Train Station

Waiting for a train that never stops,
Imagining things that never happen
So easy it is to get lost

Is it the temples of Lagash
Or the kings of Babylon
That can satisfy my curiosity

Imagining Napoleon
Imagining Robespierre
And Imagining me

So easy to get lost
In this ocean of humanity
As a meaningless event

Being a shadow of Myself

Survival of the Weakest

Modern society is defying Darwin's theory of natural selection. There is a gaping hole to his theory of survival of the fittest. Medicine has achieved so many wonders in the last few centuries, so much so that body's vital force is now unanimously understood to be in it's cells and their metabolism, and not in some unknown soul, created, gifted and purified by God. But medicine is making all of us weaker as more and more generations are being fed by it's drugs. Before the advent of medicine, and the myriad of drugs that it now boasts of, very few people used to live longer till their old age. There was a silent process of natural selection, where the bodies which are genetically programmed to be weaker to disease resistance and endurance, are disposed of by nature by some epidemic or some minor disease. That way, nature got rid of the most weakly constituted bodies in their early age before they could inherit their genes to their children. Old people still tell me of the days when women used to give birth to five to ten children expecting only about half of them to survive to adulthood.

But, these days, mortality at early age is very low. Most people in developed countries die in their old age when the organs give up the seventy to eighty years of battle. Developing countries too are moving in that direction. At least most people are secure enough of their life, from most diseases, to plan for their future ten years. There is no natural selection. The weakest never dies(before the old age), and the fittest is born less and less frequently. I see this as nothing but an elimination of the fittest by none other than our wonderful medicine. More and more drugs are replacing body's natural mechanism to defend and evolve in it's fight against disease. And more and more people are living not because their bodies can survive the diseases of nature but because there are all sorts of drugs to fight them. I wonder how many people survive common illness like fever if for some reason the drugs used to treat it suddenly disappear or become unusable.

How long humans will continue this proliferation of the weakest, before nature finally asserts the law of survival of the fittest and eliminates them all in one stroke as not fit for survival on earth? Or have we already conquered and enslaved the nature, in which case, there will be no law of survival of the weakest, but only the law of survival of the human being?

Flying Away

It has been more than six months since I had flown to United States of America. I thought I will become sentimental about India, the moment I leave it. But it didn't happen. I became numb for a long time. May be Will Durant's philosophy has killed all primeval emotions in me :-) (that's just to show that I am a cool philosopher now :-P). I stopped over for a few hours in China, but did not feel that curiosity that I felt while reading about it in Nehru's letters to Indira. Somehow everything looks very mechanical, according to the script, according to Will Durant's script :-).

Will Durant, I have been reading his Story of Civilization for a few months now. I used to think that the most interesting story is the story of man, the rise and fall, the evolution from nothing to something and then to everything. Someday I will cross 7 oceans to see his grave and thank him for all the enlightenment, just like Robespierre did when he made a secret visit to ailing philosopher 200 years ago.

The more, time passes by, the more I feel an unexplainable unrest in me. I feel a philosophical emptiness in this foreign land.

Secularism

Everybody claim to be secular in India, according to their definition of course. The unfortunate thing about democracy is that there is no easy way of telling who is right and who is wrong. Modern idea of secularism in India is a complex outcome of fusion of western idea of completely neutral state and an old culture of assimilation and acceptance. And Indian secularism is the most visible outcome of India's independence movement. Communalism was identified as the cause for some of the most regretted events in 20th century in India. So strong was this feeling that, there was a near unanimous agreement among intellectuals and politicians to suppress the currents of communalism with iron fist.

Being secular is a cultural concept where as secularism is a political prescription to guide the state's attitudes towards people for its continued existence. It is interesting to observe the history of secularism. Secularism has two distinct connotations. On the one hand, according to principles that guide most European governments it means that the state has no religion. It is as if the state doesn't even acknowledge the existence of religion. On the other hand, according to many developing multi-religious nations(like India), it means that the state respects all religions equally. European prescription on secularism is a passive one, recommending ignorance of religion. Where as, Indian prescription for secularism is a recommendation to actively treat all religions equally. The difference is so subtle, it represents the difference in evolution of nation states in the west and the east. Western nation states emerged fighting the autocratic monarchies and the illogical restrictions imposed by god and his representatives. Inquisition and the role of church had been identified as the major forces that kept humanity in dark age before the renaissance and the age of enlightenment. Widespread violence accompanied the Wars that were fought over religions. So weary were Europeans of the violence and suppression of ideas by church that they gradually sidelined it completely in their laws. Today in the west, one can mock a God, make fun of a religion and yet can claim it to be part of their right to freedom of speech.

