tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85166478553646299762024-03-23T15:47:54.913+05:30ithinkK Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.comBlogger235125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-41585913553858211692023-08-17T14:55:00.001+05:302023-08-17T14:55:26.965+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Birth without Sex</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-17bf5f9b-7fff-2ed9-987c-2701e5727b58"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parthenogenesis is more intricate than it sounds. In crude terms, it is birth without sex, asexual reproduction. Depending on one’s style and sensibility, parthenogenesis is viewed as ‘immaculate conception’ or ‘virgin birth,’ with little role for the male partner. Its human application is right now not even under contemplation but the possibility of a female begetting a progeny on her own is ever more stark. That throws man out of his sexual throne arrogated through thousands of years in the evolutionary cycle.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Birds and reptiles were known to have this rare capacity. But there it stood for long. And now comes news from Costa Rica that crocodyles, kept meticulously out of male company, can lay eggs. The first such egg has been hatched in an epoch-making move towards female independence. The offspring showcased in a reptile museum in Costa Rica is quite like its mother, its genetic personality reflecting more than 99 percent of its mother. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is how the Royal Society’s journal, Biology Letters, evaluates the event. “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once considered rare, the ability of sexually reproducing species to generate offspring without genetic contributions of males, termed facultative parthenogenesis, has been documented across multiple vertebrate lineages… This discovery offers tantalizing insights into the possible reproductive capabilities of the extinct archosaurian relatives of crocodilians and birds, notably members of Pterosauria and Dinosauria.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Warren Booth of Virginia Tech University has been studying for ten years this overwhelming biological event, parthenogenesis or virgin birth. He is hardly surprised by this latest discovery. The independent reproductive genius of female crocodiles reflected through the eighteen-year old American reptile must have been inherited from the long extinct dinosaurs. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Booth reports that there has been a significant increase in what is known as virgin births among reptiles and fishes and birds. It might not have been seriously noticed. Why or how this singular trait developed in them, reducing or ending the male role in conjugal life is difficult to answer with the scientific data now available. Possibly, dinosaurs developed this faculty when their species looked like becoming extinct. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From female birds and fishes and crocodiles producing their progeny to sons and daughters being conceived by human females is a far cry, an evolutionary fantasy. While the formulation offered in the following paragraphs is anything but a half-baked para-scientific thesis, mythology and epic historiography gives ample evidence of human preoccupation with male arrogance in conjugal partnership. The elusive male, the absconding father, the abandoned child unowned or disowned by its male guardian--they have all been theme-setters in our holy books.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at the familiar story of the primeval virgin birth itself. The advent of Jesus in the Christian tradition is sought to be explained away as an act of god, who is portrayed as a kind presence up in heaven. But the brunt of the birth had to be borne exclusively by the mother. Life’s agony reached its climax when, yielding to his destiny on the cross, Jesus cried out if god, his lord, his father, had abandoned him. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From Hindu mythology, Karna’s crisis of birth and death is often presented as a mother’s gaffe or an itinerant father’s unconcern. His tragedy was his solar father’s callous approach to sexual cohabitation. Every crucial and self-revealing occasion in his life was marked by a question about his fatherhood, asked loudly by his inveterate enemies, mumbled by himself and his benefactors. The self-limiting suggestion that the sources of rivers and warriors need not be investigated is hardly helpful. Karna’s portrait as an enraged bastard looms large in the chronicle of the Kurukshetra war. Kunti, his mother, didn’t have the benefit of the story of the Costa Rica crocodile which laid eggs without letting a divine or human partner touch it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Virgin birth is no boon, neither composite nor exclusive. It throws up the progeny as a bastard, an end product of an anonymous father’s and a luckless and naive mother’s peccadilloes, leaving the world wide open for a peripatetic male’s entertainment. The progeny lives and dies, smarting under the self-same snide remark that he is a bastard. Being a bastard is by far the most shameful state for a son or daughter to be in. When the queendom of the mother comes, requiring no intercession of a maverick male, maybe, conception and delivery being a selective mother’s exclusive mission, that moral system denouncing bastardness will be knocked out.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember anecdotes of different kinds of fathers, ditching their consorts or disowning their wards. In our village eight decades ago, a single woman became pregnant, throwing gossip tongues into paroxysms of vilification. The woman suffered in silence, facing ignominy in the comity of the village folk, and the ire of her humiliated brothers and cousins. One of them waylaid a well-to-do young man in his early twenties whom the gossip mill had identified as the father. Bloody hell was to break out when the pleasure-loving man recognized the imminent danger. Quietly, exuding no dignity or magnanimity, he owned up the baby and made its mother his accredited wife.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Such a turn of events is not familiar or frequent in most places. Long years later, our village was witness to a petite woman of an elite family getting ready for a virgin birth. Everyone knew who the delinquent dandy was and he came forward to own up the baby in the womb. She had exercised her will and volition, though not like the daring crocodile of Costa Rica. She chose to remain a single mother without publicly naming her baby’s dad. Begetting a child but hiding its dad’s identity is not common but not unknown. What immediately comes to mind is a Shaji Karun film in which the protagonist’s name is fastidiously held back by the woman in whom he had a child. When human females come to enjoy the power to procreate, as our blessed crocodile in Costa Rica zoo does, male mughals of our time would have no field day.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was this middle-level employee of a public organization who had never been able to wipe off the stain of being the unacknowledged son of his unsympathetic father. The son was getting married and he proposed to introduce himself as the son of his father. Nothing doing, said the father. The recalcitrant father threatened to take the son to the court. Those were not the days of DNA tests or litigation to legitimize fatherhood. Nothing more of it was heard.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The experience of the self-creating crocodile of Costa Rica, when applied to the human condition one of these distant days, will usher in a two-prong fantasy. For one thing, reproduction will no longer be a male-female mission, mothers declaring independence of fathers, at least in that limited zone of conjugality. For another, who is whose father will be no one's concern. That must remove from our lexicon of abuse an old expletive, a tepid, neither-here-nor-there ridicule, “bastard.”</span></p><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333132; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-56330052397714436002023-08-07T10:54:00.000+05:302023-08-07T10:54:00.791+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">പുസ്തക നിരൂപണം</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a21fdbb3-7fff-1545-3c2e-a303e4952072"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">എ കെ ജിയും ഷെയ്ക്സ്പിയറും</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">പി പി ബാലചന്ദ്രന്</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">മാത്രുഭൂമി ബുക്സ്</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">രാമചരിതം മുതല് നാരായണസ്തുതി വരെ</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ചിലതങ്ങനെയാകും. ഒന്നോ പലതോ സംഭവങ്ങള് ഒരേ നേരം നടക്കും, കരുതിയിരിക്കാതെ. കാക്ക വന്നിരുന്നതും വാഴക്കൈ വീണതും പോലെ എന്നു പറയാം. ഇത്തരം യാദൃഛികതകളില് അര്ഥം കാണുന്നവര് കുറവല്ല. കാള് യൂങ് അതിനെ synchronicity എന്നു വിളിച്ചു. യാദൃഛികത അര്ഥപൂര്ണമായാലും അല്ലെങ്കിലും, അത് കൌതുകം പകരുന്നു. അങ്ങനെ ഒരു അനുഭവമുണ്ടായി, മുതിര്ന്ന മാധ്യമപ്രവര്ത്തകനായ പി പി ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ എ കെ ജിയും ഷേയ്ക്സ്പിയറും എന്ന പുസ്തകം കിട്ടിയപ്പോള്.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">പതിനാറാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടിലെ നാടകക്കാരനെയും ഇരുപതാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടിലെ വിപ്ലവകാരിയെയും ഇണക്കിയെടുക്കുന്ന ആദ്യത്തെ അധ്യായത്തിലെ വിദ്യ അവിടെ നില്ക്കട്ടെ. രണ്ടാമത്തെ അധ്യായത്തിലാണ് ആദ്യം എന്റെ കണ്ണു തറച്ചത്. "രാമന്, എത്ര രാമന്മാര്?" എന്നതാണ് ബാലചന്ദ്രന് ഉയര്ത്തുന്ന ചോദ്യം. അതില് തടഞ്ഞുനില്ക്കുമ്പോള്, അയോധ്യയിലെ രാമന്റെ മനുഷ്യസഹജമായ പോരായ്മകളും ദൈവസദൃശമായ സിദ്ധികളും ഓര്ത്തോര്ത്തിരിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു ഞാന്. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">എ കെ രാമാനുജന്റെ മുന്നൂറു രാമായണങ്ങളെ ഉപജീവിച്ചുകൊണ്ടാണ് തുടക്കം. അതിലെ ചില ഭാഗങ്ങള് ഡല്ഹി സര്വകലാശാലയിലെ പാഠ്യക്രമത്തില് നിന്ന് എടുത്തുമാറ്റി. ചരിത്രത്തെയും പുരാവൃത്തത്തെയും വിളക്കിച്ചേര്ക്കുകയും അതിനെ വെല്ലുവിളിക്കുന്നവരെ അടച്ചാക്ഷേപിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നതാണ് ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ രാമചരിതചിന്ത. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"രാമായണ്കഥകളെത്ര, രാമന് എത്ര, സീത എത്ര, തുടങ്ങിയ നിഷ്കളങ്കമായ ചോദ്യങ്ങള് ചോദിച്ചാല് പോലും ചുമലില് തല കാണില്ല എന്നു വന്നാല് പത്തു തലയുള്ള രാവണന് പോലും ചോദ്യങ്ങള് ചോദിക്കാന് ധൈര്യപ്പെടുമോ? പീന്നെയല്ലേ ഓരോ തല വീതം മാത്രമുള്ള നമ്മള്." നമ്മളൊക്കെ കേട്ടു പരിചയിച്ചതും ഏറ്റുപറയുന്നതുമാണ് പരിഹാസത്തില് പൊതിഞ്ഞ ഈ ചോദ്യവും വാദവും.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">കാലദേശഭേദത്തോടെ, രണ്ടായിരത്താണ്ടുകളിലൂടെ, തലമുറകളിലൂടെ പാടിക്കേട്ടുവരുന്നതാണ് രാമകഥ, സീത തന്നെ പറയുന്നു, "രാമായണങ്ങള് പലതും മുനിവരര് ആമോദമോടെ പറഞ്ഞുകേള്പ്പുണ്ടു ഞാന്." എന്നിട്ടും രാമന് സീത ആര്? എന്ന ചോദ്യം എവിടെയൊക്കെയോ അലഞ്ഞു തിരിയുന്നു. രാമകഥയുടെ പ്രവാചകനും അതിലെ വകതിരിവുകളുടെ സാക്ഷിയുമായ മഹര്ഷിയുടേതില്നിന്ന് വിഭിന്നവും വിരുദ്ധവുമായ എത്രയോ പാഠഭേദങ്ങള് വന്നിരിക്കുന്നു. വാല്മീകിയോട് മത്സരിക്കാനിറങ്ങിയ മട്ടില് ഓബ്രി മേനന്, "ഓബ്രി മേനന് പറഞ്ഞ രാമായണം" എന്നൊരു കൃതിയും തികഞ്ഞ ഔദ്ധത്യത്തോടെ പടച്ചു വിടുകയുണ്ടായി. കൃത്തിവാസ രാമായണത്തില് രാമഭക്തശിരോമണിയായ ഹനൂമാന് മണ്ഡോദരിയെ മാനം കെടുത്തുന്ന കഥയും ഉള്പ്പെട്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതൊന്നും ആസേതുഹിമാചലം രാമഭക്തിയെ ബാധിച്ചിട്ടില്ല. അവ്യാഖ്യേയമായ ഭക്തിയോടെ, സമകാലീനയുക്തിക്കു നിരക്കാതെ പടരുന്ന വിശ്വാസത്തെ എങ്ങനെ നേരിടണമെന്നതാണ് നമ്മുടെ സമസ്യ. ഗിരിപ്രഭാഷണം കൊണ്ടോ വിരട്ടിയിട്ടോ ഒരു രാവുകൊണ്ട് മാറ്റിയെടുക്കാവുന്നതല്ല വിശ്വാസം. രാമന്റെ കാര്യത്തില് മാത്രമല്ല, ഏതു മതനേതാവിന്റെ ചരിത്രത്തിലും പുരാവൃത്തത്തിന്റെ ചാരുത കാണാം. യേശുവിനെ ചരിത്രകഥാപാത്രമായി അവതരിപ്പിച്ചുകൊണ്ട് ദൈവശാസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ സ്ത്രീപക്ഷം എന്ന ഭാവത്തില് എഴുതിയ ഒരു പുസ്തകത്തെ പോള് ജോണ് സണ് കീറി മുറിച്ചതോര്ക്കുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ രാമവിചാരത്തിന്റെ തുടര്ച്ചയായി കാണാവുന്ന ഒരു പ്രവണതയാണ് ചരിത്രത്തെ ഇഷ്ടം പോലെ വക്രീകരിക്കാന് അധികാരസ്ഥര് അപ്പപ്പോള് ഏറ്റെടുത്തിട്ടുള്ള ദൌത്യം. ഇന്ത്യയുടെ ചരിത്രം മാറ്റിയെഴുതാന് ഒരു വിദ്വാന് ഒരു കേന്ദ്രവും ഒരിക്കല് തട്ടിക്കൂട്ടുകയുണ്ടയി. തന്റെ ചരിത്രത്തെ വെള്ള പൂശാന് ഇന്ദിരാ ഗാന്ധി അനുഷ്ഠിച്ച സേവനമാണ് കൂടെക്കൂടെ ഓര്ക്കപ്പെടുക. "സിന്ധു നദീതടം മുതല് ഇന്ദിരാ ഗാന്ധിവരെ" എന്നൊരു ചലച്ചിത്രം പോലും ഒരു ചരിത്രകാരന് നിര്മ്മിക്കുകയുണ്ടായി. രാഷ്ട്റീയമായ അഷ്ടമംഗല്യപ്രശ്നം നടത്തി ചരിത്രത്തിന്റെ ശ്രീകോവിലില് പുന:പ്രതിഷ്ഠ നടത്താന് ഓരോ ഭരണാധികാരിയും നിഷ്കര്ഷിച്ചിരുന്നു. "സ്റ്റാലിന് എങ്ങനെ ചരിത്രത്തെ പിഴപ്പിച്ചു?" എന്ന ലിയോണ് ട്രോട്സ്കിയുടെ അനുസ്മരണം ഓര്ക്കുക. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതുപോലൊരു ചരിത്ര ചിന്ത, അതിന്റെ എല്ലാ വൈജാത്യങ്ങളെയും വൈരുധ്യങ്ങളെയും ഉള്ച്ചേര്ത്തുകൊണ്ട്, മുന്നൂറില് താഴെ പേജുകളില് വിരിഞ്ഞുവരുന്നതാണ് ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ പുസ്തകം. മൂന്നു പതിറ്റാണ്ടിലേറെ നീണ്ട മാധ്യമപ്രവര്ത്തനത്തിനിടയില് ഇന്ത്യയിലെ അധികാരകേന്ദ്രമായ രായ് സീന കുന്നിനു ചുറ്റും വിദേശത്തും അദ്ദേഹം കണ്ടതും കേട്ടതും ഓര്മ്മിച്ചെടുക്കുകയാണ് ഇവിടെ. കവിതയും കഥയും ഇതിഹാസവും കലര്ന്ന ആഖ്യാനത്തിന്റെ പരിധിയില് പെടാത്ത വിഷയമില്ല.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഓര്മ്മക്കുറിപ്പും സംഭവവിവരണവും നിഷ്കൃഷ്ടമായ വിഷയനിര്ദ്ധാരണവും തൂലികാചിത്രവുമായി മുന്നേറുന്ന ചിന്തക്ക് പരിസമാപ്തിയില്ല. നിഗമനവും ഉപസംഹാരവും എളുപ്പം എടുത്തെറിയാവുന്ന അഭിപ്രായവും തട്ടിമൂളിക്കാനല്ല, അനുഭവം ആത്മഹാസത്തോടെ ആവിഷ്ക്കരിക്കാനാണ് ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ വെമ്പല്. എത്തിച്ചേരാനുള്ള ധൃതിയല്ല, യാത്ര ചെയ്യുന്നതിന്റെ ആവേഗം അതിനെ രസകരമാക്കുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">എനിക്കു പഥ്യമാണ് ഇവിടത്തെ ശൈലിയും ആശയസംവിധാനവും. തുടക്കവും ഒടുക്കവും തമ്മില് തികഞ്ഞ ചേര്പ്പു വേണമെന്ന നിര്ബന്ധമില്ല. ഓട്ടൊരു ലാഘവത്തോടെ പറഞ്ഞാല്, ബ്രഹ്മം പോലെ എവിടെയോ തുടങ്ങി, ഒടുങ്ങാത്ത തുടര്ച്കയായി നീളുന്ന വിചാരവീഥികളില്, പരിചയിച്ച വായനക്കാര്ക്ക് ചടഞ്ഞിരുന്ന് ഓര്മ്മ പുതുക്കിയെടുക്കാം. അധികാരത്തിന്റെയും ആരോപണത്തിന്റെയും മഴനിഴല് പ്രദേശത്ത് ഏറെ കയറിയിറങ്ങാത്തവര്ക്ക് പുതുമയോടെ വായിച്ചറിയാം. ഓരു ഓണാഘോഷത്തിന്റെ ഓര്മ്മയും, ബദര് പൂരിലെ എരുമകളും, ആകാശവാണിയിലെ വാര്ത്തകളും, എ കെ ജിയുടെ "വിനയത്തിന്റെ വിശുദ്ധി"യും, ആയിരം മനസ്സുള്ള കവിയുടെ നാടകാന്തത്വവും കാവി പുതച്ച പത്രവും ഇടതുപക്ഷത്തിന്റെ അപചയവും മറ്റും മറ്റും ഉള്ക്കൊണ്ട്. വറ്റാത്ത കടലിലേക്കൊഴുകുന്ന പുഴ പോലെ. ഒരു അനുഭവമാകുന്നു ഈ വായന. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">രണ്ടു ബംഗാളികളുടെയും ഒരു സിന്ധിയുടെയും മേധാവിത്വത്തിലായിരുന്നു ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ പത്രപ്രവര്ത്തനം ആദ്യമൊക്കെ. മെയിന് സ്റ്റ്രീമിലെ നിഖില് ചക്രവര്ത്തിയും പ്രസ് ഇന്സ്റ്റിറ്റ്യൂട്ടിലെ ചഞ്ചല് സര്ക്കാറും മദര് ലാന്റിലെ കെ ആര് മള്ക്കാനി. ഒരാള് ഇടതു പക്ഷം, രണ്ടാമതൊരാള് ലിബറല് ചിന്തകന്, മൂന്നാമന് എന്നും നരച്ച മുടിയുണ്ടായിരുന്ന കാവിക്കാരന്. ആ വീക്ഷണവൈജാത്യം ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ കാഴ്ചവട്ടത്തെ വികലമാക്കിയില്ല. ചക്രവര്ത്തിയെയും സര്ക്കാറിനെയും ഞാന് പരിചയപ്പെട്ടിട്ടില്ല. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">മദര് ലാന്റിന്റെ എഡിറ്ററായിരുന്ന മള്ക്കാനിയെ പരിചയപ്പെട്ട നിമിഷം തന്നെ അദ്ദേഹവുമായി കോ)ര്ത്തു. എന്റെ എമ്പോക്കിത്തരമെന്നു പറയട്ടെ, കണ്ട മാത്രയില് ഞാന് പറഞ്ഞു, "അങ്ങ് ടിപ്പു സുല്ത്താനെ രക്ഷിച്ചല്ലോ." ടിപ്പു സുല്ത്താന്റെ വാള് എന്ന സഞ്ജയ് ഖാന്റെ ദൂരദര്ശന് പരമ്പര വിവാദമായപ്പോള്, അത് പരിശോധിച്ച മള്ക്കാനി കമ്മിറ്റി വിധിച്ചു, "അത് തമസ്ക്കരിക്കേണ്ട കാര്യമില്ല." സംഘപരിവാറിനെ, മലബാറിലെ സേവകരെ വിശേഷിച്ചും, മുറിപ്പെടുത്തിയതായിരുന്നു ആ വിധി. പിന്നീട് കൂടെക്കൂടെ കാണാന് ഇട വന്നപ്പോള് മനസ്സിലായി, ഔറംഗസേബിനോടുള്ള സംഘവൈരം പങ്കിടുന്ന ആളായിരുന്നില്ല മള്ക്കാനി. പക്ഷേ അവിടേക്കൊന്നും ബാലചന്ദ്രന് കടന്നുചെന്നിട്ടില്ല. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഞാന് പരിചയപ്പെടുമ്പോള് ബാലചന്ദ്രന് പ്രസ് ഇന്സ്റ്റിറ്റ്യൂട്ടിലെ വരുമാനം കൊണ്ട് അഷ്ടി കഴിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു. അവിടന്ന് അമേരിക്കയില് പരിശീലനത്തിന് അവസരം വന്നപ്പോള് പാസ്പോര്ട് തടഞ്ഞുവെച്ച കഥ ഞാന് കേട്ടിരുന്നില്ല. കാവി പത്രത്തില് ജോലി ചെയ്തതിന്റെ പേരില് പാസ്പോര്ട് വിലക്കാം എന്നു കേട്ടപ്പോള് അരിശവും അമ്പരപ്പും തോന്നി. പക്ഷേ അവിടെനിന്ന് കൂടു വിട്ട് കൂടു മാറിപ്പോയ ബാലചന്ദ്രന്റെ കയറ്റം മേലോട്ടു തന്നെയായിരുന്നു. ഓടുവില് ദോഹയില് വെച്ചുകണ്ടപ്പോള് ബാര് മേശക്കു പിന്നില്നിന്ന് സ്കോച് ഒഴിച്ചു തന്ന പെനിന്സുല എഡിറ്ററെ ഓര്ക്കുന്നു. എഴുത്തും തിരുത്തിയെഴുത്തുമായി കഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്ന അദ്ദേഹം അന്ന് ഗ്രന്ഥകാരനായിരുന്നില്ല. ആത്മകഥാപരമായി ഇംഗ്ലിഷിലും മലയാളത്തിലും പുസ്തകമുറക്കാന് പിന്നെയും രണ്ടു മൂന്നു കൊല്ലം വേണ്ടിയിരുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">രാമചരിതത്തില്നിന്നു തുടങ്ങിയ ഈ ആലോചന നാരായണസ്തുതിയില് അവസാനിപ്പിക്കാം. എടത്തട്ട നാരായണനെപ്പറ്റിയാണ് ഈ പുസ്തകത്തിലെ ഒരധ്യായം. തലശ്ശേരിക്കാരനും ഇടതുപക്ഷക്കാരനുമായ എടത്തട്ട നാരായണനെപ്പറ്റി മലയാളികള് വേണ്ടത്ര അറിഞ്ഞിട്ടില്ല. പി രാംകുമാര് രചിച്ച, ആദ്യത്തെ ഏതാണ്ട് സമഗ്രമായ, നാരായണചിന്ത തന്നെ വന്നത് രണ്ടു മൂന്നു കൊല്ലം മുമ്പായിരുന്നു. എഡിറ്റര് ഇടതുപക്ഷക്കാരനായിരുന്നെങ്കിലും അദ്ദ്ദേഹം സ്ഥാപിച്ക പേട്രിയട് എന്ന പത്രത്തിന്റെ മകുടനാമം വലത്തോട്ട് ചെരിഞ്ഞതായിരുന്നു. എവിടെയോ ബാലചന്ദ്രന് എന്തോ പറഞ്ഞുപോകുന്നുണ്ട്, മനുഷ്യന്റെ ചായ് വ് വലത്തോട്ടാണെന്ന അര്ഥത്തില്. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">വലതുപക്ഷപിന്തിരിപ്പത്തെ എത്ര പരിഹസിച്ചാലും മതി വരാത്ത എഡിറ്റര് ആയിരുന്നു എടത്തട്ട. അഞ്ചാം പത്തി, ഫിഫ്ത് കോളം, എന്ന അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ പംക്തിയില് പെട്ടാലേ ആരും പിന്തിരിപ്പനാകൂ എന്നു പോലും തോന്നിയിരുന്നു. അദ്ദേഹത്തെ ഞാന് കണ്ടിട്ടില്ല. ബാലചന്ദ്രനും. കേട്ടറിവു വെച്ചുകൊണ്ട് എഴുതിയതാണ് ആ തൂലികാചിത്രം. ഇടനാഴിയിലൂടെ ഒഴുകി നടക്കുന്ന നിഴല് പോലെയായിരുന്നു ബാലചന്ദ്രന് കണ്ട എടത്തട്ട. എന്തുകൊണ്ടോ, എനിക്ക് ബോധിച്ച ഒരു പ്രയോഗമായി, ആ നിഴല് നീക്കം. ആ നിഴല് നീക്കം നിലച്ചപ്പോള് അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ സ്ഥാപനം ഇരുട്ടില് അലിഞ്ഞതുപോലെയായി. പിന്നെ അതിനെന്തെല്ലാം മാറ്റം വന്നു? ആരെല്ലാം അധിപരായി? എന്ന ആലോചന ഇടതുപക്ഷത്തിന്റെ ഗതിയോടു ചേര്ത്താകാം. ഒരു നിയോഗം പോലെ എടത്തട്ട സ്ഥാപിച്ച പത്രം നിരന്തരം വരുത്തിവെച്ച നഷ്ടം ആര് എങ്ങനെ നികത്തി. എന്ന ചിന്തയാകട്ടെ വിപ്ലവത്തിന്റെ ധനശാസ്ത്രത്തിലേക്കും വഴി തെളിക്കാം.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-30807004444099881772023-08-07T10:47:00.002+05:302023-08-07T10:47:59.354+05:30<p> <span style="color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gospel of Betrayal</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-814ced56-7fff-5db5-215b-bb641aa82124"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two out of thirty is not necessarily a mean thing. The reference here is to a silver coin, in fact, two of them, out of a total of thirty which Judas took to betray Jesus. These two silver pieces, fateful and fake, were actually made in what may be called Monson Mavunkal Mint. The fake master passed into oblivion when new episodes of villainy and nonsense stormed into media focus.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the Monsons of our world never ever become irrelevant or jobless. They need to service the craze for old things, that is, new things made old. The market for antiques or, do we say antics?, is as old and enormous as both of them. Monsoon may be crestfallen, not because he is being tried for fraud but because he is not part of a project to find antique copies of the great gospel. In a Southeby’s auction in New York, the oldest Hebrew Bible, complete with its 24 books, has yielded 38.1 million dollars.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is believed to be the most valuable manuscript sold at an auction. Bill Gates of Microsoft had earlier bought Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebook for a few million dollars less. The Hebrew Bible yielded less than the American constitution, 43 million dollars being the price of the first edition printed copy of the US horoscope.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The oldest Hebrew Bible, dating back 1100 years, is now the proud possession of ANU Museum, Tel Aviv. Alfred Moses, a lawyer diplomat, who acquired it for the museum says: "The Hebrew Bible is the most influential in history and constitutes the bedrock of Western civilization.” Moses would not have known such a quantity as Monson Mavunkal or the other way round.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For some time now, we have no idea where Monson Mavunkal is now or what his creative ventures are. Moses, Alfred, may be thrilled to hear that his ancient namesake’s great staff is now available to us, courtesy Monsoon. Not only is he ingenious enough to make new things look ancient or archaic but carry conviction to the high and mighty, politicians and policemen naturally among them. No admiration for that flash of criminal creativity is undue.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monson knows what sells. Moses’ staff, Judas’s silver pieces, all appropriately designed for the aesthetic appreciation and admiration in awe and joy, are a tribute to the possibilities of fake art. As it happens, holy relics are acquired far more by Christians and Muslims than Hindus. More medieval or modern things like Tippu Sultan’s throne are not easily disposed of, though the story of the sword of the Mysore Tiger has led to a frenzied para-historical discussion on a tele-serial with an eponymous title. The loss of or damage to holy relics can cause consternation. Such a disappearance in the sixties was a harrowing event in Srinagar, as Surendra Nath who was J&K IGP told me as we were going over the annals of relics and antiques. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Monson’s repertoire, one artifact that may propitiate Hindu crowds is a hand-written copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Whose hand is it? The unkempt and ageing sage could not have used a stylus and palm leaf to inscribe the Song Celestial. Was Monson’s Gita written down by a naughty elephant god or a bunch of people who mounted or worshipped him? I have some unsolicited suggestions for addition to his creative laboratory.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arjuna’s bow, Gandivam. Krishna’s discus, Sudarsanam. Gandhari’s blindfold. Draupadi’s garment, as stripped by an evil Kaurava. Bhishma’s arrow bed, though Iravati Karve questions his bravery and sense of fairness in her short but sharp account of the war in Yuganta. On a secular note, we can welcome the recreation of Jesus-related documents and articles, like a part of the cross on which his life ended. Monson may not appreciate the importance of some living flora and fauna that existed when the Son of God was walking the earth. I remember a winsome and eloquent guide educating us on the history and botany of the giant sequoia trees in the Yossemite National Park. Some of those trees, surviving the onslaught of time through centuries, could have stood as guardian angels even before Jesus’s mission in West Asia.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is all about duping and tricking. It calls for some kind of genius. Like the one on making friends and influencing people, there can be a handbook for those who play fraud on unsuspecting or greedy people. Monson may not claim monopoly in this burgeoning field. How crooked religious trade can be effectively pursued in today’s setting is the engaging subject of Irving Wallace’s novel, The Word. Steve Randall, a media relations advisor, hired to organize publicity for a new Bible attributed to Jesus’s younger brother, James, starts questioning the veracity of various claims and inferences towards the end of the controversial. Following up stories of Jesus roaming around hermitages in India and anecdotes of the curiously titled The Aquarian Gospel, Monson’s peers in the profession can introduce some attractive relics in the booming market.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is all about duping and tricking. No antique was being thrust on me, nor subjecting me to any antic, when one Kumara Das descended before me one afternoon, seeking permission to use my address for him to get a money order from his brother. He was a soccer player, left-in, attached to a famous Mumbai team. His gear had been stolen and simply wanted to have some money sent by his kin in Kerala. A man with a gift of the gab, Das was taking me for a risky ride, as I soon discovered. Money came and he collected in good time, being so nice as to tip the postman liberally. The tragic comedy was that there was a mix up in names. The sender of the money order and the receiver intercepted me, pointing out that the money had been dispatched to my address. I did not have patience to look at his receipt or argue with him or assert my innocence. I had been duped, I had been tricked. That happens in every field, every time. As Magha says, the field is so vast, time endless.