Amidst trammels in life there still floats a promise of renaissance !

Death—premature or likely, accidental or natural—always leaves an impervious void in souls of those near ones where gentle tunes of life resonate in strings of togetherness. Even memories of sweeter moments fail to replenish such vacuity. It remains secreted somewhere deeper forever in only a few weeping souls. Yet, such death does not offer ripples beyond a limited pool of human relationship. At times, it may infuse a greater collection in society with inspiration, or courage; but it does not leave deeper impact of sense of losing within. The martyr remains honoured as a social hero—a dedicated soul sacrificed at social cause—but not as a soul whose absence is felt deeply only for being no more.
But, when a death transcends beyond a thin horizon of kinsfolk to create an indiscernible hollow in broader ocean of people that gets instantaneously filled in with a dread of losing confidence, a fear of subjunctive sense of calamity, a fright of apprehension and a panicky state of insecurity; then it a terror. It cripples the society as a whole with a collective sense of vulnerability. With such psychosis prevailing, the society often rebuilds itself on more compatriotic sense, reconnects itself with more reasons and human values; but it may also fall prey to imprudent comprehension of reality that eventually leads to impregnate social mindset with a sense of retribution, hatred and ruses of crafty enemy of humanism. It often leads to war. It only travels from one form of war to another form. And, in every war, the victims are innocent people and the values of human civilisation that again take years to revitalise and bloom.
If there descends an eerie darkness, only flicker of hope still shines in peace. Camaraderie of conscious people can only prevent the peace from being at ransom. Let us not leave another page of history of bargaining peace at the cost of vengeance. Let us rekindle deep spiritual consciousness embedded in our culture, heritage, art, philosophy and all other creative forms of human civilisation through solidarity of respecting souls.
In concluding I would only wish to share those beautiful lines of great Bengali poet, Jibananda Das, written some forty years back, but are still relevant (Never mind my poor transliteration) to this present world.

The earth is now sheathed in an eerie darkness;
Those who are blind now see the most,
Whose hearts bear no love or affection,
Where ripples of compassion do never surface,
The world now sways not without their counsel.
Those who still have deep reliance in humanity,
Who still find intrinsic values in great truth,
Or in culture, or art or its fondly pursuit,
Their souls now lay offered at vultures’ feast! 

(A repost)

Naming life !!

Every life has a unique tale to tell. It scripts itself as life meanders on—staggering in aspirations and desperations, enamoured of passions and illusions, armed with name and fame, induced with dreams and deeds, and inspired with wills and nerve—in wealth of ripening. Numerous bends on its course—some meaningful, some memorable, some forgotten or some tragic—are testimony of its conciliation with the circumstances for sake of securing own existence. Yet, it presents a sheer bafflement in defining itself with an identity—an identity that establishes, who is who, which is which and what is what, in the mirror of the world around. It raises an awkward question, “Do I exist sans a name?”

What is in a name? Even an elementary scholar knows what Juliet expressed in her soliloquy. The name binds the bond, tears apart too. But, does it deny the existence too. It raises my perplexity and I carry it for so long.

Once I met a little girl and her brother (I wrote about them a decade back on my blog too) who did not have any name. Is life such meaningless that we presume that they don’t exist at all? Nameless is not faceless, yet the story of a life seems suffered when it is exposed to social scrutiny. But, is such an average assessment defines existence in life ?

In peaceful settings of Manderley, second Mrs Winter didn’t have any name. She narrated the tale of her life—her dreams, seclusion, haunting shadow of Rebecca, indifference of her husband—the killer of his first wife, and gradual accession to confidence. All without name in the entire novel.

Jane, an orphan raised at the home of her aunt, when was asked by Mr. Rochester, “Am I hideous?”, replied affirmative with certainty. She was the governess in his house, love him, he didn’t disclose about his earlier marriage and it all surface when she was about to get married with him. Rochester had a name and fame too. Yet, his real face is hidden. He was still bearing a faceless identity before Jane, and with certainty. They got married and the novel had a happy conclusion. Neither name nor fame nor its suppression was a matter of rejection in life.

