10 years: A Journey

Reading currently in August 2022

It has been 10 years since I started this personal book review blog. Click here to read my first post. It has been through several re-designs, different logos, domains as well. It has been a loyal friend of mine nonetheless, having seen my downs and ups and what not. A loyal friend stays with you and nudges you to do better, always. Never had I imagined what an unexpected journey it would be. It is what it is. Ride along my friends. Keep reading.

10 years done, many more to come!

Review: This Dog Barking – The Strange Story of UG Krishnamurti

Dog 1

A heartfelt thanks to Dennis Lindfors who went out of his way to provide me with the sketches, publishing dates, and most of all the Advanced Reading Copy. And never got irritated by my endless questions.

This Dog Barking by Nicolas Grey / James Farley will be published in India by Harper Collins.

Go green, go green, cheered almost everyone. Green is ecology, he shouted back in crooked and uncomfortable English. And then, to dodge the football thrown at him, he jumped, tried a split in the air, tore off his dark-green track pants from the middle and grasped at the tear as if holding his guts from splitting out. Not a glimmer of embarrassment on his face, he continued to bask in the attention while smilingly ricocheting off various spots within the human-circle around him. The fifth day of this self-discovery program (a term I am using on my own, not used by the organization conducting it) fell on a Sunday and attendees were asked to bring along friends, families, and alike for the early morning session of six a.m. I considered myself lucky to find a rickshaw in the dead of the morning, but soon started doubting when it took me through lanes dominated by dilapidated buildings, around naked toddlers, atop flowing sewers, and amidst the unforgiving, distinctive stench of a slum. The apartment buildings looked frozen in a depressed moment of time, unable to forge ahead on their own, and shamelessly unaware and unappreciative of the ‘bliss’ which was being discovered by more than a hundred upper-middle class ‘souls’ on the adjacent school ground (a radio jockey had expressed on the first day that he was there to enquire about and experience eternal-bliss. The seated teacher, conductor of the whole program, had glanced upwards for a second or two from right behind him. Yeah right, she must have thought).

Bliss, yeah…bliss!

If there ever was anything even closely resembling eternal-bliss, then the tenants of those apartment blocks needed it the most. You couldn’t miss them – the pale coloured walls overridden by grayish-black witherings; windows fashioned by sagging cloth-lines which in turn were burdened under garish clothes; and blackened utensils jostling with peeping kids for a whiff of fresh air. Many over-looking balconies and closed-off windows had black iron grills over them, serving as a constant reminder to the middle-class of being safe from thugs, robbers, and thieves; but here in the middle of a slum jungle these grills served only as proof of borrowed thoughts: were they, those who had installed the grills, declaring themselves as rich enough to warrant protection from thieves, robbers, and thugs? Or were they already middle-class?

Is bliss only for those who can earn enough to sustain? Maslow would agree. Social work is thrown at the lower-income groups; while bliss, happiness, transformation, enlightenment at the others. It is easy to be blinded when the word ‘divine’ is invoked, mixed, and churned while propagating  beliefs and practices. Divine is often perceived as beautiful (through fantastic and rich imagery), stirring (melodious music), powerful (admonitions by ritualistic pundits), and forgiving (in the form of blessings, confessions, and acceptance). So what does a sceptic do? Does he just lose his belief in this society – for that matter any society? Hesse’s Siddhartha’s imagined perfect world was only in his head – and when he realized this, he corrected his rejection of the world. The world, whatever it is, is whatever it is. So for the questioning one, however difficult and painful it may be, solace is to be had from realizing that this is it, this is it, this is it. This is what the world is, this is what the society is, this is what your era is, and this is exactly what you were born in. And because of all of this, this is how you have turned out to be. One may not find any reassurance in gods and hymns, but at the same time find it nearly impossible to “abandon the straitjacket of a personality“2, which we wear around us to show off as medals of character development – but this prevents us from accepting, understanding, and even acknowledging that we are not happy in an outright rejection and that peace is nowhere to be found. It is only after reaching this stage that one can veer towards welcoming the liberating embrace of one’s not knowing anything. Does one really know what he knows and knows not? Is there anything to know at all? Why harp about the rights and wrongs all over and be cantankerous all the time? Enjoy the fruits of existence till, when in the end, you sleep in peace. Throw away your thoughts – nothing they are but prejudices, your views – nothing they are but borrowed ones, your morals – nothing they are but comforting lies, and your beliefs – nothing they are but deluding unknowns.

Frisbee anyone?

