The Second Coming

Hi there,

I am aware that this viewsletter is certainly out of character with the rest, and also with the tenor of my viewsletters in general. Because I am breaking a spell of long silence, I have intended this viewsletter to be a warm-up touching upon more topical matters. Judging by the current trend, much of them would have become dated, but the emerging truths, I think, are likely to last longer and provide food for thought.

The year 2008 A.D. is gone, leaving behind memories of incidents, many of which were of momentary importance; but a few, unquestionably, momentous. When I describe them momentous, I am not particularly thinking in terms of the glamour, popularity or the thrill, which we often find associated with the so-called ‘great’ events. On the contrary, I see them as milestones in the march of human civilisation. Simply, these few incidents seem to me to have decisively registered the triumph of human dignity. And it is no mean feat, given the ground reality that human dignity suffers the first casualty in a country like ours.

The first event I wish to mention is the launch of the Chandrayan, which bore testimony to the intellectual integrity of the Indian scientists and technologists. The second is the Karnataka Assembly elections that witnessed on a never-before scale, the people’s revulsion and anger at the opportunistic government headed by Kumaraswamy. Here, I don’t want to be seen as one supporting the saffron party in power. Far from it. It is hard for anyone, as it is for me, to subscribe to the ideologies of a party that thrives on the hate culture propagated by Raj Thackeray and Pramod Muthalik. The pith of my argument is that there are and will be occasions like the ones I’ve cited, when human dignity, in its blinding brilliance, will outshine petty political, religious and racial considerations, leaving all those self-styled and self-appointed leaders confounded, gaping, and unable to figure out what went wrong with their machinations. I may add one more event: the presidential election of Barack Obama who has added a little ‘colour’ to the all ‘White’ House.

It is not often that we see human dignity establish its sovereignty. In fact, human dignity does not even receive an indifferent or patronising attitude from the powers that be. Instead, all it receives is a raw deal at the hands of religious bigotry, obscurantism, perverted ideologies, shortsighted political policies and programmes, and countless creeds. The video footage of the gory incident at the law college campus in Chennai did not only highlight the fact that human dignity is at a discount, but has also driven home the sad truth that we live in a crowd and not in a community. Two students were almost flogged to death in the full glare of the TV cameras and the glassy stare of the policemen; it is small consolation that these spectators did not cheer and shout, unlike the mob watching the gladiatorial games in the Roman colosseum. All I could do was to draw comfort from Shakespeare.

“O Judgement! Thou art fled to the brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason.”

The mighty Indian Navy and the Intelligence Bureau were horns locked in bureaucratic red-tapism when a bunch of well-trained and motivated thugs, armed with deadly weapons, reached the Mumbai shores in the most ingenious way. Within a few hours, scores of unsuspecting people at the CST, the Nariman House, the Oberoi Trident and the Taj were mowed down. The media had a field day covering the carnage and devastation. The government woke up to the situation—how else could you describe it?—and despatched the NSG after many lives had been lost. Then our ‘secular’ government at the centre began the diplomatic offensive against Pakistan. From the MEA came the rhetoric first, followed by threats including military action, then an appeal to the international community to bear down upon terrorism—all done with the utmost political correctness, all the time careful not to sound ‘less secular,’ but secretly happy with the political mileage gained over the opposition. Two months gone and the scenes of horrendous killings seem to haunt nobody except to whom the victims mattered. Are we a flock of sitting ducks? Do we have to live forever in fear? Is the famed Indian secularism fast sinking into mindless psychotic stoicism?

Ramalinga Raju is behind bars, and if one goes by the media reports, he is unrepentant, unfazed and confident that he will soon be out on bail. The drama unfolds something like this: An ambitious young man ‘grows’ into an avaricious businessman and egged on by a string of successes, indulges in corrupt practices to fill his coffers. Soon the corrupt man discovers that he is not only corrupt, but is also capable of corrupting institutions, agencies and other organisations which the public hold as incorruptible and sanctified. A syndicate of auditors, bank officials and a conniving government act in collusion with this man betraying the public trust. Ramalinga Raju’s episode is a laboratorial experiment with the theory that the corrupt corrupt. If his success can be called a pilot production, the Thirumangalam by-election result is certainly the mass production of it. What has surfaced is that even the law-abiding or law-wary common man is potentially corruptible and when tempted beyond the levels of resistance, he can betray Truth and Justice for a paltry ‘thirty pieces of silver.’

The history of mankind has been a chequered one, characterised by moral and intellectual darkness, but interspersed with patches of creative brightness that we call civilisation; like the lighthouse that alternates pitch darkness with dazzling brilliance, but not at the same regular interval as the lighthouse. When it did occur, human dignity—the intellectual integrity and moral vigour—stood towering in its full glory and grace, leading mankind farther away from barbarity and savagery. But sadly, such phases have been few and far between.

In the past, civilisations lasted longer before they were eventually destroyed. The Hellenic civilisation flourished until the Turks attacked Constantinople. The Roman civilisation survived for a much longer period, before the barbarians overran them. The reason was simple. The forces destructive of civilisation possessed technologies that were still subject to the constraints of space and time. That provided a respite to civilisation. But not so with our modern technologies that can destroy space and time. Also, they are at the disposal of autocratic governments, lunatic-led states or simply power-hungry and greedy men.

We are on the threshold of a new dispensation in which Truth and Justice will be redefined to suit the ideologies of the powers that be. There will be very little resistance from the masses and far less from the thinkers, since the former will be silenced with money and the latter intimidated into submission.

By the time this viewsletter is published, many more sordid incidents like the ones I have mentioned will have happened. I think the chances of mankind redeeming itself are remote, and the Saviour of mankind is not going to be found in the midst of us. We need to wait for the ‘Second Coming.’

With Love,

Your English Sir

Wednesday, the 04th of February, 2009

As A Matter Of Fact

Hi there,

I am sorry that I was not in touch with you for an inexcusably long time. There is no justification for my being presumptuous and taking you for granted though I can feebly defend myself saying that when the public and semester exams were on, my views letter would have dropped in like an uninvited guest. I do hope that nothing would come in the way hereafter to break the continuity of it. It is not just a vain wish, for my optimism springs from an intense feeling that I have infinite responsibility to this community, and so I just can’t afford to be the proverbial Nero amidst the engulfing flames.

