Stuck in time warps?

The trouble with tradition is that it becomes its own enemy.

As we romance and deify our religions and ways of life, we are increasingly incapable of adapting to the future. We fear the loss of something that was (as it was) beautiful and wholesome, the future always seems to destructive to our sensibilities. And often nostalgia or fundamentalism become our means of coping with this.

Of course, the new world today also brings such irreverence and lack of responsibility that you are inclined to believe that the world is getting worser. Maybe it is, but this may too be a result of our ineffective adaptations. That we cannot catch the essence and the truly liberal and beautiful aspects of our traditions (and all they all have it) and move those forward along with the swiftly moving times.

For the times are always a changing, and it takes a free mind and spirit to move with it, without also getting carried with the current.

A mind that has understood the spirit of humanity and also its abysses.

90 per cent of the original species of the world have gone extinct since the living world began. It is probably the nature of life to outlive itself. but this destruction happens in the natural world with relative (only relative) harmony, while in the human world it bring infinite pain - wars, riots, feuds and anger.

If only we can surrender to our own demise, we shall find that we rise as phoenixes.

Our cultures are not our identity alone, they are only vehicles, to experience something that shadow dances behind them. But the uncertainty of being socially undefined is much.

This is of course the tug of war of life, between our own spirits of freedom and security, we are at the end fighting our own selves more than anyone around us. But this realisation does make me less antagonistic to people who are holding on, for hey they're not just blind bad people, but are trying to make sense of their place in this world. I am probably doing it in the same way, in other areas. And the old too has its place in the new, so must these people who are romancing the past.

Gross Happiness...

I seem to find fault in all the work i do.

I see the articles i wrote about my issues with alternate education in Shibumi, with the biases of Sociology, with the selfish motives of Market Research and now i will write about the frustrations of cosmetic social change in the Social sector.

Of course i knew what i was getting int this time. I know it from my family. But then you really wonder, where can one go where there is both SOME money and good, real work?

Seems that is too much to ask for...

Moreover, i find that i get things much faster than others do and they waste so much time making sense of things that are staring them in their face.

Why is that so? And what is the answer? Do i compromise and go to a space where there is money, clear work and excellence but little meaning. or bunk all that and search for elusive meaning? Will it all culminate in setting up yet another NGO?!

Or do i get into teaching - at least a job whose quality i think (who knows) i will have control over?

Because i don't want to leave it all and go live in a village, where just maybe you can make real change. I can. But what about savouring the things of life? They can (albeit differently) be savoured in a village too, but oh not yet!

Meanwhile, lets see, the high life temps but its like fools gold. Especially when your search of another kind. Or is the demand for something more meaningful just a lot of vanity and a lot more of naivety?

-- Although i think I'm missing the point, the world is what it is. the question remains, what moves you? But then again after having seen so much of the present and real character of the world - its economy and society, can you really go back to - simply what moves YOU?

It's about can you deal with hypocrisy within yourself or can you deal with less of the good things in life. Strangely even radicalism has gone elite in some ways- books, ideas, methods... are found in social circles and you find yourself drawn back into all this. To move away from that too would be truly radical - and then the final question that confronts you is that are you just being socially radical or do you want to be personally, spiritually radical as well. And you can't fake that to yourself, unless of course you want to grow into a bitter old woman!

-- Then again, do i make it a big deal, says the ever shifting perspective in my brain? Just go out and enjoy life. Period. hmm. Well. .. so here ends a round of mental masturbation!

Searching...

all this insight

knowledge immense

pride remains

also repentance

sin is not felt

when i forget myself

why must i remember

regret, desire

faith and suspicion

on such quicksilver

rocks the ill shaped boat

defined by the trend

lost to myself

hopeful of a love

I refuse to grasp

whose words do i write

do i have any at all

climbing a hill

just to escape the ground

on the summit the view

is what i left behind

the blue summit appears

only to be clouded again

the jigsaw completes

and jumbles again

Benaras...

