Christmas Musings

Today is 12th December, at 12 pm,12th minute and 12 seconds, the date and time will be 12//12/12/12/12/12
Maa Kasam! Sardaron ko kaun sambhalega...??

This is the message that I received on my mobile on 12th December from a fast friend of mine. And I am sure you too had received such text messages on the day.
The brouhaha surrounding the date and time as mentioned ranged across the world from Fiji to Hawaii. In Guwahati also people organised special feast to celebrate the date and time. Besides, many insisted their obstetric surgeons to perform Cesarean section in such a way that the baby is made to be born coinciding the momentous moments.

But a little reflection on the date stirs up our thoughts as to what significance the date(and time)encapsulates and also to the extent  of  casting serious doubt if at all the date has really taken place.

The celebration of this date and time means the triumph of a model which is Christian and European. The calculation of ab anno Domini is essentially christian. In early Middle Ages years were counted not from the birth of Christ ;but from the presumed creation of the world. In the seventeenth century  the protestant Issac de la Peyriere observed that the original sin involved only the descendants of Adam,not other races ,born far earlier. He was declared a heretic. China and India had flourishing civilization before the year 0. Thankfully Plato and Aristotle's births are recorded as 'before Christ'.

After the independence , the government of India constituted a commission under the scientist Meghnad Saha to examine various calendars that were in use among different communities ( Even today the Assamese have a different calendar) and the commission was dumbfounded by the bewildering number calendars that various communities in India were using(and perhaps are using at the moment). A friend from Manipur once told me that there the child's birthday is recorded from day of his or her rice ceremony. A different calendar again!

Now the most pertinent question. Was the day really 12th December?

As we know that 23rd April in 1564 is not the same as 23rd April 2012. By the mid sixteenth century, the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind the solar year and so in 1582 Pope Gregory xiii introduced the Gregorian calendar that we follow today. Many European countries immediately made the changes. Accordingly Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15th October.The anti-papal England rejected the idea and did not catch up till 1752,when 2 September was immediately followed by 14 September. In other words in 1564 in England, the date referred to then as 23 April corresponds to what we would today call 3 May.
This observation ,without doubt. complicates the whole issue of 12/12/12/12/12/12.

Nevertheless a very happy Christmas to you all!


Reference:

On Anniversary by David Crystal( A lecture delivered on the occasion of 425th Anniversary of Cambridge University Press in 2009)
Five Moral Pieces by Umberto Eco(Vintage,2002)
Argumentative Indians by Amartya Sen( Penguin Books)

Conversation with Umberto Eco



Umberto Eco appeared before me like a vision of God. Lately he has cottoned on to the fact that our state has developed a lot in the health sector and therefore he flew from Bologna to Guwahati for a consultation with a doctor from Gauhati Medical College. But as the luck would have it , there broke out a clash between the medical representatives and the doctors and as a result the OPD  was cancelled. He had nowhere to go so he came to my apartment. He was in a flowery shirt that went well with his personality and the brown corduroy that hides his well-formed legs lent  an extra dimension to his sartorial casualness. He was wearing a pair of  sports shoes.

He seated himself in the computer chair  in my small and cozy bed room that I sometimes use for reading my my electricity and medical bills.
In no time we launched ourselves into a desultory and freewheeling conversation. I hope it is conversation and not merely interrogation.  Following is an excerpt:

NJK: Ever since I read your 'The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana' , I have become enamored of you and should you  had been a girl or a lady-as you know I have special fascination for elegant elderly lady- I would have told 'I love you' and would have sung' drink to me only with thine eyes and I shall....

UC:  Ha ha....(he laughed loudly and his chubby cheeks were sunk into tiny hollows).It is indeed a pleasure to have  a fan like you who is  half-sane and half-insane...

NJK: Can there be an absolutely sane person or mind?

UC: You are right. There can be no absolutely normal mind. The dividing line between normal and abnormal mind is very thin.

NJK: ...but where is mind?

UC: My mind is elsewhere.

NJK: Where?

