[Reader-list] Pleasures and pain, habits and a game

[Gargi Sen]

Dear Shuddha, Tarun, Jeebesh and others,
Thank you all. The recent posts have been absolutely breathtaking in the
breaths, depths and Œintellectual jugglery¹. And I enjoyed every breathless
moment of reading and had some serious fun too.

Buddhism and Brahmanism sum up rather succinctly some of my own recent
preoccupations. I do not dare to call them questions yet because to ask the
right questions needs a degree of knowledge/ engagement I am still to
achieve.  So I am deeply moved Shuddha by your ability to draw that huge a
canvass in your post on Bengal- Kasmir, Buddhism- Brahminism and tell such
an amazing story.

I have been vastly amused, excited and entertained by many of the dualities
thrown up recently on this list Buddhism ­ Brahmanism, Panditocracy ­
democracy, paradox ­ truth, pleasure - pain, inclusive - exclusive and the
enchanting Bengal ­ Kashmir, hyena ­ crocodile, toilet cleaner - tome
reader, and to this list I can add my very own confluence of pleasure and
pain, literally and figuratively: Meghna ­ Firdaus. So maybe the visions are
not so divergent, or maybe they are or can become. Who cares? The bond of
humour amongst hyenas is possibly stronger than any of correctness.

Shudhha, I tried to remember when did I consciously begin to like hyenas. I
think for me it was the conversation between Mandar Bose, Lalmohan Ganguly
and the Ambassador car traversing dusty tracks of Rajasthan in search of the
Golden Fortress in the film Sonar Kella. You know where M. Bose says - Hyena
to moshai China te hoi [the hyena my dear is to be found in China] - thereby
revealing to the gentle Jatayu his true nature of a felon.
I think I heard the mocking hyena laugh in the background score of this
scene.

Zainab, While I am bored to near death with the lazy and obnoxious arguments
of ARKP I am not asking them to stop for they have every right to speak. I
and many more, only underscore boredom: with their utter lack of imagination
and their childish insistence on behaving like Winchester repeaters.
And why should I or anyone want them to stop?  Look at what they have
provoked. See what all is crawling out of the woods ­ lurkers on the list,
communist apologist, unapologetic casteists, Khadi diaperists, more
definitions than you can shake a stick at. So stay hooked and entertained.

But for now I want to move back into a conversation I began a few days ago
with some young people on this list. I find engaging with them a great deal
of fun. And for the last few days I am having serious fun on this list. For
instance I realised even as I write, on this list too, B and B - my personal
preoccupation - has reappeared as S.H.I.T. and ARKP. I have to acknowledge
the correct positioning of ARKP even though I miss the intellectual vigour
of the true Brahmin: that robust ability to construct reasoning with razor
sharp logic, that seductive, spell binding logic that can make thought and
rationale turn unto each other and fall asleep.

Still, the youth beckon and this female hyena must run off to frolic with
the young,  to hold, scold and laugh with the hope they have meanwhile
re-guarded and the fear that they haven¹t.


Dear ARKP, 

Let us play a game, no not traitor-traitor, this one is infinitely simpler
and called walk-the-thought.

But before that I want to make my position clear to you and to this list ­
simply because I am a new entrant in the visible (oh, how meanings evolve)
section of this list. I believe that what happened to the Kashmiri Pundits
was wrong. I believe no one ­ people/ law/ state/ nation ­ no one has the
right to deprive another of life, no matter how compelling be the reason.
Because life is precious. Because life must be lived, fully, thoughtfully,
joyfully. Yudhishthira had replied to the yaksha that the greatest paradox
of life is that death is inevitable yet people live as though they will live
forever. I am fine with that. Also his conclusion that the ultimate aim of
life is happiness. Being happy though requires courage, a courage different
in nature than some of you have been talking about on this list and
elsewhere. 

In the same vein let me add I think the right to speech is nearly as
significant as the right to life and attempts to stop or erase speech is a
bit like erasing life itself.  And K. before you again ask me to define the
territorial boundaries of the the right to free speech please can you look
for a better champion than pornography? For between you and me, I should be
the one with higher levels of anxiety being that I am a young mother (a
mother of a young person i.e. and so my love-hate affair with motherhood is
still young) and yet I am blissfully non-anxious. Still if you really want
an answer to the question you asked me, please read some earlier Sarai
postings or locate some truly excellent text by people far more learned than
me like Shohini Ghosh and Lawrence Liang. And if you can not find them ask
the citation expert/ the secret-sen to point you to the right direction. I
am hopeless at citations, numbers, borders and maps.

Dear K., in the first part of your post what you object to and accuse the
filmmaker Sanjay Kak of ­ his intentions ­ has been argued out by the
midnight-tome-reader with crystal clear precision in his post of the thread:
By R.J. Rummel in his reply to Tapas Ray. The point being that no one can
enter the mind of another to understand intentions. He says some more but
you can read that yourself. As there is nothing more to be said there allow
me to walk you to another route. Lets play a game. Called Walk-the- Thought.