Meursault was enraged and brutally killed the Arabian. The glimmers of the sun on the edges of his rapier generated so much irritation that he couldn’t resist himself from such crime, and without any future remorse. Was it the Sun, or the Arab man or the knife or the hatred or the intent of crime to be blamed; or the namelessness of the Arabian? The killer had a name and pride of race, but the Arabian didn’t. The novel of Camus evolved around the life who was nameless native and justice was faceless. The stranger remains a stranger so long life doesn’t attempt to know it. Knowledge is, perhaps, also something which exists when known. Does life have similar existence? I exist only when you know that I exist and get attributed by a name to be known? My confusions have grown up with me since childhood.

Jeanne’s life unfurled itself in exploration of delight in everything and died in disillusionment of its staleness. She tells her life through the events of her life. Nothing more than that. Yet, the existence retained itself without her professed identity in social mirror. She spent her end days forsaken—the dreams dried, emotions died and prospects baffled. In concluding sentence, she tells Rosalie, the maid and the mother of her husband’s son, “The life, you see, Rosalie, is not so good or so bad, what people think.’

Life, perhaps, is an impression. An impression has complexity of explaining the truth and value. We run after it without knowing, and leave it when experience. Our pride confines us only to its grave.

Despair

The moment is fading...between the pages of time…

Beneath the clouds—building courage for the fall—

Denser and darker, in complete silence.

The earth is split, spoilt in emotions unchained,

Colours sacrificed for painting a black yashmak,

The day and the night meet no more...kiss no more...

O the traveller of the noontide! Stay far,

I shall walk on in the dark, beneath the flapping

Wings of that night heron, subtly wiping the moonshine,

Denying the sense of being and becoming.

The lone star on the west is just a smudged dot,

An earnest effort to survive, shapeless...inert,

Yet, to trudge up the stairs for it to live a little longer.

O the Supreme! Riven into many, you broke us in many,

Pouring the venomous wisdom into our ears,

Deafening, with endless call for unity and peace;

Turn your wretched head, open your morphine eyes

See the devils designing weapons, honest they are,

Arming to untie the bond that has loosened within,

To scatter us—fragmented and faithless for long,

United they are, unbroken in dream and deed.

Why deceiving us more? The faith is a licence to deceit.

The spring shall be no more...the sailor will

No more chase the horizon...waves will only rise,

For just a final fall...to break into bubbles,

I can see the shore sinking....drinking....the last drop

Of his beloved...the blue ocean...

I can see the forest advancing, now and then,

The lonely moon weeping in the grey…alone,

The flickering lamp is about to be burnt out.

The paean and the pyre

He had never seen gentle smile on his mother. Never had he known his birthday. Since sensing the beauty of this world, his only own and known person was Father Brown.
Father Brown was a clergyman who had spent several years of missionary service in his native place. Devastated Europe after two great wars had a handful of people of ability and sincerity to work for the society and after his successful attainment of a degree in medicine, he wished to spend rest of his life in social service. When he opted for serving lepers in some remote Indian village, a great society of missionary colleagues had considered it a huge loss for Europe; but he travelled thousands of miles with a sacred smile spread over his face like wings of a springtime butterfly. He was soon seen cycling around a few small hamlets—bulged with numerous humans of diverse age attempting to sustain with primitive superstitions, poverty, and ignorance. The soil of civil society was yet to be irrigated with moral values, education, and basic living conditions. It was long past when the man of fifty-four years started residing in a small hut at one edge of those clustered darkness.The boy pressed his weak palms over bearded face of his old friend; a few drops of blood oozed out from those lips that smiled for its last time. The boy wept for the first time in his life. Through a hot smoky curtain, he could see Mother holding her son; burning and melting, still holding. Within his swollen eyes he held that image so long he could keep those open. He stared at. His body, soul, blood and existence—all were melting along with his dreams—his mother. She held her close to lap, comforting. He could see that divine smile on her face. The boy smiled for the last time in his life. His eyes were dreaming—closed with pain, sorrow, and joy for being through the life; it went on dreaming until darkness evaporated into the eternal slumber.
The next morning was bright. The peace was perfectly pervading all over while a burnt hut and a bundle of charred life inside reflected its muted existence in life, in its entirety.