In the assembly hall of the school, flowers adorned the floor, a stage, and a framed picture. Flowers were kept on marble tiling, which must have been preferred over regular tiles by the school administration because of it being more appealing. The marble was there only because of its appeal, but it wasn’t enough that day – more of beauty was needed; flowers had to be there in a mix of yellow, red, and pink to make it more beautiful. They had to be brought as offerings. They had to be arranged in circles, large and small, everywhere. They had to be in the sights of everyone, not hidden behind the doors where their existence (but they are dead anyways) wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. They had to be there. The teacher had told us, gently, that all offerings were symbolic, but the participants didn’t have any of it and brought dozens of plucked-out ones – the more they brought the more generous they would appear. And this is the same beauty which is used to adorn the ‘divine’. Beauty then, too, has a purpose: to appear beautiful to us.

Dead for the cause of Beauty

Frisbee anyone?, the teacher enthusiastically asked at the beginning to gather everyone. I assumed it was being played just to while time away till the late-comers joined in. But I was wrong. This game was actually a part of the program. And three more were to be played later. I wondered what the radio jockey must be thinking of all this – ‘I am here to find eternal-bliss and they are making me play Frisbee’? I was the last one to join the game, that too after one of the volunteers spotted me fooling around. Ah, straitjackets.

While playing another game wherein a handkerchief had to picked up, or the one picking up had to be touched to win the game, a girl – fairly plump and bespectacled – thrust her pelvic in a mocking gesture to her opponent. She wasn’t playing for herself, her gesture wasn’t for herself, it was for all those who were watching her – that she could scare off anyone by a few thrusts. She lost the game. Braggadocio – 0; humility – 1. (On the second-last day of the program, this very girl volunteered to share her experiences and while trying to explain her initial skepticism of such programs, she described herself as an Existentialist and then went on to give such a warped definition of the term that Beauvoir would have turned her back to Sartre in the grave).

As the program drew to a close on the seventh day, I felt happier, at peace with myself, and brimming with positivity. I was ready to whisk away all worries with laughter and walk towards happiness, one moment at a time. I didn’t know what it did to the believers – maybe they found their eternal-bliss or became enlightened. I tried to keep my inhibitions away, but couldn’t exactly succeed. At the same time, however, a lot of them would have attributed their well-being and experiences to some divine force out there, trying to reach out to them and help them. Most of them had already taken charge of their ‘destinies’ by accepting blame for events from their past when they couldn’t have their way with their families, friends, or with themselves – many of these individuals had said, “I was responsible for this not happening” or “that not working out”. I was nobody to deny their experiences or beliefs. This non-interference on my part also stemmed from a realization that I really didn’t know much and would never know much. But what about this pendulum of life oscillating between sadness and happiness? What is this thing called life that becomes happy and sad? And what is this happiness and sadness to begin with? When would the I, Me and Myself realize their folly of being I, Me and Myself?

Amidst this chaos comes UG (b.1918-d.2007), the man. But UG wasn’t here at all, he never was born and so never died. What UG am I talking about? The one I have created in my head or the one about whom I have read? Reading Mahesh Bhatt’s A Taste of Life gave glimpses of how he lived in his last days. UG said, “unless man comes to terms with the fact that he is no more significant than the mosquito or the ant, he is doomed“. In Mahesh’s book – poking fun at UG is liberating (“happy death day, U.G.”); basic facts hold ground (“work, buy, consume and die“); honesty is naked (“suddenly I discover that a part of me is waiting for U.G. to mention the money that he has been saving up for me“; “all your relationships are based on one brutal question: what can I get out of this relationship?“); pessimism is abound (UG: “you guys first destroy and kill, and then give lectures on the sanctity of life“); being a hypocrite is okay (“in this room, lies a man who himself turned his back on power but never said a word against others pursuing it“; but UG is seen making mockery of J Krishnamurti many times. This is not to say JK was pursuing power); insight is often around (“I realize that the feeling must write itself. You cannot write to evoke a feeling“); confusion emanates from incomprehensible words (“the body is immortal; it contributes to the continuity of life even after death“). There are countless books, blogs, and websites devoted to UG and He rips everything off you and makes you an animal – which you are in the first place. There are many others too who have pondered over the inescapable human condition, just like UG. Say, Emil Cioran (b.1911-d.1995) in his A Short History of Decay (published in 1949), “We mistrust the swindler, the trickster, the con man; yet to them we can impute none of history’s great convulsions; believing in nothing, it is not they who rummage in your hearts, or your ulterior motives; they leave you to your apathy, to your despair or to your uselessness; to them humanity owes the few moments of prosperity it has known: it is they who save the peoples whom fanatics torture and ‘idealists’ destroy“. He continues, “In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world. The compulsion to preach is so rooted in us that it emerges from depths unknown to the instinct for self-preservation. Each of us awaits his moment in order to propose something – anything. He has a voice: that is enough. It costs us dear to be neither deaf nor dumb“. Or Rousseau (b.1712-d.1778) in On the Origin of the Inequality of Mankind (written in 1754), “So long as men remained content with their rustic huts, so long as they were satisfied with clothes made of the skins of animals and sewn together with thorns and fish-bones, adorned themselves only with feathers and shells, and continued to paint their bodies different colours, to improve and beautify their bows and arrows and to make with sharp-edged stones fishing boats or clumsy musical instruments; in a word, so long as they undertook only what a single person could accomplish, and confined themselves to such arts as did not require the joint labour of several hands, they lived free, healthy, honest and happy lives, so long as their nature allowed, and as they continued to enjoy the pleasures of mutual and independent intercourse. But from the moment one man began to stand in need of the help of another; from the moment it appeared advantageous to any one man to have enough provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work became indispensable, and vast forests became smiling fields, which man had to water with the sweat of his brow, and where slavery and misery were soon seen to germinate and grow up with the crops“.

