Aa kood. Isme khazana chupa hai! That is perhaps the most apt way to review the 1988 masterpiece by Kamal Swaroop called Om Dar B Dar. Released in select theatres only after 25 years of its making, Om Dar B Dar makes for a perfect study of Camus’ philosophy of the absurd. Though the filmmaker’s own familiarity with the Algerian philosopher’s ideas is not known, yet his movie evokes the kind of mesmerisation and nostalgia that erupted from The Myth of Sisyphus. Revolting against the orthodox style of storytelling and filmmaking, Om Dar B Dar challenges the very notion of style and form, in cinema and life in general. The dialogues are so random yet so profound subconsciously that you can’t help but wonder at the ease with which imagination flows at every instance of the movie. Gayatri: “Tujhe kaise pata barish hone wali hai ?” – “How do you know it’s going to rain?” Om: “Tu Kangi jo kar rahi hai” – “Because you are combing your hair.” It’s a cinematic experience that cannot be missed. Filled with the most weird combination of elements- Brahma, Biology, Rana tigrina, Non-cooperation by not breathing, diamonds, the story is like an “LSD trip”. Yet, despite the nonsensical narrative (which was intended) Om Dar B Dar brings forth a post-modernist philosophy that satires everything that ever stood for anything. It’s a deconstruction of meaning, of man’s never-ending quest for context and linearity, and eventually ends up giving the most elemental of sermons ever made- Man creates meaning by himself. The so-called story ends with one of the lead characters committing suicide by his lover’s side, revoking Camus’ central statement- There’s only one serious philosophical question and that is suicide. The whole film, in fact, seems to be portraying what Albert Camus said about the absurd- “Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Watch it. Don’t try to understand it. Admire it. Feel it and watch it change your perspective. Aatankkari tadpole ne mendhak banne se inkar kar diya tha! (Terrorist tadpole had refused to become a frog!) (Acknowledgement: arthousecinema.in is a wonderful place to discover films such as these and their timeless impact.)
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One glance at the newspaper can make you ponder on the validity of an anti-natalist view of life. There isn’t much left to say on those lines except that a world so crowded and grieved doesn’t really make a nice place to repopulate. Rajit Roy
“Do you want to make kids, my love?”, asked the sensual woman wrapped up in her lover’s bare flesh. “It’s a sin to procreate”, answered the philosophy student who had just finished his critical treatise on David Benatar's works. Since the dawn of civilization, we have been told about love and sex in the context of one universal consequence – procreation, childbirth, reproduction, whatever you may call it. This led to a complete ignorance of the ethics of bearing a child in a world as tormented and disfigured as todays. However, thanks to some compelling commentary from modern philosophers and thinkers, the idea of anti-natalism has gained quite a traction in popular culture. Be it David Benatar’s Better Never To Have Been or the dark philosophical undertones in Nic Pizzolato’s True Detective, the unacceptance of procreating sentience appears quite an affirming mainstream debate now. Is it really necessary to participate in the creation of a child? Is it ethically right to bring sentient beings into this world of suffering? Pessimistic as these questions might seem, they do need a skeptical inquiry from a logical point of view. Going by Darwin’s laws, reproduction is the only way by which a species ensures its survival in the web of life. However, our modern knowledge of genetics provides a much larger picture. It is the genes that really replicate themselves and populate the ecosystem with copies of information coded and conserved evolutionarily. Organisms go through a phase of sentience in which they thrive and compete with others to make sure they live long enough to bear offsprings that carry forward the genetic information in the same repetitive cycle. With animals, we aren’t yet sure how much suffering they can experience emotionally and whether they can actually contemplate on the reason of their being. Humans, however, are an exceptionally sentient race. We have individuals who are capable of retrospection about their own state of existence. This paradox compels us to ask – Is it moral to create such perceptive organisms without consent? (Sounds crazy, but worth a thought. Think about the monster in Frankenstein who abhors his own existence and goes on a quest to find his creator and punish him.) Moreover, there’s a more social context to this philosophy. One glance at the newspaper can make you ponder on the validity of an anti-natalist view of life. There isn’t much left to say on those lines except that