Saving the World!

It came about in this way.

During the children's revolt of the sixties and the seventies, I was just old enough to understand what these kids had in mind--they meant to turn the world upside down -- just young enough to believe that they might actually succeed. It's true. Every morning when I opened my eyes, I expected to see that the new era had begun, that the sky was a brighter blue and the grass a brighter green. I expected to hear laughter in the air to see people dancing in the street, not just kids -- everyone! I won't apologize for my naivete; you only have to listen to the songs that I wasn't alone.

Then one day when I was in the mid teens I woke up and realized that the new era was never going to begin. The revolt hadn't been put down, it had just dwindled away into a fashion statement. Can I have been the only person in the world who was disillusioned by this? Bewildered by this? It seemed so. Everyone else seemed to be able to pass it off with a cynical grin that said, "Well, what did you really expect? There's never been any more than this and never will be anymore than this. Nobody's out to save the world, because nobody gives a damn about the world, that was just a bunch of goofy kids talking. Get a job, make some money, work till you're sixty, then move to Florida and die"

- Daniel Quinn (Ishmael) 

Gospel of fear

School Bully for President

When people are tired of condescending nuances and onslaught of cliches, they become cynical, dismissive and give the pulpit to the bully. The bully returns the favor as he bares their visceral fear and goes about dumbing down the dialog. All that remains is to decide how to lynch the victim.

"We are all Muslims"

Now it was clearer: the civilised world— where laughter or leisure was not a crime against divinity—was getting cosier, and thereby more vulnerable, in its selective, politically convenient appraisal of Islamism. The political class could not discard platitudes in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Whenever a politician, invariably the leader of a victim state, said ‘Terror has no religion’ or ‘Don’t vilify Muslims’, it was a disingenuous assumption, and a convenient distraction. No faith divided or terrorized or subjugated people as Islam did in the world after the Cold War. A meaningful conversation on it was impossible because condescending liberals and meek politicians assumed that talking about Islam was denigrating Islam. This cop-out—and the accompanying face-off between ‘Islamophobia’ (a stigma attached to anyone who dared to break the consensus) and ‘Islamofascism’ (a visible version of domination and dehumanization)—made the sanguineous God freer, and the domain of fear wider. 

 - Prasanna Rajan, Open Magazine

Religion of War 

Devout Mohammedans assemble in four different ways.
1) They assemble several times daily for prayer, summoned by a voice from on high. The small rhythmic groups formed on these occasions may be called prayer packs. Each movement is exactly prescribed and orientated in one direction - towards Mecca. Once a week, at the Friday prayer, these packs grow to crowds.2) They assemble for the Holy War against unbelievers.3) They assemble in Mecca, during the great pilgrimage.4) They assemble at the Last judgement.

As in all religions, invisible crowds are of great importance., but in Islam, more strongly than the other world religions, these are invisible double crowds, standing in opposition to each other.

The bi-partition of the crowd in Islam is unconditional. The faithful and the unbelieving are fated to be separate for ever and to fight each other. The War of Religion is a sacred duty and thus, though in a less comprehensive form, the double crowd of the Last Judgement is prefigured in every earthly battle.

When the days of peace are over, the Holy War comes into its own again. "Mohammed" says one of the greatest experts on Islam, "is the prophet of fighting and of war... What he first achieved in his Arabian sphere he leaves as a testament for the future of his community: the fight against the infidels, the expansion, not so much of the faith as of its sphere of power, which is the sphere of power of Allah. What matters to the fighters for Islam is not so much the conversion as the subjection of infidels." The Koran, the book of the prophet inspired by God, leaves no doubt of this.

"When the sacred months are over, slay the idolaters wherever you find them.Arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush for them."

Crowds and Power - Elias Canetti, 1962

Judas Gospel

“The Emergency” in India refers to a 21 month period in 1975-77 when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi unilaterally had a state of emergency declared across the country. Most of Gandhi’s political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. Several atrocities using the police force were reported from the time. The Emergency was one of the most controversial periods of independent India’s history. 