JK look-alike. Price: Rs. 280/-

However, it is No More Questions: The Final Travels of U.G. Krishnamurti by Louis Brawley, with all its honesty, which brings out the daily underpinnings of UG’s life – the endless car trips in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland; the constant and ceaseless vitriol that he spewed on all around him; the repetitive drawl of old man disproving everything. Brawley’s version is easier to relate to compared to Bhatt’s. The rendering of UG’s Swan Song and 108 Money Maxims (noted down by Claire Nettleton) are two most important things you would want to look at in this book. Brawley’s putting aside whatever he was onto in his life just to while time away with this irresistible magnet and trying often to repel himself from the gutter of void he felt with him underline the anxieties anyone would have within himself when on a mission to achieve and do nothing.

You would reach the border of nihilism after reading UG. So at a time when our generation is the “most comfortable generation ever“3, where is happiness? Still hiding somewhere amidst the bushes of sadness? The dog will keep barking, barking, and barking – but it is you who has to break the glass of your windows to be awakened by him. It is you who has to let his sharp, incising tongue in your psyche. With clarity of thought as of UG, nothing seems difficult or muddled.  This Dog Barking, a graphic novel on UG’s life, by Grey and Farley comes at a time when the current generation just can’t find a way out of the depths of gloom. But so has every generation till now. They feel it is only their gloom which has existed and is unreleasable. As each new one builds upon the past one for progress, development, and happiness, it does so inevitably for misery and dejection as well.

“There is no beginning and no end. Nothing is immutable, everything changes. That thing which does not come into being does not die“. So begins one of the most iconic movies on the circuit: Why has Bodhi Dharma left for the East. The young Kibon in the movie rues about what he has left behind to become a monk and has thoughts about returning to his city-life and taking care of his blind mother. So the monk wants to leave the peaceful existence of the mountains and go to the hustle-bustle of the city, and the city dwellers want the peace of the mountains by, well, playing frisbee. Sri M’s Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master chronicles his own experiences of faith, and what and where all it led him to. Some of his experiences are so far-fetched that one starts believing in UG’s acid-head theory. Om Swami, in his If Truth Be Told, on the other hand doesn’t have as many experiences to recount as Sri M, but in the end he too experiences what UG would term as continual. If to hear a never-before-heard-sweet-voice calling out your name is not continual, then what is?

This Dog Barking begins with the creation of Theosophical Society by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott. The Society, through Annie Besant and CW Leadbeater, chose Jiddu Krishnamurti as the leader to guide human civilization. Later, JK turned his back to them and started out on his own, stating that “the truth is a pathless land, you cannot approach it from any path whatsoever“. But UG’s maternal grandfather, TG Krishnamurti, was already impressed by JK. Otherwise too TGK was a deeply religious person and UG’s early years were spent reading Upanishads, Vedas, and other religious scriptures. UG stayed at the Society while studying at the University of Madras but was discontent with everything that was being fed to him, just about nothing made sense to him. His encounters with Swami Sivananda, Ramana Maharishi, and others, reeked of his disbelief in their beliefs. He ended up marrying Kusuma and had three children with her, while losing all will-power to do anything in life: What to do? Where to go? His marriage terminated with dire results for Kusuma, who became depressed and underwent ECT, and soon died due to a neck injury. UG became a vagabond in the U.S. and lived off the streets with some help from others. Then came the ‘calamity’, which changed his perception of the world, resulted in physical mutations in his body, and freed him of thought. He landed at Indian Embassy in Switzerland, penniless, hoping for a one-way ticket to India where he would at least have people keeping bananas at his feet if he were to just sit under some banyan tree. In came Valentine de Kervan, who became a friend and set up a chalet for him in Saanen, Switzerland.