a world so crowded and grieved doesn’t really make a nice place to repopulate. Rather than condemning suicides and crimes of existential passion, would it not be far better to not make people in the first place and then try to mend the world piece by piece, if that at all is possible? Perhaps it's high time we start talking about natalism in general rather than family planning. Condom ads can be made more creative and yes, philosophical! Most dangerous is the night The revolutionary Punjabi poet who was dubbed a naxalite and assassinated by fundamentalists reminds us of the predicament of the human soul. The Most Dangerous by Avatar Singh Sandhu ‘Pash’ (a translation of the Punjabi poet’s revolutionary verse “Sabse Khatarnak”) Most treacherous is not the robbery of hard earned wages Most horrible is not the torture by the police. Most dangerous is not the graft for the treason and greed. To be caught while asleep is surely bad surely bad is to be buried in silence But it is not most dangerous. To remain dumb and silent in the face of trickery Even when just, is definitely bad Surely bad is reading in the light of a firefly But it is not most dangerous. Most dangerous is To be filled with dead peace Not to feel agony and bear it all, Leaving home for work And from work return home. Most dangerous is the death of our dreams. Most dangerous is that watch Which run on your wrist But stand still for your eyes. Most dangerous is that eye Which sees all but remains frostlike, The eye that forgets to kiss the world with love, The eye lost in the blinding mist of the material world. That sinks the simple meaning of visible things And is lost in the meaning return of useless games. Most dangerous is the moon Which rises in the numb yard After each murder, but does not pierce your eyes like hot chillies. Most dangerous is the song which climbs the mourning wail In order to reach your ears And repeats the cough of an evil man At the door of the frightened people. Most dangerous is the night Falling in the sky of living souls, Extinguishing them all In which only owls shriek and jackals growl, And eternal darkness covers all the windows. Most heinous is the direction In which the sun of the soul light Pierces the east of your body. Most treacherous is not the robbery of hard earned wages. Most horrible is not the torture of police Most dangerous is not graft taken for greed and treason. (Translation by Dr. Satnam Singh Sandhu) We leave our mark on earth not as a species that is afraid to grow, but as a civilization that has the courage to ask questions. Nobody ever made sense of life, nobody can; what matters however is that we explored it the best way we could. Rajit Roy
“Every judgement in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible.” Jacob Bronowski in his epic work The Ascent of Man (a book and a TV series) dedicated an entire chapter to his own skeptical approach in epistemology. He argues for the validity of knowledge over belief despite the uncertainty and fuzziness that exists in the former’s pursuit. That knowledge is preferable to any reassuring tale of human worth in a seemingly infinite cosmos was one of Carl Sagan’s favorite anecdotes. Yes, knowledge is flawed. Since the dawn of human history, uncertainty about the universe is what has driven us forward in our curious endeavors. Quantum theory made it quite evident that any form of perceptive knowledge, the knowledge of physics and matter, always has a degree of non-conformity. However, the human quest for absolute answers has plunged us into the nadirs of pseudoscience and mythology. We have learnt to shield our ignorance with a pretension of knowledge. Even the modern concept of science in an industrial setup has chosen to divert from the quest to a mere application of knowledge, which is a tragic trend. We have grown intolerant of our own fallacies, afraid that our skepticism may lead us to reproach. What appeals to us is power and absolute control, and look what it has done to us. Contemporary science needs to be set free. We must realize that what Galileo and Darwin achieved in their lonely quests was invaluable to human empowerment. Despite the flaws that are unavoidable in any scientific pursuit, the very nature of human imagination is to be challenged. Applied science can do us as much good as religion or mythology has done, and they are important to human survival, but it is the desperation to know, to understand what seems incomprehensible, to be able to question established facts and beliefs, that ultimately leads to a liberation of the human spirit. Remember that ending scene from Jacob Bronowski’s documentary series where he stands at the Auschwitz concentration camp and makes a compelling observation on the human condition: “It's said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That's false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.” Despite the darkness that seems unconquerable, despite our fallacies which is only human, despite the uncertainty in our knowledge, it is our continuing quest for a reasoned, rational perspective of the world that makes human intellect worth a million years of evolution. We leave our mark on earth not as a species that is afraid to grow, but as a civilization that has the courage to ask questions. Nobody ever made sense of life, nobody can; what matters however is that we explored it the best way we could. Muktibodh cannot be loved perhaps, he can only be feared, but we aren’t capable of either. He is a myth, choosing to be lost in the realms of things misunderstood and forgotten. Rajit Roy