The other day I was leafing through an old issue of ‘Readers Digest’ and this joke caught my attention. A curious child once asked her mother. ‘Mom, how was I born?’ The visibly embarrassed mother turned to her husband for help but he turned away helpless. The intense look of the child was too insistent to evade an answer. The lady answered tactfully, ‘You see my darling. A stork dropped you at my side on a moonlit night’. Without batting an eyelid, the little girl shot her next question. “How then was my brother born?” .The mother who by this time had regained her poise was more self-assured. ‘Oh your brother! We found him in a basket under a yew tree’. Hardly did the mother’s smile last a second, pat the came the child’s third question. ‘How come mom, there hasn’t been even one normal delivery in our family?’

Jokes apart, one wonders whether this is the beginning of life or simply the beginning of the end of all that is living in one. Here I wish to identify two things which are inseparably intertwined in our lives. Myth and lies. Though these two terms are interchangeably used and treated as synonyms, there is, at deeper levels, a great difference. I shall deal with myth at length later, but first a few words about lies. Lies are positively evil. They are the opposite of Truth just as night is the opposite of day. They have been created with the avowed aim of subverting truth.

The very reason for their existence, raison detre, is to destroy truth. Racism, casteism and religious fundamentalism are all lies. Stuart Sim in his book Empires of Belief has this to say: “In the current world we are confronted by an array of what can be called empires of beliefs. These empires – dominant organisations or groups led by the powerful that exercise dominion over ordinary people – are investing an immense amount of time and effort in trying to dictate how we should think, and behave”. It is based on the dogma that those who do not conform have no right to live. But life never imposes any such restrictions on any one and the very blessing of life is the freedom conferred upon every individual to follow any belief including the belief that belief is not essential to life. Lies are therefore anti-truth and anti-life.

Lies are recognisable, identifiable and unmistakable. No one can fail to see through the evil intentions of the unscrupulous political parties when they clamour for reservation for the down trodden. In their heart of hearts they fondly wish that the down trodden remained downtrodden forever thereby providing them the political leverage and the vote bank. It is height of hypocrisy to say that there is no creamy layer among the backward classes. Let us face the truth. If the fifty and odd years of reservation had not yielded any result among the backward classes, would the politicians then accept the logic that reservation cannot really uplift the downtrodden and therefore the system cannot be continued? Conversely, would they consider tapering the quota system to include only those among the backward classes who deserve to be given special concessions, since the rest of them benefiting from reservation have already moved up the social ladder and integrated themselves into the so called forward and the advanced sections of the society ?

What is really worrying is that lies are now becoming institutionalised and legitimatised. Sadly, mankind is slowly getting used to the idea of being tolerant to lies, which are clothed in dignified phrases and grandiloquent style. A suicide bomb attack on unsuspecting civilians is called a holy war, and hate propaganda is described as the voice of aspirations of the people. Enormous amount of money is being spent upon research work to establish the historical and scientific basis for lies. And I must tell you that lies are not confined only to racism, casteism and religious fanaticism. They are fostered everywhere; in families, society, educational institutions, business establishments, hospitals and in governments, to name a few. But one knows at least deep down within oneself, that lies are lies and a diplomatic silence in the face of this evil does not mean an unconditional acceptance of them. The crusade against this evil is still on, though it is restricted to a small group of fearless people.

Myth, on the contrary, is a funny thing, a mongrel, a hybrid of half truths and untruths just like the mythological beast that has human head, bird’s wings, and lion’s body. Basically shapeless, myth can assume any shape at any time and render itself acceptable to anyone. Let me give you an example. A circle is divisible into two half circles, but to state that any two half circles irrespective of their radii can be joined to form a circle is to advocate a myth. Another aspect of myth is that it endears itself to everyone as it is seemingly harmless. I don’t think any human being who lived before Copernicus was greatly distressed by the prevalent notion that the earth was flat and at the centre of other celestial bodies. (That a majority of human beings continued to hold the same views for very many centuries in the post-Copernicus-and-Galileo world is a different matter altogether.)

Myth, you see, does not get in the way of your day to day activities or throw a spanner in your work. Unlike lies, myth is not the sworn enemy of truth always. It does not busy itself with subverting truth. It simply fails to acknowledge its existence. Myth is blind in both eyes, hard of hearing and has no sense of smell. It can only speak its beliefs without being able to react. And it is this for this very reason that myth is more dangerous than lies and we have to be wary of it.

Myth is everywhere, in every sphere of activity, partly injected and partly accepted willingly. Myth gains easy access to every one, because it does not advocate any programme with hidden motives. The school student who has spent enormous time and energy preparing for his exams is told hours before the exam that he ought to perform certain rituals like writing 100 times the name of a deity. Well, the student does it with reverence though it is open to him to doubt that his performance would become significantly less, if he chose not to observe that ritual. But he does not. That’s how myth asserts itself. We all know that education is intellectual upliftment, but who would try demolishing the myth that exam rank is the index of your intellectual attainment. See how well the myth makers have created in you a phobia and an obsession with marks, all at the expense of your natural curiosity to know, to experiment and to explore. If you try talking to your class mates and lectures about things such as disinterested curiosity and personal exploration of truth, you run the risk of being ridiculed, considered an eccentric and a failure. If you try it at home you will probably get a black eye. Myth is the collective lunacy of the society.

Returning to our main story, it never occurred to the mother that the child was only just curious to know certain empirical facts about her birth. But the inhibitions about sex and childbirth so deeply ingrained in the adult prompted her to fall back upon a myth.

As Bertrand Russell observes, ‘one of the firmest beliefs of parents, law-givers and teachers in many nursery schools is that children should be preserved from all contact with crude fact and should have everything presented to them in a pretty-pretty, fanciful form. Historical characters are portrayed as wholly virtuous unless they are recognised villains’. Teachers and educationists hold that it is not good for children to know the weaknesses of the great historical characters and the bad side of historical causes. But what they fail to understand is that ‘children enjoy fancy when it is pure, that is to say, when it makes no pretence to reality, but they distinguish sharply between fancy and fact’.

