95. ONE HEART, MANY WAYS

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

95. ONE HEART, MANY WAYS

Humanity is one in its basic urges- its fears and hopes, necessities and needs. Cultural conditioning and exposure to social systems lead to manifold ways of meeting these needs and expressing these hopes and fears. This accounts for the richness of human societies on earth; unfortunately this leads too to much  hatred,strife and violence.

Great thinkers- whom we would call savants- from all lands have always felt this basic unity in their being.They have expressed it in poetry and philosophy. Aldous Huxley brought out an anthology of such thoughts  70 years ago, calling it the Perennial Philosophy. Some may feel that it is after all some religio-mystical stuff. But this is the region where whole truths are perceived.

At the end of the First World War, when The League of Nations was established many people felt happy. But the incredulity and irony of the situation was not lost on some deep thinkers. Writing shortly after, Einstein said:

As late as the 17th century the savants and artists of all Europe were so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that co-operation between them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further strengthened by the general use of the Latin language.

Today we look back at this state of affairs as a lost paradise. The passions of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin language which united the whole world is dead. The men of learning have become representatives of the most extreme national traditions and lost their sense of an intellectual commonwealth.

Nowadays we are faced with the dismaying fact that the politicians, the practical men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they who have created the League of nations.

Einstein's apprehensions came true. Any agreement among politicians is only a temporary marriage of convenience. The League failed and we had one more World War in 20 years. The second war had introduced the nuclear arms, which began  a competitive race, which has not ended but only intensified with time. U.N Radio interviewed Einstein on June 16, 1950 when he said:

Competitive armament is not a way to prevent war. Everything in this step brings us nearer to catastrophe. The armament race is the worst method to prevent open conflict.....real peace cannot be reached without systematic disarmament on a supranational scale....Arms must be entrusted only to an international authority.

Taken on the whole, I would believe Gandhi's views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit....not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil. 

Quotations taken from: 'My Views', Published by Rupa &co, 1976

How ironical things have turned out to be! There is a clear race for nuclear armaments today. And there is great fear of such armaments finding their way to extremist hands. And Gandhi's own land entered the nuclear arms club! Of course, India was forced to fight in defence, and has never dipped its hand in neighbour's blood any time in history.

It does not mean Indians have not or do not now fight among themselves. Indeed such fighting has only increased after Independence. European nations which were politically divided and antagonistic for centuries have come together, while India which has been one historically is now divided on linguistic lines. Linguistic  loyalties have displaced pan-Indian intellectual affinity. This has pervaded the whole society- from the academies to the street. 

"Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by  narrow domestic walls", sang Tagore. This has come true in a large part of Western Europe; but the poet's own land was divided into two nations at the time of Independence, and subsequently, the whole country has been divided into narrow linguistic walls.

The European Union 

 History forgets some heroes

The partition of India , which killed the ancient unity of our motherland was an act of unpardonable folly. All the Indian leaders lost their head during those last years of the British rule. Surprisingly , the one man who strove to maintain this unity was an Englishman, that too an Imperial guard: Lord Wavell, the second- last Viceroy of India. He was a professional soldier and knew that India had a geographical integrity which should be maintained for its security. He did his best, through two plans and negotiations, to bring the Indian leaders together on some working arrangement. But they failed due to lack of clear thinking on the part of Congress leaders, who were eager for quick power. The course of the talks were tortuous, and it is doubtful if the leaders were at least sincere in their discussions. Unfortunately, Churchill as the British PM was against Hindus and pro-Muslims and he was determined to create Pakistan and encouraged Jinnah. Wavell got a bad name and was summarily replaced by Mountbatten to speed up the process. By this time, Gandhi had been totally sidelined, and between them, Mountbatten, Lady Mountbatten and Nehru sealed the fate of India with Partition.

Our historians have neglected Wavell. He faced very peculiar problems: Britain had ruled India by dividing the people on all conceivable lines: race, religion,caste, community.But Wavell, with his soldier's acumen, realised the importance of a united India  for even the future of the commonwealth .He wanted to avoid partition- a task which involved reversing the British historical role! He could not stall the partition. Unfortunately, the lines of division planted by the British have now grown into mighty trees, with our own leaders adding some of their own, especially language.

The vision of unity does not come to everyone, or easily. I feel Wavell got it from literature! He had been a lover of poetry and could recite thousands of lines from memory! He was persuaded by his son and others to write them down, which were published in a wonderful anthology, titled " Other Men's Flowers". First published in 1944, it is still hugely popular and in print. An anthology reveals the mind and heart of the compiler and here we see Wavell the man. The very first poem is a great gem : The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson. The man who begins his anthology with this supremely mystic poem cannot be an ordinary person! Then there is this gem:

SWEET CONTENT by Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)

 Art thou poor, yet has thou golden slumbers?
                    O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?
                    O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd?
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
 O sweet content! O Sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny nonny - hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?
               O sweet content!
Swim'st thou in wealth,yet sink'st in thine own tears?
               O punishment!
Then he that patiently want's burden bears,
No burden bears, but is a king, a king!
 O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace;
Honest labour bears a lovely face;
Then hey nonny, nonny- hey nonny nonny!

What a wonderful poem this is! It recalls to mind Shakespeare's "Under the greenwood tree". And also reminds us of the lines of Goldsmith:

Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that the states of native strength                                                             possess'd
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd.

That an active soldier who rose to become Field Marshal could remember such splendid poems speaks volumes about the man! That he strove to maintain the unity of an ancient land is no wonder! Alas! the world can celebrate only glitter and glamour and cannot recognise pure gold!

