On mind,God and facebook

A character in Naguib Mahfouz's 'Midaq Alley' speaks a simple truth when he says:'Man's provider is God and it is to God that any excess is due.'

So if this short piece of writing on God-debate,initiated in his own aphoristic style by Dr.Bibhash Choudhury on the pages of Facebook,is an excess material on the subject,is very much (no pun intended)due to him.

Carl Sagan has just delivered his lecture on 'The origin of the universe'.He pulls out his gold-rimmed spectacle , straightens his necktie and looks over the lectern towards the audience expectantly. Because it is question-and-answer session.There is already some commotion at the back of the auditorium.He reaches for the glass of water which was kept gingerly for him on the table by the side of the lectern.

And precisely at that point of time,an elderly lady at the front stands up whose wrinkled face mocks at the 'age-miracle' that she applies every morning(and every night too).Our commonsense tells us, precisely at this moment that 'nature never leaves a face unharmed for over half a century'.She gazes upon Sagan with her beady eyes and asks in a woman-to-man fashion:'Mr. Sagan,do you believe in God'?Sagan gulps down the remaining little water in the glass,straightens his necktie again, gazes on her in a man-to-woman fashion and retorts:'What do you mean by God, madam?'

And now the lady is at a loss.Her expression changes.She looks like a lady bats-man(woman?)whose partner at non-striker end is already half way through the wicket and shouts at her for a run.She clears her throat and speaks in a woman-to-man fashion:'By God , I mean,what do I mean...oh!..eh!'

So it follows that God does not have a clear-cut definition and confronted with a situation like the one the lady was in some moments ago, we will react the same way.It is purely subjective. Einstein went to the extent of saying that'I do not believe in a personal God'.

Since the time immemorial,God has eluded us.For some ,God is merciful,benevolent and so on.There is a tradition of defining God via negatives too. God is love.No he is not that. He is merciful.No he is not that...In Upanisadic tradition it is 'Neti,neti'. God is no-thing.

Some believe that God is the perfect and ultimate being that human mind can conceive. But how can we conceive something that we have never experienced in reality.Oops I am lost in my own verbiage.

There are some who equate God with mind.It is beyond space.And time too.The university in Guwahati occupies a definite location. It is at Jalukbari.But where is Sunday?Likewise where is our mind?Thought?(we are thinking all the time. I am thinking precisely at this moment what shall I eat for my dinner.If only I could see it!)Mere invisibility does not preclude its being.And it is beyond time too.

Now Facebook.Where is it? Does it occupy a definite space?We can access it from any where we wish.Is not it like mind? Or God? We are connected through it whereas we debate its locational position. So somewhere I have found a connection between mind,God and facebook.

In the beginning I wrote 'on the pages of facebook.But facebook does not have pages in literal sense. My language has conditioned me to write that way.

Dr.Choudhury, are you listening?What do you think? Am I giving you the 'heebie- jeebies'? Ha,ha...

You can improve yourself by improving nature. This is a truism and I am sure it is an invitation to thinking.

Of late there has been much activism in regard to nature protection and some of them are politics in disguise.Many of the things that the activists of environment protection movement harp on now , were in fact articulated mainly By Schumacher(Small is beautiful) and Rachel Carson (Silent Spring)in the 70s. Earlier when there was less awareness about environment or nature, it was more or less safe. The degradation of nature and environment seems to go hand in hand with growing awareness.

Among the elite academic circle the theory of 'Ecocritism' is very much in vogue. It looks closely at the human culture-nature interaction in texts.It emphasizes the fact that nature and human are mutually influential and embodies an 'Ecological Consciousness'.

Ecofeminism which is a part of Ecocritism, if I am not mistaken , is based on the premise that the degradation and exploitation of nature and women go hand in hand. A good example may be Raj Kapoor's' Ram Teri Ganga Maili' a commercial blockbuster.Wherein the main character Ganga's(Mandakini-reminds me of Dawood) exploitation and degradation on her journey from the hills are depicted against the backdrop of the man-made pollution of the sacred river The Ganga.

