The ditched lizard

The late morning sky looks down with stern infinitude, somehow with a heavy desultory feeling as if overloaded with the immensity of its own reminiscences, the weight of its past and the ever-exploding present.

Probably his girlfriend got angry with him. I saw her crawling down the curry-leaf tree with a moribund mindset and move on the ground to sneak out of the garden passing under the iron gate’s lower frame. He followed her after a few minutes later. Of course, you are supposed to go following your girlfriend. But he doesn’t go out. From under the gate he looks out for some time and turns back to take a survey of the garden. ‘Rascal, already thinking of new love to fill his life,’ I think.

I’m sitting on a chair a few feet away, reading a newspaper. He is not excited in love at the moment and looks pretty ordinary with his dusty earthen color. A kind of arid angularity of defeatist nature clung to his persona. I draw his attention. He looks at me matter of factly. He isn’t scared, I can see. What is there to feel scared about those who simply read newspapers, the long sheets where even engineered pogroms and bloody vendettas are presented as almost harmless random chance happenings? Why be bothered about the one who gets intimidated by the smartly customized narratives of an increasingly regressive world to tame mass psychology? Why take seriously the one who tries to write his agonies and responses and makes silly attempts at assumed joy sometimes? And who is a small-time writer? Well, he is an innocuous byproduct of the agonizing agencies of fate, institutions, norms, customs, expectations, jealousies, hate and failed attempts at love.

I glide a very small round clod of earth in his direction. He isn’t bothered. He has turned into a statue, almost miraculously motionless. If your girlfriend has left you in bad mood, you hardly care about struggling writers trying to boost their spirits by playing with sullen and surly garden lizards. Well, rolling the little piece of earth suddenly reminds me of the past that I once played marbles. I pick out tiny soil granules and take an aim, the marble-throwing aim. A few bombs land very near to the target but he isn’t bothered about me even now. Then one lands on it. Not much in the league of giving pain because of its tiny size. But it hurts and affects his sense of dignity. He faces me straight. The hero raises his torso and tail in a manner that is at least aggressive to me. He seems like a little dragon in fact. ‘He has turned suicidal after meeting disappointment in love,’ I think.

Jilted lovers can be very dangerous. They have a peculiar set-asiding quota of sadistic sweet pain that makes them turn their face from life. They may dash to get squelched under tyres, wheels and even feet. But if the latter happens to be the case they may give a bite, thus pouring out all their pain, anger and suffering in the form of that bite, before getting trampled to death. I raise my feet and put them on the chair. But it’s a tricky world. The garden lizards aren’t so lucky to deal with small-time writers only. A cat has been sleeping in the corner behind the overgrown hibiscus. So here it springs up to grab its share of joy in the world. The aggressive romeo takes to his heels. The cat follows him across the garden and then the trees. It’s a youngish cat. I can feel its palpable adolescence. But the lizard is lucky to escape. The sporadic spirals of life and death, love and loss, agonies and ecstasies, that’s what life is about. He has to survive first to make love some other day. He should hang out there, who knows she may come back. The cat has sharpened its claws on the soft trunk of the parijat tree marking it like the leopard in the Morni hills. Well, let it be more resilient in spirits for the next hunt. I’m happy for the jilted lover. It’s good that he ran away without showing attitude. 

Boxing the ego

 Box your own as well as other’s egos because it’s the same entity. And defend the ‘faith’ because it again is the same. Ego: one common darkness. Faith: one common light. Strictly prescribed as per the guru-shishya parampara.

Our gurus at the village school tweaked our ears, pulled hair, smartly took us to the cane, made us murgas, shouted, fretted and fumed. They broke our budding egos just like their own had been broken by their gurus and so on and so forth. Well that was past. And now when I come across one of those gurus, coming slowly bent with old age, my only impulse is to touch his feet and give him a gentle hug. Because all that was to make us, even though it meant breaking some canes in the process.

