And so he plays his part

  Everybody, I am sure, without exception, would place the line that makes the title of our blog today. Yes, it is penned by Shakespeare. It is from Act II, Scene VI of "As you like it". "Why should everyone know it? We are not in to English Literature." Is that your defense? Very weak, let me you tell you, because there are certain texts from the field of Eng Lit that trail you like a shadow.

The best two examples of such forever texts that haunt you throughout your school/college days are "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth and "All the world is a stage" by William Shakespeare. You meet them repeatedly in your scholastic career; in fact, so often that once one of my PG students asked me most innocently if Wordsworth wrote only one poem. 

Shakespeare was saved from such embarassing reductionism because I was teaching her batch "Elizabethan Literature". Well, you know how after all teachers of literature are. She got an earful of a detailed demo of how the same text would yield different meanings at different 'stages'. Sure the passionate exposition must have entered that space between the two ears because, thereafter, she never bunked a single lecture. 

Well, that oft anthologised Shakespearean excerpt describes the fifth stage, the justice or the judge, which ends with the line that is our title today. This specimen has 'a fair round belly.' It is 'lined with good capon' which is a wonderful comment on his total corruption, despite 'the eyes severe' and 'wise saws' and 'modern instances' which is a superb mock at his hypocrisy. 

Why remember all that jazz today? Have not we suffered enough during our school/college days? Are these your queries? Well, the Shakespearan judge/justice always reminds me of Pontius Pilate who, despite knowing the rank lies, ordered Jesus to be crucified, and that, too, between two criminals, two thieves. 

In my opinion, a Pontius Pilate always hides inside most human hearts. Whenever we overlook, ignore, avoid the obvious truth, be it a minor instance or a major issue, the Pontius Pilate in us overpowers the innocent cleanliness in us with "modern saws", the brazen half-truths, lies and self-justifications, and so much so, that the only assertion/prayer possible, absolutely unlike Jesus', is " forgive  not, Oh, Lord, such all" because "they perfectly very well know what they are doing"! 

Pratima@ The Good Friday is as much about how to be angelic like Jesus, as it is subtly about how not to be a Pontius Pilate because it kills all that is human(e) in hearts! 

Quote of the day:                                                          "No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it," asserted Stefan Zweig, one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. 

Word of the day: sanctity                                        Sanctity refers to the state of being  sacred, or inviolable, often implying supreme importance or worth and immense respect. 

A Distinct Interpretation of the Heavenly Hanuman

 Chaitra Pournima is unique for us, the Hindu's. It is centrally significant for both, the Dutt disciples and the Hanuman devotees. As the occasion is thus doubly important, and as typical interpretations are aplenty, let us try something different, distinct, distinguished. 

Let us today briefly discuss "El mono gramático", a 1970 Spanish prose-poem cum reflections on literature, language, meaning making among other such issues important for creative analysis and criticism. It is written by Octavio Paz. He wrote it when he was the Mexican ambassador to India.

In a way, it has aspects of the travelogue genre. Paz describes his journey to Galta, a city near Jaipur, which has ruins of ancient temples, with lots of monkeys around. Thence he takes a mental flight to Hanuman's mythic leap to Lanka.

What begins as an exploration of space, time, decay and permanence/fixity, becomes a deep look at language, too. Is language a god given structure, signified in this text by Hanuman?

In this prose-poem, Hanuman is presented as the ninth grammarian, a master of language, a bridge between the "shashtras"  that is, the sacred scriptures and the unprocessed, non-refined thought.

In other words, Hanuman creates order out of chaos. Yet, given the meandering monkeys in Galta, unmistakable is the fact that once upon a time, at least in his childhood days, he was a mere monkey, too, wildly jumping from branch to tree. Using this as a metaphor, Paz wonders if language is the rigid grammar (Hanuman) or the (simian) wild, free, meaning making activity. Thus he proceeds to his core idea of how to make meaning, how to create a poem, a literary text. 

Interesting ideas! Hence i thought, i would try n present them in brief. Hope your mental wheels have started whirring at the supersonic speed at which Hanuman flew and burnt everything throughout the golden Lanka, the symbol of rigid egotism. Thus let us re-turn to the religious layer of meaning making. Happy Chaitra Pournima!

Pratima@ On this Pournima day, Pune was literally pulversied by torrential rains that lasted for almost an hour. Absolutely MAD rains here! Simply unbelievable!! Just lashing the cityscape!!! Horrible thunder and lightning!!!! Many roads turned to rivers, many low lying areas in to temporary lakes!!!!!

Aai would have been terribly frightened. She did not exactly like thunder and lightening, phenomena which i absolutely adore. She used to find monkey-ish my capers to watch the thunder and lightening.

