Why is it so Tough to be an Atheist?

 

Well, the debate about God has been a long and wordy one. Millions of logical arguments fall short of defeating one single word ‘faith’. Our daily experiences, daily haps and mishaps, inexplicable occurrences, now rapidly explicable natural and biological phenomena, fossil researches with solid proofs of natural evolution, scientific theories about the origin of the earth (in addition to the solar system and the universe as a whole), profoundly inexplicable natural symmetry (the balance of forces holding the universe in a revolving, periodical, harmonised symmetry), all these and more keep us in wonderment about the possibility or impossibility of a creative design behind all this.

 

Given our varying situations in life, we rush either to the Darwinist evolution concept or the concept of creative design, both occupying their extreme positions. Most of the time with titbits of scientific facts in our puzzled heads, taking cursory looks at the Darwin end to do justice to our modern educated selves, we blindly, helplessly move to the extremity of faith. The latter with its swiping injunctions of mysteries of life, with one solution pill called ‘belief’ makes life far less complex. It gives respite to the hassled logic-laden senses as well. It is a good addiction to this blind supposition. Religion indeed ‘is the opium of the masses’!

 

Let us first take the religionist theory. Drawing inspiration from the mythical clues (vaguely and always open to interpretation in convenient ways) in the yellowed and much hallowed pages of scriptures and holy books, it maintains that this beautiful planet dazzling with life and much more has been created by the Lord or the God Himself or an all potent entity for some Godly purpose. Believers maintain that the faith has to be unquestioning and blind and beyond the reach of all our senses, except one super-sense of ‘faith’. The belief cannot be made to stand in the witness box to be questioned by the pinning arguments of the so called atheists in a court presided over by an indifferent agnostic judge.

 

Since we are not animals, we with our evolved brains possess the faculty of seeking the logical foundations to our blind ‘belief’. However very cleverly the act of mere questioning anything holy has been termed as heresy, a nice nipping in the bud, a nice way of bypassing all the arguments that might at a point leave ‘the defenders of faith’ at the dead end. It is considered sedition against the Omnipotent, as if the all absolute, the all Potent Potentate is an unsparing monarch demanding unflinching loyalty from the subjects without ever giving any clue about Himself. Since he has allowed us to evolve with an evolving brain, the reasoning by the same organ cannot be a taboo. A thing created by Him, or at least allowed by Him to take its present shape, doing what it is just supposed to naturally do cannot be a taboo and sacrilege. So we are allowed to follow the path of reason (gyan marga) to seek proofs leading to His existence or nonexistence. The institutionalised religion but seems to be a game stopper in this venture.

 

Religion with its tools of sin (and consequent loss and punishment) and pious deed (leading to profits and His blessings) seems insufficient in providing a logical backdrop to our actions, reactions and the outcomes if we drop the further conditionality of the past (previous birth with its unknown summary of good and bad deeds) and the future (with its yet to be list of gains, losses, punishments and rewards). These two unseen voids have enough space in them to eat any ‘what, when, why, how, where’ questioned by the present. If we just analyse the present we find glaring incongruities: mountainous efforts ending in molehills of achievements; tiny actions resulting in sky high rewards (like a lottery draw); a person born in a slum and dying in a still dirtier gutter; someone being born with a golden spoon and dying in a still more glittering palace; some nice fellow getting a disease inexplicably and suddenly; a wretched human being with his still more wretched deeds continuing to enjoy perfect health; sufferings and tears incessantly striking a life even though nobody has a word to justify the victim’s punishment of this nature; amazing and unjustified profiteering and consequent happiness showering upon somebody against whom many can point out hundreds of reasons to make him eligible for punishment instead of this blessed state.

 

To cover up these mocking loopholes we have this account book of sins and pious deeds full of unknown statistics of the previous birth, the ones belonging to the present, and to be carried onto the next birth in future. These are but grossly hypothetical conditions to shut down the voices of protest against His justice (or injustice) by condemning unjustifiably suffering nice human beings for the unproved, unknowable misdeeds of the last birth and warning the unjustifiably fattening and prosperous piglet version of a human through punishments for his misdeeds in an unknowable, unproved next birth or afterlife. With these two open-ended eventualities at the extremes in the past and the next birth, we need not even question any state of affairs on the earth. These are the super dead-ends for any kind of logic or reasoning. It literally means to shut down the basic faculty of the questioning brains. Then we have other protective layers in the religiondom: it is a series of immensely pacifying nouns like luck, fate, destiny! This series further patches up any remaining loopholes in the believers’ fabric. In religion with its indefinitely unfathomable dark seas of the past and the future, beyond our time span on earth, the boat of reasoning just falls short of any chance to reach the coast with any proof to the contrary.

 

If we accept the validity of the preordained law, guiding every activity (right from the littlest movement of a tiny sapling from among the millions of others like it), we need to accept that not a littlest step in our life is caused by our free will. We then become slaves and puppets in the hands of that invisible player doing puppetry with invisible, untouchable cords. But how much of puppetry is sufficient for the invisible actor? Isn’t He ever bored of the play across billions of years?

 

Suppose we have to draw a card from a pack. What are the factors that define and control which card lands in our hands? The mathematics theory of probability (with its assumptions of limited number of players and elements) makes it look like a subtle nuance born of the free will (of touch me, touch not others) of the static card and the free will (will I touch this or that one) of the hand controlled by the brain.

 

Religion says there is no chance factor in the phenomenon of an unknown card landing in the hand that just moved uncertainly. If it is accidental, the phenomenon becomes more important than the players (card, the hand, the brain). If the chance factor is assumed to be valid at all hierarchies (stretching up to the utmost question of our very existence and the existence and origin of the universe itself), we can vaguely surmise that the creation has been an infinitely mammoth chain of chance phenomena spreading out in a chain reaction constituting a series of accidents. But as a series of accidents, why does not it get annihilated? Why does not it abruptly end in a collapsing chaos born of a momentous slipup in the sustaining chain of infinite chances and the chosen causative chances (like the sudden emergence and bursting of a bubble)? Possibly it is a cosmic bubble born of some accidental coupling of chance phenomena and it will burst out without any reasonable causative factor, again a bigger destructive chance factor.

 

Why do we believe in God? Generally under the burden of circumstances we have to drop our reason to take shelter under the tree of faith and save our skins from the scorching sun of realities hammering down merciless hot rays. Reason is very heavy. Blind belief is very light. Under the bombardment of uncountable forces beyond our control, we are bound to feel left out in the race of life. We are supposed to get depressed about many whys and whats. The reasoning with its cold hard ramrod of objectivity is a poor comforter. It’s like a cactus in the path of a tired desert traveller. It has no water. It has no shade. It has just prickly unlikeable facts. So the tired traveller follows a mirage to reach an oasis, an oasis of blind make-believe faith where he gets shade, solace and cold water. A perfectly reasonable human being deprives himself of the luxury of all these weightless fruits of ignorance. Once the heavy sack of reason is dumped it becomes easy to glide through the testing times. The simple elements involved in a God-believing head just pay a small-time lip service to the achingly grinding realities and the world beyond.