UC: In the play I enjoyed last night. Bhul Nubujiba Bhupenda(Do not misunderstand Bhupenda). Oh! Just mind-blowing! The auditorium, you call it pandal right?, was crammed with spectators. Electrifying! I have come to know that the playwright has written more than thirty plays in a single year which is a remarkable feat and a record of a sort. Even Shakespeare could not write as many plays during his life time. How many did he(Shakespeare) write?

NJK: I do not know.

UC: But you told you studied literature in the university?

NJK: Yes. But that was the question which was never asked in my exams.

UC: OK. I see...

NJK:  That is a good lead-in...

UC: Which one?

NJK: Bhul Nubujiba Bhupenda...

UC:  Which way?

NJK: Bhupen Hazarika , of course...

UC: He is a great singer and composer. Bhupen Hazarika dead is more powerful than Bhupen Hazarika alive.

NJK: Very well said. Explain please...

UC: See the amount of soundbites and the reams of  paper that have been wasted on controversies surrounding him.

NJK: And the latest one...

UC:  Well Nayan, I must tell you that culture is a filtering process. What is relevant to our culture remains and irrelevants just sink into oblivion. Just see, Calpurnia was relevant as long as Ceaser was alive. After his death she became culturally(or historically) irrelevant. Have you ever inquired about Shakespeare's sons? Or about the family of Indira Gandhi's husband? They are just culturally irrelevant.  So it boils down to the fact that a singer or a writer should be judged only on the basis of his or her work.

NJK:..so it is not necessary to know how many plays Shakeapeare wrote to appreciate him?

UC: Ha...(No this time he did n't laugh loudly. He became grave instead.)

NJK: What else did you like about our city?

UC: The big garbage can without lid installed by the city's civic authority.

NJK:  A  filth phile...ha ha...

UC: No.It stirs your thought. It reminds me of your great writer Raja Rao who said that there can be no India without( I was told that there is no crow in a place called Barpeta in Assam. Is any Barpetia reading this? Can you please verify?) crow. These crows feed on those garbage. Besides this provokes us into thinking if mankind as technological beings and mankind as civilized  social beings are going hand -in -hand.

NJK: Can you crisscross the city without ever finding such a garbage can?

UC: Nayan, you have never been original. This is from Gerges Perec.

NJK: You have n't read Piere Manard?

UC: Ha ha....

NJK: no, I am serious. Can there be an Einstein  without Newton? The very concept of originality is flawed  Is Shakespeare original?

UC:    NJK ,you so-called educated people are very intelligent or rather cunning. you can rationilse . And you always rationalise to your favour.

With due apology to Umberto Eco.

For the full text of the conversation, please log onto the website: www.njkmadtalk.com

On walking and Bed


However hackneyed it might be, I must tell that walking is a good exercise. When I say walking, I mean brisk walking that works up a sweat ,helps burn extra calorie and leaves a general well-being for all of us. Health benefits that brisk walking offers to diabetics and to people with hypertension are immense. Doctors and health care professionals all across the world prescribe walking, at least for  five days in a week for all to maintain a healthy life.

On the whole walking is a part of a regimen for good health.

However, at the same time walking is a part of intellectual life also. Rousseau who wrote 'The Social Contract' also wrote ' Reveries of a solitary walker'. It follows that Rousseau conceived many of his ideas while going for a walk.So is the case with Nietzsche.Coleridge's post-dinner walk for 16 miles just to post a letter is well known. Dequincey calculated that by middle age Wordsworth walked 180,000 miles . The poet who wrote:
                              'One impulse from a vernal wood
                               may teach you more of man,
                              Of moral evil and of good,
                              Than all the sages can.'
Our existence is nothing but a succession of moments perceived through senses. I am sure Wordsworth perceived his moments through his extra-sensitive senses  while on walking tours. And subsequently he transformed them into a kind of spiritualized  emotion.

With explosion in automobile industry, peoples' mobility has largely become mechanized. However, because of the health benefits , people still walk( with a mobile in ears).

