Ideas are Immortal

Craving for satisfaction is simply one of the natural pursuits of us humans, and through ages what we have in our social evolution have developed are different channels to accomplish the ever enticing sense of complete gratification.

Religion, art, literature, power, and I argue even science are paths we tread upon in pursuit of this enticement of gratification. It seems to innate nature of us that we want to feel ‘contended’. Not even a toddler can compromise with means which are mediocre for its play, and we all grow with this deep urge towards gratification.

Interestingly the seemingly successful stint of capitalism also thrives on quenching these urges with commodities rather than humanity. So, my point here is to draw in science as the ultimate means of gratification.

First let me take up my own example- I find it scintillating every time to transcend into new realms of science which just revel me the revelations in store. Evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics are some macro concepts which of course are capable of instigating awe and disbelief in most people who even get acquainted with it.
But i am not even addressing these ‘popular’ science phenomena- simpler, relatively simpler or rather less popular ideas like the transform theory(Fourier, Laplace etc), electromagnetic theory, Euler’s identity, Maxwell’s equations, atomic model, and host of other ideas.

In these cases it is not just the physics that revels me- it is also the structural beauty of the mathematics conveying these ideas. It is hard for me to imagine how someone who understands the implications of Fourier transform theory can remain without appreciating it or even adoring it!

Well, this being my case, i think even individual scientific inquiries have been conducted to quench a mind’s thirst for gratification with comprehension, challenges and accomplishment. It would be only in rare cases that science has made progress accidentally! In majority of cases science rolls ahead on the track laid by individual minds in quest to quench their thirst for scientific understanding, manifesting an innate attribute of pursuit of gratification.

In reading the book “Fear and Forgiveness” by Harsh Mander which talks of the aftermath of the Gujarat 2002 pogrom against the Muslim community, a larger concern seems to be swelling in me.

Why is it that a mob has many heads, but no brains?
Or is it that these brains unleash some of their suppressed ‘carnal instincts’ of violence, because the civilisation is trying to suppress these supposedly natural urges in us, as analysed by Sigmund Frued in his seminal work “Civilisation and its discontents”?

I could paraphrase this concern of mine from various perspectives, but what I really fail to understand is how mobs become efficient excuses to carry out atrocities such as the Gujarat riots, or closer to me here in Bangalore the animosity filled anti-tamil protests which had occured during my childhood.

My mother trembles even now when recollecting the riots of the 1990’s with excuses like the Kaveri river water sharing issue between Kannada and Tamil speaking communities; And also the Babri Masjid demolition riots. More vividly I remember in Karnataka, the riots for unreasonable (not that the others are reasonable, these are worse) like the death of veteran film star Rajkumar!

And when analysed, some people also attribute this to the unqeunched and sidelined populations, who are so suppressed that they find this as an excuse to vent out their disgruntle! I am not very for this argument, but it does explain some aspects like the mob violence in silly riots.

Factional riots, etiher based on religion, language, nationality or identity cause deeper wounds on the society. In most of these factional violence, a bottom line of partisan politics cannot be ruled out.

The recent exodus of the North East population from Bangalore and other regions of India, many believe is also a ploy by one major political party to pretend as the ‘vanguard of the vanquished’, while they themselves might have caused this vanquishing. Now, this claim might seem conspiracious, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

A section of population seems to have a natural tendency to engage in violence and commit atrocities, and a smaller,yet more shrewd section of population taps this hazardous potential to execute their agendas all while riding on the ignorance of the masses, in the end making the society effectively dysfunctional.

My mail ID and most of my netizen identities are “raghuarr”. And very few might expect that the arr appending is really for AR Rahman!

Before almost ten years, when still in school, it incidentally also happened to be the most intense phase of my life with turmoils that are yet to get worse in my life; this,  coupled with my unrelenting ‘migraine’ attacks, I had nothing but two avenues then to appease myself – one of which has continued until date and will remain until the end of my time.

The only respite as far as I remember seeking then was to meditate at the Saint Raghavendra Mutt (not me, but the saint I am named after :P) in Sanjaynagar, at least twice a week and a regular dosage of some of the best music which would go on to change me forever.