In adult life too myth plays havoc with an individual’s career and marriage. Does your job offer you the scope for the growth and fulfilment of your abilities or simply leave you with a vague sense of monetary success? How did the factor called money assume such a central position as to edge out all other constituents of employment? More often than not, we shall discover that our career decisions have been influenced by the social myth that we work more to the satisfaction of the society than our own. When it comes to marriage, there is an implicit acceptance of whatever is prescribed as good, no matter who says it. The planets that are a billion kilometres away from the earth can confer happiness and wealth or spell doom and disaster unless you make the right choice of your partners. And how many of us have the pluck to turn sceptical about such predictions, and to insist that it is a saner and more sensible thing to know the blood group and the rH factor of our partner?

The list is endless and it would be profitable to focus on the harm that myths can do to an individual. First of all it alienates us from reality. Once you lose contact with reality there is no way of getting to know the truth of things. (Here myth whispers into your ears that it is not good to know the truth of things.) Secondly, it restricts your range of thinking in the sense you can take only a fish eye view of things and not a bird’s eye view. Thirdly, it creates a morbid, unhealthy fear in you that sticks like a tattoo. Once fear grips your mind, it leads to cerebral paralysis (metaphorically of course). The Kerala High Court had until recently a room numbered 12-A instead of 13 and the Supreme Court had to wield its clout to set it right. Fourthly, it imposes a nameless, indefinable burden on you that you are duty-bound to impress others at the expense of your inner freedom and peace. Finally, it hardens and sometimes deadens your finer sensitivities and sensibilities and makes you incapable of forming a living and true relationship with those around you. It is a kind of calcification of your inner eye, which registers only the light that you are accustomed to. In the zoology lab, you can see lizards, frogs and other animals kept in formalin. Myth has turned mankind into such zoo specimens; life-like but lifeless.

With Love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated Saturday, the 28 of April 2007

Happy New Year

Hi there,

Come December, the entire mankind appears to be in the feverish grip of preparations for the New Year celebrations. In the misty evenings of the month there hangs an air of expectancy, a silent anticipation and an unspoken thrill. The New Year, ‘the still unravished bride of quietness’, her face veiled is waiting to walk in with all her hidden treasures as everyone is busy preparing to roll out the red carpet to this lady of luck, the supposedly bounteous beauty. Frankly, I have never been able to mingle with that cheerful lot, share their optimism or partake of their revelry. I do not mean that I am a pessimist, but I sincerely believe that it requires super human effort to subdue those disturbing questions that cast a pall of gloom on the enthusiasm and exuberance of the celebration. The romantic glint with which others see the New Year left my eyes ages back.

To put it plainly, it sounds ridiculous to me that a particular hour or a minute in the endless flow of time could or promise to bring about phenomenal changes in one’s life. That the stroke of twelve on the midnight of the 31st December of every year could cleanse and purge the whole world bringing all miseries to an end by opening the flood gates of happiness is a story too much even for Harry Potter addicts to buy.

“Oh, come on Sir! Nobody expects such things to happen; it’s only an occasion to feel hopeful and share the common enthusiasm among friends.” True, it is an occasion to nurture hopes and remain hopeful that all our hopes would materialize. But didn’t we have similar hopes last year too? And haven’t we realized much to our disappointment and distress that most of them have been vain hopes?

I am now led to the point which I urge you to consider seriously. We expect the New Year to work wonders for us, to bring in changes for the better, to ‘ring out the old and ring in the new’, but oftentimes we fail to realize that every external change is the direct outcome of a corresponding inner change. As long our convictions remain as irrational as the stone age man’s, our outlook as unscientific and regressive as the Neanderthal man’s and our value systems rooted in superstitions and nurtured by obscurantism, it would be nothing but wishful thinking to expect the New year to be a harvester of happiness. The New year is bound to be yet another pack of 365 calendar sheets unless we have the deep conviction that it is not for the New year that brings us good luck but it is for us to infuse life into it.

Let me draw your attention to another point of principle. How many of us on the eve of the New Year remember to thank the Old Year for the rich remittances not only materially, but also emotionally, intellectually and even spiritually; for the wonderful experiences, intense moments, painful days and pleasurable activities, all that contributed to the totality of our personality? How many of us have had the grace to spare a thought for those bygone days that refined our sensibilities, widened our consciousness and strengthened our inner being? And what unseemly haste we show in showing that old lady the door as if we are embarrassed by her presence! I appreciate your excitement to welcome the Lady Luck in waiting but do not forget that this poor demented woman in rags was also a beauty once. If she is today a bag of bones, ugly and repulsive, remember we are to blame.

“Still waters run deep”. Don’t pin all your hopes on this demure young lady. Beneath her pleasant looks and winsome smiles there is a lurking fear that you will (ill)treat her the way you did to her elder sister, the old year. Time, after all, is a single unified entity and it does not recognize how you have segmented it into days, weeks, months and years. The worst that it cares two hoots for the stigma, superstitions and a thousand other foolish sentiments you attach to it.

There is a lot of sisterly affection between the old and the new years, the tail of the old being inseparably attached to the outstretched hand of the new. The elder sister does feel the need to warn her younger sister to be apprehensive of man. If you have sharp ears you can hardly fail to hear the whisper:

My dearest sister,

Beware of man. He is selfish and slothful. He won’t change but will want changes in all the things around him. He can’t work but loves to have the work done. He doesn’t give but expects gifts. He is reluctant to evolve but would like to see a better world. Our ancestors have been relentlessly teaching him the basic life lesson that all things proceed only from an evolved mind. But he has been too dumb to understand it. The only thing he has perhaps learnt from history is that man has never learnt anything from it. I wish you A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.

With love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated, Sunday the 31st of December, 2006

Icebergs

Hi there,

This issue is an apology for the regular viewsletter and I owe an apology to the members of the community for the long gap of inactivity. The truth is I was ill for two weeks. Then I was tied down to some pressing personal work which could no longer be justifiably put off. During my ‘bed rest’, I was pampered and fussed over by caring relatives and concerned friends. It is quite an experience to learn how much you mean to others when you are indisposed. The way they express their sympathies by words and actions is a true measure of the love they have for you. And I did get more than my share of love. As the expression goes, ‘they killed me with kindness.’

