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 in 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 caliber 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 some 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 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 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 stage forever.

The artistic target being so noble and high, spanning so much time in the future, relatively longer account in public memory, the investment of soul’s blood and toil is also of the same Herculean scale. It includes devotion; worship; virtual surrender to the Almighty 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 endeavors. 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 colored 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 meaning. In revulsion they punish him with pauperization and ostracizing.

Hundreds and hundreds 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 endeavor. 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 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 in 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.         

Cosmic Shades of Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism has been, perhaps, scribbled down most comprehensively and ingenuously by the Supreme Power. Blurring dark clad exorcists; the ever wandering mendicant friars; totally unattached meditating yogis in the toughest climes of the Himalayas; alm-asking peregrinators; the temple priests; the ashram dwellers on the collective path of faith; as many sects and further derivations as there are individuals: All of them embaled in one pious knot. Such is the greatness of Hinduism: so many paths to be followed according to an individual soul’s intonation; the overspreading saffron colour of God, colouring each and every soul, from the most scheming ones to the perfectly surrendering ones; the infallible, ineffable God’s regimen containing everything from the complete vacuous calm to bellicose verbosity, with little coquettish gurgitation of the masses, swaying to the tunes of both extremities, lying in between.

About 5000 years ago, the nascent forms of this present institutionalised faith were emerging. The Rig Vedic age, beyond the misdating anachronism; the era of profound cosmic outpours from the wonderstruck hearts eulogising the nature’s play in whose womb the Godhood lay in its self-referral unconsciousness. The sages, the mystics---whose 5000 years old descendant lay under the banyan tree---sang the ‘self revealed truth’ in their unchecked poetry. Hinduism sprouted forth from this gay-spiritual-abundance.

How broad Hinduism is! Mystical auras of the legendary figures have their relevance to the farthest limits of space and time. To those rigid, rational souls who’re ever caught in the grumpy facade of intellectual rumination, it at last provides a simplistic presentment of the ultimate truth; leaving them sinking into the comfortable and peaceful chairs of faith, where only the ‘realisation’ rules dormitively.

It’s really wonderful to see how majestically Hinduism has flowed like a subtle murmury river over the distortionist terrain of time. In a divinely concordant way to the social reality this vast spiritual stream has confluenced into the mighty sea of ultimate reality. Numerous tributaries join the mainstream flowing though the vale of peerless capacity to absorb the waters of different sources. Then the unstinted mirth of the mighty mother-stream once again drifts apart to dyad, triad... to myriad distributaries. The result: a divinely diversified spiritual confluence on the seabed of ultimate reality.

How fundamentalist Islam can be made a well behaved buddy!!

Educated Hindus love flaunting their pseudo-secularism. They crow at their artificial best when it comes to exaggerating the perils of Hindu fanatics, and downplaying the devilish deeds of Muslim daredevils. Let us be clear on this: the angriest of a Hindu is still better than the coolest of a Muslim for world peace. Let us have a look at the history sheet of Hindu so called 'fanatics'. At the climax of their nationalistic chauvinism, they have just broken a medieval structure, i.e., Babri Masjid. And that too where? At a place where the supreme Icon of their religion was born! So Ramlalla’s religious legacy has been hijacked in the name of justifying secularism on paper and in theory. Can you imagine a place on earth where the faith of 100 crore people has been allowed to be hijacked to politically appease 20 crore people. Congress and Co. in alliance with regional satraps like Mullah Mulayam have ensured that political gains theory considers Muslims as the most important element in vote-catch theory. Just imagine who is dubbed communal?! It is BJP!!!!! Educated Hindus are the most vocal champions of raising dissenting chorus against anything aggressive related to Hinduism!! 