It is this chalet that forms the core the book, where UG expounds his views –  or rather barks like a dog at whom stones have been thrown – to Douglas, who has come there either to make the world a better place, or to be compassionate, or to understand himself, or to free himself of illusion, or to realise purpose of life. UG annihilates all that. He disrobes Douglas of any pretensions of compassion he might have towards mankind and states that there is nothing to understand. That there is no ‘I’ in him and he is just a tool of furtherance for the society, culture, art, or whatever. Even if he wants to take help of UG to find a way out, he won’t be able to help him because there is no problem at all and nobody out there can help him. UG’s prophetic (he would have hated that word) harking of discontinuity and the flow of time as disjointed moments is the helping hand which not just a skeptic, but everyone, needs. The graphic novel is divided in three parts: part-I covers UG’s early years till his watching a strip tease at a joint in Paris (instead of hearing JK speak at a lecture); part-II is till his acid-head theory; and part-III ends with UG telling Douglas that he can’t give him courage…to stand alone. Part-II gets confusing because of UG’s utterances about what he went through in ‘calamity’ and the strange, if not completely unbelievable, transformations he describes. The epilogue, or lets call it the beginning of the end, talks about the body being immortal – not in the sense we interpret ‘immortal’, but in the way that it continues to feed others endlessly even after death. Nothing here is lost, nothing comes to an end.

“Be miserable and die in your misery” – UG

Nicolas’ hand-drawn sketches are mesmerising – some of my favorites are: UG amidst a whirlpool during ‘calamity’; UG explaining slow-motion and suddenly becomes hydra-handed; the ‘world-mind’ sketch depicting hundreds of people from various religions, beliefs, and nationalities; and 11-year old Blavatsky reading occultism and magic books in her grandmother’s library. The most momentous yet ephemeral encounter depicted is of UG meeting Ramana Maharishi: Ramana answering a question of UG, then both of them depicted individually in multiple frames, with many close-ups of their faces and their eyes having unquestionably a look doubting the other and a belief of superiority in one’s self. A Pyrrhic war of egos, I must say. Farley’s carefully selected text concisely sums up UG’s life in a subtle and helping manner – helping because lot of UG’s words don’t make sense at all (like when he wonders whether a tomato soup is a tomato soup, or when he asks if his body is actually his, or when mutters something about taste of food being so singular that he could sense each element which the food was made of). His one-page brief on Advaita Vedanta (Non-Dualism) cannot be missed. Towards the end, when UG’s views have gained enough momentum to overpower you, dawns the sudden realization that everyone, like Douglas, is alone in this world and must start out in his / her direction of endeavor, and it hits hard, especially so after the harking, barking, and shouting of UG. This graphic novel is a collector’s edition and deserves a place in one’s five-foot bookshelf.

Young Blavatsky in her grandmother’s library (source: This Dog Barking)

UG’s wife undergoing ECT (source: This Dog Barking)

UG wishing for bananas (source: This Dog Barking)

The bench where Calamity happened (source: This Dog Barking)

World-Mind (source: This Dog Barking)

A concise mind-map of the characters

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References:
-1 – Source: thisdogbarking.wordpress.com 
-2 – Sadhguru’s words of wisdom
-3 – Explained lucidly by the teacher during the 7-day program

What, if at all, is to be done? or A Prolific Essay

“…for we can make no progress until we have completely put an end to this period.” – What is to be done? (Lenin, 1901)

Our perceptions are at all times defined, governed and even dictated by our environed histories of existence. The physical aspects and theoretical concepts never let go of their grip on and around us. Can there be a place where gravity is so powerful that your voice becomes denser and thoughts heavier? Reflect on this – thoughts becoming heavier; unable to spread out from their origins; sprouting outwards like ink in water at the time of birth, but then condensing and ultimately decaying at the very synapse where they flourished. Or, alternatively, a place where density is so sparse that thoughts leave as soon as they are born; they don’t need voices or words or letters to project them – like we do and often misinterpret them. Physiology affects thoughts which affect actions; in reverse, actions affect thoughts which affect physiology. Also, social existence affects thoughts which affect actions; in reverse, actions affect thoughts which affect social existence.

We are whatever we are not because we are whatever we are but because the social milieu accords us that whatever. We have been and are being raised to believe in our uniqueness and special abilities, conveniently ignoring that we are only doing, more or less, what already has been done and is being done since millions of years. Our talents, which we harbour inside us, wait for standing instructions to launch into an overt and kitsch display at the slightest hint of cajolery. Our pastimes and hobbies and knowledge, if at all, have stopped being something to be enjoyed privately and practised discretely; all of them have become an overt reflection of ours with the only purpose of overshadowing our intellectual shallowness. We work for a shining image of ours in the eyes of others and never for our own selves. Our paintings and art are not allowed to be mute pieces of craftsmanship but are forced to engage in lengthy vocal essays extolling the virtues and skills of their creator. Such masterful strokes of pen and elegant drops of brushes, they shout, can only be exercised by a man so possessed of high skills and gallivant imagination. He, they assert, is art unto himself. They have become blithe alter us. We do whatever we want to do not because we desire to do whatever we want to do, but only for our, not at all innate, desire to be known, recognized and admired. The diminishing appreciations force us to tread on newer so called paths, where again we want to be known, recognized and admired.