 

Fear is the reason why we cannot carry forever the atheistic load. The fear of uncertainty. The fear of loss, pain, disease and death. With so many negative possibilities it is difficult to carry a scientist’s brain all the time. The reason leaves you all alone in the dusty blizzards, the chancy falls, the accidental winds that may strike you, your possessions, your near and dear ones. We thus seek a divine guard. We are habituated to His presence, as a word, as a never seeable, just feelable (decided by us how to feel it) entity. This surreality is strongest of any provable reality around us.

 

Every living cell is led by the natural instinct of survival undermined by a fear of mortality. From the savage times to the present civilized ones, the fear of the one beyond our comprehension (rather than the love and devotion of it) has been the driving force in institutionalising our surrender through reverence and rituals. The nerves of the institutionalised religion throb with the lifeblood of fear. The strength and girth of our reason depends on how much capable or skilled we find ourselves in our fight against the unknown or the unknown forces. Lesser insecurity means stronger footing of the reason and the vice versa.

 

The world of believers teems with various tools to appease the Almighty to save us from the unseen perils and fetch us boons and blessings. It is utmost selfish give and take relationship with God: give us your blessings and we will pay back in the form of reverence. The mountain of belief has too broad a base and too high to be broken down to pieces with the tiny hammer of reason. Religion has been a multi-pronged weapon all through the ages of our evolution. By the way, was there religion during the times of single celled amoeba in the primordial sea? Or the God was just happy without the pompous ritualistic show? Quite wonderfully, religion has been an all nice type judge between the exploiting classes and the exploited ones. It has maintained itself pretty well I must say. Both the exploiter and the exploited have received equal solace from it.

 

When no worldly human help is coming forth, the feeble flickering otherworldly light steadily burns inside that pitiable creature who drops his reason and falls on his knees to pray. It is the oasis stay for the worn out desert traveller. Reasonless, beyond earthly justice and injustice, smitten with a meek acceptance before the pleasantly hallucinating light, he becomes oblivious to the present’s pains. His heart mellows with genuine tears of repentance for those unknown, unprovable past birth misdeeds. He has bargained to get something in future. He has accepted his unidentifiable culpability in lieu of a blessed and gainful future. It helps him in wading through the foaming and furious desert sandstorms. He constructs this strong, illogical, unreasonable check dam to cut down the furious lashes by the circumstances. It provides him strength and solace (this unseen brother, father, mother, patron in the unseen, unapproachable world) without being there; he being the only witness to his own prayers. He thus is able to take those steps that he won’t have taken otherwise in the absence of his never-to-be-seen friend. The idea and concept has gone so deep in our biology that even in its surrealism it has acquired more concrete acceptance and shape than a stone pillar just by our side which we can touch and kick to verify.

 

Religion also is the dustbin of our wrongdoings and sins. Many of us take shortcuts to bypass the pious injunctions to follow the path of suitability, practicality and efficiency; getting those pin-prickings and chidings by the conscience. In lieu of hundreds of intentional and unintentional wrong-doings we try to counterbalance the negative karma through some willing unwilling charity, pilgrimage, prayer and even meditation.

 

There is no fixed religiosity. We adapt our faith to its suitability to our lifestyle. Our God is our own making. So rituals and the means of appeasing Him are even more directly manipulated by us. To meet diverse demands, we have hierarchy of Gods and Goddesses ranging from ancestor and corpse worshipping, animistic deities of the savages to the new corporately branded, more powerful, more beneficent, more cultured and cleaner Gods of the uppermost class.

 

If we take our reasoning to the extent of denying God’s existence, we need to contrive a whole new hypothesis to explain the glaring inexplicabilities tonking their heads against the firm, proven walls of science. Science has not been perfected. Till science gets perfected, the concept of God will remain relevant. Moving backwards on the path of evolution with its sequential linkages of cause and effect, passing through millions of interlinked causes and effects across the billions of years of time and infinite distances of space, we arrive at the final entity—the Big Bang, the so called first event to take place in the primordial vacuum from whence our notions of space and time flow outwards.  This is what our astro-physicists try to make us believe. How can but we assume a primary cause without no further preceding cause or causes? A commoner like me is plagued by such neighing doubts.

 

Just have a look at the vast and infinite fabric of the sky at night and you just marvel that no it just can’t be the simple handiwork of some suitably fallen chance on the event horizon which explained by the scientific parameters has resulted in the infinite network of astronomical (heavenly) bodies. A mere thought about the perfect balance of the forces in nature is sufficient to make one again fall prey to the hand of some Superiormost designer behind all this. The nearer you look around you, the more proofs you get to become an atheist. The farther you look, belief sneaks into your wondering eyes and puzzled mind.

     

Just like we have tried scientifically to define the edges of the solar systems, is it possible to take our know-how to the outermost edges of the universe? Suppose we succeed in accomplishing this one day, what will lie ahead to explore. What beyond? Will we reach God then?! 

        

Astro-physics is based on the space-time model mostly dependent upon the emanation of light travelling at the speed of 300,000 km/sec. With our rapidly improving telescopes we are peeping farther and farther into the space to retrieve the light travelling to us from the farthest possible body. Will we ever reach the farthest source of light—the last primordial flicker at the farthest most end? If we provide some representation to the God, I think this final object has to be the one.

 

Lost in our inability to either prove or disprove His true nature, we have contrived this immensely utilitarian hypothesis that like all other man-made systems has immense usage for the humanity both at the individual as well as collective levels. I don’t know what will be the nature of this argument once artificial intelligence starts its path of inevitable evolution further down the path of scientific progress when most of the natural functions (having a long and arduous trail across millions of years) will be replaced by metallic, mechanized short-cuts; when the artificial intelligence will learn to sustain itself without the control of its erstwhile master, the man. Possibly in his quest to know the truth and the consequent booms showered on him as a result of utilitarian science, man himself will one day become all powerful possessing super-intelligence. May be then the debate about God will come to an end as science will pluck out one mystery after the other; we will overcome one obstacle after another that during the previous generations had forced us to become helpless leaving us in a state of dumping our reason to surrender before the blind faith in some superpower; a time when the all powerful reason will become so strong that the vulnerable soft skin, warm blood and the heart’s mysterious sensations will turn obsolete; when we will harness the full potential of the brain’s billions and trillions of neurons to be further aided by the artificial intelligence to peek in every nook corner; may be then the present shape and size of God will become obsolete and outdated (like we condemn the savages for animism).