K.R. Meera's Judas’ Gospel (Malayalam: Yudasinte Suvisesham) is a fiction exploring the period‘s aftermath through the eyes of victims and perpetrators of state brutality unleashed on rebels who were inspired by idealism and the romance of resistance.

The shock and awe of the violence have faded from public space and the memory of it evokes nothing more than jejune indifference. The novel describes with a lot of heart how those bright and sensitive idealists were crushed under the boots of state machinery wherein the hunter, prey, the writer and the reader hurtle toward a shared experience when we read Gospel of Judas. It unravels the heart breaking cries and nightmares of a generation.

The novel follows P.U. Das aka ‘Croc’ Yudas and Prema. Das is a former Naxalite/Rebel and Prema is the daughter of a cop notorious for his proclivity for torture. When at the end of torture Das’ ribcage is broken, he gives up names of his fellow comrades which included his lover and a dear friend. Having survived the ordeal but distraught at the loss of his pride as a revolutionary, Das rechristens himself to be ‘Crocodile Yudas’. He spends the rest of his life in ignominy and shame for being a traitor to his cause and friends. He becomes an expert at recovering corpses from deep waters.

Prema was a five year old during the Emergency. Her relationship to the torture camp and revolution were established by her binge drinking father’s proud description of his colleagues’ brutalities at the camp and the he way submits own family to domestic terror. Prema recognized that Das whose overgrown beard and hair resembled Jesus Christ, carried the sin of the world for its redemption and she follows him. Das would leave her at each juncture. Every journey that she undertook revealed more details and insights about the uncertain and dangerous time.

Prema meets the head of the Camp, ‘Beast’ Parameswaran who became all alone in old age having witnessed the dissolution of his own family when in the end he saw himself as mere conduit of time’s justice. In the middle of meeting, the beast cries out when Prema has a little cut from the chipped coffee cup. He considers himself as nothing more than an insignificant cog in the wheel of power or a tool in time’s box. If he were to join the force again, he might do the same. In his late sagacity, he recognizes and accepts his destiny. Das later talks empathetically about his tormentors who took great care while hammering steel pins under his fingernails. The hunter and the hunted look back at their shared history circumspect over their roles and destinies.

The author draws a nuanced picture of state oppression and the actors – victims and assailants lurking in the aisles filled with bloodshed and scream. The field of blood (Aceldama) is drenched not by the traitor Judas’ blood, but the tears of empathy for fellow beings who go on living unaffected by the injustice and atrocities as long as they are not subjected to it. Gospel of Judas is relentlessly focused on the theme and the experience leaves the reader with a heavy heart.

Similar stories are reenacted somewhere in the world every day – not only in Africa, Latin America, China and other Asian countries ruled by military, even in nations advertised as the best examples of developed democracies. You can find a Kakkayam camp in Guantanamo or or similar camps in client countries. In the novel Prema reflects on Madam Roland’s famous quote – Oh! Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name.

Gospel of Judas is a very important and relevant novel in our times. To quote from the book “It is import to raise questions – more than winning or losing a fight. The idealists fought a losing battle. We were naïve and inexperienced. We took arms, hoping to liberate the world overnight. Sometime in future we will open the eyes of people. But as Prema says it is more important to be alive”.

Yudasinte Suvisesham - Malayalam short Fiction by K.R. Meera

Imperial mission of civilizing India

Preet Bharara’s rather curious and contentious riposte on the media reports of his actions against the Indian diplomat facilitated by the state department brought back the arguments on asymmetric international relationships and memories of archaic colonial notions of imperialists’ burden of enforcing the rule of law.  The institutions of the Justice and State departments were hardly equipped with tools to learn and negotiate civilizational clashes as evident from their collective shock and dismay at the unexpected fury and payback from India cutting across political, social and regional divides. After all weren't they making a firm stand for a just cause for a hapless member of the underclass from these very population? Wasn't the alleged perpetrator a symbol of everything that is wrong with the country she represents?