In the vacant hours of my sickness, I realized this startling truth. I am envious of people who are inclined to be less cerebral and more emotional. People who live by heart are a happier lot than those who live by brain. Caught in the whirlwind within their head, the cerebral people are restless souls. They should dissect, bisect, rip apart and reduce an experience to its nuts and bolts. Finally they end up congratulating themselves on their admirable analytical skill and critical sense, but totally remain insensitive to the fact that they have brutally destroyed a beautiful experience that came their way. I am not fortunate to be that simpleton who basks in the love of people. I don my critical robes, wield my analytical instruments and assume the grave looks of a thinker.

My mind becomes a restless, relentless mill grinding every experience without any feeling. Lying in bed, I began to wonder if I had not been relegated to the position of the handicapped. My sickness, no doubt, bestowed upon me certain privileges and one of them was the constant attention; someone or other bothering periodically to know whether I needed a glass of juice or if my sleep had been peaceful or disturbed. Every heart should truly feel thankful for the engulfing affection but mine did not. With such solicitations, I felt more embarrassed than pleased. If you call that attitude a sin of ingratitude, you will not be wide of the mark. The emotional type of people would never dream of committing such an act.

The next monstrous act I was guilty of was that I considered many of the visitors as intruders upon my privacy. Behind their benign and well-meaning faces I could see a conspiratorial silence in which plans were being hatched to rob me of my time. For the first time, I discovered to my dismay that my illness had drained not only my physical energy but also the will to tell them to leave me to myself.

Sickness brings its concomitant psychological effects too. The awkward silence prevailing in the room punctuated with sporadic outbursts of hyped exclamations and vapid expressions of concern provides an eerie background in which your condition appears frighteningly magnified. No doubt, the callers try to be as helpful as they can be but their offer of help somehow clearly underlines your own feeling of helplessness. There is no denying the fact that you ARE helpless, but would you like some one to know that? It creates a kind of one-up–man-ship and you feel you are at the mercy of others.

Did I describe my callers as intruders? Yes. They certainly are and at time times worse than that. They are nosey parkers too, as most of them, during their short stay at my bed side took undue liberties with what I consider strictly personal. One of the callers found the arrangement of the books on the shelf distasteful to him. He broke off our conversation half ways to rearrange them size wise, the tallest to the left sloping down the shortest to the right on all the six shelves. Beaming with self-satisfaction he turned to ask me how it looked. Did I tell you that he was a supervisor in a factory?

Not only did human beings, but inanimate objects also chip in their share of discomfort. I was almost driven to the conclusion that these objects had had a rod in the pickle for a long time and once they got a chance, they settled their scores with me. My counterpane kept either folding up or wrinkling without any provocation and was an endless torture to legs. The pillows developed pockets of resistance and the cup right over the motor of the fan lost its grip and began to grate. The leaky tap let out a series of well timed drops which cast a hypnotic spell on me making me either anticipate the next drop or keep count of them. To top it all came the raucous cawing of a crow which had no reason whatsoever to bear a grudge against me. On the whole I seemed to be living in a hostile world in which the living and the non living had conjoined to launch an all out attack on me.

To be fair, I had the proverbial silver lining too. An old friend of mine, my college friend dropped in. I must say something about this guy who in those days was considered a magnetic personality. He was tall, handsome with a shock of jet black curly hair and possessed the finest qualities. He was a brilliant student and a powerful orator, gentle, lovable and helpful without being obtrusive. He spoke when he was spoken to, sang when requested; he had a gifted voice that strummed the heart strings. He was neither ostentations nor overmodest about his qualities but made everyone comfortable in his company. He was a winner of hearts too. There was the fragrance of romance about him, but he handled all relationships with ease and grace. Perhaps I was the only one who discovered that far-off, out-of-this world look in his eyes. He always seemed to be in communion with an ethereal figure, a cute angel who was fluttering about him unable to assume a physical form. Even as I was secretly jealous of his success and popularity, I was pained over his longing for that unseen, tantalizing ideal. We had a silent, subtle liking for each other which, thank God, is alive till this day.

We parted after college. I met him two years ago and since there we have been maintaining a kind of relationship that is neither too close to jamming on each other’s busy schedule nor too far apart to be forgotten. He hasn’t changed much in looks far less in attitude, but for the numerous strands of silver hair and a few creases in the face.

Sitting at my bedside, he flashed his usual charming summer smile. In the next two hours our conversation ranged from movies to metaphysics. He was witty as ever, charmingly persuasive and disarmingly candid. In those two hours he made me forget that I was ill, out of action and I that I needed to be cared for, He filled me with a kind of energy that pepped up every sagging nerve. Very cautiously I enquired about his wife and children but he answered casually. “My wife is a practicing doctor in the U K and my two sons are doing M S in the U S A.” I knew better than to ask how he could stay away from his family, especially his wife who had been his sparring partner in the inter collegiate debates before they fell in love and got married. But he understood my silence masking that unasked question and smiled. “You see Mohan, When we were young we were free enough to fall in love and now past our youth, we have love enough to be free of each other.”

He left after half an hour leaving me to chew over his words. How profoundly meaningful! True love is an expression of generosity to grant freedom as much as the desire to acquire it. True love lets the loved ones to be free individuals, just as the inter-planetary attraction holds each other in place yet allowing them to move in its own orbital path. By giving freedom to his wife and children to pursue their interests he has ensured their constant sense of belonging, which he would have certainly lost, had he tried to be possessive of them. Love is a sacred sense of belonging not a brutal passion of possession. The other day I saw a wall hanging with a picture of a parrot in a cage with these words underneath it. “If you really love something set it free. If it is yours it will come back to you.” The depth of your love is fathomed by the extent to which your loved ones enjoy freedom and it is their sense of belonging that is the true measure of the reward of your love.

These reflections become highly relevant in a society where love means nothing more than a maniacal urge to possess someone body and soul. We have enough of possessive moms, dictatorial dads, tyrannical teachers and autocratic authorities. A vulture that drives it talon into the guts of a rabbit knows it has caught its prey, but parents who impose their will on their children to make them mere Xeroxes of themselves call it love.

The last scene of “Titanic” is a classic example of this sense of belonging. The old woman walks up to the stern of the vessel, climbs the railing. With her eyes closed she stands for a moment in which she relives every moment of her wonderful relationship. She finally throws the diamond necklace in the water, an act symbolic of her belonging to him whose love outlives their lives.

