No Mothers

My dear ailing friend,
I know what you're seeking:
Unconditional love!
Alas! you'll not find it
In this world.
For, only mothers carry it
In their breasts.

There are no mothers here
Any more!
Fathers have killed'em all.
All the mothers.
Remaining are only
Wounded breasts...
And... torn up vaginas....

Palakkal Saga: The Very Beginning

I'm going to narrate you some story, or perhaps some stories. But I warn you that they are not mere stories but actual events, which humans in flesh and blood had created with their own lives. It is the real history. Before reading these stories, ask yourself if you can take it. Ask yourself how bold and courageous you are! For these stories are only for the strong and the privileged!

This is the saga of Palakkal. This is how it all begins. This is how the history begins.

Palakkal's saga consists of stories of life and the tyrannies of life. Many of those stories took place in a small piece of land in a corner of the earth, which faced all the remotest galaxies. Northern part of that land was full of saffron-coloured desert. If one travels southwards, one has to pass through the white-snowy mountains. Thus one pass from the desert with no water to the snowy mountains that produced all the water on earth. That may sound paradoxical to some. But to see through the paradox, one must travel even southwards only to see the lush green forest, which was inhabited by a lot of mysterious animals and humans. "Saffron-white-green." That was the colour of the land. Below the green forest, one can see the boundless, deep blue sea, which in turn was inhabited by those beautiful fishes and mermaids. That land was blessed by the gods, where people lived lazy lives in pleasure.

Thousands of years ago, Palakkal was born in a small village of the green land, which was adjacent to the forest, surrounded by the sea on one side and a series of small hills on the other side. At the time of Palakkal's birth, his father, a man of courage and will power, was fishing in the river. A sudden stream of flood came from the mountains and took him with it to the sea. He never came back. That was the first liberation in Palakkals life though he did not realised its significance: liberation from the tyranny of order and obedience. His mother raised him affectionately. She was a woman of strong character. At the age of ten, his mother died of malaria. Her horrible death shattered Palakkal deeply. Yet, he did not know that he was liberated again, this time from the tyranny of self-less love.

Orphaned and helpless, Palakkal was taken by a rich farmer, who lived nearby. He was put to work in the fields with the farmer's workers. He was only a small boy yet he was given a man's work. Before the sunrise he started his work and till late night he had to work, stopping only for his meagre lunch. Suffering badly for a while, Palakkal learnt how to withstand the hardship. During his work, he ate fruits from the forest and drank milk from the cow. Other than work and eating, he had nothing else to think of. No time for anything else either. He received no kindness and no love. Only tinge of kind words he received was from the farmer's ugly looking, dark-coloured, fat wife. She treated him with kindness and gave him good food whenever he was happened to be called for some household work in the farmer's house. Such occasions were but rare. Thus, rare were the occasions Palakkal ate something that humans would normally eat. From the farmer's wife, Palakkal learnt that external appearances meant nothing and black often conceals white, and ugliness, beauty!

Years went by very fast. Palakkal was gradually growing towards adulthood. One afternoon he was working at the mangroves when the farmer came that way. The farmer never used to tell Palakkal anything directly other than giving some orders. For him, Palakkal never existed as a human being. However, that afternoon, upon seeing Palakkal, the farmer stopped and looked at him carefully. He ordered Palakkal to bring water from the river to his rest house in the forest. Palakkal went with water and the doors closed behind him. In the darkness inside that hut, with hands and feet tied, Palakkal experienced the pain and pleasure of the sodom. The poor soul of Palakkal cried and cried, but receiving no help. That day, Palakkal learnt the tyranny of the phallus. Many such afternoons were repeated for Palakkal with his hands and feet tied and the sodom at work, and always he sobbed and sobbed. Nothing particular happened to the world around him. Everything flowed forward normally and peacefully. Only Palakkal's boyish mind was in utmost agony.

