A licence to Write ?

Something troubles me deeply about this place...

Yet, it isn't just troubles that one tries to get a handle on. Or sometimes maybe, only so one may move them away, or circumvent them. We try instead to reach for something positive, something which has enlivened our minds at times before, something within ourself that has often less to do with where we physically are. And this too, we may find sometimes, not so easy to grasp. It is then when we may begin to wonder if, after all, it does have something to do with where we are now, the environment.

Environment can affect us, our minds, our mood, its state of happiness, of being creative in ways we may not be aware of.

What do we do then. Build a little cocoon, to shield ourselves from it all? Doesn't work too well does it? We need, at least, during the time leading upto when we will do our creative work, be taking in something from the surrounding. We pause in our writing, or putting brush-strokes, and look over our easel, or the laptop screen. Some things there feed our minds, or distract them, or just disturb us.

Ah "mind", such an intangible entity, so much a part of us yet seems as though not to belong to us entirely. Like some mistress you want to please, you give it objects of beauty to look upon. You give it sensual pleasure to lull it out of its torpor, wafts of coffee, even the scents of green, of an abundance of grass and trees, of cool oxygen air, of blue skies, of shimmering lakes and the sight of sea perhaps, if you are fortunate and can see that from where you sit.

Or like your mistress again, you will tell her make believe stories, where you paint pictures of adventures and galloping steeds. Of mountains beyond the mists, and sweeping giant birds; damsels in distress, and of valour. Of chest full of treasure, golden coins, of diving off from boats into deep waters, swimming amongst porpoises and glimmering schools of exotica; of underwater ferns and landscaped ocean beds, strange dangers from sting rays and hammer heads or the occasional octopii.

You've cajoled your mind enough now. Shut away the concrete and dust of these ugly buildings that sap it of its life, its livliness. You want to lead it to another place. Has it been resisting you? So weary perhaps, unwilling to come together, make an effort. Ah mind, I never knew my life was nothing, nothing without you.

We're beginnig to roll along a bit now. Something I've been noticing, somewhere deep inside of me, in the oceanbed within. It has glanced by, this, like some glistening golden thing. You know, you of English heritage, I really think, the language doesn't at all belong to you. And this inspite of your occasional Shakespearean quotes, or how you shake your poetic knowledge like some burly guard his spear as though to scare away those looking upon.

Language reaches in, in many layers, of outer and inner contexts. These last, is where I am of a different genre -- and I wonder how can you even judge that in me. As surely as you cannot tell sitting in a car, whether you are passing over gravel or wooden chips. How silly to say, the wooden chips do not feel like stones.. they do .. to anyone who did not know better.

that last bump... did it feel like in English, or in Hindi?

Ah yes, the occasional octopii. One must definitely watch out for them, especially if the waters in question are Australian.


I love this image, though to be fair, anyone who has learned English fluently and has a taste for literature may quote Shakespeare or accumulate spears of poetic knowledge, regardless of heritage.


Um, unless it is nighttime, the driver will be able to actually see what he is passing over. Eyes on the road, remember? The metaphor is really very nice, until you stop to think about it.

There is an ethereal quality to this piece that does not feel like the very Germanic English.

Me, I found myself impatient for you to do what you never did: get back to the "environment" of the opening and tell us what about it troubles you; delve into the inescapable effect of place on person.

But that's my preoccupation, and you were interested in your own: writing. Writing about writing is probably my least favorite kind of writing. So, take my report of impatience with this piece with that information in mind.

If someone comes to India carrying a real concern in his heart of making a change here, for there are things in need of such a change... and comes to this city, they must grapple with this mass of people. These are of a particular kind. If we pick up just this fact, put it aside as though wondering what else, we may find all else is really quite nice. Nice in the way natural things are. Dirty perhaps, some stench too in places, but one wouldn't complain because it's all of the earth, a corner of it, more lived in perhaps and used up more therefore. But you'd not have much difficulty in accepting it all as just so much diversity.

But turn now to the milling masses, the ones we put aside to write of the rest. These are difficult to talk about let alone deal with.

I think it is this fact, that these people are hard to qualify which adds to its frustration. If the women appear less irksome its only on account that they have a manner which is not as intrusive as the males. You are tempted to think, wrongly perhaps, that had there been more females the experience of dealing with them all would have been less difficult?

You ask yourself, is this what we have to do as our share, let these poor do their jobs, and just put up with their filty demeanours?.

Were you to be here, you might soon realize that you've been offended most while walking along where they may pass by you. In the common areas of the apartment complex you live in, or in a market. The nauseous thing about them is their look. The look in their eyes. Those eyes peering without the least permission into your personal space. You look back and your mind loses the freshness it had before then.

If being civilized means to keep your eyes on what concerns yourself, then Indians have really slipped down that slope, these masses have.

