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I have started painting with oil pastels. This is my first landscape. It's an afternoon with clouds on the horizon.

Strangeness and Clarity

“Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.”

- The Stranger, Albert Camus (1942)

    

When Libraire Gallimard published L’Étranger in 1942, it couldn’t possibly have grasped the permanent chaos that the book would create in human understanding of the world and its own self. In the background of the raging war that engulfed powerful nations, Camus shelled our existence to rubbles. The violence was far greater, yet silent. Life and livelihood became absurd, from which death was the only deliverance.

History is marked by conflict between the individual and the collective. At times, the individual won and changed the course of history, but mostly it succumbed to the profanity of the commonplace, the pluralistic morality. The idiotic status quo sheltered the masses for centuries from the onslaught of reality seen with clarity lent by strangeness. But all that was about to change, L’Étranger turned out to be the waterloo of the collective.  You are now no more a character, neither a plot. You are simply page numbers of a torn book of Hadith, the nth narration of a fable of sand, devastation and possibly a kind of jaundice, also known as love.

I insist, at this point, that I do not intend to write a discourse on the Meursault phenomenon, but to comment on the evolution of the stranger who has come to be a part of each one of you, like the fungus in your gut. To start with, let us go back to Arthur Conan Doyle, who’s Sherlock Holmes held a pathologic interest in crime, not as something deplorable, instead as an achievement of creative ingenuity. Though he worked as a detective, his admiration laid with the criminal Moriarty rather than the Scotland Yard. This stranger is laden with eccentricity, which justifies his isolation and you can feel safe to be at a distance. The ‘stranger’ next evolved in the hand of a sick Czech, into Gregor Samsa, who famously turned into an insect. Gregor was an ordinary salesman, who wished to be nothing more than a salesman, yet found himself on the wrong side of life.  Your danger is now imminent, the distance that separates you and the insect has grown perilously thin. However, Gregor is not good enough to challenge you, your marriage and the careers of your children, as he himself longed to get back into the fold, and finally died an anonymous death.

On the other hand, Meursault, the provincial, affronts you with his detach-ment. He creates an outrage by standing up to all of you, the Arab that died an absurd death on the beach could have been any of you, even me. He refused the essentially plural ideas of governing law and religion and faced death like an ordinary toast.

Yet, Meursault is no hero. His natural distance lends him a distinctive clarity that allows him to see through the oligarchy of the collective life, where laws are made by few and the rest obey. It is the inability to bear with the fact that life and death are equally absurd, that leads to voluntary stupefaction. Nobody wants to carry the weight of existence as an absolute in itself.  Therefore, we need the stranger to remind what we essentially are.

Sixty-seven years on, he has ‘infected’ all of you.  A danger now lurks in every possible corner. The innocuous drive to office, the weekend party, the summer vacation in college can uneventfully lead to a fork in the path. The world suddenly seems to shine with brilliant clarity, an afternoon without a trace of meaning, or purpose, or beauty. And you are left without a choice! 

The Evolution of Language

When did speech become language? Experts differ with each other, setting the time span as wide as fifty thousand to two hundred thousand years ago. Some of them, notably Noam Chomsky argued that human beings have a syntactic circuitry hard-wired into their brain from birth ("Aspects of the Theory of Syntax",1965) and they just adapt to the language they are born into. A natural conclusion that follows is language had never been speech. I do not intend to debate his views, or any of the numerous theories that stand today. In my view, speech continues to evolve into language every day and it will continue to do so as long as anybody speaks.

Language is not merely about communication, but also about miscommunication. In fact, it is the necessity of lying that leads to evolution of speech into language. Lying requires finesse and a certain degree of manipulation of spoken sounds so that fact can be disguised. Speech cannot deliver anything else than the archetypal meaning of a communicable syntax. Language, on the other hand, relies on the difference of connotation every time a communication is intended. For example, every time the word 'beauty' is spoken it carries a different connotation. Even if the word is recorded and played over a thousand times, it will become a different word depending on when it is played, where it is played and other factors of micro-environmental geometry.

Children lack the evolution of speech into language. So they are less adept at lying. As soon as they start learning their native language they understand that lying is inevitable. Initially, their attempts fail, not only due to inexperience with language, but also due to their inability to suppress guilt. They learn this essential skill by first imitating their parents, and then improvising by themselves. They also learn to suppress their guilt, which is of course, a more subconscious process.

As the child grows, it becomes a more efficient lier. After it faces its first challenges in school and learns to cope with success and failure, the inextricable relationship between success and the art of lying becomes apparent. To succeed, one has to lie. It is the ability to lie, the ability to turn language into a complex weapon, determines success in social context.

