Ghar Mein ho (घर में हो! )

तुम कहती थी

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:32:00 +0000

हर अनुभव झरता है

दोबारा जन्म लेता है उसी पल

अनेकों रूपों में एक ही समय

एक ही है

जो गिरता है बूँद बन के

और उसी पल फटता है

अनंत स्वादों में,

महकों में,

चलते-भागते दृश्यों में

अनंत गीतों में

अनंत धुनों में

तेरे मेरे बीच हर बार

पुनर्जनम हों रहा है

हर बिंदु में

हर सतह में

हर आवाज़ में

तुमने सुनाई थी एक कहानी

और मुझ तक देखो

एक सृष्टि पहुंची है

अरे नहीं!

ठहर ज़रा

यह भी एक नहीं है

अरे ! यह तो बहुत सारी हैं

मिट्टी के अंदर से मुझ तक भागी आ रही हैं

और यह देख

तैरती हुई मेरे चौगिर्दे से उड़ गयीं फिर

चार दिशायों में

तुम कहते थे कि बस एक ही फिल्म भेजी थी

और यह देखो

मुझ तक शब्द पहुंचे हैं अक्षरों में नाचते हुए

मुखडे हैं निहारते मुखडों कों

रंग फेंकते कई आसमानों के

तुमने कहा

बस एक आलाप भेजा है

और यह देखो झरना फूटा है

सूरजों का

रोशनियों की लड़ाइयां छिड पड़ी हैं

और अँधेरे मुस्करा रहे हैं

संदेसों की आमद हुई है भगवान बन कर

और तुम कहती थी बस शान्ति भेजी है

यहाँ तो कोहराम मचा है

तुम्हारे बच्चों का

अब आ भी जाओ

यह देखो अर्जुन ने कमीज फाड़ी है कर्ण की

और यह लो भीम द्रौपदी के पीछे भाग रहा है

और यह देखो कुन्ती दरवाज़े के बाहर ही झांकती है

स्कूल का काम छूट रहा है उसका

और यह तेरा मरजाना कृष्ण

युधिष्ठर की निक्कर उतार के दौड जाता है

और घर है कि कभी साफ़ ही नहीं रहता

कचरा रोज़ का रोज़ जमा हों जाता है

बाहर से कुछ आवाजें आई थीं

पर क्या करूं

तुझे सुनूं के तेरे बच्चों को !

sunset-I,II and III

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 05:41:00 +0000

Just tried my hand at my Nikon D 50 and look what a novice has done!

Money, Moha and Mahabharata-III

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:13:00 +0000

यह इसी श्रृंखला का तीसरा भाग है. फिलहाल इसे आखरी भाग कह सकते हैं. पर मूल रूप से महाभारत-विमर्श में चल रही यह दर्शन-शाला का ही हिस्सा है. आगे चल कर बहुत से और ऐसे रूप आपके सामने आएंगे.

Money, Moha and Mahabharata-II

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:04:00 +0000

यह इस श्रृंखला में दूसरा हिस्सा है. क्यूंकि यह YouTube पर अपलोड हो गया, इसलिए इसे लिंक अप करने में कोई अढ़चन नहीं आई.

Money, Moha and Mahabharata-I

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:24:00 +0000

इस श्रृंखला में दूसरी विडियो अपने सभी पाठकों और दर्शकों के लिए उपलब्ध है. पहले इस विडियो को मैंने YouTube पर अपलोड किया था पर दस मिनट से ज्यादा होने के कारण इसे रिजेक्ट कर दिया गया. छोटा करने की सोची पर इतने हिस्से का व्यास कुछ इस तरह का था कि आखरी तीन मिनट में एक वृत्त पूरा हो रहा था. इसलिए छोटा करना ठीक नहीं लगा तो box.net पर जा कर 5GB space खरीदी और वहीँ पर अपलोड कर दिया पर वहां समस्या यह है कि फाइल खुलने से पहले डाउनलोड होती है. चूंकि फाइल 108 MB की है, इसलिए कुछ लोगों को अढ़चन हो सकती है. इसका फॉर्मेट MPEG 4 है . अगर windows media player में न खुले तो VLC Media Player से काम चल जायेगा. और हाँ, अवधिया बाबा की फटकार के लिए धन्यवाद. ऐसे लोग अगर चिट्ठाजगत में रहेंगे तो मेरे जैसों की भूलें ठीक होती रहेंगी. विडियो देखने की लिए इस लिंक पर मोउस दबाएँ.
क्लिक करें

Money, Moha and Mahabharata Series

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:58:00 +0000

कुछ दिन पहले महाभारत के सन्दर्भ में जीते हुए एक मोह में उलझा रहा. ध्यान आया कि पुत्र मोह जिसमे मैं उलझा था उसकी दूसरी तरफ पैसे के मोह की तस्वीर थी. बस एक दिन गौरव बजाज के साथ बैठे-बैठे उसे बुनने की कोशिस शुरू हो गयी और एक श्रृंखला बन गयी. उसका पहली छोटी सी भूमिका यूं ही बन गयी.

Is she a relevant middle path?

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:07:00 +0000

I am getting interested in Elinor Ostrom for some time after reading a piece in The Hindu. She has taken a position which is neither on the right nor on the left but still makes a lot of sense. I think she needs to be taken a bit seriously and the additional reason is that she has won this year's Noble Prize in Economics but the great reason is that she is the first Political Scientist to win an award in Economics of this stature.

A Critical view on Marx and his relevance

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:31:00 +0000

I have been off the virtual world for a while. Just remained busy with mundane things and i-mac. Anyhow, there is a video borrowed from www.davidharvey.org which i found relevant for my readers.

Is Marxism Relevant Today? from Committee on Global Thought on Vimeo.

क्लासरूम के लेक्चेर्स नेट पर -3

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:20:00 +0000

बी.ऐ भाग दो में पूँजी एवं संपत्ति का भारतीय राजनीति का क्या योगदान है , इस विषय पर एक छोटा सा पॉडकास्ट । इसकी विशेषता यह है कि इसमें वामपंथी दृष्टिकोण न लेकर Libertarian दृष्टिकोण से इस मुद्दे को देखा गया है। सुनिए , क्लीक यहाँ करें।

क्लासरूम के लेक्चेर्स नेट पर -2

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:12:00 +0000

इसी श्रृंखला में बी.ऐ भाग दो के छात्रों के लिए भारतीय राजनीती की भूमिका पर एक छोटा सा लेक्चेर निम्न ऑडियो फाइल में उपलब्ध है। क्लिक करें