Legitimizing Colonialism

There is nothing wrong with the questions if the context weren't complex involving independent countries, international and domestic laws, cultural differences and dissimilar government structures with the kind of history and standing in the world. The discourse on the legal premise and actions where predicated on the legitimacy of (local) rule of law and tacit suggestions of a savage nation with corrupt and vindictive society that needs to be saved from itself. That the legitimization of legal overreach and subsequent actions were instigated and cheered on by liberal intelligentsia is no accident. Relationships with India historically veered towards chaos every time Democrats wielded power. Pages of New York Times and Washington Post are replete with aspersions on stereotypes of caste ridden India which has its origins in the imperial British constructs to define social structures to support maintain its colonial rule after their theories of inferior race had failed. Democrats in the U.S resemble the Labour party of England in displaying a latent imperial attitude while vowing on higher ideals. In the post-colonial era, it’s the liberal political force that is driving the civilizing mission than the conservatives.

Here is Lord Curzon the Governor General and Viceroy of India giving a simple definition of the civilizing mission’s aim. The purpose that sustained the empire was:

…to fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect, the unjust or the mean, to swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left, to care nothing for flattery or applause or odium or abuse, but to remember that the Almighty has placed your hand on the greatest of his ploughs, to drive the blade a little forward in y our time, and to free somewhere among these millions you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a spring of patriotism, a dawn of intellectual enlightenment, or a stirring of duty, where it did not before exist. That is enough, that is the Englishman’s justification in India.”

Internalizing the mission of civilizing

As for Preet Bharara, who was at the receiving end of many Indians’ ire and ridicule, was also lauded as the paragon of the West’s rule of law. There was a misplaced expectation from him being Indian origin. Assimilation and internalization of the Western civilization are not based on the race or culture. 

*There is a passage from George Orwell’s Burmese Days when the protagonist Mr. Flory, a British Merchant who came to Burma to exploit her timber resources, is irritated by the imperial racism of his countrymen who rudely discuss the admittance of the only Indian doctor in town, Dr. Veraswami, to the sacrosanct ‘club’.  Turning away in disgust, Flory visits his friend in the verandah and begins conversation with him. He realizes that Veraswami was well versed with English drinking habits. Flory begins to berate the British for their racist attitude, criticizes the moral pretensions masking their exploitative enterprises in India and the hypocritical talk about white man’s burden. Veraswami, who has apparently internalized the attitudes and aims of the British civilizing mission, is appalled by Flory’s defeatist utterances:

But truly, truly, Mr. Flory, you must not speak so! Why iss it that always you are abusing the pukka sahibs, as you call them? They are the salt of the earth. Consider the great things they have done - consider the great administrators who have made British India what it iss. Consider Clive, Warren Hastings, Dalhousie, and Curzon… And consider how noble a type iss the English gentleman! Their glorious loyalty to one another! Even those of them, whose manner iss unfortunate – some Englishmen are arrogant, I concede – have the great, sterling qualities that we Orientals lack.

Notes:

Excerpts from the book - Colonialism As Civilizing Mission - Cultural Ideology in British India.

Aam Admi Party: We The People

“I ain’t never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn’t have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared…. Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain’t no good and they die out, but we keep on coming. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out, they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, cause we’re the people.”

Ma Joad (John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath)

In an interview given hours before announcing his candidacy against Sheila Dixit in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal had given a glimpse of his belief system. He spoke about how it has evolved from a child’s religious leanings into an agnostic life of a youth in the IIT and now exploring a new found faith – where destiny and circumstances lend space and time for a cause much bigger and complex than what mere mortals could conjure up. How else could Arvind explain the phenomenon of harnessing the yearning of a billion nobodies of a nation who have been oppressed and enslaved for centuries to a force that is poised to change the political destiny of India? It’s not any ideology imported from the west, but a tacit acknowledgement of a consciousness he has seen awakened in the battered and the harassed.

Shock and Awe

One could see Arvind engage anyone with a question with absolute clarity of thought and earnestness to share what he thought to a degree of exhaustion. On the other hand you could see the politicians and their proxies squirm uncomfortably at his questions. He hurt their egos like nobody else did. Their sense of self-righteousness and entitlement has been badly damaged when Arvind’s words went straight to the millions of people who were in a quest to articulate their disgust and a way out of the labyrinthine rut of political edifice.