Why 100 crore Hindus are comfortable with the idea of a makeshift tent at Ramlalla’s birthplace? The reason is simple!! Hinduism has been left unattended! It is lying in open to be misinterpreted and misused by all and sundry including both Hindus and non-Hindus. Result is we have so many stigmatized characters, so called Godmen, within Hinduism who bring farce and shame to Hindus. There is nothing left related to Hinduism that cannot be twisted and changed to suit individual, collective, political and social choices. No sinew related to Hinduism is inviolable. If Bhagwat Geeta is lying at a public square, it is not a religious scandal. Somebody might just step on it to move ahead; another may move sideways to go ahead; someone might just pick it up and put at a safe place; and top of it, somebody might just kick it to land it at even worse place. This someone can be anyone, of any religion. When you leave your faith system to be misused at a level, where you end up having godmen like Asha Ram and Guru Ram Rahim, and where the supreme scripture can be kicked without even raising the dust around, where you do not leave even a single sinew related to it inviolable, you weaken yourself as a religioner, as a person, as a race! In Islam it is just the opposite. Just imagine a Koran instead of Geeta in the incident mentioned above. Do you think even a fanatic Hindu will dare to even come near Koranic papers??! No!!! Reason is very simple! Islamists have not left even a single thing violable in their domain. That is why Islam is surviving like a hard-woven knot for so long. That is the reason why its holy priests have such influence on the followers. That is the reason why we still see medieval barbaric things being committed by Muslim fanatics. If things have to be changed, let more and more things related to Islam be brought into conformity with the present times. That is the only way to break that final knot, to melt that blind adherence to misrepresented rigidity nurtured by blindfolding mullahs.                     

It is even foolish to compare Hindu and Islamic fanaticism. When RSS and company get too agitated what does it result into? Long marches in khaki; lathi training; lessons for patriotism, ineffectual lectures from podiums because what can be expected from educated Hindus and even masses who will just move ahead with this solace that they are paying lip service to secularism. And pseudo secularists crow foul...bloody shitheads. On the contrary fundamentalist Islamic criminality is holding world peace at bay. I need not mention countless blood-bathed episodes resulting from the blinding mullahs.

If Islam can be misinterpreted in such dehumanized manner to unleash hell on earth, it is high time we fight to dismantle fundamentalist Islamic stranglehold over its followers. Islam has to be brought under new set of liberal rules. The so called inviolable set of blind beliefs should be mellowed down as per the contemporary requirements and it has to be made liberal like other religions. Demon creating mullahs who misinterpret the lines in holy books should be made accountable. Poison sprouting mullahs should be held by their goatee and made to eat sense for all this bloodshed. Shame ...shame. This earth will be such a nice place without the blind religious followers, whatever religion they belong to.

The only way the world can be saved from Islamic fundamentalist deluge is to break the myth of old, outdated Islamic principles. Muslims and non-Muslims both have been chained in the fear of a deadly retaliation if there is any effort to reform Islam. Sporadic incidences to change have been met with killings, because these have been tried by individuals. Result is that there are primitive mullahs who interpret the sacred lines as per their convenience. The only way change can be forced is to break the myth of inviolability of the archaic, misinterpreted Islamic injunctions written in stone. Let it be a frequent event. Let it be done by faceless institutions at public places so that anger-stricken Maulvis do not know who has done it. Let it occur so many times at so many places so that it becomes a normal issue like it is with other religions. This is the only way to take out Islamists imprisoned in medieval principles. Once they frequently see cudgels being taken at the centuries old blindfolding, misrepresented principles, they will be more receptive to change...larger forces in non-Islamic world have to manage it with faceless players.

Better to have a Godless world now!!

Better to have a Godless world now!!

Let us be clear on this! The concept of God was a nice production of human thought to give answers to unanswerable happenings, mishappenings, chance throw of dice and destinies, hard fought struggles and expectedly-unexpectedly varying outcomes. And then out of this motley mix of fires, misfires; success and failure; rise and fall; ecstasies and miseries, there arose natural questions--Why?? Why?? The concept of God was offered as a panacea for numerous puzzling symptoms plaguing distraught humans seeking answers to this 'why'.

You have to believe with a blind faith if at all you want to get some solace or unproven blessing. If you suffer unjustifiably, religion tells you that you might be suffering on account of bad deeds in previous birth. If you are not getting the results of your good deeds, it tells you that you will get it post death. Both things are not proven, previous birth and after-death status. God is not proven. All the proofs to verify His existence are themselves contrived in a way that even these cannot be proven. So the final nail in confirming His existence is: ‘He cannot be known! He can just be realized and felt!’ So ultimately it boils down to a feeling, a realization! So very smartly it has been brought down to a level of feeling, a zone where logic is pushed aside without and rhyme or reason! And this feeling and realization is shaped by unquestionable belief in His existence.

