of their capabilities and ineptitude into two distinct immiscible masses is the epitome of Rand's oversimplification of the world. She conveniently makes creative people the heroes and the incapable ones the villains. Her creative achievement lies in constructing the counter intuitive scenario where the incapable ones are able to take over the world in some sense by bullying over the creative guys. I suspect that it's a completely imaginary contraption of Rand, making it possible for such stories to be written. The counter-intuitiveness of the scenario is the prime claim of the idea that there's something evil and insidious going on in this world as a conspiracy against creators. There's no way to verify all this.

Rand throws a model of creativity at her reader which links it inseparably with the ability to create. That seems to miss the main point about creativity. Creativity is an urge, not a capability. We all have this urge in us in varying quantities. Some are more capable, some are less. And that eventually decides what and how much we create. But the presence of that urge decides whether one creates or not. The part of our lives when we are deriving happiness from creating, however lofty, however humble, are moments when we are the Galts and Roarks. In other moments, we are something else. Not Toohey or Taggart. Because the characters of the villains, particularly Toohey, doesn't sound realistic to me. Toohey comes across as an extremely capable character himself. Going by Rand's thesis, he didn't need to do all that crap he does.

Rand seems to bring in the issue of capitalism again as a reinforcement of her arguments that it's all about capability. Money isn't equivalent of value, whatever she may say or do. And capitalism is about money, not value. I can't understand why I would like to keep working for money when I know it can't get me any of things I really want beyond a point. Similarly, if an act gets me what I wish to get without the way of money, why can't I just do it, even if it's charity or altruism or whatever? Why do I care?

Speaking of Fountainhead in particular, I couldn't comprehend several things. Wynand's character could never take the shape that 700 pages allow you to give it. Only making a character intense doesn't make it well-defined. Rand seems to depend too much on the reader being fully convinced. Periodically, she adds passages so that there's sufficient sense of scandal associated with not agreeing with her. As if not agreeing immediately drops you off the list of her audience. Roark does something outrageous towards the end, and gets away with it rather inexplicably. After having written 700 pages, Rand had no reason to hurry up the end without explaining things. Unless of course if she didn't have any explanations. Rand continuously demonstrates an intolerance for mediocrity. Nothing except the most superior qualities are of any consequence to her. Two things: firstly, being able to write long books doesn't gain her a fellowship among her heroes. Secondly, when you compare the writing of Ayn Rand with that of those authors who are known to write books of comparable length -- Tolstoy, Dickens, Hardy -- you will be forced to give her the title she spends all her words to despise: mediocre.

Fountainhead sprawls over 700 long, dense pages. Atlast Shrugged just falls short of 1500. Being so verbose, Ayn Rand was definitely not one of the people she presents as her heroes and heroines. They are terse, concise, and they don't give a damn. Ayn Rand is verbose, condescending, and seems to care too much that people agree with her. She uses every conceivable trick of argumentation, emotional blackmail, sensationalisation and scadalisation to keep the reader wanting to be on her side. While reading it, I often felt the book was the prime antithesis of what Rand tries to propose.

Yet, Rand's books are a good read, if you have the time. Because they talk about topics which are eminently important and relevant, not necessarily because they do these topics any great justice.

On Durga Puja

I identify Durga Puja with:

• The food stalls
• Kids playing: infact this sight tops the things which bring back the memories of Durga Puja in my childhood
• Women dressing up
• Idol decoration
• Cultural programmes
• Bhog
• The Puja arena minus the crowd
• Dhaak sound
• Smell of pandal
• Family visiting the pandal
• Returning home late in the night after watching the cultural programmes
• The slight depression on and immediately after Dashami

I don't identify Durga Puja with:

• So much vanity, whether of one's dressing or of one's religiousness
• Noise
• Crowd
• Unhygienic food
• Parking woes (recently added)

(Now how much more brief can one be than this?!)