 

During that era of cold, hard, steely reasoning, the man will himself achieve (in what form the species will be then we do not know) the Godly status and turn himself into an all powerful entity matching the supernatural hypothetical entities of the present. Whatever hypotheses mankind has contrived over the ages, he has always surpassed it and proved yesterday’s fiction into tomorrow’s reality. Then may be the fiction of God will be made a reality by the man himself, making him capable of performing supreme feats that we presently ascribe to the Almighty. All along we have believed and prayed to the God to become as powerful as Him. Or the God of those times will still be a more powerful being because the concept of God is in our genes? It just might adapt to some new form! 

 

Looking at the Bloodied Hands of Communism!

 

Darwin says all beings, across species, and the related phenomena across various natural processes, are propelled by the survival instinct among the constituting elements. In this tussle between the superior and the inferior, the nature evolves in its multitudinous forms comprising tragedies, ecstasies, pleasures and pains. It is basically a class struggle both at the intra- and inter-species level. Both in natural and human systems (we humans now operate almost in exclusion of nature), the fittest ones adapting better to the plummeting circumstances are the ones to take a lead in either milking the resources or in laying the framework for the overall system to function.

 

The human system is a big behemoth, intriguingly evolving, following the parameters of the jungle in its human variants. There is basically a fight for individual and even collective interests. Of course to make us believe that the human society does not follow the raw principles of nature (like the lion eating the deer—unsinfully—to survive), we have interposed the institutions of religion, morality, ethics, concept of good and bad, sin and pious deeds, karma, etc. However, as per the principle of social selection (derivative of natural selection), the human society moves ahead over time defined by clash of interests at various levels in different fields. If we remove the differentiating layers and levels in the society; if we remove the hypothesis of sin out of this struggle—like we have removed from the struggle between lion and deer—the leftover will simply boil down to a struggle between the more skilled and the less skilled. Out of the numerous levels of interests (ranging from individual, family, religious, state, earth,….), one clash of interest is at the level of the upper and the lower class. From the start of the known history, human affairs have been shaped directly and indirectly by the class struggles (between the upper and the lower), among individuals within a particular class on the basis of their less or more suitability, and even among the individuals of different classes. Although with changing times, the fields of struggle have changed as well. This broad overarching struggle contains many sublevels to trickle down to the tiniest triumphs, humiliations, wins, losses, exploitations, etc.

 

The communists have been tonking their ideas and ideology infested heads against this almost inevitable defining differential in the society that seems to be pushing the motley mix of minority’s triumph and the majority’s woes. As a counter to this, one might say that the Western liberal democracy might reverse the ratio. However, it comes at the cost of an invincible super state which with the purpose of safeguarding the majority’s interests has to be a still exploitative institution that mightn’t exploit its own have-nots much but then it can very easily do so to the teeming millions in the third world.

 

Taking up cudgels from the famished majority’s side, the communists thus unite the working class interests to make it super-strong so that it can suddenly go berserk and break apart the centuries old system of exploitation and its supportive elements. For this reason the communist movements are called ‘revolution’. Earlier it was against the monarchy, nobility, aristocracy embaling in them what we call ‘luxury’ aesthetically and intelligently supported by the religion. Religion, for its pious injunctions seems to be more effective in stopping a poor person from seeking alternatives than stopping the exploitation by the upper class. So the revolutionaries as atheists pluck out the sinews of long-held beliefs, convincing, providing solace and sympathy to the underclass. A Godless person is less accepting; carries immense prospects of imposing his will through covert and overt means. Hence religion is held culpable by the revolutionaries in the sense that it forces people—makes them habituated to their woes as the will of the divine forces beyond their control—to become adapted to their ill fate rather than putting the same time and energy in remedial measures. Religion, of course, for centuries has been good, sympathetic, solacing companion to the masses helping them in licking their wounds and swallow the sorrows. Thus the revolutionaries break its façade, terming it stagnant in its principles and in cohort with the exploitative classes. Religion too unfortunately demands its share of glitter and glamour that only the upper class can provide. After all, a poor person’s God is a lesser God. The religion of the poor with limited resources is even termed as animism.

 

Once the revolution led by the newly pious injunctions of classless society tears out (generally in a bloody manner) the ancient system, the interests of the former upper class are either hijacked by a dictator or an all powerful super-body—polit-bureau or the central committee—which in itself replaces the empty seat of godhood; a tiny blackhole type superforce to root out the still surviving differences of any type. Unfortunately, differences are bound to crop up somehow. So they keep on nipping the buds. This sudden rush of purgatory blood leaves gory tales far more horrible than the ones committed by the former system over centuries. Their tales of atrocities committed in just years outmatch the ones perpetrated across decades or even centuries by the earlier system. It is just like a helpless group of sufferers running away from the semi-lethal teeth of a wolf into the shelter of a hungry lion with super-strong claws. In this religionless weeding out for the cause of the supreme ideal, the religious tools of mercy and pity do not exist to act as the check dams. After all, religion has been constructed to function as a check dam to save a situation where ‘the lion eats the deer’ principle is allowed to operate in milder nastiness in the human society. In a Godless state all hell breaks loose. After many bloody strivings, the communists much to their chagrin find that the divisive curse of the selfish, individualistic interests still survives in one form or the other.

 

Capitalist, socialist, liberal democracies on the other hand are less glaring and more subtle in their deeds, because here the old exploitative forms have been redressed as modern principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. It is a subtle and white-blooded exercise: the old forces in their more acceptable avatars. It also promises to provide ample opportunities to the masses to struggle through the lawful checker work to move up the capitalist ladder to reach the class on the top. It believes in conversion rather than coup born of the clash of interests.

 

However hard the communist regime might try the class differentials will persist in one form or the other; simply because we are human beings, cast in so unique and numerous ways with billion ways of thinking; and not just same colour factory product.

 

PS: Something away from the main discussion in this topic! The reason why a democrat politician, an industrialist or a dictator occupies his/her influential position can be—among others off beat factors like luck, fate, destiny—that the said person is stronger in getting his conscience unchained from the restricting principles of good and bad in the game of survival. It boils down to: Who is more skilful? It is just a matter of more or less skills.

 

Was Colonialism Really that Bad?

 

Consider a small village typically set in the Indian countryside. Have a look at the social structure. Look at the pathetic condition of the so called low class secluded pockets. You will find poor, unconfident, exploited people. Its opposite class, smartly perched on top of the social structure comprises more moneyed confident persons who given their contrastingly better position appear like exploiters.