It’s not that I’m a promoter of fist-work by the gurus. All I want to say is that it was a far tolerant world, a simpler world where people carried their heads a bit lighter, where the students were forgiving enough to forget the beatings and get a clue to the harsh realities of life that kick at us, a world when the parents didn’t explode with rage when they saw their kid’s cheek redder and understood that making of something is always a bit painful.

All in all, it was a gentler world even with the gurus’ beatings, a world having human pliability, a melting fluidity, not like the present time’s rigid temperaments and rude bloom. Despite all the beatings and shouts, the school still carried subtle shades of some courteous pageantry. I can only say that dry branches just fretfully shake to the wind’s playful shove. Leafy green branches gyrate and sway even to the pulls of stormy winds. The juice of life. It’s playful, mischievous, swaying.

Artificial creativity

My first line ever on an AI-assisted tool happens to be a question.  ‘In what way you are different from a human’s creativity?’ I ask.

ChatGPT is very honest, I must say. It replies:

‘As an AI language model, my ability to create and generate content is based on statistical patterns and algorithms derived from vast amounts of text data. While I can generate language that appears to be creative and original, my output is ultimately limited by the data I was trained on and the rules programmed into my algorithms.

In contrast, human creativity is often driven by personal experiences, emotions, and the ability to think outside the box. Human creators can draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including their own imaginations, personal perspectives, and interactions with the world around them. They can also intentionally break the rules and patterns of traditional language to create something truly unique and original.

While I can generate content quickly and accurately, I do not have the same level of intuition, emotions, or personal experiences that drive human creativity. In this sense, my creative abilities are fundamentally different from those of a human being.’

I, yours truly, find it more honest than most of we humans. But it can be misleading, brutal, inhuman in the ways we can’t imagine. Perfect lack of subjectivity has the potential to take it to the threshold of limitless objectivity, which in turn may undo what we have created so far, or change the meaning of all the elements of human civilization as we know it. Of all our inventions so far, this one has the potential to turn the tables against the humans, as it introduces a mechanical replacement for spontaneous emotions, open-ended volition, fluctuating feelings, teasing mysteries, ever-chiding curiosity and numerous other checks and balances that keep the destructive monster in us under check, somehow. 

Now we want to hand over even our thinking to the mechanized tools. And get busy in creating solutions for problems born of our brain-substitute. AI-generated mail drafts, chatting messages, planning documents, summaries and reports are now spreading with a malignancy. It will standardize the way we act, think, behave, even feel: a mass-produced new-age mentality and emotionality. But then maybe it’s inevitable. It was fated to be. In our craze to surpass all life forms on earth, we were always expected to create something even above the mankind itself.  It’s not a doomsday portrait helplessly drawn by a poetic man. I would accept it as one more dimension in evolution.  Moreover, it seems a pretty communist concept, this AI: a mass standardization of ideas, thoughts and emotions.

PS: This isn’t tech-phobia. My only concern is that we get easily addicted to tools. So within a generation, we will be acting, planning, thinking and emoting the way algorithms want us. Then will we be the same humans, or some new avatar?

Givers and Takers

 I have seen a few wonderful old women beggars—even though calling them ‘beggars’ would be almost a sin but given my inability to find a suitable title for them I use the word beggar—who would put out their hand with such grace, dignity, motherliness, humility, kindness, gratitude and smile that it appears like a mystical treasure, almost a blessing like a saint. Remembering them I feel that it would be incorrect to call them ‘takers’ because even though a coin passed onto their palms they gave back something far more substantial and deep, something that touches your soul, enriching you in a profound way. And after getting softly, gently touched by their presence, as you walk away, the material burden on you minus by a metallic coin, you feel enriched in a mystical, soulful way.