 

 

Can thought, knowledge and art exist in isolation? Can there be thought if there is no thinker? Can there be knowledge if there is no knower? And art without an audience? Can truth exist without falsity? A thought will cease to exist with the end of thinking ability of the thinker, even though the thinker may continue to exist; we call it a vegetative state. So a thought’s position is dependent by all means on the synaptic functions. But if that thought has been passed over to others, as words, letters or results due to actions taken, then that thought still exists somewhere out there. Knowledge, also, will terminate with the knower unless passed down in different forms. Art, of the kind of paintings, sculptures, scriptures and the likes, on the contrary, will continue to exist without an audience and with no desires at all of having one. Though, yes, it will not be appreciated as art and will not be called so but it will exist independently of all things and beings. Even when the thought behind the art has vanished, the art, once created, will continue to exist. Truth and falsity, on the contrary, cannot exist without each other – in fact the other, for each of them, is what makes them exist. The other, this is an important concept.

 

We are doing whatever we are doing, supra, only for others. The others are doing for those who are others to them. Everyone, all in all, is doing things for others. Are these others just an imagined community whose only purpose is to assess us on every count and spit praises and hurl approvals at us? It seems that is what we are doing because thought and knowledge exist only, when isolated, with the thinker and knower. And the thinker and knower, in every sense, want to spread their abstract possessions either as a gesture of magnanimity or because of servitude to leave a legacy. Our religious celebrations are loud enough to silence the muezzin, mute the priest and disarm the prophet. They are loud as a display of our passionate devotions and unbending faith, which together can turn molasses into gold and flesh into sacrifice. Happiness, can it of all, exist in isolation? Presently, comprising also of the years since emotions diverged as a fork in evolution, it seems that an ostentatious strutting of happiness in others’ faces is what makes us happy. We are not happy for its sake, but for the only reason that we could share it; that we could plough someone with our laughter, fulfilment, and contentment. Our righteousness is only so much of a display to appear righteous, when in fact in our dark innards we might as well be insultingly quite opposite. So it is these others who define us all, control us and prod us to be like them, when they themselves are at the end of the strings of others. As a mass, if you see, everyone is doing something new, something creative, intelligent and inspiring, but when you detail their doings it is nothing but shameful, forceless, and destructive imitation. Everyone is out there to achieve something, someone or everything, everyone. But to what end? And for what? They have all comfortably forgotten, ignored and in fact never pondered over the meaninglessness and purposelessness of this all. Their desires consuming them even after their death, their bodies covered in lamenting coffins or yellowed flowers to appear solemn, rich and powerful. Desires, take a short pause to think, are of two categories – ones which will come to us no matter what, and the ones which come to us because of what we see around us. The first ones can’t be denied and will rear their head sooner or later. The second ones can be suppressed, ignored and, even better, heeded with no action and thereby making us reach a higher state. Hence, to be completely free of desires, and be free from the desire to be free, only one route exists – the one which questions existence and the metaphors of being.

 

 

This sludge takes us into the hot waters of free will, that willy-nilly thing which has been portrayed as the cure of all shortcomings and antidote to all defeats. Go out and the universe is there for you to conquer. Where is the freedom in your will if you will do the same which has been done? Learn the same which has been learnt? And live the same which has been lived? Also, how creative, supra, is that what we are doing? How new and original is it? Are we disbanding our past and foraging for a disconnected future? Are we to, and can we, start from an absolute zero? Should we erase our memories for they are the most important representation of the past? Can we not refuse to learn when in the arms of our mothers and decline to mimic them in entirety? Can we make the past zilch and move towards a newer reality? Can we invent something new without learning what all has been yet invented? Can we develop a new language without being aware of what all languages and dialects already are being spoken? This we can’t because anything which we claim to be original will only be, at best, something which any other thing isn’t. The new always builds up on the old. The new is not so new after all. Continuity will never allow us to be free or original. Continuity all around us limits us, stalls our thinking and hinders the chant of a revolutionary new. Continuity is an anti-concept and pervades everywhere like ether. Our sorrows, pains, emotions, gains, longings, wants, and even thoughts and actions are grounded in as well as elongate continuity. Evolution is continuous, always selecting and rejecting from the harbinger of a dying race. We are afraid of having an orphaned past. But it is discontinuity only, and only discontinuity, which can melt the steel of our values, morals and beliefs. Our past has to be hacked off ourselves, however painful and tearing that might be; the rear view mirrors are to be smashed; straitjackets to be put on every neck that threatens to turn around; and any eye that looks into another for a reflection of the past is to be blinded, gouged and crushed.