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My friend and writer, Sreekrishna Das, was not a little pleased. Perhaps he thought I deserved it all for my gullibility. He made a short story out of it and earned Rs25 as remuneration. It was double pressure: my discomfiture, his delight</span></p><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-81814588283434851832023-07-27T07:04:00.002+05:302023-07-27T07:04:39.346+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rich, Richer, Richest </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-561fae20-7fff-94cf-2c58-b0a752e01687"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I say this without risk of being disproved: I am not the richest man in Asia, India or this cloistered street in Kerala’s capital. My claim covers the present, the past and the future. No one was in doubt that I ever belonged to the wealth club of Ambani or Adani. No one ever thought it worth his while to tip off Fortune hunters about my pecuniary position. It turns out that I am way away from Gautam Singhania whose net worth is $1.4 b billion, and even Bharat Jain, world’s richest beggar, with his $1 million. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though not locked in a rich race with Gautam Adani, I was mortified when his richness rank fell to fourth globally. Like a Basheer character, I could never count correctly, one plus one making never two, but only a big one. That being so, it made no sense to me when I read that GautamAdani lost Rs4 trillion in the last six months. How much is a trillion? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me go off on a tangent. Siddhartha, Gautama, the Buddha, had no use for worldly wealth. Like the saviour, who followed him carrying his own cross, Gautama had a biblical inkling of a rich man’s ordeal while clambering on to the kingdom of heaven, an ordeal harder than a camel’s to pass through the eye of a needle. But it is good to be known as Gautam, Adani or Singhania, partaking of the glory of the prophet of the golden mean, though not his penury. Go go for the best of both the worlds! </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both Gautams are younger than me by ten years. If I produced nothing more than a trough of verbal flatulence in a prolonged lifetime, they, as inheritors of an unremarkable legacy, became owners of remarkable assets. Singhania’s possessions had soared a few decades earlier than Adani or Ambani. One suspects, going by wealth reports, that there is a literal oneupmanship raging between Ambani and Singhania. The house of the latter is a mere 37 floors, estimated at Rs6000. The trillion dollar question is who is taller, Ambani or Singhania. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What a fool I am, one of my own making! I was in Ottawa, meeting a Canadian tycoon who had some business going on in India. He regaled me with stories of his pursuits, his house in Greater Kailash, his dealings with a Singhania whom he introduced as “publisher of your esteemed journal.” The complete fool that I am, I had no clue what or who she was. Did I feel uncomfortable, not being in the league of the affluent society? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I felt like that lower primary school teacher, who taught his students to calculate the profit from a deal of a cart and an ox, bought for Rs5000 and sold for Rs5800. He lost his game of numbers when he found that he didn’t have money to buy the week’s ration rice. It was fun comparing me with him: he taught arithmetic in which he failed, I ran a financial journal with no interest in profit and loss.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Singhania is CMD of Raymond Group, world’s largest manufacturer of suiting fabric. What Gautam did to it was to give away its non-crore engagements like cement and synthetics and concentrate on textiles and garments. Singhania-watchers credit him with an overwhelming aeronautical passion. He likes speed on the road, speed in the sky, speed on the sea. His personal jet has a price tag of Rs150 crore. One of his many speedboats is named after James Bond. His motorcade consists of super expensive cars like Lamborghini and Ferrari, not to mention Tesla. Ownership of the last named Elon Musk product does not intimidate me. I know someone close who drives around his Tesla.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What it all adds up to.is a perennial question that haunts me. How was all that money made, what kind of cheer has it brought to its possessor? How much money does it take to keep a man happy? Professor Richard Layard of Cambridge has long been studying the nexus between wealth and happiness, in an effort to measure misery or, if you like, happiness in a broad spectrum subject called happinomics. Perhaps the most reliable guide in this area may be Bharat Jain of Mumbai. Arguably, Bharat has been ranked as the world’s wealthiest beggar.with a worth of Rs7.5 crores. Monthly earning from beggary is Rs 70000.excluding the rent of a shop he has let out. His two-bedroom apartment in an expensive Mumbai complex is commodious for his family. All that sounds good music but Bharat Jain punctiliously goes round lucrative localities begging for his day’s remuneration. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But make no mistake about it, the world’s richest beggar may not be happier or more miserable than Gautam Adani or Gautam Singhania. Beyond a point, Adani and Jain may insist, money starts yielding diminishing returns in terms of happiness. Multiplying iconsumption and possession of idle money may be no answer to the great old question: who is happy with what?. Quite possibly, the feeling of being rich is its own return. For instance, Pope Alexander VI, rated as one of the world’s richest men in the last millennium, enjoyed making money whichever way he could, one way being forcing his nine illegitimate daughters into lucrative trade. The great shepherd knew what it took for him to buy papacy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some people like to make money. Some like to spend it. One of these days our specialists in neuroeconomics will come up with a theory on the causes and concomitants of the wealth of nations as Adam Smith called it. No one may ever dispute the universally valid theory that it is good to have money. To be rich is to be wise, to be learned…Yasya asti vittam, sa: nara: kuleena: sa: eva pandita:.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-20507470831731633672023-07-16T15:54:00.001+05:302023-07-16T15:54:58.896+05:30<p> </p><h1 class="right_title" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: purple; font-size: 24pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.8px; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;">Man and his Maladies</h1><h1 class="right_title" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: purple; font-size: 24pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 500; letter-spacing: 0.8px; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5rem; margin-top: 0px;"></h1><div class="row" style="--bs-gutter-x: 1.5rem; --bs-gutter-y: 0; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-left: -15px; margin-right: -15px; margin-top: calc(-1 * var(--bs-gutter-y));"><div class="col-md-8" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 66.6667%; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 66.6667%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 359.985px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.25; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">by</em> <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a class="times-font f-14" href="https://www.boloji.com/writers/7424/k-govindan" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #007bff; font-family: "Times New Roman" !important; font-size: 14pt !important; text-decoration-line: none;">K Govindan Kutty</a></em></p></div><div class="col-md-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 33.3333%; margin-top: var(--bs-gutter-y); max-width: 33.3333%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 179.993px;"><div class="d-md-flex justify-content-end" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex !important; justify-content: flex-end !important;"><div class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons st-center st-inline-share-buttons st-animated" id="st-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; direction: ltr; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; opacity: 1; text-align: center; transition: o 0.2s ease-in 0s, p 0.2s ease-in 0s, a 0.2s ease-in 0s, c 0.2s ease-in 0s, i 0.2s ease-in 0s, t 0.2s ease-in 0s, y 0.2s ease-in 0s; z-index: 94034;"><div class="st-btn st-first st-remove-label" data-network="facebook" style="border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: 11px; height: 32px; line-height: 32px; margin-right: 0px; padding: 0px 10px; position: relative; 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top: 0px; transition: opacity 0.2s ease-in 0s, top 0.2s ease-in 0s; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"><img alt="sharethis-white sharing button" src="https://platform-cdn.sharethis.com/img/sharethis-white.svg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: 16px; position: relative; top: 8px; vertical-align: top; width: 16px;" /></div></div></div></div></div><div class="img11 NewTimesNewRoman14 " style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.25; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">That does not leave women out. So let us make it “Maladies of Mankind,” nay, humankind. One that has persistently daunted us, persistently held as obscure across oceans and continents, is not what Siddhartha Mukherjee calls the “Emperor of Maladies.” It is syphilis, a disease with a hoary history, discussed in comparative secrecy and shame, patients and doctors avoiding its mention by name, settling for an innocuous communication moniker, STD, which stands for sexually transmitted disease.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Syphilis was all but taken for gone a few years ago, with antibiotics providing a sure cure and healthcare facilities becoming readily available. As a boy, I had no clue why people talked about it in a hushed tone. It took a while to learn that syphilis and gonorrhea were associated with sins of sex. Quacks and vendors of holistic medicine were having a field day as far as it went but soon the veil of secrecy was dropped. When we celebrate the conquest of syphilis, we are faced with reports of an alarming recrudescence of this shameful sickness.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.25; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" height="373" src="https://www.boloji.com//member-files/1ty59034/a53847-611317024.jpg" style="border-style: none; box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: middle;" width="650" /></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 1.25; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;">World data for syphilis is 7 million cases. The number is the largest ever in 70 years in America. Between the last two years, there is an increase of 32 per cent. In England, since 1948, there has never been such widespread incidence as now. Corresponding figures for other countries are equally distressing. What is even more daunting is that, for one thing, syphilis can cause stillbirths or deformities and, for another, scientists have no explanation yet for this sudden spurt.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />In the past century, we have had satisfying experiments with public healthcare. Smallpox was a dreaded condition in my childhood. I remember the dreadful scene in our neighbourhood when Kunchukutty Amma was brought back home from her workplace one accursed evening. She ambled along the narrow path between thorny fences, a swollen figure helped up by two men, somewhat of daredevils who had little regard for their safety. They had to keep vigil for two days till her delirious end, casting an ominous pall of terror in the village. When the awaited death came, they were appropriately inebriated, rolling the body in a mat and disposing it off in an unmarked grave on the other side of the hill. There were gory stories galore of half dead people buried alive. Soon smallpox was eradicated.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Not equally dreaded were other maladies, though pretty painful. Scabies, whooping cough, diarrhea, fever--they were all dealt with using home medicines or no medicines. Nine out of ten kids had protracted spells of scabies, which required unkind scrubbing and washing in late afternoons. Local physicians prescribed an assortment of oils and potions which had what effect no one knew. With potable water being increasingly available, and toilets dug up with government help across the country, disease control became easy.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Our village doctors were Kochukuttan, Balan and Varunni, the last being a Christian vaidya. For some reason, I could not conjure up the vision of a vaidya as a Christian. It took a long while to come to terms with the sociology of medicine. Gangadharan was our resident homoeo expert, who had his education by post from some Kolkata racket. He had built an exclusive clinic with his name and qualification duly inscribed. Whenever in doubt, which was not unoften, he would consult a text that was hard for him to read. Those were the days when influenza, which became later a less intimidating flu, spread across the subcontinent.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Gangadharan never asked for a consultation fee. Anything was good enough for him just as was nothing. Ungrudgingly he would accept a 25 paise coin. That was perhaps the village ethics. Fees became a rigorous ingredient of medical practice in course of time. In a northern town, Calicut, there was an associate professor of medicine, Abdul Ghafoor, who put up a notice at his doorstep that he took Rs25 for a consultation. That was for the benefit of patients who had plans to give more. At one stage, Calicut had within a radius of two kilometres a hundred drug stores. That became an adopted town of poet M N Paloor who bemoaned that “in this twentieth century, he made anacin his staple food.”<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Time was less complicated when anacin or aspro was not prescribed as a panacea for all ills. Every condition became a state of sickness that needed a doctor’s intervention. Arthur Hailey’s protagonist in Strong Medicine, Andrew Jordan, was wont to advise his daughter not to treat and pretend to cure any self-limiting disease. That was not a fashionable counsel in a medico-social system which that perceptive theologian, Ivan Illich, characterized as “hospitalization of society.” In an extremist vein, Illich debunked doctors as causes of diseases themselves, as agents of iatrogenesis.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Such bouts of extremism were perhaps an antidote to the deterioration of medicine as trade but, like all prophets of extremism, Illich was lapsing into hyperbole to stress his argument. If society tended to be hospitalized, it also helped reduce pain and put death off by a few days, months, years. Life expectancy was, in my boyhood, 50 years plus. Without such “hospitalization,” life span could not have been increased by twenty years or more. More babies would have died, more, perhaps, than death in an advanced age. Just as the pharmaceutical industry introduced new drugs to suit anticipated diseases, medical education became big business.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Before Kerala’s discredited Ashoka University was exposed in the early eighties when it sold fake or forged certificates as a matter of rule, admission to medical colleges was on the basis of the marks obtained in the qualifying examination. Then began the mushrooming of medical teaching shops. An architect friend based in Chennai was offered for his wife a medical package consisting of post-graduation and a super speciality degree--all for a pittance of one crore rupees. That was two decades ago. And that was a thousand times more than Balan Vaidyan or Doctor Gangadharan would have treated as a reasonable remuneration for advice.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />New drugs and new devices need new diseases to be identified. In good old days, death followed a brief illness at home. Hospitalization was not mandatory or prolonged. Hospitalization in itself was a prelude to death. When a seriously sick person was to be taken to hospital, there was manchal, a bed hung on a sturdy bamboo pole, two hefty men carrying it, sending a throaty signal to those on the way. It was an eerie sound they made, much like the sound of death. Ambulance vans, their lights flickering and their sounds hooting, replaced the traditional contraptions in good time.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Midwives were local women, traditionally trained. Conception and delivery are so common that they seemed to need any external assistance. After all, old guards would say, animals went through the exercise with no one else to help. As for humans, who need the sophistication of labour rooms and a battery of attendants, are now waking up to the need for death aides, death doula, as they are called. Death may or may not be the end of existence. Yet it is an important aspect of life which requires the services of a doula, a palliative professional, to assist in the process of dying. Alua Arthur, a death doula, whose mission is to reduce terminal pain, says one way to make life less uneasy is to think of death positively. They have a word for that as well: Thanatology, science of death. Not to be mistaken for revivalism, our forebears had long thought about it: Effortless death, life without misery. <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Anayasena maranam, vina dainyena jeevanam.</em> That was Acharya Drona’s last prayer.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Since the days of scabies and whooping cough to the worsening syphilis scene, we have had a succession of sickening sicknesses. Conditions of head and heart naturally figure in them foremost. Diseases or conditions not familiar to humans so far are coming up with a clamour for new magical cures. Comatose condition is perhaps growing in depth and spread. That involves a fractured memory which was not long or dreaded twenty years ago, though Krishna Vasudeva had talked about the memory in disrepair leading to the total collapse of the neural system.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />So let us wait for new diseases to be cured by new drugs. There was a situation when the growth process involved a progression from childhood to youth to old age--and death. There is a new situation projected by Alvin Toffler in his presentation of the early arrival of the future. He called it progeria, old age in youth. Maybe we will have a medicine for that condition too. Don’t we already have medicine for contrary conditions, a medicine for sleeplessness, another medicine for sleepiness? How true was Illich’s extremist formula, hospitalization of society!<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> </p></div>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-49456933585967862892023-07-06T09:29:00.001+05:302023-07-06T09:29:25.673+05:30<p> ജൂലൈ നാല് </p><p><br /></p><p>ചുരുളന് മുടിയും കറുത്ത നിറവും ഉരുണ്ട മാംസപേശികളുമുള്ള താങ്കായി, കാല് മുട്ടുവരെത്തുന്ന തോര്ത്തുടുത്ത്, മുറ്റത്ത് വിചാരണ കാത്തു നിന്നു. കണ്ടു രസിക്കാന് ഒരു കൊച്ചു നാട്ടുകൂട്ടമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. </p><p><br /></p><p>"കുണ്ടനിടവഴിയുടെ ഓരത്തുവെച്ച് നീ മീനാക്ഷിയമ്മയോട് കിന്നാരം പറയാന് ചെന്നോ..." മുടി കെട്ടിയ കുഞ്ഞിക്കുട്ടന് നായരുടെ ചോദ്യം മറുപടി തേടി ആയിരുന്നില്ല. ചോദ്യം തീരും മുമ്പ്, എല്ലാം പൊറുക്കുന്ന ഭൂമിയില് കണ്ണു നട്ട് നില്ക്കുന്ന പ്രതിയുടെ മേല് നായരുടെ പുളിവാര് ആഞ്ഞു വീണു.... ഒന്ന്, രണ്ട്, മൂന്ന്. </p><p><br /></p><p>വിധിയും ശിക്ഷയും കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പോള് ചിലര് താങ്കായിയുടെ കുറുമ്പിനെപ്പറ്റിയും ചിലര് അടി അയാള്ക്ക് ഏശാത്തതിനെപ്പറ്റിയും നായരുടെ ഊക്കിനെപ്പറ്റിയും പിറുപിറുത്തുകൊണ്ട് പിരിഞ്ഞുപോയി. "എന്തെടാ" എന്നൊരു അര്ഥമില്ലാത്ത സംബോധന എറിഞ്ഞുകൊണ്ട് നായരും ആരുടേയോ വഴിക്കു പോയി. </p><p><br /></p><p>ഒടുവില് കാലിലെ വടു തലോടിക്കൊണ്ട് സ്ഥലം വിടുമ്പോള് താങ്കായി ഒച്ചയില്ലതെ ചോദിച്ചു കാണുമോ, "ആഗസ്റ്റ് പതിനഞ്ചിന്റെ അര്ഥം എനിക്കെന്ത്?" ജൂലൈ നാലിനെപ്പറ്റി അതു പോലൊരു ചോദ്യം ചോദിച്ചിരുന്നു പത്തൊമ്പതാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടില് അമേരിക്കന് അടിമകളുടെ മോചനത്തിനു വേണ്ടി പട പൊരുതിയ ഫ്റെഡറിക് ഡഗ്ലസ്. ജോര്ജ് വാഷി ടണും തോമസ് ജെഫേര്സണും മറ്റും നയിച്ചു നേടിയ അമേരിക്കന് സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിന്റെ ആണ്ടുല്സവമാണ് ജൂലൈ. </p><p><br /></p><p>പ്രസിഡന്റ് അബ്രഹാം ലിങ്കണ് കറുത്ത വര്ഗക്കാര്ക്കു വേണ്ടി ചെയ്ത കാര്യങ്ങള് കണ്ടില്ലെന്നു നടിക്കുന്നില്ലെങ്കിലും നാടിന്റെ നന്മക്കും അഖണ്ഡതക്കും വേണ്ടിയുള്ള പോരാട്ടത്തില് പങ്കു ചേരുന്ന കറുത്ത പൌരന്മാര്ക്ക് വോട്ടവകാശം നല്കാന് ലിങ്കള് മടിക്കുന്നു എന്നായിരുന്നു ഫ്രെഡറിക്കിന്റെ പരാതി. സമരതന്ത്രത്തില് ഗാന്ധിയുടെ പൂര്വസൂരിയായിരുന്നു രണ്ട് ഉടമകളുടെ അടിമയായ ഡഗ്ലസ്. ദക്ഷിണാഫ്രിക്കയില് തീവണ്ടി കയറാന് പോയപ്പോള് പൊലിസുകാരന് മുന് പല്ല് ചവിട്ടിക്കൊഴിച്ച അനുഭവം ഡഗ്ലസ്സിന് തന്റെ നാട്ടില് നേരിടേണ്ടിവന്നതിന്റെ സമാന്തരസംഭവമായിരുന്നു. എന്നിട്ടും സമാധാനം പുലര്ത്തിക്കൊണ്ടു മതി പോരാട്ടം എന്ന നിലപാടില് ഉറച്ചുനിന്നു.</p><p><br /></p><p>മികച്ച എഴുത്തുകാരനും പ്രഭാഷകനുമായിരുന്ന അദ്ദേഹത്തോട് ആരോ ചോദിച്ചു, അടിമകളുടെ ഭാഗം ചേരാത്തവരുമായി എന്തിനു സംവദിക്കുന്നു, സഹകരിക്കുന്നു ആരോ ചോദിച്ചപ്പോള് നിര്വിശങ്കമായിരുന്നു അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ഉത്തരം: "നല്ല കാര്യത്തിന് ആരോടും ചേരാം; ചീത്ത കാര്യത്തിന് ആരോടും ചേരില്ല." "ഒരു അമേരിക്കന് അടിമയുടെ ജീവിതം" എന്നതുള്പ്പടെ അദ്ദേഹം മൂന്ന് ആത്മകഥകള് എഴുതി. അസാധാരണമായ നിമ്നോന്നതകളിലൂടെ കടന്നുപോയ ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ ജീവിതത്തില് നൈരാശ്യം മുഴുത്ത മുഹൂര്ത്തങ്ങളില് തനിക്കു സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം കിട്ടിയിട്ടെല്ലെന്ന് അദ്ദേഹം ആത്മഗതത്തില് പറഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. 1947 ആഗസ്റ്റ് പതിനഞ്ചിന് ഇന്ത്യക്ക് കിട്ടിയത് സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യമല്ല എന്നൊരു നിലപാട് നമ്മളില് ചിലരും കരുതിയിരുന്നല്ലോ. അവര് പിന്നെ ആഗസ്റ്റ് പതിനഞ്ചിന്റെ അര്ഥം ചോദ്യം ചെയ്യാതായി. </p><p><br /></p><p>പ്രകോപനം സൃഷ്ടിക്കുന്ന സന്ദര്ഭങ്ങള് കൂടെക്കൂടെ ഉണ്ടായെങ്കിലും ഡഗ്ലസ് അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റേതായ ശാന്തിമന്ത്രം ജപിക്കാനും സമാധാനത്തിന്റെ പാത വഴി മുന്നേറാനും മനസ്സിരുത്തി. മാര്ടിന് ലൂഥര് കിംഗും ഗാന്ധിയും അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ മാനസസന്തതികളായി കരുതാം. അവരുടേതില്നിന്ന് എത്രയോ യാതനാപൂര്ണമായിരുന്നു ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ ആദ്യപാദം എന്നോര്ക്കുക. അടിമയായ അമ്മക്കു പിറന്ന ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ പിതാവു തന്നെയായിരുന്നു ആദ്യത്തെ യജമാനന്. പിന്നെ ആര്ക്കോ വിറ്റു. പുതുതായി വന്ന ഡഗ്ലസ് എന്ന അടിമയുടെ ഉടമസ്ഥന്റെ സഹോദരി കരുണയുള്ളവരായിരുന്നു. തന്റെ വളര്ച്ചയില് അവര്ക്ക് വലിയ പങ്കുണ്ടെന്ന് അദ്ദേഹം ഉള്ളുരുകി എഴുതി വെച്ചു. ആ വളര്ച്ച വൈസ് പ്രസിഡന്റ് സ്ഥാനത്തേക്ക് മത്സരിക്കാനുള്ള അവസര, വരെയെത്തി. അത്തരമൊരു മത്സരത്തില് അതു വരെ ഒരു കറുത്ത വര്ഗ്ഗക്കാരന് എത്തിയിരുന്നില്ല. ഓബാമയുടേത് സമീപചരിത്രം.</p><p><br /></p><p>അമേരിക്കന് അടിമത്തത്തിന്റെ ഗര്ഹണീയത കീഴളരോടുള്ള ഇന്ത്യന് വ്യവഹാരം എളുപ്പത്തില് പറഞ്ഞൊപ്പിക്കാന് പറ്റില്ല. നമുക്കുന് ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു അടിമച്ചന്ത. വയനാട്ടിലെ കാടിനിടയില് വള്ളിക്കാവില് അടിമകളെ വിലക്ക് കൈമാറുന്ന പതിവ് കെ പാനൂര് കേരളത്തിലെ ആഫ്രിക്ക എന്ന പുസ്തകത്തില് രേഖപ്പെടുത്തിയിരുന്നു. ഏറെ കാലത്തിനുശേഷം കണ്ടുമുട്ടിയപ്പോള് പാനൂര് പറഞ്ഞു, "ഇപ്പോള് അത് കേരളത്തിലെ അമേരിക്കയാണ്. ആദിവാസികളെല്ലാം നഗരപ്രഭുക്കളായെന്നല്ല, അടിമകളുടെ ഉടമകള് കേമന്മാരായെന്നേയുള്ളു." </p><p><br /></p><p>അടിമവേല നടക്കുന്നുവെന്ന വിവരം ഔദ്യോഗികമായി സ്ഥിരപ്പെടുത്തിയത് എല്ലാവരും സ്വഭാവേന തള്ളിപ്പറയുന്ന അടിയന്തരാവസ്ഥക്കാലത്താണ്. അടിമകളെ മോചിപ്പിക്കലായിരുന്നു അന്നത്തെ ഇരുപതിന പരിപാടിയിലെ ഒരിനം. അന്യാധീനപ്പെട്ട അവരുടെ ഭൂമി തിരിച്ചുകൊടുപ്പിക്കാന് നടപടി പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കപ്പെട്ടു. എന്നോടൊരു മുതിര്ന്ന നേതാവ് ചോദിച്ചു, "ഇതൊക്കെ എവിടെ നടപ്പാവാന് പോകുന്നു.?" ആഗസ്റ്റ് പതിനഞ്ചിന്റെ മിച്ചം അവര്ക്കും കിട്ടാറാക്കണമെന്ന അഭിലാഷമാണ് ജൂലൈ നാല് അമേരിക്കന് അടിമക്ക് എന്ത് അര്ഥം സംവേദിക്കുന്നു എന്ന ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ ചോദ്യത്തിലും ത്രസിക്കുന്ന അനുഭവം. </p><p><br /></p><p>താങ്കായി ആരുടെയും അടിമയായിരുന്നില്ല. അടിമയല്ലെങ്കിലും ഓരോ തറവാട്ടുകാരോട് തലമുറകളായി ചേര്ന്നു നില്ക്കുന്ന വേലക്കാരെ ആ തറവാടിന്റെ വിലാസത്തില് തിരിച്ചറിയുന്ന സമ്പ്രദായമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. റിച്മണ്ടിലെ ഒരു ബ്ലക് മ്യൂസിയത്തില് പ്രദര്ശന സഹായിയായ ഒരു ഒരു ചെറുപ്പക്കാരിയോട് ചോദിച്ചു, അവരുടെ പേരും അവിടത്തെ പ്രധാന പ്രദര്ശനശാലയുടെ പേരും ഒന്നായതിനെപ്പറ്റി. കുടുംബങ്ങളായി അവര് അവരുടെ യജമാനന്മാരുടെ വിലാസത്തിലേ അറിയപ്പെടൂ. ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ മാറി മാറി വന്ന പേരുകളില് ആ പാരമ്പര്യം ഒളിഞ്ഞിരിക്കുന്നു.</p><p><br /></p><p>അടിമകളല്ലാത്ത ദലിതരോടുള്ള പെരുമാറ്റം ഇന്നും സമത്വത്തില് ഊന്നിയുള്ളതല്ല. അടൂര് ഗോപാലകൃഷ്ണന്റെ വിധേയന് പെട്ടെന്ന് ഓര്മ്മ വരുന്നു. കര്ണാടകത്തിന്റെ പല ഭാഗത്തുനിന്നും അങ്ങനെയൊരു മേല്-കീഴ് ബന്ധം ഉറച്ചുവരാത്തതില് കേരളമെന്ന പുണ്യഭൂമിക്ക് ചരിതാര്ഥമാകാം. സര്വാണി സദ്യക്ക് ഊണു കഴിക്കാന് പോയി ആട്ടുകേട്ടു മടങ്ങിയവരുടെ കഥയോര്ത്തുകൊണ്ടായിരുന്നു സിദ്ധലിംഗയ്യയുമായി എന്റെ ആദ്യസമാഗമം. ആ സംഭവം അസാധരണമായി തോന്നിയില്ല അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്. </p><p><br /></p><p>ദലിതരെ ചൂഷണം ചെയ്യുന്നതിനെ അപലപിക്കുന്ന സിദ്ധലിംഗയ്യയുടെ കവിതകള് പ്രശസ്തമായിരുന്നു. ഒരു ലോകത്തിന്റെയും ഒരു ജീവിതത്തിന്റെയും പക ഉള്ളിലൊതുക്കിയായിരുന്നു അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ഉദീരണം. താന് എങ്ങനെ എത്ര തവണ സദ്യശാലയില്നിന്ന് ആട്ടിയോടിക്കപ്പെട്ടിരിക്കുന്നു എന്നത്രേ അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ പ്രതികരണം. മനുഷ്യരെ കാളകള്ക്കു പകരം നുകത്തില് കെട്ടി നിലം ഉഴുന്ന കീഴ് വഴ്ജക്കമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. ആകാശം പിളര്ക്കുന്ന വിധം കാവ്യാക്രോശം നടത്തിയിരുന്ന സിദ്ധലിംഗയ്യ പക്ഷേ മാറിപ്പോയിരുന്നു. ഡഗ്ലസിന്റെ ചിന്താപദ്ധതിക്ക് ഒരു സാംക്രമികസ്വഭാവമുണ്ടെന്നു തോന്നുന്നു.