“मेरी आपकी कमजोरियों के स्याह लोहे का जिरहबख्तर पहन, खूँख्वार हाँ खूँख्वार आलीजाह, वो आँखें सचाई की निकाले डालता, सब बस्तियाँ दिल की उजाड़े डालता करता हमें वह घेर बेबुनियाद, बेसिर-पैर... हम सब कैद हैं उसके चमकते तामझाम में शाही मुकाम में !!” These lines speak of a tragedy of human sensibility, a corruption of our conscience. Muktibodh was a rebel in poetry. His words didn’t speak for a revolution, his verses were not Marxist or ideological otherwise, he only spoke for the human soul- one that was denied a voice in the counterproductive, materialistic culture. He titled his poem “Bhool Galti”, calling out to man’s flawed reason. Nevertheless, he was an anarchist, a symbol of revolt, but in his own lifetime he was just a poet everyone feared to read, lest to understand. Reading Muktibodh is tough, really. He is outspoken, a tad too much, but he is a bearer of truth. Like the Brahmrakshas in his celebrated epic, Muktibodh lies there unnoticed. The ruins of human principles, of rationality and reason, surround his presence. The waters are too deep to gaze into, as he writes in his poem; and as it goes- the words seem puzzling, yet there is a certain profundity that seems appealing. His territories are dark, but isn’t darkness honest too? The smoke of his bidi is suffocating our sense of honor, of our shallow pride and we breathe in the air of mutiny. It shall liberate us though. “तुम्हारी प्रेरणाओं से मेरी प्रेरणा इतनी भिन्न है कि जो तुम्हारे लिए विष है, मेरे लिए अन्न है।“ (Your poison is my fodder, I am so distant!) Muktibodh cannot be loved perhaps, he can only be feared, but we aren’t capable of either. He is a myth, choosing to be lost in the realms of things misunderstood and forgotten. Immanuel Kant made the greatest contribution to human society by asking us to introspect. He gave each and every one of us the freedom to choose our own good, and yet made our choices so universal. His morality was not dogmatic or artificial; it was compassionate and relatable for every creature. Rajit Roy
As one begins to watch Woody Allen’s aesthetic film Irrational Man, one is faced at the start with a rephrasing of Immanuel Kant’s compelling observation – Human reason is troubled by questions it cannot dismiss, but also cannot answer; and indeed Kant’s philosophical treatises seem to be putting human reason and rational to the test. However, one single vital aspect of his colossal work is his critique on morality. In the kind of civilization that we live in now, the idea of moral values and ethics often tend to be taken for granted. If something is good, it’s good. What is bad is bad. No questions asked. Maybe such submission to value systems and codes has been serving its purpose so far. We have a judiciary that is based on this subtle relationship and understanding. No doubt we have every reason to question its efficiency today, yet our society is bound together by this framework of moral system. However, since scepticism is one of man’s greatest tools for growth, we must be willing to deconstruct our beliefs. Perhaps a deeper understanding of our values and principles would make us more conscious of our moral decisions. Therefore let’s be Kant for a moment. One of the first questions that define moral philosophy is the question of moral grounding. What is our morality based upon? Where do values come from? Once this fundamental question is sorted you, we can go further and ask- how valid this moral order is? Such curiosity at first sounds disturbing, bringing to judgement the very things that our society at large rests upon. But then philosophy needs courage. In an attempt to seek out the basis for our ethics and values, the first line of thought points towards religion. All religions, without exception, teach the art of goodness and peace with others. However, their morality is never backed by reason or rational, but is only based on faith. Our quest, however, is a quest of logic, not so much of faith or belief. So where do we look for next? Science, despite its seemingly improbable relationship with something as abstract as morality, can very well provide a clue. Human biology is a consequence of evolution that shaped the biosphere on earth. Darwin’s natural selection theory