In contrast, I remember many materially rich people travelling in costly cars, clad in brand clothes, adorned with gold and platinum, the ones whom we mistakenly term as ‘givers’. When they give something to a poor person, something very small that wouldn’t even match the cost of biscuits to their pampered dog, there is almost a malicious frown on their face. The frown, the outer lines of the poverty of the soul inside, conveying deep sense of fear, insecurities, dis-ease and absence of joy in life despite all the material wealth around. They appear to ‘give’ something but do they actually ‘give’? In fact they seem to ‘take’ something from the poor palm spread in front of them. I think with that look of hatred and repulsiveness they take away the last semblance of dignity and self-respect still surviving in a corner of the destitute person’s heart. They take away the smile and belief in humanity somehow still lying in tiny bits in the soul of that poor person.

So we have to think and observe it carefully. Not all beggars are just ‘takers’; many of them are ‘givers’ of some invisible substance comprising genuine smile, blessing, gratitude and kindness. They appear to take a little coin or morsels of food but in reality they are returning something very-very big in its subtle proportions. Also, not all rich charity givers are just ‘givers’, they are takers, almost robbers, of the last traces of humanity lying in a poor person. They appear to give something but in reality they are taking back something far more precious. 

The missing towel

 Early mornings in early winters have a mild chill. So here I’m draped in a chador, the best way the farmers and their ilk feel warm. Give them the best of a thermal clothing, which would keep one warm even in Antarctica, but the farmers would feel unequipped against cold in the absence of chador or blanket load over them. It only shows the level of habits in shaping our realities.

So here I’m draped in a light chador picking up fresh clothes to wear after a bath. The set of clothes slung over my arm, I’m looking for the missing towel. The towel has gone missing. It gives me concern as I go searching over the place. Then the concern turns to irritation for the inconvenience caused due to the missing towel. Then arrives self-justification. I’m sure that I always place my things at their proper place. So the reason for the missing towel must be someone else, not me. My family members can hear my uneased exclamations over the missing towel as I wander around looking for it. It’s not to be found anywhere. I’m sure that I cannot be so careless as to put it at a place where it cannot be found. There is a prompt conclusion that someone else has misplaced it—the very same old habit of putting the blame outside of one’s own self. ‘I always place it here, someone has misplaced it for sure!’ they hear my summarized mutter over the episode.

Then it’s found. All of them are staring at me as it’s found. It’ there on my shoulder, hidden by the fold of chador draped around me. That was the first item I had picked up but then the chador corner must have slipped over and while adjusting it the towel got hidden. So here I stand with my lost towel found now. The towel that was always with me. But for whom I had already gone searching out, looked for the missing cause outside and already made judgments about others as their cause.

It’s deeply humbling to be caught so wrong-footed, to be caught so unaware. It only shows the level of unawareness we carry with ourselves on a daily basis. Then we go for a frantic search over the missing towel, the towel that was never lost. We go out on a search outside and naturally look for the reasons for its misplacement in other people.

Well, the towel is always there. But it’s hidden in the deep folds of the chador of unawareness. The chador of unawareness spun of a conditioned and customized self; made of the threads of limiting beliefs, fears, insecurities. Unawareness is draped around us like a chador’s folds and hides the towel of our real self. And thinking the towel missing, i.e., our real essential self, we go on a frantic search. We believe it to be outside. And when we don’t find it, obviously we blame others.

Like the missing towel we have lost touch with our real self. The hiding blanket of unawareness draped around us gives us a false sense of security against cold and vicissitudes of life. The towel of our real self hidden among its folds. And we going on a futile search, feeling restless, wading our way through the network of family, friends, relatives, acquaintances. Assuming them or the larger world outside to be the cause of the missing towel. And we won’t feel the real rest till we find the missing towel. It but is nowhere to be found. How will it be found outside? It has been with us all along this time. But we have moved far and wide. We judge and blame others for the missing towel. We try different occupations, careers, faiths, belief systems and relationships to find the missing towel but fail.

The experience was deeply humbling. How our unawareness is the cause of all the unhappiness. From the missing towel to the estrangement with our true essential self, it’s the same germ of unawareness that begets us unhappiness and suffering. We just need to watch, understand and be aware of all that goes within and around us. Then maybe suddenly we find the towel slung right there on our own shoulder for whom we had covered miles after miles.