As a soldier, he included a number of war poems. But he also knew that "while love poems are written by those who have been in love, battle poems are seldom  written by those who have been in battle".He said that " A poet is a man  to whom vision is given beyond his fellows." and that "without vision...the people perish". It is one of the quirks of history that a Viceroy with a vision to maintain unity failed, and a people with leaders lacking vision, succeeded in dividing this ancient land!

 

Wavell , at his desk in Delhi during World War II
Photo by Cecil Beaton. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

93 WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS FREE

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

93.  WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS FREE

In the famous poem beginning "Where the mind is without fear"  from Gitanjali,

Accessed from:www.slideshare.net/Tamanna-Amir/lesson 31831199. Copyright status not stated.


Gurudev Tagore speaks of "Where knowledge is free", as a condition or feature of the "heaven of freedom" into which he wants his country to awake.

Everywhere knowledge is sold

When we look around today, we find knowledge being made prisoner of both financial and institutional control. With the so called Intellectual Property Rights, knowledge has been commodified, packaged and is sold like cattle or car. But the absurdity of the scene is that , while if I take away your car or cattle, your enjoyment of the benefits from it will be reduced or wiped out, my quoting or employing your words or works will not interfere with your own enjoyment!

The basic idea behind is to derive a monetary advantage out of a new idea or invention, especially when it is embedded in technology and gets embodied in a product, as in a drug or toy. While it may have validity in respect of physical things, to talk of "property" seems absurd, the very negation of knowledge, in respect of pure ideas. 

Even in respect of things, mere ownership does not confer real property rights. If we own an ocean, but cannot swim, do we really "own" it? A street urchin really owns all the oceans if he can swim!

The real long term effect of such restrictions on free flow of ideas is to limit cross fertilisation and creativity. While a few individuals may make money in the short run, humanity suffers. Leaving fiction aside, there are  very few ideas which are really original. Intellectual property rights seal them in small containers , there to fade into oblivion. It is the very nature of ideas to originate somewhere  outside our mind; our mind is only a receiver, not a creator; others on the same wavelength may receive them, if they contemplate the same problems.

IPR is an off-shoot of aggressive capitalism. The argument is that an inventor or originator of ideas should get some monetary benefit out of it. At least in respect of literature ( I don't have fiction in mind) this is the result of the disappearance of the system of patronage. In the pre-modern days, before the 17th century, writers and scholars pursued  their interests, disinterested in money considerations; they were patronised by kings, lords or local chieftains. With the abolition of all such orders and the rise of capitalism, education and knowledge have also been packaged into goods and services so that they could be traded. 

In his Nobel prize acceptance speech , on 26 May,1921, Tagore said:

....the traditions of our country are never to accept any material fees from the students in return to the teaching, because we consider in India that he who has the knowledge has the responsibility to impart it to the students.

Today, one cannot learn anything in India, even the alphabets, leave alone poetry or philosophy,-the real foundation of true knowledge- without paying for it, often through the nose.

Salutations to two great Masters of our age!

Before the spread of literacy, and cheap printing methods, serious writers wanted their works to remain in manuscript form, and considered it cheap and vulgar to have them printed and circulated. Of course it was a time when such scholarly pursuits were associated with class notions. We are told that:

"Manuscript was seen as a more private, class bound form of publication,....and writers like Philip Sidney or John Donne were extremely leery of appearing in print for fear of seeming common.......The public, commodified circulation of print,on the other hand, was seen by those with court ambitions  as a cheapening, chancy, even dangerous business.......John Milton's late and agonised decision to begin to print his writing......"

From: Anne Baynes Coiro :  'Writing in Service: Sexual Politics and Class Position in the Poetry of Aemilia Lanyer and Ben Jonson' in 'Seventeenth Century British Poetry' Norton Critical Edition,2006.

 Sir Philip Sidney:1554-1586
English poet and courtier of Elizabethan age.

John Donne: 1572-1631
Considered a leading Metaphysical poet.






Both pictures in the Public Domain.Taken from Wikimedia Commons.

 Of course there are no kings  and courts to patronise authors now, who depend on the  publishers and reading public. Nobles might have gone, but we still have noble minded rich who generously support education and scholarship but it takes an institutional form. IPR has thus become a necessary evil. While it is necessary for freelancers and professional writers who depend upon it for a living, I cannot understand why academics paid well by the universities should seek further unconscionable gain from their writings. After all, the universities had supported and funded their research, directly or indirectly. Perhaps they are guided by a new idea of "class"- that they should price themselves out of the many, and land in a few 'niches' and corners!

 But it becomes absurd and ridiculous when one cannot reproduce a photograph or painting of a leading artist or thinker or scientist or academic due to copyright restrictions. What is the scale of values of a society when the newspapers are full of the photos of criminals and rowdies, politicians and film stars & and starlets. while it is so rare to see a good photograph of a scientist or artist?  "What will sell" is the only guide.

Where the mind is sold out

We Indians suffer from a different kind of loss of freedom. Our academics, intellectuals and writers have completely lost any originality of mind, and merely echo the ideas of the West. They are guided by western frameworks and theories even in evaluating purely Indian themes. In the academic disciplines such as economics, political science, poetics, aesthetics, logic, philosophy, astronomy, metallurgy, mathematics, medicine, literature, etc our scholars are not even aware of India's own achievement. They do not care that we have our own standards and theories. In his Nobel speech in 1921, Tagore also said:

We lost our confidence in our own civilization for over a century, when we came into contact with the Western races with their material superiority over the Eastern Humanity and Eastern culture, and in the educational establishments no provision was made for our own culture. And for over a century our students have been brought up in utter ignorance of the worth of their own civilization of the past. Thus did we not only lose touch of the great which lay hidden in our own inheritance, but also the great honour of giving what we have and not merely begging from others, not merely borrowing culture and living like eternal schoolboys.

And just think- another century has gone by like this!