So where do we land up??!! Like we are the owners and makers of rest of all the feelings in us, here as well we also possess this feeling in us. Sum and summary: Aham Brahma Asmi, means ‘I am the God I am seeking!’ It started in human brain and is realized in human brain as well. Rituals that are meant to appease Him, are just smart ways of keeping social order and keep people believe in the thin line dividing good and bad, moral and immoral, otherwise there will be a chaos.            

After a debatable journey, the concept of God has outlived its utility. Mankind framed the idea of God to create a psychological field of safety against natural forces that were beyond his knowledge and comprehension. Those mysteries have been explained quite well now. So we need not continue to pay lip service to it anymore. Doing so is proving more harmful to the creator of God, the human brain, the mankind. Religion is a thriving unquestioned business. Do you remember Asha Ram harami?? Similarly, there are hundreds of Godmen exploiting people for their belief in the concept of God. Millions are dying in the name of various Gods. Political parties are pulling votes in the name of religion. High time we abandon this redundant concept!! At the practical and mass level, it is doing more harm than the psychological advantage it provides against unknown apprehensions and insecurities at the individual level. Disadvantages and losses at the collective level are far more than the individual sips of solace driven by surrendering the self to the divinity.

Times changed over centuries. Almost everything changed in its wake. But religious differences are the same. Blood-shedding in the name of religion is the same. Isn't it high time that the world community starts dismantling the hold of exclusive religious principles on people and states? It is the time for an all inclusive world religion, the religion of all humanity, humanism. It is the time to contrive a better idea than exclusive Gods for various groups. We can think better to have a more relevant concept. The new concept can have Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Hindu Gods and other major deities in its fold. Main issue is how can Islamists be convinced to see beyond the rigid confines of their unchanging tradition?! All other religions are melting under the warm sun of internationalism. But icy blocks of Islam are holding their medieval solidly crystallized layers like polar snows. Will Islam ever be lenient to non Muslims!? World peace and harmony depends on the answer to this question. If internationalism succeeds to liberate humanism buried inside Islamic fanaticism, we can expect to have a peaceful world following the religion of humanism. In any case religion has to be systematically dismantled to lay the foundation of a common world, like it was earlier constructed in ancient times to stamp man's authority on earth under subservience to natural forces!

We can analyse the factors that gave birth and then supported the concept of God. God is just an incalculable sum of infinite series of chance factors.

If at all there is divinity, it is chance, coincidence! Chance is divinity! If ever there is a force that shapes things in universe and consequently human life, it is the chance factor. Random forces shape even the patterns that appear constant and infallible to us. Suppose you hold ten playing marbles in your hand. You keep these on your palm and take utmost focus to throw in a way so that you get maximum pieces in the hole. The chain of event that proceeds is utterly carried and pulled by the chance factor. Who knows with what balance and from what height, distance or tilt you decide to go for your throw!? You have numerous options as per the aforementioned variants! Then by chance you get carried to think one particular position more suitable than others. Who knows in what funny ways the marbles float in air? These can float in relatively favorable and unfavorable arrangement to hit earth in who knows how many ways to scatter in who knows in which directions and strike each other in who knows how many ways and how many angles to result in who knows how many moving away or into the hole?????? It is a long and endless series of independent still minutely dependent possibilities. One conscious act of taking the marbles in hand driven by the intention of putting as many as possible in the hole results in an endless serious of probabilities that work independently in between the throwing stage with particular intention and the resulting stage emerging as an independent result. The result is free, so are the numerous bits of independent realities driven by the free will of the chance factor. From micro to macro levels this factor works to coincidentally shape destinies and the way universe functions.

In the fathomless domains of this chancy super-quotient, we have independent units that recur in patterns with regularity to substantiate our scientific theories. These are but particular outcomes carried by the swift forces of chance. Universe is an outcome of some chancy explosion. Life on earth is pleasant coincidence, divine chance. See the dance of prince chance in all its charm around you and in your life and you will feel its superweight!

Allow me to call myself a Jat please!!!