The end of walking may lead us to end of ideas also.
                                             
                                                              xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

'We spend more than a third of our lives in a bed. The bed is one of the rare places where we adopt roughly speaking a horizontal posture. The others are much more specialized : operating table,bench in a sauna,chaise-loungue,beach,psychoanalyst's couch.....' Wrote Georges Perec in Species of spaces and other pieces.
What do you keep with you when you are on bed? I keep my mobile phone. I like to sms and talk to my dear and near ones from my bed. And yes I sleep better on my own bed than some one else's. I am sure it happens with you too. Proust wrote the first sentence in his great novel'A la recherche du temps':" For a long time I went bed early'. But I cannot go to my bed early(Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise). The temptation is always there though. And for how many people  a bed is made for? Perec writes  beautifully:' The bed is an instrument conceived for the nocturnal repose of one or two persons,but no more'. Thus he precludes a diurnal nap and a family of three or four may not like his idea. For me a bed is for one person-be it nocturnal or diurnal repose.
Bed is also a place where we dream most. Is day dreaming equally possible on bed?
 I can remember my nights of bed-wetting when I was a child and all the trouble my granny took next morning for washing the bed linens. At times I crave for a sort of oedipal nostalgia as I cannot remember when I slept with my mother last.
Like walking, I am sure, bed can also be a generator many outstanding intellectual ideas. This can be subject of good research.

What do you think...eh?

                                            Islam and civilization

What constitutes Islam? The question assumes extraordinary significance in view of the daily news stories with war, insurgency,human misery and violence around the world with active involvement of Islamic groups or countries. It is not surprising that many of us believe that the cultures of Islamic countries are backward and Islam as  the last revealed religion in the world is conservative and often as violent and extremist.
Against this background, it has never been more timely to explore the extent to which western cultural and scientific thought is indebted to the the works of Arab and Islamic thinkers a thousand years ago.
Maybe, it is one of the drawbacks of Euro-centric education system in which the contributions of non-European and particularly Arab and Islamic world are systematically pushed to the margin or totally obliterated.

 By the way the Indian contribution to science is Zero( Pun intended).

We all are familiar with Aristotle and his contributions in various branches of human knowledge. But how many of us  know about Avicena? I am sure very few. In fact I came across this name in a historical fiction by Ken Follet(The Pillars Of The Earth). Since than I have dug as much information as possible about this polymath. Avicena was born in 980 AD and is famous as the greatest physician of the middle ages.His canon of medicine remained as standard medical text across Europe till 17th Century. But his fame does not end there. He is one of the greatest Islamic philosophers and his treaties on philosophy still stands as a pinnacle of medieval philosophy.

Another Islamic Polymath was Abu Rayhan al-Biruni. He was a philosopher,mathematician and astronomer and is considered as the father of Geology and Anthropology. Yet he is hardly known here.
The word Algebra is also Islamic in origin. However, I fail to recall the name of the mathematician and his book after which the name came into being.

We all remember Copernicus for his helio- centric model of our solar system. But it was Ibn al-Shatir( Ibn Qurra) who conceived the idea  of a helio-centric model about three centuries before Copernicus. But tragically no science textbook or book on the history of science has  ever mentioned him.

We are reliably informed that Newton is the father of Optics. But in fact Newton has always mounted the Giant who lived 700 hundred years before him. He is the Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham and is famous for his treaties on the refraction and composition of light and they are considered as seminal on the subject.

Another Iraqi Al-Jahith developed rudimentary theory of natural selection much before Darwin. That was in 9th century. His book entitled 'Book Of Animals 'speculates on how environmental factors can affect the characteristics of species forcing them for adaptation and thereby passing on those traits to future generations.

Bagdad was a seat of learning of Islamic world. It has no parallel. The city was created by the Caliph Ma'mun who was known for his unquenchable thirst for knowledge. But we can roll out the names harem-keeping Caliphs whose indulgence in carnal pleasure became synonymous with the whole Islamic culture.

Many argue that novel as a narrative form began in the Arab world. To my mind Shahrzad is the greatest story teller( Arabian Nights). Her character is shrouded with the elements of fiction though. Recently when I finished reading 'Akhenaten' by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, I kept marveling at the art of his story telling. The novel reinforces the idea of Einstein that when there are many observers,there is bound to be many observations. Elite academics talk about Delilo's book 'The White Noise'. They will do well to read 'Akhenaten' which is much more postmodern than 'The White Noise'.