 

During the ancient times when the classes, castes and categories were settling down, it was more of fighting in a lawless land to cement your position in the present and sow the seeds of better position for your progenies. Under the brutally impartial and indifferent gaze of nature, in the emerging social system some groups gained ascendency, others lagged behind. Some groups claimed more rights and fought for these. Others surrendered more and settled at lower positions. Across generations, these differences kept on being augmented with clearly defined social rules and restrictions, always in favour of those who had taken the lead generations ago. So at the end of the tunnel, if we just ignore the gradual process and look at the position of the people on both sides of the divide, we might, equipped with our sensitivities and modern human values, dub one as the exploiter and the other as the exploited. Reality has many angles, so are the ways and means of looking at a thing, phenomenon or process. Somebody, though at a risk of condemnation, might just summarise it as a natural game between the stronger and the weaker, like it happens in nature. After all social Darwinism has such parallelisms with the way we act, behave and manage in the social jungle: the human variant of survival, fight, loss and gain, like it happens in the natural forests.

 

Colonialism has drawn an exclusivist debate about its character and affects. Just like a particular community has come to excel at the village level, and this dominance of course comes at the cost of those at the lower rungs, in the international social system also bunches of seafaring, courageous, more enterprising, less God fearing, fitter physically and mentally people came to dominate. This is the law! We try to occupy the best possible position. Be it at the community that can maintain itself just at the village level, or the Westerners whose industrialising, exuberant selves sent them on rampage to occupy territories beyond the seas. Do they become exploiters just because they gained more in a field that was open for all? Do we become the victim by default because we lost more given our inherent shortcomings? If a village level politically ambitious person manages to politically dominate a village only, does Modi become a political exploiter and a trampler on the rights of this village-level politician because Modi given his better political acumen has acquired the highest political seat? We analyse and interpret colonialism more as victims and less as sound academicians accepting certain cold hard facts.   

   

In the Indian perspective, millions of pages about the dark face of colonialism have already been written. One page about the positives of colonialism, though not popular, has also been allowed for a change of literary taste. Even some bits of facts on this solitary page need no repetition. All it includes is codification of laws, railways, telegraph, waterways, system of modern education, system of administration, the ways and means of running a democracy, great hill stations, consolidation of Indian sovereignty in the North East, dispelling evils like Sati from the Indian society, etc. But what are these?! These are very small doings by the plundering hand, they say. But what will be left of modern India if these components are taken out?

Imagine a Britishless India. The Mughal dynasty still continuing to rule for the next 200 years! India at the most would have got a few more forts, grand mosques, luxurious palaces, and possibly a still grander Taj Mahal! But where would have been the modern India we are so proud of? When Major Hudson killed the sons of the last Mughal and they packed the poet King to Rangoon, as historians we cannot judge it as a crime only. Bloodshedding even among brothers has been the norm to capture thrones in pre Muslim as well as Muslim ruled India. Possibly they even did us a favour, the valiant Britishers, in finally extinguishing the old medieval lineage which had long outlived its past splendour and architectural glory. Given Hindu apathy, and the so called ‘peace loving nature’, we might still have been ruled by some titular head, some decapitated small time great great great grandson of the last Mughal. And the last of all, consider an India without the few positives of Colonialism mentioned shyly on the single page dedicated to its positive affects! Where would have we stood? Possibly like Iran, at the most!    

 

Why does He Want to Continue Writing?

 

Well, very small mundane facts define him. He continues writing with the intention of adding a bit bigger facts to define him. He writes not with the intention to outwit others claim to similar bit more bigger facts. Self justification is one of the easiest things coming to our nature. We justify even the worst of our deeds. He writes to justify the inherent tendency in him to survive as a professional writer. Not that he cannot do something else to earn his bread and butter. He definitely can. And he is doing in fact. But you know there is a piously whispering cooing of the real self that eggs him on to still keep trying to give his writing a platform.

 

Coming from that part of the north Indian countryside, where literature will be the last thing on anybody’s mind, where agriculture is the culture itself, he is the black sheep that is trying to get out of the herd to make this most unlikely career for anybody coming from the Jat land, or synonymously the buffalo land. Well on the down slope of youth, more than once he has abandoned the dream of full time writing. Many a time he has realised his limitations as a writer. Still many more times he has felt himself a victim of the forces beyond his control. Today when he gets up to try again to get a slippery foothold, he can very well hear the anticipating applauding whispering of the inherent voice again.

 

He fought for the most prestigious civil services positions in India. Fought decently well also, given his limitations and more importantly the literary limitations of the socio-cultural unit he comes from. The harder he worked, the more distant became the goals. He saw the worst of politico-bureaucratic-judicial game. When he finally fell his inner voice told him, it is more on account of the system’s failure than his own. So he has little sips of justice in the form of the inner thumbs-up by his soul.

 

Every time he fell, deeper were the analytical impressions on the neurons of his brain; graver were the bruises on his heart. If nothing more, it gave him the mood and inclination to write. Still he is fighting for his take away. His reward! He does not want it at the cost of somebody more deserving. He is not into comparison. We can compare just simple tangibles. How can we compare life’s thousand catapults that all of us get uniquely, single-handedly?

 

He is not taking writing in life as a competition, but as a fate’s lottery pot, wherein somebody will walk out with a smile. Having full faith in the fates’ evaluation, if he builds a platform to support his writing, he would also prefer to walk away with a broad smile!

 

Wishing him and others best of luck!

 

Why Americans will Remain the Lions of the Jungle in the Present Century?

 

Do you think the chances to succeed and be a leader over the fellow humans depend on somebody being good or bad? Most moralist theoreticians will cast their dye in favour of ‘being good’. Just look at all those who occupy the front ranks of society in terms of power, influence and money, you will soon realize being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hardly matters when it comes to these successful social lions. What matters is the degree of fear, apprehensions, constrictions and restrictions all combining in an individual uniquely to make him/her weaker or stronger in both mind and body. Physical wellness runs a step ahead to make an individual stronger at other levels like in mind, attitude, confidence, etc. We can even summarize that less fearful means being stronger at various interpretational levels. So those who course away to distant glories are the ones who fear less, because they are stronger physically (foremost) and better mentally (mental interpretations of strength are just a subset of overall physical strength).

