http://www.caravanmagazine.in/Story/1187/When-Paris-Met-the-Mahatma.html

Did you know that when Mahatma Gandhi visited Paris, he met the public in a circus? It looks like he was paraded around like some sort of oriental exoticism for the citizens of the city of light to ogle at. This and more in this article by Mira Kamdar in Caravan.

*******

Ustad Sultan Khan dies

The Indian media kept up its tradition for coverage of  classical music by sticking to what seems to have become an unwritten rule: Maintain deafening silence about any form of classical music unless somebody very decorated dies. Ustad Sultan Khan, the sarangi maestro joined Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Jagjit Singh, the ghazal exponent in the list of luminaries who have passed away in 2011. It says a great deal when any google search on any famous classical musician only yields obituary pieces in the first page. Try the following as an exercise: Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubai Hangal, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan… point proved. I think the most sensible move by Indian periodicals would be to have a new section entitled :”Obituaries/Classical Music”.

Here are some samples:

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_sarangi-maestro-ustad-sultan-khan-of-soulful-baritone-dead_1618277

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=hub101211Appraisal.asp

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/music/article2665605.ece

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Saul Bellow speaks

An article that caught the eye was the transcript published in the New York Review of Books of a talk given by Saul Bellow in the late eighties. It is a riveting and free wheeling talk and Saul Bellow is in his elements while trying to map his “jewish identity”.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/oct/27/jewish-writer-america/

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Ferguson v. Mishra [See what Anisha has to say on this here]

An excellent demolition of the “white-man’s burden” ideology implicit in the history being peddled by the likes of Niall Ferguson by Pankaj Mishra in the London Review of Books. Far from being a very objective review of Ferguson’s new book The West and the Rest, it does read like a prejudiced rant against  Ferguson  – as Ferguson himself alleges in the extremely entertaining letters section on the piece. But who cares – I agree with Mishra  – any “historian” who describes the consequences of 300 years of imperial slaughter as “misdeeds” deserves every bit of the ranting he gets up his street.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n21/pankaj-mishra/watch-this-man

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/philosophyreligionculture/philosophy-religion-and-culture-critical-digest-6-12-11/feed 1 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/philosophyreligionculture/laxman-aesthetics-and-stoicism http://www.criticaltwenties.in/philosophyreligionculture/laxman-aesthetics-and-stoicism#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:09:58 +0000 Subramanian http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=2447 The world cup article in our section is about V.V.S.Laxman. This is ironical in many senses and it is not the least of those senses that Laxman is not going to be part of the world cup. I want to discuss 2 essential attributes that define Laxman and discuss how these two attributes seem to have absolutely no role to play in modern society’s benchmark of achievement or success. These 2 attributes are aesthetics and stoicism. I will shortly get to explaining what I mean by those two terms but the point I want to make is that Laxman probably is the last representative of these 2 qualities in modern cricket. And the fact that he cannot find a place to figure in the most important tournament of the cricketing calendar tells us a lot about modern cricket and modern society.

Aesthetics

What makes something beautiful? If I had an elegant answer to that I would be hailed the greatest philosopher of the modern generation. I don’t. I don’t even want to bore readers with a learned discussion of what philosophers have thought to be beautiful (mostly because I cannot). I want to just draw on one of the many contestations of what is considered to be beautiful. The notion that what is beautiful is what is natural. What is spontaneous, non-artificial, non-manufactured and not fake. Each of these terms are loaded and cannot be logically delineated. But everyone intuitively knows what they mean. Just as they intuitively know that the following shot by Laxman is heartbreakingly beautiful:

watch?v=y9yNLn3wuNU

While this shot from Matthew Hayden is very effective but will not be remembered after the next over is bowled.

watch?v=JkzbMdbgqEA

There may be many factors that go into making that shot played by Laxman beautiful. Elegance, poise, craft, method etc. But what is underlying the beauty is that it is the natural shot to play in that situation. He is not forcing the situation to do something that was not meant to be. If it is an out swinger in the corridor he is happy not to play at it. He is not going to move across the stumps and try and reverse slog it. He won’t do that because it is just not natural. And this is why possibly he cannot play in the twenty twenty form of the game. He could have had a glorious career in one dayers, but he was denied it, according to me, due to some dubious selection but he definitely looked an embarrassment in the Deccan Chargers team. It was as if Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was made to sing remixed item numbers with an obscene rap sequence thrown in between. Laxman is most certainly the orthodox classical stylist in the Indian team. It is this natural-ness that makes your heart skip a beat in ecstasy when you watch that mildly coaxed off drive which makes the fielding team stand and gawp in awe.

Which brings me on to his next attribute. Orthodoxy and religion. It is not a sufficiently well known aspect of Laxman’s career that he reads the 12th Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita every single day. This is mentioned in a documentary about Laxman you can see here:

watch?v=xpDCq-Y-mIs&playnext=1&list=PLED6EAAA596A7C20A

I feel the significance of this fact goes a long way in explaining the man.

He is undoubtedly the most gifted batsmen in the artistic mould of this generation. But how many advertisements have you seen him in? Suresh Raina, who is a child in comparison probably has far more endorsements and visibility. Laxman quite clearly enjoys whenever he is able to guide India to victory but he can never be part of what is considered to be the ultimate success in cricket – victory in the ODI World Cup. He is a prolific run getter who thrives in long innings but his position in the test batting order means that he rarely gets a mature partner who is able to support him get a big total. His position also means that he is never going to go down in any of the impressive record books. After all “saving matches in spectacular fashion on the last day battling injury playing sublime cover drives in foreign conditions and herding the tail” is not a readily recalled statistical category =- like say a 100 100s is. He is the most delightful player to watch of the fabulous four of the golden generation of the Indian middle order but his name will always be mentioned last on the list.