The list will go on.

When I see bearded men with piercing eyes wearing shorter-than-normal pajama and longer-than-normal kurta(never happen to be the articles of faith), happy with abandon in issuing fatwas, I pity them.

With equal passion I laugh at them who, wearing the dress in vogue,  decry Islam as the most backward of all religions.

I wish they both had revisited the glorious age of Islamic culture and civilization.

I hope my wish is being fulfilled.

Spectacle and Media saturation




There has been a growing realization within me that to be human is to live amid images where medium is the message. There has been a general proclivity for presenting everything as a spectacle.
Well! your guess is right. I am about to write about the molestation issue involving a young drunken girl -the incident that has been giving many of us a voyeuristic pleasure.

But let me address this issue of 'spectacle' on a positive note.

When the well known Italian writer Italo Calvino remarked that Galileo is the greatest writer in Italian literature, it raised many an eyebrow. It is basically because Calvino rated Galileo over Dante and we are always under the impression that Galileo was a scientist. Even Leopardi( another great Italian writer), according to Calvino owes much to Galileo. But why Galileo? According to Calvino while describing the moon Galileo did not use language as a 'neutral utensil'. He used the language 'with a continuous commitment that is expressive,imaginative,and even lyrical'. Calvino further writes:'It is first time that the moon becomes a real object for mankind'(The Literature Machine by Italo Calvino).
In other words the moon became a real spectacle for us and both weak and strong anthropic principle
played with it. 


The issue of the molestation of a young and inebriated girl now has become a real spectacle for us. For this, of course, we have no Galileo to thank. Thanks be to the our (Visual)medias for making the whole issue a real spectacle. We are arguing till the cows are coming home as to whether it was really incumbent upon the medias to dish it out for public consumption in such graphic details. whereas the real culprit is still at large( somebody has told me that he played the role of a police inspector in a TV serial).
The issue at hand , I think, cannot be looked at in an isolated manner. It is inextricably bound up with the culture of media saturation wherein a  subject( often manufactured),right from sperm donor to a raped girl,must be ever-present to quench the thirst of voyeuristic audience.


Now you must be wondering what Galileo or Calvino  does have to do with this?


 What is the relation between the monkey, who with its prehensile tail ,before thousands of years jumped from one tree to another and the Cambridge scientist Hawking who proclaims that the moment we know why we are here, we will know the mind of God.

My dear friends the relation is those 'thousand of years'.

A REAL JEWEL

There are many masters;but none is as masterly as he is! Yes, I am talking about Sachin Tendulkar. While making that statement, I am fully aware that cricket chauvinism runs across two axes, those of nation and generation(An Anthropologist among the Marxists by Ramachandra Guha).

Even his adversaries acknowledge his genius. Sometimes as openly as Shane Warne who wanted Tendulkar to sign on his T shirt.Cricket historians are unanimous that in living memory only Vivian Richards and Graeme Pollock have dominated the best bowlers in the world. Sachin Tendulkar is still doing that and he knows that if he fails, his side generally fails too. His impressive strike rate and overall mind-blowing statistics speak for themselves and it is certain that no cricketer in our life time can scale the heights that Tendulkar has perched himself on.

Aside from his cricketing genius what strikes me most about Sachin Tendulkar is his humility. It is worth our while to observe how he conducts himself off the field. He is among the few cricketers who is free from any controversy whatsoever.His stoicism and modesty are rare in an age of commodity fetishism

Man is a goal setting animal-said Chinua Achebe(Hopes and Impediments). Tendulkar has set his goal and has pursued it with dogged determination. By reasons of these two distinguishing features of his personality, I believe he can be an ideal icon, worthy of emulation and veneration for the young generations.