Learn from nature. It has all the clues. It holds all of its secrets in the open. It does not promote one species over others on the basis of being good or bad. It is just about the self-evolving scenario of the stronger surpassing and suppressing the weaker. Weakest species are the most in numbers. But these are also very limited in their level of participation in the whole drama. Mere numbers does not mean a larger role in the game. Had it been so, the ants would have ruled the roost in a forest, not the lion! The weaker a species is, the more apprehensive is its each and every step under the cold, impartial glare of the mother nature. Take for example a mouse. The moment it steps out of its hole, its heart pounding with uncertainty and fear, its nose twitching to sense danger, its cowering paws keeping it on tenterhooks! Where is strength; where is surety; where is determination; where is confidence; where is relaxation? It fears most, because it is primarily weak at the physical level. In proportion to its weak, fearful existence, it leads a limited life among the few bushes and rat holes. If we move up, we get dogs, deer, jackals, wolves, etc., all of them having a larger role in proportion to their degrees of being less or more fearful decided by their physical strength. Look at the lion! Watch its carefree gait, its confidence, its sure steps, its relaxing persona under the shade of a tree! All these are the derivatives of its fearlessness, of it being strong physically. Have a look at the majestic ‘I care a damn’ gait of an elephant and compare it with thousand deaths a mouse dies the moment it comes out of its hole. We have the same human variants in social jungle, the social lions, elephants, mouse, etc., depending on their degree of being less or more fearful!

Asians are producing more offspring, Indians and Chinese are doing it, Islamists are also adding to their stock like anything! Does it mean that with more numbers in their category, they will dominate! No it cannot be! From what we observe in nature, it does not look so. Poultry production compromises quality, instils fear, procreates weaklings, booms and bangs confidence, limits motivation. If it is not so, deer in larger hordes will roam freely in the jungle. Ever wonder why Americans, or for that matter Westerners, are hardy bothered about adding to their numbers. It is about maintaining a standard pedigree. Limited procreation has maintained a stable, strong, confident stock. And they rule the roost. Someone might say that with billions of numbers on their side, Indians and Chinese are acquiring a larger role and significance. They are but they are scampering to crowded glory only in the grasslands. At a level where they can just be suitable paper crowned kings in the thoroughfare set by the top honchos. American system instils fearlessness in an individual by making them follow free paths beyond the compulsions of conventions and socialized shit. The chronic compulsions and conventions in the oriental world tame down an individual under forced priorities of education, careers, peer expectations, marriage, children, leaving an inheritance, etc. All these priorities take the individual to the backseat, demand many sacrifices, and force him/her to live for the future at the cost of the present. Under such an assault, of course they are more inclined to be weaker physically and consequently weaker at many other variants of individuality and persona.

In comparison, for Westerners generally and Americans particularly the top priority is staying physically fit, follow own path, stay independent and fearless. They are not bothered about wearing out body and mind just for future generations like Asians do and have no present at all. They do not have to carry the burden of conventionalised expectations to lose their present by being yoked in tiny duties and responsibilities at more common levels. The former breeds leaders, the latter just numerous followers. With technological advancement of a few decades and choice-limited lion-type maintained pedigree, Americans will continue to run worldly affairs throughout the current century. The rest of the populous world will have its noisy crowded share of glories in a subordinate world. 

Chaudhary Devi Lal: The Apolitical Politician

 

Politicians are smart outwitters. They outwit we smaller fish in whatever we assume, presume or think. This chicken-hearted Indian feels like diving into a ditch every time the mighty caravan of an influential politician zooms on the road. Here was I coming on the road just occupying a foot on the road’s edge carrying my small self on a stiller smaller motor bike. And there he was coming, the Congress Chief Minister of Haryana, occupying 99 per cent of the road, carrying his large self in a still larger motorcade. Black hooded commandoes in open escort jeeps in the front found my one foot encroachment on the road too risky for the Honoured Lion King in the state. So they brandished their weapons, ordering me to abandon my encroachment on the road. Boss, it was scary. I would have straightaway jumped into a ditch to clear the way if not for this big acacia foliage to my left. So there I tucked up, like a dog holding its tail down, thorny acacia branches crowning my dispossessed head as the common man, in utter submission, still guilty that I could not clear the road completely. Meanwhile, the motorcade zoomed past with God knows how many departments ranging from security, police, hospital, fire service, cranes, and endless trail of hyenas who survive on the bones thrown by the Lion after his masterful catches.

 

Brothers and sisters, I am too common a man, and thus get jittery when I come across a typical politician with his predatory aura. I just cannot manage to stand anywhere around the place where a politician stamps his authority by gracing the earth with his footfall. My fear of the political class would have been unbreakable and unsurpassable if not for some comforting images from childhood drawing me near a huge white dhoti kurta clad patronising figure. A politician, but an apolitical one. A figure who was into politics, who thundered affably from political stages, but never appeared daunting and intimidating to the masses. This figure still holds me back from dispensing whole of the political class as predatory sharks. It is the maker of modern Haryana, Ch. Devi Lal – our Tauji – the Jan Nayak; the spirited non-conformist against the shadowy overtures of lopsided development at the cost of countryside; the man crowned with the unadulterated halo of farmers' interests. My liking for him is not borne of any political favour directly indirectly to anybody in my or even extended family across a few generations. Just that he did not make us feel intimidated. Simple. He towered over the surroundings, but appeared looking down with supportive gaze, not the typical hawkish gaze of a politician, prying into your eyes with nefarious motives, or just looking at you simply as a faceless, identityless another vote.

 

The basic proof of his apolitical approach is his saying ‘no’ to the most coveted political seat in the country, the prime ministership. The third front had chosen him to be the leader, but selflessly realising his worth as a farmer leader, he chose to be the agriculture minister and chose V P Singh for the highest post. It clearly proves that ambition, the famous bug biting the politicians, had not been successful in biting him, thus leaving him apolitically humane.

 

It is a matter of pleasure and pride to write something positive about somebody from the contemporary politics in modern India. I feel it is a Godly intercession in my little literary journey that I have been provided the opportunity to hitch my tiny literary cart to the strong and swift horses of his legacy to get some moments of positive thoughts about politics and politicians. There is voluminous testimony to the impressiveness of Ch. Devi Lal's calmly commanding personality. And if a son of Haryana – the karmabhoomi of the farmers' messiah – entails himself to the fag end of Tauji's enormously elderly aura and legacy, it should be forgiven and appreciated. We have our inexplicable extremes of likes and dislikes. From the glimpses of my childhood when Haryana was all about agriculture, villages, struggling farmers and buffalos, all I muster up is genuine appreciation for this son of the soil.

 

The Jan Nayak's overriding benevolence shining through the rack and ruin of time beckons to the time when we ran after some lone vehicle plying on the dusty road, loudspeaker blaring and we children competing with each other to get some election campaign leaflet. The leaflet, the printed words and the symbol on low quality mossy colour paper appeared more charming than any toy to the countryside lampoons. It was a small world. The leaflet and the persona too big. Now when my mature brain cudgels up memories of this unblemished character and analyse his works for the country's downtrodden, those childhood luminous memories become firmly fadeless. Lustrous whirls of the extravagant green decorated so proudly in the agricultural fabric of this country will continue to inspire generations to come. His work, worry and weariness for the cause of rural India make him outstandingly standout amongst the rag-tag parliamentary disorder.