The point I wish to make here is that his is a story of natural talent having to be curtailed, having to adjust, of never being in the limelight, of always having to answer for its place in the team, of always having to explain for his art. He does not run fast enough, he is not fit enough, he does not bowl a couple of quick quiet overs and get the over rate rolling. In fact he can barely field. He is not utilitarian in the least. he is purely artistic. This means that everyday he has to face demons that someone like Sachin Tendulkar never has to. He has to keep his mind fit and not let it slide into negativity. He needs to train his mind to tell himself that acting in a cola commercial with a heroine is probably never going to be his fate nor is he going to rake in the millions like his more junior go-getting peers. He probably will not get recognised in the airport on a year that India do not play many tests. Everyday he has to resist calls on him to play quicker, to play ugly shots, to slog and to get the run rate to over 12. Everyday his response has to flow from his fidelity to his art. He has to stick to his breathtaking cover drives because that is what causes the heart of a cricket fan to go soft. It is what makes many lives worth while.

Every day he gets his strength from the 12 th Chapter which outlines in beautiful verse the qualities of a devotee who settled in his own discipline.

Chapter 12:

“He for whom no one is put into difficulty and who is not disturbed by anyone, who is equipoised in happiness and distress, fear and anxiety, is very dear to Me.”

“My devotee who is not dependent on the ordinary course of activities, who is pure, expert, without cares, free from all pains, and not striving for some result, is very dear to Me.”

One who neither rejoices nor grieves, who neither laments nor desires, and who renounces both auspicious and inauspicious things—such a devotee is very dear to Me.”

The crucial words that I want to pick out are: “..who is pure, expert, without cares, free form all pains and not striving for some result”. Laxman is certainly all of these things.

This brings me on to the broader question. What do we make of a cricketing world in particular and the world in general, which cannot find a place to accommodate someone like Laxman in the mainstream? It is a world which denies itself of the sublime pleasure of watching the graceful straight drive race to the boundary. Such a world is pitiable in the extreme.

The best we can do therefore, while compiling a year end list to highlight events of significance over the past year, is to follow an extremely eclectic approach and pick out those events which resonate with the past -but only do so in their continuity. These events are not significant for being radical departures, but rather for being notable instances which remind us (very very indirectly) of certain aspects of Indian history. As it must be very clear to everyone by now, the examples below are extremely eclectic and owe their mention on this piece purely to them being my pet obsessions. Anyone else drawing up a similar list would have safely ignored all the entries below.

Dasashwamedh Ghat, Varanasi

In the beginning there was the name. When I heard this name being mentioned on prime time news, I paused and paid attention. This was the site of the blasts earlier in the year in Varanasi. Literally translated, it means the ghat where 10 Ashwamedha yagnas were performed. Though, historically it appears to be of a much more recent vintage (given its final form as recently as 1774 ), mythologically, as is always the case in India, it is of a much grander pedigree – ten horses were sacrificed by Lord Brahma to allow Lord Shiva to return from a period of banishment.

But regardless of history, actual or mythological, what really stands out is the simple beauty of the Ganga Aarti performed on this Ghat every night. This is what made the images of the bomb blast even more discordant. Such destruction in a site of such majesty. It surely is one of the most beautiful spiritual sights one can come across in modern India.

1000 years celebration at the Brihadeeshwara Temple, Tanjore

It was 1000 years ago that one of the greatest achievements of Indian sculpture and architecture was consecrated. The Big Temple at Tanjore, as it is informally known was built by the Chola king Rajaraja Chola. But while it is justly famous for the scale and grandeur of construction, people forget that in a certain sense every Indian temple is a big sculpture rather than a building. It may require an entire book to relay the anecdotes about this temple, but my favourite is the one that relates to the building of the dome at the very top of the Tower which is made of a single massive granite stone. Archaeologists were puzzled as to how such a massive stone was hauled so far into the sky without any modern crane technology. The answer they found lay in a the remains of a hill tens of miles away from the site of the temple. An artificial hill was constructed up to the top of the tower and the stone was literally walked up to the top!

This year, it was also the sight of a great festival organised by the Tamil Nadu government to commemorate the occasion. Though the rendering of the Oduvars (traditional Tamil singers who sing the songs of the Saivite saints like Manickavasagar etc.) was soul stirring, the Bharatanatyam performance by a 1000 dancers resembled more of a chaotic mass drill practice.

ASI’s  Superintendent Archaeologist K K Muhammad

Humayun’s tomb is a monument that was in many ways a precursor to the Taj. It is as grand in scale and ambition and it is in the middle of Delhi. But few people had visited it till Obama decided to include it in his agenda. The person who was photographed along with the Obamas in the Humayun’s tomb was Superintendent Archaeologist, Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) K K Muhammad, a man who represents the best tradition of Indian multiculturalism. He is also the biggest hope for the urgent cause of conservation of the archaeological treasure of India. He is a scholar in Sanskrit, effortlessly quoting from a number of Kalidasa’s classics. His greatest achievement to date has been  the restoration of more than 100 temples/shrines that lay in ruins at Bateshwar complex, about 40 km from Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. These shrines were built between the Gupta and Pratihara eras around 1300 years back and faced great damage from dacoits. He has worked tirelessly to restore them to at least a measure of their former glory.