Creation succeeds in conflict between real and unreal

Life is beautiful for its innate sense of creativity. It daintily expresses the beatitude of its being. Even when it fails to appreciate its deeper relevance of its continuance for years and ages, it remains unfailing in appreciating the beauty of its creative self. Life for every living being has a mission that is justly expressed it its own intensity of creative sense. It does not differ much from a cellular form to higher level—of insects, reptiles or mammals—and, finally to human beings.
But, thinking beyond what is scripted for its mere sense of creativity is the philosophy of life. It excels its objective form to attain more subjective analysis to unveil a broader horizon. It transcends beyond a finite edge to search for a greater space alluring into the infinity in its sky, clouds and environment. This is what that makes human superior to other species just in like manner as life itself makes living beings superior to non-living beings.
Yet, it is pretty intriguing fact to experience that essentially what is there before us is nothing beyond a structural pattern of some elements and the science tells us of only a few sub-atomic particles that do the splendour in creating whatever we see. What has ever enthused me to ponder over how can it then differ from inanimate objects to living beings, trees, and to its higher layers ending with intellectually superior human beings? If particles have finite and definite strength and properties, then it should universally have similar effect for all its compounded functionality. If such power is its real power, then there can be no unreal consequence of its effect in similar situation. But, this happens, and it happens more often than it does not in this world of our experience.
Before analysing in this way and much before I could acquire some elementary idea from the views of the greatest philosophers, I had always been queerly fascinated in perceiving the world itself as an unreal world. It included and includes my own existence, my ancestors, my descendants, and all that is there in this world of experience. And, with years of maturing, I have become more inclined to believe that the creative sense is just a thought—just a message—for glorifying a scripted conflict of real and unreal experiences. I cannot sense why should there be such conflict and why should it continue—for whose interest and wishes; but, I find myself more comfortable in believing in a philosophy of life that tells of unending allurements in thinking processes that make it sustain through creative expressions.
Often I think of an image—maybe, a reflection of great mountain range upon placid face of a lake or a virtual portrait upon a mirror or just a photographic sheet that holds the past for years together. What intrigues me is how far they are real. People will definitely convince themselves in doubting over its either real or unreal existence. But, they are in full view before me; so they should be real. Light reflects it before my eyes, reveals it to create sensation. If my vision is real, and if my sensation is real, then what causes it to respond should also be real. But, a reflection of that mountain series can never reach us to a reality beneath the face of that lake, or the photograph of the past cannot be a real fact of experience for many who have not experienced it their own eyes. Then they must be unreal. But, can an unreal object cause real sensation ? If that be so, then there must be something inherent to sensation which does not depend on the object’s real or unreal existence and it is only a creative sense that reflects itself in its own wishes to experience real in unreal or unreal in real or in any other permutation of those experiences.
But, even when we accept that the creative sense can perceive and translate any subjective observation of real or unreal into any chosen form of its wish, then it should also express uniformly for everyone having such creative sense. An unreal thing may have dissimilar effect on various observer for its fundamental void in objective existence, but how can a real object appear differently; it should have uniform effect upon the observing minds for its finite causable existence. Surely, it does not happen in our experienced world. Our experiencing remains dependent upon observing minds—the subjective self. Thus, the objects cannot be a real object. The world we see cannot be a real world. The observer cannot be real observer. Only the thought is real; it only carries the power to bring about any result it wishes to see. And, there lies the creative sense to explore reality in an observed unreal existence and it flourishes in the conflict of real and unreal world within the thought process.
What I intend to present here is nothing more than a few words that will float in the net for a finite time; it has its origin in my own thoughts, but shall remain afloat in the world of unreal existences. People from all over the world writes articles, uploads images and share feelings and thoughts over the net; they all float in an imaginary world where nothing is presented in real ink or colours, people read in knowing not where it is stored. The creative world of our real exchange of expressions also yields before the world of unreal objects.
Forget this article in such a fashion that it keeps on floating forever in the void between those two worlds—the real and unreal.

Empowerment and Equality !