क्लास रूम के लेक्चेर्स नेट पर

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:24:00 +0000

कुछ समय से सूचना टेक्नोलॉजी के फायदों को सीधा क्लास्सरूम से जोड़ने की कोशिश कर रहा था। टेप रिकॉर्डर से रिकॉर्ड करना तो आसान है पर उस अनालोग फाइल को डिजीटल फाइल में बदलना न केवल मुश्किल है बल्कि महंगा भी है। फिर किसी ने AUDACITY SOFTWARE के बारे में बताया और कुछ प्रयोग करने पर बात बन गई। बी. ऐ के छात्रों के लिए कुछ लेक्चेर्स रिकॉर्ड करने का सोचा है। चूंकि मेरा विषय राजनीति-शास्त्र है, इसलिए उसी से जुड़े कुछ टोपिक्स को धीरे-धीरे कर डालता रहूँगा। पहला लेक्चेर बी.ऐ -भाग तीन के छात्रों के लिए अन्तर-राष्ट्रीय राजनीति के एक महत्वपूर्ण मुद्दे -डॉलर की प्रभुसत्ता पर है। जिसकी ऑडियो फाइल पर क्लिक करें ।

Hernando desoto-a discovery for me

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:39:00 +0000

For some days or so, I have been reading something interesting thanks to a reference from Sauvik Chakraverti. It is about a Peruvian Economist, Hernando Desoto who re-invented the concept of Property in the informal or extr-legeal sector of the economy. I have been in the process of assimilating this brilliant thought in the context of Indian informal economy which is much larger than even the official GDP of the country. But as the idea is too profound for me to reflect immediately in detail, I am reproducing an article by Hernando Desoto that was published in the Time in April 16, 2001.

The Secrets of Nonsuccess by Hernando de Soto
"Picture a country, whose private property laws are so deficient that no one can tell who owns what. Where home addresses cannot be easily verified and people cannot be forced to pay up debts; a system where people cannot use their house or business as collateral to secure credit. Picture a property system where a successful business cannot split its stock to sell to other investors. Where there isn't even a standardized and commercially viable way to describe assets.
Welcome to the daily routine of the Third World, where five sixths of the world's population lives. Their living conditions embody a paradox: Capitalism should, supposedly, be the solution to global underdevelopment, however, so far it hasn't had the opportunity to prove it. What's even worse is that it hasn't even tried. In a capitalist economy all operations are based in the laws of property and its transactions, however, Third World property laws do not include 80% of its population's assets and transactions. The dispossessed are as far apart from economic activity, as blacks and poor whites once where under South African apartheid.
Why is this so important? Conventional microeconomic reform programs have always ignored the poor, assuming that they do not have the resources upon which to build and generate aggregate value. Flagrant error: I, along with my team of researchers, recently finished a series of studies on Third World underground economies and concluded that, in fact, the disposed are no so poor after all.
Their assets in Peru amount to close to 90.000 million dollars, or 11 times over the value of all the stocks listed in the Peruvian Stock Market and 40 times more than the sum of the foreign aid that the country has gotten since the end of WWII. In Mexico the estimated amount is 315.000 million, seven times more than the value of PEMEX, that country's national oil corporation.
The real problem lie in the fact the poor and the middleclass are not allowed to use their assets as the more privileged classes are. One of the great political challenges facing the Third World is to have these goods move from the "extralegal" sector, where they stand now, to a less excluding legal property system, where they may be more productive for all, in addition to generating capital for their owners.
Third World governments have already proved that it is possible to reform deficient property systems, at least when it comes to dealing with the rich. For instance, in 1990 the Peruvian Telephone Company (CPT) was quoted at 53 million dollars total value. However, the government was unable to sell CPT stock to foreign investors, due to problems with property titles over many of its assets. Peruvians decided to gather their best and brightest legal minds to come up with a legal title, in accord with standards set by the global economy.
As a result, the property was easily converted to stocks. Rules to protect third party interests and to generate enough confidence to attract credit and investors were generated. The legal team also designed laws for litigation in patrimonial cases, bypassing the cumbersome and corrupt Peruvian judicial system. Three years later, CPT entered the world of liquid capital selling for a total of 2.000 million dollars, or 37 times its initial market value. That's how far the power of a good property system can go. For the dispossessed to have access to legal titles for their assets so they can have a tool to free their potential capital, it would be necessary to know what is it they really own. How could we know this?
Nine years ago the Indonesian Government invited me as a consultant to identify the extralegal sector assets, in which 90% of its population lives. Far from being an expert about that country, I noticed that whenever I went to a rice farm a different dog came barking out. Dogs did not have to have a PhD to know their master's assets. Therefore my advise to their Cabinet members was for them to start "listening to these barks." Ah, Jakum Adat, the people's rights", answered one of the Secretaries.
The history of western capitalism tells in fact how governments, during hundreds of years, have been adapting "the people's rights" to uniform rules and codes that all could understand and abide by. Properties represented by dogs, fences and armed guards were turned into titles, stock and certificates. Once the west managed to focus a home property title instead of the house itself, it gained a great advantage over the rest of the world. Titles, stocks and patrimonial laws allowed to consider the goods, not just for what they are - a house as a refugee - but, for what they could be turned into - collateral to obtain credit to start a business - Almost seamlessly, through standardized property systems that integrate all, western nations build a stairway that allowed its citizens to claim up from the chaotic underground of the material world to a representative universe where capital is created.
Far from being a problem, the poor are in fact a solution. And now is the precise time for politicians to start thinking of them in these terms, and not the just the elites, who would be in charge to define property."

Do schools kill creativity?

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:36:00 +0000

Taking a break from the series "Waiting for DropD", I happened to watch a beautiful video lecture by Sir Ken Robinson on TED. I would like to share that with all of my readers.