The idol Ram Lalla

Ram Lalla, infant idol of Lord Ram of Ayodhya has had the  most unexpected second lease of life this year . In a judgment that was analysed and critiqued extensively elsewhere in this blog (here, here and here), the idol of the infant Ram or Bhagwan Shri Ram Lalla Virajman of Ayodhya, was held by the Allahabad High Court to have certain rights in the disputed property at the centre of the Ayodhya dispute. Inter alia (which is lawyer speak for amongst other things), on this basis, the High Court proposed a novel three way partitioning of the site. The judgement is in appeal in the Supreme Court but surely there cannot be a greater instance of continuity in the midst of change in modern India. A divine infant, being manifested in an idol and actually successfully asserting its property rights in a secular British style judiciary. For sheer novelty this is hard to beat!

1. Guru Dutt -

Directed films that are by common consensus the greatest to ever hit Hindi screens (please note that Satyajit Ray is not included here). Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool,Saahib Bibi aur Ghulam. His films are overflowing with one quality that seemed to be the very essence of the man- an inexplicable dark sadness that knew no boundaries. This was not a sadness that evoked frustration or some petty disenchantment. It was sadness that evoked loss of companionship and betrayal of romantic love as manifested in this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXZR57XQ7yI

His personal life followed a trajectory eerily similar to his movies. He was in love with and married Geeta Dutt, the iconic singer of the previously linked song. Fell disastrously in love with the unattainable Waheeda Rehman, became an alcoholic and died of a lethal combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. He had severe liver damage which probably accelerated his death.

2. Meena Kumari-

Widely hailed as the first feminist heroine on the Indian screen, a couple of decades before Smita Patil. One can sense a bit of the helpless nature of her sadness in her portrayal of the misunderstood alcoholic wife in Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam.

She married Kamaal Amrohi after an intense romance. However, (it appears, rather typically for an actor of this time), they split and she became an alcoholic. They remarried but she never entirely recovered. She continued to suffer and died a few weeks after the monument to her romance with Kamaal Amrohi, Pakeezah was released. Pakeezah was initially shot in the early fifties in the first flush of her love (the song “Inhi logon ne” was shot in black and white) but was shelved and later completed in the seventies. Ironically, it was her untimely death by cirrhosis of the liver that made Pakeezah popular.

The song that epitomises her condition is linked here:

3. Geeta Dutt

Already mentioned in connection with Guru Dutt. A singer of great intensity and piety. Married Guru Dutt, was destroyed by his dalliance with Waheeda Rehman and predictably took to heavy drinking. She died of the cirrhosis of the liver. Is there a hint of any of this helpless pain and suffering in her singing of this early song?

4. Madhubala

The great beauty whose primary claim to fame is her role as a doomed courtesan, Anarkali in Mughal-e-Azam. She had a long affair with Dilip Kumar which ended because of a combination of personal and professional reasons. She married Kishore Kumar, the acclaimed playback singer but their marriage was never happy. She was widely believed to be still in love with Dilip and the strain of having to act with him in Mughal-e-Azam probably aggravated her heart illness which led to her premature death in 1969 at the age of 36. Another sad song featuring another sad actor:

You get the drift. I will not burden you with any more details of actors who died of an excess of love or liver damage or more usually, both! But I think one sees a pattern here. These are people who are very very sad. And the movies that they made were very very good.

Look at the situation now. We have an industry filled with happy kids. Kids of parents who were happy people. Karan Johar, Sonam Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Bobby Deol… the list goes on. Looking at the on screen cuddling of Shahrukh Khan, Kajol and Karan Johar and one feels like one has walked unwittingly into a very happy high school reunion. But what has happened to the movies that we make? They have become happy as well. Happy and bad. Happy and delusional. They are mostly set in some suburb of an urban area in a western country with brown faces facing entirely white problems. When was the last time an Indian family grappled with the issues faced in the recent Stepmom rip off (“We are Family”)? Never. Which is why it had to be set in Toronto. The movies have become culturally dislocated catering to a zombie NRI audience that exists only in the twisted cheerful minds of these new age directors and in the movies they make. They can’t do India. They can’t do reality and they can’t do sadness.  Even if they do set a movie in India they choose to set it in locales that exist purely in their myopic visions – for example, under the sea link bridge (which is possibly the only place in Bombay without poor people) (“Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na”) or in the cloistered bungalows of South Delhi (“Aisha”). Movies have become shopping brochures for luxury brands and broadly have the emotional resonance of a big red lollipop.  Is it really possible to feel sorrow, real genuine human sorrow for somebody who has a six pack or a breast implant? Do they think we are fools? Or possibly it is not their fault. It is just that they are genetically happy and genetically happy people can only make movies that are pre-ordained to be insignificant and irrelevant. Proving my theory.

Or worse- it is not their fault because we, as a nation, now don’t understand sadness. We look at Pyaasa and tell the hero to get over the chick and get a life. We think the lines “Jaane who kaise log the jin ke pyaar ko pyaar mila” is about a guy who scored in a bar. Have we all collectively lost the sincerity it requires to be sad? Therefore, have we all lost the sincerity it requires to make great movies?

But not to worry there is hope at hand. Is it any coincidence that possibly the greatest movie made in recent times – Dev D- was made by a man whose personal life reads like a bleak commentary on human relationships? Anurag Kashyap is positively the greatest poster boy for my thesis that sad people make great movies. At the heart of Dev D lies a very Guru Dutt-esque character. Astronomically in love, misunderstood and alcoholic. There is hope yet.

Given the recently delivered judgment in the Ayodhya title suit,[1] and the preceding and subsequent attention the issue has been receiving,  it is probably opportune to consider what Gandhi’s position was or would have been on this extremely contentious issue. The consideration is opportune for various reasons, primarily because it is Gandhi Jayanti. More importantly, however, because, whether one agrees or disagrees with Gandhi’s principles and methodologies, one cannot deny his importance and influence on any issue of any connection with India, especially the issue of the meaning and content of Indian secularism.