Some days back I heard kids discussing over why I had been into blogging. Their personal likings might have probably discouraged them to go for any acerbic comment, yet it abruptly concluded (maybe for my presence nearby) with the cutest one remarking, “He may be hoping to publish a book and must be just judging how readers will respond to it! Maybe, he looks for the comfort of safety.”
Their discussions truly amused me for their so much of concern. I doubt not their sincerity also. Although I have neither any plan to publish a book nor any regular readers, I found their discussions interesting for the inference drawn in the line I mentioned before. A kid can also analyse how important the sense of safety is in relation to human thought-process and action. I wondered for a few days over the whole of whatever I had overheard. Strikingly, it pierced into my deeper self and I found it more interesting when debates went flying in some other blogs over the issues primarily dependent upon human actions and its relation to comfort of safety, protection, empowerment and sense of equality, however greater levels of intellectual discourse they might be. It only generated a newer sense of identity to which I had so long been oblivious. I wished to go on pondering over and over again with a faint hope to touch that illusive thread, which possibly entwined all resonating chords of human aspirations into one finite objective of securing itself.
In this modern world, our civil society holds high the banners of adequate empowerment and equality for all over all other emergent social needs of humans. Without going into any debate on how far they justify the present stature of socio-economic progress, we may reasonably infer that they are priority demands to which majority of civil movements are actively involved. But, do those two pillars of our long professed civil societies stand justifiably when tested against the history of human civilisation? Do they even correspond to each other and can they be supplementary in true manner towards generating a cohesive structure of civil societies upon it? These are the questions that had torn apart me on instigation of a mere childish remark of an adorable kid.
The history of human civilisation does not show us anything contrary to the facts of its seemingly evolution around securing protection and comfort of the species. While the demands of empowerment and equality, in many forms ranging from individual to social to regional to national to international configuration and concerned to ideological to racial to religious to gender-based to ethnic, surfaced time and again, but what has apparently led to are mere corroboration of our historical past. The progress of human civilisation did never comfortably witness those two prime pillars to hold its burden upon in unison, rather it always encouraged a balancing game of interchangeable priority of one over another through its journey. I never claim to validate my expression in order to demean tireless efforts of our forefathers in raising our entity as the supreme one amongst all living beings. Yet, with my little learning of history its progress through thousand years of journey in this world and with a far lesser faculty to appreciate entirety of such enormous contributions, I have found myself comfortable with such a distant generalisation as I penned the starting line.
Whatever we have guessed about our past are also important events of history. Whatever we believe in professed philosophy of human life are also contributory to history of human civilisation. They all lead us to agree in oneness that we were different from other species since we had been here. We were weaker in strength, but stronger in soul. Thoughts were our assets while our existence was vulnerable. Protecting our existence had been the prime concern of our ancestors. They had to wander alone for food and water in deeper zones in jungles. Collective strength, they thought, would save them from wild animals. They formed group that turned into a stronger unit of extended family. They were some way safer in securing daily needs of sustenance. Wiser they became; they learnt to move near to rivers and water sources for further protection. Slowly they learned to make blunt weapons to make hunting easier; discovered to light fire, and with that magic power, they became concerned in protecting themselves from mighty contemporaries. They formed clan to get stronger unit. Soon they discovered iron. The triumph to control fire and iron gave them confidence to go for further exploration. They found copper, learned to make bronze and they could start an improved society by then with sharper weapons, usable tools and utensils. They thought to protect themselves from nature’s wrath; slowly learned to weave cloth, build house and proposed to transform fertile land as choicest field for growing food. They experience greater protection while they learned to grow grains, irrigate and cultivate land and use weapons more effectively.
The phase of protecting themselves from assault of wild animals was about to be over while a new crisis too birth. The society which had more food security, more weapons and more numerical strength thought to attain further security in sustenance by overpowering societies with lesser strength and engaging its members as their slaves. The slaves were to work, hunt, cultivate and fight for their masters. The clashes were then to take place between super-societies identified by such ruling masters. The sense of protecting by then had traversed long to relieve them from threats of wild animals to newer threats of societies of same species. Groups, clans, societies clashed; some merged with other, some vanished and some fled. Whatever be the position, societies became broader, voluminous and took shape of settlement, village and county. Finally, along the geographical concept, nations were born. The nations then fought for own protection with other nations. Comfortable living had offered richer societies more time to engage in thinking and exploring. Religious faiths, customs and rituals were introduced to have greater control of the society over its members and more to secure it from every vulnerability to external threats. Nations soon became conscious of religious identity. They fought against each other with frontal cause of religious supremacy while hidden objective of securing supremacy of rulers. The sense of supremacy seemed analogous to safety and security. The wraths of famines, wars, and calamities were to be withstood by the slaves to secure comforts of their masters. The empowerment of one has always led to inequality for others and equality of some led to ignite passion for empowerment in some others so the equilibrium could again be broken. The history shows us the process repeated in this fashion so far.
Thousands of years passed by in delivering newer and newer consciousness of life and such revelations took societies transcending one horizon to another. Levels of security and comfort also changed. Developed societies were engaged in colonisation of under-developed or semi-developed societies in newer fashion. Diverse forms of oppressions are devised basing on, either individual or collective, state of caste, economic-strength, gender, skin, ethnicity, religion, military strength, and even intellectual privileges. Conflicts between religions, working classes, castes, ethnic groups, and mercenaries went on happening while the strife for empowerment and equality overshadowed one another in their subterranean flow through history. In this article, I have not indulged myself into undermining either the cause of empowerment or the equality; but only to draw attention to a fact that history of human civilisation has not indicated ever to acknowledge mutual dependence of those two ideals in securing primary supremacy of humans as species. Only one front has primacy all through is the concern for safety and protection, either at individual or collective sense. I find its validation in what kids were discussing over my concern for the comfort of safety. I don’t know how far I am satisfied with my own analysis, but I am satisfied enough to place it before the readers for their own individual appreciation.