The political class regardless of their size and affiliation are now in shock and their confusion is palpable. Suddenly they are not special anymore. They undergo spasms of self-doubt. Their fear of discomforting possibility of the loss of mystique that separated them from whom they’ve ruled appears real now. Their understanding of the world order is crumbling. For the first time, the ruling class cutting across all brands is scared ever since their original colonial masters, the British imperialists helped establish their brown supremacy to exploit their own countrymen in the garb of governance. The awakening of consciousness in common man is the ultimate threat to the political elite and the sons and daughters of their class like the Rajes, the Scinidias and the Gandhis. The people can now easily see how small these selfish hoarders are and know that they will be brushed aside soon to make way for the future.

The Awakening vs. An apolitical pipedream?

The fiercest critics of AAP, especially left leaning intellectuals harp on the term apolitical to define the movement – meaning the party is a ramshackle expression of faux outrage, cult following devoid of any serious foundation of sound ideology. They dismissed the movement predicting an imminent demise. But the stunning debut in Delhi shook the pundits of traditional politics to the core. They are at a loss to explain the phenomenon.

What ideology better than Swaraj as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi would suit Indian ethos and model for an equitable and inclusive growth? Arvind himself has written a book titled Swaraj. The common folks in Delhi however have figured it out already. They understand that the democracy in India has a structural problem as highlighted when each case of corruption has been fizzled out at the altar of democratic institutions. They realize that the Constitution of India gives the framework for good governance. They know that there are several solutions to one problem and they have a say in choosing what is right for the common good. They debunked the myth of expensive elections by financing the process themselves. They after all voted in Delhi for a good candidate irrespective of his or her identities such as religion, economic and political stature and caste. Traditional politics with its caste, cash, top down high command calculations and irrelevant ideology have been put on notice.

Politics in India is not a cynical exercise of right wing strategists or leisurely activity for liberal intellectuals anymore. It takes place in the middle of throbbing crowds in markets, places of worship and entertainment in each cranny of the country. They always longed to take back their long lost rights to a just and dignified everyday life from the corrupt and regressive political class. The difference now is they know how!

 “Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. ...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

- Grapes of Wrath

You said nothing

You said nothing yet - see
what pass us by!
seasons of rain, winter and sunshine
eons of sorrow.

You said nothing yet - my 
eyes shall shut soon
luminous night is all but gone!

- Balachandran Chullikkad 

Note: Translated from Malayalam original. Source here.

Travelogues of a bachelor

Orpheus, I am not listening to your music:
Gypsies are coming home to caravan;

Orpheus, I am not lingering at your riverside:
A newlywed bride is shedding her clothes now;

Orpheus, I am not sleeping under the foot of your tree:
Strangers are there in embrace at their rendezvous;

Orpheus, let the moonlight borrow your flute:
You and I, Orpheus - Let's walk under the shadow.

* * *

This night is the traveller's harp
This ambrosia, his gashes
This journey to a hill, his message
This rain descending a hill, his heirloom
This lover too is walking away all alone.

* * *

I am at the open ground for migrants
laying on my back,
watching stars and pyramids of clouds.

No gold ring in my finger
No chariot to join the suitors
No sage egging me on to wind up a bow
No bride and her maid waiting on.

I remember a song
I heard somewhere yesterday.
The river's anklets woke up
listening to a gypsy's flute.
An aroma knots up a swing
across the river and a star.

I woke up -
A band of old folks huddled around a fire
at the open ground for migrants.
Warming up in their good ole stories were-
Nalla Thanka, Dhamayanthi and Ophelia,
A brand new Arabian tale mounted a chariot.

Translated from D. Vinayachandran's poem "Oru Avivaahithante Sanchaarakurippukal"

The Path Homeward

Whither home 
for those who lost their mother!

No, they don't have any.

Or 

they find home everywhere -

boondocks, desolate shopfronts,
rail stations, awnings for Satyagraha,
where orphans watched over,
songs for refugees,
dip in the ocean at Kanyakumari,
sacrifices for ancestors at Gaya, and
along the solitary trails in Himavan.


Why so many journeys?