Waiting for DropD-4

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:14:00 +0000

A couple of months back, I was delivering a lecture on Mahabharata in an Institute of Mass Communications. A lot of questions were asked after that. One question that really turned out to be outstanding and long-lasting was, “Why lust is considered as negative only? I tried to answer that question but I feel that there is possibility of a re-look at this issue because there are still some problems hidden behind it. Without focusing on them, there is remote possibility of understanding the real crux. The very first point is why we feel the need to define something as lust and something not as lust. The second point is why there has to be a public definition of lust instead of private definition. The third point is if the definition of lust can be determined before an act or inside an act. Let's discuss all three points one by one in the context of “The Reader”.
Michael and Hanna have involved themselves into an act of “lust”. He is a 15-year-old boy and she is a 36-year-old woman. He is not even an adult and therefore the question of being consenting partners doesn't even arise. There is no sexual compatibility as far as the social definitions of permissible sex are concerned. In a mediaeval age, Hanna would have been convicted as a witch and would have been burnt alive. This time, things are not that bad and safety of the situation is that their affair remains a very private matter unknown to anybody. The best that could be safely extracted out of the situation is that this affair should have no future; it should end in a permanent manner. It should be forgotten and should leave no trace of any sort. But things don't turn out to be as per expectations. She resurfaces in his life on a much bigger canvas where he would have to retrace the innocence of a lost relationship. It's a story where both Michael and Hanna don't even bother about the question of lust rather they allow this relationship to undertake much deeper and riskier enterprise.
The first point is why we have institutionalised lust as a vice or something very negative. Do we mean to say that we are very clear about what virtue is or what purity is? Do you mean to say that we have decided the methods of transformation from an impure to pure soul? Are we really in a position to decide who is pure and who is not? Of course, this is a very serious political question and it will create a lot of problems particularly related with caste and gender. If we even ignore that, we still have a deeper social conditioning through which we have developed the formulae of purity versus impurity. Such kind of fixed equations create a kind of hegemonic structure through which the entire space is reconfigured as comprising moral space in contrast to immoral space. The moment this dichotomy is created, public pressure towards the expansion of moral space drives out the immoral space. “Only I can exist and you shall die”-this is the kind of response that becomes the commonsense of morality. What happens eventually is that the so-called immoral space is officially driven out of all the spaces of public engagement and resurfaces in the hidden forms in the so-called moral space. The enemy that we drove outside the walls of our moral city is back in every house, in every corner and in every soul. The tragedy of this phenomenon is that despite this failure of human design, people don't re-think about the notion of space. It has never been moral or immoral rather it is simply there and it will remain simply there. But we find very difficult to engage with the space as it is. It is fluid sometimes turbulent and sometimes pacific. This natural reality disturbs our comfort zone. Only a few want to remain in this uncomfortable zone of eternal chaos. In order to develop suitable definitions, we transform chaos from a natural phenomenon into a negative value. This begins our march into the static but comfortable domain of artificiality. This is also the beginning of the unnatural. Precisely at this moment, a need is felt to determine this ‘unnatural’ into something dangerous. That's where lust is defined. The existence of lust is based upon the denial of nature. All the structures based upon this denial have to ensure that lust should be banned from the system but it goes nowhere rather it stays and keeps staying very powerfully.
The second point is directly the result of the first one. The moment morality is codified, it becomes an instrument of law. It can be used as a mode of control. This kind of control may be direct or indirect but it produces the same result. It acts as a censor in our lives. Instead of allowing a natural order to emerge and evolve, there is constructed a wall and a barrier. Human behaviour now comes within this black and white category of rule and punishment. In total contrast to it, there is a private equation between the two individuals. It can also be called a mutual binary between the two. The ugliness of a situation gets enhanced when the public definition overpowers the domain of mutual binary. A man and a woman may want a lot from each other but the most they want is to explore the other without any inhibition. A dead-end on this front means the death of a relationship but who should have the authority of delivering this final judgement. How can someone outside determine the destiny of two persons who are deeply related? Let a question of lust be decided first by a man and a woman. Let them face each other in the presence of lust. The depth of mutual binary is such a powerful force that it can submerge a thousand definitions of lust. But generally, people are so conditioned that they don't look into the eyes of lust. Somehow, they try to avoid it. I don't mean to say that one can have an interview with lust rather it is like a shadow. If you run away from it, it will follow you but if you face it and go close to it, it will start diminishing to the point of extinction. The mockery of the situation is that most of the people are more concerned with the lust of others but not with the lust of one's own self. This kind of preoccupation takes the shape of consistent eavesdropping. They find all the methods to peep into the so-called lustful relationship of others but they remain idiotic enough not to face their own lust. The development of institution of lust is based upon a collective embrace of falsehood and fear. That is why love despite being the most desired entity, does not evolve because the first door of love and lust is the same i.e. attraction of beauty.
The third point flows out of the second one. Can the definition of lust be decided before an act or within an act? As far as the public definitions are concerned, there is only one answer that it can be decided only before the beginning of an act. This is also a kind of self-serving argument where first definition of lust is created, then authority of judgement is created and finally the methodology of judgement is decided. These kinds of control machines will only bother about sustaining their own structures of falsehood and status quo. They will never bother to allow two individuals to come out with their own definitions. But a simple question can unsettle this entire equation. How can a seed be declared unfit for growth without even giving it a chance of growth? The possibility of an ecological experience between a couple can arise only if they keep exploring the complexity of a relationship. If it is stratified, things will never grow to the extent of being rewarding and beautiful. In case of Michael and Hanna, the relationship drops all forms of falsehood, fear and artificiality. They go beyond these constructs to build a new definition and a new ecological moment for them.

Waiting for DropD-3

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:26:00 +0000

“The Reader” is still in my mind. I had been waiting for a stage when my lust for cinema could transform itself into love for cinema. Love here means a kind of meditative relationship with the image and the theme of the film. Generally, cinema gets reduced down into a heap of incoherent images which somebody wants to unshackle but is unable to. Of late, I feel that I have learned to relax with a film, agitate with a film and live with a film. That is what I call the beginning of a relationship with cinema. When I thought of starting this series, I had in my mind this particular series of relationships with the landmark films that I have seen through and lived through. Cinema is just not a context anymore rather it is the text, the subtext, inter-text and the hypertext also. I know that this kind of visuality is not same as a phenomenon of “darshan” would be. Still, the visual discourse is the closest to the kind of experience I am looking for. “The Reader” has somewhat fallen into this personal category.
The historical context of this film is built around the tragedy of Holocaust. Hanna Schmitz has two identities in this film, a public and a private. On a private level, she is a secretive human being; she doesn't seem to have friends or family and she doesn't seem to be much concerned with the broader issues of her times. But she is a compassionate human being. She helps young Michael when he is suffering from fever. She doesn't know him but that doesn't deter her from caring him. He turns out to be an accidental partner in her lonely life. She doesn't seem to be much attached with him but still, she gets passionately involved with him. He is an intelligent student of classical languages and literature. He reads out some brilliant pieces of fiction to her. A sudden eruption of beauty and pleasure happens to create a magical equation that heals her long concealed handicap-an inability to read and write. Her desire to explore the aesthetic world is fulfilled through a chance meeting with Michael when he manifests his reading skills. He seems to have an idea of her incapacity but does not reveal it because he loves reading out to her. A bond of love and literature binds both of them into a memorable affair though the intensity of feeling is much visible in Michael than in Hanna. To her, the relationship is more like an exchange of gifts. She receives the gift of aesthetic word from him and he receives the gift of love from her. The privacy of this arrangement fits well into the solitary life of hers.
On a public level, she is a German serving as a tram conductress in the times of Hitler. She serves a system which is openly revengeful in total contrast to her private secretive and compassionate nature. She looks at the system only from the angle of duty that enables her to earn her livelihood. She's neither interested nor seems to be capable of understanding the macro-issues related with the ethics of a system. In the pursuit of this narrow single-mindedness, she happens to commit a responsibility which is not just a war crime but also a crime against humanity. After being promoted as a security guard in German army, she is given the custody of Jews for whom only death has been chosen. She keeps herself locked in the narrow confines of duty and allows all kinds of injustice and cruelty to them though she doesn't participate in any such act directly. Her public identity is that of a criminal who is accused of crime against humanity.
Michael is torn apart between these two extremes. How can he accept the simultaneity of these two opposite identities? Is it a tragedy for only Michael or even for the entire Europe? What to talk of Europe, is it not common to Indian subcontinent where genocide and ethnic cleansing have resurrected themselves on multiple occasions in different forms whether it was partition, 1984 “Blue Star” operation, Godhra/Best Bakery or hundreds of caste-based clashes and so on. The possibility of recreating this story is present in so many moments and spaces all around that it is almost closer to being a universal story. In case of Europe, it was racial hegemony that destroyed human relationships the most. In case of Indian subcontinent, there are so many forms of hegemony built around caste, religion, gender, ethnicity and habitat that even relationship is made impossible in certain contexts. If I quote Ritwik Ghatak, I would say that there are “rows and rows of fences” between the human beings. In terms of imprisonment, I feel there is no difference being an Indian or a Westerner. That is why hegemonic walls are the biggest obstacles for relationships. This film is a story of struggle against these walls, a story of transcendence and a story of purgation. It comprises three parts: the first part manifests revelation of beauty and its vanishing; the second part unravels the hidden pain and the third part shows the re-collecting of lost beauty and love.
This film also has one additional reason for me to write about it. A couple of months back, I happened to read a beautiful article on this film by a scholar, Shelly Walia in ‘The Frontline’. Under the title, “Tragedy of history”, Mr. Walia elaborated upon the theme of the film in the context of political philosophy. I could see him wading through the debates on justice to find the eternally missing meaning. He was flexible enough not to get jinxed over the static definitions of good and evil. He says in favour of Hanna Schmitz, “She has no pleasure in cruelty, but has acquired the faculty of shutting her mind to it. This is regimentation under the strict bureaucracy. She lacks the criminal mind......... the fact that Hanna Schmitz enjoys her teenage paramour reading to her from the classics and that she permits him to make love to her only after she has relished the reading shows that her reprehensible act does not come from an evil mind.” These words were hitting rightly at the philosophical puzzle that has been posed in this film. Love is a deeply private and universal enterprise. It has to find its way through the public constructions that are denial of love. Michael represents this long journey throughout. Hanna is represented as an indifferent person and Michael doubles up thinking and feeling on her behalf. After eight years of Hanna’s vanishing, he comes across her in a courtroom where she is under trial. She has been charged of being a complicit in a church fire that killed hundreds of mothers and children who were locked inside. She was security guard controlling access to the doors. She was doing her duty but in the pages of history, an act of genocide was being committed. After having such a sudden face-off with her lost love, he finds himself stretched beyond limits. Whom did he love? A criminal or a beautiful and a compassionate woman.

