LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT 69. EDUCATION AND SIMPLICITY

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

69. EDUCATION AND SIMPLICITY

In the name of education, enlightenment, advancement, progress,etc, we have managed to complicate things. Things are not called by their "true names" (incidentally, a phrase made immortal by Thich Nhat Hahn in a beautiful poem of that title) any more. Unless there is mystification, it is not progress, it seems.

This is a game all professionals play in all fields, especially the academics. Economists specialise in this- somebody indeed said that economics is the study of common sense made more difficult.

Law and Simplicity

Sometimes, the name 'professional ethics' is applied to this process of complicating simple things, and deriving profit out of it. Our lawyers excel in this art and craft. What ingenius inventions and subterfuges are required to establish even simple truths in a court of law! We learn that law is not justice,after all! Nor does truth always triumph.

My father in law was a small-time lawyer in a small town, specialising in small-causes matters. Seeing how talented  he was, how sincere but simple, I once asked him why he confined himself to such small stuff. He told me: 'Look here, by some karma I have become a lawyer; it is not right to take up all cases. I first have to judge, not whether the case is winnable, the charge sustainable, the munsif or magistrate amenable,etc. I have to judge whether the client is telling the truth, whether it is really justified to take it to the court, or can be settled otherwise. Fighting cases in the court costs money, and it is a pity that the just or fair party or victim of foul play has to spend money to prove his innocence, or establish his claim, by spending so much money.

'Suppose two brothers quarrel over property or something. Is it proper for me to intervene in the name of law and fan the flames? Should I not, as a human being, try to persuade them to reconcile, because they are brothers- the same blood runs through their veins? Who knows, they may change their mind over time and regret the legal proceedings. Why should I block the chances of reflection , just for the sake of earning the fees? Can I relish or digest the food I get with such earnings?

'Or take other family matters-like husband-wife discord. This is quite natural in long term relationships. Often, there are other people behind things. In every such relationship there is some friction or incompatibility. Have we invented a perfect system of marriage, with all the horoscopic wizardry and all that? Or have the western nations found the ideal solution, with their 'love marriages'? Real life means a process of continuous adjustment, give and take. Should I promote understanding, facilitate reconciliation or further the division and hatred- and earn money out of it?'

He was very choosy in taking up cases, and no wonder, he remained small time, in a small place, earning small fees. But the wisdom he had! Later on, when I read Mahatma Gandhi's "Hind Swaraj", I found Gandhiji had made the same points, and shown how the lawyers, along with the medical doctors  had been responsible for our losing our Swaraj. But my father in law was no admirer of Gandhi, and had not read him. It was just native wisdom- but will it command economic value? (Ironically, his elder brother was a formal Gandhian, wearing khadi all his life, but he practised criminal law! Many followers of Gandhi had been lawyers,who did not give up the practice, Hind Swaraj notwithstanding! I wonder how many of them had read it, even heard of it! Jai Mahatma Gandhi!)

Take law in its 'higher' reaches- like constitutional law. Reading the arguments of the leading lawyers, we will lose all sense of right and wrong! And probably any remaining awe or respect for the constitution. Practically anything can be upheld or established in the name of law. The 17th amendment to our Constitution changed the definition of 'estate' to enable the socialist govt to appropriate any piece of land 'for a public purpose' and the matter of compensation was not justiciable! This was by a 'democratic' govt! Not every constitutional lawyer is a Palkhivala!

I have had occasions in my official career to deal with some court matters, both in the High Courts and the Supreme Court. I have seen leading lawyers, 'Senior Counsel', wait for the 'right' bench, before taking up the matter! I have seen matters settled 'out of court' when there was  specific legislation on special courts in such matters, so that truth could be ascertained or established!

I had known a victim in one such matter.His organisation was to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court. He was fairly senior, and was asked to file the affidavit in his name.The affidavit had been prepared by the lawyers. He had not been in the organisation when the subject of the affidavit had arisen, so he demanded to see the original documents. He was told that the lawyers had seen everything and prepared the draft, he only had to sign it. He was advised by a senior person  that he could sign the affidavit only if he knew the facts and convinced they were true to his knowledge and belief. Submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court, asserting it was the fact was no small matter. So he insisted on seeing the original papers. The management took it as insubordination, held a threat about his superannuation benefits and he was hauled up before the Directors.He mentioned about the Nuremberg trials and the principle established there: that a subordinate was not  duty-bound to obey immoral orders of the superiors! The man was spared.