Nor do our academics and 'intellectuals' even now critically examine the contribution of the West, ancient or modern. Their standard of appreciation is what the West does. The popular culture is becoming mere imitation of pop American ways, but the slavish mentality of the academics is hard to understand.

With the spread of modern science and technology, and the accompanying commercialisation, it is natural that there has been standardisation and uniformity in most spheres of life. However it need not be so in all areas of intellectual activity. For Indians, the 'West' is a uniform monolith. But in the West itself, there is considerable variety and variation in their tastes and approaches. The US and UK are both basically Anglo-Saxon , but they are not copies or replicas of each other. Such variation is the sign of life and growth.Modern Indians can only copy, not adapt. 

Indians have made the monumental mistake of confusing  English language and Anglicised education.We had many leaders during the freedom movement who learned English , but did not give up our cultural roots. The Tagore family and Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo immediately come to mind. They used English language to interpret the genius of India to the whole world, and thus counter the mischief created by the colonial interests. Sadly, free India has blindly continued with the colonial mind set, and made it the standard. All the above leaders transcended the ideas of narrow nationalism and pleaded for universal values, but they were firmly rooted in our soil and psyche. Post-Independence India has mistaken Westernisation for modernisation, Nehru being the chief villain in this regard. It has used English not to uphold and promote Indian interests, but to destroy them.

Most educated persons of older generations could only write Victorian English- to which they were exposed in their schooling. Today, our writers copy mainly the American style. England itself has changed, and America has its own peculiarities. But Indians seek to survive by imitation. Sri Aurobindo alone wrote English in an original style, which was the envy of even Englishmen.

We can stand out

 This is where R.K.Narayan scores easily- with a very natural, simple style, combining a "beauty and sadness" , in the words of Graham Greene that appealed to all cultivated minds in England and other countries.In the obituary note on 14 May 2001, Myrna Oliver of the Los Angeles Times wrote:

(Narayan's) spare,wry English language novels and short stories gave the world insight into the richness and depth of life  and literature in India....

(his) 34 books of elegantly subtle, simple and universal fiction made him India's most notable writer.....

(his) prolific works were translated into all European languages, Hebrew.... Narayan also expanded English lexicon with such India-based words as "swat", meaning ridding oneself of flies.

'The Economist', London wrote in its issue of 24 May 2001:

...seeking to understand India,R.K. Narayan is more accessible than Salman Rushdie and less cumbersome than Vikram Seth....

Gradually, the reader learns to view the world through Indian rather than Western eyes.

We may learn all the English we can, but we must learn to be Indians first for the world to respect us. Imitation attracts ridicule and contempt.

RKN with Lyle Blair of Michigan State University Press  ( American Publisher of Narayan's books) and Anthony West of The New Yorker.
Public Domain via Wikimedia commons.

The revolutionary Tamil poet Subramanya Bharati sang that if it is true literary excellence, foreigners should salute it. This is what RKN proved. 

Subramanya Bharati 1882-1921

Regional politics, linguistic chauvinism and caste considerations have combined in India to  deny Narayan his due place .



We have a long way to go to even glimpse that heaven where knowledge is free.

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 56.EDUCATION AND EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

56. EDUCATION AND EXPANSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Education has traditionally meant not only acquisition of knowledge and skills, but a gradual expansion of our very consciousness, so that  a truly educated person felt a oneness with everything. Subramanya Bharati, the great Tamil poet of the 20th century sang of 'the crow and the sparrow being of  our caste, and the great oceans and mountains  belonging to our clan'. Scholars were welcome everywhere. We see how educated people appreciated each other, across the national and language boundaries, even when political rivalries were raging across Europe.

Contrast this with what is happening today, even within India. With the linguistic division of Independent India, literary appreciation is now almost exclusively an expression of local chauvinistic jingoism. No poet or writer of one language has a ready audience in another state. Recently we witnessed how Kannada writers of Karnataka protested and prevented the state govt from raising a memorial to R.K.Narayan, because he was not a Kannadiga and did not write in Kannada, though he had made Mysore his home and created the fabulous fictional Malgudi with its unmistakably local flavour, and made it known wherever English is read. Earlier, the local political elements had prevented the local Tamils from raising a statue to Tiruvalluvar for more than 10 years; finally, the statue was unveiled, with police protection,  on a reciprocal basis, when a statue was raised to a Kannada poet in Tamil Nadu! But no one thought of the poor Purandaradasa, who is considered the Pitamaha of Carnatic music, and whose compositions had been popular in the bhajan and music concert traditions of Tamil Nad for over 2 centuries, without any official patronage or backing.

Carnatic music concerts have been a platform for the practice and display of our cultural oneness across linguistic differences, incorporating in them compositions from almost every corner of the country, all in a spontaneous, unselfconcious manner. No one felt anything odd if the song was of a Narsi Mehta in Gujarati, or a Tuka in Marathi, Mirabai or Kabir or Tulsi in Hindi, along with the Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam compositions of the other great composers. Today, there is an increasing trend of emphasising the linguistic differences and  with it the imagined cultural exclusitivities, and both the organisers and performers are increasingly bowing to local chauvinism for the sake of patronage and profit.

It now looks almost like a dream that in the 60s, the country did celebrate the centenary of Gurudev Tagore with memorials raised for him in several states, other than his native Bengal. Who ever indeed thought of Tagore except as an Indian, even though he wrote in Bengali? ( But he was indeed a Universal man!) Can we think of a Munshi Premchand except as essentially Indian, even though he wrote in a Hindi or Urdu dialect? Today, where is such an Indian writer, except perhaps writing in English?