Secularism, as it is practiced today in India largely owes its origin to Gandhi’s principles and actions during the run up to Independence and during Partition. The image of him in Noakhali on the eve of Independence are the lasting images of a man committed to his principles and peace. It was quite clear that he valued communal harmony over any notional or conceptual attainment of independence or freedom. There could be no real celebration when people were being killed on the streets and violence of a gargantuan scale was going on. In that sense, he was clearly a pragmatist – no overarching attainment of an ideal in abstraction (the attainment of independence) could distract him from the fact that the India was witnessing the worst bloodshed in human history. Further, throughout his political career, it was very evident that he was at pains to demonstrate his secular credentials and his appreciation of the vulnerabilities of the minority community. In fact the main cause for complaint of the Hindu right against Gandhi was that he was “excessively” secular. They question his role and wisdom during the Khilafat movement which they see as an act of blatant Muslim ‘”appeasement”.

Viewed in this sense, the answer seems simple enough; he would have given paramount importance to peace and not be unduly concerned with an idea in abstraction devoid of any historicity – the idea of Ramajanmabhumi.

However, in this analysis, which is primarily informed by a CBSE history textbook view of Gandhi, one is missing out on a very essential feature of his personality which has intrigued historians and which has given fuel to those scholars who question his secular credentials: his obsession with Lord Ram! And one must remember in the middle of all the ruckus about Nimrohi Akhara[2], the Sunni Wakf Board, the VHP, the Karsevaks, Shilanyas, Rath Yatras, and all the other side characters, the main protagonist of this piece is Ram himself. In fact Ram Lalla Virajman, the idol of the infant Ram is one the parties to one of the suits so elaborately decided by the Allahabad High Court.[3]

Gandhi’s Ram Bhakti is very evident and manifests itself in many forms. Firstly what is most prominent in national consciousness is his slightly tweaked version of “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram” (the second slightly corny line, “Ishwar Allah Tero Naam” is his own insertion into the originally purely Ram dominated Bhajan). Add to this, his practice of singing a lot of bhajans on all occasions. His favorites list looks like what would be sung in the house of a very pious Vaishnavite (which of course he was) – “Vaishanava Janato” et al. Would he not be extremely keen that the idol of the infant Ram be placed where it belongs and a glorious temple be built there?

Secondly, his constant harping on the theme of Ramarajya. Now, Ramarajya as he viewed it, as an impersonal ideal of just governance had a lot going for it. But this view was not shared by everyone. For instance, Periyar, the South Indian ideologue viewed the Ramayana itself as a sort of Sanskrit Mein Kampf which narrated the story of Aryan domination over the Dravidians. It did not help matters that the South, in the Ramayana was populated by talking monkeys – a not very politically correct reference to Dravidians perhaps? Further, when not being egged on by talking monkeys Ram was busy exterminating Asuras in their millions. Asuras, according to various Dravidian scholars (and ideologues such as Periyar) probably referred to the early Tribal people in the South.[4] Viewed in this sense, Ramarajya was not perhaps an ideal that everyone in this country aspired to. Indeed, it was positively feared by the vast sections of the country’s indigenous population and was reflective merely of the aims of a minute articulate vocal moneyed middle class.

Finally, his last words. According the Bhagavad Gita, and much of Hindu theology, if one is meditating the name of the Lord just before one’s last breath, one is assured of moksha. The reason for this doctrine is very evident. At the moment of ones death, one is devoid of all pretensions and fake ornamentation one wears during life. As everyone knows, Gandhi’s last words were “Hey Ram”. So clearly Ram was of paramount spiritual significance to Gandhi.

But do these aspects of Gandhi’s personality make us conclude that he would have wanted to build a temple on the imagined site of Ram’s birth at such a great cost? The costs include the destruction and vandalism of a very real historical heritage, a grand mosque built by the first Mughal Emperor of India. The costs include the possible killing of a number of innocent people across India. The costs include earning the mistrust of the biggest minority community. The costs include being labeled (quite justifiably) a paper democracy with little respect for the real content of secularism. I think his interest in preserving peace and his higher appreciation of religion would have meant that Gandhi would not have insisted on any temple.

I come to this conclusion for many reasons, but given the brief nature of this blog entry, I would like to highlight just one reason which was pointed out by Ramachandra Guha in a recent article in the Telegraph.[5] In that piece, Mr. Guha draws a comparison between Jalaluddin Rumi (the early Persian mystic) and Gandhi. Gandhi was inspired by Rumi in the early part of his political career. While reviewing Rumi’s book Gandhi quotes:

“Rumi saying, when asked where one could find god, “I saw the Cross and also Christians, but I did not find God on the Cross. I went to find him in the temple, but in vain. I saw him neither in Herat nor in Kandahar. He could be found neither on the hill nor in the cave. At last, I looked into my heart and found Him there, only there and nowhere else.”

Gandhi stated in his review that he would like to recommend the book to everyone. “It will be of profit to all, Hindus and Muslims alike”.

Though, as with much of his judgment, one fails to find the relevance immediately. Perhaps Justice Agarwal knows or perhaps he knows not! You can find the entire judgment here: www.allahabadhighcourt.in

[2] For those readers who were as clueless as me about the origin of this group, the Wikipedia entry is not very illuminating: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirmohi_Akhara

[3] Yet another aside which is entirely unrelated: Justice S.U Khan’s judgment contains a delectable digression (for those readers who are lawyers) on whether an idol is a perpetual minor.  The Court disagrees with counsel for the Plaintiffs who tries to argue very ingeniously that because the idol is a minor for legal purposes, the Section in the Limitation Act which disapplies Limitation against minors will apply to an idol as well. The Court very wisely points to the pitfalls of extending a legal fiction beyond its logical boundaries. See the judgment of Justice S.U Khan at pages 137-187. (www.allahabadhighcourt.in).