On a calm evening, Palakkal was given some household work in the farmer's house. He was involved in his own work with a weeping but attentive mind when he was called by the farmer's wife to the kitchen. As usual, she gave him food and hot coffee. Palakkal was eating his food, sitting on the floor, when the farmer rushed into the kitchen. Seeing Palakkal, eating food in his kitchen, the farmer got enraged. He kicked Palakkal out of the house and started beating his wife. Palakkal heard the farmer's wife crying aloud. The farmer was shouting loudly too. Palakkal knew this was normal. He had seen and experienced what the farmer would become when he is violent. He shuddered with fear at the thought of how the farmer would punish him later for his mistake. He thought of running away, though he knew that the farmer would chase after him and catch him finally. But the woman's heartbreaking cry could not be neglected. It wounded Palakkal's innermost self. A sudden fire in the nerves awakened Palakkal. He stopped thinking and ran into the house. The woman was lying on the floor and the man was kicking on her abdomen. Palakkal saw an axe leaning on the wall. The axe rose and lowered once. The headless farmer fell down on the floor like a tree. That was the end of the tyranny of the phallus! That is to say, Palakkal's liberation from the tyranny of the phallus.

The farmer was long gone. Palakkal replaced the farmer. He lived with the farmer's wife. They became man and woman. Fat and ugly may she be, yet she was a woman, and she made him a man! The tyranny of sodom was forgotten. The tyranny of the phallus was forgotten. Palakkal now learnt the pain and pleasure of the phallus... and that of the vagina. He loved her. He loved the farmer's children, a boy and girl, as his own. Life seemed settled and peaceful. But fate had it otherwise. A plague broke out in that place killing a lot of unworthy souls. The farmer's wife, and children, were not spared indeed. Putting fire on their bodies, Palakkal did not cry. This time he felt his liberation. Liberation from the tyranny of a woman's love. A woman's erotic love. And his own love and lust for her!

Liberated from the order of life, self-less love, and tyrannies of passion, that of phallus and vagina, Palakkal thus gained the ultimate mental and physical freedom. He was free to choose his own life now, free to go anywhere and free to die also if he so desired, without asking or thinking for someone or something. Sitting under a tree Palakkal asked himself what was next! Having known the pains and pleasures of life and lust, he decided to go away. He did not know where, but away... away from life, lust, pains, pleasures, and tyranny. He realised then that he had to go away from humans! He realised that he had to cease to be human. "I am not human, I am a monster" [1], he thought. He rose to his feet and entered the dark forest, alone, with no fear and with almost no aim.

Maybe continued....

[1] Slavoj Zizek

Now For Something Entirely Banal

Life is everything. But life is nothing. However, life can be anything. Such is the nature of life, baffling all the logic my mind has managed to build. Life is the very foundation of my self. Yet there is no certainty of life. My foundation is shaky. That is why I am shaky.

When I feel weak and confused, I wish I could get some clarity about myself. I wish I could see through my mind. My mind is opaque. Or maybe, it is like a muddy pond. I cannot see the depths. I wish if I could go to an alternate space, where I can look at myself without any bias. Where I am not I am but I can see what I am. "Give me a space to stand, I will move the earth", assures the Euler's rotation theorem. It is this space that I need. Just to stand. But I must still be where I used to be. Maybe, on the earth. Then, give me such a space to stand, I will move myself. How impossible! It is in such situations, that I feel helpless.

That is where Grothendiek looks strange to me. He gives no shit about the abstractions of life. Life is pathetically real to him. Bloody life. I mean it. Bloody life. Those who need true peace should sever all ties with the rest of the world. After all, what is the rest of the world? In abstraction, an imaginary axis with no foundation at all. Even if it has a foundation, the axis of peace is orthoganal to it. The axis of evil being fully isomorphic. Grothendiek went to Andorra. Perelman locked himself in his appartment. Nietzsche decided to become a lunatic. When does one know that there is nothing more to do, nothing more to gain, and nothing more to lose? Again a difficult riddle.

I am not living in seclusion. I am living in an extremely over-crowded Chennai. Does that mean I do not love true peace? Does the reverse hypothesis always happen to be true? It is rather a question of causality.

