Stone Idols

Continuing with my reading the book I began a  few days ago on my train journey to Chennai and back, I stumbled upon another interesting piece – the essay was titled “Cartesian Thoughts on Hindu Stone Gods”, the theory of doubt being used to analyse an unknown phenomenon.

The essay begins with the statement that westerners were brought up learning to believe only what can be seen and to have faith only in what is experienced. Under the umbrella of logic and reason from Rene Descartes – the Mathematician, physicist and philosopher.

I reproduce an abstarct of the reading I had.

Those of us from the west are taught to disbelieve in the unnatural, the supernatural, and the religious and generally what is invisible to the eye. Many with Marxist leanings and touch of atheism. This is why many of us when we come to India , have difficulty with the way Hindus adore gods in statues .How in heaven can there be any divine presence in piece of stone ?

Yet a few westerners, instead of rejecting outright this pagan habit sustained for millennia, have tried to analyse it, using the very Cartesian logic with which we are endowed because of our education. One such person was Alexandra David – Neel, writer, explorer, and the first western woman to have explored Tibet way back in the 1940’s.

She remarked,” The energy which the Hindus project on the idol is not totally immateraial.The existence of the real or not of the deity is unimportant, what matters is the accumulation of psychic force in the idol ,a kind of charging a car battery. Once fully charged one can draw out energy from the battery. With the persistent devotion, adoration and frenzied prayers, the statue continues to get charged. Once fully charged one can draw energy out of it. This happens over centuries”.

Her summing up is simple, Gods are created by the energy emitted by the faith in their existence.

Will this rather scientific or unscientific explanation of idol worship be sufficient to convince disbelievers?

The fact is all religions however Cartesian they are, have their share of beliefs in the supernatural and unscientific. Is it more rational (than worshipping idols) to think, for instance. as Catholics do, that Mary conceived a child while a virgin, or that Christ came back from the dead and ascended physically to heaven, or that Muhammad  was transported to Paradise in the skies in a Golden Chariot sent specially  flown down, or the God of Moses inflicted plague on the hapless  subjects of the all powerful Pharaoh?

Descartes must be turning in his grave- the rational, logical thinking west!! (My quote)

Euripides

Euripides , the ancient Greek 480-406 BC- one of the three great tragedians of ancient Greek

literature;

How right Euripides was when he muttered -

The mob gets out of hand,

Runs wild, worse;

Than raging fire,

While the man who stands apart

Is called a coward!

The Archers Thumb

Train travels during day are invariably a gross waste of time in the most unproductive way. So when I had to do one such travel the past Sunday, I could only curse my stars for inflicting on me the need and necessity to make that travel. I grabbed a book along, and it was, "The Best of Speaking Tree”, a compilation of essays by the Times of India. It came to me as a token gift for some subscriptions I made. Some of the essays were matter of fact and able to provoke thought.Certainly a lesser quality as held by many. After all many people hate (not dislike) inconvenient questions and any form of distant threat to the utopian cocoons they are living in.But being a non conformist in many ways, I loved the reading and also, reproduce below a few paragraphs from the book. If ire comes about as comments I welcome happily as I would, a comment of agreement.

We routinely hear of atrocities on Dalits, tribals and others in the marginalised sections of society. However, today they no longer suffer oppression passively, as in the past, when they meekly allowed the caste system to dominate India’s social life. One such person who acquiesced in the humiliation of the subaltern has become a permanent symbol of injustice:' Ekalavya'. The original hunter-gatherer of upper India. Hearing of Dhronacharya, the archery teacher of the Kauravas, Ekalavaya went to him, naively not taking into account the racial arrogance of the Aryans.

Dhrona refused to instruct Ekalavaya. Undaunted Ekalavaya makes a wood statuette of Dhrona and under the eye of the symbolic guru taught himself the skills of archery. Once on a hunting trip the Pandavas found that their dog’s mouth had been sealed by arrows, a feat impossible even for the gifted Arjuna.Searching for the wondrous archer the Pandavas came upon Ekalvaya.Vyasan says that because of his dark complexion and unkempt looks, the dog barked at him and so he shut its mouth with arrows. When asked who his guru was, Ekalavaya pointed to Dhronas statuette.

Peeved Arjuna went to Dhrona, complaining that none should be able to surpass him in archery. Dhrona in turn rushed off to the jungle to meet Ekalavaya, who fell at his feet in reverence. Dhrona asked for his guru- dahakshina, and demanded Ekalavaya’s thumb. By offering his thumb, Ekalavaya was marginalised forever.