 

At the outset, however, we have to accept that the present has no value whatsoever. The present is just a momentary gauze through which the future passes to become history. The future, yes the whole of it, is eager and desperate to become something which has been experienced and is written about. It, just like us, desires to be talked about, given importance and remembered in melancholic tales. And it is this past which gives us meaning, purpose and direction. But more than that, it has dishelmed us, leaving us vulnerable to repeating all that has been done; its rabid wolves are at the gates. The needling past bites us in our behinds while we continue trudging in dire straits as if the past will never outpace us. And precisely it is this because of which a discontinuous future is what will burn our endless justifications into a pile of nonsense, crush our fear of a downfall in the minds of others, and disrobe us of all our misgivings and pretensions. Henceforth, treat the present as an atoning gift to the unforeseen and unimagined future.

 

 

Life after all is what but four symbols – the asterisk, the comma, the semi-colon, and the full-stop. It begins with excitement and brouhaha, interjects at times only to resume with zealousness, realizes the lack of meaning in all, and gets concluded by nothing but the end. And what anyways is so virtuous in being born? And in the least of being a human? Humanity? Ah, that lame of an invisible thread which binds us towards betterment of fellow human beings. Humanity needs to be chained – like this: “humanity”. It deserves to be punched, kicked and mauled because it has taken too much of liberty in the name of itself. It divides, categorizes and objectifies. Nouns, excluding the great humans, never differentiate between us and the others. The heat, the cold, the disease, the death – all treat us the same and this is when, when humans disappear, that we and the others become the same. Ironic that equality is bestowed upon us only through nouns from which we have to be first excluded. Still, however, equality for what result? Equality in money, love, peace, justice, education, life and death – but with no clear objective in mind we run after these terms only to be treated equal but still unclear within ourselves as to what is to be done after gaining equality. And this is why a discontinuous past has to be installed as a garrison of hope. Its impending victory will be met with a thunderous applause not when victorious but when resting on its death bed, for very few will realize what relieving deliverance has been heaped upon them.

 

 

It is maddening, saddening, and burgeoning to be in the present state. We continue to be plagued by bubonic sadness and yet sow seeds of misery in our minefields of helplessness. Logic would dictate that during a crest of happiness existence should cease for we would never ever know if there could be a wave in the future higher than that. But illogic prevails and we wait for higher crests, but all we get in return are troughs and trenches of barren depravity. Our senses, the so called five of them, enable us to interpret; but also deprive us of truth because it is only through them that we see, smell, speak of, hear and touch the world and derive our experiences. We are nothing but slaves of these senses. Our thoughts, of which we are infinitely proud, grow as branches on trunks of experience which grow out of roots of learning, which implies continuity. The trunk has to be sawed off the roots and taken to a different realm. Falsified nourishment poured at their roots is the cause of the branches being weak, symptomatic of a malign which hides in the reasoning that if dispossessed of the vital elements they will nothing but die. Die and wither they must if they are incapable of absorbing the revolutionary new; but how long will they keep dying? A time apt enough will come someday when anger and dejection from being pilloried ceaselessly will resurrect these very pliable branches of thoughts and make them armour of a revolutionary new and support the trunks and fresh roots. The branches ought to stop feeding on the trunks and roots, but feed them instead. This then will be a new beginning. But for that, one must, now, think.

What, if at all, is to be done?

All images used have been released in public domain and are free to be used with due credit. Images from: National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Rijkmuseum. This essay wouldn’t have been possible without the meticulously maintained Open Culture.

space; Kafkaesqueian

Music: Brian Crosby (As If I Am Not There)

Collapsible Kaleidoscope

(Please click on the orange coloured Play button above before you start reading)

Bucketful of Memories

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16:00:08 Just a nudge would have done it. Just a little shove would have sufficed. It was only a matter of quick effort to end the misery and start anew. But his thoughts were still muddled when it came to deciding on the vector of his effort. Which direction would it be? A pull of his legs upward strong enough to crack his neck? Or a pull downward on the fan breaking the bed? As the chair precariously weighed its options, he tried to maneuver them. He was distraught by his double life, one lived in the unrealistic world and other in his surreal fanciful cinematic reel. The nudge did come a little later. “I’m home”.