When I asked for a packet of buiscuits, the lady, who invoked all my carnal desires, told me if I buy two packets, I will get one free. So I bought two and got three. Post-postmodern times are like that. God has already revealed it in his notebook. You will get it free what you do not need. If you ask for what you need, hot iron will be impaled into your anus.

Once a man asked God who is a happy man. Here, like in all other stories, the man and God are males. Such stories do not include women, for they are the weeker sex. God replied that a happy man is he, who never finds the need to ask the question 'what is the meaning of life'. How can I ensure that I will never ask that question, the man asked. God said, cook your food yourself every time and every day in your life. The man followed God's words and lived happily for long time until the women found out. They became jealous and enslaved all the men on earth and made the decree: Henceforth, we will cook the food in every household and will never allow the men even to enter the kitchen. Thenceforth, men started asking the question: is there a meaning at all for my life? Thus, they became confused and the women became iron-willed.

The end:-)

The Self

What is the frame of reference of my life, with respect to which I find meaning to every action? Well, I don't want to philosophize here. My answer is this: "my inner feeling that I AM". The central feeling that I AM the one who experiences all this internal as well as external worlds. That is the only thing which I can take as a basis for anything. The feeling which thinks "this mind is mine", "this intellect is mine", "this body is mine", "this experience is mine", and "I exist in this world". Some say, this feeling is absolute and indestructible (ATMAN). Some says, it is a void, a nothingness, an emptiness, or, an illusion (ANATMAN). Modern psycho analysis often adopts the latter point of view. Zizek says, if you remove all the realities from the mind, what remains is nothing! Stephen Hawkins says, the feeling that time is flowing forward an illusion, but it actually is just another dimension like space. Time is not without beginning. There was a time when there was no time. Perhaps, the fact is that my feeling of I AM is a by product of time. It is time that generates my life. I feel time as my memory. If I remove all my memory? I would feel I had no past, I had no life, I had never eaten anything, I had never loved anyone. All those experiences fall into oblivion. I AM thrown into oblivion. In fact, Umberto Eco analyses this in his novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. The protagonist had an accident, and when he wakes up in a hospital, all his personal memory is lost. All he remembers is from his impersonal memory, which contains things he read somewhere! OK. I am digressing from the topic. The topic is the existence or non-existence of the self. Whatever these philosophers, psychoanalysts or physicists say, my experience is foremost for me. And, I can feel my self. I feel that very feeling of I AM. That is the core of my life, I guess.

On 22nd Friday, June 2012, I gave my second Ph. D. seminar to a small audience of around thirty people. To tell the truth, I had not prepared my talk. I had only prepared my slides, which explained my work. How I would introduce new concepts and explain my work was not planned at all. This was not purposefull. Perhaps, my wife is true. She says I am suffering from bipolar disorder. This is the curse of marrying a doctor. What the fuck! I asked her if she meant I was mad. Maybe, she was true. I was unable to prepare my talk. When I went to the seminar hall, I had an empty mind. I set up the laptop and the projector. Then waited for my audience. One by one, came they. Almost all had been known to me. And they gave me a friendly smile as they entered. I smiled back. This may be a social custom that we have developed through evolution. But it helps. I felt a bit relieved. That inescapable moment came at last. The moment of truth. My guide said "Let's begin the talk". I started: "Good afternoon, this is my second Ph. D. seminar". That's all. I don't remember what happened next. I only know that the talk went without any troubles. Because, during my talk, I felt no I AM. There was only the talk. The topic. The slides. The algorithms. The explanations. I went without stop, except for taking a gulp of water now and then. After that talk, my kindhearted friends said the talk was good. However kindhearted they may be, I felt proud. The I AM came back. Now, the I AM became my pride. My arrogance. Then where was that feeling when I was talking? Did it get transformed to the talk itself? Again, is that feeling real? Is it just an illusion? I don't know. But I can't live without that feeling. Without I AM, I may no longer be I am! I am... all that crap. My likes. My dislikes. My desires. The inexhaustible desire for making love. All the confusion. Does god exist or not? Shit. I AM is a burden, too. Maybe, the point is to forget the self... to forget the I AM.