So, as we vie everyday for socio-psychological selection, akin to the process of Darwinian selection, our speech evolves into language, language into poetry and poetry into meaninglessness. We are hemmed in by our own web of lies and we cannot find a way out. Finally, we retire into amnesia. Our repertoire of the essential art of lying degenerates into mere neologisms. Speech became language and now language becomes speech.

Construct of a Memory

hi, it has been quite a while since i last scribbled here. my grueling final exams are over and i am just managing to survive the vacuum by, guess what, refreshing my memories! i have pulled down stacks of photo albums into a heap; some of them far older than myself, and waiting for their final passage into a peaceful oblivion , shoot me a frown of displeasure. nevertheless, i carry on creating a ruckus , like a cat amongst these old pigeons used to their comfort of shady corners of the almirah.

i have also managed to pile up all my poetry notebooks and i find there are quite a few of them! i always had the good habit of neatly putting my pieces in these notebooks along with the date, so that they become a monologue, a memoir encrypted with twisted mirrors. now, i turn page by page, and rediscover a familiar landscape with its unique depths and heights, caves and labyrinths, myths and madness.

there is something else too. music. i randomly choose from my quite large collection and happily lose myself.

some of you will find this interesting, some of you will think of this as a novel method of wasting a vacation but i have found out something else.

as i try to move backward in time, i discover that there are different approaches to a memory. a memory is not simply a record of a past event, it is actually a construct. i can construct a memory in words, in colours, or in abstraction. a photo is like a house, you can physically encounter it. a memoir, or poems in my case, is part physical, part abstract. there is still a path amidst the wilderness. with music, there is no definite path to lead you. you let it play on and on, you let it dive into your heart and bring to surface whatever it wants. you are not in control.

when does this process take place? i think of it as a continuous process that starts as soon as an event occurs (if not before that!), and the process continues till death. even when we are not thinking about it, in our subconscious, we continue to reconstruct the memory again and again. knowingly or unknowingly, we are, truly, memory-smiths!

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Arsene-al!

SRK, Big B, Harry Potter, and Sherlock Holmes: I am not a fan of any of them, not to mention Kajol and Beyonce. I am a fan of Arsene Wenger, the Gunners boss. Surprised, eh! Well I have my reasons to fall for the tallest manager in the premiership, apart from the fact that I have a crooked and pointed nose like him!

When Arsene Wenger took over as manager of Arsenal, the club languished in mid-table, behind the lowly Wimbledon. Since then, Arsenal has come a long way, and so has Arsene. Currently, it is one of the top-flight clubs of Europe, the 7^th most earning club overall, and one of the most feared opponents. It has won 3 premierships and 4 F.A. Cup triumphs, including two doubles. Last year, it narrowly missed out on the European Championship (by 10 minutes!). It now holds the record for the longest unbeaten run in English football, surpassing Nottingham Forest’s streak of 44 games back in 1977. It also holds the record for maximum number of minutes a team held clean sheet in the European competition, which was broken only in the final ten minutes of last year’s final match.

But, I insist on the fact that I am not allured by all these glitzy stats. It’s Wenger’s football philosophy that earned him an ardent follower in the other half of the globe. Thierry Henry was played as a right back in Juventus in his early and was discarded after a short stint. Wenger got him on loan and chiseled him into the terrific striker he is today. Nobody heard of Patrick Vieira before he came to Arsenal. He has already made superstars out of Fabregas, Van Persie and Reyes, still in their teens. I am hopeful that I will be able to say the same about Theo Walcott some day soon. I support his policy of bringing up young and talented players than simply spending in the transfer market. It’s a measure of your insight as a manager.

Despite all his successes, I have a few words of caution for him. Using too many teenagers increases the speed of the game, but they are injury-prone, and against physical teams like Chelsea, it becomes difficult to win tackles and aerial balls. The Arsenal setup has been too much dependent on Henry for scoring in pressure situations. After retirement of Bergkamp, the team needs another mature striker. When Reyes, Pires and Cole were in the team along with Henry upfront, the teams attacking balance shifted way too much too the left. But now, with Persie, Hleb and Eboue operating on the right, Henry is stranded on the left, and the balance has shifted the other way.

Arsene must be thinking about all these. His team has made a great start in Europe, and after initial hiccups in the Premiership the boat has steadied with successive wins. Good luck Arsene!

We, the MBBS

We have arrived on the threshold of being doctors. Of course the final exam is looming large on the horizon, and mercury is rising within us, still we are filled with the thrill of entering a new phase of our lives as responsible professionals. The word responsibility carries too much weight in its stomach. It’s nothing closely similar to being a puja organizer, or a political leader (lots of laugh!!). We’ll be held responsible for life on one hand, and death on the other. I can’t help comparing it with circus juggling, only slightly difficult than that!