The practitioners of Ecocritism argue that nature is 'naturalized' and 'femininized' with the language and value of a patriarchal world view. There is some truth in that. Notice the language Francis Bacon used in regard to nature.It may be recalled that Bacon was Attorney General of King James I ,and intimately familiar with the prosecution of witches. The metaphors that he used in the court room were used elsewhere too and particularly in regard to nature. He said that nature has to be 'hounded in her wanderings,bound into service , made a slave'. ' She was to be put in constraint' 'The aim of scientist is to torture nature's secrets from her'.

All these statements illustrate how an exploitative relationship has grown between nature and man or in broad sense human and non-human world.

Now let us come to our own Bhupen Hazarika. Do you remember his soulfully melodious song:' O' mur dharitri aai, charanate diba thai...' roughly translated it will mean:' O'my mother earth.Give shelter at your feet. We are helpless without you....I am orphan, I have no mother...so I plead you to be my mother'. The song is purportedly sung by a farmer.

The song 'naturalizes' and'feminimizes' nature and throws a searching light on the human and non-human world. The nature is bestowed with all the feminine in general and motherly attributes in particular. In fact that needs to our view of nature.

We can really improve ourselves by improving nature.

Dystopian literature and A real dystopia

The word 'Dystopia' is of Greek origin which roughly means a society that degrades into repressive and controlled state. The meaning can be extended to envisage a condition or a situation where all norms of a civilized society collapse. The opposite is 'Utopia' - an ideal situation where everything functions as it should. Hilton's 'Lost Horizon' is a case in point.

Over the last few weeks I have been engaged with Jose Saramago's 'Blindness'(Now a motion picture). This work of fiction finds a place in the list of 'Dystopian literature'

The novel unfolds dramatically. A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind suddenly. This is the beginning. A unnamed city is afflicted with an epidemic of blindness. It is very rapid and the authority is at a loss to to stem the tide of this seemingly unexplained epidemic. An epidemic of blindness.

The authority herd the afflicted into an abandoned mental asylum. The description of the condition of the afflicted there is just nauseating. Everything collapses. A mafia raj grows up that terrorise the blinds. Thugs control the food meant for the blind. Extortion starts , the blinds part with whatever valuable they have for a morsel. This is utter anarchy.

This is 'Dystopia' in literature. Now let us see the real 'Dystopia' that stares us.

I am sure many of you have the experience of going to the government offices for various reasons. I too have.

I have the 'priviledge' of visiting two of the most important offices in our state-the secretariat at Dispur and the DHE office at Kahilipara. I am, however, not a teacher ,not a lecturer either. My visit to these offices was by way of accompanying someone. In other words in the role of a chauffeur. And what I saw there!

Files do not move unless the palms are greased.Files vanish into thin air. And reappears like a vision of God the moment a ten rupee note is given for 'Chai-pani'. Violently qualified college teachers engaged in producing 'Humnan Resources' stand at the table of petty officials obsequesly. There is a so called officer at the secretariat(from secretarial service) who has earned notoriety for invariably taking money from college teachers.
No decent urinal. No decent place to seat. Or for a cup of tea. Red -stained walls spiced with limes like an abstract painting.

This is real 'Dystopia'

I understand we cannot dream of a 'Utopia'; but we can improve the situation we are in. We do not believe in immortality.But we can believe in the immortality of good deeds. Many college lecturers are in facebook. Some of them are my fast friends. I hope you all are listening!

'You and me towards a jouney of light'-let us begin it from there!

I sincerely tender my apology before the 'immortal' soul of Saramago( May his soul rest in peace!)for dragging him in the context of these petty officials.

On Karl Marx

Please notice the brilliant use of epigrams and aphorisms in the following statements:

1) The workers have no country.
2)The prolearians have nothing to lose but their chains.
3)Religion is the opium of the people.
4)From each according to his abilities,to each according to his needs.
5) The dictatorship of the proletariat.
6)Workers of all country,unite.

By this time , I am sure, you have come to realise that all these statements are the inventions of Karl Marx, the Revolutionary philosopher.

But you are wrong.

Karl Marx was a pass muster in borrowing the sayings of others and using them as his own. In fact many of his essays were ghosted by Engels.
He was a journalist(and a poet too)and knew that unless he writes in pithy sentences(even if they are stolen from others), his entire ideas would fall into oblivion.

Now let us know who coined those statements serially that pass for Max's:

1)Marat
2)Marat
3)Heine
4)Louis Blanc
5)Blanqui
6)Karl Schapper

More on Marx later.