P. Sandeep
June 26, 2012,
Chennai.

Palakkal Saga: Liberal 'n' Liberated

Not long ago, Palakkal went for a party, in a very remote galaxy called the Post Modern. The Post Modern was like a dream world. Full of lights and shining. Full of comforts. There the People were full of happiness and always wore a smile on their faces! They all wore glittering dresses, making Palakkal look strange and mean among them. Palakkal was the only one there from the poor, old Ancient Earth. Palakkal's ancient manners made people jerk with horror. Palakkal was aware of this but did not care at all.

As Palakkal was walking among that majestic crowd, he saw a young woman shining in a corner like diamond among others. All the bystanders were looking at her, admiring her beauty and listening eagerly what she was saying. Palakkal stopped, for beauty always attracts the beast. With all Palakkal's ancient wisdom and knowledge, he tried to understand what she was saying. At one point Palakkal wondered, "Are there things yet that I cannot understand in this universe?" For Palakkal could not decipher a single thing she said. In her loud and seductive voice she kept speaking and speaking, and the crowd stayed and stayed there, looking and looking at her. Perhaps they were only looking, not listening, not understanding. Palakkal's heart smiled. He took a deep breath and turned away from the lady. But exactly at that moment, with an air of utmost confidence she declared,

"You know, I'm liberal and liberated!"

"Liberal? Towards what?... Liberated?" Palakkal asked himself, "From what?"

"Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... So Palakkal chanted.

Later, Palakkal left the Post Modern and rushed towards the Ancient Earth. On the way he slept at irregular interwells. In sleep he thought he was wakeful and in wakefulness he thought he was sleeping. Such grave delirium is common for Palakkal. It is almost a genitical fault. As most of the times, but not as most of the other times, his mind suddenly became still and empty. In such moments Palakkal can sense only his heart beating... nothing else, not even his breath. From the middle of his temple, a clear judgement suddenly arose, without his own will,

"Yes, that young lady is liberated. She can be so. She is born into wealth. She lives in wealth. She will die in wealth. She is liberated from the poor souls who still live in the Ancient Earth outside the borderes of the Post Modern, but who are never able to enter into her world, never even aware of it. She has successfully raised above that ugly, motley crowd, by keeping them away from her, from her sight, even from her unconscious self. Yes, she is liberated from the Ancient Earth to the Post Modern. And so can she be liberal to others who, like her, are liberated from the dwellers of the Ancient Earth. She is thus the Liberal and Liberated!"

Palakkal woke up from his delirium. He became the two-legged animal that he normally is. Once again that arrogant smile came into his face. Reaching the Earth he saw a giant elephant running amok, ruining the forest. With one hand he caught the neck of the elephant; raising it above the head, Palakkal killed the elephant by hitting it once on the ground. Eating the elephant for the dinner, Palakkal went to bed with a peaceful mind.

2012

बहुशाखा ह्यनंताश्च बुध्यॊ'व्यवसायिनाम्||
ബഹുശാഖാ ഹ്യനന്താശ്ച ബുദ്ധയോ'വ്യവസായിനാം.
Bahushaakhaa hyananthaascha buddhayoavyavasaayinaam.

 The thoughts of the irresolute (undetermined) are many-branched and endless.

--Stanza 41, Chapter 2, Bagavat Gita

These days I am seeing a lot of opinions on all the things in the world by the self proclaimed experts. Everyone seems to be an expert in everything. By hearing and listening to them, I am growing incessantly confused.

Creating confusion seems to be the virtue of the time. Making everyone irresolute and undetermined is the nature of the time. Only a confused mass can be distracted from serious problems humans are facing in the world. Only such a mass is politically inactive and economically submissive. Only such mass can be controlled by the powerful. Only such mass can be misguided for fulfilling the narrow and vested interests of the ruling class.