The responsibility has grown even bigger these days, as the working conditions have grown worse. The doctor-patient relationship has reached its nadir, and the brunt of the mistrust has to be carried by the junior doctors. Patients suspect your capabilities and their relatives, poisoned by the media and stricken with fear and ignorance, easily turn hostile. In such volatile situations we, the MBBS (fresh and inexperienced in manipulating situations), are the hardest hit. I would like to remind you of last year’s incident when one of our seniors succumbed to the injuries he received when he was beaten up by a violent mob. As usual, an investigation commission was set up, about which students were kept in the dark. Till date, none of the culprits have been brought to book.

I hold the administration and the medical students equally responsible for this grave injustice. Our response at that time was callous. The student bodies reacted by putting up a few posters on the college campuses and no real pressure was put on the local administration to conduct a proper inquiry. The public memory is always short, and the issue is now securely buried. The situation required of us to stand united, which we did during the quota controversy, but we let our strength get divided on petty political lines. I can’t help noticing a little narcissism in that (after all who wouldn’t like to get a seat in the postgraduate course!).

The treatment of this atrocious myopia lies in atonement. We must push for an integrated security system for the hospitals. There are too many outsiders (remember Camus?) living in the hospital compound. I daresay that most of these people are troublemakers and they usually foment trouble. All these people must be herded out immediately. This issue shouldn’t be confused with that of hawkers on the footpath on humanitarian grounds. After all a hospital compound is not a footpath! The security checks should be started right at the main gate. The emergency should be separated from the cold sections for convenience. The outdoor should also be separated. Canteens for patients, doctors and students are already separated, but that rule should be enforced. New check-posts, with round-the-clock manning should be put up on the campus. Showing identity cards should be made compulsory for both employees and students to (cumbersome, but effective, believe me!). Importantly, medical representatives should have their movements curtailed. They hamper our work schedule too much. Finally, a central security control has to be organized which continuously monitor the situation by a number of close circuit cameras and react in quick time.

It’s time we organize us and press on the necessary facts. The government must understand that it cannot ignore the security of these large hospitals. It would greatly improve the condition of doctors and patients alike.

Sagnik

Lying in my sickbed, I heard the news of our college organizing a football tourney named after our deceased friend Sagnik. I lauded the concept, because Sagnik could so easily be associated with the vivacity of a college football tournament, and though he himself didn’t play the game, he would always enliven the audience and the reserve bench alike by shouting and singing at the top of his voice. But, in this season of festivities, I couldn’t help being filled up with memories of a dear friend, a vibrant, jolly young man, and a great human being (how rarely these clichéd adjectives hold true to their meaning!), who is no more. On that afternoon, as the parting sun poured its melancholy light through my window, a great humdrum rose in the city, the pandals revved up their decibels and the happy crowd had their opportunity to hit the streets, at last. Still, this wasn’t the saddest afternoon of my life, for the memories from the burning ghat are fresh in my heart.

It was a long queue. Aged men and women, having breathed out their last, waited for their final passage. After having roamed this earth for three quarters of a century, most of them were withered, yet they seemed unready for the most important moment of their life. Some looked like complaining on being denied the opportunity to witness the turn of another century and the procession of successive generations of their genes. Beside them, Sagnik was such a misfit. He lay there, on the bamboo pall, as if resting peacefully. I don’t know if he was smiling inside, having pulled off a final mischief over his friends.

We surrounded him, and stood by him silently, as long as we could. Then came our turn. The serial number was called up. Somebody had completed the formalities already (Who was that? Does he himself remember now?). Our friend was put on the conveyor belt. The crematorium staff, a boy of our age, and of Sagnik’s age too, was busy. He handed us back the wreath laid on his body. The furnace began roaring, as it had been doing, stop and start, throughout the day. Finally, the gates opened up (I feel like I’m quoting from Kafka, ‘In the Penal Colony’). Many of us, who were silent till then, broke down as the sight of golden yellow flames took its toll on young minds. A reckless push on the lever, and Sagnik’s body went in.

Fifteen minutes later, we were handed a small bag of ashes… … To this day, that afternoon stands shocked to stillness.

This is a mad , mad world we are living in . Nobody really knows if there is any meaning behind anything now . What is meaning ? It is a common connotation we agree upon , or which is thrust upon us . Today, we don't agree on anything . Governments don't agree on policies, husbands and wives don't agree on which school their child is going to get into, suicide bombers don't agree whether it's better to target a train or a bus. So, meaning is dead, finally. All that remains is absurdity...