On social conflicts

Recently I’ve come across an extremely concise post by an Indian blogger that hit a straight exclamatory (poignant too) note on frustrating impact of linguistic groupism upon the dynamics of social progression. I couldn’t simply ignore it as a matter of fact for two major reasons. Firstly, it has a deeper relevance to a multifaceted academic issue that has attracted a broad spectrum of intellectuals of diverse schools of thought to deliberate on it and has, in due process and demand, also involved scholars from almost every branches of knowledge—social scientists to historians, economists to political scientists, psychologists to linguists, and so on. Secondly, the writer has recently moved to Canada for pursuing her studies and has to experience a different social climate that may have been influenced upon in a different way by varied cultural, lingual and religious encouragements or even by ripples of ethnic impulses; and, for this fact, she must have some clips on human interactions arising in different social climates and how subjective those are under impact of incongruent social, cultural, ethnic or lingual judgments.
What is relevant to the context is not to dispute that the conflict subsists in such social environment, but to consider whether it exists only in such circumstances or does it encompass apparent homogeneity of groups that have similar social or lingual or cultural or national belongingness or does it concern to a sense of loss of inheritance of an individual human mind that connects to the society it feels to belong either biologically or ideologically? In any case, a group is primarily a collection of individuals who are not clones to others and it’s a natural phenomenon that some common pursuits of such individuals bind them together into a group that also tends to solidify a vision to reflect collective responses of its members. Theoretically it sounds pretty well-founded. But, what we could perceive of its practical representations does not often seem to agree to its set theoretical inferences. Group is a simple form of collection of individuals having a defined goal. Society is much a bigger and complex form having too many groups within. Still, society has also some common practices and intentions, and such practices and intentions have deep roots in groups it holds. These are the forces that bind the society to express its commonality before an external environment, but its constituent groups do neither disown its distinct practices nor do subscribe to intentions of other groups spontaneously until such are collectively accepted to be better options by its individual members. And till such point, neither a society nor a group is fundamentally dependent upon the geographical boundary it has, but, indisputably, it can neither be unconscious to general geographic features it is environed with in company with many other groups or societies. Apart from this environment factor, there may be some other natural influences like structural and genetic features (defined either in racial, ethnic or biological form), language (verbal, signs and gestures) and religious belief, which may lay open a prospective field for societies or groups to intermingle into one consolidated social form. In a more advanced phase it gives birth to a complex society. Nation is a further advanced form deeply bounded by a physical boundary having a potential political and administrative control.
In the midst of all these diverse parameters and complexities, an individual may either agree to some or all intentions and practices of some groups within a society, or may also subscribe to some intentions and practices of some groups of some societies irrespective of its relevance to national form or may also disagree in like manner. But, agreement and disagreement are averse to each other. An individual cannot be thrown out of the society for such disagreement. Therefore, without going into a case specific analysis it can be safely said that a society is always vulnerable to disagreement of its set intentions and practices by any or some of its members and expressions of such disagreement may either impel the society to amend, rescind or rewrite its existing intentions and practices or may fail to do so; but, in any event, agreement and disagreement must reside within the society. This builds the situation where the society is classified into a group of people having two distinct identities—an individual and a citizen. They are unique in its content, but discrete in its application. In a complex situation, these two identities may act separately in distinct groups depending upon quality of responses of individual or citizen mindsets. Thus, not only a society is vulnerable to discontent, but an individual mind is also susceptible to such vulnerability while compromising itself with the self and the society. So, the conflict ranges from an individual mind to a group, a group to a society, a society to a nation and a nation to entire mankind. Still, it is an integral part of social progression and a distinguishable form of human expression too. In his essays on Individuality and Citizenship, Bertrand Russell eloquently analysed every aspects of this issue and expressed himself in his natural flair:—