I would like to remember and remind myself:

Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity;
whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity.
For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom:
the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

This fear of going into the water can be seen everywhere in the present day writings, even in Internet blogs -- more so in their replying comments ! My opinion may sound harsh and cynic. But that does not refute my opinion. My contempt for the online writings is becoming stronger and stronger. I don't want to say any more about it, against it. For,  I believe that opposing something strengthens the opposed, at least psychologically. Opposing violence procreates violence in the minds of those who are opposing. Therefore, I would like to focus on the opposite. (Did Nietzsche say there are no opposites?) The opposites:

truth, inquiry, peace, values, ...

I welcome the new year, though I know that it is stupid to believe in new years.

My Life?

It is my another December in IIT Madras. As always, it is very cold. Since yesterday it has been raining heavily. They say a cyclone is approaching the eastern cost of India. Nature seems to be very violent. Looking at the heavy rain, I don't even feel like going for lunch this afternoon. The very idea of entering into rain and getting wet horrifies me. The days when I used to wait for rain just to get wet seem never existed. What an ironical fact! We don't believe in our own past. Do we believe in our present or, more importantly, future? Nihilism is an ideology of frustration. But my nihilism had long ago reached an extend where it started feeling frustrated of itself. Yet coming back to the question of believing in the past, present and future, I am tempted to be nihilistic in the sense that I see nothing to believe in. We have lost all the lofty ideals to believe in. The industrial revolution and, later, the information revolution have taken all the ideals away from us. Look at the present. Too much of exposure. Too much of visibility. Too much of information. What is the result? We are unable to distinguish between the important and the trivial. I, being a Signal Processing engineer, am tempted to say that we are unable to distinguish signal from noise.

These days, everything seems to be achievable. Happiness has become a product that anyone can buy from the market. Yet no one achieves anything and nobody seems to be happy. Happiness is portrayed as an individual affair. Probably that is why the fight to assert oneself superior to others is becoming more and more prominent. In this way, one vigorously attaches happiness with ones ego, the self-image. The way Palakkal felt happy while walking in a garden on a delightful morning or just by looking at the sky seems to be remote to the contemporary individual. Perhaps, the need "to produce", not "to be creative" but "to produce", prevents us from enjoying such ancient happiness. Consider any walk of life. The urge is "to perform ones duties"; it is not "to be creative" or "approach life with reason and logic". Perform your duties mindlessly. Don't look at the world with a broader perspective like a human being. Be an individual and live in your narrow hell but performing your duties. To succeed in your work is to strive for your happiness. The world may go into chaos, but you will be revered for your uncompromising dedication to your work. And having performed your duties, just relax yourself with amusements. What a great ideal that the present day individuals hold onto! No one realises the emptiness of it. Perhaps everyone realises it, but still not able to admit! I say so because, many a time, I feel that people are just actors. They just play their roles thinking that they are merely acting in a drama. Yet their "acting" becomes their "action" which ultimately defines their lives. Are we trying to fool ourselves? Or, are we merely powerless to break free from this drama? And how are we acting in this drama? By unconsciously yielding to the urges I described above!

I am on the verge of asking a bizarre question. Is my life not my life?

Sandeep

Dec 29, 2011.

Facing Uncertainties

That was stupid -- my last post in this blog. Not the content, but the way I wrote it! Later, even I could not follow my last post. Especially, the first paragraph is too difficult to follow. Looking back, I remember the urge I experienced to make that post difficult to read. I had the feeling, still I possess this feeling, that online writings like blogs are useless. They are worthless. They serve no particular purpose. Some argue that internet gives us the real democratic experience and help us show the power of the powerless and the downtrodden. But, unfortunately, I am increasingly feeling that this is untrue. Internet publishing helps us share our feeling. But whether it will serve humanity to direct itself towards some goal, political or economic or anything like that, is doubtful. The flow of information makes us more confused and unfocused. The previous blog manifested this feeling I was experiencing those days. Those feelings are only strengthened now. But I continue writing despite knowing its futility. And I write for no reason and no end. This may sound pessimistic, but right now this is what I feel.