 

The old age pension, the small offering to the elderly and the neglected as a token, as a salute for their life-long struggles and sacrifices. When a frail hand, not able to earn anymore, not having any supportive hand to hold it, pockets a few hundred rupees as the old age pension, it appears miraculous support to the fragile body, more supportive than any kith or kin. This humane touch from Ch. Devi Lal’s caring heart, this spin off of his sympathising self, today serves as a lifeline to the millions of neglected elders in India in the form of old age pension scheme.

 

Despite achieving so much at the highest level of Indian politics, he was uncommonly sobered; his simple, stout spirit, merry and mellow elderly aura made him immensely approachable to the people from the lowest rung of life. Where else would you find a Chief Minister, who dropped in by a poor hutment and heartily enjoyed the frugals offered like he had been served with the choicest delicacies from the costliest restaurant? Every settlement in Haryana happily cradles scores of such sweet memories. He would arrive at the scene mired in heartbreaks and dejection. And lo! An encouragingly buzzing transformation would take place. His mere presence would sprinkle new life. His malleable sensitivity, kind and condescending behaviour, subtle and strong physique dispelled the disharmony and dispassion from the scene.

 

We grew up in our village taking him the single synonym of all that 'politics' means to the children. Such has been the sweeping scope of his charisma across the length and breadth of Haryana! That casual flightiness of flickering childhood can still clearly recall the grand impressiveness of his hold over the rural psyche. While I was 13-year-old, finding me unconcernedly lost in the slow grandeur of childhood, my grandfather – a devout farmer follower of the Jana Nayak – scolded me:

 

‘You haven't yet learnt how to talk like a youth. At your age, Ch. Devi Lal not only spoke like a fiery youth, but acted like one also. At such a tender age of 13, he raised the flag of revolt against the Britishers and courted arrest for the cause of mother India!’

 

It was then I got to realise the real force of his selfless valour, courage and conviction.

 

Generic sacredness of his socially prominent policies--for which he life-long lugged it out and lugged it in--made him the favourite son of Haryana's destiny. The Jan Nayak was compulsively attached to the cause of the sons of the soil. Throughout his life, he apolitically slogged ahead, shouldering the responsibilities of those whose interests – up to that time – were politically sterile. And this cherished goal of his would never get off his uncomplaining shoulders till he left this world. Even during his last days, his feeble, old eyes envisioned a golden future for the deprived and dispossessed masses in the state. A very-very old farmer whom I met in a bus broke down while he narrated the dreamy moments he shared with the farmers' messiah when the latter had been bedridden by the inevitable and cruel hand of age.

 

‘His eyes were peacefully closed,’ the farmer told me about his life-long hero. ‘When I touched his feet, slowly but with sudden urgency his eyes opened. He had energy just enough to say few words and asked, “How is it with the crops?’ And then those big, passionate eyes were closed again, as if he was praying for me and the crops.’

 

Tauji's all-fired urgency had blossomed fresh morning's verve in the sublime stillness of the traditional hinterland of Haryana. Yes! We as children have been the first hand witness to this silent revolution of 'coming of age of the rural Haryana.' His name connoted all that leadership, politics, elections and statesmanship meant to us. Far away from the hoot and holler, and flimsy vanities of 'utilitarian politics', ‘the leader of the common man’ was selflessly busy in his mission. And later when his benevolently beaming imagery shone at the national level, perhaps for the first time this country came to understand and realise the real worth of the Jats, who have been the bread earners of this big country, and who in return were uncomplainingly scraping a living — ‘barely’ — for their impoverished and almost famished families.

 

It is a pungent irony that the mountainously big legacy and stature of this great son of Haryana has proved to be too broad and comprehensive for the local literature to accommodate in its pages. May be it is due to the fact that literature is in its nascent stage in this traditional land of agricultural community. Still the myth and aura spreads through the mouths of the old generation who saw him at their peak. Many hollow cheeks lit up with life around hookah in chaupals as they recall their experiences with this apolitical politician. His political legacy is still encashed for political gains by his sons and grandsons. I have nothing to say in favour or against these endeavours. All I say is that my admiration is limited to the source of the legacy, Ch. Devi Lal. I just cannot help admiring this peasant leader’s exceptional simplicity, magnificent profusion of forthrightness, unflinching righteousness and fierce possessiveness about the cause of downtrodden and deprived.

 

In Haryana the people of every caste, class and political spectrum treat his memories as common legacy and he draws all encompassing reverence, gratitude and hearty salutation from each and every one of us.

 

 

Politics: The Institutionalized and Constitutionalised System of Plunder, Injustice and Exploitation

 

It is about politics, the necessary evil for the contemporary world. Before we discuss the political ramifications for this politicized word, let us go back in time to take a look at the roots of the tree of authority that holds the thriving tree of politics in the modern times. Well it started with absolute monarchies.

 

It has been the supreme irony of our so called ‘civilized fate’ that try as hard as we can manage, we cannot stop the pyramid type, hierarchical and classified pattern of the social set up. In a pyramid social formation, the higher the class, the lower the weight on its shoulders, and higher the weight on the lower ones constituting the base. In the beginning we had the pointed peak of the social pyramid represented by the unrestrained, unchecked, all powerful potentate, the King, with all his weight on all below, and no weight on his shoulder at all except the light hallo of divinity falling on his crowned head. The crown just acted as a paperweight holding the paper sheaf wherein endless lines of unlimited authority decided the fate of those below. Sometimes the winds did ruffle the edges around the margin, but the sheaf as such was always safe; the centre of gravity exactly falling in its middle in the form of divine rights. Safely tucked under the big stone of cosmic proportions, the papery revolt just could not send even a single tremor across the book of divine rights.

 

Later, as the civilization unfolded a bit more, absolute monarchies were either blown off the top, or some checks and balances were put in the path of all powerful authority in the form of some constitutional provisions like elected representatives trying to bolster the principles intended for the emancipation of the lowest layers in the pyramid. (Times have more or less weathered the massive crown heads of monarchies and we are left with a few residual, beaten crags struggling in low relief with beaten joints and chips flying away attacked by the rasping desert winds of the popular unrest.)

 

Will we be ever able to wipe out the successive upper plateaus of exploitation (as the denuded pyramid comes lower, having lost its upper layers, the slag sliding down the sides and slopes to reach a one common uniform layer of everybody’s authority and thus none’s authority)? Under such a scenario, all authority denuded and spread equally among the masses on a uniform plain, will self responsibility allow things to function in all empowered citizenry? Will we function as expected and idealized? Well, answers to these questions lie in future’s womb. It depends on the extent to which the free citizens become self-responsible in a not so free world governed and managed by increasing mechanisations at the individual, social, institutional and governmental levels.  