What can I say about Benaras. Having been to Rishikesh, Dharamshala and Pushkar and of course to Chandni Chowk there was much in Benaras that was a reflection of these places. And yet there is a character to Benaras that speaks to you in its own particular tongue.

The Benarasi is just different. I’m sure the lure of the city life has made inroads into the narrow by-lanes of Benaras too and why not, but there is sense of happy calm in the way of the people that you sense immediately. They blend seamlessly with their city and do not seem too anxious to get out of it, the way people in other small towns in today's India do. May be it is the promise of salvation that pervades its consciousness. What is it that has prevented shopkeepers from upgrading their shops? They may sell you lassi in mineral water (for the umpteen tummies from abroad that comes hunting for culture) but the shop will still be the old, well kept hole in the wall.

The local man still approaches his art and knowledge like a connoisseur and is ever ready to tell you reams of significance and meanings about every aspect of his life.

Perhaps it is the less ruptured inclusion of the Muslim who also lends this character to the city – and many still carry the old world traditions and rootedness in community living. 

Maybe it is just narrow lanes that prevent a certain invasion by expansive modernity… for architecture is also a site of praxis for social change. In these lanes curd is still jamaod (setting curd in Hinglish) in open paraants and served fresh as a snack, even as a cow ambles by. Breakfast can be a 7 rupees meal of kachoris, pulses and mint chutney.

This city has never had to go anywhere. Everything has come to it…

Rajahs from distant lands have built forts here, restored a temple destroyed by a Mughal king, donated gold and financed ashrams and boatmen. Politicians have financed the building of crematoriums and philosophers have passed by, learnt, delivered sermons and even settled here. It of course symbolizes the end of the body’s journey for the Hindu.

History is in the making here… every boatman, co-passenger, shopkeeper and trinket seller is ready to tell you a story about what beget what and why the present is the way it is. With so many gods rubbing shoulders, tradition must be re-emphasized and boundaries of identity have to be re-marked. A Hindu shopkeeper emphasizes to us the greater powers of the idol of Ganesha over that of the Buddha and nomenclatures add to the multitude of this religion with no borders.

Benaras has so many faces for me – Korean, Japanese, Thai and Sri Lankan Buddhist temples, Nepali Hindu temples, Hash smoking tourists, photographers or culture developers, old retired couples rolling by on a boat, claiming their late-found freedom from worldly roles and that little talked about Rajghat  Krishnamurti school where a sensitive education that goes beyond identity is attempted. As a continuous stream of bodies burn along the Manikarnika Ghat, there is both an acceptance and revulsion towards the starkness of death. The Ghat is the holiest of them all but the dome community who cremate the dead are traditionally considered low-status.

Meanwhile the locals seems to understand your need to explore this city… as you walk down the streets; there is no fear of getting lost, for everyone is eager to show you the way. And also to tell you , sometimes unsolicited, what to believe and where not to go.

Also refer to Shivangi's blog-piece on this same trip for a wholly different, more personal and visceral feel. This trip was a joint experience of Shivangi and I:  (http://shivangi-thestudentoflife.blogspot.com/2010/11/rangrasia-benaras.html)

Educating teachers...?

As long as teachers themselves carry a paternalistic attitude into their classrooms there is little room for real change. And this attitude still hugely exists through the entire system. Unless we recognize that education is something apart from imparting certain knowledge that has the haloed character of necessity, there is little chance our being open minded enough to allow for progress in education.

For education can only happen when we enter with the adventure of – ‘the discovery of the unknown’. No what we learn but learning the ability to learn is the key. And within this there are endless possibilities of what is learnt and taught.

Education is about making the child believe he is good, worthy and capable and making him see that everyone else is the same too. For this whether he is taught through mathematics, craft or play it matters little. But whatever happens, needs to be in the right spirit.

This is the training the teacher needs, not the content. The content reveals itself as you teach and it is in the collective discovery of knowledge that real learning happens.

The 'teacher' does not exist. It is only an illusion we develop in self-pomp. There are only learners. Learning this is probably the key to overthrowing deep-seated authority in our own minds.