This is a sad reflection on our state of education, for all its tom-tomed growth since Independence. But this is perhaps only a reflection of a more universal  trend in the academic world. Education has become narrow in the name of specialisation- narrow, not only in the scope of the subject matter pursued for intensive study and research, but also in the sense of the mental horizons of the academics. See how the scope of words like God, Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy, Science, Art, Nature, etc have become limited and narrow in the name of advancement of education. Even the very concept of 'Man' has lost its original significance and now only means a number, not more- a mere piece of statistic.

Some time ago I came across a poem by Robert Frost, about the meaning of the concept of Nature. This in turn was caused by the use of the word Nature in an epitaph which the 19th century poet Walter Savage Landor had written for himself. I had read Landor's poem Iphigenia and Agamemnon in 1958 and had liked it. But it was long before I could get to read more of his poems and by chance came across this epitaph which he had intended for himself: ( He was 74 then; he lived for 15 years more!).

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art.

I warm'd both hands before the fire of life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

What is the meaning of 'Nature' here? We normal people know that Nature is a very vast, if also necessarily vague, idea- not at all a concept which can be defined with precision in any dictionary. In fact, the more one studies and reflects, the harder it becomes to define or confine the idea of Nature. Our understanding grows and deepens with age and experience, so that many people would treat Nature and God as substitutes! But the academic-scientific establishment has tried to limit the concept of Nature, and may be now it only means to most people the strip of green patch outside one's window, if one is fortunate enough to still find it! In the poem, Frost engages in an argument with an academic about what Landor meant when he said he loved Nature. Frost writes:

Dean, adult education may seem silly.

What of it, though? I got some willy-nilly

The other evening at your college deanery.

And grateful for it (let us not be facetious!)

For I thought Epicurus and Lucretius

By Nature meant the Whole Goddam Machinery

But you say that in college nomenclature

The only meaning possible for Nature

In Landor's quatrain would be Pretty Scenery.

This is how in the name of higher education, we have lowered the value and meaning of important words and concepts. 

Incidentally, Frost the poet here emerges as a philosopher too! Friends, make no mistake. Philosophy and Poetry are the two eyes of true education. Philosophers and Poets are our true educators. 

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 36. LANGUAGE-THINKING AND EXPRESSION.

LITERTATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

36. LANGUAGE-THINKING AND EXPRESSION

We are living in fast changing times- this is a trite phrase now, almost meaningless. The change is so fast and mind-boggling that both the word 'change' and 'fast' have lost meaning. 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler told us of 'future shock'- how we are unable to cope with the pace of change. This was before internet, mobile phone, tablets, pendrives and ipods. I do not know what he would say now.

Those who are 70+  are likely to have seen  and experienced so many changes in their living memory;yet the last few years would have left most of them gasping. We have lived in villages, and small towns without electricity and running water.We have seen our great-grandmothers cook, assisted by great-grandaunts! Water was drawn from the well with bucket and rope, washing was with hand; cooking was with firewood and charcoal.All grinding was on the grind-stone and mortar.Cooking was done sitting on the floor. Lighting the fire for cooking was a ceremony, done with all solemnity; and at night, the fireplace would be washed with cowdung solution or paste and 'kolam' drawn. After every meal, the place would be sprinkled  with cowdung solution and wiped clean. At night, the kitchen would be washed with water.Early in the morning, the front of the house would be sprinked with cow dung solution, swept and the kolam drawn: this would be done by the housewife, not any servant.On ceremonal occasions, the kolam would be elaborate, and the girls would enthusiastically participate, in a spirit of infectious competition with neighbouring girls.So much numbers,dots, geometrical patterns, shapes, sizes and figures would go into them, all from memory or improvised on the spot! The whole street would be sparkling! We were all just middle class, but what joy it was!

We boys would go to get firewood from the firewood depot. We would get a measure called 'gundu'- 56 pounds. We would stretch our hands in front; the depot man would arrange the cut firewood strips on them, and himself would say, 'appa, enough for you' and go on to the other boy.One gundu would cost a rupee or  a rupee and an anna in the near-by depot; a little farther, it would be 15 annas. So we would go there, and the anna or two saved would be given to us for pocket money. But being Brahmin boys, we would not eat anything outside, except some fruit or raw mango or such things depending on the season. I would buy small story books which were sold for an anna.We had a teacher by name Ganesam Pillai. He would tell us stories during the 'morals' period. Once he came to know we had such story books, he would go through them and if he approved, he would make us read it in the class and so encouraged reading. The stories were invariably good. Only once did he not like a story, and called my grandfather and told him so! The magazine 'Kalkandu' was then for youngsters and it cost only two annas. Lifco used to come with small books for 2 or 4 annas.We used to buy them.I still have the Tirukkural I bought then.The girls would not be burdened with any heavy work, but would do some crochet or needle work, learn music, or play some indoor games.

Talking about literature, how relevant are these things? Yes, they are relevant, as we will see.

Some changes are easily seen. Political changes, for instance. Economic changes are also easily felt.But the long term social consequences of these changes are not easily understood. Inability or unwillingness to understand and adjust to these changes breeds problems.What we call generation gap is this lag in adjustment.

Brahmins were very active  in the independence movement but later on , the interest declined mainly due to economic reasons. They were also active in all other fields- not only education and services, but also entertainment, arts, journalism, publishing, small hotels and eateries,etc.After the Dravidian parties came to power, Brahmins were totally excluded from the political arena- not only by the Dravidian parties, but even by the Congress; the anti-Brahmin feeling is deep-rooted and no party wants to be seen as doing anything which could be interpreted as pro-Brahmin in the least. Brahmins were slowly excluded from teaching, law, medicine, and engineering professions, as also from direct govt. service. They were also edged out of all other spheres where the govt has a direct or indirect hand.  

