verge of sanity..

We all create our realities....we believe in a lot of things consciously, subconsciously, unconsciously...its important for our existence....we tell ourselves partial lies to keep us safe....i could liken it to a placenta of our own....we hope these are truths....we put faith in all these truths...its not hypocrisy...its sheer necessity of existence...some of us believe in god (not being politically incorrect, it could be true but this is something one can never prove, which is why it is premised on faith, so believers don't make me a martyr)...everybody has a long list of such belief systems....it can be a social, racial, religious belief system....or personal or pertaining to a group...sexuality...we believe, really believe in these systems...and believe it is truer than that of the “other” person, race, caste, religion, continent.....we kill in the name of our beliefs, which are more or less unfounded...if we disaggregate everything we believe in as true or false, it might fall apart...but one of the essential necessities of sanity is this stronghold on “reality”...the moment you loose grip...you are in the excluded group...outside social understanding...insanity...


Society itself , in my view, can be seen as continuous concentric circles tending closely towards a centre....only, i think, there is no centre but a tendency towards it....its like Dante's Hell....its the circle of exclusion....these circles exclude-include differentially according to time and paradigms...what was once true might now seem irrational...we do not understand why some tribes headhunt....so once homosexuals were severely persecuted....as an element beyond biological being...as a vagary of God's creation...today some parts of the circle have become elastic enough to accept it...no fully though...


Trans-sexual still remain oddly outside some circle as another vagary...forced into prostitution...forced to live behind the curtains of a social stage, as passing actors that provide some sort of amazement in the gaze of viewers....they generate often an emotion of unawareness...fear, hatred, amusement, sympathy....not nonchalance....so this concentric circle i am talking is a theoretical model of the world...it applies similarly to individuals as to societies...you know why i wrote theoretical model, right?...if you don't...it means its a sweeping categorisation, stereotyping...black and white, singular description of the world...something a post-modernist would cringe at...but still essential as a tool for understanding...we live and thrive and think only on such stereotypes...so it doesn't essentially matter!!


Anyway....so beliefs...our unfounded truths on life runs deep into our sense of existence as well as our notions of the next minute...we never doubt them for a minute...like we never question the existence of body...or the truth of what we see...most of us, though prioritise our vision, rely on hearsay.....we live on our perception of others...which is why we can never fully predict another person's behaviour...cause we live on perception (sorry to all the scientists, i don't come from that school)...we can always predict wrong....at seventy, we can predict our spouse wrong....which is why serendipity and surprises are old terms for us....ok...all this talk is to point out that i closely reached the fringes of insanity in the past few days....my notions, my truth were continuously breaking down in front of me....my perception of me was uncannily confirmed...my hopes of untruth were crashed....the four walls around were slowly closing in on me...it is a sense of claustrophobia....when nothing is right...nobody is right....i gave too many people close to me various doses of shocks...my elderly father was scared by the prospects of me suddenly quitting job...it affected his calm...my friends were appalled by my decision to meet a psychotherapist ( no i don't believe in them either, but its fun to pay and talk to a stranger)...i was appalled by behaviour...i was out of my control...i feared dire consequences...of exclusion...of eternal insanity....which i know, have been predicted in my future...then all of a sudden its calm ocean again....and i tried once again to look inside...to see what caused this change...multiplicity of events....but also something as simple as a decision...my untrue truths are once again confirmed...normality is restored....i can now sleep happily in my placenta of beliefs!

knowledge versus knowledge

Today is a fairly easy day...i will tell you why...its a day when bosses are not around....so I thought I should do something that pleases my sensibility....a thought that has been on my mind in the past few years and has come to the forefront....it is the question of education in India....no not India but education, the context just happens to be Indian....so i was sitting in a seminar the other day...a room filled with economists, bankers, social workers...and the presenter asks what was a fairly simple question....how many of you have read Marx??....minority few raised their hands....my eyes only roved to the economists from my institution...not one of them had their hands raised....i was suspicious...is this a devious plan of a lazy student or a problem...so i ask my roomy...didn't you guys do Marx in your course...in the negative came the reply...this, let me say, is an institute that mints eminent economists in the country and the students have not read Marx...yes there are articles of Marx at under-grad level....now this is appalling!!! no its not about economics or Marx...its about how water tight compartments our education streams have become...the designing of courses....its about preferential discourse that regards certain kind of education as superior than others....so in school....science was the way to go....engineering the first preference...followed by a minor class of medicine aspirants...teachers and parents molded the children this way from childhood....so people who flunked or scored badly left the premises for economics or finance...no one ever heard of arts....no alternative choices were even displayed to students to broadly choose from...and surprisingly all those poor performing students who left premises and joined other schools and other streams of education topped their class....