On Health

3 things cannot be defined satisfactorily. Life, death and marriage oops?+@*$ Health.

No biology textbook can define life to the satisfaction of all. You have a life and for that matter I too have a life. The mango tree by the side of my bedroom the boughs of which were trimmed today has a life. The cute lap-dog that my landowner calls Miki and my son has grown fond of, has a life. But are they all alike? Is not it different from consciousness? Self-awareness or a consciousness that is conscious?

When the doctor and lawyer argue on death, you can sense neither of them understands the true nature of it. Is it the stop of heart-beat? or cessation of brain-function?Does consciousness survive death?

These are some of the questions that we cannot get out of our mind.

Finally Health( I shall come to marriage later on).

What is health? Is it merely absence of illness?

An emphatic No!

Health is that quality of our being that enables us to live 'in harmony with environment'.

I may have a robust health ( in traditional sense) and may look like Amir Khan or John Abraham. But if I cannot behave well with you, with my family,my neighbors, if I am intolerant of others' opinions, if I am not amenable to the idea of re-writing the Encyclopedia Britannica every day and so on. Then I am not a healthy person. However least my medical expenses might be!
This follows that health is a holistic concept. And modern medicine with so much reductionist attitude is incompatible with this idea.

If interested I suggest you read Fritjof Capra's 'Uncommon Wisdom'.

On Women(2)

The ancient Indian attitude to women had always been paradoxical. On one hand she is held in high esteem and worshiped as Goddess, on the other she is disparaged as a slave. I am , however, concerned with the former.

Today I want to share with you a poetic passage from the Mahabharata which A.L.Basham has quoted in his celebrated book 'The Wonder that was India'. The passage extolled women in general and wife in particular. Besides you can sense how important the passage is for conjugal life.

Please read on:

'The wife is half the man,
the best of friends,
the root of three ends of life,
and of all that will help him in the other world.

with wife a man does mighty deeds...
With a wife a man finds courage.
A wife is the safest refuge...

'A man aflame with sorrow in his soul,
or sick with disease, finds comfort in his wife,
As a man parched with heat
finds relief in water.
......
'For woman is the everlasting field,
in which the self is born.

To be continued...

On Women

Women's Studies is an emerging area in humanities and social sciences. It is an interdisciplinary course that focuses on the roles, experiences, and achievements of women in society.

However, it is premised on the notion of gender asymmetry. When enlarged upon it simply means that women are always at the periphery, suffer from inequalities and occupied a subservient position in relation to man.

There is no argument in that notion as it is amply borne out by newspaper and television reportings of,particularly in India, dowry deaths, honour killings,amniocentesis , rape and so on.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that women are life-givers.Women not only give birth;but also provide nourishment to the newborns. And about India whatever you rightly say , the opposite is also true.

Today I want to paint a different picture of women's status in ancient India. And it is bound to 'shake us aware like a blow on the skull'.

Here is Gargi- a woman scholar of vedic India.She is in 'arguing combat' with formidable Yajnavalkya.She challenges Yajnavalkya in front of the learned Brahmins to answer her questions. She says:'If he (Yajnavalkya) is able to answer those questions of mine,then none of you can ever defeat him in expounding the nature of God'. How bold she is! And her intellectual prowess! She is convinced her questions are the most insightful. And mind the rhetoric in which her questions are couched:' Yajanvalkya, I have two questions for you.Like the ruler of Videha or kashi , coming from a heroic line, who strings his unstrung bow, takes in hand two penetrating arrows and approaches the enemy, so do I approach you with two questions , which you must answer.'

Maitreyi,Yajnavalkya's wife raised profoundly philosophical question:' shall I achieve immortality if the whole earth, full of wealth were to belong to me'?When Yajnavalkya answered in the negative, she remarked:'What shall I do with that by which I do not become immortal'?

Women depicted in epics,classical tales and in recorded history, do not always conform to the tender and peace-loving imagae that is often assigend to women.

Draupadi speaks to a reluctant Yudhistra with an exhortation to fight:'For a woman to advise a man like you/is almost an insult. Yet my deep troubles compel me to overstep the limit of womanly conduct/make me speak up'.

To be continued...