The Brahmin community was generally satwik-tamasik.Almost half of them were in poor circumstances.(But they had no community feeling- would not help each other.)They could quietly practice their religion because it had a steady source of income, though small. And this freedom from the anxiety to earn the daily bread gave them  time and energy to devote to literary, cultural and other activities, besides their religion.Society  as a whole shared these values more or less, and  this was reflected in all fields, especially in the educational and literary spheres.

But with the rise of the Dravidian powers, values have changed.You can observe this in all areas.Those Brahmins who remain active in education, entertainment, literary, journalistic fields have to embrace non-Brahminic and pro-Dravidian values. This is in fact what they do- even their spoken language has changed in the last 50 years.

More than this, even their religious language has changed. Most Brahmins today can only write Dravidian , and not Brahminical Tamil.And their pronunciation of even common Sanskrit words like 'mantram', 'chaturthi', 'Hanuman' , 'Vinayaka', etc is horrible. Just look at their wedding or even 'upanayanam' invitations. I was both sad and amused to see a Tamil magazine devoted to Vaidik subjects being called "Vaitheekasri": 'Vaideekam' has become 'Vaitheekam' in obedience  to Dravidian usage! Most Brahmins of Tamil Nad today do not say 'Subrahmanya'- they only say 'Muruga'! Hindu-they pronounce as 'Indu'. The younger generation may not even notice these changes, how do they care?

What these Brahmins do not realise is that no matter what they do to give up their language and customs, they would still be considered Brahmins. Once they had tufts, and Dravidian elements made fun of them The removal of tufts did not make them non-Brahmins and endear them to those elements. Likewise, giving up the Brahminical speech and writing would not make them more acceptable to them. This way, they will only alienate their younger generations further from their heritage.And they would lose all self-respect.

But the change brought about by the large-scale adoption of English medium in education even from primary standards is tremendous. Our generation studied in Tamil medium up to SSLC with English as one subject. The syllabus was not heavy, but the teaching was good and  the basics were well taught.This was the case in Tamil too- the syllabus was not loaded, but the foundations were well laid. In the college, the position reversed: it was English medium and Tamil as a subject! In the first year, we had to work a bit hard- not that it was difficult to follow the subjects, but it took time to acquire the facility to write. But we coped well and became fluent in time.Studying in Tamil medium (ie mother tongue)in the high school had improved our thinking faculty, imagination and  self-expression.

One feature of education 50 years ago was that most teachers encouraged originality in writing. Apart from the science subjects, where definitons and formulae had to be mugged up, in all other subjects, we were told to absorb the subject, get the meaning and express in our own way. Even in high school we had teachers like D.K Ramanathan Chettiar or K.V.Rajagopalan who would take a sentence and demonstrate in how many other ways we could express the idea! A quotation from an authority or from a Classic would always add value to an essay, but the whole essay could not be plagiarised! With the English medium now, the emphasis is wholly on rote learning: the text books are standardised; the questions too are standard; the teacher asks you to mark the answers in the book and the same has to be reproduced in the exam. If you change a word, you lose a mark. So, they just mug up, reproduce and get 99% in all subjects. The syllabus is heavy, so you have the semester system: forget in the next semester, what you learn in this. The result is paradoxical: though they mug up, they hardly retain anything! The faculty of memory, which is so important, is neither developed nor focussed on material which would be useful life long!

Apart from such deterioration, the social effect of English-medium education is remarkable. It used to be the norm in middle class families for the school-going boys and girls to help with household work (which I mentioned above). But with English medium, this has disappeared. There is  total avoidance of any manual work. In the exclusive preoccupation with percentages and professional courses, and the syllabus being heavy, all the time is taken up in study. In most homes, guests are not welcome when the children are around, because it would disturb their studies! And children hardly ever play in the evenings- as we used to! 

Since English medium is taken as the harbinger of modernity, it has brought in its wake whole lot of changes. A generation ago , we all ate sitting on the floor; in most homes there was just a room or two with doors. All the children would sleep in the hall; they all slept on the floor, with mat for bedding.There was no cot; the bedding would be rolled, the pillows would be taken out, the bedsheets removed, neatly folded and kept in a room. What was bed room in the night would become the living room or study room or recreation room, or simply idling room by day, depending on the time! But with the new kind of education, we now have separate rooms with  bed permanently spread out (as in hospitals); with the drawing room stuffed with sofa, unoccupied most of time, most of the days! Even brothers cannot share a bathroom, or share it with parents- each needs a separate one with duplication of everything-toothpaste, soap, mugs! One may wonder, how all these changes can be linked with English medium education, but if you think deeper, the connections will be clear.

Sri Ramakrishna used to point out humourously how the Bengali youngsters going to college and studying English immediately acquired certain stock expressions, and he used to imitate their sound: That,but, it ,put,tit, tat,etc. ( Our elders also would say: what is all this ..thaat boot?) He would remark how, on wearing the pant and boots, their entire demeanor would change, they would strut about bolt upright - all marks of humility would leave!

 And how English constricts our familial and social circles! In all Indian languages we have distinct words to denote each relationship in the extended joint family. We have separate words for father's younger brother and elder brother, and sister; we have separate words for the mother's brother and sister.In English , all are aunts and uncles. And their children? All cousins! So, immediately you have English, you have the nuclear family-every thing and every one seen through its eyes! As Raja Rao remarks: how can they conceive of  "my wife's elder brother's wife's brother in law"? He too is just an uncle, as any child would call any stranger! But just a generation ago, we all were close to such relatives! We had our own endearing nicknames for all our neighbours- 'kodi aatthu mami' (the 'mami from the corner house'), 'arai-mottai Brahmanan'( the half-head shaved Brahmin), kulla Vasu (Vasu the short) 'Kasi patti' ( the grandma- from Kasi: this did not just refer to her having visited Kasi- more than that, it signified and celebrated her triumphant return, it was such a rare event those days; and she need not be our grandmother at all- just any old lady of the village or area) How odd such expressions would sound in English! Not that the English themselves may not have such words- but Indians speaking English cannot call them ours!