Many intellectuals in our state vehemently oppose the idea of conferring the highest civilian award-Bharat Ratna to Tendulkar. I have no idea who to their mind in the contemporary all pervasive  miasma of despair  can be a fit candidate for the award. Be it from the fields of politics or social work or art and literature.They seem to find themselves still under the shadow of Hazlittian statement that a chess player cannot be a great man as he leaves the world as he he found it. But Tendulkar is a real game changer.Is it not a fact that cricket is bound up with nationalism in our country? Cannot we see how the whole nation is galvanized when we are up against our next door'arch rival'? Tendulkar is a cohesive force that binds our nation together.

If my nine year old son asks me who can be his role model now: my answer without hesitation is Sachin Tendulkar.

He just deserves the award.

Exercises In Style

POETIC



She arrives with the Sun wrapping the sky around her. White feathery clouds here and there.
I too arrive when the earth glows loudly.
Our eyes meet.
Dusts float about our gaze.


PROSAIC

She comes very early in the morning. She wears a blue Saree. It reveals as much as it hides.
I come late.
I look at her and she looks at me.
It is dusty all around.


RETROGRADE


Dusts float about our gaze as we look at each other.

I come late while she comes very early.

She wears a blue Saree. It reveals as much as it hides.

METAPHORIC

My love blows in with the light. An expansive blue encircles her. Soft milky white punctuates the blue here and there.

I glide with the Sun on my head.

Glances meet amid smoky dust.

COLOURFUL

Rosy cheeks, aglow with the Sun,comes in oceanic blue. Milky white dots the blue here and there.

The earth blazes as I come.

Blue and red pupils blend

with grey dust.

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

(ACT ONE ,SCENE ONE)

As the curtain rolls up,the white screen at the background glows with golden hue.

The girl enters the stage in a blue Saree.Lights focus on her accentuating her curves.

I enter from the other wings. The light on the screen becomes pronounced and spreads wide. All lights on.

She looks at me and I look at her. A cloud of smoke engulfs the stage.

The curtain falls.

SURPRISE

As the Sun comes up, the girls arrives. She wears a blue Saree. It hides as much as it reveals. By mid morning the boy arrives. They exchange glances. Dusts float about their gaze.

In fact the boy is me!

SCIENTIFIC

A primate(Female) appears with cosmic precision. Body colour marine with leuko(?) +++ in midriff.

I too a primate(Male. Both belong to Homo Sapiens) appear. Helios @ 90 degree.

Our vision 6/6. Collide. Suspended Particular Matter(Both positively and negatively charged). Hazy. Ocular disturbance.

Inspired by Raymond Queneau

Universal Gullibility

' So when we decide to explore human stupidity, we are some how paying tribute to this creature who is part genius,part fool' This Is Not The End Of The Book- A book of conversation between Jean-Claude Carriere and Umberto Eco curated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac.

Umberto Eco's latest novel 'The Prague Cemetery' is a wonderfully readable narrative where history and fiction blend seamlessly leaving reader agape at the inspired twisting of fact and fiction that incapacitates him to locate where history begins and fictions ends.

It is worth our while to recall that Eco is among the few academics who is capable of coming out of the cloistered class room and strike a chord with lay readers in the role of a virtuoso storyteller. And as we know a great story teller always portrays himself in his characters, Eco claims that all the characters in ' The Prague Cemetery' are real historical figures save the narrator whose identity is shrouded with mystery-sometimes posing as a split personality contradicting himself( Do I contradict myself? yes I contradict myself because I contain multitude). We have every reason to believe that it is none other than Eco himself who is all set (re)construct seemingly non-existent conspiracy theory that dates back to the time of Barruel or maybe before.

While reading 'The Prague Cemetery', I came across the following statement made by a character that made me reflect deeply as the statement rings a bell and assumes extraordinary significance in the context of the trajectory of human evolution from Homo Riligiosus to Homo Economicus. The statement is :' Man's principal trait is readiness to believe anything.Otherwise , how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absence of universal gullibility?'

The birth of Christ as we understand by 'Immaculate Conception' is hard to believe. Any person with a scientific bent of mind fails to understand how a virgin without coming into contact with the member of an opposite sex can conceive. Yet we believed. Inquisitions happened.Crusade happened. Christianity shaped our world and civilization to a very large extent.

