Monday, February 27, 2006

An imitation of Donne

Each man is an island, entire in himself; each man is a whole, wrought alone. In thought and deed, man does employ acquaintance; but in the entirety of his life he has but few shared moments. Whom we call a friend today becomes an acquaintance tomorrow and is forgotten the next day and a new friend comes and knocks at our hearts' doors: so little of permanence exists in our relations. As two bells that ring for the faithful at the same time, not by design or art but out of mere probability, two hearts resonate together for a while; the next day ask not if one tolled before the other - that no man knows. And if you belong to some community, desire not that it last forever, for that never may be given to things of man; ask instead that you may enjoy the company the little way it lasts and then walk your own way to your own home.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Rang de Basanti

Watched Rang de Basanti in Chicago this past weekend. A good movie to watch with decent performances from all involved. The story is typical of the Yuva Bharat Jagran theme that seems to be a solid formula for success the last few years and, apart from a few minor blemishes, plays its way neatly to the end. Tight tanktops, Aamir Khan, patriotic pilots, sacrificing mothers, apathetic and fun-loving youth, fiery and innocent patriot, college atmosphere, Delhi, Bhagat Singh and the revolutionary drama in the backlights, tight tanktops - pretty much all anyone could ask for to start a neo-Patriotic movie. I even shed my usual weekly quota of 30 teardrops all in one sitting and am not too sad about it. Just that it all had to come to an end.

It is a movie that raises questions and that is always one good thing about any movie. Only the questions that this movie raised shamed and frightened me. And the one question that has remained with me is: Why are such movies made? And the only answer I could come up with is something that Aristotle talked about all those long years ago: To provide a catharsis of feeling. In more understandable terms: So I can go about the next whole week without shedding any tears for the thousands who will die in India of the same irrational causes that they died of last week; so I can earn my comfortable living in a land a few thousand miles away and attempt to bridge the gap by attending Bhangra Dances every third Friday night instead of the usual disco; so I can wipe off the debt I owe certain individuals and institutions back home by calling India 'Home' and sending a few dollars every other month and purge myself of pity and kindness; so I don't feel bad about myself for doing all this and feel good that I sympathise with the patriotic and the good who throng theaters in Chicago and New York to watch the premiere.

Of course all this does not mean the folks back home are not without their share of patriotic feeling. They drive the production of these movies after all. And what do they do? They feel happy they did not go to America; they feel satisfied and smug knowing they are contributing to the growth of a resplendent India by the mere fact of their six-figure salaries; they feel their struggles and woes are what makes them Indian: their Indianness in the face of adversity and their perseverance inspite of their Indianness. Solid lumps of popcorn gets stuck in their throats and that is true feeling; the Cokes they drank in the interval leaks out of their eyes and that is true feeling; an indignation rises up at the people cracking obscene jokes near them and that is true feeling. What is not true feeling indeed?

Are we to believe that there is no patriotism except that engendered by rhetoric? Are we to believe that a few hours of big-screen entertainment will make better people of our youth? What history do I know? Who was Bhagat Singh? Or Azad? Or Bismil or Ashfaq? What did it mean to them: this idea called freedom, all this talk of revolution? What was India in their eyes? What have I done that I shake my head in appreciation and wonder at what the actors do?

In every sense of the word, RdB is a very necessary movie, no mistaking that; but the question is about how it is perceived, how ingested in the age we live in. When a country starts hating itself, it destroys itself; but when it starts loving itself too much, it forgets itself. RdB is an offering at the altar of a country that loves itself so much it does not know that the apathy of its children is the harbinger of skepticism or, worse, hatred; a country that believes every passion expended for her sake is an expression of love; a country that is yet to realize the fact that if last year was Bhagat Singh at Bollywood, next year will be the Rani of Jhansi. And India is happy with her youth, with people like me, who merely write and talk and spout nonsense. Right she is to be happy for she has forgotten herself but there still are the millions who need to be fed and clothed and brought to the theatre to watch RdB and others of its ilk.

Questions abound and one way of answering them is to turn the other way; another is to try and make the best out of every situation. So I will try and learn what it is Bhagat Singh attempted to do; learn what the characters in RdB mean to me and to that nebulous, glorious thing I call my country India. And then to act on what I have learnt and that before it is too late. There are people who have appreciated the movie better than I could and who took more out of watching it than I have and I hope I will learn what it means to empathise with people who find purpose in life greater than personal profit.