Waiting for DropD-2

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Michael: - What is your name?
Hana: - What???
Michael: - What's your name?
Hana: - Why do you want to know?
Michael: - I’ve been here three times........??

For quite some time, this film “The Reader” has been engaging me into a prolonged relationship. Before I say anything about the film, I would stop for a while and look at above-mentioned dialogues that are exchanged between two lovers who are total strangers to each other. To be precise, it is the beginning of sexual affair between the two. They happen to meet accidentally and get involved. The very first face-off happens with the breach of secrecy and subsequently, this breach gets prolonged. As they settle into this breach (by then, which doesn't remain a breach any more), they come to discover the relevance of questions which are formal and only introductory. In this case, the formal question is an indicator of lack of real question because they're looking for another context of breach of secrecy. This film is a quest for another breach which takes away their entire lives. To be simpler, it was a story of an affair getting translated into a spiritual pain for entire life. Watching this film was quite an experience catalytic enough to remind me of the unhappiness unveiled but uncoded inside me. I lost my nerves and cried like a baby. I almost laughed at myself, pitied myself and hit myself.
The sense of being a partial entity is a permanent mischief against me being played by a force unknown. Whatever and however I try to achieve a sense of completeness, I fail to embrace the other as mine. I have heard that there is lot of love and friendship. I don't deny that these two gifts of life have not happened to me. The more they have happened, the more they have heightened the sense of my incompleteness. As Love happens to me, I feel the need to assimilate it but I cannot. It comes like a breeze, touches, enlivens and transforms me into permanent waiting being. The brilliance of this magic remains for some moments and then leaves me in the lurch. I have been enjoying a magnificent gift of friends and lovers. They have turned into the stars of my galaxy punctuated by darkness all around. I can see the star but I cannot see the path. Hope is there but the danger is ever more. The moment I start treading the track, the problems of path overpower my vision and trap me into a state of near blindness. When I was young, the sheer romance of relationships was a big force that pushed me into lots of experimentation but I'm not young any more. The calculative mind of maturity has given me the capacity to identify too many holes. I hate that so much that I can't avoid it. They can take a hell out of my potential and I find myself helpless.
After putting the first article of this series on my blog, some friends responded. As it was expected, everybody responded differently. Some were concerned, some were appreciative and some were finding it interesting but one response from an old friend was noteworthy. Her response was full of concern on one side and full of rebuke on the other side. She is a special kind of person to me. In terms of one definition about her is that she is a power woman. She's a hard nut to crack. Whenever she calls, she's harsh to the extent of even insulting. She doesn't listen rather she only orders. Her arguments are very essentialist in nature and she doesn't care about any democratic spirit. But in terms of the other definition about her, she is an extremely caring young mother. She will understand what you're thinking without you even uttering a word. She will plan every possible detail of human comfort for you. Her eyes, her lips and her deep voice will take care of all the human needs you can imagine even. Between these two definitions, she has always switched back and forth so many times and at such a fast pace that it become so difficult to recognise which definition of hers is the true one. To be precise, I would have expected her to read my words and stay silent but I knew that would have been really difficult for her.
The fact of matter is that I'm only reporting from the innermost platform of my being. This world of communication is operating on the principle of one-way affair. I know that I'm being heard but I am not asking questions and I'm not interested in raising debates. I assume myself like millions of YouTube videos which are simply there. They may be controversial but not a big number of people have seen them in order to make a public nuisance out of it. To define it in a professional manner, I would call myself as a private reporter hired by my own self to collect the images of my being and communicate it to the world outside. I'm ready to fund this reporter for all the years to come because I feel this kind of journalism is seriously missing. I know Orkut, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace but they cannot be more than the headlines of what I am, what I am going through and what I'm expecting tomorrow. I believe in telling a story not just in detail but I also believing telling it again and again. That's why I have to be non-commercial and non-popular person. I have to be in a serious minority to the extent of being alone. Perhaps, that's what we are.
I'm only standing for a totally forgotten stream of journalism that may be called self-reporting. It can be equated with busting secrecy. The hidden is so safely protected that it doesn't like the idea of being reported. What to talk of liking, it feels threatened from the reporter. It stands to lose the privileges that have come along with the status of being hidden. It may be religious, it may be sublime, it may be tempting or it may be hegemonic. The moment reporting begins, the status starts evaporating and along with it, also evaporates the paraphernalia of a status. That is why reporting can be a risky activity. I have chosen to ignore all the others because I cannot proclaim to know anything about them but I can definitely try the same about myself. Self reporting can be dangerous to me but I think that the moment first trace of secrecy is reported, I find that below there, the second trace of secrecy lies hidden. The latter becomes more important over the prior thusby supporting my task. It also complicates my task too. The real intention is reporting in detail which means busting secrecy bit by bit, piece by piece. The beauty of project is that I want to bust secrecy but it gets reincarnated after every successful operation. When I say I am unhappy, I have an unending urgency to decode this unhappiness. The moment I understand it, I find it an inadequate answer. I have to understand; so I have to restart.