"Journeys are all there is - Journeys are experiences that rejuvenate the cycles of birth and impart an ego-less state of mind. The culture of journey is entwined with our countless torments and meditations...I travel a lot in personal life.  Travels through many walks of life is part of me. Long journeys are but an extension of the same. Your travels to wilderness count just the same as those that you make to a clinic or an orphanage. In reality the journey inwards are many many miles more than one ever does in external world. That is what a writer supposed to do. In a way we can define writing as an act of travel towards the star of his birth. This is not turning back of any sort. But a journey to the future."

In memory of beloved poet Vinayachandran Mash.

Note:
Translated from Poet D.Vinayachandran's Veettilekkulla Vazhi and an excerpt from an interview.

Tolle's wisdom

"The self is everywhere. Bright is the self,
Indivisible, untouched by sin, wise,
Immanent and transcedent. He it is
Who holds the cosmos together"

- Isha Upanishad

Thatvamasi

"When forms that you had identified with, that gave you your sense of self, collapse or taken away, it can lead to a collapse of ego, since ego is identification with form. When there is nothing to identify with anymore, who are you? When forms around you die or death approaches, your sense of Beingness, of I Am, is freed from its entanglement with form: Spirit is released from its imprisonment in matter. Your realize your essential identity as formless, as an all pervasive Presence, of Being prior to all forms, all identifications. You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with. That's the peace of God. The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am."

Gurusaagaram

"Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield. Some people become bitter or deeply resentful; others become compassionate, wise and loving. Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life. Resistance is an inner contraction, a hardening of the shell of the ego. You are closed. Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in. 

When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with. Circumstances and people become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in peace and inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God."

* Excerpts from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth

** Upanishad quote by Eknath Easwaran

Ozhimuri

Those who depart from this world without

knowing who they are or what they truly

desire have no freedom here or hereafter.

But those who leave here knowing who they

are and what they truly desire have freedom

everywhere, both in this world and in the next.

- Chandogya Upanishad [viii.1.6]

The malayalam film Ozhimuri (Document of Separation) is loaded with references and often times direct constructs from Vedic literature that there is no mistaking of Jeyamohan's script and dialogues for its deep roots in  ancient wisdom. When you have more than seventy years of human lives to cover in the span of a film, the weighty themes from eastern thought if handled well can lend a certain aura to the overall impact. The director Madhupal, despite the handicap of budget and visible pangs of growth as a craftsman and artist has done more than adequate justice to the film.

The actors playing protagonists - there are three of them - have taken the film to a level where a discerning viewer is subjected to an experience that only true art can impart. While the movie's subtext is firmly planted on a specific culture (South Travancore) which in turn shifts into another, you take away the universal values applicable to each one of us one way or another. It’s been a long while since I have seen anything like this after the exit of Aravindan who had a clear and keen understanding of the timeless genius of Vedic wisdom.

The plot is outwardly linear which revolves around a divorce petition filed by an elderly couple (ThanuPillai and Meenakshi Pillai) who lived most of their lives together in an old world that no longer exists. Their land belonged to the erstwhile princely state of Travancore which had a monarchic and matrilineal culture that thrived for centuries. It is important to note that the common people genuinely liked their kings and were fiercely loyal. Contrast that with emergence of male dominant culture and the division of the land between two post independent states where Tamil became the language of the ruling class. Insights on the impact of geopolitical shifts on common man in and of itself are an interesting premise of this movie.

The narrative unfolds from the perspective of the couple's son, SarathChandran who reasonably believes in his mother's cause to get the document of separation from the civil court. He believes that after enduring a lifetime of torture and abuse from her husband, she needs respite. He has also been a victim of excessive punishment. He thinks domestic violence is a norm in most homes than an exception. 

He is sought out by a young lawyer Bala who took it upon herself to convince him of the futility of going through court processes, not to mention being the butt of ridicule since they will be asked uncomfortable questions of their marriage at this point of their life. He still thinks it is worth all the trouble.

The story takes off from that point onward.  In the true tradition of Gargi, Bala challenges Sarath on his perceptions and interpretation of the events leading up to the divorce petition. She also prods him to look deeper into him and watch his own thought processes and reflect on his destiny that if he stayed the course, he could very well end up like his father whom he detests. She quotes Yaksha Prashna which posed the question "what is man's self?" which essentially is a quest for immortal self and is attained through progeny.