This shows  how the so called top managements treat law, justice and truth! They have no inherent or instinctive respect for or fear of law! You wonder whether people practise law, or purvey it! We regain our respect and regard for law only when we read an authority like Palkhivala. To read about constitutional law in theory is different. And about how famous lawyers handle their cases, and the type of cases they handle, Louis Nizer's 'My Life In Court' was an interesting book of the 60s.

Indians miss to market simple things!

When I was in Ahmedabad, I noticed how the businessmen used to send urgent messages and valuables to places like Baroda, Surat,Bombay. Persons used to travel daily, carrying these.They were tried, tested and trustworthy. This was called 'Angadia' service. It was just a local practice, widely prevalent, absolutely reliable, with sure results.

How had it arisen? Due to sheer need. And the native business acumen and resourcefulness of the enterprising Gujarati. They had found the postal service inadequate, and instead of blaming the system or their stars, quietly gone about inventing a more effective substitute.

Later on, society as a whole felt the inadequacies and deficiencies of the postal system, and the near-impossibility of mending the bureaucracy and improving things.. So., they invented the Courier service, which has ended the postal monopoly all over the world, and is slowly ending the system itself. What is this Courier service, but our own Angadia service? But no one thought of patenting it or protecting the 'intellectual rights' involved in it! I have experienced both, and can say that at least in internal service, the couriers are no match to  the Angadias.

But this courier service in India did not come without a fight, and some fortune! I know some inside story. The whole world was experiencing a revolution in the transportation of parcels. Systems like Multi-modal transportation, leasing and sub-leasing flight space, appropriate documentation like Master Airway Bill and House Airway Bill, etc were being developed. Indian business community felt the need to integrate with these developments but our govt., briefed by our intractable bureaucrats was totally impervious to any notion of development. And sensing that demand for changes was afoot, the postal dept even mooted a change to the postal act, making it mandatory for even parcels of a certain range to be carried only by the postal dept!  ( Mail was already the monopoly of the postal dept- but the international courier companies had outwitted this by calling everything they carried  'documents'. Can the bureaucrats ever match wits with business? They can only wield the big stick!) This was when the so called progressive Rajiv Gandhi was the PM! Somehow, some leaders of the rising air-cargo industry managed to meet Rajiv Gandhi one to one, convince him of the case for modernisation, and the proposed legislation was dropped! Today, the Internet has made the postal dept the laughing stock. If they still survive, it is only because the courier service in India is still not efficient or reliable. After all, it is also run by Indians like the Postal dept!

I noticed another remarkable feature in Gujarat. I found that small traders in every field pooled their resources and helped each other. They were competitors and rivals, not enemies. Every area had a cooperative bank of its different trades- like retail cotton traders, cloth merchants,etc. Normally, in the rest of the country people went to  a bank to deposit their money and waited on the bankers to grant them loans with a host of conditions. But here people pooled their resources, founded their own co-operative bank and lent each other and flourished! I do not understand why the rest of the country did not study this and adopt it. Why good and intelligent people still go to inefficient and indifferent public sector banks and the looting private sector banks, and cannot invent a better alternative, baffles me.

These are areas where we have failed to promote and market our own genius. We will spend a fortune to go to Harvard  or Amsterdam, or wherever, to learn dead theories but will not go to Ahmedabad to learn living practices!

Music : majestic simplicity!

How do we learn to appreciate music? How do we develop as 'rasikas'?

Probably we are all endowed with some inborn faculty- see how babies are sung to sleep! Either the the rhythm, or the sound, the mere voice- we do not know what- is at work. As we hear more, we learn to like some more than others. Over the years, we emerge as music lovers of various kinds. Most people like music of some kind. There is an old saying that the person who cannot appreciate music is like the bull sans horns and tail ! Perhaps this is an insult to the bull, as even cattle are said to be charmed by music, even if the player is not Lord Krishna! My father in law used to say: never rely on a person who dislikes music- he may not hesitate to murder!

But to be a rasika of classical music is considered serious business. There is a halo around him. But how does a person become a rasika ? Does he have to go to a school to learn this? There are many"experts" who advocate this theory, and even conduct classes in theory to create rasikas. You don't even have to go to a school now- the school is brought to you through the Internet! Elaborate lessons on theory, history, the techniques, technicalities are given. 

But does all this make sense,really? Is all this necessary? If you want to study music or practise, it may be necessary. But if you want to appreciate good music is knowledge of theory or techniques necessary?

T.N.Rajaratnam Pillai was the greatest Nadaswaram Vidvan we had. Once he was asked who was his greatest rasika. He said  that he was a "vilakku mandai". In those days before electricity, musical performances in villages and towns , especially in processions, used to be lighted up by petromax lamps; these used to be mounted on  wooden stools or platforms and were carried on the head by village boys. They were called 'vilakku mandai'- meaning 'the head carrying the lamp'. Pillaival was referring to such a person.