[4] Of course, just because all this is claimed by the Dravidian ideologues does not make it true. The interaction between the early migrants from the North and the indigenous tribes of South India are documented extensively in Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India, (Oxford, with a foreword by R. Champakalakshmi).

[5] http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100925/jsp/opinion/story_12963007.jsp

I was born and brought up in a progressive Hindu family. Everyone around me was ‘mildly’ religious. We celebrated all the usual festivals and said the mantras and recited prayers. Customs and traditions were followed with a certain degree of flexibility. I have some of my fondest memories associated with these festivals because they were, more than anything, a time to meet people and celebrate. And as such, during all those days even though I did all the religious things asked of me, I was never forced to believe in God. I am very glad that I have always had the freedom to have my own religious views and my own philosophy of life.

Yet, that freedom could not stop me from absorbing many of the core values of Hinduism. During those years, sometime quite early in my life, I was introduced to the concept of karma which is undoubtedly one of the core values. As most of us know, the laws of karma are quite simple: “Every action has a reaction” or “What goes around, comes around”. It seemed like a beautiful concept and everyone around me believed in it; some even without consciously treating it as karma. Some people strongly believed that God plays a role in the delivery of karma and such divine intervention then put the concept beyond the realms of reason and doubt.

Then somewhere along the way, I transformed that concept into something that seemed more practical to me. I started treating ‘efforts’ as a way of building up ‘good’ karma or countering ‘bad’ karma. I thought that if I worked hard and put in enough efforts then, of course my ‘good’ karma bank will increase and I can cash it for good results.

What I did not realise at that point was that the underlying assumption of all this philosophy or the basic tenet on which all this was based on was that ‘the world is a fair place’. And that thought became an integral part of my way of thinking, unfortunately, unknowingly so. Once I started viewing the world through these glasses, it was very easy for me to start strongly believing in a meritocratic society and a just world. It wasn’t that unnerving to see corruption or crime in the media because, of course, the karmic balance will be preserved; the corrupt will be caught and the perpetrators punished. I believed, naively so, that people who made use of their clout to achieve something or earn a business contract or gain some fame must not be happy or satisfied people. They must not have a good night’s sleep or even a peaceful conscience.

It was a great coping mechanism; when things did not work my way, I partially blamed my karma but mostly blamed my efforts.  When things did not work my way and worked for someone else who used unfair means then I would partially blame my karma but mostly blame their karma and believe that someday they will learn their lesson. Often without my knowledge, I would was also filter the kind of friends I made by simply understanding if their beliefs aligned with mine. All the news about corruption or violence or discrimination did not affect me as much because I believed that justice will be served ‘someday’. My way of studying was literally governed by these rules, I used put in a certain amount of effort and then only take a short break to save my karma points. I helped others because that gained me more karma points. It let me be selfish and selfless at the same time.

It soon became of a way of living. I mostly saw things that reinforced my belief like the time when my exam results came out as I had expected, or a politician got caught and was sentenced or a friend suffered when he cheated. I opened myself to these experiences because they could be aligned with my philosophy. When things did not work the way karma should have made them work, I closed myself to those experience.

Just when I started to be critical of things around me, I stumbled upon the most common excuse that spiritual leaders make: “In a complex world, it’s too simplistic to always expect thing to work immediately. What goes around will come around one day”. And, of course, it was easy to believe in that excuse because it helped me align the irregularities to my beliefs. So questions about unfair means could be countered with an argument that karma is not bound by time and thus justice will be served in this life or the next or the next or questions like ‘what about the innocents who die in a terrorist attack, did they all deserve it?’ could be countered with ‘Surely not, but karma can be carried to the next life and then they will live a better/happier/longer life then’ or the questions like ‘what about the massive inequalities that we see around us?’ could be countered with ‘those who are on the richer end of the scale must’ve got good karma from their previous life or vice-versa’. All this logic helped me to preserve my view of the world and NOT change it.

But finally, I’ve broken out of this bubble and I know now that the world is a fairly random place where events are dictated by several uncontrollable factors. Thinking back, it seems that we were introduced to this ideology of karma to help us develop our moral values. And even if it seems to be a good tool to teach kids, I think it is important to realise (at some point) that believing in karma makes no rational sense.

Feminists reading them will find the beginnings of the institutions of patriarchy, dalit scholars will find the undeniable indications of the early onset of the caste system, Hindu philosophers will find already fully articulated ideas of Vedanta, and the essential oneness of the Jivatma and Brahman, Buddhist and Jain philosophers will find the stifling rules of the elaborate rituals that possibly led to the popularity of Buddhism and Jainism in the subsequent centuries, material historians of India in the ancient period will find the shift from the nomadic lifestyle to settled cultivation which according to them explain the shift from the more mundane ritualistic aspects of the Vedas to the more speculative philosophical excursions of the Upanishads, the historians of religion will find similarities between these traditions and similar impulses in traditions across the world from China to Greece. But all of these suffer from the same malaise. The malaise of hindsight influencing the meaning we ascribe to these texts. While each of the above might be true, either in isolation or together, that may still not answer what the texts meant for those composing them or even why they composed them. This malaise has been highlighted and documented extensively by Wendy Doniger in her book on Hinduism. (Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York, Penguin Press, 2009.)

It must be borne in mind however, that the Vedas especially were not addressing society in any manner whatsoever, in fact, they were entirely addressing the various celestial beings to whom most of the verses were dedicated. They were inspired by the fickle-mindedness of Varuna, the torrential anger of Rudra, the gorgeous beauty of Usas, the intoxicating Soma, the vigor and virtue of Indra and so on. Characters and beings who were as real to them as people. Or were they? Because in these verses one also finds that they seem to question the existence and meaning of all the gods and rituals. So at times, it is probably the best and most accurate form of analysis to simply wonder – wonder at what motivated these people to write down these verses of immense beauty in a systematic and metered form and commit them to memory with such great perfection that they have been almost impeccably preserved down to this day. I will be selecting some especially enigmatic verses and discussing them in this piece and subsequent pieces.