But, the Indians didn't have that much religious violence for that long time. Religions, being moderate have coexisted with little or no violence and religion was not identified as the sole reason for stagnation in the society. On the contrary intellectuals tended to identify an Indian's soul in his religion. That's why Indian state couldn't remove religion from public life, despite so many godless men having been ruled it.

Nirvana

"A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. "
--Franz Kafka


In school days, doordarshan TV serials and a generation old movies always depicted an unforgettable theme, that of a yogi doing prayers in the woods or in the rocks and getting Moksha. Even text books talked about how puranas, itihasas and the mighty upanishads talked about getting Moskha as the ultimate aim of any individual. Buddhas's nirvana was another word, that I heard so many times but never once understood what it means (other than that it is a cool word to use once in a while :-)).

The essence behind all these catch words is the concept of transmigration, as an immortal soul migrating from one body to another after death, and the highest aim of an individual should be to get out of this cycle of rebirth. Why do we think soul migrates from one body to another, I still haven't figured out. But I now realize the idea behind avoiding cycle of rebirth. I now see why learned men have no sympathies for human life and day to day toil for existence. After all, one cannot miss the reality of our struggles in a soulless world. And after gaining certain knowledge of history and causes of events around us, seeing the inevitable in front of our eyes, one cannot fail to realize our meaningless existence in this meaningless world.

To counter this skepticism and hopeless existence some learned men have offered religion as hope giver to the ignorant. More than everything, religion gives a man a reason to live, something to aspire for, something to look forward in the future. But what of irreligious men like me, I sense no God to protect me, to bless me, to guide me, to bring good days for me. I am alone to fight a tearful battle in a heartless world. Now I see why ignorance is a bliss, and why that religious fundamentalist in a remote village enjoys his life more than these so called modern people like me, struggling to find out a reason for their existence.

With this background, the whole concept of suicide now becomes as significant as death itself. I now see a raison d'être for the philosphy of suicide and I think it's the right time to find out what Camus had said on suicide.

Exciting times for India

It was 2004 general elections, that aroused a sense of political participation in me. Our family has traditionally been strong supporters of Congress, even when the whole region around us was hotbed of communist ideas, during Telangana struggle. The reason was one of the temples of modern India, as Nehru called them. Irrigation water from Nagarjuna Sagar had transformed our region from a semi-arid thorny jungle into a two-crop yielding rice growing area. Often I hear from people referring to the time before the water came and the time after the water came.

So, in 2004, after two drought years without irrigation water, and an apparent neglect of farmer community by CEO chief minister, everybody waited for Congress to win, and I was their messenger translating Hindi news results from DD1 (we didn't have satellite cable tv then).

I have seen the hopes and disappointments of democratic governments since then. I witnessed YSR signing free electricity to farmers bill on the day of swearing in, in front of a jubilant farmers crowd (Free electricity scheme was drastically narrowed down in 2 years, but farmers still love him and cry for him). I witnessed congress passing right to information act, a revolution of its own. But after all the high and low points of congress governments and the neighboring BJP governments, there is only one thing that stuck me, that quintessential Indian thing, that better days are just an illusion. All we see is some change, sometimes good, sometimes bad. The whole thing looks like a cycle of events, like cycle of rebirth without any Nirvana.

Despite this disillusionment, I should say there is something incomprehensible about the recent election results. First thing, I never thought the whole of India would agree on one person such strongly. I never imagined even in my dreams, that India would get rid of coalition governments, at least in the next 20-30 years. I have my fears about cultural propaganda, that is going to come, but it still is a change, and an opportunity to experiment.

Unlike what most people fear, I don't think there is going to be any communalisation of government machinery. There may be incidents here and there but sectarian strife was never welcomed by Indian people in the long term. More importantly, Congress despite its failures had built a strong case for secular India into the minds of Indians, through text books, laws and constitution. Even if the political executive in power tries to impart a color of religious discrimination to government, it will face a hard time in front of a band of secular intelligentsia spread over media, judiciary and civil society.