How come that this illiterate boy had become his rasika? Once during his performance, he noticed this boy enjoying the music and at one point, the boy could not contain himself and quite unselfconsciously blurted out aloud "aaha"- the equivalent of  'Wah, Wah", we hear in mushairas and Hindustani concerts. Pillai explained that this boy had listened to so much of good music by great musicians that he had absorbed the fine elements and could appreciate the finer elements and nuances.He valued this, more than the appreciation of the pundits. Which school this boy had attended? What theory or technique he had learnt?

Appreciation grows by listening to good music. Carnatic music is based on sahitya and swara ie Raga. There is a raga bhava- the range of emotions expressed by a raga- and the sahitya of the sages and saints expresses these bhavas. Good musician has to blend both in his expression. And he has to make the listener experience these bhavas. Emotional experience is the essence of great music: Raso Vai Sa: declare our Veda. The musician should have experienced this first himself, only then he can convey this to the listeners and make them experience it.

This is a purely aesthetic experience. This is beyond the idiom and grammar of music. The musician has to master all these, to master the craft, but he makes it an art only when he expresses and brings out the emotions in performance and makes the listeners undergo the experience. He is a rasika who experiences, not one who listens.

 I have seen great musicians like Palghat K.V. Narayanaswamy lose themselves in the bhava so completely that they forget where they are, what they sing! They cannot proceed further, miss the word of the Sahitya- the assistants or accompanying musicians have to rescue them!

This is a stage which transcends technicalities. We experience this when we listen to Madurai Mani Iyer's recordings even now, or to M.D.Ramanathan.

The above two pictures are from YouTube. copyright position not stated. thanks to the copyright owners.

Robert Browning wrote about it in his great poem Abt Vogler:

And I know not if, save in this,

 such gift be allowed to man,

That out of three sounds he frame,

not a fourth sound but a star.

(The logic of grammar is transcended here: out of three sounds comes not another sound-the fourth, but something else altogether- a star! This is the Ananda that sangita produces- Sangitananda, as Tyagaraja swami says. Such 'Raga sudha rasa panam' leads to tranquility of mind- rajillave o manasa'. It takes you to the very heavens- swargabavargamura, o manasa'. You listen to music here, but your soul has transcended to the very heaven- a star! There you transcend time too.)

Robert Browning.
Public Domain




When eternity affirms the 

conception of the hour.

The high that proved too high,

the heroic for the earth too hard,

The passion that left the ground

to lose itself in the sky,

Are music sent up to  God

by the lover and the bard;

Enough that he heard it once:

we shall hear it by-and-by.

Such music has united us with divinity! Our imperfections are transcended, limitations overcome!

Where are we then- on earth, in heaven, on a star?

Are we then just human? 

What is the value of a music which cannot make us divine? Which cannot make us lose , or at least forget, our little selves? Is it not the best means of communication with God? The best means and method of worship? The very best of human potential and achievement? What is it then that we do not know?

The rest may reason and welcome:

'tis we musicians know.

Sir, which school teaches us to be rasikas in this sense?

Have we not merely complicated everything in the name of teaching people music 'appreciation'? Hearing good music from great masters is the only way to learn to appreciate- not learning theories about it!

And how we have complicated the musical instruments! The flute in the hands of Krishna is made of the humble bamboo! Saraswati and Narada hold the Veena made of wood and strings! Majestic nadaswaram is made of wood and reeds! The drum and mridangam are made of matka and wood and leather- all natural products. Tyagaraja Swami says- give up sleep, get up and practise music with tambura: niddura nirakarinchi, mudduga tambura betti.  Now we have the metal flute, synthetic veena and mridangam, the obnoxious electronic srutibox, and the synthesiser ! We have banished all natural sounds, and we have electronic amplifiers for every instrument! Yes, we have advanced beyond Krishna, Saraswati, and Narada! And we have sabhas to proclaim and promote anything in the name of music! They only want to hear the music of their coffers filling in! God take care of Tyagaraja and his tribe!

Literature : Appreciation or Annihilation?

How do we appreciate a flower? a horse? a child?

By plucking it? Or dissecting it? Or seeing it under a microscope?

We used to read great literature and enjoy it. We read the Great Expectations, and grew up with Pip. We journeyed with Tess and wept when we closed the book, when she faced the President of the Immortals. We could not even complete the Mayor of Casterbridge after several attempts. How many of us can honestly say we read Jude fully?