All in all a movie worth the watch.

Can a blind man paint?

Can a blind man paint?

Yes he can: Painting is the act of imprinting on paper

No he cannot: Painting is the re-presentation of a visual sensation on paper

Yes he can: Painting is order in space, time and colour

No he cannot: Painting is the expression of ideas perceived through sight presented for analysis to the visual imagination

Yes he can: Painting is the communication of ideas using colour and 2D space as medium and the eye as receptor

Can a blind man paint?
What is Painting?
What is Music? Poetry? Language? Life?

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Memories

It rained yesterday.
I was away most of the day
Watching myself in the murky shade
Of a thousand leaves that had refused to fade
Inspite of autumn's grim facade
And I missed the falling rain.

It rained again today.
I slept away most of the day
Dreaming of rain and a gentle breeze
Of the bearing away of a thousand dead leaves
That yesterday had made me grieve
And miss the falling rain.

-Shyam.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Laws: Prescriptive and Proscriptive

Laws and lawmaking is an interesting(and exhausting) subject of study. Not surprising given the variety of ideas as to the nature of public association people have held over time. There have been hundreds and hundreds of legal systems, each in a different time and place practised as the "true" and perfect system by thousands of people. Thorough analysis needing a Montesquieu to come by, a simplistic picture can always be drawn: the major systems can all be classified under two heads - the "Prescriptive" systems and the "Proscriptive" systems. As the name suggests, Prescriptive systems tend to list out all the possible things that can be done legally. They are the manuals the television company prints out so you know what exactly can be done with the black box on your table. Most ancient laws, being in essence laws derived from religion, including the Hindu Smrithis, the Hebrew Torah, the Islamic Koran, all fall into this category; while modern examples include the Fascist and Communist Constitutions, which are similar to the religious books in that their purpose is to exalt a demigod in the form of the State or the Dictator. Proscriptive Laws, on the other hand, are not mere rulebooks or manuals but serve an altogether different function. Their purpose is more cautionary than hortatory and they tend to serve like the maps a pioneer uses in his exploration of new land: marking off whirlpools and quagmires while leaving large tracts blank and open to investigation. Modern laws, on the whole, tend to be proscriptive rather than prescriptive, given that it is unrealistic to make a codebook for all the variety of human experience in modern life; ancient republican laws, secular and mercantile aspects of medieval justice and most practical private transactions belong to the class of Proscriptive laws where certain acts are forbidden under penalty whereas any others may be chosen freely unless they are themselves forbidden as the system evolves. The development of Science and the spread of a questioning and agnostic intelligence has ensured that Proscriptive Law seems obviously rational whereas there are pros and cons to both. The biggest advantage that Prescriptive Law has over its Proscriptive counterpart is that it is comprehensive. It is extremely simple and complete. This is also is its biggest disadvantage as there are only so many things that are possible. On the other hand, the Judge cannot possibly err and there can be no controversies once the system as a whole is accepted. X has to do Y and if he does anything else he is punished. The punishment itself might depend on what he does actually but really it is that simple. There is no need to change the books except, if necessary, to add or modify the penalties for specific acts. Proscriptive Laws, on the other hand, are very general and nebulous. If X does Y, he is punished but what if he does Z? The potentialities of man being practically boundless, there is constant need for revision and updating of the rulebooks. Subjectivity becomes key and decision-making abilities in the Judge are tested severely as he effectively becomes Lawmaker or his accessory(in the other system, there was need for just one Just and Able Lawmaker). This idea is inherently logical in a democratic system where the Law is made by the people and it is absurd to expect an unchanging Law to be accepted over succeeding generations along with unending progress. New situations do and will demand new regulations and any imaginative Prescriptive Lawmaker will be hard put to provide for everything. There are thus things to be said for and against both systems in their simple elemental forms. In practice, however, any system is bound to be an admixture of both philosophies, the dominant element merely serving to help in classification and giving an indication of the tendencies of the judge and the judiciary. These dominant elements are what jar and clash in the march of time as progress brings in new problems to be solved and a necessity for uniformity is recognized as part of the new global community. Details can always be modified and adjusted to suit new discoveries within a system but an international law will have to address the fundamental difference in philosophy between, for example, predominantly Prescriptive Islamic Laws and the predominantly Proscriptive Western ideas of Democracy. This is a problem that needs to be solved before integration can be achieved across cultural legal boundaries.