16:01:07 He had tried hard to bring some fun into his life. Hobbies which were long forgotten, kits brought out from jammed cabinets, notebooks made home by cobwebs. Everything he could. It had worked to some extent. The revival of his childhood memories of playing with his parents became as fresh as morning dew on grass: ready to disappear the moment your warm breath came close to it.

16:02:06 She, his wife, had made him happy as much as she could. But beyond that the dichotomy of their flagellating lives was apparent to everyone around them. Their incessant fights, inundating shout-matches and verbal crossfires were all too bold to be restricted behind locked-up doors and closed windows. He never thought that it would come to such a bad state.

16:03:05 Both of his parents had passed away some years ago. This had broken him. His youthful charisma had given way to chimerical plans to reclaim his happiness. The treasure trove of the forests called him again and again, rising above the din of a ‘cityful’ but lifeless existence. His inability to gather courage was only to be blamed.

16:04:04 His dream of seeing the whole world had been majorly successful. He had traveled to many a countries, basking in their esoteric cultures and meaningless banter of the locals. All he needed more was nothing. Nothing in its absolute sense of an existential crisis. And an identity crisis which pulls you in two opposite directions but is mean enough even with a mean of zero to leave you there, as it is, to burn down under your own weight. 

16:05:03 The coming together of two young lovers fresh out of college was like a blob of an ocean making an appearance in a parched desert. Their sublime fires had engulfed all their sanity and thoughtfulness. The extrapolated future was magnetic and stronger than the drab past. The colors brighter than the black and white of yesterday. The fragrances of the love lanes attractive than the smells of singledom.

16:06:02 In college he was a bright chap. Acing his subjects was not a task but an art for him. Cynosure of the professors and an eyesore for competitors. He whiled away his time though on video-games and novels. Chided he was by his parents for this, but loved all the more by them as he was their only offspring. Notes he took diligently and remember he did efficiently. Interests of his were wide and deep, shallow only when life skills he knead.

16:07:01 His childhood was at most plain but full of innocent pleasures. The vast countryside in which grew up wasn’t sparse in the greens nor lacking in mates, distant though their homes were. His parents farm had horses and sheep alike, dogs and hens abundant & rabbits and geese infinite. The dust and gusty winds had honed his sportsmanship and the thunders and muck his grit. School was nothing but a distraction in his world of endless possibilities.

16:08:00 His birth was a difficult one. The nurses were tensed as much as her mother’s muscles. His father paced the outer verandah and only a shrill cry could calm him down. He ran inside and pushed wide open the wooden door to hold his baby in his arms. Glimpse of him from a distance was enough to make his strong demeanor melt away. The bread-earner wanted a daughter, while the bread-eater wanted a son. A daughter-son he was to be, beginning to live a life of doubled expectations. The mother was blissfully happy and while giving him to the father uttered, “He’s home”.

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Sinews of Hope

The Left, The Centre, The Right

In a city where broken hearts are trod upon and tears disappear under the humid sun, sights which uplift the melancholia must be rejoiced.

In trains where aspirations fall over the tracks and victories are made to adjust with defeats on its seats, little triumphs must be celebrated.

From homes where brash has become a dialect and howls camouflaged as greetings, the silence of the winds must be listened to.

On the roads where helter-skelter is a pattern and defiance the rule, the long-standing archaic must be appreciated.

Amidst the class that has made running-to-live its first habit and ineptitude the second, the slow and the dead must be remembered.

In a city where broken hearts are trod upon and tears disappear under the humid sun, sights which uplift the melancholia must be rejoiced.

Sights which uplift the melancholia must be rejoiced…

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The Left: The Christian man who is proud to wear his religion around his neck and unafraid of making people happy by playing beautiful music on his mouthorgan in the local trains. Photo taken at Churchgate station, Mumbai.

The Centre: The relic from the past which has stood the test of time and is history in itself: CST station.

The Right: The old Hindu man with a sitar-like musical instrument with three strings, near Churchgate station. His voice was barely audible and music nonexistent but his expectant face shone out of the crowd.

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Autobiography of a dead Squirrel

Squeak. Squeak.

Ah! Don’t be so surprised to hear this sound. It’s only me, the squirrel. Yes, a little down here, right in front of you. Don’t move too fast lest you want to scare me. But even if you want to, it is tough to run away as I have become old. My home is right up there, up in this large trunk tree behind me. It is winter time and gets quite lonely without any company. I just came down to search for some food which is hard to come by nowadays. The family that used to stay in this home right besides the tree has left – left for bad, yeah bad because since then I have never been stomach full of nuts, bread and biscuits. An old lady was the last of the family who…wait…haven’t seen you earlier here. What brought you here? Are you from around? Please tell me you are going to stay in this home now on and will feed me! Do you have any stuff in your pockets for me? Maybe you can’t understand a thing of what I am saying.