Let us suppose for one moment that all that you accuse the filmmaker Sanjay
Kak of  is true, I know it to be false, but let us suppose anyway. My
question is, so what? Let us suppose he begged, borrowed, stole, genuflected
and also lied. So what? Artists have been know to do all this and much more
for art. Artists have sold bodies and soul too. Theirs and of others. So
what?   And why should I map his Œfound footage¹ with his audience ­
celebrity/ activist/ anyone?  Its all so clearly outside his art. Unless of
course you can prove, yes prove, that he Pushed the Lemmings Off the Cliff,
shot them dying (with the camera), returned to make a scientific claim that
Lemmings are naturally conditioned to commit suicide. The analogy in Kashmir
though makes even my head reel for what would you accuse him of and where
would you start? Anyway, as long as he didn¹t Push the Lemmings Off the
Cliff  but for the sake of his art did all that you accuse him of. So what?

Walk on with me my friend K. and let us take another step. Let me tell you
about another artist, another filmmaker I have already talked about in this
thread, Ritwik Ghatak and his terrible habits. It is said he had many, many
bad habits. A particularly annoying one was of borrowing money and not
returning. He borrowed so much that people, friends and foe alike - you see
he made no discrimination - wanted to avoid him like plague, but his
perseverance was of truly heroic proportions and he continued to plague
friends and foe alike. Now my point is that when you go to see a Ghatak
film, do you see his habits or do you see his art? Do you care that he drank
himself silly and perhaps to death?

Let us now take the next step K. Let us suppose Ghatak borrowed money from
you, let us also suppose it is money that you could ill spare.  He took it,
frittered it away on say alcohol he can barely hold in in any case and
disappeared. And now his new film is showing at a hall near your house. What
will you do?  You are angry, hurt, humiliated and pained. But what can you
do? You can sulk and refuse the see the film ­ in any case you are not going
to see the man till he returns to borrow money again. You can protest out
side the theatre with placards saying ­ Ritwik return my money, you are a
rascal. You can also bring sympathisers to stand in with you. You can write
endlessly to the editors of newspapers, talk to the media, go public loudly
and clearly. And you would be perfectly justified

But what will you do about his new film? Will you see it or not?

Now dear K. the next step ­ a small side step to simply satisfy my
curiosity. Let us suppose you decide, what the heck, I may as well as see
the film. So you walk to the theatre, buy a ticket/ cadge a pass, and walk
in. When the film is about to start, when it begins to get dark around you,
when you are finally alone with yourself and the possibility of encountering
art, you have a choice K. to become what you wish:  a cinema-viewer or a
money-lender. What do you choose? Its really all about you only. But
depending on what you choose to be, you¹ll see exactly that. So you might
see another side of Ghatak, see his struggles with identity and history, his
passions, his crazy mix of the glaring reality and sublime surreality, and
much much more beside ­ and you can see all this, maybe even fall in love
with the artist, and still not like the Rascal very much. That¹s possible
and ok. But you might also choose to be the money-lender and miss all this
and simply watch out for the expenses the Rascal incurred. You know in the
scene in Subarnarekha you can wonder did he rent/buy or build the airplane.
You can see the entire film like this.

So, what you will see K. is your choice totally. And if you tell me about
your money-lending vision, I might be appalled, feel sorry for you,
passionately argue/ scold/ try to influence and do many things beside, but
at the end of it all I will have no choice but to let you be in peace with
the image you keep in the landscape of your mind. Like you will have to let
me be too. The choice is all yours dear K-themoney-lender or
K-the-cinema-viewer and you¹re welcome to choose Ritwik the Rascal or Ritwik
the Artist. 

Are you with me ARKP? Now my problem is, over all these months, I have
failed to see the connection between the two. What kind of reasoning tries
to create and sell Ritwik as a Rascal in order to erase Ritwik the Artist?
What kind of a mind tries to stop screening the film because Ritwik is also
a Rascal, then unable to make himself heard runs off to snitch to the cops,
unable to do much there either runs back crying - Ritwik gets away with all
because he had infamous connections, and then finally accuses Ritwik of the
penultimate crime: loving a land that is not inscribed with in the
accidental cartography (oh how I love copy-paste) of India? All this to do
what? Stop a film from being screened.

You see I love pictures, in any form. As pictures, photos, as films, also as
words. I find pictures talk to me more than just words.  So when words etch
pictures I am absolutely delighted. And I love it when the picture is
incomplete, then it gives me the possibility to fill the blank in any which
manner that I please. So the sliver of moon excites me more than the full
one. (Although I must say I quite began to like it when a poet from Bengal
drew it as a different picture, as a cooked/ burnt roti for the hungry ­
apologies to the Bongs for my terrible translation skills.) The sliver can
have a star, a sickle, both, none attached to it or become a smiley, the bow
of bow-and-arrow fame,  the front of the steam engine, many many things. So
can you imagine Aditya how appalled I am when on your website I see your
photo with the caption ­ Aditya Kaul in a thoughtful pose? Why do you need
to tell me what to think/ feel? Why not let the picture speak for itself?
What do you fear I will think Aditya? And why do you fear my thinking?