Waiting for DropD

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:52:00 +0000

For the last couple of years, I have been passing through a strange kind of phenomenon. It is a phenomenon because it has become recurrent in my life and it's strange because I don't possess any grammar of it and hence I have no methodology of controlling it or understanding it. Being a person identified as the male in our society, I have tended to believe in the possibility of achieving almost everything. My urban middle-class background has conditioned me in certain methods through which I used to think that my worldview is nearly complete and autonomous. In general, I may be called a successfully stable professional and a family man enjoying the relative comforts of a material life. Within the so-called mainstream definitions of experience, I should be called a happy man. The fact of the matter is that the happiness is there performing a superficial role confirming the status of material achievements but happiness as a state of being has been missing like a file that is somewhere on the hard disk but I have forgotten the root-word which can enable me to relocate it. I don't think that I am a misfit in the system because I find myself fitted well into the system. I don't think that I want to run away from the system because I don't dislike the material comforts of my life. I don't think that I am not a free person because I enjoy a lot of autonomy in terms of professional and private relationships in both the public and the private sectors of my life. I don't think that I suffer from social alienation because I've been well-connected with both the grassroots and the elite communities of our society. I don't think that I lack any kind of connectivity with my past or my future as I still follow the rules of a joint family, religious literature and go to multiplex to watch Hollywood movies. I don't think that I'm suffering from any lack of libido because there have been sufficient number of accidents to validate the credentials of this force. I don't think that I'm suffering from the virus of the reverse morality, a kind of anti-reaction from the overdose of morality. I have experimented sufficiently in order to satisfy my wander-lust and wonder-lust. I don't think that I'm passing through a midlife crisis because by international standards, I'm way below midlife though by Indian standards, I maybe close to it but I don't find any lack of zeal for new things and new projects. To be honest, I don't find myself full of complaints against anybody at a personal level though within certain contexts, there can be and there are certain complaints against somebody as well as the system. At the general level, as far as the root of unhappiness is concerned, I don't find anybody who is making me unhappy the way I am today. The source of unhappiness is not the person.
Now the question is what makes me unhappy. Anybody who goes through the above-mentioned details of my life shall be easily saying it that I don't have any reason to be unhappy because I have sufficiently large repertory of experiences which should be a reason of happiness. If it's really that, why can't I feel it? At least, whatever subtle element happiness may have, it should be a matter of experience rather it has to be a matter of experience. If one cannot feel the happiness inside, there is no point in continuing with life itself. I'm not talking of happiness that can be measured by a certain indicator. On most of the indicators, my scale of happiness shall be near the optimum levels. As a statistical proof, I cannot be termed as an unhappy person. There can be no body in power who can authenticate the fact of my unhappiness without endangering his own position. The systems of human design cannot sympathise with me without equating their own position with mine. Even if they know that I am unhappy, they will avoid making any statement out of it because I fall into a serious category of not just an intangible factor but also rebellious-cum-anarchist who can unsettle the structures of establishment by pointing out a deep hole everytime and everywhere. The more sympathetic ones might call me a madman and hence declare me a person without any relevance. I'm not elaborating on my state of unhappiness because I want to make it a public discourse symbolising intellectual activism. Out of nearly 100 posts on my blog, the serious articles have been rarely commented upon. They might have been read but they have never come into a public discourse. So, on that front I am a pretty anonymous person who may create lot of noise and nuisance in the virtual domain but there are negligible commentators to attract me into this kind of activism.
To be precise, I don't know why I am not happy? I have tried to reason out all the possible sources but I am not able to locate the exact source. This unhappiness is not a political statement which can be recorded. To be politically precise, this is off the record. Since I don't hold anybody as the source of my unhappiness, my entire effort should be called a politically neutral venture. The only thing I can and I will is that I can allow anybody and everybody to have a peep into my inside and try to find out if I am stating my facts correctly. The only phenomenal fact is that I am not happy and all the other facts are the result of this fundamental phenomenon. The basic science of living is that one should enjoy one's life. I find myself somewhat closer to the characters of a radical film “Idiots” by Lars Von Trier. All the actors of this film are a group of young thinking individuals who are so fed up with the mainstream way of life that they try out it totally counter experiment to rebel against the system. They consciously design a system where they think the use of established common sense can be totally rejected. They imagine and concoct a community life where they start living as if they are in a school of mentally retarded people. These are the people who cannot use the faculty of reason in their daily behaviour whether it is eating, talking, interacting or sex. They try out a life totally opposed to the established methods of thinking. In the end, they find themselves incapable of rejecting reason. They thought that by going to the other extreme of the reason, they could live a decent life, the life they thought worthwhile but they are not successful in developing a natural instinct of bypassing reason however ridiculous they might find it to be. They are a group of pretty successful professionals who have experienced the incoherence of definitions of success and honour. They feel ultimately that they can befool the society but not themselves. Against any anticipation, a woman who accidentally becomes part of the group finds herself naturally driven towards the senselessness which they had found incapable of achieving. She has just lost her son. Her grief has overtaken her and she loses her control over reason. She starts falling into a behaviour which can be called madness. She's a person who is not at all aware of the nuances of this experiment. She seems to be of an average intellect. Still, she can accomplish something which all thinking giants wanted to. They shifted from addiction of reason to extreme hatred of reason but she simply dropped reason without even noticing it.
I find myself like a person who has gone through this experiment and finds himself in a permanent state of deadlock where you can't repeat an experiment. The death of experiment is such a profound shock that it becomes a case of ‘total non-possibility’. It should invite only one more experiment that is suicide. The assumption of stalemate is itself a suicide. The rest is merely a procedural formality. It will be like repeating what has already been said in “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus. I'm not interested in addressing the problem of suicide because I don't find suicide a problem rather the assumption of stalemate is a problem. In the total contrast to the radicals of “The Idiots”, the woman by her accidental participation comes out to be the real hope of the film and the life itself. Creating a structure and then demolishing it with an anti-structure are not the acts which can ensure happiness. It's like squeezing something to its nothingness. That's why I have chosen to allow myself to flow with the state of unhappiness. At the most, I'm trying to qualify the details of a sustained feeling of being a partial entity. The partial is in a sense of a permanent loss of experiential capability. The woman who lost her son was full of grief which was very private and yet overwhelming. I have a grief but it is not overwhelming. I don't even know what it is. I can only feel it when I cry. It makes its presence felt when I want to love. It's there when my kid is lonely and he doesn't even cry but keeps mum. I can see it sometimes in the eyes of my wife who after complaining a lot still feels that her complaint has not been registered. It is there in the water starved plants of my kitchen garden which suffers under the scorching heat of the sun in my absence. It's so much out there around me that I can hardly believe its absence even if I'm not feeling it for some moments.