The Islamic sacred book The Koran is believed to have been dictated by the archangel Gabriel. Who was Gabriel? Did any body see him? But The Koran touched all aspects of human existence including matters of doctrine,social organization and legislation.

The propensity to pass myths as history is rampant in hinduism. The classic example is the Ramjanmabhoomi case that still comes back to haunt us like bubonic plague.

Astrology has survived. A planet that orbits hundreds of light years away(Light travels at a speed of 299,792 Km per second) shapes the destiny of a baby who is born out of a cesarean section in an ICU in Downtown Hospital. Can any one explain this? yet we believe.

Those who are reading newspapers these days are bound to come across how fly-by-nights NGOs and finance companies are duping common men promising double or treble the amount they put by with them. Unipay- to- you is a discourse now. Yet we believed and our money went down the drain.

The list will go on. These are nothing ;but quintessence of 'Universal Gullibility'.

Viva Gullibility.

( As I said it was the lines from Eco's 'The Prague Cemetery' that triggered my ideas. My wish is not to disrespect religion or beliefs.)

Where The Seas Meet

Among all the songs of Bhupen Hazarika, Sagor sangam ot kotona... occupies a unique place in my mind. This song is a celebration of the indomitable spirit of life that comes alive in the dulcet voice of the late singer/composer.

The song stands out for the unique juxtaposition of physical and mental worlds and their interplay on each other. It also offers us a glimpse into the creative mind of the artist that contains multitude contradicting each other- a mind that is ill at ease as the forces inimical to culture rustle into the range of his view. As he sees them , he climbs down from the ivory tower of art and mingles himself with the real world giving vent to his apprehension and finally feels assured as the forces well- disposed toward culture are all set to take over.But he does not become complacent as he feels he has miles to go which is amply borne out by his agitating mental state.

Also is important in the song the wonderful wordplay that he indulges in-Prasanta/asanta/klanta and the paradox that seems to form the fulcrum on which the entire song clusters. The paradox of prasanta-the Pacific. The Pacific(he calls it a sea, not ocean) is supposed to be calm;but the Pacific that exists in his mind is tumultuous.

From a very early age I was drawn to this song for its rhythm and rhyming words. But over the years as I have mellowed much ,was I able to grasp its real worth. Since then a strong desire to translate this song into English nestled somewhere in my mind. As a new year begins,I feel the best way to kick start it is by translating that desire into real action.

But at the same time I am fully aware of the pitfalls that I am bound to encounter while translating this song into English. In fact a song cannot be translated as is inextricably bound up with this its tune. If only I could translate its tune too!( and capture the wordplay...) Therefore I endevour to translate the song as a poem.

Besides I a reminding myself of the essay entitled 'The Meaning Of Words' that Jawaharlal Nehru wrote(he wrote it in Hindi)as long ago as 1935 in which he remarked that language is' semi frozen thought'(Translation,text and theory edited by Rukmini Bhaya Nair). To unfreeze that thought and refreeze it into a different language is the task of a translator. And for that I am not competent enough. I have translated it the way I internalize it and not the way Bhupen Hazarika would have done it if he were to write the song in English.

Finally I believe that the reader must be treated carefully and conscientiously,but friends can be dealt with a little more cavalierly(Winter notes on Summer Impression: Fydor Dostoevsky).Needless to say my readers are my fast friends.

Well, now...

Much have I swum

where the seas meet,

Yet I am not satisfied

The waves in my mind's pacific

are still restive.

Of tidal waves there is no end

in the bosom of my mind's pacific,

endless undulations bring in

hopes in abundance.

So the waves in my mind's pacific are restive.

The peace of glorious lives along the Pacific shores

are today troubled.

With endless new formations

monsters strike relentlessly.

So the waves in my mind's Pacific are restive.

The strikes Of destruction in the Pacific

are now challenged,

Innumerable are the soldiers of culture

Collisions usher in new horizons of progress.

So the waves in my mind's Pacific are restive.

The depth and power of the Pacific

dissipate the destruction

Multitude march on for peace

Creativity comes alive.

So the waves in my mind's Pacific are restive.