“The elements of knowledge and emotion in the perfect individual as we have been portraying him are not essentially social. It is only through the will and through the exercise of power that the individual whom we have been imagining becomes an effective member of the community. And even so the only place which the will, as such, can give to a man is that of dictator. The will of the individual considered in isolation is the god-like will which says ‘let such things be’. The attitude of the citizen is a very different one. He is aware that his will is not the only one in the world, and he is concerned in one way or another, to bring harmony out of the conflicting wills that exist within his community. The individual as such is self-subsistent, while the citizen is essentially circumscribed his neighbours ……….. The fundamental characteristic of the citizen is that he cooperates, in intention if not in fact.”
“If a man’s life is to be satisfactory, whether from his own point of view or from that of the world at large, it requires two kinds of harmony; an internal harmony or intelligence, emotion, and will, and an external harmony with the wills of others. In both these respects, existing education is defective. Internal harmony is prevented by religious and moral teaching given in infancy and youth, which usually continues to govern with emotions but not the intelligence in later life, while the will is left vacillating, inclining to one side or the other according as emotion or intelligence has momentarily the upper hand. Such conflicts could be prevented if the young were taught doctrines which adult intelligence can accept……………..The matter of external harmony with the wills of others is more difficult, and not capable of a complete solution. Competition and cooperation are both natural human activities, and it is difficult to suppress competition completely without destroying individuality. But it is not individual and unorganised competition that does the harm in the modern world………The dangerous form of disharmony in the modern world is the organised form.”
“A sense of citizenship, of social co-operation, is therefore more necessary than it used to be; but it remains important that it should be secured without too great a diminution of individual judgement and individual initiative.”
These were all written some seventy five years back. Maybe, it is more relevant to the present world than it was to be when he had thought of hat we can perceive is that the conflict is not so frightening act but its organised abetment eventually yielding to a burgeoning impact upon the civil society and in micro level, upon an individual.
An individual is only recognised in a society, he has his identity in such social climate; he can express his creativity, displays his uniqueness and presents his philosophy only before the society that recognises him. He has to thrive in company of others—friends or foes—keeping with himself those essential ingredients of citizenships—competition and co-operation; but both need to flourish on values. It needs to care for external wills—individual faith, ideology, religion, language, and any acceptable human aspiration. When it gets diluted it seeks a refuge of social pollution of organised hatred, aggression and intolerance. Individual expression has to meet a suffocating end when society fails to imbibe values in its collective expression; cause of death is immaterial, place of death is insignificant, we are to repent only for the tragedy. Someway, we could more clearly observe talons coming out of paws of those organised disharmony in a different social climate because it seems to offer mostly unknown practices than we are used to experience, but within our most known environment, where we claim to know names of every flowers that bloom around, if we look deeply, lift that beautiful painted veil, which bears an artistic presentation of fraternity, tolerance and humanity, we could also find some more talons that already have had some prey. Insensitivity has no fascination over origin of its victims; it only loves to have countless victims. Just to conclude I love to refer to Russell again:—
“The world has become so intolerably tense, so charged with hatred, so mixed with misfortune and pain that men have lost the power of balanced judgement which is needed for emergence from the slough in which mankind is staggering. Our age is so painful that many of the best men have been seized with despair. But there is no rational ground for despair; that means of happiness for the human race exist, and it is only necessary that the human race should choose to use them.”