During our younger days and in early schooling times this story was repeatedly told to each of us, as a symbol of idealism in  guru- shishya relationship.

With its customary impartiality, the Mahabarataha, on the other hand, tells it as a sordid story of one –upmamship (Arjuna), lack of moral scruples (Dhrona) and an excessive respect for systems and authority (Ekalavya).

This drama has been enacted in every society, whether with Native Indians of America, and Africans in the USA or the blacks in South Africa and Rhodesia, or in the caste system in India.

The moral of the story is simple:

“The privileged fear the possibility of an Ekalavaya arising among the exploited. And so the thumbs of innumerable Ekalavayas fall to the ground- must fall to the ground, cut off before they can guide another arrow unerringly to its mark”.

( quote by the author)

Musings from the Street Side

She lives on the street

By the side festooned with garbage

Squatting amongst the muck thrown by folks

Rags around her torso -skin and bones

Dishevelled hair knotted with dirt and lock

Gaze, that goes through, from the deep set eyes.

Picking pebbles with her bonny fingers

Throwing listless, as if staving something afar!

Sun or rain, day or night,

she is there amongst the heap of waste.

Picking at times at the

remnants  of food ,squander -thrown at random

from the messy mess by the road.

She throws the crumps at the dogs that lurk

rummaging the muck amongst that she dwells!

I see her each day, a ghostly shadow,

 a distant semblance of  human form.

Ruth and anguish snaring me,

 I bought a pack of shiny white rice

with curry thrown  atop, I gathered to reach her.

She turned around in her squat

And seemed to tell me with her eyes

Why bring me that? Why prolong me here?

The soul has left me long ago, and the breath soon will,.

So why, brother why, bring me any morsel? 

Love

Love begets love – so they state.

But begging for love?

Can only add on to beggary!

Be it a man or woman, paramour or friend.

Musings of a Fallible

You can laud, and preach

You can rave and sing

the virtue of rapprochement,

of leaving the doors open,

for one last chance.

Begging for love and affection ?

Willing to forgive and forget,..... a,quid pro quo ?

But then, be known, its sucks to be

smacked ,kicked and spat upon- when you are down ,fallen!

tis easy to extol -

knowing not the pain of trample on your soul ,

and that of your loved.

You may have a reason contrary, my friend, you can have one.

But the mauled mangle festers deep within,

 till the day of reckon..

Fallible though to some, but lesser mortal I’m.

IMFL

I am on my third glass of Signature. The Single malt bliss of yesterday and the day before while in Ernakulum went by like a whiff of fresh air. Thanks to the buddy we have there, who has this uncanny penchant to stock exotic whiskies and brandies. He in fact is rosy that the booty floats into his hold. Blessed he is! Now I’m back to earth and a commoner, so the Indian, coloured concoction is all that I can savour. Mind you it’s not too bad. Well beggars can’t be choosers all the while ha!

I remembered that I have not posted my rubbish on the blog, now for quite a while. Road block, end of the road, mental block, writers block, ischemic block, arterial block; I know not.

But here I go, with the Signature in tow!

I just glanced at the news paper lying insecure on the dining table and which extolled Manmohan Singh’s principled stand of kicking out the crook minister Raja. Well the news paper report also reminded his jettisoning Mr Chavan, the Con, Kalmadi and also a bit earlier, Tharoorr Pushkar (he was pushed out by Pushkar motion of physics). He turned out to be a pushcart even from the UN days .That is a yonder story. 

Exhilarating stories of moral promenades and principles by the Sardarji and the ma'am in Janpath!

I m quite in doldrums financially and I wonder quite loud why did not nature bestow me with the acumen, the uncanny acumen of a Raja, a Kalmadi? The manna from heaven!!!The perfectionist virtuoso of the art, the science of con!!

The underlying facet that we may not notice is that the Sardarji acts not pro-actively but after the money has been hounded and siphoned off. Well then what the heck is the moral high land he claims? He lets the thieves and robbers siphon and plunder and when the booty is gone, enacts a Mahatma.

 The parting line- “should or can one be pilloried for a dishevelled life, and a pitiable end, which perhaps was the embryonic result of one’s episodes with things around”???

Poor, silly, insipid, irrelevant, impertinent, arse I’m! So then the only alternate is cheers to 'Signature' and the occasional single malt from the benefactor in Ernakulam.