Once, after conducting a PG lecture, I had walked back home through such a storm. When I presented to her my grand adventures of walking through the rain-dimmed vast expanse of the institute ground, she felt worried, and described the lightening in the rural areas, and was agitated by the possible dangers.                                                                                                 Sweet sentimentality of a loving mother, much missed!

Quote of the day:                                                           "I always like walking in the rain. No one can then see me crying," states Charlie Chaplin.

Word of the day: Criticism                                        Criticism, says the dictionary, is the act of evaluating, analyzing, or expressing judgment on the merits and faults of someone or something, ranging from constructive, improvement-oriented feedback to negative fault-finding. It is essential for artistic, literary, and intellectual discourse, focusing on providing reasoned judgment, interpretation, and analysis. 

As you treat others...

 Reciprocity is the base of all relationships. If you knowingly and constantly, and without any valid reason, except your own mean jealousy, cupidity and/or cruelty, ill-treat, insult, humiliate an innocent person who has not harmed you in any way, who has instead tried level best to humour you, to adjust with you, even to honour you, what would happen in the long run? 

Such a person would avoid you like the plague or corona itself, right? Let me give you a few example. Suppose you constantly harass a woman who NEVER was, is NOT and WILL never be interested in you, do you think she will like you because you ill-treat her, insult her, harass her by spreading vicious nonsense about her?

Suppose somebody suffers the misfortune of being related to you! You eternally humiliate such a person knowingly but subtly. Let me give a few wicked examples. You throw food at her. You throw a chapatti in her plate. As if she is a beggar. Such cruel behaviour is something what a loving master would not do to a pet! If at all you give a gift, you demean the person by consciously choosing something of a lower value, of a cheaper price, unlike the gifts you give your favourites, 

The person never ever comes empty-handed to your place (Difficult to call it home!). You knowingly let the gift go waste, or, right in the sight of the person, give it to your maidservant. If the person has the misfortune of being related to you and is trying to continue the status quo for the sake of the family feel, you train/brainwash your childish brainless aged offsprings to humiliate the person in subtle yet obvious ways.

Just because the person is superior to you in every possible way, you spread nasty rumours, you gossip in mean ways, you consciously ignore every success of the person you hate for no rhyme no reason, while praising to skies some extremely ordinary achievement of your favourite(s). Very knowingly, very subtly, very viciously, you target and alienate the person.

What would happen sooner or later? First and foremost, the person would start avoiding you, as peace matters more to such people than sick confrontations with shallow people who are knowingly mean, and would never accept their conscious mean activities, even if concrete proof were provided. Such a victim is, moreover, wise enough with a better perspective to know that there have been vicious cruelties on a huge scale such as the Holocaust or the Partition.

Fair is yet the fact that somehow there is in the entire universe a sense of justice. Even if your unfortunate victim chooses to ignore your conscious viciousness, somewhere, somehow, it is registered, and you would have to pay for it personally! Why, even at non-universal, human level, international tribunes try to committ themselves to justice.

Reciprocity sure works at the universal level. Harass, harm, hurt a person who has the misfortune of being related to you personally and/or profesionally, it bounces back at you, and zillion times more! 

Pratima@ There is another interesting version of such phenomena. There are authors who want every line of trash they dish out to be read and praised to skies, while they would never read nor praise a word by others.

Similarly, I had a colleague, a Head of the Department, who would always grandly talk of justice. When it, however, came to actual help in small or big ways, even to students, her actual actions would speak the lowest. Why such duplicities?                                                             Respect and get respected!

Quote of the day:                                                         "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest," asserts Elie Wiesel.

Word of the day: Reciprocity                                    Reciprocity is the practice of exchanging goods, services, or social gestures for mutual benefit, based specifically on the principle of returning kindness, favors, or obligations. It is a fundamental social mechanism fostering cooperation, obligation, and fairness, specially and frequently used to build trust in relationships, international relations, and in business related activities such as marketing. 

The End of what once was supposed to be a beginning!

 March 31, 2026! Indeed a special day in Indian history as, on this day, finally and formally was declared the end of Naxalism. The dooms day of the "Red Terror", in brief, happens to be the historic March 31, the dawn of the new, f(r)ought financial year.

At this stage, let us not get in to the ideological warfare. Instead, let us look at a cinematic and a literary re-presentation of the issue to understand the subtle human(e) resonances. 

Let us begin with Gulzar's debut as a director, his early seventies' film "Mere Apne", a Hindi remake of Tapan Sinha's Bengali film, based on a Bengali short story. 

"Mere Apne" deals with the angst of a defeated idealist who dreamt of justice, fairness, equality for all. In a way, he had found the then nascent Naxalbari Movement as a mode of liberation from oppressive forces of all sorts.

Instead his naive faith gets him, an intelligent scholar who could have made something of his life, to descend down to the lowly status of a street corner gang leader. As he watches his idea(l)s getting eroded by the corrosive system, the director shows through him the fall from grace of an entire generation who lost not just the soul but also almost all to Naxalbari and its askew ideals. 