I know women are most distressed by these men and boys. Maybe not those of their own community, but all others. That lecherous look, their hooded eyes when they think you are not looking towards them, and their nauseous thoughts you sense, fills the whole space. You fail to understand why they look at your female companions so, and feel an anger rising within.

And, there are masses of them, so you need to interact with them, while making a purchase maybe. Then begins the other ordeal, as one of them sweet talks you. His face playing one story and his excrutiatingly annoying language with its surplus obsequities adding to it. His mind is elsewhere, judging as you see from his eyes, how he can make you slip. You discover it is not for money as much a joy in cheating you. You wonder about that a bit, and see how he laughs at you behind your back. It is hard for him to take anything you offer benevolently, that puts him down in his eyes. To cheat you is his victory, and everything he caricatures about you; your education, your appearance, even your wishing to be fair with him, is another sickness of his mind. He differentiates you from who he his, your being from the same country only reason to despise you. He sees not life's opportunities before himself, he would rather think lowly of you. He would rather feed you to the contortions of his mind, play and mock with the caricature of his illusion, and share that with the likes of himself.

This is the large underbelly of this land, and the creatures which feed there.

.. in some blind tunnel, I will plod on..

This lad, from a story I was telling before, lived half his life in what he saw outside, and the other in his own mind; amongst the many unresolved ideas chasing each other there. Soon done with his schooling, he was ready to move into a University. He did not think he was among the brightest, but in his school he had done well.

As when a stream flows into the river, and the waters become suddenly deeper. A duck, or even a duckling floating in it, must surely catch its breath; wondering what new creatures live here. Exhilarated too perhaps a little with the sense of freedom; of wider banks, water rushing more swiftly, and just this, that it no longer is living in its parent's shelter.

Currents of thinking broadened up now. The lecture halls were large, and the students so many, one need not even think of befriending them all. It would be the person he found himself sitting next to in almost the first class itself.

Time went by. Days into months, and the months into years. He started off on a strong footing, his earliest grades amongst the highest; but something wasn't totally ideal. His concentration was slipping. He felt this inspite of wanting to hold his mind on the subject.

Real life, the one from outside this University, his personal circumstances, were catching up. Everything wasn't really right back home, as he remembered. And these things were unique to him he thought, so unique that he found it hard to share with his companions here.

As though he was already in sight of the ocean, where his life would eventually take him; he found himself caught in that current already. He had time left to himself yet, the time it would take to complete his studies here, but he found himself thinking more and more of what the ocean held for him. Of where he would find himself when the river emptied there. A dread built up inside. He did not expect to be able to handle it. He could see this river did not continue in its course. It did not smoothly flow into the ocean. He could see rocks awaiting where it emptied. Boulders, that everything would crash into, and like flotsam, torn into lifeless pieces for the feeding carrion. How mindless an end.

How does it befall on just a particular individual to bear this burden? To have an insight into the core of reality; and having seen that, have little choice but to throw himself to make it right.

I see this fat boy sitting on a field. It is the time around some harvest, as there are bales of wheat and corn around. He looks like someone here just to pass his time. Like he's been in a fight earlier and is now escaping the wrath of some friends, or fiends.

He's wearing shorts, held up with colorful gaiters, and has on a bright red shirt. His hair is dishevelled but almost the exact shade of gold as these corn making up the scenery. He was earlier running a bit, chasing after some hares, but has tired now, because of his bulk; so sits looking idly at the birds pecking furiously in the corn, and at other creature straying there.

You look a little closely at his face, and see a self centered smuttiness. A little defiance too. Cheeks are ruddy, from his recent excursion, and his eyes glinting green, or blue-grey. God knows what is in his mind, very little he will himself remember of tommorrow.

He's started to walk along now, swinging the fat stick in his hand, sometimes to the right and sometimes to his left. You notice a bruise on his knee, and scratches. He looks at them and makes as if to cry. But there isn't anyone and he feels that just a waste of his efforts; so shrugging a bit, he continues on.

There's a road running alongside the field and he gets on it. He has almost forgotton his tormentors from just a few hours earlier, and it's nearing dinner-time, so he's heading home. He's a lonely boy, this one, and has not learnt much about friendships in life yet. Maybe someday, after he has grown up a bit.

He sees another hare in the field and throws his stick, missing it closely. The hare scurries away. It's nearly dusk now. The fat boy begins to run home.

An Indian milieu

There is a particular class which holds Indian society together -- funny how it takes this time to identify them, as they are by no means a small number.

These Indians have little idea of life in the Western world. Among them, some have exposure to the ways of the west through observing lives of their employers who have lived abroad. Unhappily money is the differentiator here. The rich in the society having taken to the ways of the west with the least thought, specially those of recent generations.