Icebergs

Old Mrs. Dawson walked up to the stern

With burden of days never to return

Hands so sure and feet unfaltering

The heart knew not when, why and how

Came into her eyes the glow of light, the light of love,

Dispelling the gloom of days and many a lonesome evening.

It was long ago and the cold sea was freezing

She lay on a raft holding the only living hands

Dreaming of wet kisses, teasing and dizzying

Of babies to be born in unknown lands.

Time seemed eternity and happiness a certainty

In the lap of that unsparing calamity.

Call it the agony of tragedy, too deep for pity

His loving eyes were drowned in the sea of humanity

Old Mrs. Dawson walked up the stern

A raging heart yet a face so serene.

Did any one see her clutching the pendant and chain?

Was there a soul to share her searing pain?

With Love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated Sunday, the 19th of November 2006

At What Cost?

Hi there,

Sticking my neck out: That’s what I thought I was doing as I sat down to write on the subject ‘success’. There is a fairly established idea of what success is, and the public opinion is more or less unambiguous, and even cut and dried. Any attempt, therefore, to take a radical view of it would certainly render me liable to be labelled old-fashioned, regressive, and a stick in the mud. But I must speak my mind lest I should regret later not telling what I believe to be the truth. In my experience it is far better to face the wrath of the crowd than to suffer the pangs of one’s own conscience.

Let me now state the bone of contention. Our age is suffering from a neurotic obsession with success. Honestly, I don’t see anything wrong in anyone trying to be successful in life, but what I am curious to know is, whether we have a comprehensive idea of success. Basically, success is a multidimensional idea, and as we try to understand the subtle aspects of it, we may be in for a few surprises, if not shocks. We may discover certain complex issues at the core, which will convince us that our road to success has led us far away from the destination rather than nearer to it.

To start with, we shall first consider the idea of success from the historical perspective, and then in the contemporary context. In olden days, success was the prerogative of kings and emperors while the subjects lived a mundane life. Not that they wanted to, but they really had no choice. From times immemorial, man’s struggle for, as well as his enjoyment of, success has been on two planes: the physical and the psychical.

At the physical level success meant wars won, territories conquered, and treasuries looted. But seldom was a king pleased with the spoils of invasion alone, without a deep psychical gratification. He, therefore, indulged in gruesome acts like torturing and executing his captives, and occasionally paraded his generosity by showing lenience and clemency, mostly to women whom he later admitted to his harem. He organized several public celebrations to gloat over the ruin of his rival and crow over the fallen enemy. It was a matter of great emotional fulfilment to see people bow before him awestruck by the aura of glory which he imagined surrounded him.

In evidence of what I have said, let me now present the case of two legendary heroes. In Homer’s “Iliad” Achilles slew Hector, the charismatic warrior and the son of Priam, the king of Troy. He knew that in killing Hector he reached an exalted state, and therefore wanted to make a show of his triumph. He tied Hector’s legs to his chariot and drove around the Trojan city for the whole world to see and tremble before him. His psychical thirst remained unquenched until Priam himself pleaded with him to release his son’s body for a decent burial.

The other legendary hero was Rama, the heir-to-throne living in exile, who waged a war on the demon king of Srilanka. The battle was drawing to a close as the demon king stood disarmed, yet defiant. The epic extols Rama as a paragon of magnanimity, not totally untrue though, when he spared his enemy a day to re-arm and come to fight the following day. On the surface level, Rama’s act seems laudable, but I am tempted to interpret his so-called magnanimity as the front-end emotion, the obverse of his feeling. The real motive or the back-end emotion was to deal a psychological blow to his foe who he knew, was a great musician, a powerful king and a conqueror of several kingdoms. Nothing would have pleased Rama as much as smashing his ego. That was exactly what he did when he denied what Ravana desperately wished for: a clean, honourable soldier’s death. He thus reduced the stature of his great foe to the size of a worm writhing in the heat of humiliation. The next day, he ended the abductor’s life with a single shaft. It was like a fearsome bowler bullying a tail-ender with a barrage of bumpers and bouncers in the last over of the day before polishing him off in the first over on the following day.

Alexander led his army across alien sands and hostile terrain, conquering nations, plundering, pillaging, executing kings and marrying their wives and women of all races. In all his escapades, he was fuelled by an invisible glory that elevated him to the status of a super human being or a mini-god around whose head was a halo of celestial light, 'the great', indispensable only to him, but invisible to others. Adolf Hitler was mad enough to declare openly his maniacal obsession with his Aryan supremacy. One man’s insanity cost the lives of millions of Jews, as Hitler arrogated to himself the divine role of cleansing the world with his anti-Semitic hatred.

Historians and storytellers have romanticized the adventures of kings and emperors, but the plain truth is all these great rulers were great fools. Firstly, they were foolish enough to believe that those around them were happy to share their sense of glory. The bitter truth was that not even the most faithful of their friends showed any interest, leave alone the sycophants and flatterers. In the end the king was alone, living within himself, listening to shouts and echoes of applause all within his head. He was well on the way to becoming a paranoid. Hitler became mad; Alexander died in Babylonia, even as he was trying to grab at the elusive glory. Captured and incarcerated in St. Helena, Napoleon died dreaming of his ‘emperorness’, which had already died in Waterloo. The Bourbon king Louis XVI must have cast a searching look around to spot the faded glory, even as his neck was put under the heavy blade. Stripped of all glory, the bullet-ridden bodies of Benito Mussolini and his dead mistress were hung upside down outside the royal palace. Secondly it never dawned upon them that there were options better than war that could have brought them rich material and mental returns. Thirdly, they were too blind to see that success is the resultant of the perfect combination of many personal and impersonal factors and such a combination is hard to obtain and harder to sustain. This, then, is the historical perspective of success, or the failure of success.

History is a great teacher, but we are poor learners. What we have acquired from it is only rat’s wisdom. Timid as they are, rats live in perpetual fear of death and so, they spare no efforts to secure their safety. They burrow into any field for food and flee back to their alleys when they sense danger. Looking at the colossal loss of lives and large-scale destruction that one man’s hunger for glory had caused, we have swung to the inglorious extreme of security and self-preservation. We have redefined success as the attainment of economic stability with little or no loss of life and property. The kings of the past said: ”Your pain, my gain.” We say, “No pain only gain.”