Mahashweta Devi's short story "Draupadi" shows that the Naxalite Movement not only gobbled up its own children, but it also victimised the status quo by making it brutal beyond belief.  Translated in to limpid English by Gayatri Chakravorty-Spivak who used it to raise the problem of the subaltern voice, the story stands the Mahabharata tale of 'Draupadi Chirharan' on its head. 

Dopdi Mehajen, whose attempt to help her tribal people, gets her brutally violated by the police force chasing her, has no hopes of a mythical help. Instead, she uses her tattered femininity, her traumatised body to taunt the perpetrators. 

Art, in brief, be it film, be it literature, brings in to sharp focus the twisted complexities, the ugly underbellies, the lived realities underlying the ideological slogans. If we want to completely understand this end of what once supposed to be a beginning, better to read more and more of such literary texts, watch many more films detailing such delusions! 

Pratima@ In Aai's memory, we have floated a short story competition. It is annual. The theme in its initial year was "parents". The first prize went to a story by a tribal author from the Nagpur-Gadchiroli belt. His story dealt with the disillusioned return of a tribal youth who had converted to the Naxalite cadre. The story was a moving analysis of how and why the boy decided to return to the mainstream. 

Quote of the day:                                                         Says Salman Rushdie, "Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart."

Word of the day: Naxalbari Movement                Today was declared the formal end of the Naxalbari Movement. It was a 1967 armed peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal. It was led by Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, and Jangal Santhal. Emerging from a CPI(M) faction, it targeted landlordism and land dispossession, sparking a prolonged, radical movement known as Naxalism. It spread to various states, becoming a significant Left-Wing Extremism, its urban variant, et al, in brief, a circular cause n effect challenge to the status quo, peace, development and progress. 

Let us laugh at war!

  Sure, war is no laughing matter. Yes, indeed! Yet, at times, one feels, the warlords may take themselves a little less seriously if they were to know that they are laughed at despite blowing billions in to thin air. Hence these jokes! 

1) For a change!                                                           An Irani submarine captain is asked: “If you see in your periscope an American and an Israeli destroyer, which one would you attack first?”

“Of course, the American one,” the captain answers, “Duty always comes before pleasure.”

2) The Perfect Murder.                                        The grandson asked his Grandpa, "Papy, did you murder anyone during the war?" 

"Possibly, Son. You know, I was appointed as the cook of our unit " 

3) The word play 

Why did the tank break up with the jeep? 

It needed more armor in the relationship.

4) Growth

Why does the military plant trees every year?

To grow the infant tree.

5) A real soldier! 

Why was the sergeant mad when his son brought home a 100 on 100 on a math test?

The kid spent more time dividing than conquering.

Pratima@ Laughter is indeed the best medicine! 

Quote of the day:                                                           "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones," asserts Albert Einstein. 

Word of the day: battle                                             A battle is a violent, large-scale fight between armed forces or a long, intense struggle, contest, or dispute. 

Prejudice

   Prejudices govern our wor(l)ds. Want proof? Okay. Look at buffaloes. Actually, except for the super senior citizens and the super junior babies below twelve months, rest all depend on the buffalo milk, thick, fat enriched, adding a creamy layer and taste to your tea or coffee, which the comparatively thinner cow milk, despite all its medicinal value, can never manage. 

Yet, none respect the buffaloes. They appear too large, too dull, too lazy to be liked. Often they seem to plomp down in water, chewing the grass endlessly, with the most vacant stare, emptiest eyes. 'Bovine' is the adjective used to describe them, or the so-called dull in the human world. 

Neither is their colour or hide designed to endear them to a world sold on external beauty. Unlike the does with the golden spotted hide or the cows with milky white to pale amber hides, buffaloes are always jet black, and with a thick rubbery hide. Hence all the prejudices against them. 

Their habits/habitats are not much to write home about either. Most Indian buffaloes are water buffaloes. They use mud wallows to cool their almost hairless, highly sensitive skin. This behavior protects them from insects and the harsh sun, making them ideally adapted to marshy, tropical climate conditions.

Actually, they are very supportive animals. Look at the birds who feed off the insects on/around a buffalo. Compared to the huge size of the buffalo, they are tiny. Has anyone ever heard though about a buffalo (herd) stamping the birds (to death)? 

The herd seems to have a cozy togetherness. They entirely on their own seem to return to the shed, which shows intelligent communication and a very strong sense of smell.

 In brief, this bestie of a farmer/milkman may look out of fashion forever. Yet, actually, she is the most 'in' animal, quiet, gentle, dependable!

Pratima@A buffalo is not lazy. It is the physique that requires those ritual mud baths, absolutely healthy for them, unlike the excessively health conscious amongst the urban elite who, too, love mud baths, supposedly medicinal!