Let us take the first example from the Rg Veda, which is probably the most often quoted verse from this text:

(Here the standard disclaimer. Vedic verses are meant to be heard and recited not read. This is less so with Upanishads. Hearing them is a completely different sensual experience from reading them. They are in verse form for a reason and in Sanskrit for a reason. Therefore reading them in English is at least twice removed sensually and linguistically from the proper way of absorbing these texts. But what can we do about it! We do the best we can.)

You can find all the pieces quoted in this writeup here:http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/

HYMN CXXIX. Creation.

THEN was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered in, and where? and what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?
Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider.
That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.
Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and form less: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.
Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.
Sages who searched with their heart’s thought discovered the existent’s kinship in the non-existent.
Transversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it?
There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder
Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The Gods are later than this world’s production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.

Amartya Sen, in his book The Argumentative Indian sees this verse as the manifesto of Indian skepticism. His analysis is based on the line:

“Whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.”

Perhaps he knows not? Surely that is an agnostic worldview to have. But perhaps Amartya Sen knows not. Adi Sankara on the other hand relies on this very same verse to establish the unbroken tradition of Advaita Vedanta from Rig Veda onwards. (Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian, Allen Lane, 2005). He relies on the line:

“That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.”

This must be the most succinct explanation of Brahman. And this is the oldest text on Hinduism there is. So that shows that Advaita Vedanta has the sanction of the Vedas. But there are some even more strange lines here. What does this mean for instance?

“There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder”

It is generally suggestive of some primeval state of chaos but nothing more concrete. And what do you make of:

“Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit.”

Now this definitely is philosophical insight – however much the material historians (read Romila Thapar) try to paint the Vedic people as ritualistic cattle stealers, the person who came up with that line had higher preoccupations than cattle and ghee. (Romila Thapar, Early India, Penguin, 2004)

The next example is also from the Rg Veda:

HYMN CXXX. Creation.

THE sacrifice drawn out with threads on every side, stretched by a hundred sacred ministers and one,—

This do these Fathers weave who hitherward are come: they sit beside the warp and cry, Weave forth, weave back.

The Man extends it and the Man unbinds it: even to this vault of heaven hath he outspun, it.

These pegs are fastened to the seat of worship: they made the Sāma-hymns their weaving shuttles.

What were the rule, the order and the model? What were the wooden fender and the butter?

What were the hymn, the chant, the recitation, when to the God all Deities paid worship?

….

Now what does this mean? The poet seems to be describing the first sacrifice. He asks how was the first sacrifice performed? How did the sacrificers know what to do? He goes on to give a very ornate answer in the second part of the verse, but we are more interested in this part. Whatever, you make of hymns like these, one thing is certain – that they are open to possibly infinite interpretations. But most immediately these strike you as the speculation of an ancient self-reflectively wondering why exactly he is doing this sacrifice that he was doing. What is even more interesting is that this self-reflectively ‘wondering’ hymn itself was part of the hymns being recited during a sacrifice. A bit like a song that goes like:

“I really don’t know why I am singing, …

nor do I know who sang this song in the beginning”.

I will leave you in this piece with another verse from the Rig Veda:

HYMN XC. Puruṣa.

1. A THOUSAND heads hath Puruṣa, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet.

On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.

2 This Puruṣa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be;

The Lord of Immortality which waxes greater still by food.

3 So mighty is his greatness; yea, greater than this is Puruṣa.

All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths eternal life in heaven.

4 With three-fourths Puruṣa went up: one-fourth of him again was here.

Thence he strode out to every side over what cats not and what cats.

5 From him Virāj was born; again Puruṣa from Virāj was born.

As soon as he was born he spread eastward and westward o’er the earth.

6 When Gods prepared the sacrifice with Puruṣa as their offering,

Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood.

7 They balmed as victim on the grass Puruṣa born in earliest time.

With him the Deities and all Sādhyas and Ṛṣis sacrificed.

8 From that great general sacrifice the dripping fat was gathered up.

He formed the creatures of-the air, and animals both wild and tame.

9 From that great general sacrifice Ṛcas and Sāma-hymns were born:

Therefrom were spells and charms produced; the Yajus had its birth from it.

10 From it were horses born, from it all cattle with two rows of teeth:

From it were generated kine, from it the goats and sheep were born.

11 When they divided Puruṣa how many portions did they make?

What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?

12 The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made.

His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced.

13 The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth;

Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vāyu from his breath.

14 Forth from his navel came mid-air the sky was fashioned from his head

Earth from his feet, and from his car the regions. Thus they formed the worlds.

15 Seven fencing-sticks had he, thrice seven layers of fuel were prepared,

When the Gods, offering sacrifice, bound, as their victim, Puruṣa.

16 Gods, sacrificing, sacrificed the victim these were the earliest holy ordinances.

The Mighty Ones attained the height of heaven, there where the Sādhyas, Gods of old, are dwelling.

This is the much maligned Purusha Sukta. This is cited as the earliest form of casteism in India for the following lines:

The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made. His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced.

But the same verse has lines like:

THOUSAND heads hath Puruṣa, a thousand eyes, a thousand feet. On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.

This Puruṣa is all that yet hath been and all that is to be; The Lord of Immortality which waxes greater still by food. On every side pervading earth he fills a space ten fingers wide.