Bala plays the role of a mentor - Guru to help Sarath dig deeper into the psyche of his parents and ancestors, offers alternative point of views and plausible reasons behind the choices they made at various junctures of their lives. Bala's mother has also been a victim of domestic abuse. In a funny revelation Bala talks about her father having been chased by Sarath's imposing father, took his anger upon the hapless wife at home.

The movie however is about Thanu Pillai, Meenakshi Pillai and the matriarch Kali Pillai - the fiery mother of a feuding son.

Kalipillai is the product of a culture that put women at the center of social and economic life existed for a long time. She stood up to symbols of power (She convinces a cop to reprimand her tenant), attacked threats (tenant), ran household on her own, spoke of women's strength and stature. She had had visitors who were artists and scholars. She chose her partners whom she divorced since the society and law stood behind women. She didn't approve of her son's choice of bride at first. The women however got close and genuinely cared for each other even as the self-destructive feud between Kalipillai and her son took to the worse. By the time they could relent on the ego war a wee bit, Kalippillai was at the brink of death.

There is a remarkable and haunting scene in the movie when the morbid Kalipillai sleepwalks out of deathbed past her reproachful son, stagger into the street to her death. On her way out she accuses the daughter in law of causing the rift between the mother and son although the opposite was true. Their feud goes way back and Kalipillai routinely warned her daughter in law of being soft and complicit in her own abuse.

Thanupillai's father Sivan Pillai was a wrestler who got the long hand of matrilineal system when he was fancied once and discarded by Kali Pillai, not before making Thanupillai a rebel and abusive misogynist. He married Meenakshi Pillai from a poor non-matrilineal family out of his choice who was to pay for the perceived wrongs and sleights of assertive women around him represented by his mother. As we get a closer look at his life, we learn about the childhood Thanupillai spent in fear and loss of his father in traumatic condition, according to him caused by the powerful women around him. We also learn later about his commitment towards fatherhood and loyalty.

In the end he is condemned to wallow in the dark of his monstrous ego as he too accused Meenakshi Pillai to have caused the rift between him and his mother after spending a lifetime clashing with her. But he is given a chance at redemption as his son with the help of Bala draws himself towards him spiritually to bring peace to a lifetime spent in torments  and fits of fury.

Meenakshi Pillai is the transformative character in the movie to grow from a frail and helpless victim of domestic abuse into a liberated human being during the span of the film. As we learn more about the seemingly tragic and unfortunate choices she made at various junctures of her life, we are allowed to see her perspectives on the events which we only had a partial view till then. We learn that she took the best of the choices she had and her priority was revealed to be her son who struggled to stay healthy during most of his childhood.

MeenakshiPillai realized the folly of being dependent of her brother and the fierce commitment of her husband as a father to her child. She tried to broker peace between the husband and his mother without success. She learnt quite a bit about being fearless and independent from her mother in law too. But when Thanupillai anticipating his death asked her to reveal what she told his mother that forced her to leave them to die in the street, she realized the unworthiness of being in a relationship steeped in ignorant clashes of delusional ego. Instead of protesting her innocence, she decided to liberate herself and asked for Ozhimuri.

You can hear the echo of Chandokya Upanishad as Meenkashi Pillai comes to the foreground of the screen to have a look at you. You know it’s time to untangle your life for your own sake! 

Notes:
Chandokya Upanishad: wiki reference
Gargi: wiki reference
YakshaPrashna : wiki reference

To which a novice is initiated

“I do no read much, but I have never stopped re-reading Flaubert and Jules Verne, Roussel and  Kafka, Leiris and Queneau; I re-read the books I love and I love the books I re-read, and each time it is the same enjoyment, whether I re-read twenty pages, three chapters, or the whole book; an enjoyment of complicity, of collusion, or more especially, and, in addition, of having in the end found kin again”
(W, or The Memory of Childhood, Georges Perec)

Reading George Perec is like rekindling a kinship you savored once upon a time. You remind yourself of the rare moments of clarity, presence of warm, intelligent mind and the gentle camaraderie you felt all along. From Perec, who blended mathematics, reportage, linguistics, cognitive studies and Dewey into delectable fiction, you expect nothing short of objective and unforgettable insights, even if it is on his own orphaned childhood etched by the holocaust.