provided a new way of looking at life. The evolution of Homo sapiens had taken thousands of years of biological selection to eventually lead to a species as intelligent as us, capable of asking questions like these. In terms of biology, the idea of ‘moral good’ doesn’t seem a very likely terminology. Nature works by means of pure mathematics to sustain the survival of organisms and to pass on genes. Our evolution too was largely triggered by necessity rather than choice of good or evil. However, another kind of evolution was simultaneously working to ensure the proliferation of the human genome across the planet. It was cultural evolution. It led to the growth of civilizations and made humans the greatest of earth’s creatures. All of this was deeply rooted in our collective conscience. We evolved as animals who could relate to each other unlike any other organism. Trust, faith and cooperation became our survival kit. Being good to others, helping them grow, that’s how our species managed to ensure its continuum. With time, these ideas took a concrete shape of order built into ethics and moral codes. The need for competition for resources made it necessary that people should be organized in groups and should live by laws. As language developed, we started crafting these survival instincts into ideologies and metaphors. Maybe that’s how religion started after all. We became creatures who could adapt to any environment largely because we learnt to create our own laws or principles, those that were far more complex and elaborate than the laws of nature that were purely statistical. Yes, morality was a survival instinct. But then what laws should we live by when we have evolved into beings capable of making individual decisions and not limited by the mere need to survive? That is where Kant comes in. In his categorical imperative, Kant states-“Do as you wish should be done by the whole. Act such that your actions were to become a universal order.” I think this way of approaching our sense of good or bad is incredible in any way. Our actions must be instinctive based on our basic nature as human beings, as we expect others to behave. I feel there can be no better alternative to this moral code. Immanuel Kant made the greatest contribution to human society by asking us to introspect. He gave each and every one of us the freedom to choose our own good, and yet made our choices so universal. His morality was not dogmatic or artificial; it was compassionate and relatable for every creature. “Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.” ~Immanuel Kant At one look, True Detective is little more than a series of random lectures on nihilism and moral insecurity, but the climax brings forth a lesson worth contemplating upon. As Rust remarks in the end- Rajit Roy
HBO’s hard hitting crime drama True Detective became one of those Television shows that redefined the conventional theme of TV viewership. Unlike The Game of Thrones obsession, which thrived on George RR Martin’s already acclaimed literary genius, True Detective came as an original screenplay from its creator Nic Pizzolato. However, one essentially common theme that the two visual renditions constantly contend with is darkness. Nevertheless, no other TV show has dealt so intensely with the subject of nihilism and human fallacy as True Detective. The story begins with the lead character Rust Cohle’s verbal porn on human existence, drawing parallels from Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own- “I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware...We are creatures that should not exist by natural laws.” The plot seems like an eternal swirl into the dark alleys of manhood- greed, envy, sexual obsessions, and Cohle looks like an anarchist fucking up everything with his philosophy of denial. Time is a flat circle reminds one of Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence- “Everything has returned. Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at this moment, and this last thought of thine that all things will return." Drawing inspiration from Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy against the Human Race, True Detective’s underlying theme is one that portrays human existence as a ceaseless cycle of futility and as an illusion of identity. Each still body so certain that they were more than a biological puppet. Death becomes a liberation in a worldview that abhors consciousness and ego. The truth wheels out and everybody sees, how easy it was to just let go. To finally realize that you didn’t have to hold on so tight. Moreover, the portrayal of sex in the show dwells into the very core of human nature. The eternal drive for lust overpowers the social temper of love and affection, bringing chaos into the architecture of this whole man-woman drama, as Rust puts it. Religion too is a recurring theme of Rust Cohle’s verbally weighty philosophy. Faith