I went through my course thinking...this is crap...i am left-leaning closet Marxist...who complain about the “market phenomenon” not really knowing what that meant....we did a bit of capitalistic theories but did not really pay attention....today i sit in a room with people who have passed out of ace institutions in subjects most evidently considered superior to my stream....and they don't know Marx!....how does an average student with all that course work, swamped in a million tests and personal dilemma ever look at the immense genres of “other” books in the library...at the same time, it is not like we are absolutist or paranoid.....we are a mixed economy with a vibrant left-wing (crappy as they maybe).... how is it that in a mixed economy like ours students are not taught theories of both sides so that they make a wise choice for themselves...its not about socialism or capitalism...Marx or Smith...its about choices within a choice you have made....how does a student make a wise choice to follow the market or work for the rights of the proletariat if everything is left upon the student to undertake....i thought about this...i guess educational system that is currently catering to or rather aimed at creating professionals cannot cater to broader educational topics....like tell a scientist what it means to be a sociologist...wary attempts are made in esteemed institutions....say IIT...but everyone knows its a joke....but in a rush to specialise...in a rush to professionalise we are missing on what a educationalist might call “holistic”.....even worse systems, be as it may....i know for a fact that in a campus like ours that had three streams of social science...one stream couldn't stand the sight of the other....except for a few odd balls...there is a tight compartmentalisation of the jhola carrying cigarette smoking, free-thinking (or so they think!), class bunking lot and the pouring-into-my-books, well dressed, hyper tensed, book fearing corporate aiming lot....they were mutual jokes but not once have there been real efforts at putting two and two together....why not create a porous circle devoid of exclusivity...why not share your strengths with ours....not even office going people often cater to a mixed disciplinary approach...well i don't blame them...people will rip each other and the building off....so at the end of the day why not try creating individuals who at least attempt at understanding the thoughts of the other....simple listening is so hard to muster.....


My school friends ask me...so what are you doing...psychology? Or sometimes it is “whatever that you are doing”......No bugger its philosophy and then sociology...all of them are different streams...but then i realise i make the same mistake...so what are you doing...engineering of course?! Mechanical....no bugger computer science...electronics and communication...its all the same...in the end you are all engineers...yes, but is that right? Do they all value the same, add the same value.....no....i am not paying attention!! Why are we all such well-trained excluders....forget gay rights or transvestite right if education itself is so uptight!!!....is it the system...is it dominant discourse of exclusivity...or is it simply lack of sensitivity....no breathing space for the other..why do we study....to be better people...to earn 5-6 digit salaries....we need to figure this out sooner or later...there is so much information....flakily translated as knowledge...still every time an economist needs an analysis on social impact, they need a new methodology....why not just ask the sociologist? Naah they are too flaky, too qualitative we need numbers....ask the sociologist to quantify their social impact....they rack their brains...we don't know that kinda math...ok why not just ask the economist....no they are numb number crunchers....why this compartmentalisation....who is to blame for it...you, me...or some superior system or some devious politician....or maybe its Bush!!!

the fine balance

Okay this might seem like the limit...stretching my emotion a bit too far...but i guess i have to accept it i am emotional and very much at that....i have active tear glands that well up at the slightest insinuation....OK so here it goes...since i realised i like writing blogs with memories i am continuing and this one has to pioneer it all.....I am listening to the song that made tare zameen pe famous to music listeners...Maa...i remember shedding buckets of tears watching the picturisation of this movie....now i am on my revolving chair soft as a sponge, ready to absorb any sadness around....somewhere feeling guilty that i made my mother sad...my eternal problem with parents is that they don't understand me....especially my mother...and somewhere in this defense i forget the lady who shielded me from the world!! who gave a lot to see me smile....i rationalise my thoughts about her life...i understand her position in the society in all its sociological aspects...but again i forget...i think today is the day for all those forgotten memories...so here it goes...so as a tribute to the movie i saw today and the song....this blog is "all about my mother"...my father is a man of different virtues...and i respect him for that...but my mother is most respected simply cause she was my mom....and the way she balanced life for my sister and me...when we shat in our pants and ran to our studies for the fear that my dad would blast the hell out of us...she calmly watched us...was our ally, alibi...on evening when we sneaked to the living room to watch TV during our study hours....we scurried on all fours to our studies when the lights of a car barely reflected on the windows...she shared our fears...i am one of the rare specimens who can claim the following....first knowledge of sex was with my mother....first conversation on my uterus was with my mother....first input on condoms was from my mother....in fact the first person i asked whether she was using one was her.....i remember her skin turning blood red...but she managed her poise so well......my mother was more open about discussing homosexualism with me than my sister....though at this point i don't share her views on this issue...she was my first string to everything sexual....she knew when i first fell in love...she didn't ask me cause i didn't tell her.....i could boast in school about all information i had on forbidden topics and i could say this with pride...cause my knowledge was not from some magazine, it was from a mother who specialised in zoology....now i realise how well she balanced my dad who showed no signs of recognising us as sexual beings....she made up for it so well....she was...no, is very perceptive and i am scared of her for that...she can tell when i like someone...you can imagine now why its scary...