A language conveys a philosophy silently. When a person dies, the English would say: he kicked the bucket., or he 'gave up the ghost'. But who indeed gives up what? The ghost ie the spirit leaves him: he cannot leave it as he likes, unless he is a Yogi like Vivekananda. But what do we say? In Tamil, the standard, deferential expression is: 'aavi pirindadu' ie the spirit or prana left him! Which is accurate? In the Indian tradition, we are not supposed to say certain things openly. In the olden days,in the Tamil grammar they used to teach something like 'mangalam' or 'kuzhuookkuri'- how to express indirectly something which it is not considered pleasant to say plainly. The burning ghat is not called as such in literary writing; it is mentioned as 'nan kaadu' ie the good wood. In the obituary notices, people affectionately mention the elder as 'having attained Sivalokaprapti'; Srivaishnavas say: 'reached Acharyan Tiruvadi'. Someone attached to a particular saint would be said to have reached 'his lotus feet'.I have seen some Indian Christians use expressions like 'slept in the Lord' or 'merged in the Lord'. I do not know whether these expressions are more Indian or Christian! Of course, Shakespeare himself calls sleep "the death of each day's life" in Macbeth.! In Hamlet, he refers to death as "shuffled off this mortal coil" which is more accurate, and which expression many in India use!  Referring to Lord Shiva's throat which has become dark on account of his swallowing poison at the behest of the Devas, we don't refer to the poison at all but say"Neelagriva" ie the blue throated- Neelakantan in Tamil, or still better, 'Sri Kantan' in Kannada! 

A language thus brings its own subtle ways of thinking and expression.. That is one reason why a language changes the way we think unconsiously. Among Indian writers, Tagore wrote Gitanjali in Bengali and then translated it into English; so it has retained its Indian flavour. R.K Narayan has captured in flowing prose how the ordinary middle class Indian of British days conducted himself. Raja Rao is said to have experimented with bringing the Indian way of thinking (based on Kannada and Sanskrit models) into English.All three have written on Indian themes, with Indian spirit, but in entirely diverse ways! This is the creative use of English, and not just imitation. We should all read  these three great authors.

Note:

I am not suggesting for one moment that the past was perfect and we should all go back.All I mean to say is life was less complicated. Most things have changed, and life is marching on. Today , technology controls and dictates everything, and no one can control technology.Just see how this one invention mobile phone has virtually made prisoners of us all! Every authority today needs our mobile number to deal with us.We are nonentities without it. But with it we are all like prisoners with a number- any one can trace us anywhere! Techology has taken away our freedom quietly! It is the same thing with our computer. No one has assessed the long term consequences of such over-dependence on technolgy on our psyche! (eg. What is the effect of long term exposure to magnetic radiation through computer, mobile phone etc on our brain function, say on japa or meditation?)The pace of life is accelerating and every one would find it difficult to keep pace at some point. But what  will  we have  to go back to? Religion was the only permanent feature but today even that is changing- this is all I wish to point out. The Brahmin was the custodian of religion- especially in practice.But even he is changing. The changes he is making to his life style- both under the force of circumstances and on his own understanding and choice- render the practice of his traditional religion nearly impossible!

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 35. INDIAN LITERATURE-PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION

LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT

35.  INDIAN LITERATURE- PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION.

India has the most ancient literature in the world. Though the tradition was mainly oral, everything was preserved in tact and transmitted at least for five thousand years in an unbroken continuous chain.Till our generation, the Veda, Upanishad ,Gita, Mahabharata , Ramayana and Bhagavatam and other Puranas have been transmitted orally. The Vedas especially have been preserved and transmitted without any textual corruption since there are strict rules in the matter.

While all the originals are in Sanskrit, many works especially the itihasas have been adapted in local languages, which contain variations. While Valmiki's Ramayana is the source, variations in local language versions and in other vernacular traditions are common. Even in Sanskrit there are other versions like Adhyatma Ramayana. 

This does not present any problems, since all the adaptations acknowledge the source, and the variations only accommodate local tastes or regional practices or special vision or genius like that of Tulsidas. In the matter of Ramayana, the case is peculiar. Valmiki treats of Rama as the best among men, but others like Kamban treat him as Avatar from the beginning! In the case of Krishna, there is no problem at all: he was treated as Avatar from the beginning! The Greeks have referred to it; our Tamil Sangam literature talks about it.

Our oral tradition helped preserve our religious literature during the Muslim invasions and the long Muslim rule! The  invading Muslim marauders could destroy thousands of temples, as they destroyed Nalanda University and killed thousands of Buddhist monks. (The great ancient library at Alexandria was destroyed in part several times, but mainly by the orders of emperor Theodosius I on the urging of Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria in 391 AD, as he considered it a Pagan relic; finally it was destroyed by the Arabs under Caliph Omar in 639 AD.) But they could not touch our religious books as these were carried in the head and transmitted by memory. The destruction of temples did not destroy our religion, as our religion is not centred on temples, however magnificent they may be! Indeed, even today we do not use any murti in any Vedic ceremony. We invoke the Deity temporarily in a pot of water or lamp or lump of turmeric or clay or even in a drawing on the floor or kusa grass; it lasts only for the duration of the ceremony and is 'released' at the end.Those who perform 'panchayatana'puja do so in purely natural substances like the root of a plant,  or stone which are not carved into images.