and God survive on man’s fallacy, as he explains- The ontological fallacy of expecting light at the end of the tunnel- that’s what the preacher tells. He encourages your capacity for illusion, and tells you it’s a fucking virtue. You see, everybody wants confession. Everybody wants some cathartic narrative-the guilty especially. But everybody’s guilty. At one look, True Detective is little more than a series of random lectures on nihilism and moral insecurity, but the climax brings forth a lesson worth contemplating upon. As Rust remarks in the end- “It’s just one story. The oldest. Light vs dark.” “Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.” Our culture has gifted us with insights into the nature of the universe and the scheme of life and death, but today our obsession with a lifestyle that ignores questioning and skepticism has brought us to a decline. We emerged as a civilization of thinkers and scientists; alas we have demoted ourselves as slaves of our own political and economic bias. Rajit Roy
Nehru in his Independence Day speech had remarked-“A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the long suppressed soul of a nation finds utterance.” Today, 70 years after freedom, as we look at our India, we fail to reconcile with that utterance that was long sought. As a democracy, we have indeed gone far; we have evolved as a republic, but so far as our intellectual and philosophical culture is concerned, our progress seems stagnant. We are no longer the guardians of knowledge that we used to be. Our religious ego has banished the legacy of our philosophical quest. In the stream of shallow modernity, we have forsaken the grandeur of our thoughts. At the CERN laboratory in Geneva, the particle accelerator is guarded by an image of Shiva, performing his tandava as a symbol of the dynamism of cosmos. Our culture has gifted us with insights into the nature of the universe and the scheme of life and death, but today our obsession with a lifestyle that ignores questioning and skepticism has brought us to a decline. We emerged as a civilization of thinkers and scientists; alas we have demoted ourselves as slaves of our own political and economic bias. In our universities today, we no longer engage in discourses, we are too preoccupied with our grading system. Science has lost its charm amidst the desperate crowd of technology and the race for recognition. On Independence Day, I find it fitting that we introspect on our journey, as individuals and as a society, as a civilization in fact, and put our efforts in trying to answer the questions of our conscience. Our progress largely depends on how well we understand our legacy, how well we preserve our heritage, and how efficiently we evolve as an assortment of ideas and philosophy. “We are not cabin-dwellers, born to a life cramped and confined; we are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our potential as human beings. The world of the senses is just a base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in consciousness as in the world of physical reality.” ~The Gita The frailty of our existence, the futile nature of life- that’s what one can contemplate on when the world bares itself to us. There is no inherent purpose to life, our existence is a pretence that feeds us with the drug of self-consciousness and ego, and ultimately annihilation is nature’s secret law of survival. Disturbing as these observations might look like, a close retrospection can make it more believable than any value system or faith that sustains us as beings trapped in the abyss of time. Rajit Roy
Over the years, the Joker from DC Universe has become a celebrated villain. His horrifying smile, his repulsive giggle has become a quintessential part of every account of the dark alleys of the comic book world. As Batman’s most challenging antagonist, the Joker has become a defining character in the Dark Knight’s renditions. However, there is another side to his story. For a student of philosophy, or in fact for anyone with a mind for introspection, the Joker has also been a fascinating study subject. His philosophy offers a heavy dose of nihilism and presents a worldview which, sadly enough, seems more relevant than ever. First, let’s look at his theory on morality. Their morals, their rules, it’s just a bad joke-dropped at the first sign of trouble. They are only as good as the world allows them to be. You will see when the stakes are down, these civilized people, they will eat each other. Doesn’t it seem more real than what is convenient? Our world is a world where each individual thrives on his own conscious decisions. Nonetheless, as animals (yes, that’s what we are despite of our self-delusions), we are prone to nature’s cruelty. Look what we have done to ourselves. We killed each other in the name of value systems that we had invented. We made bombs to blow each other up, justifying our