Quote of the day:                                            "Prejudice is the child of ignorance," argued William Hazlitt

Word of the day: Prejudice                                       Prejudice is an unjustified, typically negative attitude, belief, or feeling toward an individual or group, formed beforehand,  based on inadequate knowledge. It often stems from stereotyping. 

Rahul, Madhu and a Committed, Conscientious Citizen

  I have never ever liked the name, Rahul, dominant in the natty nineties' Bollywood bonanzas. Nor was I much taken by that "over acting ki dukan" who mostly impersonated this namesake on the screen, however much most all drooled over him. 

My irrational prejudice against the very name cemented in to a certainty when RaGa, as he is fondly nicknamed, walked in to a press conference, and tore to pieces an ordinance the Prime Minister of his own party had legally and formally passed with his cabinet. 

Not only did I respect Dr. Man Mohan Singh a lot, but, moreover, I also disliked the princely arrogance of Rahul. People started dismissing him after the doomed interview with Arnab Goswami. For me, it was, however, that terrible press conference which humiliated a prime minister while on a foreign tour in his alma mater, a senior citizen, a scholar who had been heaped with all the blame of others' wrong-doings. 

Rahul's later antics -- such as winking, hugging, blowing kisses in the Parliament where he dressed, talked most inappropriately, raised irrelevant issues, wasted days over books which had only the cover without the pages inside, and so on -- were not exactly endearing, however much his brand of "andh bhakt'' tried to market him. Nor did it augur well that all the good people from his party, except Dr. Tharoor, left the grand old party! 

If that is the saga of the political leader who disappointed a committed, conscientious citizen, the Madhu Kishwar version shows the tragedy of the intellectual in the public space. 

I was in my early twenties, and a struggling author (That status  is yet to change!!!). My poem "Lopamudra" was published in "Manushi", though I did not have nary a connection in Delhi. It was liked a lot, too. Yes, I was happy that  "Manushi" of Madhu Kishwar found my poem worth a print. 

Much later, I met Madhu Kishwar herself in a seminar. Despite her fame and name, she came across as a warm person  whose feminism appeared a brand of theory tempered with the indigenous realities.

Hence the unhappy feel now. Lucky, I am not on Twitter, et al. Yet Youtuber after Youtuber would discuss her tirade against the présent prime minister. What surprises me is the timing. 

Why is she opening up a Pandora's box, which demeans her own self as a "padjiwi"; someone who wanted some political leverage not granted to her, and hence is descending down to character assassination!?! It hurts to see her so (p)resented.

If she all along knew all those ugly realities, why did she keep quiet all these years? Why did/does she not go to court with solid proof? Why the '(s)hoot n scoot' policy which hardly suits an intellectual? Or is she indeed playing a pawn cum king maker in the internal politics of the one-up-man-ship in the BJP, as say most Youtubers, which is ultimately demeaning to an intellectual.

Much worse, why is a feminist weaponising a woman's femininity? Why present a woman as a sexual toy? Is not it the typical capitalist attitude to women's work? Why must a woman's achievement always be "bed"-ridden!!?!! 

I, too, had niggling doubts about the "education minister" whom Madhuji apparently  attacks indirectly. Even the men ministers whom she preceded raised many eyebrows when they were appointed, right?

Yet, in a very straightforward, rather naive, way, I, however, thought that the party wanted a heavyweight (given her Amethi performance) who would unquestioningly toe their line. As it is, most unfortunately, education is not exactly on the top priorities list of governments.

Yet I have no qualms in openly admitting that academics has changed hugely post 2014. Surely, the NEP needs fine tuning. Without doubt though, it IS a sea change. Similarly, only post 2014, can a J. Sai Deepak, a Vikram Sampat, a Meenakshi Jain, a Dr Ranganathan, and many many others of their ilk assert their much deserved space in the academic arena. Hence the unhappy feel about the ugly spat!

Much worse, it shakes the common man's much damaged faith in politics, which is the worst to happen in a democracy. I have other worries though. With a third world war hanging over our heads like the Damocles' sword, if such gossip leads to either the coalition tensions, can we afford yet another election, and its uncertain aftermaths? 

Yet another disturbing doubt! Is this yet another trap by the 'deep state' types? Given the current tough times, some Gen on the roads is hardly the need of the hour! Hope the BJP upfront addresses the issue. Much, too much, is at stake!

Pratima@ A career politician may have his own compulsions. Should an intellectual "miss"-re-present realities? That is the question!

Quote of the day:                                                            Says Janis Joplin, "being an intellectual creates lots of questions, with very few answers." 

Word of the day: Intellectual                                     Intellectual refers to the ability to think, understand, and reason at a high level, focusing on complex ideas, study, and logic rather than emotions by a person devoted to mental, academic, or creative pursuits.