Anyway, I think you are perfectly within your rights to use pictures in
anyway that you wish. It is your prerogative. But please can you stop trying
to stop others from showing theirs too? Even if you are totally appalled?

K. in your post you also talk of pain and inscribe it within a sharply
delineated boundary, barbed wired and watch towered. To enter this I can¹t
be a progeny of a refugee ­ must be one myself, I certainly can¹t be a
Bengali as my ancestors came to live in cultures that reflected closely what
they had to leave behind, I can¹t be ignorant about Kashmiri Pundits, I
can¹t trivialise, and I can¹t do intellectual jugglery. So, in effect, to
connect to your pain I can only be a Kashmiri Pundit which I am not. But
tell me dear K. how long do you want to live like this? Wired out and fenced
in? You have spent 17 years already. How much longer do you need in order to
rest your pain in peace?

You see my fear is that were you to reach the gate of the kingdom with two
sentries that Jeebesh talks about, for a moment lets imagine its the kingdom
of heaven wherever or whatever that may be, and to be executed means to be
sent to hell, what will you answer when asked why should you be allowed to
enter? If you say ­ I have lived in pain for 17 + x years you will certainly
be executed. On the other hand if you said ­ since I was 33 years old I was
painful, you might be allowed entry. Dear ARKP, if you live incessantly in
the terrain of pain, you simply risk becoming painful. Do you really want
that? Won¹t you rather come and play with us.

And ARKP, why get so angry with anti-nationalists? What is wrong with not
believing in borders? Or refusing fixated identities? Look at the fun we
have while we play traitor-traitor. Look how we shift and change, become
this and that. What is wrong with that? And what can your nationalism offer
me, apart from your finger wagging i.e.? Try and remember your childhood and
answer what would you choose as a child ­ finger wagging or running with the
wind?

K. dear, one last step and I promise this to be the last. Lets change
directions and go south. There lived a Brahmin who had truly nasty habits.
You see he liked to destroy Buddhist Viharas. I mean he didn¹t actually
break one himself but he extolled the virtues of destroying the infidel and
his people did the rest. It is a different matter that he went on to
copy-paste the structure of viharas into four mathas in four direction, it
is another matter that the Vihara that held the fledgling ideas of a
Republic now turned into exclusive terrains. But this same Brahmin argued
very well. And reposed his trust on logic/ rationale over every other kind
of faith. He called the ability to reason: discrimination or viveka. And he
worked out a fascinating structure of ideas ­  a sort of a How To Do It
Yourself manual - to develop discrimination.

He said ­ the tree I see exists because I see it. And when I see the tree,
what I see is its image ­ the tree can¹t come into my eyes you see, only its
image can. And only when the image of the tree reaches my eyes, it comes
into existence. So I am, that is why the tree is. (You got it till here? ­
it¹ll get a little complicated now so make sure you¹ve understood well.)
Then he goes on say that suppose Vishnu of the 1000 names came and stood
before me, he does not exist till his image enters my eyes. (Got that?) Then
he says suppose Dracula (I think though that he used a different name)
stands in front he doesn¹t exist till I open my eyes and allow his image to
enter. Then he goes on to say that nevertheless the tree, Vishnu and Dracula
exit in the terrain of my mind because we carry genetic memory (he used a
different language though), feel emotions and are ruled by senses and the
mind can create images out of these. And he says - learn to discriminate
between images ­ the one I see because its in front and the one that¹s
already there in my head, because the one in my mind is kind of shaped by
memory, emotions, conditioning and the effect of sense. And to learn to
discriminate I must learn to see ­ see both and see the difference ­ and
learn to tell them apart. That ability to discern, in a nut shell is the
first step towards realising the power of discrimination. He goes on to talk
of many subsequent and necessary steps to become a discriminator in this How
To Do It Yourself manual is called Vivekachudamani but my story doesn¹t end
there. The entire manual is written in rather beautifully crafted verse with
brilliant cadence, and is also set to music. So to me the Vivekachudamani is
Art of an amazing order: where rationality and creativity come together to
create a text that is compelling, spell binding, seductive.

I have finished dear K. but before we end the game and walk home, please
answer a question of mine. I, a resident of earth, have inherited three
works of art: Jashn-e-azadi, Komal Gandhar and the Vivekachudamani. Maybe I
like all three, maybe I dislike all three. But all three are crafted by men
with ­ let us now not quibble ­ pretty nasty habits some that you and I can
not forgive. My question is which should I choose K.? The habit or the art?
And the questions go on....but you can now go home.
 

Gargi Sen

PS: I just realised that I made a mistake in my listing of the ARKP ­ that
too the realisation came at the end of such a long mail. You see I had
started off with two Rs ­ Rahul and Rashneek but in my utter delight in the
coinage ARKP and excitement to join the game, I forgot the second R. I was
at a bit of a loss as to what to do but I think there is a way forward.
Rashneek dear, can you run off and play with the toilet cleaner? The games
you play are so much better up his alley. So that in my posts the R of ARKP
stands for Rahul who is not a Kashmiri Pundit, but then, nor am I, and we
are still playing, are we not? And I promise to try and play a different
tune each time we play dear ARKP.