Thinking Ecologically than thinking of ecology-V

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:08:00 +0000

Thinking ecological happens to be a method where the immediate next moment is always a mystery. This next moment is not the future rather the bridge between the present and the future. We, human beings have got accustomed to the future and the futuristic thinking so much that the importance of the next moment is never underscored. The next moment is tactical, moral and hence essential. One can do anything except avoiding the next moment. The essential reality of this moment is that it is subjective. It's a zone of so many clashes and convergences that the act of facing the next moment becomes the most decisive act of being. Whether we like it or not, the decisive character of this moment is because of its being a link between the present and the future. We may assume to postpone the issue of decisiveness but the way we handle this moment gets permanently registered in the continuity of time and hence life. Every next moment has this character attached to itself. Whatever we have contributed to this series of moments, shall keep on building but we may call as our past. This past shall be a permanent reference point for all moments to come. This reference may crop up as a matter of bondage or a matter of liberation but I would say that reference should remain first and foremost only reference. The meaning, positive or negative may be a contextual force but the basic fact shall remain that a reference is only a reference.
People might find it a bit uncomfortable because we have remained the beings of moral thinking. A moral thinking will either make you a prisoner of the past or achiever of the past. I would maintain that this reality should not be taken out of a certain context. In objective terms, the past to remain a reference point. Why I am saying that history of a person may define the future of a person but may not determine too. The distinction between defining and determining is because of the presence of one universal which is nothing but death. This universal was present during all the moments of the timescale that a person has gone through. It shall also be present for all the moments that are yet to come in somebody's life. That is why the context of death was there, is there and shall remain there. A person may ignore to authenticate the presence of death but this ignorance is not an unlimited act. It may be broken anytime anywhere. This brings out the distinction between defining and determining. The past shall remain a defining possibility but the person shall remain the determining entity. The process of determination is a process where desire and death are in the state of immediate face-off. This kind of meeting is not based upon any kind of astrological understanding of timing of death rather it is founded upon accepting death as the immediate possibility in the next moment. Anybody who takes a shot in this interface may fulfil the desire of the moment. She may die after that but she has the option of giving priority to desire and not to survival. It's like trying out bungee jumping for the first time but it is much more than that. Death may eliminate her in the next moment but she has chosen her desire to live with. She may die but if she doesn't die in the next moment, she can realise with awkward relief and a bit of common sense that the context of death is as alive again as it was in the last moment. This time, it is not equal into bungee jumping but it may turn out to be again a case of priority of desire over the priority of survival. I'm not saying what a person can accomplish with this kind of practical experimentation by assuming the context of death but I would definitely say that she can realise the sustainability of this context as a permanent context. She may refuse to participate consciously with this context but her refusal will not eliminate this context.

Death is like a wayward traveller that can venture into our life from any point of time and space. So, the question is if the desire can sustain its power in each coming moment despite the context of death being operational at every moment? Generally, what happens is that the idea of death and its power can distort many desires and almost vanquish the paraphernalia of those desires. This can be the time of great personal tragedies, critical occasions or social disaster and so on but my experience tells that death does vanquish many but not all desires. There is no method of calculating that in any scientific terms but still, every person does perform somewhat more or less beautifully in such a situation though not at the first occasion. And this process continues its improvement till end. This realm of desire that remains untouched by the fear of death is the fundamental construction that everybody wishes to be part of. Of course, it may be multi-faceted but the structure shall vary from person to person. This is something that not only explains the intrinsic exclusivity of all souls as well as the essential plurality of human existence. A desire can look a very selfish concern at the first glance but all desires have an in-built design for the other's role. In the Part-IV of this series, I have explained the factor of “the other” but here, I would only say that the desire is the only force which builds the basic equation between the self and the other. This equation may turn out to be a question of ethics but it's the subsequent question. The primary force shall remain a function of desire.

Thinking Ecologically than thinking of ecology-IV

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:41:00 +0000

After posting the last article on this series, somebody asked me, “What does that mean ‘somebody thinks for you’; is it equivalent to love? To answer straight, it may be love but I would try to save this conclusion from any simplistic kind of understanding. Love is generally assumed to be equivalent to compassion and benevolence but a relationship in ecological terms may not be a very soft relationship. For example, to a person immersed in addictive aspects of a relation, it's not very easy to convey the true meaning of love without being hard or harsh. Similarly, to a person stuck deep in the systems of violence, it would be impossible to communicate the language of compassion and justice. Again, for a person untrained in the domain of aesthetics, it would be amateurish to make him understand the beauty of love. That is why the ecological relationship may be an exact replica of love but here Love needs to be contextualised. Any general treatment of love outside its context may be a total failure of understanding the ecological nature of a relationship. In certain terms, we cannot necessitate the form of relationship because all forms are in sustained communion with their surroundings and hence keep undergoing a substation shift every time. Love is more about the deep awareness of this communication and resultant change. Any kind of essentiality stops the entire process there and then. Whatever I have said about love can also be said about the exact opposite of love which is enmity. Here, somebody thinks against you instead of thinking for you. For a person who is too much afraid of his enemy, it is ridiculous for him to think of anybody other than the enemy. Similarly, if the person doesn't know the art of self defence or cannot make the strategy of defence, any kind of reaction can possibly mean lacking total commonsense. Again, if one of the characters has a historical record of being exploited or impoverished, the possibility of a genuine response is quite limited. Such kinds of perception can actually lead to totally unpredictable kind of behaviour which can stall the possibility of a dialogue in a permanent fashion. In these cases, if other is not the enemy, the eventuality may tend to create one out of a non-situation. That is why to define an ecological relationship both as love or enmity may lead us into a direction of total irrelevance. Setting one kind of idea against the other kind is not the route I am suggesting. Such frameworks shall remain addictions of two extreme kinds-one is extremely schizophrenic and the other is extremely narcissistic. Our precise objective is to avoid both these two extremes because they are isolationist in form as well as texture. People find it very difficult to understand this kind of philosophical suggestion because they find it very difficult to bypass the overrated-ness of the self. To give an attribute to Gramsci, I would put it closer to the distinction he offers between the traditional thinking and the organic thinking. To him, organic thinking is a result of deep understanding of history and the present while the traditional thinking is a result of the conditioning done by the structures of hegemony. It's a kind of position without an identity, a kind of “subaltern” definition as given by Gayatri Spivak. Both Gramsci and Spivak would have defined ecological as rising from the darkness of earth. It is quite supporting for me with just one caution that the directional essential should not be taken too literally. Of late, thinking ecologically is turning out to be an activity less of brain and more of being.

Thinking Ecologically than thinking of ecology-III

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:45:00 +0000

After my last post on this series, a student friend of mine, Gaurav Bajaj once expressed his difficulty in understanding the concept of ecological thinking. He's a young man who is trying to explore his own way through the life. He finds himself a deep misfit within the so-called material growth all around himself. He tries to find substance in the relationships but they turn out to be as material as the world around is. He seems to be caught in a thinking trap which makes him dream of natural farming on the one side and deeply disillusioned with the concrete structures of urban life. The whole thinking is built upon a dichotomy of inside and outside. There is a world inside which is not finding its way out and there is a world outside not giving up its hegemony.