Let us face the truth. The moment you begin to think of security as the chief good in life, you cease to be the unique individual endowed with rare talents and skills. You consign yourself to a machine that heats, melts and beats you into any shape of its choice. An authoritative voice yells: “You can’t be what you want to be; you have to be what we expect you to be.” Can you see that just to secure economic stability you have already paid a price? A part of you is dead. There were days when I looked over my shoulders with pride and joy at the six wonderful years of school teaching. Now with a heavy heart, I see the finest sensibilities, sharp intellects and sensitive souls trapped in chemical labs and IT corridors. Minds that would have shaped into brilliant lawyers, charismatic lecturers, efficient administrators, inspired artists, articulate orators, impressive journalists, and enlightened preachers have been bought into slavery, frightened into submission and buried under the tomb of security and self-preservation. Alright, you have surrendered so much of ‘you’ to earn that big money. Can you with all the money buy back a small bit of the lost ‘YOU’?

The edifice of life is supported not merely by economic stability. Social adaptability and emotional security are equally important to it. It is a basic life lesson that happiness depends upon how well you handle your social obligations and emotional ties. Now tell me: Caught in the rat race, do you have an idea as to how you are going to equip yourself to handle these sensitive aspects of life? Remember, you are already at a disadvantage, thanks to the schools and colleges, which have done a disservice by bleaching and sterilizing your sensibilities and sensitivities. In the rainbow of your mind, all the colours seem to have merged into one. A graceless grey.

I think I have presented as objectively as possible some of the subtle and not-so-pleasant aspects of success. Though in form the historical personalities differ from us, in essence we are all the same. The king wanted glory and for that purpose he needed an external enemy, a loser or the vanquished. We don’t need an external enemy. We have found one in ourselves; our own higher self on which we have waged a war, taken it captive and put it away in some dungeon for good. Can’t you see that we are wiser than those kings? No bloodletting, no violence, no wailing and no tears. The kings had genocidal urges. We have suicidal tendencies.

Who, then, are the really successful people? Before I answer this question let me first discount the word success as derogatory and use another word ’victorious’, though it sounds a little pompous.

There were, are and will be a class of people, the chosen ones who neither crave for glory, nor seek security. On the contrary, they are keenly aware of that mysterious spark in them, the basic carbon that constitutes their personality. They have a clear vision of the mission which they are called upon to fulfil in this world. They have a fine sense of discrimination, which tells them what is worth seeking and possessing in life. Their inner worth radiates centrifugally, lighting up the world around them.

Madame Curie’s struggle to find her feet in Poland and UK did not deter her from pursuing her chosen goal. When Ronald Ross, the inventor of quinine, sang for joy, “Oh death, where is thy sting?”, it was the triumph of a mission. Old Socrates emerged victorious in his death for he knew that he had sowed in young minds the seeds of logical reasoning, spirit of enquiry and rational thinking. They are the great warriors fighting not against mankind but for mankind, invisible enemies. And they are the ones who are remembered and respected more than the Alexanders and the Czars. They knew that victory was an integral part of a mission and they felt it at every stage: in conception, in organising, in execution, in trials and troubles, in failures and in fruition of it. I don’t think Madame Curie or Thomas Alva Edison would have felt less victorious if radium had not been extracted or the electric bulb had failed to work. Would you feel the same way if your degree failed to land you in a lucrative job?

I am positive that you are beginning to see clearly the third dimension of success. I would not like to create an impression that I am urging every one of you to try and become an Einstein or an Edison. But certainly I would go to any length to make you do one fundamental thing, which those great minds felt compelled to do. Just take a dispassionate look at yourself to discover that special or unique material you are made up of.

You are victorious,

When you become conscious of this material that sets you apart from others.

When you are convinced that this basic carbon is a potential diamond and all it requires is your patience and perseverance to convert it.

When you assert your unique personality in the face of stiff opposition.

When you feel that you don’t have to be less than you, simply because someone else by doing so is able to earn a few dollars more.

When you believe that an enlightened mind is in itself a victory and so whatever it does is victorious.

When you realize that your unique mind has been created for a specific purpose and start doing what you ought to do, you become a part of the grand plan of life, its mystery and its beauty.

With Love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated Saturday, the 7th of October 2006

PS: This viewsletter is a tribute to all those who have had the courage of conviction to listen to their inner voice and consequently suffer insults and scorn from an insensitive society.

Reachout

Hi there,

In this issue, I am going to allow myself the pleasure of making some off-the-cuff observations about the subject, intelligence. This word as understood by the common man has several meanings and frankly, its meaning is as varied and numerous as the people who try to explain it. In most people, it is an indefinable attitude of superiority over others, (“Oh, Yes. He does not know”) although some of them are refined enough to sound less arrogant. (“I really wish he knew”) Some people regard themselves intelligent, just because they happen to be different in certain ways and habits from others. But to the multitude, intelligence primarily consists in the yellowing, dog-eared certificates, gilded medals, laminated degrees and faded photographs of forgotten performances.

If we rid ourselves of these vanities and complexes, we will discover that intelligence is merely one of the faculties like seeing and smelling: the faculty like your Disc Operating System that coordinates different parts to function in an organized way. It is nothing but sheer ignorance to think that intelligence is the exclusive trait of human beings. A monkey that hangs upside down by its prehensile tail from the branch of a tree, a hawk hovering over its prey, and a German Shepherd that surprises the stranger with a volley of loud barks are all said to posses a certain degree of intelligence, not very different from that of a student mugging up an essay on the 'Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire'. A terrier or a hound that charges at its quarry is more consistent and sure-footed than a XII grader struggling to identify a salt or a botanical specimen. Of course, I don’t mean this as an insult. Far from it.

The point I wish to drive home is that human intelligence is essentially a free and free-wheeling power, at times shaky, inconsistent and fallible, but always keen on doing something different, better and interesting. The boredom that we feel and the mistakes that we commit are too often an indication of a mind tired of repetitive work and craving for novelty. But what is saddening and sickening about the whole business is that our educational system is relentlessly trying to whittle down and trim human intelligence in order to make it perform as efficiently as an unerring mongoose or a falcon.