Concepts carry certain mental weight. If not more, at least they help us in proving that, just because we are aware of their existence and pay them lip service, without doing anything practically to substantiate them, we are modern, educated, secular, non-casteist etc., etc. One such concept is the concept of casteism. Let anybody tell, and of all let it be a Jat mentioning his status, thousands will grab the opportunity to condemn and claim their status as modern and educated individuals.

We have hierarchy of identities linked to us--our definitions. As per our concept-based clarification, I should say I am a ‘human’ instead of Sandeep Dahiya. But I do not, because doing so will just leave me clueless in the final melting sea of humanity. I am human, but yaa I am also Sandeep Dahiya. Our identities starting from the self evolve upwards. Starting from my family, I am a Jat, then I am defined as a Hindu, then as the resident of a particular village, then a state, then country, then continent, then earth (if there are aliens). Now you tell where is my strongest self of belonging? Simple, it is with the ‘self’. So basically I identify myself with my name, my surname, my family name, my caste name. I call myself ‘Sandeep Dahiya’ and that gives me an identity among the sea of humanity. Will I prefer being called ‘Sandeep Dutt’? Or will ‘Pushp Dutt’ like to be called ‘Pushp Dahiya’? Absolutely no! So if we are so possessive about our caste-born names, why do we start croaking like mad frogs the moment somebody declares the identity?! All those who absolutely do not believe in casteism, should call themselves ‘insaan’ as their surnames, e.g., Push Insaan. We are digitally advanced enough to have unique identifying numbers among all the enmassed humanity of ‘insaans’.

When we talk of basic identity, it is at the cost of exclusivity. When I say I am ‘Sandeep Dahiya’ I exclude other names. When I say, I am an Indian, I exclude other countries. When I say, I am from Haryana, I exclude other states. When I say, I am a Hindu, I exclude other religions. So when I say, I am a Jat, am I committing a crime? When I express my opinions regarding political dominance for my community, am I committing a crime? Do not we fight to keep our identities alive starting from the basic identity with the self? Do not we read for ourselves and settle in career so that family name becomes more popular? Or do we just do it for the neighbor to help them in their economic struggle? Do not we feel happy when the village earns a name in some regard? Do not we feel happy for the state when we read about its progress? Do not we feel happy for an Indian winning at the world level? So why should not I feel happy and proud of my status as a Jat casteman?! Why should not I aspire for better prospects for my community at the political and social level, like I do for myself, with my basic identity? When I am struggling to make my life better, am I always lost in the beautiful world of better life for my neighbor?! It is just our basic instinct man! It simply is basic instinct to hope to, aspire for and work for the betterment of things related to our basic identities starting from our families onward?  

Do not we prefer one thing over the other in even most mundane aspects of life, such as food, footwear and clothes? Or we just abandon our priorities and preferences just to wear kurta dhoti, because half of India is clad in that? Or we just force ourselves to eat plain rice and daal because Indian masses survive on it? We do not! We have distinct preferences! This preference is basically derived by excluding something from the other. And when I exclude something to retain for something else for myself, I do it as per my convenience, for my own sake! Do not all of us do the same? Is not caste a major factor in India? Does not our constitution show positive discrimination in jobs reservation and political representation? Is not our whole fabric dependent on caste? All those concept-blinded people, who start shrieking at casteism, should prove their genuineness by putting surname ‘insaan’ after their main name, because ‘insaan’ is our basic identity. If they cannot do it, then I shout ‘bloody hypocrites’ in their faces!

If RSS treats itself as a parivaar, does not it come on the basis of excluding other political streams. Do not they have a very strong identity which helps them survive as a strong and effective unit, whose effects we have just seen in Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections? Should they shed their uniqueness and merge into the sea of political neutrality?

If they cannot, then why the hell I should shed my casteist identity and stop thinking about the welfare of my community?!

Self-driven as per my family name, if I do good for myself and my family, do not I do something good for the country as well? As a member of a strong Jat community, that bravely contributes to armed forces and farm production, do not I add to the total Indian strength if I fight for better prospects for my community? Or just paying theoretical lip service, like our so called educated class does usually, in the form of justifying concepts in innocuous debates is going to make this country stronger?