In times of crisis, music had entered my life – very late, but with a tsunamic impact. My only solace as I see it now was music and nothing could connect to me better than one person’s creation – AR Rahman. All the music I was discovering and able to connect to were all had one thing in common – AR Rahman, and once this connection was established I consciously pursued all the music by the genius, and I only felt more closer to myself.

People might criticise anything and everything, and I do realise in many cases criticism might even be valid. But, to me, music emanating from Rahman was not a mere piece of creativity or a commodity in market open to be measured or compared with anything else. No other composer, until later on when I discovered Bryan Adams had such consistent impact on me.

Being lonely even when people are around sometimes might be a gift, but when the mind is frail and weak it is a very bad state to be in. Rahman’s music has been that bond which has kept me bound to myself. I have questioned ‘Why his music’ many times, and I have failed to explain it to myself!

Maybe even this is like falling in love 🙂 Reasons no longer matter, just the healing impact and the deep bond is what matters.

AR’s compositions are layers of sublime music interleaved with the craftsmanship of a creative genius of the highest caliber. Every layer as they are unleashed in his songs, trigger a new impact; the consistent bass throughout like one’s heart beats are subtle yet powerful. His music has characteristics like a person I admire – facets, dimensions, emotions, serenity and connection.

AR’s songs playing in my ears, eyes shut and laying on my bed with lights off is bliss of the highest order that I can bestow on myself.

I might seem biased or blindly fanatic about his music; But I have all my reasons to cling on to his works as I do now. Again I reiterate, it is more than a commodity for savoring – it in many times has been that consoling friend, the companion when alone, and the joy of celebration. Epochs in my life have AR’s music stamp!

The first bit of money I ‘earned’ was as a personal tutor to one kid, after my class ten; I bought the audio cassette of Boys by A R Rahman,and I still remember the whole experience of listening to those tracks on my tape recorder for the first time! Still stands out as one of my favorite albums by him.

Fanaticism comes with a hint of irrationality, and I don’t mind in this case, for, this gray area in my rationalism does give me solace and joy like no other. Raghuarr is an identity true to its sense.

Like reading has built me, listening to AR has kept me composed, and really…

Same things looked at from different perspectives appear so very different. I have grown up watching movies on Doordarshan as a kid, and Rajkumar movies in Kannada have made an impact in my mind like no other external events in my childhood. Primarily his historical or mythological movies – Bhakta Prahlada, Babruvahana and Kaviratna Kalidasa stand out vividly. I shall eulogise Rajkumar in a separate post sometime soon. The instigation to write this post today was something more subtle, yet profound.

A lazy Sunday evening at home (a rarity ), and I happened to catch one of the aforementioned movies of Rajkumar on TV. Kaviratna Kalidasa was playing and I relish the movie with its songs and sublime lines.

A new realisation that I was experiencing as I was watching it today was to do with the supposed maturity in my understanding of the society we live in.

The wife of the protagoinst in this movie, seems servile to the husband and follows it as the duty of her life; this servility expected out of women is perceived as the ethical standard in the society then, and very little has changed even today (think beyond the urban families you know of).
The dependency of a woman either on her father/husband/son all life is a deep rooted fixation planted by a male chauvinist society, which has for centuries subdued the aspirations and free spirit of the female fraternity. While I have watched movies or even social realites synchronising with this notion, rarely have I been able to, at the least, take note of the inconsitency. It has taken me this while to be able to recognise it as a discrimination.

In Tamil, the word for husband is ‘kanavan’. In a conversation with an erudite Tamil writer, he happened to decipher the term to me. ‘Kan’ is ‘eye’, and ‘avan’ is ‘him’. So the wife has a vision of the world through her husband,and this is what it implied by the word ‘kanavan’. In most real senses, and also historicaly she has been so dependent on her husband that, the one of the classic languages in the world – Tamil, has a term which imbibes this idea in itself, and hence it must have been widely accepted in the society as well.