Intelligence is, then, the drive power, the kinetic energy, but it is not an entity by itself. In fact, it is controlled and steered by another quantity, another factor like the arithmetic sign before a number or the coefficient of an algebraic letter. It is with the study of this quantity that the rest of this letter is concerned. Broadly speaking, this quantity operates at three levels as the determiner of the focus and direction of intelligence. At the first level, it exists in all birds and animals in its primitive form known as instinct. A crocodile devouring its prey is performing an intelligent act of orchestrating its visual, aural and olfactory senses along with its stealthy and cunning moves; but the entire act is directed by the coefficient instinct. The instinctual intelligence of the reptile would not allow it to entertain any other thought than masticating its food until its hunger is gratified.

At its second level, this quantity is far more evolved and we shall, for want of a better word, call it interaction. The student memorizing a lengthy passage on the 'Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire' is very likely to declutch himself from the painfully monotonous task, and indulge in a fantasy of Pompey’s flight to Egypt, Julius Caesar’s assassination in the Roman Senate House or the passionate love affair of Mark Antony with Cleopatra. You see, the human mind has the propensity to interact not only with the living, but also the legendary and historical ones. The ability to disengage oneself from an obsession with the object of attention and to view it from a different perspective is the essence of interactive intelligence. It is this intelligence that is predominantly operative in every sphere of human life as I shall try to illustrate.

Let us take, for instance, the teacher student relationship. A teacher’s status in the society is beyond question as he is supposed to be engaged in what is traditionally hailed as ‘the noblest profession’. Placed unreservedly, more often undeservedly in this lofty position, the teacher is always at his best trying to bring the best out of his wards. His hard labour to deliver the goods is grudgingly admired even by the most uncooperative students. Another example that comes to my mind is the parent-child relationship. Elevated to the status of demi-gods, parents spare no efforts to ensure that their children’s lot is a lot better than their own. The sacrifices they make can become a box office storyline!

Hold on a minute! Not so fast! While the sincerity and the commitment of teachers and parents can never be doubted, we cannot be blind to the limitations of their interactive intelligence. In the first example, suppose a student turns out to be an intellectual rebel, who wants to go beyond the frontiers of curriculum to engage himself in a liberal and untrammeled pursuit of knowledge, how comfortable would the teacher be with him? Some of you might recall the embarrassing moments Albert Einstein’s physics teacher had to go through in the classroom. Most of the teachers are well aware that their pre-set goals and programs are always at odds with the intellectual aspirations of the students. There exists between them a kind of jockey-horse relationship, the former trying to tame and mount and the latter waiting to kick. I am yet to meet a father who would grant his sons and daughters the freedom to explore and understand life on their own terms. When a father’s beliefs and convictions are not implicitly followed and accepted by his children, the result could be disastrous. A blind rage swells and sweeps across, and interactive intelligence degenerates into instinctual intelligence. You can extend the argument underlying these examples to political, moral, religious and social spheres.

Interactive intelligence is ubiquitous. It is an invasive, intrusive and insidious force; it dictates, it dominates, it drives the people to act in obedience to a doctrine, more often a mistaken doctrine; nay, an evil one. The scientist who spends his time and energy inventing weapons of mass destruction has sold his soul to the devil of a dictator. The shields and certificates conferred upon a student are but war memorials erected upon the grave of his slaughtered intellectual curiosity. The festival freebies and generous gifts are but a bribe to drug young minds into accepting superstitions and follies. There is something of a false note, something hollow, something hypocritical and something selfish. That is why the world, for all its shine and sheen of intelligence, is a horrid place where people are in shackles and bondage. Interactive intelligence is a kind of emotional and intellectual vampirism. It is the intelligence of Dracula who charms his victims first and goes for jugular vein at last.

We have now before us the third coefficient called empathy. The Oxford dictionary gives the meaning of this word as the 'power of projecting oneself into a work of art or other object of contemplation.' It follows as a rider, that empathy is one's capacity to lose one's identity in another entity in order to fully understand it. Precisely, it is this ability that forms the basis of a meaningful relationship between two individuals. To understand is to accept; accept someone with all his plus and minus, accept him for what he is and not for what you expect him to be.

The white American boy who saw a black slave being scourged must have vicariously suffered the whiplash. The boy grew to become the president of the country and fought the Civil War for the freedom and dignity of the Negroes. Eventually he paid for his ideals with his life. This is empathising intelligence that lifts you far above others. It registers your name in the hearts into which you have walked. It makes you walk out with your consciousness widened and your understanding deepened. You no longer live in fear or anxiety, for the world around you is your domain, your hometown, your own home. It sets you free from the self-consuming passions and obsessions in which others are condemned to live. You begin to feel that you can form a wonderful relationship with anyone, as Eva did with Uncle Tom. You begin to see the world as a beautiful place with beautiful people and beautiful things.

Empathy is the highest form of intelligence and the hardware required to operate this intelligence is sensitivity of very high order. Education should, as its primary goal set out sensitising young minds socially, aesthetically and intellectually. Universities should start thinking seriously of redefining its priorities and revamping its curriculum. We can no longer afford to continue with this kind of shallow and skill-oriented education that produces only qualified craftsmen, of course decked with diplomas, degrees and doctorates.

In 1961, the most respected philosopher and mathematician of our times Bertrand Russell wrote a book entitled "Has Man A Future?” Four decades later we are convinced that the chances for mankind to survive have dwindled, even as man's capacity to lead the world to annihilation have exponentially increased. Empathy is the need of the hour. Someone ought to give a wake up call. Is any one out there?

With Love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated Saturday, the 23rd of September 2006

PS: I thoroughly enjoyed reading your responses to my first viewsletter. I am glad that it has appealed to you. Some of you spoke to me over the phone to say a few nice words about it. I would like to thank every one of you for your genuine appreciation particularly some of the seniors like Venkat, Siva and Kanaks for making text related comments, by culling out passages which they have found quite stimulating. My special thanks to Harish for neatly editing the text to suit Orkut format and Nivedan for advertising and publicity.