In the last post, my main point was how an issue (Mullapperiyar dam controversy) was about to divide the people of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. One month is gone after I wrote that post. Now, we see those peoples divided! Violence broke out between the peoples and, admittedly, was more intense on the Tamil Nadu side than on the other side. We saw how a small group of people exploited the opportunity for gaining narrow political ends. Moreover, the issue remains unsolved.

The Mullapperiyar dam issue is actually an engineering problem, which has but now become a social problem (I mean people's problem). It is taken to a state where engineers alone cannot solve it amicably. The question of whether the dam will collapse and, if yes, under what conditions, does not have any definite answer. Any answer will finally boil down to probability and reliability. The aim of science and engineering should be to reduce the probability of disaster as small as possible, thereby making the reliability of the construction as large as possible. How reliable is the dam is therefore can be answered only by engineers in statistical terms. The problem becomes social because people, the laymen, are unable to understand and accept the statistical promises. Such problems cannot be only resolved by engineers. The role of powerful statesmen with long term vision becomes important and apparent at this s juncture. It is doubtful whether we still have such leaders. This doubt arises by observing the way the issue is being approached by our leaders.

Related is the issue of Koodamkulam nuclear power plant. Is it safe? Is nuclear energy safe for humanity? Even scientists are divided on this issue. So are the politicians. The answer again boils down to be a statistical one. Again, the probability of failure of the measures taken by the scientists and engineers to make the power plant safe against natural calamities like earthquake, tsunamis and cyclones dictates the answer. If our calculation fails? This may be an emotional question. Perhaps, I am just being over cautious. But am I not over cautious about the very existence of the human race? Am I not justifiable on this ground in asking this question?

Perhaps, we have no answers. Perhaps, there is no way to arrive at a definite answer. Perhaps, uncertainty rules everywhere. But we must find some resolution to face such uncertainties, and our resolution must be based on facts and reason. That is all I have to say.

Regarding violence: a few perverts can cause a large violence, but restoration of peace would need efforts of large number of lofty minds.

Some say that if Kerala and Tamil Nadu were two countries, a war would have broken out by this time. This argument leads me to a more terrible thought: China is building a dam in Brahmaputra, which is supposed to finish by the year 2015. Will they divert water from Brahmaputra to China? What would be the outcome? Are we facing a war?

P.S.: I am not able to sleep calmly these days!

Sandeep

Dec 29, 2011.

The Number of Sand Grains in Calicut Beach, or Writing in Water

So much of reading and so less of writing. This is bad. Even though reading gives me a lot of strength, it is writing that stabilizes the strength thus acquired. While reading makes me more confused, writing gives me clarity. From an information theoretic perspective, reading causes an increase in entropy, while writing helps me reduce the entropy by efficiently decoding, or, equivalently, understanding, or grasping, or putting in the right light, the information ("information" in the sense used in "information technology" not in "information theory"; instead, one could almost always, i.e., with negligibly small probability of being misunderstood, use the word "noise") that I have gathered through reading. (Remember, the more the entropy, the more is the disorder, or uncertainty, or confusion.) That is why I decided to write this post. It came as an inner urge, almost similar to the one human beings experience prior to defecation. The urge was to write a serious post after a long  while. (In our most golden -- the price of gold is at the record peak in history-- times, a blog post is serious if it required little effort to write and would require onerous effort to read. My goal is, honestly, such a post.)  However, I had to struggle to fix a topic. For me, topics are plenty, because the unwritten words (which are written in the mind) substantially exceed in trillions and trillions of bytes (1 byte = 8 bits, 1 bit = 1 binary digit, and binary digits are nothing and everything, or, in other words, none and one) compared to the written words. Then I fixed a contemporary topic, which I assign the reader to decipher from below, after reading the post entirely, and then doing some tantric deconstruction (to do this one has to be well versed in tantras and mantras and pujas and hypocrisy). If the reader does not want such unnecessary burdens or feels not qualified to do this, I urge not to read this post. I am a ruthless writer, and on top of that I am not going to call you "the respected reader" or "the most diligent reader" or any of that shit. I expect the reader to be as conceited and therefore as stupid -- and vice versa -- as I am.