Mark Twain.
Public domain.



Who did not feel he was a Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn? Did we not travel with Samuel Clemens on the Mississippi and hear " One Twain, Two Twain, Mark Twain", along with him? Did we read any book without identifying ourselves with the hero, and hating the villain?

Which of us can say we have read Shakespeare and could understand him fully? Yet, which of us can say we did not like or attempt to read? Was complete understanding of the character or psychology or history or chronology necessary to read Macbeth or Othello or Hamlet or Much Ado or the Merchant of Venice or Julius Caesar?

How many of us can claim that we have understood Byron or Shelley or Keats or Wordsworth, leave alone Browning or Milton, Eliot and Yeats? Yet, have we not taken them up and dared to read and understand?

Part or even much of the pleasure in reading good literature  lies in this difficulty of reaching an understanding! We know we are with great minds- we are trying to reach there , but not yet there! Have we not often felt in our travels that the journey itself was worth it? Or often more enjoyable than the destination itself? Our reach should exceed our grasp- wrote Browning! It is the attempt to reach beyond what we know, what we can get- makes the effort worthwhile. To strive to seek to find!

We knew our effort was imperfect, our attempt incomplete. But it was pleasure to merely hold the masters in your hand and look at them! Understanding will come by and by!

But this is the age of instant coffee, instant hero, instant  gratification and glory! So we seek instant understanding. The academics come along, and help us. But how? They invent theories. Do you read Tess? Look at it from the Victorian angle, from the feminist angle, from the Marxist angle, from the Freudian angle, from the modernist angle, from the post-modern angle. Yes. Look at the elephant from the head, trunk , tail, pillar-like legs, the tusks, the ears. But is the elephant any of this? Or even the sum of all of this? Have you seen 'Hatari' and watched the elephant dance? Have you read about Keshavan, the elephant of Guruvayur?

 
The great Guruvaur Kesavan!
picture from: www.wehearit.com



Have you visited the elephant village near Guruvayur?Have you known a live elephant, and fed it plantains with your own hands? Have you as a youngster stood in front of a temple elephant as it lifted its trunk to bless you, at the urging of the mahout, after he pocketed the small glistening piece of coin? Which is the better way to see, understand or enjoy an elephant?

There is no standard way, no one correct way! We each relate to it in our own way! That an author can speak to each one of us is the real mark of greatness. A physics text book speaks to all of us in the same way: velocity is speed x mass. But if the author of a novel writes like that, he is not creating literature! Look at this:

Thomas Hardy.
Public domain.

The untameable , Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon now was, it always has been. Civilisation was its enemy; and ever since the beginning of vegetation,its soil had worn the same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of  the particular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of satire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath  in modern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to want the oldest and simplest human clothing, where the clothing of the earth is so primitive.

( Thomas Hardy: The Return of the Native.)

Now is there 'one' way of understanding this passage? We can never get to know the meaning and significance of the passage until we read the whole story, and unless we reflect on it. Then we will realise, if we had read Macbeth, that this passage prepares us to face what comes, as the story unfolds- that things are not going to be all right at all, that something somewhere, everywhere, is preparing to go wrong, even as the characters prepare for something else! In Macbeth, the witches open the proceedings with the words: "When shall we three meet again-in thunder, lightning or in rain ?". What the thunder, lightning and rain signify we realise as the good general turns ambitious and goes on a killing spree. If you are familiar with this, as you read about the Egdon Heath, you instinctively  expect something sinister, tragic, unexpected. But  if you come to it without the idea of Macbeth, you are on a different wavelength.

This is the point and the beauty of literature. The words are the same- but they signify different things to each one of us, based on our own background- without any contrivance of the author! And this significance keeps changing throughout as we grow and mature. Literature is not physics.Physics is permanent and fixed. It would mean the same thing to every one till the end of the earth. But literature lives, and grows on us, on our consciousness.

This growth is exactly what is stunted and severed by modern academic analysis and dissection in the name of appreciation theories! The academics are teaching us to see things through their eyes and their mind- and their prejudices, and limitations! Hardy becomes a plaything in their hands, and they want us as play mates. In short, they would keep us as children, and would never let us grow and see things our own way! Annotations, explanation of difficult passages etc is one thing, but imposing a fancy theory is another. And I would say atrocious, just because the person developing the theory has acquired a position and following and authority in the academic circles! An earlier generation gave lectures and made us reflect. The present system imposes theories and stifles independent  appreciation. This is the annihilation of great literature. 

Simple appreciation has been replaced by complicated theories. We are deprived of the simple pleasure of simply reading great literature.