 The very age of our literature poses problems of interpretation. Our major problem started only with the coming of the Europeans. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they discovered new geographical areas or new routes to old areas and colonised them. Christianity , like Islam, is a religion believing in conversion, by force. Between them, they destroyed all old religions wherever they went: Muslims destroyed Zoroastrianism in Iran, they conquered Iraq , Kuwait, Turkey, Syria (Mesopotamia) and Egypt, destroying their native religions. Spaniards and Portuguese went to South America, and destroyed their religion, killing millions of native Indians. Anglo-Saxons occupied North America, and converted it into the USA after killing the natives and driving the rest into 'reservations'. Their tradition was also oral, but more archaic and so it did not survive this sustained Christian onslaught.

But India was different. It had a strong tradition of preservation and transmission. The whole Brahmin caste was meant for this! So here the British followed a clever strategy.They knew that so long as the Brahmins learned and transmitted the Veda, nothing could happen to our religion and literature. So, they interfered with our political and economic arrangements  which supported the system, making them vulnerable and economically weak. The Brahmins were not supposed to earn money by any trade or profession; their religious life was supported by societal charity and munificence of the rulers. Both these were cut off. Directly, they introduced English education and linked it with jobs. So the Brahmins who had no other means of survival took to English education and jobs. Those propagandists who criticise Brahmins for having dominated education, professions, services "for centuries" either do not know or deliberately suppress the fact that Brahmins took to jobs because they had no other go! This phenomenon is hardly 150 years old. Even in the last generation, we had families which were still following the old Vaidic way. Now, it is impossible. The arrogant Brahmins who have become wealthy in the last 50 years or so, and especially  because their son or daughter is working and earning abroad, should also realise that they were all descended from pure Vedic families and that their riches are recent. Last generation came from villages to towns and cities in search of jobs; this generation is going abroad; what will they do next- go to Moon or Mars?

Whatever it is, the British left India 65 years ago, but their educational system still continues! Brahmins are getting alienated from the sources of their traditional knowledge and literature. Traditional methods of learning have been given up. Even in the Vedapathasalas, they now read from books. Sheer hypocrisy prevails; look at the Brahmin families, which still talk of preserving Vedic dharma: how many of them send their own children to study the Veda and other traditional sources?

I have to write all this because Indian literature is primarily religious. Everything else has emanated from it.Even the Kavyas, drama etc are based on puranic or itihasic themes or other legends. This is what we see even in modern writers like Tagore. What is his Gitanjali, which got the Nobel prize, if not religious/spiritual in nature? In the Indian tradition, Vak,ie word, written or spoken, is a gift of Saraswati and the very act of reading and writing is holy or sacred enterprise! Language itself is sacred, having originated from the damaru of Lord Shiva. That is why on the day we honour Saraswati, we refrain from reading and writing! Raja Rao, one of the acclaimed modern Indian writers in English writes:

One of the disciplines that has interested me in Indian literature is its sense of sadhana (exercitia spiritualia)- a form of spiritual growth. In that sense, one is alone in the world....I enjoy the magic of the word. That magic is cultivated mainly by inner silence, one that is cultivated not by associating oneself with society , but often by being away from it. I think I try to belong to the great Indian tradition of the past when literature was considered a sadhana.

There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthala-purana, or legendary history, of its own. Some god or god-like hero has passed by the village....the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the country,might have slept in this hut ,the low one, by the village gate. In this way the past mingles with the present,and the gods mingle with men to make the repertory of your grandmother always bright.

 This  shows the spirit in which a serious writer approaches literature. Now, when writing is a profession practised for earning money, and the entire publishing activity has become business, such writers may already belong to the vanished species. But those of us still devoted to good literature should ensure that at least such literature continues to be read and patronised.

Our education has an Euro-centric or now increasingly American centric orientation. In writing or evaluating or interpretation, we are simply adopting western standards. But even here we do not follow their spirit, but imitate them superficially. A century ago, they considered that Homer's epics merely contained  imaginary things. We followed suit, calling our itihasa also epics, and considering them fictitious account. But the westerner went and discovered Troy! Now, Iliad and Odyssey are not considered mere fiction. But our imitators- especially the types who call themselves progressive or secular-do not have that courage, even though the submerged Dwaraka has been discovered, even though Saraswati river has been satellite-photographed!

The Englishmen who translated or interpreted our Sanskrit literature  did so without understanding either Sanskrit or our religion fully! They could not even determine its date- so they made guesses and these are accepted by our imitators as gospel truth! Max Muller who translated the Vedas first assigned some arbitrary dates around 1500BC, but later on admitted that no power on earth can determine the date! But our imitators still harp on 1500BC! Among the English translators/commentators, Griffith alone openly admitted almost on every page, that he did not know the correct meaning, though he proceeded to make his guesses. But our imitators still hold on to such guesses and theories as truth! 

In modern times, it is only Sri Aurobindo who studied and interpreted Veda on the principle of internal consistency, and on the understanding that the Veda contains a deeper meaning of which the ritual factors are mere symbols. Yajna, horse, cow, battle- everything has a symbolic meaning which is not apparent. Rightly have our ancient Tamil poets called the Veda "marai" - ie where the meaning is hidden (from the uninitiated.)  See what happens when supreme knowledge falls into the hands of the unfit- because nuclear science is available to every one, even an extremist or Jihadi may make an atom bomb!

There is a vast body of literature on purely technical subjects- as the mere list of entries in an old library like the Saraswati Mahal at Tanjore will reveal. In ancient India, knowledge in every branch was systematised and turned into a sastra. Astronomy, astrology, medicine, mathematics, logic- the list is very long. And we have Buddhist and Jain sources. The ancient dictionary -the oldest in the world- Amarakosa was by a Jain and it is an authority on Hinduism! The philosophical debates among them are practically endless. There are systems which are atheistic.