Breaking from the conventions of the previous posts in this blog, I would like to dedicate this post to Jean Paul Sartre, who taught me how to "write", which I, being unscrupulous, have managed not to realize in practice.

The issue of Mullapperiyar dam is now raging at its peak between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This may be attributed to the facts that (1) it is rainy season in Kerala and hence the dam is inundated with water, (2) there has been a few earth quakes in the past few months in the areas surrounding the dam, (3) a junk movie "Dam 999" has been released in India, which, despite having got the permission for screening from the censor board of India, has been banned in Tamil Nadu by its Government, reasoning that it would mislead and hurt the sentiments of the people, (4) and the Malayalam television media has taken up the issue with paramount importance. Although the panic created by the media among the people by making them believe that the dam will collapse today or tomorrow or even in the next nano-second may sound illogical enough to be fake, the threat posed by the weakness of the dam is truly of paramount importance. While the lease agreement for the dam between Kerala and Tamil Nadu is actually for nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine (999) years, it is clear that a dam will not stay that long. While constructing a new dam as an immediate precaution to save the people from its possible yet unpredictable collapse seems to be a solution, the bitter fact that the new dam will soon (in another hundred years?) turn out to be a similar threat to the same people, or precisely their future generation, is a paradox that has been pointed out by some thinking fanatics living in isolated islands.

You might have noticed that I have written the previous paragraph in the most insipid manner, keeping myself distant from the issue, and adopting a very neutral, diplomatic tone. You must understand that this is not because I am a Malayali who is living in Tamil Nadu, so that I have to satisfy both my Tamil friends and Malayali friends thereby saving myself from the otherwise imminent peril. Having dedicated this post to Sartre, will my super-ego ever spare me from the guilt generated by doing so? Though I conceal my fear in my heart, the fact is that I am more interested in something else.

Yes, more interestingly, though the slogan "water for Tamil Nadu, safety for Kerala" formulated by the Kerala Government sounds post-modern and liberal enough, and sounds to be in terms with the modern thoughts and moral sense, however contemptuous and worthless this sense may be, the Tamil Nadu Government's and political parties' adamant rejection of the plea for co-operation to construct a new dam by the Kerala Government gives us some glimpses to the nature of (modern) India. Particularly, the fact remains that India has not yet become an integral country, but stays divided by language, culture, caste, religion, location, and other identities. The Mullapperiyar issue exemplifies the failure of a group of people (or their leaders) to understand the need of another group of people living in the neighbourhood in the same country, only differing in language and culture. Here, being Tamil or Malayali is not the issue. The fact that I, the author of this post, am a Malayali is also not a very important issue (notwithstanding that I have mentally broken free from such an narrow identity). The true issue is that this kind of division exists not only between Tamils and Malayali, but between Tamils and Kannadigas, Kannadigas and Marathis, Kannadigas and Malayalis, Marathis and Hindi-speaking people, Biharis and Bengalis, Kashmiris and other Indians, and so on and so on. Such division can be seen even between people living in the same state, speaking the same language (e.g. South Kerala and North Kerala). A serious and active issue Similar to the Mullapperiyar is the demand for the division of Andra Pradhesh into two, which, again, reflects the mistrust and jealousy between peoples living in different geographical locations within a single state, speaking the same language notwithstanding some colloquial vernacular differences. 