A New (A)venue

Hi there,

It is often said that life is stranger than fiction. How very true! We are once again together, of course in a different forum, on a different platform and this e-contact, I should hasten to add, would not have become a reality but for the thoughtfulness of Harison (a portmanteau word derived from Harish and Santosh). Thanks a lot guys. When I was informed of the formation of this community I felt duty bound to contribute something that would keep the community alive and active, to protect it from deterioration and eventual extinction. I promised as a first step to publish a series of fortnightly “viewsletter” on a variety of topics of common interest. It is quite likely that I might have given you an impression of being a thinker. I must, therefore, confess that I do not have any pretensions to being a thinker of any worth, far less an intellectual. However I can modestly claim that all through my life there have been two strong principles to which I have been holding on without compromise: one is the common sense approach, and the other open-mindedness. These two guiding principles have been the backbone of my personality, the fly wheel that has kept my mill running. And it is this conviction that has been the secret of my success and popularity, which I have had the privilege of enjoying all these six years.

In the first letter of this series, I would like to share my views on an issue relating to your campus experience especially of those who have just entered the portals of college and university. While some of you are quite lucky to be happy with the environment and the teaching standards, there is a sizeable number, to whom the first experience of the college has been anything but pleasant: Nightmarish, shocking, brutalizing, substandard, and frustrating. The list of epithets is endless. To this unfortunate lot, I wish to offer more than my sympathies, for sympathy is a sweet poison that paralyses the fighting spirit in you by giving you a false hope that someone is out there to help you.

If someone tries to be sympathetic with you when you are down and out, my advice is: refuse it, reject it outright. Beware of sympathizers. They feed you with an empty spoon. “What then should we expect from the well-meaning but unavoidable group of sympathizers?” A valid question indeed. In fact, common decency demands that we should politely listen to their comforting words no matter who gives them. But I feel one should be bold enough to tell them to be more of practical help. Experience has taught me that when you tell them, you will find that there aren’t too many left of those handkerchief carriers. So much for their sympathy.

“Ok, what do I stand to gain by dismissing the sympathizers?” you may ask, but think carefully, my dear. You are alone and all alone and that is an advantage, perhaps the greatest advantage. You are left with all the time to take a long, hard look at the mess in which you find yourself. You can start thinking without the interference or influence of others about your problems and go about finding ways and means of solving them. No one knows or can understand your problems better than you and the solutions have got to be tailor-made ones.

The guy who is totally disappointed with the standard of teaching should stop despairing and start thinking constructively. Create a parallel study program, which includes study groups, study material and study assistance all drawn from the best of students from reputed colleges. It has to be a well-organized effort to be systematically followed and you will soon discover that you have created a network of useful men and material. I did this some three decades ago by creating a parallel system that depended on the libraries in the British Council, the American Consulate and the Madras University. I got used to this system so much so I ceased to look up to my college as anything more than an administrative office taking care of my attendance, hall-tickets and mark lists. Remember, all this happened at a time when I had neither the fast means of transport nor the networks of communication. Certainly your world is much more blessed than mine. Try it and you will not regret it.

Let me now address another section of this community, the employed and the to-be-employed. It is heartening to know that many of you have found lucrative jobs and are all set for a steady career growth. Congratulations. Obviously it is your professional competence that has earned you this enviable position, and it is this competence that is going to stand you in good stead. However, I want you to brace yourselves to face certain hard truths and harsh realities of life. An organization is the world in miniature inhabited not only by Brownlowes and Maylies, but also by the crooked Fagins and the self-seeking Bill Sikes. It is a place where the Beauty and the Beast cohabit. It is a marriage of convenience in which the latter is patient with the former only as long as its interests are not endangered.

Let me explain the symbols of the Beauty and the Beast. Beauty stands for those whose strength is their competence, and who refuse to resort to any other means or work culture for the sake of their career growth. The Beast, on the other hand, represents those whose sole aim is to reach the top no matter how unprincipled, unprofessional or unethical they have to be in the bargain. They observe no morals or scruples but firmly believe that ends justify the means. They are a class of people who would stoop to any level and stop at nothing to hold on to the seat of power. Every organization has a fair share of this species of humanity and it is as hard to imagine a world without them, as it is to live with them. The Beauty believes that every game has got to be played by the rules, but the Beast does not.

Here I am reminded of a not-so-humorous story, which I heard from one of my teachers in my school. There were four guys playing a game of cards popularly known as Three Cards. The first player produced three Queens and smiled. The second one, his face beaming produced three Kings and the third was hysterical when he opened up his three Aces. The fourth one put his hand into his coat pocket, and produced a revolver. And he was not smiling!

All said and done, the book of life is interesting, informative and instructive. Its lessons are painful and profitable at once. Just by maintaining the right posture, by forming the right equation one may learn profitably from the myriad experiences that life offers. With experience, we gain an inner strength with which alone we can remain calm and undaunted in the face of any danger or uncertainty.

I remember the first small mistake I made in my official work at the age of 21 and how I trembled at the prospect of losing my job and livelihood. After 20 years, when I was holding a managerial position drawing a fat salary with nice perks, I decided to throw away my job with no care, thought or fear of future. That’s what I call inner strength drawn from life education, which is more often found outside the college or university campus. As George Bernard Shaw once remarked with his own characteristic sarcasm, "My whole life has been a process of learning except for a brief period of ignorance in schools and colleges."

It is quite tempting to continue writing in this vein but I must now attend to more pressing matters on hand. Firstly, let me earnestly appeal to all of you to maintain a high standard of decorum and dignity in the conduct of this community. We shall exercise utmost restraint in our criticisms. I wish to stress that this forum should not be abused to vent one’s personal hatred or prejudices against any individual or institution.

Secondly, you are free to express your opinions but please mind your language. A point is effectively conveyed when it is not burdened with unwarranted suggestions or remarks. Freedom of expression coupled with a sense of responsible thinking is one of the attributes of civilized societies. As an American president once put it, “I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.”

A final word: I sincerely hope that you will actively respond to my fortnightly dispatches because based your responses I will feel encouraged to conduct a personal contact program featuring some interesting modules of personality grooming. I am not holding out any promise for the present, but I don’t see that there can really be anything there to prevent it from happening.

With Love,

Your English Sir

Original Post: Dated Saturday, the 9th of September 2006