Fast Forward History

The girl gingerly picked up the two lighters and examined them.

'Do n't you feel it? he kidded her.'The historicity'?

She said,'What is historicity'?

'When a thing has history in it.Listen one of these two Zippo lighters was in Franklin D. Roosevelt's pocket when he was assassinated. And one was not.One has historicity...'

Thus spoke two characters in Philip K.Dick's 'The Man in the High Castle'.

Everything has a history. From a small lighter to a big nation. But what is history? A chronology of events? or much more? Presently I leave that to you!

There are two schools of thought as regards history. One school believes that history is a continuous progress. It leads us from darkness to light, to truth or optimal end.

On the other hand the other school argues that history has nothing new to discover for us.What was there to be understood and found have already been done by the long-lost civilizations and we are in fact going back to them and reconcile ourselves with the tradition.

Let me do some loud-thinking in the light of the second statement.

When Copernicus came up with the concept of helio-centric universe and elliptical orbit,did he revolutionize knowledge? A big no. Because it referred back to Platonic and Pythagorean thinking. Without the Greek atomists there would be no Marx!

Hippocratic 'Vix medicatrix naturae' is a classical statement. Do you know what does it mean? Healing power of nature. When Baba Ramdev(he has an island in Scotland!) fires salvo against(western)medicine, does he say anything new? A big no again. He simply refers back to what Hippocrates said several centuries ago. When your family doctor advises you for moderation in what you eat and drink , he simply echoes Hippocratic injunction 'Health is most likely to be found in the middle way'. Thumbing through the Encyclopedia of Folk medicine I find numerous references to Aloe Vera which was used in medicinal preparations in England and Ireland many centuries ago. When my sister goes to buy a bottle of Aloe Vera from the mega shopping mall, I just smile. She is going back to an ancient tradition.

When Joyce wrote 'Ulysses' ,he took Homeric narrative as his model. And we say it ushered in a new narrative technique? I hope many of you have read our master Lakhminath Bezbaruah's short story 'Patmugi'. How about the last lines? Are not they what the elite academics now call 'metafiction'?

The rhetoric and the rabble rousing slogans of the anti-big dam movement reminds me of Schumacher and his 'Small is beautiful' that was written in the 70s.

The list will go on. We often say that we see more than what our forefathers did. It is not without grain of truth. But we see more not because of our superior eyesight; but because we mount ourselves on their shoulders and say: 'We are taller than you."

To be continued...

On Sartorial Statement

Mahatma Gandhi's statutes are ubiquitous. They stand erect across the nook and cranny of our country. In all these statutes he stands or is seated(with the spinning wheel) with his loincloth that he wore for the last three decades of his life.

As we look at the statues we marvel at the sacrifice of this man who went to England and studied law. we memorialize this loincloth as it stands as a marker of his simplicity,honesty and integrity. Never does it come to our mind that it could be a subtle piece of now rampant exhibitionism.

Ubiquitous are the statues of B.R.Ambedkar-the architect of our constitution.In all these statues he stands erect in his dark blue suit that he wore for the last three decades of his life. He too went abroad and obtained a phd from Columbia University. He was a dalit- an untouchable.He could be in loincloth as well. In his case it is modernity,not tradition or stagnation that held sway. It is a statement of his deep yearning to get out of the plight that his destiny ordained.

But never have we disrespect Ambedkar for his suit. His position is at par with Mahatma in our collective unconscious.

This train of thought was set in motion in my mind when I recently saw( I am reading Ramachandra Guha) a very popular activist of peasant's movement in Assam who has been vocal against big river dams. He is ubiquitous courtesy local visual media and his endevour to uncover corruption in public offices. He is invariably seen in a worn out flip flop and faded trouser and shirt.

On the other hand a sitting MLA who too defends peasants rights ,conjures up cataclysmic vision in case a big dam really comes up, moves on an ultra luxury car.

What will we we make out of these? A piece of rampant exhibitionism under the auspices of local visual media? A sacrifice( in the first case) or a deep yearning to get out of one's plight that destiny has ordained?(The MLA comes from the most undeveloped part of our state)In that case how can he prevent his fellow beings from moving up to modernity with more power,more consumption and so on.

Posterity will judge all leaders on the basis of their honesty and integrity.Not on their sartorial (or vehicular) statement.

Ambedkar and Mahatma's case is a classic example.

I am sorry if my reference to these two giants in the current situation is preposterous.

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'.