The solution to this most important problem India as an integral nation has been facing can be achieved, however, not by creating an all encompassing Indian identity, for no identity can be truly all encompassing, but, I believe, by educating the people in values concerning freedom and liberty, both social and individual, thereby helping them to mature to a mental state in which they can live peacefully with others. In a country, from where a painter, whether he is great or not, had to flee for using his freedom of expression in his painting; in a country, where a study on different versions of Ramayana told in different places and countries is removed from the academic syllabus for religious reasons; in a country, where a movie or book is banned whenever it is against some narrow ideology held by a group; in a country, err... I'm bored to continue giving these examples, believe me; by the way, what is the number of sand grains in Calicut beach? 

All I mean to say is that in this country, such a solution will not succeed -- I say this with boundless optimism (ideologically, I must have used "pessimism", but, unfortunately, pessimism is not the ideology I have sided with). This country needs a gang-bang change, not the pseudo-moral revolution preached by Anna Hazare and people like him, but a truly violent revolution. Wait a minute, do not misunderstand me here. I used the term violent in the same sense used by Slavoj Zizek when he said almost like this: "Hitler was not violent enough; Gandhi was more violent than Hitler [in challenging the basic structure of the prevailing [British] system]" (emphases might have been added, I'm not sure).

Tail piece: Perhaps the Mullapperiyar issue also shows us how a majority of Indian people are deeply influenced and ideologically possessed by a minority of leaders, politicians and institutions.

S. Palakkal,
Nov 30, 2011,
Chennai.

Analyze this!

Butter Rotti and luscious Chikken Tikka Masala at Zaitoon, the night cafe in the campus. Reading Age of Reason and Wavelet Tour of signal Processing interchangeably till 4'O clock in the morning. Read the novel for some time and change over to Wavelets for some time; come back to the novel -- my contemporary exercise! At 4 A.M., in the brahma-muhurtham, when all the Aarsha Bharathiya Indians would wake up, I went to sleep.

A man who is half-human and half-machine. He is fighting -- for justice or injustice was not very clear. His forefinger in the right arm is a gun with which he can kill anyone standing kilometers apart. He kills at least two people, both of whom are very important in the country, maybe a minister or an official or so. He executes these killings from distance using his gun in the arm. Who is the killer? Police starts investigation. This is not a Malayalam movie. The police officers are as good as the hero (or villain?). And there are more than one police officers. Probably three. They investigate thoroughly. They follow the leads very intelligently. The best police officer in Malayalam movies is belittled by their performance. But our hero is no full-human. He leaves no trace to himself in any crime scene. In fact, he meets the police officers. They don't even suspect him. The story goes on. Gun fights, shoot-outs, cars collide, everything is in fire. The country goes to hell. They can't catch a single man! There was an important meeting between the officials and politicians and police officers. The hero is present. All the police officers are present. They discuss and have no clue. The hero is about to leave for some "operation". One of the police officers starts talking something. He logically deduces a few things. The hero gets perplexed. In a very tense moment, with the formidable skills of Sherlock Holmes, the police officer concludes -- "so, the culprit should be none other than you", pointing his forefinger to the hero. Hero tries to escape. All the people surrounds him and tries to catch. The hero takes a prism and the prism projects the immediate future on the wall. In that projection, we can see police defeating the hero and beating him all over. The hero is cut into two pieces, but being half-machine is not dead yet. But it is clear that the hero fails in his mission! Being the future of the hero known, which in turn is not very prosperous, what is the point of resuming to tell this story?

Precisely at this moment, I woke up. It was 1:30 P.M.  Hunger was torturing me from inside and outside. Yet, I spent some more time savouring the movie my inner-space kindly showed me during my sleep, thereby keeping me not bored throughout my sleep. What a beautiful unconscious mind I have! Freud will surely fail if he analyzes me.

Perhaps, Zizek will say: "Wait a minute! Here is an example of a man whose fantasy space has been completely robbed by the Hollywood! This is the paramount example of the influence of today's cinema on modern human lives. The sense of reality of this man has been completely taken over by his fantasy world. His unconscious mind, which should consist of his unfulfilled desires, now contains only fantasies, cinematic fantasies. This is why I said our desires are not spontaneous: one has to be taught to desire. And cinema teaches one to desire."