Seems to me to be an understanding that the size of the earth and the size of ten fingers are both same in some grand sense. Then this undoubtedly wonderful imaginary for the seasons:

When Gods prepared the sacrifice with Puruṣa as their offering, Its oil was spring, the holy gift was autumn; summer was the wood.

What do you make of these lines? I don’t know. But what I do know is that it is more entertaining to just simply wonder at these lines rather make them obey some view you have formed out of hindsight and the course subsequent history has taken. My forthcoming pieces will contain more such enigmatic verses.

“We” – here stands for an average, musically inclined (you just cannot save people who have 10 different Himesh Reshammiya playlists on their i-pods, including an album entirely comprising of remixed Himesh Reshammiya songs)[1]educated, urban middle class youth in present day India. Personally, I have been a little more fortunate in that I grew up in Madras, a city where mandatory Carnatic music lessons function as tools of social mobility and therefore are greatly encouraged and even violently enforced on uninterested kids. The city also hosts an annual classical music conference which by some accounts is the largest congregation of musicians and audience in the world. This resulted in me having a greater than normal exposure to Indian classical music which is probably why I see painfully from my vantage point that the general awareness among young people in India about the treasures of our classical music is very close to zilch. This seems even more true of Delhi and Bombay, which are the economic and cultural magnets of the country and which therefore ought to be most involved in the promotion of these art forms.

Now, a paragraph qualifying my assertions. Statistics might show that there are a lot more classical concerts happening nowadays. It might also show up that a lot more young people in absolute terms are involved in learning classical music. But my assertions will not be falsified if this turns out to be the case. For my point is rather that classical music has faded away from public consciousness as the pre-eminent musical expression of the country. Classical music has stopped being the aspirational form of music for vast sections of India’s youth.

There are many reasons proffered for this decline. The most important factor being the decline of the princely states which used to be the major patrons of musicians. Indeed, all the best talents of the day in classical music used to be court musicians of one type or the other. The other reason being that classical music (like most hereditary art forms in India) was (and still is) essentially casteist, especially in the South. You had only certain communities, or worse certain very specific families in the community who held the secrets of the particular Gharana and the intricacies of their specific interpretations of the ragas.

However, the early twentieth century was a period of renaissance for these art forms. Adopted by the progressive nationalist movement and rescued from feudal oblivion in the princely states, the performers of classical music became national icons. This was mostly explained by the nationalist movement seeking “local” national heroes of culture who represented India’s art as opposed to Western art. (Again, remember my initial qualification. The number of the performers or the number of the audience during this period may have been negligible or smaller than today’s numbers but they definitely played a disproportionate role in the national consciousness.)[2]

Pandit D.V Paluskar sang the most emotionally resonant version of Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh6K9r-FDYE

Ustad Bismillah Khan played the shehnai when India attained independence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nfKpiGwRVo

When the country was looking for expression during times of significant national turmoil and change, it looked to classical music.

But this honeymoon period did not last. Partly because of the anachronistic insularity maintained by classical musicians in the modern age, partly because of the justifiably immense popularity of old Hindi playback music helmed by composers of great genius like S.D.Burman, Shankar-Jaikishen, Madan Mohan, Naushad (to name a very few), probably because of the increase in the pace of life which did not encourage 6 hour long concerts where it seemed more than half the time was given over to incredibly slow groaning noises made by the artiste, probably because of the all pervasive callousness of the Indian Government which successfully failed in popularizing these art forms (except by way of producing a series of very badly lit and badly edited shows by some of the great masters on DD and AIR), probably because of the access to and the novelty of western music which inevitably became the ‘coolest’ art to pursue, probably because of the influence of post-modernist modes of thinking which removed the capacity for anyone to make any sort of judgment on what is good art and what is bad art (If Himesh Reshammiya is my choice, then it is the glorious celebration of democracy empowering the  hitherto disempowered Himesh fan), probably because the reasons why people listen to music have gone from emotional and aesthetic enjoyment to sheer sensual indulgence, and finally, probably because (and this I think is the most important reason) the sort of patient perseverance and practice one requires even to appreciate the music was not fostered or developed in any meaningful sense at a very early age in any school, Government or private.

Today, the very same nation turns to Bollywood. A.R.Rahman is asked to compose the anthem for the CWG. I am sure the opening ceremony of the games is not going to have the performance by even one of the Hindustani masters in Delhi. And the masterwork of Ustad Bismillah Khan’s Raag Malkauns is reduced to this travesty for a Shahid Kapoor film (and I am not joking the song is actually called Pe Pe Pepein):

Ustad Bimillah Khan version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hveeMDC6Dro&p=D129A93C9B610FAB&playnext=1&index=33

Shahid Kapoor’s interpretation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvO42Tx9qGA&NR=1

Now is this is a bad thing? Well, for anyone who has the remotest ideas of the riches that Indian classical music at its soul stirring best can provide, this is  a heretical question. However, I am aware of the warning that writing about music is a bit like reading a Beethoven symphony. You cannot be convinced by my mere words. You have to listen to believe. Listen to the link below, patiently, for that is something which is essential when it comes to appreciating classical music of any sort and also because it is one of those badly lit and edited DD productions I referred to above. If you don’t think your life has undergone a profound spiritual transformation, you can go back to your Himesh Reshammiya remixes.[3]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgqc6m-bTxQ

What should we do about it? That will be the subject of a later piece which will tackle the tricky question: how do you make Indian classical music ‘cool’?

[2] I am not going to address those set of my left-wing readers who question the meaning of “national” or “consciousness” or “Indian art” or “local artists” etc. Not because I don’t appreciate their point but because it is very painful to repeatedly type quotes before and after any term of significance. Again, as I am sure they will appreciate, this is meant to be a provocative blog entry, not a politically correct scholarly dissertation.