</p><p><br /></p><p>ജൂലൈ നാലിന്റെ പ്രസക്തിയും പ്രാധാന്യവും ചോദ്യം ചെയ്യുന്ന തായിരുന്നു അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ഒര് പ്രശസ്തപ്രഭാഷണം. അങ്ങനെയൊരു ഉദീരണം താങ്കായിയെപ്പോലുള്ളവരുടെ ഭാഗത്തുനിന്ന്, ആഗസ്റ്റ് പതിനഞ്ചിന്റെ വ്യാപ്തിയും അര്ഥവും അംഗികരിക്കാതെ, ഉയര്ന്നില്ലെന്നത് നമ്മുടെ അനുഭവതീവ്രത കുറഞ്ഞതുകൊണ്ടാകാം. ഡഗ്ലസ് പറഞ്ഞു: മിക്ക കാര്യങ്ങളിലും മറ്റുള്ളവരുടെ താല്പര്യമനുസരിച്ച് എന്നോടുള്ള പെരുമാറ്റം നിശ്ചയിക്കുമ്പോള് എനിക്ക് ലിബര്ടി ഇല്ലാതാവുന്നു. അത്രയൊക്കെ വേദനിച്ചിട്ടും ഒരു ദിവസം അദ്ദേഹത്തെ പണം കൊടുത്തു വാങ്ങിയ തോമസ് ഔള്ഡ് എന്ന രണ്ടാം യജ്ജമാനനെ കാണാന് പോയി. പഴയ യജമാനന് ഖിന്നനായിരുന്നു. കന്മഷമില്ലാതെ, പഴയ ഉടമ വിട പറയും മുമ്പ്, ഡഗ്ലസ്സ് അദ്ദേഹത്തെ കണ്ടു പോന്നു. അതായിരുന്നു ഫ്രഡറിക് ഡഗ്ലസ്.</p>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-23938772867896335332023-07-03T17:07:00.002+05:302023-07-04T07:37:53.534+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആനന്ദലബ്ധിക്കിനിയെന്തുവേണം? </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-b66dcf31-7fff-894e-ec8a-2d4887e4d74e"><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഇനി പലതും വേണം. എഴുത്തഛന് എഴുതിയ രാമകഥ ഇമ്പമായി പാടുന്നതു കേട്ടാല് ആനന്ദം തന്നെ. പക്ഷേ അതുകൊണ്ടായില്ല. പണം, പദവി, പെരുമ--അങ്ങനെ പലതുമുണ്ടായാലേ ആനന്ദലബ്ധി സാധ്യമാവൂ. ദുരിതം തീര്ക്കാന് ചിലര് ചീട്ടു കളിക്കുന്നു, ചിലര് കള്ളു കുടിക്കുന്നു, ചിലര് നാമം ജപിക്കുന്നു, വേറെ ചിലരാകട്ടെ, വൈലോപ്പിള്ളിയെപ്പോലെ, കവിത കൊരുത്തു കഴിയുന്നു. ലോകം ഭിന്നരുചിയാണെന്നല്ലേ പണ്ഡിതമതം. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആരെ എന്ത് എങ്ങനെ സുഖിപ്പിക്കുമെന്ന അന്വേഷണം ഇന്നോ ഇന്നലെയോ തുടങ്ങിയതല്ല. പുതിയ അന്വേഷണ രീതികളും ദിശകളും ഇപ്പോഴും ഉണ്ടായിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. അന്വേഷണത്തിന്റെ മാര്ഗ്ഗവും ലക്ഷ്യവും ഉള്ളടക്കവും തിട്ടപ്പെടുത്താന് ഹാര്വാര്ഡ് സര്വകലാശാലയില് മുപ്പതുകള് മുതല് നടക്കുന്ന പഠനം കാല് നൂറ്റാണ്ടു കൂടി നീളും. ആയിരം പേരെവെച്ച് തുടങ്ങിയ പഠനത്തില് അവരുടെ പിന് തലമുറയിലേക്കും വ്യാപിപ്പിക്കും. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതിനിടെ അതിന്റെ മേധാവി നാലു തവണ മാറിക്കഴിഞ്ഞു. ഒരു നൂറ്റാണ്ടത്തെ പഠനം ഒരാളെക്കൊണ്ട് നടത്തിക്കൊണ്ടുപോവാന് പറ്റില്ലല്ലോ. നാലാമത്തെ മേധാവിയായ റോബര്ട് വാല്ഡിംഗര് ഇതുവരെയുള്ള അറിവു വെച്ചു പറയുന്നു, ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആളുകളെ ഏറ്റവുമധികം സന്തോഷിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് നല്ല അയല് പക്കമത്രേ. വീട്ടിലും നാട്ടിലും നല്ല ചങ്ങാത്തമുള്ളവര് കൂടുതല് സന്തോഷിക്കുന്നു, കൂടുതല് ആരോഗ്യത്തോടെ കഴിയുന്നു. നമുക്ക് എന്നേ നാട്ടറിവായി കിട്ടിയ വിവരം ശാസ്ത്രീയമായി സ്ഥാപിക്കപ്പെടുന്നുവെന്നര്ഥം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതുകൊണ്ടായാലും വേറെ ഏതു രീതിയില് നോക്കിയാലും ലോകത്തില് ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആളുകള് പാര്ക്കുന്ന രാജ്യമാണ് ലോകത്തില് ഏറ്റവും ദുരിതമയം എന്നു സിദ്ധാന്തിക്കുന്ന സര്വേ നമുക്ക് രസിക്കുന്നതല്ല. നൂറ്റിനാല്പത് രാജ്യങ്ങളെ പഠനവിധേയമാക്കിയപ്പോള് സന്തോഷം ഏറ്റവും കുറഞ്ഞ പത്തു രാജ്യങ്ങളില് ഇന്ത്യയും പെട്ടു. നൂറ്റിമുപ്പതാം സ്ഥാനം നേടിയ ഇന്ത്യയെക്കാള് ദു:ഖിതമാണ് അഫ്ഘാനിസ്റ്റാന് എന്നു സമധാനിക്കാം. സമാധാനം വേണ്ടെങ്കില് ചൈനയും പാക്കിസ്റ്റാനും ബാംഗ്ലാ ദേശും നമ്മെക്കാള് ഏറെ മീതെയാണെന്നു കാണാം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">റിച്ചര്ഡ് ലയാര്ഡ് എന്ന ബ്രിട്ടിഷ് സാമൂഹ്യ-ധനശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞന്റെ നേതൃത്വത്തില് ആറു കൊല്ലമായി നടന്നു വരുന്ന പഠനത്തില് തെളിഞ്ഞു വരുന്നതാണ് ഈ ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചിക(World Happiness Report). ധനവും സന്തോഷവും തമ്മിലുള്ള ബന്ധം കാലാകാലമായി നിരീക്ഷിച്ചു വരുന്ന പണ്ഡിതനാണ് പ്രൊഫസര് റിചര്ഡ്. പണം വേണം. എത്ര വേണം? എത്ര കിട്ടിയാല്, അതിന്റെ പലം കുറഞ്ഞു തുടങ്ങും. ധനശാസ്ത്രത്തിലെ പ്രാഥമികമായ തിയറി(Diminishing Utility) സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ കാര്യത്തിലും പ്രസക്തമാകുന്നു. പത്തു കിട്ടുകില് നൂറു മതിയെന്നും മറ്റും പാടി നടക്കുന്നവര്ക്ക് പഥ്യമാകും പണം കൊണ്ടു മാത്രം വിപണിയില് വാങ്ങാന് കിട്ടുന്നതല്ല പ്രൊഫസര് റിച്ചര്ഡിന്റെ അനുമാനം. ആ വിഷയത്തിന് അദ്ദേഹം Happinomics എന്നു പേരിട്ടു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആഗ്രഹവും വിഭവവും സന്തോഷവും ത്രിമുഖമായ ഒരു ചിന്തകന് ഇന്ത്യയിലുമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. അലാഹാബാദ് സര്വകലാശാലയിലെ ജെ കെ മേഹ്തയുടെ നിലപാട് ആഡം സ്മിത്തിന്റെ പ്രാഥമിക ധനശാസ്സ്ത്രതത്വത്തെ പരിഷ്ക്കരിക്കുന്നതായിരുന്നു. ആഗ്രഹങ്ങള്ക്ക് പരിധിയില്ല, വിഭവങ്ങള് പരിമിതമാണ്, അവയെ പൊരുത്തപ്പെടുത്താന് ശ്രമിക്കുന്നതാണ് ധനശാസ്ത്രദൌത്യം എന്നായിരുന്നു സ്മിത്തിന്റെ സങ്കല്പം. ആഗ്രഹങ്ങളുടെ സന്തര്പ്പണം വഴി ആനന്ദം നേടാം എന്ന വിശ്വാസം തകിടം മറിച്കുകൊണ്ട് മേഹ്ത പറഞ്ഞു, അനാഗ്രഹമേ ആനന്ദം പകരൂ സമൃദ്ധി സമ്പത്തുകൊണ്ടുണ്ടാകുന്നതല്ല.എന്ന ചിന്തയെപ്പറ്റി കാര്യമായ തുടര്ചര്ച്ച ഉണ്ടായില്ല.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചികയില് ഒടുവിലത്തെ പത്തു രാജ്യങ്ങളില് ഇന്ത്യ എങ്ങനെ പെട്ടു പോയി എന്ന് ആലോചിക്കേണ്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു. സന്തോഷം തിട്ടപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന രീതിയും അതിന്റെ പരിഹാരവും ഇന്ത്യന് ജീവിതശൈലിയെയും സങ്കല്പത്തെയും പൂര്ണമായും ഉള്ക്കൊള്ളുന്നതല്ല എന്നൊരു വാദം ഉണ്ടാകാം. ഉദാഹരണമായി, ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആഹ്ളാദിക്കുന്ന കൊച്ചു നാടായ ഫിന്ലാന്ഡ് ഒരുക്കുന്ന ജീവിതസൌകര്യങ്ങള് നോക്കൂ. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അമ്പതു ലക്ഷത്തില് താഴെ ജനസംഖ്യയുള്ള ആ നാട്ടില് അതില് പകുതിയോളം സോന എന്നറിയപ്പെടുന്ന സ്വേദന സംവിധാനം ഉണ്ടത്രേ. രണ്ടു പേര്ക്ക് ഒന്ന് എന്ന വീതം. അപ്പോള് കുറെ സോന പണിതിട്ടാല് അതില് കയറിക്കൂടി വിയര്ക്കുന്നവര് സന്തോഷംകൊണ്ട് തുള്ളിച്ചാടുമെന്നാണെങ്കില്, ആ വഴിയേ പോകണമെന്നോ? പൊള്ളുന്ന ഭൂമധ്യരേഖാപ്രദേശത്തും സ്വേദനഗൃഹം തലങ്ങും വിലങ്ങും കെട്ടിപ്പൊക്കണമെന്നോ? രണ്ടായിരം കൊല്ലത്തെ പഞ്ചകര്മ്മപാരമ്പര്യം നമുക്ക് ഉണ്ടെങ്കിലും, കൃത്രിമമായി വിയര്പ്പിക്കുന്ന ചികിത്സയുടെ ഗുണം കുറച്ചു പേര്ക്കേ വിധിക്കുകയോ കൈവരുകയോ ചെയ്യാറുള്ളു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഫിന്ലാന്ഡ് എങ്ങനെ അത്ര സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന നാടായി എന്നു പഠിക്കാന് ലൂസി പിയേഴ്സണ് എന്ന ബ്രിടിഷ് എഴുത്തുകാരി ഹെല്സിങ്കിയില് പോയ കഥ വായിക്കുകയുണ്ടായി. സന്തോഷം എന്ന മാനസികാവസ്ഥയെ ദ്യോതിപ്പിക്കുന്ന അറുപത് വാക്കുകളുടെ ശേഖരം ഉണ്ടത്രേ ഇംഗ്ലിഷില്. അങ്ങനെ ക്രമീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയും വര്ഗീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയും ചെയ്യുന്ന സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ നിലവാരം നന്നേ മോശമല്ലെങ്കിലും നന്നെന്നു പറഞ്ഞുകൂടാ. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഫിന്ലാന്ഡിലെ ജീവിതശൈലിയും ഭാഷാഭാവവും സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ ആഴവും വ്യാപ്തിയും അടയാളപ്പെടുത്തുന്നതായി കാണുന്നു ആ യാത്രികയായ എഴുത്തുകാരി. സന്തോഷത്തെ രണ്ടു ഭാവത്തിലും അനുഭവത്തിലും അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന രസകരമായ വാക്കുകളുണ്ട് ഫിന്നിഷ് ഭാഷയില്. ഏതെങ്കിലുമൊരു ജീവിതവൃത്തികൊണ്ട്, പ്രവൃത്തിയോ നേട്ടമോ കൊണ്ട്, ഒരു വിനോദയാത്രകൊണ്ട് അനുഭവിക്കാവുന്ന സന്തോഷം. അത് അല്പനേരം അനുഭവപ്പെടുന്നു, പിന്നെ മറന്നു പോകുന്നു. രണ്ടാമത്തെ പദം സൂചിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് സ്ഥായിയായ ജീവിതദര്ശനം വഴി ഉണ്ടാകുന്ന ആനന്ദത്തെയാകുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആ പഴമൊഴിക്കു ചേരും പടി ക്രമീകരിച്ചതാണ് ആ രാജ്യത്തെ ജീവനം എന്നു വേണം വിചാരിക്കാന്. നിരാശാവാദിക്ക് ഒരിക്കലും ഭഗ്നാശവനാവില്ലെന്ന് ഒരു പണ്ഡിത വചനം. ഏറെ കുറഞ്ഞും ഏറെ കൂടിയുമല്ലാതെയുള്ള തലത്തില് നിലയുറപ്പിച്ചാല ആനന്ദിക്കാനാവൂ എന്ന പച്ച നേര് ആപ്തവാക്യമായി ഇറങ്ങുന്നു. ജഗത്പിതാക്കളെപ്പോലെ ചേര്ന്നിരിക്കുന്ന വാക്കും അര്ഥവും തട്ടിവിടുന്നതു കൊള്ളാം. എത്രയായാല് "ഏറെ കൂടും," എത്രയായാല് "ഏറെ കുറയും" എന്നു കണ്ടെത്തുന്നതാണ് വിഷമം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഏറ്റവുമധികം സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന ഫിന്ലാന്ഡിനെ മനസ്സിലാക്കാന് ശ്രമിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ, അതീവഖിന്നമായ ഇന്ത്യയിലും കണ്ണും കാതും--മനസ്സും--തുറന്ന് സവാരി ചെയ്താല് രസമായിരിക്കും. സംസ്ക്കാരത്തിന്റെ ആദിയുഗത്തില് തുടങ്ങിയതാണ് ഇവിടെയും ആനന്ദാന്വേഷണം. ആനന്ദദ്യോതകമായ എത്ര വാക്കുകള് നവീനവും പ്രാചീനവുമായ ഇന്ത്യന് ഭാഷകളിലുണ്ടെന്ന് കണക്കെടുക്കണം. ആ പാരമ്പര്യവും അവബോധവും പിന്നെപ്പിന്നെ ആനന്ദത്തിന്റെ നിറം കാവിയാണെന്നു വരുത്തിത്തീര്ത്തു.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">നമ്മുടെ ആനന്ദാന്വേഷണം പോയ വഴി നോക്കിയാല് നമ്മളെന്തുകൊണ്ട് ഏറ്റവും സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന നാടായില്ലെന്ന് അത്ഭുതപ്പെടും. രാഗവും ദ്വേഷവുമില്ലാതെ, ലോഭവും മോഹവുമില്ലാതെ, മാത്സര്യഭാവമില്ലാതെയുള്ള ചിദാനന്ദമാണ് ലക്ഷ്യം. രാഗവും ഭയവും ക്രോധവുമില്ലാതെയായാലാണ് സ്ഥിതപ്രജ്ഞനാകൂ എന്ന് വാസുദേവ കൃഷ്ണന്. അങ്ങനെ ആലോചിച്ചുപോകുമ്പോള് ഒന്നുമില്ലായ്മയല്ലേ ആനന്ദം എന്നും തോന്നാം. വിജയം, മാനം, ധനം, ശക്തി, ശുരക്ഷ എന്നിങ്ങനെ ആളുകള് കൊണ്ടാടുന്ന മൂല്യങ്ങളൊക്കെ നേടിയാലും ഇതൊക്കെ എന്തിന് എന്ന ചോദ്യത്തിനുത്തരം കാണാതെ നമ്മള് സംഭ്രമിക്കുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അത്രയൊന്നും കുഴഞ്ഞുമറിഞ്ഞ കാര്യമല്ല ആനന്ദം. അവനവന്റെ സുഖത്തിനു പറ്റുന്നത് വേറൊരാളുടെ സുഖത്തിനും കാരണമായാലേ ആനന്ദമുണ്ടാകൂ എന്നു ലളിതമായി പറഞ്ഞ ഗുരുവിലേക്കെത്തും സന്തോഷത്തിനു വേണ്ടിയുള്ള എല്ലാ നീക്കവും. അവനവനെ തൃപ്തിപ്പെടുത്താന് നോക്കണ്ട. ഒരിക്കലും തൃപ്തിപ്പെടാത്ത ഒരാളേ ഉള്ളു: അവനവന് തന്നെ. ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചിക ഗണിച്ചുണ്ടാക്കുമ്പോള് ഈ ഇന്ത്യന് ബൌദ്ധികയാഥാര്ഥ്യം കൂടി ഓര്ക്കാം.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-b66dcf31-7fff-894e-ec8a-2d4887e4d74e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആനന്ദലബ്ധിക്കിനിയെന്തുവേണം? </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഇനി പലതും വേണം. എഴുത്തഛന് എഴുതിയ രാമകഥ ഇമ്പമായി പാടുന്നതു കേട്ടാല് ആനന്ദം തന്നെ. പക്ഷേ അതുകൊണ്ടായില്ല. പണം, പദവി, പെരുമ--അങ്ങനെ പലതുമുണ്ടായാലേ ആനന്ദലബ്ധി സാധ്യമാവൂ. ദുരിതം തീര്ക്കാന് ചിലര് ചീട്ടു കളിക്കുന്നു, ചിലര് കള്ളു കുടിക്കുന്നു, ചിലര് നാമം ജപിക്കുന്നു, വേറെ ചിലരാകട്ടെ, വൈലോപ്പിള്ളിയെപ്പോലെ, കവിത കൊരുത്തു കഴിയുന്നു. ലോകം ഭിന്നരുചിയാണെന്നല്ലേ പണ്ഡിതമതം. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആരെ എന്ത് എങ്ങനെ സുഖിപ്പിക്കുമെന്ന അന്വേഷണം ഇന്നോ ഇന്നലെയോ തുടങ്ങിയതല്ല. പുതിയ അന്വേഷണ രീതികളും ദിശകളും ഇപ്പോഴും ഉണ്ടായിക്കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. അന്വേഷണത്തിന്റെ മാര്ഗ്ഗവും ലക്ഷ്യവും ഉള്ളടക്കവും തിട്ടപ്പെടുത്താന് ഹാര്വാര്ഡ് സര്വകലാശാലയില് മുപ്പതുകള് മുതല് നടക്കുന്ന പഠനം കാല് നൂറ്റാണ്ടു കൂടി നീളും. ആയിരം പേരെവെച്ച് തുടങ്ങിയ പഠനത്തില് അവരുടെ പിന് തലമുറയിലേക്കും വ്യാപിപ്പിക്കും. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതിനിടെ അതിന്റെ മേധാവി നാലു തവണ മാറിക്കഴിഞ്ഞു. ഒരു നൂറ്റാണ്ടത്തെ പഠനം ഒരാളെക്കൊണ്ട് നടത്തിക്കൊണ്ടുപോവാന് പറ്റില്ലല്ലോ. നാലാമത്തെ മേധാവിയായ റോബര്ട് വാല്ഡിംഗര് ഇതുവരെയുള്ള അറിവു വെച്ചു പറയുന്നു, ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആളുകളെ ഏറ്റവുമധികം സന്തോഷിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് നല്ല അയല് പക്കമത്രേ. വീട്ടിലും നാട്ടിലും നല്ല ചങ്ങാത്തമുള്ളവര് കൂടുതല് സന്തോഷിക്കുന്നു, കൂടുതല് ആരോഗ്യത്തോടെ കഴിയുന്നു. നമുക്ക് എന്നേ നാട്ടറിവായി കിട്ടിയ വിവരം ശാസ്ത്രീയമായി സ്ഥാപിക്കപ്പെടുന്നുവെന്നര്ഥം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അതുകൊണ്ടായാലും വേറെ ഏതു രീതിയില് നോക്കിയാലും ലോകത്തില് ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആളുകള് പാര്ക്കുന്ന രാജ്യമാണ് ലോകത്തില് ഏറ്റവും ദുരിതമയം എന്നു സിദ്ധാന്തിക്കുന്ന സര്വേ നമുക്ക് രസിക്കുന്നതല്ല. നൂറ്റിനാല്പത് രാജ്യങ്ങളെ പഠനവിധേയമാക്കിയപ്പോള് സന്തോഷം ഏറ്റവും കുറഞ്ഞ പത്തു രാജ്യങ്ങളില് ഇന്ത്യയും പെട്ടു. നൂറ്റിമുപ്പതാം സ്ഥാനം നേടിയ ഇന്ത്യയെക്കാള് ദു:ഖിതമാണ് അഫ്ഘാനിസ്റ്റാന് എന്നു സമധാനിക്കാം. സമാധാനം വേണ്ടെങ്കില് ചൈനയും പാക്കിസ്റ്റാനും ബാംഗ്ലാ ദേശും നമ്മെക്കാള് ഏറെ മീതെയാണെന്നു കാണാം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">റിച്ചര്ഡ് ലയാര്ഡ് എന്ന ബ്രിട്ടിഷ് സാമൂഹ്യ-ധനശാസ്ത്രജ്ഞന്റെ നേതൃത്വത്തില് ആറു കൊല്ലമായി നടന്നു വരുന്ന പഠനത്തില് തെളിഞ്ഞു വരുന്നതാണ് ഈ ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചിക(World Happiness Report). ധനവും സന്തോഷവും തമ്മിലുള്ള ബന്ധം കാലാകാലമായി നിരീക്ഷിച്ചു വരുന്ന പണ്ഡിതനാണ് പ്രൊഫസര് റിചര്ഡ്. പണം വേണം. എത്ര വേണം? എത്ര കിട്ടിയാല്, അതിന്റെ പലം കുറഞ്ഞു തുടങ്ങും. ധനശാസ്ത്രത്തിലെ പ്രാഥമികമായ തിയറി(Diminishing Utility) സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ കാര്യത്തിലും പ്രസക്തമാകുന്നു. പത്തു കിട്ടുകില് നൂറു മതിയെന്നും മറ്റും പാടി നടക്കുന്നവര്ക്ക് പഥ്യമാകും പണം കൊണ്ടു മാത്രം വിപണിയില് വാങ്ങാന് കിട്ടുന്നതല്ല പ്രൊഫസര് റിച്ചര്ഡിന്റെ അനുമാനം. ആ വിഷയത്തിന് അദ്ദേഹം Happinomics എന്നു പേരിട്ടു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആഗ്രഹവും വിഭവവും സന്തോഷവും ത്രിമുഖമായ ഒരു ചിന്തകന് ഇന്ത്യയിലുമുണ്ടായിരുന്നു. അലാഹാബാദ് സര്വകലാശാലയിലെ ജെ കെ മേഹ്തയുടെ നിലപാട് ആഡം സ്മിത്തിന്റെ പ്രാഥമിക ധനശാസ്സ്ത്രതത്വത്തെ പരിഷ്ക്കരിക്കുന്നതായിരുന്നു. ആഗ്രഹങ്ങള്ക്ക് പരിധിയില്ല, വിഭവങ്ങള് പരിമിതമാണ്, അവയെ പൊരുത്തപ്പെടുത്താന് ശ്രമിക്കുന്നതാണ് ധനശാസ്ത്രദൌത്യം എന്നായിരുന്നു സ്മിത്തിന്റെ സങ്കല്പം. ആഗ്രഹങ്ങളുടെ സന്തര്പ്പണം വഴി ആനന്ദം നേടാം എന്ന വിശ്വാസം തകിടം മറിച്കുകൊണ്ട് മേഹ്ത പറഞ്ഞു, അനാഗ്രഹമേ ആനന്ദം പകരൂ സമൃദ്ധി സമ്പത്തുകൊണ്ടുണ്ടാകുന്നതല്ല.എന്ന ചിന്തയെപ്പറ്റി കാര്യമായ തുടര്ചര്ച്ച ഉണ്ടായില്ല.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചികയില് ഒടുവിലത്തെ പത്തു രാജ്യങ്ങളില് ഇന്ത്യ എങ്ങനെ പെട്ടു പോയി എന്ന് ആലോചിക്കേണ്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു. സന്തോഷം തിട്ടപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന രീതിയും അതിന്റെ പരിഹാരവും ഇന്ത്യന് ജീവിതശൈലിയെയും സങ്കല്പത്തെയും പൂര്ണമായും ഉള്ക്കൊള്ളുന്നതല്ല എന്നൊരു വാദം ഉണ്ടാകാം. ഉദാഹരണമായി, ഏറ്റവുമധികം ആഹ്ളാദിക്കുന്ന കൊച്ചു നാടായ ഫിന്ലാന്ഡ് ഒരുക്കുന്ന ജീവിതസൌകര്യങ്ങള് നോക്കൂ. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അമ്പതു ലക്ഷത്തില് താഴെ ജനസംഖ്യയുള്ള ആ നാട്ടില് അതില് പകുതിയോളം സോന എന്നറിയപ്പെടുന്ന സ്വേദന സംവിധാനം ഉണ്ടത്രേ. രണ്ടു പേര്ക്ക് ഒന്ന് എന്ന വീതം. അപ്പോള് കുറെ സോന പണിതിട്ടാല് അതില് കയറിക്കൂടി വിയര്ക്കുന്നവര് സന്തോഷംകൊണ്ട് തുള്ളിച്ചാടുമെന്നാണെങ്കില്, ആ വഴിയേ പോകണമെന്നോ? പൊള്ളുന്ന ഭൂമധ്യരേഖാപ്രദേശത്തും സ്വേദനഗൃഹം തലങ്ങും വിലങ്ങും കെട്ടിപ്പൊക്കണമെന്നോ? രണ്ടായിരം കൊല്ലത്തെ പഞ്ചകര്മ്മപാരമ്പര്യം നമുക്ക് ഉണ്ടെങ്കിലും, കൃത്രിമമായി വിയര്പ്പിക്കുന്ന ചികിത്സയുടെ ഗുണം കുറച്ചു പേര്ക്കേ വിധിക്കുകയോ കൈവരുകയോ ചെയ്യാറുള്ളു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഫിന്ലാന്ഡ് എങ്ങനെ അത്ര സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന നാടായി എന്നു പഠിക്കാന് ലൂസി പിയേഴ്സണ് എന്ന ബ്രിടിഷ് എഴുത്തുകാരി ഹെല്സിങ്കിയില് പോയ കഥ വായിക്കുകയുണ്ടായി. സന്തോഷം എന്ന മാനസികാവസ്ഥയെ ദ്യോതിപ്പിക്കുന്ന അറുപത് വാക്കുകളുടെ ശേഖരം ഉണ്ടത്രേ ഇംഗ്ലിഷില്. അങ്ങനെ ക്രമീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയും വര്ഗീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയും ചെയ്യുന്ന സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ നിലവാരം നന്നേ മോശമല്ലെങ്കിലും നന്നെന്നു പറഞ്ഞുകൂടാ. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഫിന്ലാന്ഡിലെ ജീവിതശൈലിയും ഭാഷാഭാവവും സന്തോഷത്തിന്റെ ആഴവും വ്യാപ്തിയും അടയാളപ്പെടുത്തുന്നതായി കാണുന്നു ആ യാത്രികയായ എഴുത്തുകാരി. സന്തോഷത്തെ രണ്ടു ഭാവത്തിലും അനുഭവത്തിലും അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന രസകരമായ വാക്കുകളുണ്ട് ഫിന്നിഷ് ഭാഷയില്. ഏതെങ്കിലുമൊരു ജീവിതവൃത്തികൊണ്ട്, പ്രവൃത്തിയോ നേട്ടമോ കൊണ്ട്, ഒരു വിനോദയാത്രകൊണ്ട് അനുഭവിക്കാവുന്ന സന്തോഷം. അത് അല്പനേരം അനുഭവപ്പെടുന്നു, പിന്നെ മറന്നു പോകുന്നു. രണ്ടാമത്തെ പദം സൂചിപ്പിക്കുന്നത് സ്ഥായിയായ ജീവിതദര്ശനം വഴി ഉണ്ടാകുന്ന ആനന്ദത്തെയാകുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ആ പഴമൊഴിക്കു ചേരും പടി ക്രമീകരിച്ചതാണ് ആ രാജ്യത്തെ ജീവനം എന്നു വേണം വിചാരിക്കാന്. നിരാശാവാദിക്ക് ഒരിക്കലും ഭഗ്നാശവനാവില്ലെന്ന് ഒരു പണ്ഡിത വചനം. ഏറെ കുറഞ്ഞും ഏറെ കൂടിയുമല്ലാതെയുള്ള തലത്തില് നിലയുറപ്പിച്ചാല ആനന്ദിക്കാനാവൂ എന്ന പച്ച നേര് ആപ്തവാക്യമായി ഇറങ്ങുന്നു. ജഗത്പിതാക്കളെപ്പോലെ ചേര്ന്നിരിക്കുന്ന വാക്കും അര്ഥവും തട്ടിവിടുന്നതു കൊള്ളാം. എത്രയായാല് "ഏറെ കൂടും," എത്രയായാല് "ഏറെ കുറയും" എന്നു കണ്ടെത്തുന്നതാണ് വിഷമം.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ഏറ്റവുമധികം സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന ഫിന്ലാന്ഡിനെ മനസ്സിലാക്കാന് ശ്രമിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ, അതീവഖിന്നമായ ഇന്ത്യയിലും കണ്ണും കാതും--മനസ്സും--തുറന്ന് സവാരി ചെയ്താല് രസമായിരിക്കും. സംസ്ക്കാരത്തിന്റെ ആദിയുഗത്തില് തുടങ്ങിയതാണ് ഇവിടെയും ആനന്ദാന്വേഷണം. ആനന്ദദ്യോതകമായ എത്ര വാക്കുകള് നവീനവും പ്രാചീനവുമായ ഇന്ത്യന് ഭാഷകളിലുണ്ടെന്ന് കണക്കെടുക്കണം. ആ പാരമ്പര്യവും അവബോധവും പിന്നെപ്പിന്നെ ആനന്ദത്തിന്റെ നിറം കാവിയാണെന്നു വരുത്തിത്തീര്ത്തു.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">നമ്മുടെ ആനന്ദാന്വേഷണം പോയ വഴി നോക്കിയാല് നമ്മളെന്തുകൊണ്ട് ഏറ്റവും സന്തോഷിക്കുന്ന നാടായില്ലെന്ന് അത്ഭുതപ്പെടും. രാഗവും ദ്വേഷവുമില്ലാതെ, ലോഭവും മോഹവുമില്ലാതെ, മാത്സര്യഭാവമില്ലാതെയുള്ള ചിദാനന്ദമാണ് ലക്ഷ്യം. രാഗവും ഭയവും ക്രോധവുമില്ലാതെയായാലാണ് സ്ഥിതപ്രജ്ഞനാകൂ എന്ന് വാസുദേവ കൃഷ്ണന്. അങ്ങനെ ആലോചിച്ചുപോകുമ്പോള് ഒന്നുമില്ലായ്മയല്ലേ ആനന്ദം എന്നും തോന്നാം. വിജയം, മാനം, ധനം, ശക്തി, ശുരക്ഷ എന്നിങ്ങനെ ആളുകള് കൊണ്ടാടുന്ന മൂല്യങ്ങളൊക്കെ നേടിയാലും ഇതൊക്കെ എന്തിന് എന്ന ചോദ്യത്തിനുത്തരം കാണാതെ നമ്മള് സംഭ്രമിക്കുന്നു. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">അത്രയൊന്നും കുഴഞ്ഞുമറിഞ്ഞ കാര്യമല്ല ആനന്ദം. അവനവന്റെ സുഖത്തിനു പറ്റുന്നത് വേറൊരാളുടെ സുഖത്തിനും കാരണമായാലേ ആനന്ദമുണ്ടാകൂ എന്നു ലളിതമായി പറഞ്ഞ ഗുരുവിലേക്കെത്തും സന്തോഷത്തിനു വേണ്ടിയുള്ള എല്ലാ നീക്കവും. അവനവനെ തൃപ്തിപ്പെടുത്താന് നോക്കണ്ട. ഒരിക്കലും തൃപ്തിപ്പെടാത്ത ഒരാളേ ഉള്ളു: അവനവന് തന്നെ. ലോകസന്തോഷസൂചിക ഗണിച്ചുണ്ടാക്കുമ്പോള് ഈ ഇന്ത്യന് ബൌദ്ധികയാഥാര്ഥ്യം കൂടി ഓര്ക്കാം.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-15129610945541933792023-07-02T18:22:00.002+05:302023-07-02T18:22:36.194+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fight for Misery</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6cd8c666-7fff-9ebd-6fe0-844f4bd20ea4"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whenever my wife and I fight over a silly or sillier issue, which comes up as often as ridiculously, I recall that anonymous advice: good relations are the best cure for misery. Positively, good relations promote happiness. This truism has been ratified by a century-long Harvard study. One feels good to see something one feels endorsed by a big body of thought. Yes, great men think alike; small men may do so too. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I chanced to read again yesterday the observations of the fourth director of that protracted project, Robert Waldinger. Unrelated to it, there was another minuscule survey among young Americans half of whom set money making as life’s great goal. Half of that half yearned to be famous. But that ran sharply counter to the lessons inspired by the century-long study. What is it that makes people? Not really money, nor name, nor even power.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vijayam. Manam. Dhanam. Success, Honour, Wealth. Add to it, if you like, Power and Security. That is a combination of the world’s cherished values, as set out by N V Krishna Warrier in a long story poem, Fake Gods. The protagonist of the poem was a vivacious doctor who sought and got everything the work-a-day world valued. And yet she ended her life, leaving behind an answerless question what that mysterious pain that gnawed at her heart even as she scaled the heights of life. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is no mystery about it as evidenced by the conclusions of the happiness study pursued in Harvard since 1938. No wealth, no fame, no position--nothing of that sort seemed the ultimate goal of life as the unique study. The clearest message of the study is that good relations make for happiness. That it conforms to our ancient anonymous wisdom, or the other way round, is a different matter. Waldinger says they learnt three big but simple lessons.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lesson 1: Social connections are good. Loneliness kills. Those well-connected to family, community, colleagues lead healthier and happier lives. They live longer. In isolation, people suffer more pain and debility as they grow old. Their brain function declines. One out of five Americans complain about loneliness. There is no record of Indian experience but it seems people here may not be as lonely. In terms of other happiness indicators, they may not do equally well.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lesson 2: The quality of relationship matters. Not as important is the number of friends and hangers-on. And the measure of quality is whether one feels lonely in a crowd. In spite of a committed relationship, people may remain cocooned in loneliness. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “High-conflict marriages, for example, without much affection, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">turn out to be very bad for our health, perhaps worse than getting divorced. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And living in the midst of good, warm relationships is protective.” That is a gem I share with my wife whenever we are in the mood, with whatever results.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lesson 3: This conclusion concerns particularly octogenarians like me. It affords an impossible vision of life, an irreversible event and action. Those who nurture good relations in their fifties will be happier and healthier in their eighties than others who had a stormy stint in their fifties. The trouble is there is no scope for getting back to one’s fifties and repairing relations retrospectively. Waldinger says: “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were the healthiest at age 80. And good, close relationships seem to buffer us from some of the slings and arrows of getting old. Our most happily partnered men and women reported, in their 80s, that on the days when they had more physical pain, their mood stayed just as happy.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This paradigm of happiness may leave India sad, sadder. The World Happiness Report ranks India the 139th among the 149 countries it covers. The first is Finland. It may be some consolation that the USA is not the first, nor the UK. Pakistan being 103rd and China 82nd is no good news for us in India. Let us take heart from the fact that Afghanistan is the saddest country. Is the average Indian so lonely, so unconnected, so full of conflict as to earn for the country the dubious distinction of being in the league of the world’s ten saddest countries?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Among the authors of the World Happiness Report is Richard Layard of the London School of Economics who pioneered happiness studies, investigating the economic--or non-economic--content of happiness. Diminishing utility is a principle that applies to every activity, not merely matters of money. What money can buy how much happiness has led to the emergence of a curiously titled area of study, happinomics. How some people are happy having more money than some others is the study of neuroeconomics. It is now fashionable to study the neural network of every human activity.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long before Richard Layard started his happinomics research, J K Mehta of the Allahabad University had initiated a research on a new interpretation of economic activity as originally conceived by Adam Smith. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mehta challenged the conventional economic wisdom of limited resources and unlimited wants through his theory of wantlessness. Life is penury and its cure can be had through more resources and more consumption. Mehta more or less abjured that epicurean economics, and envisaged a wantless world, drawing upon the pastoral teachings of Indian savants.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How life devoid of attachment can be happy is a moot point. Yet monks, yatis, are held in awe and honour and wonder. Happiness, ananda, was their universal goal. When or why they chose to give themselves that ambitious honorific, ananda, is not known but it has come down to us as life’s cardinal philosophy, requiring monks to discard their usual attire and divorcing themselves from domestic bindings.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The search for happiness has gone on as long as mankind can remember. It is like the barren woman’s child, the hare’s horn, the oasis in the desert, conceived and visualised but never coming well within our grasp. Yes, good relations matter more than anything else, success, honour, wealth, power and security. Yes, good relations. But how are good relations made and maintained? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That may well be the crux of every happiness inquiry. And that may involve what may be called negative happiness. For instance, the householder who builds his mud hut or mansion not only for him to live but, equally importantly, to make his neighbour livid with jealousy. To end this rambling thought on a sour note, some people are happy when others are unhappy. What do they call it, schadenfreude? </span></p><br /><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-83567997740006347742023-06-19T18:55:00.003+05:302023-06-19T18:55:48.351+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Legends of Shankara</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3ff88c9e-7fff-ecda-78f0-9aec9c2888b0"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shankara remains a mystery--to me. He is widely believed to have been born at Kalady which is now famous for its rice mills and Sanskrit University. Sadly, I have not been to that idyllic village off Kochi. In thirty two years in the eighth century, he accomplished, physically and spiritually, what was far beyond a human lifetime. The four learning centers he set up, Badari, Puri, Shringeri, Dwaraka, date him back before the Christian Era. They do not recognize Kanchi which dates him further back.