Likwise, even English for that matter has terms like male-female, he-she,man-woman in vocabulary. Even in grammar the gender of abstract noun defaults to masculine. Now these could simply be disregarded as a correlation of genders that evolved as language evolved, or if one could let one’s power of reasoning digress, we can also observe that the identity of female fraternity as a whole is given a status that is an extended identity of the male section. The observation I am trying to make is simply that the dependence of women on men is systematically imbibed in our language, culture and etiquette. And without rigorous attempts of breaking out, we might find it convenient to stay dormant about it, and perpetuate this discrimination.

Things are getting better, or at least one likes to think so. But, only if we are able to identify these inconsistencies, as anomalies at all strata of our lives will we truly esalate to become an egalitarian society, on gender lines.

Welcome to WordPress.com! This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

Happy blogging!

The debate on censorship will of course have extremities of opinions. With the latest umbrella rule of no bulk SMS-ing, and only 5 messages per day the population affected by it, primarily the networked youth have become vocal about the censorship, and the unconditional censorship.

In one of my previous posts, elucidating the role of Internet and censorship, I had called the Internet to be a ‘self conditioned’ environment – that is the arbitration mechanism needn’t be external to the system that Internet provides, but internal contradictions will nullify each other.

In this post, I am not delving into the rightness or wrongness of the decision of DoT about the curbing of SMS. I only want to probe and throw some light on one issue I too have been gravely concerned about, since the ubiquity of social networks in the last couple of years.

Sensationalising stuff and propagating junk seems to be innate to the reckless humans that we all are. And for the same reasons that the media today feeds us with futile, demoralising and un-intelligent trash, is somehow because a majority of the audience seems to get along really well with it. This seemingly natural tendency of populations to want more sensationalised news and reports, have now also percolated into the social network channels.

The ‘alter society’ that exists on social networks, where every one is at least 2x the nationalist, the linguistic chauvinist, the philosopher or even a parochial moron, is a haven for the no-action-only-bhashan crowds. Because social networks require no more commitment than an un-thought comment, a like or a share, there is very little holding on individuals who want to satiate their urge of doing ‘something’ about issues!

This provision of doing ‘something’ about many things people know nothing about is the grand depressing reality of social networks. Social networks are most efficient as broadcast channels, and like the Internet itself the framework can best be used for purposes which can alleviate or aggravate the conditions in the real world.

Ethics cannot be taught, must become the subtle way of life. With mere restrictions on propaganda, the real rot of irrational ideas cannot be eradicated.

Another excellent post that instigated me to write this post

http://kafila.org/2012/08/13/how-to-start-a-riot-out-of-facebook-yousuf-saeed/

It is said that you are your true self when left alone.

Based on no reading or listening, but my own experience, I can argue that the true self is manifested to the next level, when with the right companion.

When alone, our personality sheds the facade and hypocrisy it would have adorned voluntarily or involuntarily to please or displease the world. Without this masquerade, a person feels light and in some cases scared of himself/herself.

We are all flawed, and sometimes tipping the balance are some traits and talents in us, giving us a positive persona. These traits in us are best manifested not when alone, but when involved piously with the ‘right’, resonating companion.

An attribute that might seem normal, or even mediocre to the self, when exposed to this external mirror of a person, seems worthy and it does take us by surprise. A principled thought, an inner idea, sense of humor, skill of articulation, gestures, sounds and most mannerism involuntary to the self, seem important because the other person regards these with a sense of preciousness. Suddenly, the self is conscious of the nuances in itself; those it hadn’t bothered about for long. The sense of fulfillment that swells inside when such meticulous appreciation or admiration is shown in a genuine spirit is pampering first, and also gratifying.

Likewise, there are gnawing aspects in our personality which we learn to live with – sadness, anguish, pain, trauma and despair. Left alone, these again seem obvious and we do not question the need or origin for this negativity. On the other hand, when it is the person outside with whom we have to gauge our emotions and it is only then the existence of this negativity in us acknowledged by the self. Now that it has been acknowledged, the quest to understand oneself is embarked upon – Level 2.

The resonance one seeks to accomplish with another like minded person, when finally occurs, heralds a new era of self understanding, which is beyond the capabilities of introspection; for, introspection is conservative to the extent that it wouldn’t try imagining scenarios the self cannot fathom. Whereas, when clubbed with the aspirations of ours residing in another mind, expectations can surpass that which the self cannot even anticipate, disappointments can be thought of beyond the cowardice of the self, and most importantly happiness can be imagined and created beyond the limitations of a lone mind.