Yes, so I was saying that an old lady was the last of the family members who lived here. They took her away couple of months ago in a white colored bus with a red colored cross on it. It made a strange whistling sound. Don’t know why she was taken away. She was the one who used to feed me three times a day – regularly! In the morning it was always milk and biscuits in the white colored saucepan there..there…right besides the window…oh! Can’t you see it? Your eyesight seems to be weak…unlike that of my old white-haired friend who fed me. She could spot me from quite a distance when I used to fly around the branches to get my daily dose of exercise. You know how important it is to exercise daily, right? You’ve got to do something about that paunch coming out of your pullover. So yes, where was I? Yeah, my afternoon food. Afternoons were for soaked bread. And sometimes she used to keep the ones having grains in them – oh I used to devour them! I miss her. I wonder how she must be keeping without me. Yes, without me. For I was one who used to make her walk around the garden…always in front of her and making sure that no other insects or squirrels distract her. And the evenings were filled with nuts of all varieties and sizes. See, she really understood me well and my needs. Rather, we understood each other quite well.

Squeak. Squeak. Are you there? You don’t seem to react at all. Maybe you don’t understand me. Do you?

There is nobody to understand me in this ocean of emptiness and makes me wonder whether God is even aware of my existence! Though He has been very grateful to provide me the pleasures of this garden and my dear old friend, but of lately he seems to be doing nothing. Is He too busy for me? Or is it because I have grown older? And unattractive? That younger one across the road is always munching on something or the other. Maybe she is attracting Him with her youth.

As the green gives way to brown all around,
My penance – is it not enough to smother my life lovelorn?
Thoughts and winter is all that surround,
Nuts and milk are gone with my feet roughly worn

 

 

Life is lonely up there. But it wasn’t always like this. I was born deaf and mute. Yes, deaf and mute. Just like you are right now. What’s so surprising – that is how we squirrels are born. We were a lot of them, me, my brothers and sisters. All of them went away in the nearby areas. They do however come sometimes to visit me, but not as often as I would want them to. It was my old friend who tended to both of us here. And she even used to take us in her home during heavy rains. Her home used to be very cozy and warm. Now it is all cold and dusty. How do I know? Oh, please don’t think wrongly of me. There is a tiny hole I have made in the exhaust grill. However that home suffocates me with nothing inside it but little furniture strewn here and there. Few years ago my mother had crossed the road to meet a friend of hers and on her way back through that treacherous road and Buzo, that heartless godforsaken wild cat, caught hold of her and ate her. I saw it all from my nest. He took her in his mouth and ran towards the bushes and disappeared. After that I never saw her. I wish I could somehow take my revenge on Buzo but don’t know how to – he is so big!

There is no point now of conspiring and evil deeds. I have grown old now. I have forgiven my enemies and forgotten my friends. Squeak! Squeak! Let’s not get too emotional here. Talking of good times – my old friend used to take me inside her home and I used to watch this colorful lively box in her drawing room. I remember seeing my own kind in that box. However, they were happy and frolicking inside that box – were they never suffocated? When I saw them for the first time I thought for a moment she was going to put me in the box as well. But she never did. You see, she loved me the most.

But where is love to be found in this winter? The trees have become so dry and lifeless. Grass has withered away and the tap hardly leaks now leaving me with little water for the day. In fact last week on a particular day I was so thirsty that I had to cross the road and go over in the territory of that younger squirrel. Oh, I hate her so much. She thinks she owns the place. Nevertheless, I sneaked into the backyard of that house and quenched my thirst. She was nowhere to be seen. And on my way back, I saw that same mean Buzo – sprawled across the garden and basking in the sunlight. Though I had little time on my hands, I stopped for a moment to give him a good stare. On way back, across that maddening road I almost got run over. Yeah, the incessant rush of the cars is too difficult and too random to predict.

So apart from standing and staring at me are you going to do anything? I won’t mind at all if you are kind enough to give me food for the next few weeks. But only for the next few weeks as winter would have ended by then. My old friend used to hate winters – she could be heard shouting and crying a lot of times. Maybe her aged joints hurt. When they were taking away she was crying like a baby – had to be held and supported till she entered that white bus. She never returned back. Why have people whom I have loved the most never returned back after crossing that road? I myself haven’t crossed that road too often fearing for my own life. Who knows what bad omens haunt life across that road.

The sun has set and it’s getting darker now. Will you be staying back with me for some time? Till the morning? Don’t know how to convince you to come here more often. I can strangely feel myself becoming weaker not just with everyday but right now with every word I speak. Anyways, it’s been long since I have been talking to you and you haven’t really responded much. Guess, life is lonely down…down..ahh….oh…squeak…sque…ch..psch…