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As far as possible, I recite his six verses of liberation to twist my tongue and tease my mind. “I am not this, nor that, I am not born, I never die” and so on goes the theory of inclusion and exclusion of this master of monism. As I commit it to memory, I ask myself how he could traverse the sprawling land between the sea and the hill, not once but twice, not by cart or luxury liner, when there was no link language other than god’s own tongue. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What took me to the tortuous trail of Shankara was a short note on social media sent round by Vijendra Rao, highlighting the feats of the seer of Kanchi, Chandrasekhara Saraswati, popularly known as Paramacharya. That Paramacharya’s tradition is not approved by the monks of the four monasteries, striking perhaps an odd note of dualism, is a different matter. I had been to Paramacharya’s haven long after he was gone and Shringeri across the breath-taking Tungabhadra. Shankara chose that spot when he saw there, they say, a serpent standing guard for a frog in labour pain. Contemporary gossip was that an extremist faction operated from adjoining wilds. Tungabhadra has, indeed, a genius for harmonizing contradictions.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My subject is the late seer of Kanchi whose uncanny acts and spiritual heights are recalled in a Tamil book by R Ganapathi. Paramacharya’s sayings are legion. Ganapathi has placed as the motif of his book a simple catchline: Feed people without distinction. It is easier said than done. Paramacharya would explain his injunction with and without striking anecdotes from his life and history. He would hark back to Sangam literature and invoke the story of the Chera King Udhiyan Cheralathan who used to feed both the Kauravas and the Pandavas during the devastating war at Kurukshetra. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I felt small when a creative temple tradition from Kerala was used to illustrate the great monk’s adage “feed people without distinction.” My discomfiture was that I had never heard about that temple at Cherukunnu or its distinguishing ritual. After the day’s rituals are over, when all available devotees are given prasadam, usually rice, a few food packets would be tied around a tree in temple portals. That was for the consumption of thieves who might be out on prowl by midnight. The moral is obvious and delightful. It is good to feed even thieves.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I never got to see Paramacharya. His unorthodox ways and uncompromising gestures struck me when I was in Bengaluru in the early nineties. His would-be successor, Jayendra Saraswati, was sent out to Thalai Kaveri on what seemed like a sabbatical. There was no explanation to the world outside the monastery of Kanchi. Outsiders had no clue what was happening to the hallowed spiritual tradition. But everyone knew two things: first, that order of virtual exile had the firm though invisible imprimatur of Paramacharya; second, it must have been a pretty serious situation for the great monk to resort to what he did. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jayendra Saraswati returned after a year or more of penitence and meditation, later in good time being installed as the head of the monastery. When I called on him later, I recalled covering his peregrinations in north Kerala in the seventies. He gave us a garland of cardamom seeds which my wife meticulously stored in her shelf for many years. Unsavory periods ensued. He was hauled over the coals, Chief Minister Jayalalitha sending him to jail following stories of criminality. The irascible lady possibly wanted to show what she could. The monk went to his prison cell with all the spiritual paraphernalia. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paramacharya was a big, invisible presence in our newsroom when his shatabhishekam, viewing a thousand full moons, was under way. An important event of the celebration was showering gold coins on the blessed soul. Why gold, when abstinence and austerity is the ideal, I muttered to myself. Perhaps the ageing monk was helpless. A coin or two got stuck on his drooping eyelids and lips, unbeknown to him. Gurus may never have an escape from disciples and devotees.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His death came when I was in Delhi, remotely looking after the front page of the late edition. Those were days when we thought of standardizing names of people, skipping honorifics and irrelevant initials. Why should some people be known by their professions and others not? Why tag on a ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’ when people could be on their own without a gender identification? Why have different death styles, so to say, when death is described as the leveler of all people? I held that Paramacharya’s death was simply that, death, requiring no embellishment for the final exit, “He died.” There was an extreme, but rational, view that even “passed away” should pass. Late in the night, the old hackneyed style came back, “Mahaswami attaining samadhi.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember T N Seshan, mercurial chief election commissioner, telling me an anecdote. He had gone to seek Paramacharya’s guidance and blessing when he got a coveted United Nations’ assignment. He spent the whole day with the seer, sitting cross legged on the floor, not a word being spoken. After a few hours, Paramaccharya got up and walked away. Seshan knew the silent message. He was not to accept the offer. When he was becoming CEC, Seshan went to him again, this time yielding a short verbal communication. Yes, Paramacharya told him, yes, take the job, you will have things to do. And so it was.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether Indira Gandhi was a believer or not, she knew whom to meet when she needed a spiritual consultation. Her meeting with J Krishnamurthy during the repressive period of the Emergency has been chronicled by her friend, Pupul Jaykar. Earlier she had an occasion to call on Paramacharya at his monastery. But Paramacharya had his own reason to turn down a request for a meeting. A learned friend in Chennai told me Periyavar had refused to see K Sadashivam, M S Subbalakshmi’s husband. The inference was that Sadashivam had transgressed his dharma. But Paramacharya agreed to see Subbalakshmi--because she had lived up to her dharma. I mumbled, for my own benefit, a line from Mahabharata: “The path of dharma is difficult to track. Do whatever karma behoves you.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-42881897671034375282023-06-11T18:59:00.002+05:302023-06-11T18:59:21.737+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spies and Scribes</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c97057f7-7fff-1f31-3766-869465d66cd1"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things happen in tandem, often by chance, sometimes meaningfully. When it is a coincidence, we employ a hackneyed metaphor, a crow flying on to a ripe branch which falls instantly. If we discern a special meaning, an esoteric rhythm in it, we characterize it, as Carl Jung calls it, synchronicity. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meaningfully or otherwise, events in recent days reveal a linkage between espionage and journalism. To mention just a couple of them, a freelance scribe has been booked for leaking information prejudicial to public interest. Mukundan Menon, while reacting to a social media post, has brought up an old case of espionage, a sweeping charge of it by an American journalist against Morarji Desai. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How does a freelance journalist come in possession of sensitive information? When Charan Singh, Home Minister, took some of us to Tihar jail, a visibly harried prisoner with a sophisticated mien, sought to get a message across to the visiting dignitary. Charan Singh avoided him. The prisoner was an Information Service officer, held for espionage. How does a press relations man possess information professionally inaccessible to him?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seymour Hersh’s charge against Morarji Desai was tendentious. Conceding for argument that some American intelligence officer had met him when he was an important minister under Nehru or his daughter, it would be irresponsible journalism to draw an instant inference that Morarji was a CIA agent. Poor former Prime Minister, he was hamstrung by the American legal system which helped Hersh get away with his allegation.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A CIA agent is a dreaded, or despised, entity. Time was when politicians of all hues took it as an abomination loosely and effortlessly hurled at their foes. Anything that went awry, almost anything, was believed to have been so rendered by a ubiquitous CIA hand. So ridiculous a practice it became that Piloo Modi, a portly politician indeed, turned up in Parliament one day with a badge on his enormous chest, “I’m a CIA agent.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An enraged editor, S Mulgaokar, once started his occasional column, thanking heavens and heaving a sigh of relief that yet another week had passed without someone sighting a CIA hand somewhere. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The perceived CIA operation or its memoir landed me in a mess, including the Supreme Court. I was working on a book-length story of T N Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner, who suspected a CIA hand in the violent anti-HIndi agitation in Tamil Nadu in the late sixties. Voluble and unrestrained, Seshan said he should have known, as Madurai district collector, better than anyone else that there could be a CIA agent in the top echelons of Tamil leadership. Anger erupted in Tamil terrain. Yielding to business acumen, we put out the book with what could be offensive to Tamil taste summarily deleted. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The communists have a strong fixation with espionage. They believe they are perennially encircled, class enemies torpedoing or delaying the Indian revolution. It was not for nothing that political clearance was made mandatory for appointment in any government job. I remember E M S telling us once that a class enemy had penetrated in the party as an apparatchik when Lenin was in command. True to his flair for looking at things strategically, Lenin said that a smart guy had to do many benevolent things for the revolutionary system to make himself look trustworthy to the leadership. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T S Sanjeevi was a Tamil officer of the Indian Police vintage who set up India's Intelligence Bureau. Far from flamboyant like his successor B N Mullick, Sanjeevi went round Indian missions abroad to study and evolve a model for a new India's spy system. There was one high-minded Indian diplomat,V K Krishna Menon, who detested Sanjeevi’s plans as they were. Irascible as ever, Menon wrote to his buddy and boss, Prime Minister Nehru complaining that Home Minister Patel had sent his super cop to spy upon him.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Menon was always known for his abhorrence of capitalist America and his harebrained Leftism. That his motives and methods were viewed with suspicion by many people is no secret. So much so an impression went round that he was a communist in Congress clothing--until he was ousted from the tri-colour party. One unsavory point made in Christopher Andrew’s centenary volume on British MI5 was that election expenses of some Indian leaders, including Krishna Menon, were defrayed by the Soviet spy apparatus, KGB. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reverting to the shadowy, if not outrightly shady, spy-scribe linkage, two autobiographical stories may be recalled for illustration. Wherever a news conference is held, a special branch fellow may be seen lurking in the precincts to have a gist of its content whispered into his ears by an obliging scribe. Their peers would, jealously or derisively, dub them as “police agents.” Our quintessential humourist, V K N, was wont to say that those intelligence sleuths could be spotted in any milling crowd. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, table-top journalists like me would not be in the picture. For us, there were spymasters who would diligently leak information that they thought people should know or scribes could tom-tom as their scoop. Little was it suspected that it was what was generically known as “plant.” Everyone in the trade knows that a spy-scribe relationship is a contrary alliance. Spies like to keep their information under their imaginary cap; scribes are impatient to let out any speck of balderdash with which they are fed. I would not suspect that a middle-level spy was planting anything on me when he rang me up a late evening to say two Kuwaiti nationals who had been declared “undesirable” had not only penetrated through the immigration system but gone round the state as special guests of the government. My source took a day to realize what political fire it had set off. He confided in me as a matter of friendship, probably in anticipation of some good tip-offs in the course of time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would not pat myself on my back for a scoop or two I had scored on the rumblings in sub-Himalayan states dominated by Buddhist politics. Out and out, it was a “plant”, as I knew and the “planter” knew though pretended the other way, much like the proverbial cat drinking the milk. The “planter,” on his part, believed I could be trusted to use the information cleverly. I, on my part, satisfied myself that it was the truth, though, perhaps, not the whole truth. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I must wind up this sequence with a reference to the Shakespearean spy, Polonius. He was spying on everything and everyone as required by his benefactors. Even his son was under the medieval scanner. In one spy mission, he was hiding behind the curtain in the royal bedroom. Mistaking the shadowy figure for someone else, our to-be-or-not-to-be thrust his sword into the curtain killing the clumsy spy instantly. Espionage is not without its risks. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-12856182758964030472023-06-11T18:47:00.002+05:302023-06-11T18:47:45.998+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bible and Ban</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-cec35b11-7fff-4fdb-9bbe-1fe709ea0963"><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is not often that one beats up one’s mother. Even in the context of such a rare outrage, opinion may differ. There is perhaps nothing that inspires absolute unanimity. That rude and rustic saying rang out in my mind with new reports of ban of holy books in schools and removal of testaments of democracy from texts. The ban story comes from Salt Lake City. The atrocity on democracy has been detected in New Delhi and Kottayam.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let us discuss the second point first. A Malayalam newspaper went to town--and village--the day before yesterday with an incisive story of some cardinal content being excluded from school texts prepared by the National Council for Educational Research and Training(NCERT). Next day it was followed by a stentorian leader. The essence of the journalistic crusade was, as the caption read, that democracy had been reduced to a “memory” with the removal of some parts from some texts.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Nothing happens to democracy,” says P Ravindran Nayar, veteran journalist. He has been witness to such guttural outbursts with an unvarying theme, “democracy is in danger,” during the past half century. Like socialism of the Avadi vintage in the sixties, democracy has long been a fashionable slogan, mouthed by those who theoretically uphold it as well those who invoke an exclusive brand, “people’s democracy.” Like socialism, misshapen with all kinds of people sporting it, democracy is also universally advocated, as a cap fit for every political head or its lack.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A largely acceptable view is that democracy is the best form of political governance since it represents the will of the people. Francis Fukuyama went so far as to argue that nothing better may happen in the annals of mankind and thus it reaches the “end of history.” Anything can be deified or demonized in the name of democracy. An alternative but unpopular theory floated by thinkers like Ortega Gasset is that the “revolt of the masses,” leading to a “leveling of sensibility” may not be the ultimate road to an ideal social destination. Nothing may be intrinsically bad because it has no mass takers, nothing may be necessarily good because the masses like it at a given point of time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, as Ravindran Nayar says, those who cry from the housetops ``democracy is in danger” need not be worried. A rearrangement of the school curriculum cannot shake up the whole system. There is no gainsaying that a gargantuan bogey of saffronisation has been at work for long. Hindu hotheads have only aggravated it in a reflexive response. For instance, there were those like P N Oak who set up an institute to rewrite Indian history, even challenging the fact of the authorship of the Taj Mahal. Those of Oak’s ilk, even those less irascible, would accept the depredations of central Asian immigrants as a secular and innocuous historical conquest. The memories of defiling shrines and levying a cess (</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">jizya</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) on people of other faiths are not easily forgotten or forgiven. There were indeed thinkers like K R Malkani who had a nice word for Aurangzeb and Tippu Sultan even when they were a tiny, solitary, faction within the burgeoning Hindu armada. It was a Malkani committee which cleared a Doordarshan serial, The Sword of Tipu Sultan, even in the face of large sections of south Indian viewers.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marxists are alarmed. Historically, they have sought to be recognized as guardians of the minorities and the champions of democratic rights. It was long assumed that their following will widen among Muslims if they run down Hindutva oracles. That their reign smacked of totalitarianism wherever, whenever, they seized power through the bourgeois ballot or armed revolution is an overwhelming twentieth century irony. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marxist mindset in Kerala was revealed when it was resolved to throw overboard NCERT textbooks or their relevant chapters and continue with newly challenged versions of history and geography. Narendra Modi’s party and its dons have taken the position that medieval history laid disproportionate emphasis on the Mughal period, playing down the scintillating role of the Pallavas and the Cholas and the scions of the ruthlessly liquidated Vijayanagara empire. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is arguably characterized as saffronisation is defended as an endeavor to restore balance to the study of Indian history, nay, Hindu history, as chronic critics of the Modi era are wont to present it. At the same time, it must be conceded that Modi’s men are afflicted by an unmistakable saffron syndrome. I remember a towering Hindu enthusiast, P Parameswaran, telling me that the RSS would never be able to wipe the blood of Gandhi off its face just as the Indian communists would not carry conviction when they explain their dubious stance during the freedom struggle. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was painfully funny when they came up with a class analysis turning an “imperialist war” into a “people’s war” so as to abide by the Soviet view of a phase of the Second World War. Conversely, the Hindu militia would ever fail to wash the stains of saffronism off its progenitor, Savarkar. Even Godse seemed becoming less unexceptionable when Justice G D Khosla, hearing the appeal of the Gandhi killer in the Punjab High Court, suggested that the assassin would have been aquitted if the jury system were in prevalence. Justice Khosla has not been forgiven. But it points to the possibility that someone who was held a criminal once could be hailed as a freedom fighter, martyr, over time and space. Revision of history follows as a matter of course.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the new essay in saffronism, leading to a hue and cry of endangered democracy, was being debated in this part of the world, a most unlikely book was taken out of school curriculum in Salt Lake City, USA. Parents of some students in Davis education district complained that a book contained “violence and vulgarity” and it should be taken off the school library shelves. Which a concerned school committee promptly did. The impugned book is one with which we have been traditionally familiar, which we uphold as a great testament of faith, The Bible. Specifically, what is under reference is the King James version compiled and corrected by a galaxy of scholars and word masters including William Shakespeare. What is violent and vulgar about it is uncertain but a school committee was told that the Bible had portions violating a law against offensive literature adopted last year.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It follows that anything can be banned if the Bible is banned. We have seen secular and not so secular governments buckling under pressure and banning books which hurt the sentiments of one petulant section or the other. No one could be a more pious Christian than Nikos Kazantsakis but a play based on his The Last Temptation of Christ was banned when cassock-clad clergymen took out a procession demanding its proscription. C P Nair, Secretary to the Chief Minister, gave me the text of the play to read. I found it rather tepid but hardly abrasive.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Marxists who loathe book ban were constrained to outlaw street plays like Nattugaddiga staged by comparatively extremist groups. When it came to his turn, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi proscribed Salman Rushdi’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Satanic Verses</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> before the echo of the first cry of blasphemy from Iran died down. It came my way when I was ransacking the banned books section in a Virginia library. It did not match my quotidian literary taste. Significantly, The Satanic Verses became a tome sought after worldwide. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Possibly the best hype for a book is a worst trick: Make it look like it contains passages someone somewhere may find offensive, “violent and vulgar” as a school committee in Utah found the Bible. Autobiographically, my publisher, K P R Nair, and I were beneficiaries of the ban of a book I put together narrating the story of T N Seshan who, as the Chief Election Commissioner, raised the hackles among the political glitterati. It was an interrogative reference to the suspected foreign influence on the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tamil Makkal were up in arms. There was a competitive litigation, every other politician demanding instant ban of the book which was viewed as an anti-Tamil tirade. Those who did not rush to the court with a petition for ban made a bonfire of the book. As publicity raged, an excited K P R Nair was computing his cash profit--until the release and the sale of the book was ordered by the court. My short point: any book may be banned with planned or assured results just as, as we said in the beginning, it is possible to take a contrary view even when one beats up one’s mom. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-75474319778222365162023-06-05T12:18:00.000+05:302023-06-05T12:18:12.801+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Armageddon at Hand</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5e7915c9-7fff-3e40-2f62-a9dfb2f26e11"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Armageddon is at hand. At least it looks like being at hand. It is more tempting to believe that it will break out the day after than to hope that all will be well with the world tomorrow. Armageddon is not exactly the end of the world. The biblical experience is the devastating end of a war between good and evil. We don’t quite know whether the end would come with a whimper or following the final deluge or conflagration. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My respondents are divided. Some like Rajendran Namboodiri prefer death by water, some others opt for a fiery end or a Koyna-like quake as recalled by Mukundan Menon. My good friend Ravindran Nayar will have none of this. It is all an overstated fear, a hypochondric response to the studies on the submergence of the earth or the sinking of New York. Who knows, he may be right, “don’t worry, it may not happen.” That it may well happen is what we generally like to fear. As unregenerate journalists say, bad news is good news, no news is bad news. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The quake in Koyna may be taken as a frame of reference. Whether it was due to the tremors in the earth’s womb or the pressures on its bosom is an unending debate. If something like that happens in Mullapperiyar, most of us may not be around to compile an inventory of the loss. V S Achuthanandan was the unremitting leader who set fire to the debate on the safety of the dam. Maybe because he is not exactly well, the damn dam debate has been all but forgotten.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long before he blew up a pall of fear and gloom, precisely in 1979, there was a Periyar scare. Our paper celebrated it with an eight-column headline. What will not happen and who will survive if the dam built by Col Pennyquick with his own money over a century ago? I put the bland question to K C Thomas, Water Commission chairman. He was relaxed, not a whit overawed. He had been witness to a recrudescence of the report of an impending catastrophe from time to time. Yet he had all mandatory checks done and heaved an amused sigh of relief. It passed with no bad news.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was not what our undying scare-mongers expected of the Water Commission boss. As Achuthanandan picked up the burning thread of debate, everyone, yes, everyone praised him, his bravery, his crusade. It seemed disheartening to see the scare being proved repeatedly unwarranted. I was writing a weekly column in a popular paper and wanted to raise the case of the wrong alarm. If the dam breaks, the victims will not be merely the people living on the banks of the river. Its furious flow will wash away a good part of Kerala. Such a calamity, if seriously feared, must generate a flurry of activity, inspiring a mad rush of media to what might be a world event. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That did not happen. But my newspaper was cautious, shall we say, overcautious. A friendly editor told me it would be good to leave the subject unchecked. Readers who lived in constant fear of a collapse would make a bonfire of the paper if it did not tell them what they wanted to hear. And they wanted to believe the armageddon was at hand. I told myself, “you fool, let sleeping dogs lie!” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But they do not sleep. A television channel was getting ready a programme on Mullapperiyar, naturally focusing on the threat that faces and people's fears. When the innovative producer took a byte from me in a great act of condescension, I took a view there was no need to scare the people on the banks of the river or around the dam. The producer was concerned but did not confide in me. He wanted to scare his viewers and needed me only to say his views and concerns. I am grateful words I had not spoken were not put into my mouth, though words I spoke were not telecast.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Such scare was not what delayed and rendered controversial the Idamalayar project. If facts about the past and the future of Idamalayar had been fed to people in advance, and if a voluble Achuthanandan had been around with his vitriolic harangues, it might not have even got off the ground. Its gestation period could have been a record in the annals of construction. There was no aspect of it free from criticism and calumny. But no one knew that Idamalayar was ab initio an unsafe project. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not a word is now spoken about geological experts disfavouring the proposal for a dam across Idamalayar to feed huge turbines. Its prospective benefits were eloquently presented by committed civil engineers but one man, V S Krishnaswamy Iyer, stood his ground. He pointed out, anxiety choking him, that Idamalayar lay in the shear zone of an earthquake with Coimbatore as the epicentre that had happened in 1900. The quake had its impact upto Sri Lanka. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember looking up Krishnaswamy’s report, slender and dusty but explosive, quietly given to me by a chief engineer, M P Bharathan. Krishnaswamy later rose to be the director general of the Geological Survey of India. It is not without regret that I feel I should have followed up the report. As a concession to the doves of the electricity pantheon, it was decided to have no concrete dam as originally proposed. Some munificence this, concrete dam was replaced by masonry dam. Spare the earth, if possible. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Soon scare was to spread with Kothamangalam as the epicentre. R Balakrishna Pillai, a volatile minister, was correcting time and again in terms of its deadline. After several several postponements, project managers took a crucial step one evening. They had a trial run of the turbines, releasing water to them through a pretty long tunnel. And they were constrained to close it instantly. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of those rare do-gooders rang me up after nightfall to report hush-hush that there was a leak in the tunnel warranting immediate corrective action. It was a leak in the audit tunnel, not the main water course. Ganesha Pillai, a technical member of the electricity board, was as perturbed as surprised when I asked him for details. He did not know. He sought to be excused to rush to the project site. K M Mani, deputizing for Pillai in the Assembly next day, had little more information than what my morning paper revealed. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the season of scare started. Colourful and startling stories of the leak, its murky backdrop and future implications, adorned newspaper columns. Outwitting all rivals, one of them blared that the crack in the dam was serious, perhaps worsening. Competitive extremism in reporting an impending calamity was at its peak. Unnikrishnan, PRO of Hindustan Construction Company, which had built the dam, rang me up to convey his anguish. If the dam broke, he said, more in amusement than agitation, that a good part of middle Kerala would be drowned. Thank heavens, the dam was not cracking. A golden opportunity to instill fear and anxiety was forfeited. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My friend Ravi has seen all this happening, scare mounting and, then, its source drying up. “Don’t worry, it may not happen,” is a biblical writing on the wall on Parliament Street which comforted me in moments of pique and tension. But such reassuring counsel is not often available. And, even when it is available, it looks suspect. There is an anonymous Sanskrit sloka, famously translated by A R Raja Raja Varma, that marks my mood, my fear and hope and solicitude: Night will soon end, morning shine, sun rise, and this lotus will blossom in good time--as the bee in the bud was lost in this reverie, who knows god’s mind, an elephant pulled off that lotus. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-41857218057565171612023-05-29T17:03:00.000+05:302023-05-29T17:03:09.286+05:30<p> <span style="color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gospel of Betrayal</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d7fa89c0-7fff-7179-ab37-21b39ded4ce5"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two out of thirty is not necessarily a mean thing. The reference here is to a silver coin, in fact, two of them, out of a total of thirty which Judas took to betray Jesus. These two silver pieces, fateful and fake, were actually made in what may be called Monson Mavunkal Mint. The fake master passed into oblivion when new episodes of villainy and nonsense stormed into media focus.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the Monsons of our world never ever become irrelevant or jobless. They need to service the craze for old things, that is, new things made old. The market for antiques or, do we say antics?, is as old and enormous as both of them. Monsoon may be crestfallen, not because he is being tried for fraud but because he is not part of a project to find antique copies of the great gospel. In a Southeby’s auction in New York, the oldest Hebrew Bible, complete with its 24 books, has yielded 38.1 million dollars.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is believed to be the most valuable manuscript sold at an auction. Bill Gates of Microsoft had earlier bought Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebook for a few million dollars less. The Hebrew Bible yielded less than the American constitution, 43 million dollars being the price of the first edition printed copy of the US horoscope.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The oldest Hebrew Bible, dating back 1100 years, is now the proud possession of ANU Museum, Tel Aviv. Alfred Moses, a lawyer diplomat, who acquired it for the museum says: "The Hebrew Bible is the most influential in history and constitutes the bedrock of Western civilization.” Moses would not have known such a quantity as Monson Mavunkal or the other way round.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For some time now, we have no idea where Monson Mavunkal is now or what his creative ventures are. Moses, Alfred, may be thrilled to hear that his ancient namesake’s great staff is now available to us, courtesy Monsoon. Not only is he ingenious enough to make new things look ancient or archaic but carry conviction to the high and mighty, politicians and policemen naturally among them. No admiration for that flash of criminal creativity is undue.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Monson knows what sells. Moses’ staff, Judas’s silver pieces, all appropriately designed for the aesthetic appreciation and admiration in awe and joy, are a tribute to the possibilities of fake art. As it happens, holy relics are acquired far more by Christians and Muslims than Hindus. More medieval or modern things like Tippu Sultan’s throne are not easily disposed of, though the story of the sword of the Mysore Tiger has led to a frenzied para-historical discussion on a tele-serial with an eponymous title. The loss of or damage to holy relics can cause consternation. Such a disappearance in the sixties was a harrowing event in Srinagar, as Surendra Nath who was J&K IGP told me as we were going over the annals of relics and antiques. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In Monson’s repertoire, one artifact that may propitiate Hindu crowds is a hand-written copy of the Bhagavad Gita. Whose hand is it? The unkempt and ageing sage could not have used a stylus and palm leaf to inscribe the Song Celestial. Was Monson’s Gita written down by a naughty elephant god or a bunch of people who mounted or worshipped him? I have some unsolicited suggestions for addition to his creative laboratory.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arjuna’s bow, Gandivam. Krishna’s discus, Sudarsanam. Gandhari’s blindfold. Draupadi’s garment, as stripped by an evil Kaurava. Bhishma’s arrow bed, though Iravati Karve questions his bravery and sense of fairness in her short but sharp account of the war in Yuganta. On a secular note, we can welcome the recreation of Jesus-related documents and articles, like a part of the cross on which his life ended. Monson may not appreciate the importance of some living flora and fauna that existed when the Son of God was walking the earth. I remember a winsome and eloquent guide educating us on the history and botany of the giant sequoia trees in the Yossemite National Park. Some of those trees, surviving the onslaught of time through centuries, could have stood as guardian angels even before Jesus’s mission in West Asia.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is all about duping and tricking. It calls for some kind of genius. Like the one on making friends and influencing people, there can be a handbook for those who play fraud on unsuspecting or greedy people. Monson may not claim monopoly in this burgeoning field. How crooked religious trade can be effectively pursued in today’s setting is the engaging subject of Irving Wallace’s novel, The Word. Steve Randall, a media relations advisor, hired to organize publicity for a new Bible attributed to Jesus’s younger brother, James, starts questioning the veracity of various claims and inferences towards the end of the controversial. Following up stories of Jesus roaming around hermitages in India and anecdotes of the curiously titled The Aquarian Gospel, Monson’s peers in the profession can introduce some attractive relics in the booming market.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is all about duping and tricking. No antique was being thrust on me, nor subjecting me to any antic, when one Kumara Das descended before me one afternoon, seeking permission to use my address for him to get a money order from his brother. He was a soccer player, left-in, attached to a famous Mumbai team. His gear had been stolen and simply wanted to have some money sent by his kin in Kerala. A man with a gift of the gab, Das was taking me for a risky ride, as I soon discovered. Money came and he collected in good time, being so nice as to tip the postman liberally. The tragic comedy was that there was a mix up in names. The sender of the money order and the receiver intercepted me, pointing out that the money had been dispatched to my address. I did not have patience to look at his receipt or argue with him or assert my innocence. I had been duped, I had been tricked. That happens in every field, every time. As Magha says, the field is so vast, time endless.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 6pt 0pt 0pt 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My friend and writer, Sreekrishna Das, was not a little pleased. Perhaps he thought I deserved it all for my gullibility. He made a short story out of it and earned Rs25 as remuneration. It was double pressure: my discomfiture, his delight</span></p><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-48147722290221090772023-05-21T11:38:00.000+05:302023-05-21T11:38:33.980+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fear of Intelligence </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9f6184e0-7fff-d559-2079-7e505c6d6ad8"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has always been there, everywhere. The fear of loss of job and face and love. Man had just landed on the moon in the sixties when we had a soul shattering subject for debate in an inter-university youth festival in New Delhi: “Man’s landing on the moon has knocked the bottom out of romance.” It has not. In the ensuing half century, romance has remained ever vibrant, though perhaps with a reformed grammar and revised style.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No longer may Sakuntala be writing her love lyrics to an elusive Dushianta on a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bhoorjapatra</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, nor may her diction be an involved Sanskrit. Digital epistles of love still mark human behavior and aspiration. The fear of loss of job articulated by the adopted sons of the working class in the early sixties has turned out to be hypochondriac. What their shrill cry achieved was an undue delay in computerization in banks and railways where automation was first attempted. And, our familiar question for which we did not crave an instant answer was what would happen to man when machines took over his work. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two thinkers whose view of the last third question were a historian, Yuval Harari, and an engineer hailed as ‘godfather of artificial intelligence, Goeffrey Hinton. The historian is blunt. He is not a little concerned that AI has already hacked the operating system of human civilization. Storytelling computers will, he says, change the course of human history.” Hinton is worried about many things including AI’s potential to eliminate jobs and create a world where people “may not be able to know what is true any more.” In a huff the other day, the septuagenarian computer engineer who did pioneering research in his field opted out of his top berth in Google.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harari’s and Hinton’s apprehensions had been voiced by many who watched man’s ascent and adventure, employing literary constructs. About a century ago, when robots had not entered our kitchens or reading rooms, Nalappat Narayana Menon wondered whether man’s steady movement, stepping on his own body, was really heading upward. Edassery Govindan Nair, none too weighed down by tradition, asked if his beloved river would turn into a dirty drain when man who lived in fun and frolic became a machine. The age of change and machine did not daunt Vailoppilli but he too wanted to retain the “scent of the village” and its love even in the thick of industrialization. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one is unaware of whatever may happen when robots created by man take over man’s monopoly functions. In considering the para-humanizing impact of AI, I am more guided by the perspicacious and at once sober formulations by scholars like Californian computer scientist, Professor Stuart Russell. Prof Russell was at great pains to explain and assure us that man would not suddenly be a rudderless entity when Artificial Intelligence evolved by man throws him out of his cozy throne. In his illuminating Reith lecture, he set out three principles that would govern the progress of robots. One, the machine's only objective is to maximize the realization of human preferences. Two, the machine is initially uncertain about what those preferences are. Three, the ultimate source of information about human preferences is human behavior. Applying those principles, Prof Russell concluded: “I’ll say now, no, machines will not learn to copy evil human behavior, and no, I’m definitely not ignoring the wellbeing of other animals.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That must be reassuring as far as it goes. But it will be foolhardy to expect change to take place only where man wants it, how he wants it. Robots may yet not write poetry or paint a Mona Lisa or execute an uncalibrated dance of love. They already show signs of learning language, though ridiculously imperfectly. Such robotic imperfection is what comforts people who would not want their existing applecart to be upset. At every threshold of change, they have put up blocking stones, raising the bogey of dehumanization or mechanization of man. The idea of entrusting all human work to a machine man is yet to find universal acceptance. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is hard to accept, certainly not welcome, the fact that man, like a mighty river, never remains the same, not for a moment. In its inexorable flow, the river leaves intact or behind not a single drop at the same spot, giving it a halo of eternity. Likewise, man passes through evolution not stage by stage but as a constant process. Evolution is current, not past or prospective. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fear of loss of job or face or love, social historians say, dates back to the industrial revolution. A closer look will take us further back in time when changes were resisted in what could be mistaken for a movement in defense of human civilization. Consider the resistance to replacing a heavy grinding stone in the kitchen with a mechanical device, employing a tractor in place of an antiquated plough in the field, and introducing a ticket vending machine in the railway station. There can be no field where change, complete with the entry of robots, is preventable. As for the limited subject of human jobs, for instance, a quarter of content generated by human intervention can be handled by Artificial Intelligence. The western world will have 300 million of its jobs will be appropriated by robots. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Martin Ford has provocatively titled his book as, Rule of the Robots: How Artificial Intelligence will Transform Everything. Ford says it is not a change limited to individuals or jobs. The change will be pervasive, permanent.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “It could happen to a lot of people, potentially quite suddenly, potentially all at the same time. And that has implications not just for those individuals, but for the whole economy.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is tempting to hark back to Bhasmasura, our version of Frankenstein, who could turn to ash anything he touched. The first thing he set out to do was to burn down whoever gave him that extraordinary boon. A picturesque, metaphorical presentation but an idle and ineffective presentation at it. Artificial Intelligence may not be man’s undoing like the ungrateful “ash demon” was to his creator.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-65854837599800918692023-05-14T06:27:00.001+05:302023-05-14T06:27:35.229+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">History of History</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-51afbbd2-7fff-366f-7273-1a68a8aaad22"><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From Herodotus’s Histories to S Krishnaswamy’s Indus Valley to Indira Gandhi, it has been a long and frenetic effort to grapple with the truth of the past. The grand quest cannot but continue through the future, as successive events show. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Greek historian was building his thesis on a murky foundation of mythology while his modern Indian counterpart set out to document an ancient civilization coming down to the twentieth century. Past or future, nothing remains static, everything being ever open to revision, because, as Albert Camus says, there is no truth, there are only truths. And truth has to be constantly reviewed, if need be, rescinded. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Krishnaswamy’s documentary was made about a half century ago. It was part of an undeclared plan to chronicle the glory of a civilization culminating in the origin and growth of Indira Gandhi. Her decline was to be documented by others who wanted to divest her of her due berth in history. As if to foil their plan, she made available to the posterity her version of history in a capsule buried in the earth.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recreation of history was a passion for anyone who was someone before Indira Gandhi. So is it now, reasserting the inexorable validity of Basheer’s fictional figure who kept mumbling My Grandfather Had An Elephant. Broadly, three revisionist streams can be identified in the study of Indian history. One, the Congress view of things, two, the grandfather-had-an-elephant approach to the Hindu halcyon days and three, the proletarian version which flourished with Damodar Kosambi in India and Eric Hobsbawm in Europe. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the second category was P N Oak who set up a seminal Institute for Rewriting Indian History. Oak debunked the deference with which he thought India’s Muslim past, so to say, was being studied. So much so he had an unorthodox theory for the origin and authorship of the Taj Mahal. Oak inspired fun and frivolity. There was even a demand for his works to be removed from Parliament House library. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To his ilk, Tara Chand’s magisterial Influence of Islam on Indian Culture is not a favorite reading. They would rather hail the harrowing chronicles of what Muslim marauders did to Vijayanagara. Across centuries, Robert Sewell’s account of the total raid on that “forgotten empire” has been searing through our psyche. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sewell concludes his disturbing eloquence with these words: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought so suddenly, on so splendid a city; teeming with a wealthy and industrious population in the fun plenitude of prosperity one day, and on the next seized, pillaged, and reduced to ruins, amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description.” Enterprises of such vandalism are sought to be highlighted in the textbooks of history prepared by the National Council for Educational Research and Training(NCERT). Its endeavor is to give Indian history textbooks a degree of balance and comprehensiveness. Why not, for instance, enlarge the scope of history by bringing the Pallava and the Chola accomplishments within its ambit? Why not discontinue the obsessive preoccupation with the battles of the Mughals almost to the exclusion of the heights scaled by those regimes of southern India?