[3]However, should you want to read more about Indian Classical Music – you can look at Rajeev Nair, A Rasika’s Journey through Hindustani Music. An excellent introduction that is written in a heart felt manner for the beginner.

I will not in this piece be concerned with the individual allegations of saffronisation and whether they were justified. I will also not be dealing with whether the detoxification campaign has actually resulted in tilting the balance way too much to the left. You will find that there are quite rabid views held either way and as is increasingly the case these days the case with rabid views, you will find the internet is practically full of them.

Instead, I will be exploring the basis for the detoxification programme, trying to understand why such a programme is required. Further I will illustrate one particular instance where the actions of the present government have gone against this very basis, albeit not in the context of Hindu-Muslim politics, but in an entirely different context. It is my argument that regardless of political context or convenience, the principles underlying the detoxification programme need to be applied impartially and consistently. If not so applied, you open yourself up to the very justifiable criticism that your concern is not with detoxification as a dispassionate ideal, rather, your aim is to favor one version of history over another to suit your political requirements in the present.

There are essentially two reasons that suggest themselves to any person of common sense as to why such a policy of detoxification is required. I shall, rather grandiosely call them:

a. The Non-Consequentialist Reason This reason goes to the fact that most of insertions inspired by the saffronisation programme were not correct. Truth as a value is of utmost importance in history, without which one loses all sense of objectivity. For instance, it was simply not true that India’s history comprised of three distinct ages being the golden Hindu Age, the miserable suffering dark ages of Islamic conquest and the British Colonial Age as was sought to be portrayed (or alleged to have been portrayed) by the saffornists. That this was not true was the opinion of nearly all respected sane historians.

b. The Consequentialist Reason The consequentialist reason, which for our purposes is more important, relates to the impact such a programme of tinkering with history has on the present – the ideological use to which the history is being put. It did not require divine inspiration to guess the motives behind the saffronisation programme. By painting Indian history as a long story of desecrated Hindu temples and raped Hindu women by marauding Islamic outsiders, they were trying to convey the message that a certain community in India had primacy over others. This has a very visibly dangerous and toxic effect on society.

So there are your two reasons – one, that it is not true and two, that it is dangerous. A recent event has thrown light on the face that this sort of misuse of history is not the sole prerogative of the NDA government and that the UPA encourages, indulges or suffers it quietly if its political interests are served.

The issue in question is the World Tamil Classical Conference that was concluded recently at great expense and pomp in Coimbatore. More specifically, the recipient of the (rather unfortunately named) Kalaignar M Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award. This award was presented to a Swedish scholar named Asko Parpola whose primary contribution to the Tamil language is that he has spent a lot of time and effort trying to prove that Tamil and the Indus Valley language are related. Not many people, apart from the scholar himself, the Tamil Nadu government and the Hindu newspaper seem to be convinced that he has actually succeeded in this endeavor. And even amongst those who are convinced, it seems to the impartial observer, that they are fervently hoping that they are convinced rather than actually being convinced. I don’t want to bore the readers with an elaboration of his assertions, but I think it is safe to say that according the present state of the scholarship, this award is something similar to giving the Nobel prize in Medicine to someone who has spent a lot of time in trying to find a cheap cure for cancer but has not conclusively demonstrated his cure works. It may true that Tamil and the Indus language are related. You cannot definitely say it is not true. But then again, you cannot definitely say it is true. The only reason you have given him the award is because you want it to be true.

I can think of only one factor behind awarding what is supposed to a prestigious award to what is, given the present stage of scholarship, at best, a plausible conjecture – politics. Let my readers not assume that I am taking a stance on the actual issue. I don’t claim to know that Tamil and the Indus Valley Language are not related. Indeed, I find the discussions on the topic irredeemably boring. My concern here is to explore the underlying political reasons and implications of the choice. What could be the political motivations in being so eager to declare that Tamil and the Indus Valley Language are related?

 I can think of a few, I will leave it to my readers to make up the rest. For one, it goes to the old assertion that the inhabitants of the south, the Dravidians are the original inhabitants of the subcontinent. The people of the North or the Aryans invaded immigrated into India and hence have their homeland elsewhere. Another, it goes to show that Tamil is at lest as old as, if not actually older than Sanskrit. More importantly it is entirely distinct from Sanskrit and any influence of Sanskrit on Tamil is a later influence which is a result of political domination. This is a matter of grave pride for a lot of people in the DMK. The more disturbing implication is that it can and will be used to divide people. By portraying Tamil’s history as a binary between a golden age where Sangam Poetry flourished along the banks of the Indus (all along it used to be banks of the Vaigai or the Kaveri) and subsequent centuries of suppression by the Sanskrit speaking Brahmins, there is a very dangerous implication for present day politics in Tamil Nadu. Any form of a binary that has little historical basis and is used to peddle ideologies in the present are suspect, regardless of whether they originate on the left or the right. This particular binary has been used with great effect by the Dravidian parties over the past fifty years, to claim power on the basis that they are the voice of the natives, the original inhabitants of the sub continent. But that is just not true. Nobody is an original inhabitant of any place in any real sense. If the UPA is supposedly disturbed by a theory that suggests that Muslims are outsiders, it ought to be equally concerned by a theory that suggests that vast sections of the Indian population are outsiders.

Again, history may prove me wrong and in ten years it might be standard scholarship that the Indus Valley people used to break out in ornate Tamil poetry at every given opportunity, but my point is limited. It is just that, given the present state of the scholarship, what is merely the wishful thinking of certain politicians is being passed off as history for evidently political purposes and that is wrong. This mistake has both the hallmarks associated with saffornisation programme – it is poor history and has possibly dangerous consequences.