choice through diplomacy of defense. Morality and ethics seem to be a grand scheme of deception that we invented to cope up with our own desperation and organic vindictiveness. The Joker just got it right. Moreover, perhaps the one phrase that I personally relate with the most- Everything burns! As Alfred remarks in The Dark Knight- “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Not that I completely sympathize with the Joker’s pessimism, but yes, everything does burn away, isn’t it? The frailty of our existence, the futile nature of life- that’s what one can contemplate on when the world bares itself to us. There is no inherent purpose to life, our existence is a pretence that feeds us with the drug of self-consciousness and ego, and ultimately annihilation is nature’s secret law of survival. Disturbing as these observations might look like, a close retrospection can make it more believable than any value system or faith that sustains us as beings trapped in the abyss of time. Nevertheless, as the Joker remarks- Why so serious? We need spaces that offer us a break from the rigorous routine of everyday life and facilitate a reflection on being. We need a culture that reads Camus and Sartre as much as JK Rowling or Nicolas Sparks. We really need to get over our obsession with sentiments and beliefs that have been thrust upon us through generations, and attempt to rediscover the meaning of our personal heritage. The long legacy of our biological and intellectual evolution must not end in a passivity of human awareness. Rajit Roy
French philosopher Rene Descartes made the first daring attempt to question the basis of human existence. What defines a person’s being? In his personal quest for understanding the meaning of human life, Descartes arrived at a remarkable proposition- "Cogito, ergo sum!" I think, therefore I am. This established philosophy as the most fundamental of human pursuits, academically or otherwise, and triggered a new wave of introspection. Auguste Rodin, another great Frenchman, visualized this doctrine into his famous “Thinking Man” and personified human thought as a vital cultural figure. Today, however, in a world full of chaos and anxiety, philosophy, or in fact simple introspection in our regular lives has become largely obscured. Attempts to face the questions of life and existence, which had defined a progressive society in the golden age of renaissance, have been condensed down to regressive and old fashioned textbooks in universities. The new-age industry and glam culture argues that we have become more practical and any endeavor to revive contemplation in our overflowing lifestyle is a waste of effort. Despite the fact that not so long ago, the 20th century gave us some great geniuses like Neitzche, Camus and Sartre, our culture today has largely failed to grasp the universal appeal of their brilliant ideas. How do we justify philosophy then? Do we really need all this intellectual masturbation in a world plagued with grief and suffering? I would say that the answer is as ironical as Descartes’ famous doctrine. I think, therefore I am, but if I don’t think, am I still there? We need to address this dilemma first before taking any leaps of faith. In a society which is inherently based on collective ignorance- our political system thrives on deceiving the masses, religion teaches cognitive passivity as a virtue, and even our education system propagates humble submission to established knowledge systems with no scope for intellectual evolution. Are we still human then? Haven’t we been lured into an illusion of consciousness when we have actually lost our ability to think freely to mechanically functional brains? How many times do we sit silently alone and attempt to perceive the greater depths of our seemingly obvious environment? How many times do we dare to ponder on our existence? The questions of life and death seem distant, but isn’t that a myopia we have constructed for us to escape the effort of thinking? Sufi mystic Shams Tabriz once said- “The summary of the advice of all prophets is this: find yourself a mirror.” We need that mirror today more than any other time. We need spaces that offer us a break from the rigorous routine of everyday life and facilitate a reflection on being. We need a culture that reads Camus and Sartre as much as JK Rowling or Nicolas Sparks (not to trivialize their great literary works). We really need to get over our obsession with sentiments and beliefs that have been thrust upon us through generations, and attempt to rediscover the meaning of our personal heritage. The long legacy of our biological and intellectual evolution must not end in a passivity of human awareness. |
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Rajit Roy
An existential romantic, an agnostic and a prospective biologist. Archives
September 2018
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