I remember the times when i arrived home with my report card....no i didn't flunk...never did until college....that's a secret only my mom knows....i never flunked but i guess my father had great expectations and so every subject that bordered pass mark were a source of immense anxiety...i would pace furiously outside my dads room...i can't enter....walk back to the kitchen to feed on a bit more sympathy...come back....can't she just sign it for me....”no that's not done”.....OK fine!!!...pace again....”you should have just studied during all that time you slept”, says amma....yea i should have...whats the point...motivation is an age old problem...how do get past this situation...it was life changing it seemed then...i am so screwed...i don't remember how my sister tackled it, she was apparently worse....no not worse in any significant manner just didn't take exams well...she knows better maths than i can ever imagine, she had better grasp of concepts, just that i knew how to pass....she probably was a victim to a cruel mainstream idea of education...i was slimier...i passed...OK OK back to tense state of affairs....so having heard that dose that almost made me piss in my pant.....i come crying back to the kitchen...for more sympathy...whiny dog i was....the clicking of her wedding ring on the chapatti roller is still clear in my head....she watches unjudging as i wash her crispy chapattis under the tap...i know its gross but i hated the feel of flour on my skin..it gave me goosebumps....i wonder what she thought...she just let me be....



There were days when dad went on trips...days we tripped...from rice and well assembled curries suddenly we were on to Maggi and everything in two minute cooking....my mom's day off...late night movies cherry picked for the occasion...chatting till late...11 was very late then....i know we looked forward to those moments every time....now i am happy that in spite of her having to cook at least we afforded her the little break.... she did work her ass off to shape people like me...well i am not what anyone would call perfect daughter but i know i am special....in my own way....i know that in spite of my causeless rebellion i have virtues that one can be glad of...it took me years to realise that....it took strangers to tell me that....but now it just takes a while to realise that my mother balanced us well...i would have had causes to rebel if she didn't...if it wasn't for her scones and yummy evening snack i could have never concentrated on my intense five minute of studying every evening.....if she hadn't kept her mouth shut about me sneaking story books into the study...i couldn't have realised the true value of education.......she was there to calm my palpitating heart at 22 (fyi my sister got married around that time)....she told me that whatever people said or forced them into believing.....at the end of the day they would listen to me...i was so relieved....so what i decided to get married at 30?...that would be bad but if you insist we can't do much....ooof!!...what if i don't get married???... that would be really bad but still we can't force you....OK, OK that's good incentive to get married someday....the same lady suddenly one day becomes socially aggressive...the day she realised that my dad was caving into thoughts that suggested choice of a life partner on your own..."i don't think that good reason for you to just go ahead", she said..."whats wrong with our choice",...i was pissed!!..but it took me a while to notice the contradiction....once again she was balancing....


So yes she doesn't get me...i hear she is worried about me...not from her though....seems like i have too many guy friends....she can't oppose that!!....yes like all parents unable to cope with the monster that they have raised, my mother racks her brains in relentless worry about her prodigal daughter....just like the prodigal daughter racks her post-modern neurotic brain trying to figure out why parents aren't more malleable...or like his parents or her parents?...but its just a hobsons choice....they, especially she, didn't have a choice or chance in shaping me fully according to her wish....i hope you agree that external environment has a huge role in shaping human beings....so i don't have the choice of shaping them according to mine....life would be so boring if you didn't always have that opposite view...maybe not that much but a little at least...but i am learning to view my mother as a human being with hell of a lot of problems but still trying to create meaning in her life and in ours...and she has....and she will always balance life on the rickety side of my ship....


This weekend has been all about my mother.....from the song (mentioned earlier) to the movie by almodovar and talking to my friend about his mother....funny that i haven't still called her....talk about a prodigal daughter!!