Whenever we create an “other” particularly in the political and social terms, we also create an element of fear from this “other”. What we think, we assume to think of ourselves and what the other thinks, we assume to think that it is against ourselves. The element of fear distorts the natural reality of the entire ecosystem spread around ourselves. If we just remove the element of fear, we can tend to understand that thinking is not only a domain of personal control. The others also think for you and not always against you/not necessarily against you/rarely against you. They may even think without any trace of you being there. The point to mention here is that the immediate space around us is an ecosystem of multiple thinkings. Hence, thinking transforms into existence and that's why the space around us is an ecosystem of multiple forms of existence. No amount of good thinking or moral thinking is big enough to qualify any equivalence with this kind of vastness. When we think of the other, we generally tend to think of only human beings but I would say that not only human beings but the animals, the plants, stones, rivers and roads also think. The only problem is that we don't think that they really think. There is a certain kind of streak in the educational grooming of our minds where we tend to focus more and more upon the human beings and tend to forget the nonhuman spaces as the intangible and hence the unimportant spaces. The problem of too much of “I” does not allow the growing of “We”. This precise limitation of our dominant method of thinking creates so many layers of problems for us that the entire struggle becomes an intellectual and moral trap for us. While the reality of the situation always is that these traps are very minor locks where the energy and the movement meets a dead-end and the vast frame of the ecosystem around us keeps up its vitality as usual. For example, when we distinguished between mainstream history and the subaltern history, we had to dig out one form of history against the other form while history was being there in all its forms. What to talk of subaltern, there were private histories against the public history. There were human histories against the national histories. There were religious histories against the material histories. So, the moot point is that thinking as a method has remained a very restricted potential. The sense of morality defines its structure but I would say the sense of being ecological should define its existence. A structure may come out of that existence but we should not expect it to be a controlled structure; it may be as complex an ecosystem as a jungle is. To live in a jungle, one must accept that there is no life outside jungle. Hence, the sanctity of a jungle has to be maintained at all costs. The fear in jungle may be a procedural reality but the fear of jungle as a substantive reality has no point to exist. Still, if we want to cling to our fears, we shall never understand the jungle.

Thinking Ecologically than thinking of Ecology-II

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:41:00 +0000

After putting one post on my website yesterday, I still felt the need of elaborating on the same theme a bit in detail. The main point behind that is the so-called notion of moral achievement or moral success that we have got conditioned to. The fact is that within an achievement, there are so many layers of non-achievements and failures that it's never possible to develop a singular definition of the eventual result of any action. When I tried my hands at organic farming, it was an achievement for me but deep down, I could notice that there are so many failures which were really hurting my target of holistic course of development. The very first was that the land never belonged to me in a proprietary sense of the term. It limited my options to go deeper into my experiments. It was a question of serious debate between private and public property which I was struggling to handle. The second question was the availability of seeds which was again limited because of my non-training in the realm of natural farming. The third question was to take my professional career along with my ideal choice. The final was that me, my family and my society were not in total sync with one another over this issue. This kind of set of problems can be found in any kind of moral choice or a moral success. That's why I started feeling that thinking should be more than a moral activity. It has to be organic and somewhat in correspondence with the contemporary history. It is not possible to think ecologically when the society around you is not thinking the same way. The predominant method of social thinking currently available to us is monotheistic and pursues the path of mono-linear morality. When an individual makes a choice, he/she has to get entangled into the immediate web of external ecosystem of the contemporary times. This eventfulness is very mixed in nature because it can be simultaneously progressive and regressive. Here begins a story of partial movements, partial compromises, partial failures and partial successes. I'm not pessimistic about this kind of existential reality or the resultant action but what I want to point out is that there is a serious need to understand the limited nature of current methods of thinking. To be honest, any method of thinking has to be a partial choice of what human beings can achieve by interacting with reality. If the method of thinking is replaced with the ecological nature, we face the problem of not having a conscious structure of thinking. This is something that we are not used to and that's why we keep building structure after structure. Thinking has to be taken into the organic domain so as to make it not just unlimited but also interconnected with the counter possibilities. It has to be potent and in sync with its ecosystem. That shall make it ethical and moral instead of vice-versa. The question of morality is the question of judgement but the question of living is the question of continuity. Any rupture in this process of continuity demands the emergence of justice but any principle of justice cannot be imposed permanently upon this continuity. By sticking to judgements, we keep sticking to the ruptures and hence, we keep sticking to the fractures of reality. This kind of conditioning makes the life a serious mono-crop affair. We might desire to live in the jungle of human possibilities but we trap ourselves into artificial worlds of so-called moral thinking.

Thinking Ecologically than thinking of Ecology

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:41:00 +0000

For quite some time, I have been thinking about how we think. This is a question which is not even thought of what to talk of it’s being raised. We almost forget that there is a method behind thinking and over a period of time, this method becomes not just invisible to us but we also turn oblivious of it but it doesn't mean that method has stopped working. It keeps working right there but our relationship with this method undergoes a serious decline. This is not just true of an individual human being but it is also equally true of societies and communities. There is an automatic development of a uniform nature of thought among groups conditioned by caste, colour, gender, culture, religion or any other factor. This uniformity does create a certain sense of composite way of living life but this kind of development should be questioned and decoded simultaneously. Of late, I have been suffering with a strange development. I would prefer to call it strange because of a certain kind of private selfishness. I don't feel the burden of morality pangs as I used to do over a pretty long period of time. The first morality pang which I suffered from was that of “an impossibility of being a good son”. I tried my best before my family and realised that despite achieving a good sense of son-ness, I never wanted to be acknowledged as just a good son. I wanted to be something else. The second morality pang which I suffered from was that of “an impossibility of being a good male”. I tried my best, failed a lot in many cases; succeeded a bit in a few cases and ultimately I realised that goodness of a male can be determined by a female first, a range of social or cultural factors second and finally by my attempt of being good. My trials and tribulations in this domain were so limited by the factors of ‘otherness’ that I could be a good male even if I don't try to be the one. Gradually, over a period of couple of decades, I could understand that trying to be a good male was the greatest illusion of morality which I had imposed upon myself and the fact was that a female and her environment together define a major chunk of my goodness. The third morality pang which I suffered from was “an impossibility of being a true Indian/Oriental.” In the beginning, this attempt/crisis took me into the domain of cultural nationalism which later on turned out to be the majority fascism. Then I shifted into the domain of spiritual nationalism which took me into the domain of serious Indology. This was a bit satisfactory period of my intellectual journey but soon I realised that all spiritual journeys have to be based upon the material lives. One has to develop one's own Mahabharata, one long battle and one's own wars. This brought me down from the domain of spiritualism into the domain of essential materialism. I could learn to respect people like Gramsci, naxalites, grassroot activists, ecological warriors and libertarians. These three morality pangs were basically the fundamental methods of thinking which I had developed rights since my birth and had almost forgotten that my entire action was being dictated by these fundamental forms of thought. The series of successes and failures were actually driven by these hidden forces of judgement which were always in operation though I was almost ignorant of them. It's only recently that I have realised that these three morality pangs don't bother me as they used to do earlier. The fourth morality pang which I started suffering from was around a decade back when I started realising the cost of an urbanized and consumerist living style which I had got used to. I had no training in rural habitat or the method of natural life. I kept saying to myself that I am only consuming and consuming but I'm not creating the natural wealth. I'm not saving water, am not saving greenery, am not doing enough to save the ecology. This morality pang took me into the world of natural farming, organic farming, permaculture, sustainable development and alternative forms of human habitat. A couple of years back, I tried my hands at organic farming and after a series of minor experiments, I realised that my enterprise may give a lot of satisfaction, vegetables and fruits to me and my family but I was not able to design a system which was truly ecological because of so many factors that I could not even see. This was the final morality pang with which I decided not to be conditioned by. These deep-rooted methods of thinking which seemed to give a direction actually constrain the vast scope of human action. They seem to provide a direction in the beginning but they don't solve the question- Who you are and what you want to be? These methods are mono-crop, mono-tonous, mono-theistic, mono-polistic and mono-chromatic. Why a method cannot be based upon a model of biodiversity? Instead of thinking of ecology, why the method itself cannot be ecological? Why it has to be constrained by only one kind of predominant value system? Perhaps, our problem is that we tend to believe in clean, moral and synthetic methods of thinking. Rather I feel that no method can really fulfil these three criteria. The human consciousness does not operate as designed by these limited doctrines. It draws its strength and vitality from a much deeper resource of thinking which is made up of very deeply interconnected, deeply rooted and biologically joined ecosystem which may be called a jungle, as good as a rainforest. A forest is life source of human habitat but a forest as a method of thinking is yet to be registered in human mind. That's why I believe that we need to learn to be aware of what is called ecological thinking.