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The campaign for balance and comprehensiveness has come in for criticism, particularly the so-called Left history buffs. Their comrades in Kerala, where they are in power, are working for a secularist desideratum. They indeed have a point to make there. For one thing, it will avoid dividing the past on religious lines and help evolve a consensual approach on the basis of socio-economic principles. For another, it will give a boost to Indian pluralism, and resolve issues that arise from the multi-religious character of the Indian nation.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laudable objectives indeed, but no one mistakes their unregenerately proletarian strategies for anything other than a political ploy to earn the allegiance of Muslim masses. The Hindu masses never uniting as a phalanx historically, non-Hindu consolidation may look like a need as well as a possibility. The fact, however, is that total secularization of history, or, for that matter, any other subject, will be hard to accomplish in India’s polyglot milieu. The communist dispensation in Kerala has decided to teach history in schools as before, not honoring New Delhi’s weltanschauung.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Proletarian perceptions, if they may be so defined, have often been at variance with Indian traditions and views which are marked by a spiritualist underpinning. Whether re-evaluating an episode of the freedom struggle or negotiating an alliance with a bourgeois political section, Left leaders had long taken a stance none too helpful in fostering a politically healthy society. An unchanging view is with regard to what has been characterized as the Malabar Rebellion of 1921. The Left lobby likes to look at it as an agrarian revolt, inspiring fun and frivolity, as the Oaks of our times did it in another historical context. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Revision of history is not a passion limited to India, or, to its tiny state, Kerala. Revisionist ventures have been reported from time to time in every region, every religious approach. They seem to happen across the world, across India, with an arresting, esoteric rhythm. In the limited scenario of Kerala, time-honored views about the second Chera empire and its self-indulgent golden age between the tenth and twelfth centuries have been rudely questioned. But the formulations of amateur historians like P K Balakrishnan have not yet found universal acceptance. But it has fortified the theory that history is hard to make, harder to revise. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Such simultaneous posers and answers to historical questions have, as we said before, shown a certain repetitive ring. It is marked by what Carl Jung would have called synchronicity, many different things taking place at the same time in diverse settings. Revision of history is being attempted all over the globe, not as part of a search for self identity as in pursuance of a given leader’s anxiety to install himself or herself in the endless gallery of time. The more powerful a leader, the more the hostility he provokes, the more his obsession with the historical image. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reports from South Korean capital Seoul suggest that the new-found enthusiasm for the fascist fringe is not inconsiderable. The Falange Movement leader, Jose de Rivera, was a great supporter of the dreaded and discredited fascist regime run by Franco. Rivera’s body was exhumed the other day when crowds thronged to offer salute to the man of the murky memory. An exhumation of that order was executed long ago when Vatican brought the body of Pope Formosus from his grave and dressed up in papal habiliments to face fresh trial for a minor indiscretion. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The old vernacular saying is still valid: Slap your mom, you will find someone to endorse it too. How Rivera and Franco will be portrayed in Spain’s new history in the making will be worth watching. Korea is a different story. Its loquacious leadership is divided between those who stand for closer ties with North Korea and those who shun the Kim company. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dictators like history. They order appropriate revisions of the past from time to time to make sure usurpers do not sully or hijack their reputation. It is said that Joseph Stalin.who expertly managed the Soviet Union’s murder machine was a connoisseur of music and history, besides his pet project of liquidation of dissent. Leon Trotsky who lost the power war to Stalin was aghast that the dictator had made history his handmaid. Before his head was broken with an ice axe in his hideout in Mexico City, a caption Trotsky gave to his historical account was: How Stalin Falsified History! </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-41215049085760045282023-05-07T05:58:00.002+05:302023-05-07T05:58:51.639+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Calling People Names</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d47e2875-7fff-2079-e74f-45e7af885144"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there was one wrong thing the venerable bard of Stratford upon Avon ever uttered, it was that a rose would remain a rose whatever you call it, there being nothing in a name. For naming our ever loyal monkey god in an election address in Karnataka, Prime Minister Modi is facing a demand for apology. Congress spokesperson Surjewala will rest content only after the wounded faith and feelings of Hanuman devotees are duly assuaged. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Surjewala is no ignoramus. He knows Hanuman’s superhuman or sub-human qualities of head and heart: piety, commitment, loyalty and, if you like, some incendiary and investigative tendencies. The mighty monkey had the presence of mind to upload a whole hill to take out a life-saving herb whose name he had forgotten. When he was tied up and prepared for live cremation, he broke out of captivity and comprehensively torched his captors.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watch out, it is risky to play around with names. Surjewala’s big boss knows that as well as anyone else. The boss knows too. He is required to explain in court after court, from Surat to Patna, how he took Modi’s name in a manner some thought was bad naming. The word for it in Hindi heartland is appropriate: badnaam. Rahul’s father had made a faux pas too when he called a garrulous senior lawyer not a monkey but by a canine name. Duly incensed, Rajiv’s verbal victim resorted to an interrogative response, asking every day of the ensuing month ten questions that would trap the respondent either way, affirmatively or dismissively. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it is not wise to play around with a monkey’s name. No naked ape, whom Desmond Morris identifies as our early ancestor, may like to be called that, ape, naked or dressed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ape is an epithet of condescension, abject abuse. I am not too proud of my tribe’s tendency to vilify people for no fault of theirs. In our lexicon of abuse, what is viewed as the harshest is sex-related. Suitably described, genital organs yield good results, infuriating their objects. One may not mind being accused of felony or theft but one would not like to be called a bastard. One may not like being called bald or ugly but one would not put up with an ape-related accusation. Don’t call one by one’s racial name. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Surjewala seems to know all the attributes of Hanuman. As a boy, when sleep was elusive or an irrational fear coursed through my veins, I used to recite Hanuman’s ten names: Sri Hanuman Anjana suno, Vayuputro Mahabala… My hope was that the redoubtable monkey would calm me down and hoist me on the wings of sleep and dream. I am not sure it worked any better than a compulsory chanting of the thousand names of the supreme goddess: Sri Mata Sri Maharajni Srimad Simhasaneswari. Naming, name chanting, that is, is no mean feat, as the Congress spokesperson may helpfully endorse. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thiruvananthapuram, where I live, has two giant monkeys installed on divine platforms with sundry minor deities sharing a berth with him in his hallowed premises. How they came to grab such good space near the legislature complex and the military station may be of historical interest. But they evidently generate enough funds to maintain themselves and their managers. In Suchindram, close to Kanyakumari, where K K Pillai made a seminal study of temple architecture, there is an imposing statue of Anjaneya who is pleased when he is offered a garland of vada. Little round southern snacks with a growing hole in the middle. Mind you, I can vouch for the crispness of this well-fried delicacy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hanuman can work wonders if you keep him on your side. I have grown up with stories of our legendary village sorcerer, Appu Paniker, befriending both the monkey god and the goddess and using his divine influence to strike terror or, as the case may be, calm in the deepening rural darkness. Paniker was said to have spent forty-one nights in breast-deep water in absolute seclusion seeking the benediction of Hanuman and Devi. The eerie penance, throughout which the thousand names of the deities were chanted under a whisper, rendered Paniker capable of mind-boggling feats. My mother took me to him once to heal my migraine-like headache but Paniker’s potion gave no more than an imagined cure. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The monkey god was one whose name was considered for my son when he was born. I shouted my preference for a non-divine name but one that would not be comic. It was a million dollar search, patently futile, because there was no name that a god or goddess claimed as theirs. That solved, three years later, the problem of finding my daughter’s name as well. There was no escape from gods when you look for names or namelessness. I felt, as Wittgenstein said, I was growing stupider and stupider every day. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So monkey is a monkey is a monkey. You imbibe his sacrament, delicious vada, place an appropriate garland round his neck, chant his fear-removing, sleep-inducing names with buoyant hopes, right or wrong. But you don’t call a monkey a monkey, as Surjewala and his boss must have discovered, no less than Narendra Modi. That there was nothing in a name was an error made by our myriad-minded poet. If he were around when an African tyrant was ruling the roost, he would have had a hearty laugh, sparing himself the agony of a Hamlet or Iago.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tyrant had been given an unusual name, Canaan Banana. Some miscreants who could not make sense of his dictatorial name, who found no fun or fervour in it, began bandying it about, liberally, indiscriminately. Though a tyrant, Banana had not been drained of all his sense of humour and indignation. The insinuation triggered by the anonymous crowds of miscreants was not lost on him. He banned his own name. . </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-66029377623648536812023-04-29T06:09:00.015+05:302023-04-30T16:47:04.549+05:30<p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Twin Suns in the Sky</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given my lassitude, it was to be a non-starter, my research on twin suns in the sky, their simultaneous rise. Some friends, more importantly.Shamar Rimpoche among them, were all agog with enthusiasm. As if to commit myself to the esoteric enterprise, we gave it a tantalizing title, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buddha is not Laughing.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> When indeed was Buddha laughing?</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-2600c567-7fff-e243-ce4c-fc90b86a078b"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As far as we know, Avalokitesvara was not a self-involved prophet of laughter, at least not so much as a philosopher of sorrow and carnal temptation, that is, an eight-fold path leading out of primordial human misery. The prince of Kapilavastu had lived too long to spare himself life’s essential ennui. Possibly Buddha’s portrait as an amused man came into circulation when someone produced an artifact, a statuette, of a laughing man with a bald pate and christened him accordingly. So incongruity, there. When we had our prestigious nuclear test, we chose for it a three-word announcement, ‘Buddha is laughing!’ </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Buddha never dies, nor is ever born. Gita enthusiasts are apt to bind him with a line from Krishna’s gospel, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">na jayate mriyate </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">etc, though we are not sure whether the charioteer preceded or succeeded the mendicant. Till his ultimate return to nothingness, Buddha keeps happening. It is a perpetual experience of rebirth, Rinpoche being the honorific of the soul in pursuit. That holds good for everyone, not excluding our most famous contemporary Bodhisatva, Dalai Lama. And, Dalai Lama, who combines spiritual and temporal power in a heady measure, is always the cause or the consequence of one controversy or another.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The current controversy is not over reincarnation or relapse into the ultimate void. For a ridiculously mundane act, like asking a little devotee to suck the blessed tongue, Dalai Lama has been caught napping. A shrewd observer of the ways of the world and beyond, he knew everyone would not take kindly to the egregious ritual, he has apologized for any hurt caused to the boy or his kin. It seems it is no furore that will die down soon. The civilizational order headed by Dalai Lama is itself under severe stress. Nothing may please Beijing more. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tenzin Gyatso, which is Dalai Lama's given name, reached where he has by winning friends, influencing the powers-that-be and astutely balancing the wheel of dharma through the past half century and more. No politician or religious power broker has accomplished his kind of acrobatics. He fled his native land, set up home in a different land and won global laurels with other big players in world politics. The government of the country of his adoption, from where he trained his cultural guns with unerring marksmanship against his native land and its communist commissars, had no role to play in his anointment as the quintessential prophet of peace. India could not but watch with dismay or delight Dalai Lama’s rise in the firmament of freedom. That China was not too pleased to see its neighbour harbouring and honouring someone whom it had roundly treated as a fugitive became agonizingly clear in a few years after the Tibetan diaspora had its fateful trans-Himalayan trek in the late fifties.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The communist upsurge in China which swept through the Tibetan Autnomous Region was feared to become a cultural invasion, a clash of civilizations. It was fashionable to debunk the unabashed aggrandizement from Beijing. New Delhi’s foreign office was right from the beginning infatuated with Dalai Lama and his entourage. It held His Holiness in awe and reverence, never summoning courage to tell the spiritual savant that he should avoid taking positions that would embitter Sino-Indian relations. As an aside, we had through the diplomatic grapevine a bit of news that foreign office luminaries insisted on a bullet-proof BMW for His Holiness’s use though India’s prime minister could make do with a fortified Ambassador. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What was being endangered in Tibet was a life module frozen in time. Dalai Lama was at the pinnacle of a social order in which a nameless populace saw in its leader god and man all at once. The system worked so ferociously that it provided scope for total command at the top and absolute obeisance at the bottom. Birth, death and rebirth came to be maladroitly manipulated for the benefit of the power elite. Reincarnation politics was what has since come to be known as the bane of life and religion in Tibet. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tenzin Gyatso, current Dalai Lama, could not have been here now but for certain accidents of life and politics. Another boy had been identified as the new Dalai Lama in the late forties but he died in a road accident preparing the ground for the ascent of a newly chosen cleric. Reincarnation was the principle of succession in three other sects of Tibetan Buddhism as well but that did not unleash a widespread tug of war since they had no temporal authority to invoke in times of stress. If senior monks had perfected their plans to install a teenager as a sect’s head, they would have their way with no questions asked. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The identification of a reborn Bodhisatva had a time-honoured tradition to follow. In spite of our reincarnation mythology, India has not evolved a system to explore the progress of a dead guru. Fifty years ago, H N Mukherjee, a professor of Parapsychology in Rajasthan University, had toyed with the idea of research on reincarnation and trans-migration of soul. Nothing significant was reported about it later. Tibetan tradition of identification followed the ancient pattern. When a fairly important person was dead, his confidantes would have an inkling of the arrival of the new soul.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there was rivalry, more Rimpoches than one would be identified, revalidating a hackneyed theory of one becoming two or more. The newborn, as soon as he was able to follow or issue instructions, would identify his prototype, so to say, by recognizing his sandals, clothes, other articles of personal use. When a rebirth takes place, divine signals will ensue. There may be a constant clink in a kitchen vessel, a revelation to a trusted monk through his meditation or, hold your breath, twin suns in the sky.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One becomes two or more depending on the need or for the convenience of those who are in a position to leverage political power with spiritual claims. For instance, my friend Shamar Rimpoche, a high lama of the Karma-Kagyu sect, which claims an antiquity even beyond Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa order, had a running feud with another disciple of his guru, the late Karmapa. Through his meditation, Shamarpa identified a boy in Tibet as his venerable guru’s reincarnation, while his rival came up with his counter claims. So it was that a dead man may well come up as two or three or more. In a few years of tutoring, the young fellow will mature as a perfect guru, handing down homilies and commands. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Coming back to the obsessive apparition of twin suns in the sky, Shamar Rimpoche and I had extended conversations about signals from the sky and the revelations through meditations. Over a generous glass of Black Label, I argued that one sun could be seen as two or three because of some discrepancy in the cognitive system. Either when one has a brain in trouble or one drink too many, one can be assailed by double visions, not otherwise. Hallucinations are part of a pathology, not any divine epiphany. Heartily guffawing, Shamarpa would dig his teeth into a large chicken leg and observe that he was a meat-eating monk while I was a tame or timid vegetarian tiger. Before he could follow up his visions or help me to put together our promised volume, Buddha is not Laughing, Shamarpa was gone. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Such belief systems as those that stultify faith and reason in our times do not contribute to the growth and glory of a sub-Himalayan society. Beijing has long been playing its cards cleverly, bludgeoning Dalai Lama’s hopes for a return to his throne in Potala Palace. It knows its rebirth politics only too well. As and when time is up, Dalai Lama, who is braving his eighties, may well be replaced by a requisitely amiable monk in China. The savant of Dharamsala is not unaware of various possibilities. He has even threatened to close the route of reincarnation, saying, in an after-me-the-deluge tone, “there would be no more Dalai Lama.” That does not preclude the possibility of a comradely monk coronated with revolutionary greetings. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-63339528969476243702023-04-24T09:58:00.000+05:302023-04-24T09:58:00.532+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mind of Madhavikkutty</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-46eae047-7fff-990e-c01d-a344b6c87011"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A library in my neighbourhood has an interesting practice. It sends round a girl or two from time to time, visiting houses to inflict books on potential readers as well as chronic enemies of letters. Where she placed me, I am not sure. Anyway, that comely and committed library assistant asked me this time to read an old book by Madhavikkutty,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> My World. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You would like it, sir,” she said presciently. I did. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My World </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a sequel to Madhavikkutty’s early autobiographical writing,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> My Story.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">covers events and ideas, and her fantasies, following the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Story. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Story</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was somewhat of an explosion when it appeared about a half century ago. Like it happens to everything in repetition, the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did not upset anyone’s sleep or set off a literary revolution.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Madhavikkutty, writing as Kamala Das in English, has, in a sense, demystified literary archetypes. What may seem quotidian becomes a soulful experience in her hands. She turns ordinary things, non-things, if you like, into subjects for study and exploration in mind’s unfathomable labyrinths. Her expression has a certain freshness about it, her ideas have an unusualness. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With all that in her capacious portfolio of ideas, she was apt to win the state government’s Ezhuthachan Award sooner or later. When she won the first award, many suspected para-literary considerations had weighed down the official decision. One tour de farce she accomplished in between was to change her religion. I have no problem with someone changing the faith or going in for reconversion in pursuance of a new enlightenment. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had converted to Islam for a while experimentally and then returned to his old spiritual garb. In recent times, a neurosurgeon, Narayanan Namboodiri of a famed Brahman household of Koodallur, had a convulsive faith change. He became a prayer warrior in Christian Medical College, Ludhiana.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If conversion is prompted by less than genuine reasons, like some material inducement or professional ascent, the character in question falls in social estimation. Such sham is necessarily predicated by an instant realization that whatever conviction one had upheld a whole life was grossly inadequate, even patently faulty. What paroxysms Madhavikkutty’s mind went into in the run up to her conversion into Suraiah are anybody’s guess. It is beyond question that Kamala Suraiah hadn’t revised from top to bottom her views on life, love, literature and god, or its absence, when she became a Muslim. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Madhavikkutty being Madhavikkutty, there was bound to be high drama in her change of faith and religion. Unwittingly perhaps, but none too innocently, she said and did things in a manner that would strike headlines. She liked being noticed, as author of her writings or one who lived her life the way she lived it. If that was showiness, Madhavikkutty was showy. She honestly believed she was a woman of destiny. The world had several deficiencies to be set right and she felt being called upon to correct them. That urge for showiness, blended with naivete, and inability to place herself in the matrix of society, was what dawned on her as an epiphany to contest the assembly assembly elections in 1982.