This class themselves are different though. They might own a small grocery store, or work in one. Or be a house guard, or a craftsman, or taxi driver. Women might be house maids, a cook, an office cashier, or doing similar clerical work. Younger ones might be in a junior professional position, as an accountant or a bank officer.

In the class under these, under because their living conditions seem quite extreme, and they appear just a small step above beggary. One would see construction workers, those engaged in janitorial work, and rag pickers. Their clothes in tatters and dirt smeared across their faces and bodies. Their condition can only be described as desperate, for were they not to do whatever they are doing, they'd have nowhere to go.

One feels an admiration for this working class though, their values are untouched by social change. Their lives like those who have lived here hundreds and thousands of years. Their deities central to their lives, and carrying a powerful sense of Indianess, imparting it to those of us returning from abroad.

But as things stand, we dominate them with our wealth. We flaunt that power over them with haughty air. No wonder then, they ridicule us. Their's are the earliest values and customs, as described in Indian epics -- myths, some call them now. And just as in comparing Western and Indian paintings, one feels the difference in the very lives of the artists, as much different are their customs too.

This is confusing. You clearly point out that success and affluence is linked to the acceptance of a certain set of values. You then profess to admire people too stupid to accept those values, even though they can see all around them proof that their existing values are inferior and do not equip them to succeed. I realize that this isn't what you mean to say, but this is strongly implied in the way you have written your essay, perhaps because you have not made your assumptions explicit, and your assumptions are not necessarily going to be shared by your readers. For instance, by Western values, I might assume that you mean, among other things "rationality, future-orientation, and the Protestant work ethic ". So, if those who embrace such values are rational, hardworking, people who look to future, then, by implication, those you seem to consider as opposed to them are presumably irrational, lazy, and backwards looking. Again, I know that isn't at all what you mean, but your choice of phrasing brings to mind, and seems to support, the very arguments you presumably wish to cause your readers to reject. Thus, I would suggest rewriting it to avoid this.

Indians have a different technique in dealing with life.

It is, as if, they are connected to some etheral powers. Each having his or her own personal connection. It isn't a connection but more a relationship. They know this much, having learnt it as they grew - from their care givers, their parents and other older people around - that this individual higher power is to be sought within. Finding that initial connection isn't hard to do, and happens quite spontaneously and easily in innocence. Just as an adult is drawn by affection towards a child and its innocous ways. The child has a handle on his or her side too, not consciously but as awareness that the relationship exist. We look upon our relationship with these powers in a similar fashion.

The overarching aim of this realtionship is to realize its substance. As we reflect on each of our experience we look for our deities' role in it. There is always the other side to every hardship and misfortune; the learning, the strengthening within. As a parent would let his or her child take some knocks in life, so too does our deity and protector. And as the watchful parent will step in to shield the child from any real mishap, so does the deity. We as the child never know what may have befallen, or what the events were leading upto in their normal course. We are simply aware that we survived, in body and in mind. The Indian will never turn away from his deity, for him the deity never turned away from him.

So where is this space where the Gods dwell? How real might it be?

There are two distinct modes to the final understanding. Actually four, but we're talking of two which are on the extremes of the spectrum. One as understanding the nature of the experienced world, or having understood that we in fact do not dwell entirely therein, reach directly to the world beyond. This being the other way. Our chosen deity guides us into that other dwelling realm.

do not use you i we

I lived some years in Bethesda, near Washington DC. My neighbor had a very cynical attitude towards Indians and their life-view. I often felt insulted at that time, but now I think that it helps me understand the thinking of many others which I may not have, otherwise.

He saw the Indian view as very similar to what the Mayans of Central America or the American Indians believed. I know less of both these peoples than any average American does, but I see this as hardly an apt comparison. While I empathize with those who stand up and defend the rights and culture of the Mayans and American-Indians, this fact itself that those people were vastly fewer and their civilizations lasted relatively a much shorter period, and historically too, made far fewer contributions, speaks of something intrinsically different in their values compared with the Indian culture and civilization.

My neighbor gave me this impression that he believed, Indians essentially were mentally of the same level, only a larger mass. While living in the United States it is easy to carry off such an attitude since Indians there are fewer, and the language barrier would make just about anything that even a few believe, stick.

It is however a different matter when talking in a common space and on a neutral platform. There is then, if one is so inclined, also an opportunity to explore with genuine interest what such traits may be that has given this culture and civilization its longetivity. And that though their worship seems similar to these earlier and often referred to primitive peoples, the foundations of the two seem at a different level.

In the present, Indians stand out in their significant contributions in many fields considered as Western, I mean here the scientific ones. Unless looked at with prejudice, it cannot escape anyone that this culture and whatever people there do in following their tradition, does appear to develop their minds as any other serious study would; and that they are able to then relatively easily take up any intellectual pursuit or scientific subjects.