I am no expert in plays – neither watching them, nor reading them. Nonetheless, recently I have started to digress away from the monotony of cinema into the profoundly impacting realms of theatre, play and drama. Within my limited exposure, I am braving to write a post about Bertolt Brecht’s play – Life of Galileo. And, of course I do not intend to assess it or gauge it – just to articulate the impact and admiration it has remained in me.

Life of Galileo, from my reading in Wikipedia happens to be one of the most acclaimed works by the genius of Brecht. With this as the background, I intentionally skipped the introduction and directly got into reading the play. This for sure helps me not get more prejudiced by the Introducer’s narrowing views.

Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht

The play starts off when Galileo is already in his grand reputation of being the crowning jewel of Italian Science arena, and is just then exposed to the telescope.

While we know him to have been a courageous scientist who shook the world and abolished heavens, Brecht’s play throws some necessary light on the life, struggles and compromises behind the greatness of the mind and the person.

His struggles against the church, apathy of the society,convulsions in personal life and his compromises, are brilliantly interleaved in a narrative that is smooth as cream, and impacting as a symphony.

The trait of a greatest writer is his/her ability to show how easily we can get transported to the world of the writer riding on the words. Brecht, is a genius in this regard. It was as if I could smell the air from the scenes – such is the expertise of this writer.

My blog is 1410 days old and it seems I have attained a feat of publishing 500 posts in Silence before the storm.

Commemorating this is a precious personal joy to me.

My blog is a whole bundle of precious memories, small accomplishments and life turning experience to me. Time and emotions immortalised using the words, is what it is more than any other feat.

Ideas-are-immoral, has become part of my identity as I have mentioned in my previous posts and it has also gone on to define a certain portion of me in the image of what I have aspired to be, using my words. I have grown to have an attachment to my blog and I would feel less than what I am, if for not the blog. This attachment is the subject I deal with in this 500th post.

While I am writing any post, there is no attachment as such associated with the post – only a driving emotion. I am never conscious of the post itself that I am creating – it is just a leaky container to hold the spilling thoughts from my head.

Even after publishing it and I have reviewed it , there seems to be no connection with the post except for a few special posts – which because I decide to make them special.

But, each and every post, with time attain a state where they are all close to me.For, in retrospection, every post contains the key to the unlock the safe of memories now, then emotions which drove me to write.

Reading old posts of mine, is an exercise I engage in to see the life that I have already lived with its crests and troughs. While it might not be something I must be bragging about, it does make me feel good to get back to a me from the bygone days.

These 1410 days, me and my writing have never stayed disconnected. With people coming and going, friends being made and let go, writing is the one thing to me that has kept me together – now it to a great extent defines me and I am hoping to expand and put myself in a more serious commitment with my writing.

Of course, this vanity you see in me about my writing is not entirely narcissism in me – you all have encouraged me and made me feel that I do.
With a deep sense of gratitude to all your generous words and pats on my back, I assure you all that you can expect more and better from me.

All said and done, it is not about words: Ideas are immortal!

First avatar of my blog 🙂

The shuddering me, into the shivering you
The warmth of me, eased in the coldness of you;
The heaviness of me, floating with the lightness of you
The harshness in me, made aware by the tenderness in you;
The smell on me, acquired from the fragrance in you
The taste in me, that remained from the sweetness of you
The echoes in me, resounding the symphony that’s you
The vistas in me, filled by the beauty left saturated by you;
The dreams in me, flowing from the want of you
The desires in me, seeping from the obsession of you;
The lows in me, sliding atop the highs in you
The strength in me, complementing the voids in you
The weakness in me, filled with the life in you;
The words in me, made real by the inspiration that’s you
The urge in me, to stay submerged in you,
The madness in me, blaming the reason that’s you;
The plunder in me, by the richness in you
The man in me, worshiping the goddess that’s you
The life in me, that’s more a part of you,
There’s nothing left in me, all but without you.