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She took herself seriously as a candidate while a band of workers who clung to her as primordial leeches saw around her trappings of buffoonery. They set up an election camp at her home and had a good time for three weeks, holding demonstrations, putting up her cut outs at street corners, plying her vehicles as she drove around setting cardinal election issues in focus. She came one day, accompanied like a shadow by her amiable husband, Madhava Das, to place an advertisement of her candidature in our paper. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No sensible paper would turn down an ad and she wanted to make it as big as possible. Das left it to her to decide how it should be. On my part, I suggested a token insertion. We struck up some compromise. She was more than crestfallen when the results came. She had polled less than invalid votes. I was sure her literary fan club had not wasted their votes on her. By and by, she must have become sure too. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My World</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has a short portrait of the British writer Aubrey Menen, a relative Madhavikkutty, his last name punctiliously spelt as Menen, so as to avoid being mistaken for his better known but equally irascible namesake, V K Krishna Menon. When Madhavikkutty was in Mumbai, Aubrey Menen visited her with a handsome offer of tips on life, death and alcohol. It was a free offer. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first piece of advice was that she should keep her home bar well-stocked with premium brands of brew--which was what he obviously looked around for when he stepped into the apartment. Madhavikkutty heard him in enforced silence as he went on with his bacchanalian obsessions. “Out with all your lassi and lime juice!” That was his curt command, keeping boozers’ interests uppermost in his mind. For all her famed directness of speech, she stopped short of handing down a judgment on the distant cousin who had his friend always with him as an inseparable shadow.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make no mistake, Madhavikkutty was no puritan who would shun any company where liquor was liberally served. I had not heard of her views on Aubrey when she had some of us for dinner at her place inThiruvananthapuram. It was not a liquor crowd. If anything it was a guest gallery that thrived on buttermilk and tender coconut. The glittering guest of the evening was A P Udayabhanu, an octogenarian Congressman, who wore his allergy to alcohol on his kurta’s lapels. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Probably, her son, M D Nalappat, formerly a shareholder and editor of Mathrubhoomi, had arranged the dinner bash. Nalappat would have expected to use the occasion to get closer to a live wire Karnataka politician, Veerappa Moily, than with a spent force like Udayabhanu. Between them, the old guard of the Congress and the neo-vendor of power in the Kempa Gowda country made it an imposing atmosphere. Even those of us who had liquor on their palette didn’t feel free to gobble it up when offered. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was when Madhavikkutty came out with a bottle of White Horse asking us if anyone would care for a ride. Moily lapsed into an embarrassed silence. Udayabhanu was engrossed in a self-sustaining oration, oblivious to whatever we were imbibing with pronounced gusto. Aubrey Menen would have risen to the occasion if he were around. Retrospectively, I was relieved he was not in our midst.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have never met or read Aubrey Menen. For all I know, he was a self-important man, proportionately repugnant. He had descended on Thiruvananthapuram with his ubiquitous companion and let us know that he was available for a few minutes’ chat with newspaper reporters. He thought we were waiting for the wonder call. My colleague, K M Thampi, a young man with a creative way with his words and polite to a fault, was drafted to deal with the doughty writer.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aubrey Menen’s book, presumptuously titled as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ramayana as told by Aubrey Menen,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> had raised hackles among the votaries of the Maryada Purushothama. As a matter of political rule, it was banned for a while. The twentieth century author who probably hoped to excel the robber-turned poet could not have asked for more. The ban rendered the book a sought after reading. Pitifully, I had not read it. Nor had Thampi. But we could, we knew, always make do with an instant reading of the blurb or a hearsay review. Clever authors know it only too well that a good way to make a book move in the mart is to have it lampooned by a listless readership or proscribed by an obliging sarkar. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thampi could not have been with the twentieth century Valmiki for more than five minutes when he walked out in a huff. We did not know what the author with a bee in his bonnet, as they say, had expected of us. Whatever it was, we were not ready to play the game except on our terms. Yet it was curious that someone with Thampi’s mien, his modesty, had been so rudely provoked. Just as he was returning to the bureau with ill-concealed agitation, Aubrey’s call came from the hotel asking us to depute another reporter. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nothing doing, we said. While we were yet to piece together what had happened between Aubrey and our ace and sensitive reporter, we would have no one else to talk to him. Either the reinvented shadow of the poet of the wilderness talks to Thampi again or he talks to no one else. It was hard persuading our reporter to call on again a man on whom he had walked out. When he finally agreed to meet the man at his hotel again, we were all happy to hope for a good read. We had fortified him with support and suggestions that he keep his cool in the unlikely face of provocations. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our ace reporter was back to the bureau almost before he left for the unwelcome interview. It was a fiasco, again, he confirmed in a staccato tone. We did not plumb for details. We left it at that. Our neo-Valmiki did not call again. We adjourned for a celebration of an interview article that had not taken place. I felt good that I stood my ground. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aubrey Menen came back alive the other day in the form of a short note on him by Madhavikkutty in her </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My World. The Ramayana as told by Aubrey Menen</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> remains unread because there was no mandatory reason to rush through it. Given a choice, I would first pick up A K Ramanujan’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Hundred Ramayanas. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe the library girl would bring it to me one of these days. Thanks. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-45640849728275188372023-04-13T11:40:00.001+05:302023-04-13T11:42:54.813+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Politics of Memorials</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-3a598130-7fff-80d3-bd89-d51a1b657380"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is to be done with what is left of Sugathakumari’s house is the current topic of discussion in Thiruvananathapuram. A small outhouse has been razed to the ground. Her fans and friends want the government to acquire the main house for a befitting memorial. In response to the campaign, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has asked Culture Minister Saji Cheriyan to ascertain what best can be done. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simultaneously, there is a running discussion on who should have what kind of memorial and how the government should associate itself with the project. Like industrial policy, farm policy, health policy, culture policy and what have you, there is scope for a comprehensive memorial policy. Comprehensive because death will, for all we know, remain eternal and memorial plans permanent. Politics and economics of memorials need constant study.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The importance of being Sugathakumari is more than that she was a poet. Poetically she created her own kind of Radha who pined for Krishna’s company but didn’t want him to see or hear her. Even when she bemoaned that all her poetry had dried up, she liked reciting her compositions, not particularly musically, but indeed soulfully. I remember her singing her famous love song, “What is the colour of love?,” when she joined us to take a mentally ill psychiatrist to a psychiatrist. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sugathakumari picked up a movement Mother Teresa had touched off in one massive move to deliver justice to mentally ill people. She was a friend of destitute women. Inevitably, as a poet, she was a nature enthusiast. She was editing a journal for kids, a Lions Club project, when I got to know her. She had a raw deal from her benefactors and we made a song and dance about it, inviting leonine wrath. They threatened to take us to the court but tactfully spared her. What can be a memorial for a half-century of poetry, peace, sanity and concern for every living thing, trees among them? Maybe you took a different view but you liked to know what she thought of every emerging issue. Who would build a memorial for her?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That poser is apt to bounce back without an answer. A striking feature of democracy is that every orphan issue is consigned to the sarkari web. Whatever no one else may not or cannot perform is assigned to public exchequer. This is not to say that the government can do it well and fairly even if it can marshal money to lavish on memorials of sundry shapes and sounds. For every man, that includes woman, who croaks would like to have a memorial for himself or herself. The government machinery will find it difficult to decide who must be installed where in the burgeoning gallery of honour. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyone may be pushed up the gallery of fame, given a committed cautery that will work with unstinted enthusiasm to immortalize the dead dignitary. Which is why it is said one needs more friends and fans when one is gone than when one is still around. Epaulletes and badges and golden shawls do not fall down like manna. Someone somewhere has to work for it, pulling the right wires, as the indigenized idiom goes. Take, for instance, a man of letters like Sooranad Kunjan Pillai. I was talking about him with his son, neurologist Rajasekharan Nair. There was a low note of pique when he said two chief ministers had shown interest in building a memorial four quintessential lexicographer but half a dozen chief ministers had come and gone after them leaving it all but a comedy of amnesia. There was no effective campaign to make E MS Namboodiripad’s austere house in Shanti Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram, an EMS Archive.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ideally memorials should be instituted by voluntary bodies, fan clubs of the deceased. They will not be hamstrung by any sense of fairness or objectivity. Their singular obsession will be with the posthumous image of their heroes and heroines. Clever guys in the fan fiefdom can often put the memory of the lost hero to petty personal use. A familiar antic is to institute a prize in the name of the departed panjandrum, and amass funds for its presentation even if no one seriously thinks of finding a genuine recipient. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If not a prize or a statue, it may be a souvenir or even a bulky book, unlike one brought out by the Union government’s publications division in honour of Vallabhai Patel. Patel Memorial Lectures were a great intellectual event when they were in vogue, great minds addressing great contemporary problems. The publications division, in a wave of serendipity, stitched all of them together so unimaginatively that pages would come off loose even before a reader opened it. All India Radio, in its wisdom, stopped that memorial service. British Broadcasting Corporation is going ahead with applause for its four annual lectures in memory of its first legendary general manager, John Reith.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are easier ways to ensure immortality. The easiest way is to name a road or its destination after the dead dignitary. Depending on the reach or relevance of the celebrity, it can be a panchayat bus stop or a university laboratory or a marriage hall. Time was when people were named after places; places must now be lucky to be known by a dead resident’s name. Let it be noted with no irreverence that two Gandhis have lent their names to places and palaces in India more than all others--Mohan Das and Indira. In Kerala, Narayana Guru adorns, more than anyone else, memorials with his busts or road signs or community halls. P K Balakrishnan, whose Guru biography remains a magisterial work, used to say snide remarks about unaesthetically executed clumsy statues bringing bad nicknames to that savant of our times. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Memorial politics is not a new episode in our human drama. It dates back to ancient Egypt, a succession of pharaohs building gigantic pyramids to house their tombs. After an excursion to the Nile, my grandson was overwhelmed by the great river and the memorials of pharaohs. He seemed mentally flying back to the lands and the times of Khufu and Tutankhaman. When he lectured on the bygone glory of Egypt, I argued that those ancient West Asian seekers of immortality had not only carried with them articles of their personal use but their servants also. They wanted nothing of theirs to be left behind after they were gone. Our widow-burning tradition was a medieval extension of that ancient atrocity. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Looking at our tradition, one nice thing about it is that it is not tainted by the elemental urge for immortality. I grew up, with a vague trepidation, seeing tombstones in cemeteries adjoining churches and mosques. Those were times when imposing memorials had not come up in the rural hinterland. Hindu tradition provided for no permanent memorial. Where the body is buried or burnt, a banana is planted. In a year, the dead person is subsumed in the earth, in fulfillment of the saying, “from dust you come, to dust you return.” Those whose concept of time is longer, a coconut tree takes the place of the short-lived banana.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ancient Egyptian pharaohs and modern memorial builders may never overtake Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who had his wife’s mausoleum built on the banks of Yamuna. Ustad Ahmad Lahori’s grandiose design took 22 years and 20000 workers to be executed. No love has been so immortalized; no memorial such as Taj Mahal may ever be built again. For all its splendour, Sahir Ludhianvi had a contrary view of Taj. “In a fit of love, aided by wealth, an emperor has teased our poverty!”</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-24865426959744927022023-04-10T11:03:00.004+05:302023-04-10T11:24:21.587+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">St Antony Pray for Us!</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-f0eeaa5d-7fff-482d-9e67-a32852d58af2"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"It is a truth tested by experience that sons dissipate what their fathers gained in the sweat of their brow."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are not the words of a contemporary commentator on the fluctuating father-son relations as exemplified by senior Congress leader A K Antony and Anil Antony who has gone in search of new political pastures. The son is now an activist of the Hindu-oriented Bharatiya Janata Party which the father is sworn to fight till his last breath. Reacting to Anil’s somersault, Antony moaned: “I am deeply hurt.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The opening quote on the historical course and scope of father-son bonds is from Niccalao Manucci, an Italian writer who worked for a scholarly Mughal prince whom his brother killed for power. Driven by compulsions of power, the killer emperor had dumped his dad in a dungeon overlooking the Yamuna and his wife’s grandiose mausoleum. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Niccolao Manucci, who worked under Jahangir's grandson, Dara Shikoh, began his discussion of Jahangir by saying: "It is a truth tested by experience that sons dissipate what their fathers gained in the sweat of their brow." Niccalao made this observation while discussing his benefactor’s grandfather, Jehangir.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Mughal tradition is broadly accepted as Indian tradition, disaffection between Antony and Anil is quite understandable. There was perhaps only one emperor, dynasty founder Babur, who happily yielded power to his son, even risking his life. Babur traded his robust health with Humayun, who had fallen terminally sick. Such transfer of health or ailment was possible in ancient Bharatavarsha where Prince Puru took over his father Yayati’s senility. The aging emperor wanted to have some more good time. There were other illustrious, self-effacing sons like Rama of modern Faizabad who not only abdicated his inheritance but went into a long spell of self-exile.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Akbar was, like Antony, a good father. But the Muslim emperor who propounded his own religion of dharma was not always on good terms with his fun-loving son Jehangir. The son had the father’s close consultant, Abul Fazal, murdered. In a military encounter between the Mughal force and Jehangir’s seditious troops, the latter lost. For the prince to be made the broadminded emperor’s heir, influential women in the harem had to exert pressure on Akbar. To make the transition swift and smooth, it was said, Jahangir had arranged to poison his father. Subsequent inquiries acquitted the son who reigned for two decades and more, leaving the administration to his factotums, himself wallowing in dance, drama, drinks and drugs. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saint Atnony of Padua, after whom A K Antony is named, was a man of peace and amity. He was an effective orator and his homilies were lapped up by his devoted followers. True to his cult of convergence and consensus, Antony of Chethala tried to steer clear of confrontation, just as his patron saint of Padua devoted more time to study and meditation than to priestcraft and attendant pettifoggery. Anthony of Padua was canonized soon after his death. So obvious was his mission which really required not many miracles. St Antony, pray for us!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have not yet heard in detail from Anil Antony why he thinks he is right in deciding to work for the vanguard of Hindutva and his father is wrong in suffering the association with a party tied to the pulverized pillars of an ancient party. The mullahs and the pundits of his new party will use him, his very presence, that is, to embarrass his dad's party. Anil Antony may not garner significant electoral advantage on his own but Congressmen will find themselves ridiculously ham-handed while inventing an eloquent repartee to their familiar diatribes. An important activity in elections is to inspire an ambience of victory. Nothing wins like victory.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where is the harm if the father and the son take opposite positions? Why should not a son strike a new note in political affiliations, deviating from the path prepared by the father? There are fathers and fathers, just as there are sons and sons. Prahlada was an impossible son who would give no quarter to his father Hiranyakasipu. The son was a preceptor of immanence; the father saw nothing divine, nothing other than himself, inside or around him. That the tempestuous relations between the father and the son had a gory end for the father is, right now, beside the point. Prahlada’s discord with Hiranyakasipu should be seen in that perspective, not as a symbolic equalism of episodes and characters.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Indian tradition of relations and power struggles can be viewed in various angles. Prahlada’s grandson showed the way by abdicating authority to redeem his word and honour. Though there is no national version of the story, Mahabali’s surrender of power and acceptance of self-exile should serve as a foil to the unvarying tales of treachery and vulgarized father-son relations. Mahabali kept his royal word even when it meant his total dispossession of power. Balamani Amma saw in that gesture a glimpse of divinity stepping on the head.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A blind king’s concern for his son was what brought on us a fratricidal war, annihilating everything on earth, victors and the vanquished, barring a dozen desolate persons. Uninfluenced by that collective memory of carnage, we have, at different stages, worked overtime to fortify the claims and interests of our sons. Like the beleaguered god, we exclaim “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Contemporary history is full of illustrations for that infectious dictum. Antony cannot be faulted for it. Anil Antony ploughing a different furrow must be seen in that light. In fact he will invite much less opprobrium when his son joins another party than when and if he is propped up in his own party.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Greek ways are comprehensively grotesque, father and son falling for the same woman in a fit of amorous outrage. The son first kills the father. And then he weds a woman who was his mother. There could probably be no more egregious account of human conduct than this story of Oedipus killing his father, Laius, and wedding his mother, Jacosta, and begetting a child in her. Oedipus does it all in ignorance. It is a gruesome story of relations going haywire, being stultified, reducing the character to a tragic hero in a distorted setting of relations.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oedipus had a sharp limp. From his childhood he had it. That was his mark of identity, a limping leg. In fact oedipus literally means a swollen leg. His relations were so too. Let us check if our legs are swollen!j </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-8842037141532997792023-04-09T15:43:00.007+05:302023-04-09T15:50:29.215+05:30<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sojourn in Chettinad </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5c16737a-7fff-c669-8f1a-f172966ec6b6"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My memory of Chettiars is not as glamorous as their land and dwellings appear in a BBC portrayal. A British travel writer harks back to their halcyon days when fabulous mansions were built in the idyllic setting of Karaikudi with timber from Myanmar, chandeliers from Belgium and marble from Italy. Ten thousand such mansions, some of them spread over an acre, with far too many rooms to be filled in with residents, are in ruin, bemoans the BBC.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Govinda Chettiar whose grandfather did not inherit the community’s opulence when he left their fanciful homeland early in life in search of livelihood had no more than a little dark and dingy hut for a house for the best part of his life. He would do any work he could for any wage he was paid. He was full of laughter in spite of life’s drudgery. For my father, Govinda Chettiar was a trusted messenger to deliver some message or money to my mother.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It hurt me to hear this man so full of light and laughter passed into amnesia, my first ever tryst with the deadening experience of dementia. He spoke at home a language with a nasal twang whose origin or decline I could not trace. The origin of their community was better known. G Karthikeyan, a flourishing chartered accountant at Coimbatore, had once taken me home for dinner when his father accosted me along memory lanes, explaining the commonality of tongues, sait, seth, sethi, sreshthi, all representing the diaspora of merchants and money lenders, chettiars, from Karaikudi, since the late seventeenth century. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unnikkuttan, Govinda Chettiar’s son, broke the chain of tradition. He revolted against the prospect of doing any unskilled work for a living. He was not driven by any ambition to scale the heights of wealth and power his forebears showed. For him they had left behind a glittering saga of diamond trade in southeast Asia. Not so glittering was the story of itinerary vendors of goodies and cheap textiles, oil makers and carriers, rollers of pappadam, crisp wafers, on a small scale. Unnikkuttan skipped all of them, taking to wood carving and engraving. His son Biju came up with a creative shift. Biju is an acclaimed sculptor, exploring the surreal world of forms, figures and formlessness. It is a style of getting to terms with reality with which the village elite is not familiar. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What overwhelmed the British travel writer was the enormity of Chettinad’s architectural extravaganza, not so much its creative splendour. It was a lavish display of resources.The Muthaiahs, the Chidamabarams, the Ramaswamis, the Murugappas and their hallowed ilk had risen to the peak of their prosperity in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Besides banks and restaurants and industries, the Kings of Karaikudi have left behind a culinary heritage in terms of Chettinad cuisine, probably celebrating its pungency in a non-vegetarian preparation.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is tempting to believe that Chettinad’s glory is a blessing of the local deity, Karpaga Vinayakar of Pillayarpatti. Vinayakar, Pillayar in perfect Tamil, can be depended upon not only to kick off all obstacles from a devotee’s path but earn him prosperity in every venture. And, all this for nothing more than a modakam, a sweet ball or two. The mercurial Lord Shiva’s naughty son is easy to please.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time was when an incredible story was doing the rounds that Pillayars had suddenly started drinking milk offered to them. The deity is made of myriad metals, mud, gold, wood, rubber, diamond, whatever. I remember former Attorney General G Ramaswamy confiding in me that he had by far the biggest collection of Pillayar idols in the world. Ganapathi Ramaswamy felt that was one good way to perpetuate his memory which was quite a turbulent legal exercise. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When that milk-drinking deity’s story was passed on from ear to ear at an impossible pace, my concern was rather different. I have heard of people facing damnation for looking at the moon on the fourth night of the fortnight. If you want to be a victim of slander for doing or saying anything that earns it, watch the wicked moon on Vinayaka Chathurthi! .But the truant elephant god drinking any amount of milk administered through any hole in the idol did not excite me. There was a breath-taking rhythm with which the tale tapered off after circulating a whole sub-continent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That Pillayar would bring prosperity to me, as he has done to generations of Chettiars, is reassuring. It was my friend Karthikeyan who gifted me a photo of the idol of Pillayarpatti with a hint that it was their community deity. What came to them by way of wealth could come to me too. A visit to the homeland of Chettiars, Pillayarpatti, could seal the possibility. Full of hope and faith, my wife and I were there to propitiate the easily pleased deity, kshipraprasada, </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are still waiting to be turned wealthy! </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-65208301024184782412023-04-06T16:30:00.006+05:302023-04-06T16:47:53.903+05:30Nemesis Knows Its Way<p style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a morning of boundless exultation. What better way for a morning to break than showing up one’s victim writhing in shame and discomfiture! There it was in our morning rag, a triple column caption in italics and a sinister story screaming beneath it! Some police sleuths had, as they often do, goofed up. They got names scandalously wrong, some innocent guy mistaken for the man whom they were supposed to shadow, </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-429ee118-7fff-c34d-bc94-4f4261f4c0f4"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An anonymous voice whispered a name in their ears and that was gospel for the special branch sleuth. He astutely watched the airport, both arrivals and departures, when Soopy was to come in and Soopy was to go out. In the heavenly process of political transition, N Soopy and K M Soopy became interchangeable. They operated in opposite political poles, one senior and the other quite junior but that made no sense to the special branch sub inspector. The nominal error animated the police wireless or decorated the file with the red tape which contained “secret” reports. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The mix-up, quite inconsequential, was perhaps a regular feature of CID life but it disturbed an invisible hornet’s nest only when a disaffected group leaked it to scribes like me who had no respect for police concepts of confidentiality. One Soopy becoming another Soopy is not an isolated anecdote. The story goes that RSP leader Baby John once felt an irritating tail behind him. While walking along the corridor, he suddenly decided to take a U-turn, his towering figure dwarfing the shadow. As they were face to face, the stupefied sleuth struck an attention pose and saluted. Baby John sent him away with a word of caution to be discreet while carrying out intelligence assignments. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back to the forgettable goof up at the airport, duly guided by a disgruntled section in the intelligence apparatus, my onslaught was executed. Lavishing my acerbic vocabulary on it, I wrote out a story rhetorically titled “Special Branch for Bloomers.” I enjoyed watching through my mind’s eye how it hurt its makers and their newly appointed inspector general(intelligence). That a heavy dose of my own medicine was likely to be administered to me, that nemesis would overtake me one of these days, never occurred to me. When it hit me, I went into hiding--from myself.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was no question of acting busy when a former colleague told me he was dropping by with an English professor of politics for a freewheeling chat on what we may call leftism, rightism and left-rightism. Before his call ended, they were at my doorstep, the learned professor announcing he had no specific questions. Nor had I specific answers. Through the next sixty minutes we surveyed life in the world and beyond. Whether he felt it was a lot of hot air that he was leaving behind, I don’t know. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he was gone, I lapsed into instant research and came up with references to some of his unusual papers. I felt good, learning a new thing or two. Then it happened like a mental explosion. The guy who talked to me with overarching erudition was not the guy I thought he was, his unusual paper I ferreted out was not his paper. It was an agonizing realization that what one saw was really not what one saw. It was a comprehensive embarrassment; it was a nemesis. Nemesis knows its way. I bolted out of me in shame and stupidity.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A goof up I saw in the Kerala assembly was covered up with expertise. An old member from Kodungallur, who was known by the name Aboobacker, had died. The inevitable obituary followed.When P M Aboobacker returned to the house, he declared he was not yet dead; a name-sake of his was still alive, though not kicking. The shape of the member in question was shrouded in the garb of death. The speaker was not a little annoyed but he managed to keep the goof up out of the press. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">V Viswanatha Menon did nothing of the kind. His maiden budget was full of bloomers. From the moment of its presentation, bloomers, elementary errors of arithmatic, were detected one by one on a daily basis. The finance secretary washed his hands off. The errors were the contribution of some budget enthusiast comrade who went round incognito, leaving his howlers to be owned and disowned by the finance minister. A warm man who found many things in life to laugh about, Viswanatha Menon was disaffected too. For so much as reporting his serial goof up, he was cross with me too, shaking up an old friendship. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one knows if Morarji Desai hit the ceiling and broke his skull after he gave an obituary address in Parliament for Jayaprakash Narayan who was yet not dead. How word came to the prime minister about the Lok Nayak’s death which had not happened will ever remain an ugly official secret. It was like a morbid epiphany, not only to Desai but ministers of his council and opposition stalwarts. As their speeches studded with customary shock and sorrow echoed around the Raisina HIll, message from Mumbai rolled again that the prophet of Total Revolution was not dead, not yet.</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I had to be off Facebook for a few days for allegedly being unable to conform to certain communityh standards, I was flabbergasted. I had no idea what I had goofed up, where. I passed through a metamorphosis, becoming a Kafkaesque character who was facing trial for an unknown crime. I felt like despondent Louis MacNeice, praying for an unborn son, forgiveness for sins uncommitted. “I am not yet born, forgive me for the sins that in me the world shall commit.” One feels relief at long last that there was no goof up. The discovery of the non-existent goof up was the goof up!</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /></span>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-3309168601426699412023-03-21T11:13:00.046+05:302023-03-28T18:20:15.336+05:30War after War<p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Chinese leader Xi Jinping has a plan to end the war in Ukraine. "Dear friend," Russian leader Vladimir Putin told him while on a visit to Moscow, "we are always open to the negotiation process." Jinping has a 12-point plan for peace. It involves "ceasing hostilities and resuming peace talks." No rancour, more peace, indeed. What else could it be? Would it end as a war to end all wars? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">World Wars, both the second and the first, were phlegmatically described, when they were raging, as wars to end all wars. That was a naive dream, a vision conjured up by guileless chroniclers. It was a valid prophesy insofar as the third and final war not yet broken. So many wars across the planet, isolated or coordinated, do not add up to a world war. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I had a self-assigned brief to tell my granddaughter Gauri a story of war. We were walking around the shelves of a medium library in Fairfax County when I picked up a heavily illustrated tome on wars in history. I thumbed through it before having it issued. The great war in Kurukshetra which had been glibly assumed as the last war of wars, but left no more than a dozen of its participants alive, did not figure in it. Peace was a sombre dream.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">From Herodotus to Winston Churchill, writers of war history have been duly hailed and decorated. From Duryodhana to Vladimir Putin, wagers of war have been praised for their valour and, if it comes, victory. A soldier is known by the epaulets he pins on his chest, marking his participation in battles and the lives he has taken. News scribes down the ages have paid tributes to them, saying in an orotund way, "they died so that you live." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">War literature is as voluminous as it is convulsive. Churchill who led his country's part of the war in 1939-45, and narrowly won, was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. There was no grand reception awaiting the young poet Wilfred Owen who lost his life fighting a war. About the likes of him, who survived or died, he said they were "alive, but not mortal overmuch, dying, not mortal overmuch." A whole body of military folklore, singing paeans of surviving heroes, running down traitors, invigorates every vernacular literature. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The story of chicanery and betrayal in war, traceable to the times of Judas, is breathtaking, without end or beginning. In our times and little land, the latest betrayer belongs to the era of the chekavars, mercenaries who are supposed to fight and finish, either way, dying or winning a trophy of his head, all for their employers' perceived benefact. In a reversal of main characters in a northern ballad, the traditional hero turns a villain, the villain the wronged hero. The recreation of the folktale in an M T Vasudevan Nair's film script was a massive success. A little kingdom of Ambalapuzha had a quiet quiescent king when Marthanda Varma's advancing troops brought it under siege.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The siege was possible, thanks to some subtle intelligence an elite Nair, Mathoor Panikkar, passed on to the Venad army well in time. That was one of a series of mini-battles Marthanda Varma fought in the course of his conquest. By the way, Marthanda Varma hired the commander of a Dutch detachment he defeated in a battle at Kolachal as his miliatry trainer.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Southern Kerala has plenty of the saga of betrayal. Eravikkutty Pillai, senior commander of the Venad army was betrayed by his own men, and he died leaving behind enough scope for a macabre ballad. Elsewhere the Ghoris, the Khiljees, the Lodis, the Mughals, all from arid west or central Asia, forayed into the Gangetic plane with the active connivance of betrayers, Jaichand and Mir Jaffar are familiar figures darkening our memory. No story of war will be complete without the exploits of betrayers. Samoothiri in Kozhikkode had his betraying courtier, Thalappanna, a twisted mind, factual or figment of imagination. The wily Brahman made things easy for the Portuguese traders to score commercial and political clout in maritime engagements.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Much like our Mahabharata Was was the Pelopponnesian War four hundred years before BC. From protracted Pelpponnesian wars to our unremarkable Pookkottur Battle, is a tragic cry, rendering war as a principal factor of human civilization. Kalinga War, an incomparable expedition in the annals of war, seemed to be an approximation to the dictum, war to end all wars. That did not happen. But the victor of the sanguinary operation,Ashoka, laid down his arms for life, and turned into a campaigner for Dharma, Buddhism. In a different setting, Marthanda Varma, appalled by the blood on his sword, he surrendered his kingdom to his family deity, not much more than an apparent transfer of power. Another showman, Alexander, who died early, probably because of excessive consumption of alcohol, embarrassed by the enormity of his conquest. So much so he had left instruction to keep his open hands outstretched from the coffin to let it be known that he was carrying with him.. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Russian wars produced a magisterial novel, War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy. Two thousand years earliest, what may well be qualified as humanity's best war literature, the Bhagavad Gita, was produced. It was no appeal for peace or treaty of friendship or cessation of hostilities as Jinping has made to Putin. Gita was an unusual exhortation for war, charioteer Krishna asking his buddy, irresolute soldier, Arjuna, to get up and fight, <i>yuddhaya kritanischaya</i>. This unique 700-stanza war poem was disposed of in two lines by Malayalam's patron saint Ezhuthachan wrote his Mahabharatam. In our contemporary era, Amartya Sen finds Arjuna's doubts and questions more relevant and rational than Krishna's exposition. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p> </p>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-83337338296766005782023-03-17T16:20:00.002+05:302023-03-18T22:30:08.921+05:30Sense of Deja Vu <p> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Sense of Deja Vu</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was struck by a sense of deja vu when I watched fisticuffs in the Kerala Assembly yesterday. People of my vintage would dismiss it with a perfunctory nod, "Oh, what is there? We have seen it all before.." </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The disruption of the proceedings, the physical exertions by the honourable members, the determined move of the watch and ward guards, the complaints about their excesses--we have been treated to it all over decades. If there was a difference between then and now, it was in specifics. There was no KK Rama then to bemoan that an MLA had kicked her. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another difference. Television had not got going when I first witnessed, not without glee, legislators and their guards being locked in combat right inside the great portal of democracy. Nor was television coverage possible when I saw ruling party activists rounded up a legislator and bashed him up severely. He was an iconic presence everywhere when he was fire-breathing Marxist. The activists had to thrash him, kick the renegade around, to illustrate their allegiance to the party. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today's rulers were yesterday's resisters. It was their resolve that K M Mani, finance minister, who was facing charges of graft, should not be allowed to present the budget. It was no bland appeal; it was a revolutionary decision to block his entry into the august assembly. Those who orchestrated the resistance revolution believed, of course, stupidly, that they had enough physical prowess to rout the state's police. Two scenes of that farce remain vignettes of my memory. In one, a woman legislator dug her teeth into another legislators arm. In the other, a doughty comrade was seen jubilantly pushing the speaker's high-backed chair down the rostrum. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Time was when Vakkom Purushothaman ruled, let us say, the roost as the speaker. Following some commotion, he sternly suspended four members including Marxist militant M V Raghavan. His party would not approve of the speaker's order. Raghavan led what could be called Operation Vakkom, trying to force their entry into the assembly. Vakkom never brooked defiance. His order to assembly guards was to let no suspended member get into the assembly hall at any cost. They obeyed the speaker's order meticulously. In the melee, one member, now a minister, Krishnan Kutty, had his hand grievously crushed in a closing door. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">MVR was himself the victim of a vicious assault by his former followers. He had changed his party and had a point or two to make when T K Ramakrishnan, home minister, was giving a garbled version of an incident involving him. Raghavan rushed down the aisle to force into the home minister's pocket. In a moment the enraged crowds of comrades swarmed around him, manhandling him, kicking him, lapsing into vituperative pyrotechnics. The victim was not ready to clear out, yielding to the massive attack. As he dared his tormentors, challenging his former followers to do him to death, speaker Varkala Radhakrishnan, adjourned the house. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were tides off the beach of Sankhumugham. MVR became a minister. The comrade crowd could not come to terms with his survival. They were determined to block his movement everywhere. Blocking a class enemy, physically, violently, if need be, was still the Marxist method of resistance. When he went to address a meeting in Koothuparamb, hyperactive comrades dared the police which opened fire, killing five workers. That was subject for a new movement of resistance.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Blocking anyone's way, preventing any assembly proceeding, is not the way of democracy, not exactly. Democracy is all about letting a contrary view to be expressed without hindrance. For participants in the democratic process, it will be useful to remember that militant or military moves against an established authority is not likely to succeed. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8516647855364629976.post-56839045979446863682023-03-17T10:58:00.005+05:302023-03-17T17:21:01.114+05:30Parents and Wards<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Parents and Wards</b></span></p><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;">Satyavati was uniquely blessed. Hers was the first conjugal relationship on an inter-caste basis. She was a fisherwoman, and smacked of fish. A matsyagandhi.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e016c5d2-7fff-77a4-5b5c-d2739f357457"><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But her olfactory disadvantage was more than offset by her visual charm. So much so Parasaran, who had made an art of self-denying celibacy, was fired by a carnal urge at her very first look. </span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the guileless ferry woman was taking him across the turbulent river of passion, our venerable monk lost all his self-possession. To make her agreeable, he lavished all his power of penance so get her out of her obnoxious ambience. Satyavati and Parasaran had a good time in her country boat, yielding an extraordinary son. The son was dark and uncouth, but redoubtable not only as a progenitor but an editor-raconteur of stories of war and peace. Krishnadwaipayana Vyasa was a useful son to Satyavati.</span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The ugly compiler of scriptures left her in his teens, probably in search of his elusive father, but not without assuring her that she could depend on him to find a solution to any newly emerging crisis. Such a crisis engulfed her long years later when she had two more surviving sons from an inter-caste matrimony. This time round, her suitor was a fun-loving king, obsessively seeking out mates, not a phlegmatic sanyasi given to matters mundane only occasionally. </span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The two sons who inherited the Kuru throne were ill or impotent. They eventually croaked. Mom Satyavati sent for her peripatetic eldest son whom she wanted to sire the issues of her daughters-in-law. Vyasa, ugly genius for all seasons, turned up to father his siblings’ kids. The rest is history as is what happened before. Monks were no self-abnegating monks, emperors could trade their power for a game with a ravishing girl, caste shackles were not necessarily restrictive when it came to marital alliances, mothers could deploy an omniscient son to beget children in her other sons’ widows. The last assignment, siring kids in Vyasa’s siblings’ widows, was a rare role in which any mother could cast her son. </span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another mother, Olympias, was Alexander’s guardian in every sense of the term, guarding him against conspiracies even by his father, Philip, of Macedonia. But she was playing no unusual role. Mothers and fathers have always been solicitous about their wards’ wellbeing. From ancient Greece to modern mohallas, parents have taken it upon themselves to build and repair the relations of their sons and daughters whenever there was a prospect of rupture. </span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not equally frequent was the intervention of sons and daughters when their parents were locked in conjugal combat. Yes, there was Puru’s illustrious performance, offering his youth to his father, Yayati, who wanted to have more good time himself, trading his old age with his youngest son. There was Rama of Ayodhya who gave up his right to kingship to redeem his father’s vow given in an unguarded moment. </span></p></span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span><p style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were unrecorded chronicles as well when children set out to mend their parents’ endangered relations in a perfect reversal of roles. Yes, as against fathers and mothers correcting their children’s relations, quite a normal way of brokering peace at home, there were also glorious, though fewer, episodes of filial mission when children set out to correct the conjugal course of their parents. Satyavati and Olympias had indeed unusual roles to play vis-a-vis their wards but even more unusual would be filial intervention in times of discord. </span></p></span></blockquote>K Govindan Kuttyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08757020143076163592noreply@blogger.com0