We should also remember that all the authors were not Brahmins. Valmiki was not a Brahmin, nor was Rama about whom he sang. Visvamitra, the discoverer of Gayatri, though a Rishi was not of Brahmin origin! Vyasa was of mixed origin. Neither the Kurus, nor Krishna is a Brahmin. Of the ten Avatars, only two- Vamana and Parashurama- are Brahmins but they are not worshipped! Among the Trimurtis, Brahma is considered a Brahmin, but he is not worshipped! So, Brahmins should also realise that they are merely custodians and not originators and be able to reply to criticism.

The Christians have been propagating that Hindu scriptures contain lot of obscenities. When I was in high school, one Christian teacher (D.Timotheus- God bless his soul) used to make fun of our religion and scriptures and Puranic characters. Though we took it as a joke, it still hurt. Then there was one follower of EVR- a Tamil Pundit by name Ramachandran (who had adopted a purely Tamil name 'Ezhil nilavanaar') who likewise used to criticise Hinduism. (Years later , he became a devotee of Satya Sai Baba) When I grew up, I wanted to read the Puranas to find out what they contained.But it was not easy to get a good translation, also containing the original. I found out that the so called obscene matter was all symbolic. eg Indra being cursed  to have female genitals all over his body! Since Christians were criticising us, I wanted to study the Bible and find out what it contained. That is how I started reading it. I found that the Old Testament contained lot of plainly obscene matter. The story of man begins with Adam, the first man created by God disobeying him.It continues with the first son of Adam,Cain,killing Abel, his own brother, the second son of Adam! So the story of mankind according to Genesis begins with Adam's disobedience of God, and murder of his son! No wonder, Christians have been fighting throughout history; even the two World Wars were fought mainly by and among Christians! And their God  openly says that he is a jealous God, who will take revenge on children if parents are at fault!

Now, David was the most famous king among them.His poems -the Psalms- are part of the Scripture (73 out of 150). One day he found a beautiful woman Bathsheba bathing, desired after her fully knowing that she was married and got her pregnant. To hide it, he brought her husband from the battlefront to make him sleep with her, so that it would appear that he made her pregnant! But it didn't work, and David got him killed! He then married the woman. Such are the stories you find in the Bible! Sure, the theologians will have their theories or explanations. But then so would the others, too! Pot should not call kettle black! Such stories circulate all over the world, we do not know why they were included! 

I write this only to show that we must also read the scriptures and literature of other faiths and be prepared for intelligent and informed debates. We can silence critics only by valid arguments. In interpreting any one's scripture, we must adopt their own norms and values. But we have a right to expect the same treatment from them; where it is lacking, we must retaliate appropriately. Avoiding a debate in the name of 'secularism' or some such shibboleth is not warranted.

Today, the American and other academics are maligning Hinduism by all fancy interpretations of our religious literature. The books of a woman academic, who interprets our literature in sexual terms are even prescribed for study in American and UK universities, to which our own youngsters are going! Will our govt allow us to include David's story in a text-book we may write? Can it happen in respect of the life of Prophet Mohammad? This is where secularism stands now in our land in respect of Hindus.

Our problems  are compounded because we have lost our traditional methods of study and interpretation, while the texts themselves are preserved in tact! Sayanacharya, who commented on  the Vedas in the 14th century and who is taken as our authority himself did not know the meaning of many things and gave arbitrary, inconsistent explanations. He was followed by Max Muller, who added his own ignorance and prejudices! Formal study of Sanskrit language and literature, religious or secular, has largely disappeared from our universities (so called) and fallen into disfavour with the public. But Sanskrit is still taught and studied seriously in foreign universities! Religious studies are regularly pursued there, but we do not teach Religion as a subject in our universities! So, the danger grows that foreigners will increasingly study our literature and interpret them in their own way!

There are people among us who feel uncomfortable that our ancient literature is mainly religious or dharmic. They also associate it with Brahmins, without knowing the meaning of 'Brahmanical'. They do not know that the ancient literature of the whole world was like this. European learning and literature was dominated by Christian writing for more than a thousand years; it was displaced gradually by the rediscovery of the Greek and Roman Classics (Renaissance- 15th to 17th century) and later by the advance of science.Humanism replaced religion as the dominant theme of thought and action. This spread wherever the Europeans went colonising. Thus it came to India too. But India had been an advanced society, in science and industry too, unlike Europe! Hindus had never discouraged intellectual or philosophical speculation or argument at any time! We have never suppressed dissent or free thinking. (This is a basic feature of India. Look at our political parties- how many groups are there in each! How many times they have split! Only communists have a rigid command structure - like the Catholic Church!))Nor had they taught unscientific thoughts or opposed science in the name of religion, as Christianity did! But because we got these modern ideas from Europe, we have uncritically accepted everything. However, Europe and America still cling to their Classics, while we have neglected our own and taken to studying their ideas and imitating them in the name of modernisation.Thus for us modernisation simply means Westernisation, de-Indianisation in every possible way! Will an imitator ever command genuine respect? (See our new PM- he commands respect in the world-because he is genuine and original!)

Most Indians are not aware of these issues. Nor do our leading public figures think about them. Many of our modern Gurus have  'foreign' followers and who knows how many of them will turn against us, as many have already done? We Hindus must assert our right to interpret our literature our own way and learn to dump the old European and current American interpretations where  they belong- in the dung heap! We should not accept anything as authoritative just because it comes from the West. We should stop being academic or mental slaves.

Note:

When the Europeans came in contact with our literature, they found that it had three sources: Hindu, Buddhist and Jain. All are 'dharmic' ie based on the idea of dharma. But the Hindu literature was devoted to the discovery of Ultimate truth or Brahman. So, they called it Brahmanical ,to distinguish it from the Buddhist and Jain- it had nothing to do with Brahmins!