 

Passing through successive layers of exploitation in the pyramid, we reach our very own broadly cut plateau at the top involving numerous players—legislature, executive, judiciary, bureaucracy, capitalists, criminals, religioners—our present political system at the top now. Times have eroded the pyramid and left this broader plateau at the top after cutting down the pinpointed head of absolute monarchy. Here all the evils of the former pointed absolutism have been handed over to a broader section of players. The dirt of absolutism has been raked up to be spread among the progenies of absolutism. The ‘will to power’ has sired numerous little crown-heads who try to convince the lower layers that this facelift is meant to ensure the equal rights for the masses. So here we land up with the grandchildren of absolutism, i.e., politics and its big, broad, legally secured crown of authority (which by the way is very safe given its broad supportive rim of constitutionality). Presently, politicians rule at the flat top of this denuding pyramid. Murkily spread over this vast pedestal of authority—their authority constitutionalised—suitably served and aided by the so call ‘influential class’, it now wears the ruling crown, a multi-headed monster, the great scion of absolute monarchy, changed with changing times, in its new avatar. What has but not changed is the will to exploit and self-serve to survive. Why not? After all, it carries the same blood in its authoritative veins like its grandfather, the absolute, all powerful King.

 

Earlier during the days of absolutism, it worked with impunity and through blatant dispensation of whatever it required to keep its clutch hold on the lesser mortals, now it does through the subtle art of politics, through ‘siyasat’. The long and windy corridors of political hypnotizers echo with lispy conspiratorial whispers; of suppression, secrecy, connivance, plot hatching and what not. Under the monarchy, the despotic game was limited to the royal lineage and their chieftains, now the crown is up for grabs by anyone interested. The only eligibility is the ‘will to power’. In its multitudinous aspect, the fight for little-little crowns up for grabs on the plateau: for legislature, for executive, for judiciary, etc. The rules of the battle in this vast battle ground are solidly fixed up in the constitution book. Rule are but rules, mere words noted down in hypothetical conjectures in the books. These cannot come to life and fight for their sanctity and protection if faced with blatant violations. Since brains are developing even faster for any law, for every rule there in the book, we delve deeper into our creative self to contrive bypasses and short-cuts to either escape their feeble dragnet or even poke our noses at them after judiciously cutting the netting. Our present set of power holders, the politicians, practically, suitably and efficiently manages the game. They munch the meat of authority and throw bones to their cronies, bureaucrats, businessmen and criminals. The unchecked orgy earlier perpetrated by a single monarch, is now enjoyed by a faceless many-bodied class, the politicians.

 

In all its forms, democracy is considered to be a religion drawing its inspiration and authority from the scriptures of the constitution. A holy book, but, is just a holy book. If not in full letter, but in spirit at least we easily violate the pious injunctions. Apart from these pious injunctions, what happens in reality is an open secret. Except for a few big, mighty words, constitutions are amended to suit the latest political masters’ present day growth prospects. See beyond the superficiality of the decked up bride of democracy coquettishly bragging the independence and autonomy of its various arms, you will see that the politico-bureaucratic-judicial-executive machinery is explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, ultimately mastered and pulled along by the modern monarchs, the politicians. Take for example the bureaucracy, once considered the steel frame of the British Raj, it has now become feeble meshed cage with rusty, breaking wires and gaping holes. All of us know the fate of a bureaucrat if instead of becoming a hyena chucking up the leftover of plunder by some politician, he becomes just a ‘grass eating vegetarian cow’ honestly following the principles and rules of his service book. He is spotted like a black sheep in the easygoing white flock. Harassment and punishment postings ensure that an official of the same cadre and experience can be made a meat-eating hero or a famished zero by the lion, the politician. It’s a clear choice. Either become a steely, profiting arm of a politician or be ready to be thrown in dustbin corners of the bureaucratic corridors. All of us know how state level bureaucracy is selected! Corruption is constitutionally embedded. State Public Service Commissions are just handpicked bodies of the state monarch, the Chief Minister. Literally everybody knows how almost 100% manipulations go hand in glove with the state’s ruling politicians. Manipulations are simplest of things at all the stages of examination. If someone just pushes ahead in prelims and mains stages of the examination, the all powerful boards have powers to undo all the hard work and marks gap between the highest and lowest qualifiers during the farcical personality test. So the prospective provincial civil servants easily start their innings as political loyalists. To muster up high-end pay, perks and profits, they operate like loyal palace grooms discharging functions assigned by the political patron.

 

Without making much of noise against the plunder of public money, severe breach of laws, gross insufficiency of public morals and rules, the judiciary too toes the line. Directly or indirectly the political masters influence the functioning of justice dispensation. The dark corridors leading to the appointments and elevation to higher chairs in High Courts and Supreme Court definitely allows the politicians to hold ears of ambitious judges. Judiciary is allowed a free play by politicians in cases where only masses are involved. In such cases the judges can afford to have some discretion, be honest if they want and take money from one of the parties through the lawyers (like they generally do) to tilt the hammer of justice this or that way. But in cases where the ruling government’s interests are at stake directly, no judge can afford to feel the pinch at his bottom if he decides to be driven by integrity and honesty. Once in a blue moon, some odd case is deliberately picked up where the court gives verdict against the government and it is put on the front pages in media. It is just to keep people believing in the assumption that judiciary is fair. Poor masses do not know, under one such case highlighted, thousands of other cases where judiciary toes the political line go unnoticed. One hammer of dissent against government is at the cost of hundreds of political facilitations by condescending judges to appease political masters. Led by the instinct of self preservation most of the judges do not prefer to rub shoulders against the system. In this clattering noise of self gratification, the voice of justice gets buried in the stampede towards profits and promotions.

 

Politicians as the masters of the public and private economy are offered oblations by the business class. We have the biggest industrial houses of the country pouring unaccounted and illegitimate money in political pockets. Since it is a fight to further one’s own interests as far as possible, using any means possible depending on one’s own skills and shrewdness—it is just as per Darwin’s principle of natural and social selection—we come across the cut throat competition in the social jungle having its social lions and social deer. So we have the people who would never think twice before striking others’ head to boost their own chances. Of all the scoundrels, politics draws the fittest scoundrels who form a nexus among various scions of exploitative elements. Those who are left out of this fold become the poor, dispossessed, suffering underclass.

 

In the social jungle, the principles of raw nature like ‘the superior kills the inferior’, ‘might is right’, ‘stronger meat chucks the easy meat’ are prevalent in humane, implicit form. Whole façade of civilization has been created to screen the blind passions and intentions to kill and decimate each other. Instead of killing and exterminating each other, the human version is through cheating, forgery and outwitting. A lion is at the peak of natural pyramid and food chain, eating away the last interests and easy meat that successively struggle at the lower hierarchies to emerge victor at the next stage to be gobbled up by the more potent, powerful and skilled ones at the next stage. In social jungle’s pyramid, the apex of our food chain of interests is occupied by the social lion, the politician. Every lower interest at the lower hierarchies is finally destined to be deposited and digested expertly in its guts.