Perec explores his own unorganized and unyielding memories from childhood which he attempts to revisit in his latter life. In parallel to the autobiographic narrative, he invites us to the life in W, an allegorical nation with Olympic ideals where human spirit is systematically crushed and enterprise is thwarted by intent and design, while the onlookers, cheered on by petty officials among us bay for their blood. That he draws this blood curdling picture without a drop of malice or self-pity gives us a locus-standi to view the inner workings of inhuman machinery at its destructive best.

Then there is rumination on questions of writing itself. He is aware of the unending oscillation between an as-yet undiscovered language of sincerity and subterfuges of writing worried about shoring up own defenses. Perec sees the written words as blank, neutral, a sign of a once-and-for-all annihilation of the urge to say what was probably unsaid or unsayable. For he wants to rid himself of the scandal of silence, of his kinsmen and self, and in the process assert his own life as the one who lived amongst them.

Having escaped W, Gaspard Winckler (the alter ego of Perec) is confronted by Otto Apfelstahl who is on a quest to find a shipwrecked boy. Otto confirms that he has exhausted the last trace of the boy with Gaspard. Gaspard wonders whether his luck is any better than the boy’s. Perec suggests what’s out there for the novice from the champion of life’s user manual in a flourish:

How can you explain that what he (novice) is seeing is not anything horrific, not a nightmare, not something he will suddenly wake from, something he can rid his mind of? How can you explain that this is life, this is what there’ll be every day, this is what there is, and nothing else, that it’s pointless believing something else exists or pretend to believe in something else, that it’s not even worth your time trying to hide it, or to cloak it, it’s not even worth your time pretending to believe that there must be something behind it, or beneath it, or above it? That’s what there is, and that’s all. There are competitions every day, where you Win or Lose. You have to fight to live. There is no alternative. It is not possible to close your eyes to it, it is not possible to say no. There’s no recourse, no mercy, no salvation to be had from anyone. There’s not even any hope that time sort thing out. There’s this, there’s what you’ve seen, and now and again it will be less horrible that what you’ve seen. But wherever you turn your eyes, that’s what you’ll see, you will not see anything else, and that is the only thing that will turn out to be true”

(W, or The Memory of Childhood, Georges Perec)

Frozen Space

My recent short visit to Kochi convinced me of one thing – that in my mind I am returning to a space and time, frozen when I left the shores more than a decade ago. Even when I can acknowledge the reminders of time's passage, I am looking for the remains of a frozen time. It is heart breaking to see that the remnants are withering fast. How long would the debris remain, before I will have nothing left to go back to?

While this narrative is unfair to the people living their unfrozen lives yonder, long distance travel can afford a few thoughts on the dynamic between space and memory. On the flight heading back to New York, Georges Perec (*Species of Spaces) offered a little more to the thought. I will leave you with Perec to mull over a bit more:

I would like there to exist places that are stable, unmoving, intangible, untouched and almost untouchable, unchanging, deep-rooted; places that might be points of reference, of departure, of origin:

My birthplace, the cradle of my family, the house where I may have been born, the tree I may have seen grow, the attic of my childhood filled with intact memories...

Such places don't exist, and it's because they don't exist that space becomes a question, ceases to be self-evident, ceases to be incorporated, ceases to appropriated. Space is a doubt: I have constantly to mark it, to designate it. It's never mine, never given to me, I have to conquer it.

My spaces are fragile: time is going to wear them away, to destroy them. Nothing will any longer resemble what was, my memories will betray me, oblivion will infiltrate my memory, I shall look at a few old yellowing photographs with broken edges without recognizing them.

Space melts like sand running through one's fingers. Time bears it away and leaves me only shapeless shreds:

To write: to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive, to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs.


* Species of Spaces and Other Pieces: Georges Perec