Mahabharata: Myth or much more

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:06:00 +0000

"Making sense of Mahabharata", an article by Balpreet Kaur was recently an article in a newspaper about my lecture-cum-workshop in Chitkara School of Mass Communication, Sector 25, Chandigarh. The literary beauty of the piece was itself an astonishment for me. I could rarely believe myself that it was worth such an appreciation. To put matters across clearly, this was my first public performance (a philosophy workshop on Mahabharata) in the last decade of my journey with and into the Mahabharata. After finishing my research project on "Decalogue and Mahabharata", I was finding new reasons to start afresh in this domain and it happened when the Dean (Academics) at Chitkara School of Mass Communication, Chandigarah, Ms. Suparna Saraswati invited me for a bit difficult exercise with the students. It was difficult in the sense of difficulty of communication because Mahabharata has never been merely a text for me rather it has grown into me or I have got assimilated/entangled into it the way a jungle grows into you or you grow in a jungle. Communication is generally a linear process; so, it was quite difficult to communicate the message of jungle to an urban intellect. It can be quite comparable to talk about life in a rainforest before an audience which is used to monocrop of mechanical farming or controlled/manicured natural surroundings. To understand the true meaning of biological diversity is very tedious task for a mind conditioned with concrete structures of urban life. With this kind of an impossible target, I entered the Seminar Hall with a serious doubt over my own capability. The time started, went through and through and finally I realized that two hours had passed and the audience was still perched on their seats asking questions after questions. Some excerpts of that workshop are available below in form of three PODCASTS.

1. Mahabharata: Myth or much more, Part One

2. Mahabharata: Myth or much more, Part Two

3. Mahabharata: Myth or much moe, Part Three

Once it was over, I could feel a sense of satisfaction inside but I needed an 'other' to apprise me of what I had done. Balpreet and students did that to certain extent. Today, I feel that this was an ecologue of my work done in the last ten years. I wish to retell the stories of Mahabharata again with some new device, some new audience and some new catalyst. The jungle of Mahabharata is calling again.

Towards a Philosophy of Money-10

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:58:00 +0000

The Podcast of my lecture "Funny Money" at UBS, RC, Ludhiana.

On the last day of March, 2009, I was invited to deliever a lecture at University Business School, Regional Centre, Ludhiana. I came to know of a genereal fatigue among students regarding the series of formal lectures at their centre. In order to save myself from their repulsion, I happened to give them a topic "Funny Money" which has been borrowed from Sauvik Chakraverti's article of similar title in the Times of India a couple of years back. The lecture went on for around one and half hours. I could not record the final part of the lecture but the first hour was duly recorded. I am putting the same as PODCASTS on my home page consisting of three parts.

1. 'Funny Money' at UBS, RC, Ldh- Part One

2. 'Funy Money' at UBS, RC, Ldh- Part Two

3. 'Funny Money' at UBS, RC, Ldh- Part Three

Funny money

Honourable members of faculty of University business School, regional centre, Ludhiana and the students, let me introduce myself. I don't think that I am a philospher but I am definitely trying to be the one. You might ask what a philosopher has to do in the business school particularly when the issue of money is involved. Whenever we think of philosophy, we almost negate the possibility of dealing with money. We might deal with the questions of freedom, peace, religion or metaphysics but we don't even think of dealing a hard-core material thing that money is. Philosophy and money don't seem to have any relationship. I feel that the problem comes from the way we think. As we grow old, we can to overdepend on certain methods of thinking...........................

बाघ-4

noreply@blogger.com (Sunil Aggarwal) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:35:00 +0000

केदारनाथ सिंघ की कविता-श्रृंखला 'बाघ' कई सालों से प्रिय कविताओं का अद्भुत संग्रह रहा है। इसके बहु-आयामी अर्थों ने हमेशा बाँध कर रखा है। इच्छा थी कि इसका पॉडकास्ट शुरू करुँ। पेश है
बाघ-4 का पोडकास्ट
इस विशाल देश के
धुर उत्तर में
एक छोटा सा खंडहर है
किसी प्राचीन नगर का
जहाँ उसके वैभव के दिनों में
कभी -कभी आते थे बुद्ध
कभी-कभी आ जाता था
बाघ भी

दोनों अलग-अलग आते थे
अगर बुद्ध आते थे पूरब से
तो बाघ का क्या
कभी वह पश्चिम से आ जाता था
कभी किसी ऐसी गुमनाम दिशा से
जिसका किसी को
आभास तक नहीं होता था

पर कभी-कभी दोनों का
हो जाता था सामना
फिर बाघ आँख उठा
देखता था बुद्ध को
और बुद्ध सर झुका
बढ़ जाते थे आगे

इस तरह चलता रहा
महान जीवन उस छोटे से नगर का
बुद्ध की करूणा
और बाघ के आतंक की
एक-दूसरे को काटती हुई
दोहरी छाया में

वहां लोगों का ख्याल था
की बुद्ध समझतें हैं
बाघ की भाषा
पर बेचारे बाघ के लिए
बुद्ध की पाली
घास की तरह सुंदर थी
और एकदम अखाद्य

इस तरह दोनों के बीच
एक अजब-सा रिश्ता था
जहाँ एक तरफ़ भूख ही भूख थी
दूसरी तरफ़ करूणा ही करूणा
और दोनों के बीच
कोई पुल नहीं था

पर कभी-कभी रातों में
जब हिमालय की चोटियों पर
गिरती थी बर्फ
और नगर में चलती थीं तेज़ हवाएं
तो नगर-वासी सोचते थे -
इसी झोंके में कहीं सिहरते होंगे बुद्ध
और कितना अजब है
की इसी झोंके में
कहीं हिलता होगा बाघ भी!