 

Politicians, thus, are the new age monarchs who are able to outsmart fellow human beings both at the individual and mass levels. Where will we end up with passage of time? Will the progenies of exploitation change in future? Or the politicians will even allow their own progenies to change them? Politicians seem invincible, not to be defeated by any change! 

 

The Artist

 

The most distinguished, defining and branding commonality among the artistic people is their lives predominantly over-arched with sorrow, suffering and hardness at the hands of the contemporary society. Mere mention of the word is sufficient to make one envision a life full of destitution, impracticality bordering foolishness, and self-absorbed persona taking the occupant to a cornered reality where he stands in muted aloofness.

 

Now the question arises why have such artistic people suffered all along the march of civilization. Simple! It is their affliction with this germ of creativity that ever lynches them to create something subtle, nuanced and an everlasting symbol of their calibre that will continue to fight against the swiping sand of time, to keep shining forever as an interminable legacy. This creative urge to leave an artistic progeny--which is so powerful among all natural objects that it results in sexual procreation willy-nilly in all species--in case of artists this ‘will to life’ strives to leave a creative legacy. They do not strive for a biological legacy; they slog out off-stream to leave an undying object of their artistry. In a way, it is an effort to move towards immortality in some artistic form, to leave a trace of this self-absorbed self in some form because it is not possible to achieve mortality in the physical form. At the common level, people are so inclined to leave their genes in the form of kids; it is just an effort to ward off mortality’s hammer-work that will see us lying in dust at the end of our journey. So we have elaborate social system of inheritance, matriarchy and patriarchy. An artist’s sense of survival is through his body of work that will stand solid against the cycle of life that does not allow anything or anybody to stand on the stage forever.

 

The artistic target being so noble and high, spanning so much time in the future, holding relatively longer moments in public memory; the investment of the soul’s blood and toil is also of the same Herculean scale. It includes devotion; worship; virtual surrender to the utmost urge to create the masterpiece. Aah, so much for this urge to immortalize the self! It requires penance, solitude, loneliness during those long spread out hours, while the world around walks smarty with immediate gains to still highlight the artist’s fruitless work. Kudos to this common man’s safe rut where so many move uncreatively, safely, smartly, efficiently, practically gathering puny perks and profits falling on the way as a result of tiny efforts and Lilliputian endeavours. So the rutted, beaten path of convention, of sheep-sleep-walking masses following the same path involves littlest risks, almost assured returns, monotonous efforts, repetitive patterns of life resulting in ever so expectable bits of money and the status of a similar mass-coloured sheep.

 

By following the path of convention, a man just puts in a very small, short term investment. It can be very easily followed, for you need not be an exception in any regard; need not take any risk whatsoever; need not put up any type of experimentation. You just imitate others; you just do what other hundreds of thousands are doing; you can even do it like a donkey yoked in its little cart going for miles of its own without using even a chit of its dull brain and the carter happily asleep dropping his reins and lines lose. The wheels trapped in deep furrows themselves guide the beast. To walk on this dusty, smooth, defined, clear pair of ruts it needs no special effort or creativity. Here just above-average skilled fake combatants run ahead to grab the lumps of tiny gains lying in the ruts, followed by the average skilled laggards trying to reach the front part of the mob, and at the end trail the less skilled struggling to defeat the tag of failure. So the pack train lurches ahead with its saddle bags full of little trophies and tiny rewards.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the artists do not toe this line of man-mules. They revolt and resist this mechanic soulless movement from nowhere to nowhere. The creativity in them enables them to see mammoth rewards at distant off-rut, off route places. However, the muleteers jostling around force the artist to move at the mass mobbed pace; filled with artistic fury, the creative soul revolts and steps out of the rut to move on fresh earth to reach its own set of rewards and bounties. Meanwhile, boonfully jesting and shouting train of human mules jeers at the artist’s first steps on the solitary path; they brandish their tiny trophies at him; try their best to distract and dislodge him from the unconventional path; bait him with Lilliputian trophies glittering under the conventional sun of their pack train. Not having anything else to distract him, they discard and condemn him as unfit for the mobbed completion in the dusty safe ruts. They shout ‘escapist’. But he just laughs them away, soulfully drenched in the drudgery of his soul’s creative instinct. He is fully immersed in the divine purpose of creating something unique, having a totally new version of reality. In revulsion they punish him with pauperization and ostracizing.

 

Hundreds and thousands of artist revolutionaries die an unknown and unsung death on the freezing cold slopes after moving away or parting ways from the normal path. Some of course reach the distant cave of their destination and carve out a masterpiece that is visible from the common rutted path and the commoners tired and bored throw praise and coins at him. From the craggy ridges its rays even entertain the streaming mass and they even sometimes praise his achievement after all the excommunication and call his self-imposed exile even a fruitful endeavour. The real artist is but still exiled in soul even though physically shoved by the hustle and bustle of common rutted brains.

 

There is a very simple reason why artistry is judged along very poor lines. It is all about money-making principles. We judge the effort in proportion to its money-making prospects. Since most of money-making is institutionalized within the parameters of the rutted path, the tools of artistry are redundant in the common thoroughfare. So the mob constantly yells failure at the artist while he sweats it out to leave his name written shiningly on the time’s fabric. The undifferentiated mass snubs the artistic revolt like a master pokes an errant slave, meanwhile the sun of ignominy and poverty shines on the bent artistic head absorbed in soul-work on the anvil of his creativity. For each word of praise, the poor artist has withstood uncountable number of chidings, snubs, hooting, lampooning puns and mocking looks. He but silently bears it like a strike from the ramrod of fate. Silently he just chips away the stones of adversities to reach the ever-shining gem of creativity, whose hook has been fastened to his heart, and the unrelenting line ever keeps pulling. He is helpless in the grasp of this passion-encrusted cord that would not let him go, even if they try against it.

 

He is the helpless moth, ever attracted to the fire of his creative passion. He just cannot help it even if that continuous fluttering around the glow means a final dive into the flames to be charred to ashes. Whatever might be the end, the artistic soul lives triumphantly, victoriously in the glory of its artistic passion. He sets his own goals and gets his own self-derived rewards, so societal acceptance or non-acceptance does not matter. Every little creative streak taken to its completion brings him own set of adulations and salutations. His stomach might starve; but his soul is ever satiated with big draughts drawn from the fathomless pool of his creative urge. Society may dub him as a failure but his ever sweating out conscience is perpetually vouchsafing and singing eulogies for his diehard spirit and really, really genuine efforts.