tight rope

Just. It’s nice, listen to it. Just for listening sake.

After 38 years of working and having big head opinions I have learnt only one thing  - the duality of truth – or rather the multiplicity of truth. There is no absolute truth and there is no absolute opinion. Everything changes, what you like today, what you believe in firmly today, what you think about others and what other think about you. Things change.

When I was growing up Bollywood music was at its bottom. We had Nadeem Shravan ruling the charts and the legendary RD Burman passed away giving his last hit in 1942 – a love story. Any one remember the hit of those times – Sajjan starring Salman and Sanjay Dutt. Wow. My teen and formative years in that sense were horrible. The only saving grace I can think of is that the greatest stars who still rule the movies today – viz the three khans were all launched at the time. My era gave Bollywood its superstars who ruled and are still ruling – more than 20 years on. That’s cool.

The other thing was that we wore baggies in college. Baggies were so in that we wore two sizes big and we put pleats in almost everything. We had pleats on our pants. We had many pleats on out pants… we had multiple pleats and then we had box pleats and reverse pleats… anything to make it fashionable and baggy. And now – I don’t have a pant with even one pleat. Not one. Wow. We used to look at these straight pants and tight pants and laugh at them saying – eeps – that’s so old. And now I wear slim fits and love them. It also helps that I am slimmer than most. So also alongside the slim fits came the slim body structures that made it all fashionable together. Suddenly my slim body structure is so much in fashion. I am lean and these lean t shirts make me look leaner and I dare say – fashionable. So the poor guys who sweat it at the gym building those crazy ripping bodies are suddenly out of fashion. Hah!

And suddenly right now I saw the coppersmith barbet outside my window. I love it when I see it on the peepal tree. I love the window of office and the fact that my desk faces the window. Dam cool.

Coming back – my own dress sense. Earlier I was a checks and khakhi person. Comfort pants and stuff, suddenly I am rediscovering the joy of wool. WOOL? Ya wool and its blends. Now my work hardly takes me outside. I am in an air conditioned environment and woolen pants work just fine. So now – I am into greys. The number greys I have in my wardrobe. I would never have worn so many greys but suddenly I have been gravitating towards them. It’s funny. I was always the colorful guy and suddenly I am all grey and “melancholy”. Seesh. I am old.

I used to shave everyday when I was in college – and now I shave once in two or three days. I would comb my hair and not I just run my fingers through it. I would polish my shoes and now I just step down once in a while. English songs were it and now I don’t know a single new English number. I have no clue what the new sound is in Hollywood.

Things change. The above were just illustrations of outward change – but they portend a change that is inside of you. Inside of me. I too have changed in beliefs and values. Someone told me that parenting is all about values. You try and give values and hope for the best. Well I am a little confused. Over the years I have changed so much thanks to so much changing stimuli around me that I have hardly found any of my values consistent and constant. There seems to be an undercurrent that is possibly the same but I can make out what that is. I am unable to articulate it. I would be fiercely nationalist and now I don’t care two hoots about it. Love had changed it form, structure and meaning to me. I see it differently. Love was to come home and not having to do the dishes – now love is coming home and doing the dishes. It’s changing it is moving and I have no clue how and why.

Exposures seem to be the key to formation of opinion and beliefs. But surprising to me is that no belief has remained permanent. So I don’t expect Jispa to hold on to any beliefs. My parents did teach me some value stuctures and beliefs but that is become so muddled with my experience and those I have built on top that I cant make out what is driving me at all.  Hence with Jispa I am treading with care. I don’t want to force any dogma down her throat. I can only teach a healthy cynicism for everything and a faith in everything. Its like a bit of opposites reconciling. Question everything and believe in everything at the same time. You have to keep your mind running and logic flowing but also keep your mind from running and try and be in the moment. It’s a tough one. To accept and to question at the same time. To accept and to believe will keep you alive today, the cynicism will keep you alive tomorrow. You know it’s a lot like the science fiction movies or the super hero movies. You have to accept that shit happens, that will help you enjoy the movies, but you also have to believe in the rest of it, the ideas and the limitations of what the hero can or cannot do. he may be able to jump from one building to another, but if her jumps in a way that you don’t believe then you don’t like it. So you can suspend belief only that much, and any more – you are in trouble. Being rooted versus flying – what a delicate tight rope act.

to give you another instance - while we were at the Delhi Museum, my colleague asked me - how would you know that these are the real relics of the Buddha. I answered - no you cant be really really sure. but the dates must have matches and the place they got it from had the tablets bearing the inscriptions and the story matches and hence we believe that the remains are that of the Buddha and we revere them in that manner, but no - you still never can be 100% sure. The guide was asked the same question ten seconds later by another tourist - she replied - its the Delhi museum - they wouldn't have put it here without doing some carbon dating. Hah! Unquestionable dogma versus reconciliation of opposites.

rearranging our prejudices

I have many times talked about this. The best experience in reading is when you get two books to read as a set. Sometimes they are complimenting each other, sometimes one takes the learning of the other forward and sometimes… sometimes they are actually two points of view of the same history. Right now I am reading Rahul Pandita’s book – Our Moon has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. Rahul has written a book called Hello Bastar (about the naxal movement) in the past and he writes well and I have felt that he does try and be objective about what he writes about. This time he writes about his childhood and his growing up as a Kashmir Pandit who was forced to leave the Kashmir valley with his family while he was still a boy. The book may have many flaws but it does bring alive some of the horrors of the terrorism in Kashmir that forced the pandits to leave the valley.

Some time back I read another book. This one was called Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer. Similarly this is also a memoir but from the opposite point of view. Basharat is a Kashmiri Muslim and he sees the same situation so differently. He is also a very balanced and objective writer. He talks about how as a young boy he idolized the Kashmiri Fighters who crossed the borders over and received training. And how it was to be a Kashmiri under constant threat from the Indian Armed Forces.

The same situation but the villains are the opposite parties. Who do you believe? I would assume that both are telling the truth. I don’t think either would really dispute the other’s point of view. But the contrast is telling. There is never an absolute truth. I would like to gift these two books in unison to Jispa when she grows up. What is the truth always depends on what you have been exposed to. Your knowledge no matter how vast is colored by your own experiences. Truth is relative. Muslims were killed and so were the Pandits. One believed in fighting for freedom and the other believed that freedom was already achieved. Both the authors were touched at am impressionable age by the fundamentalist forces and both wanted to take arms and exact revenge but were taken by their fathers to a land free from this racial animosity. And both seemed to have grown up to be largely secular. They realize the futility of violence but bear such deep scars that it may be impossible for them to be completely neutral.

Can one ever be neutral? For life to go on one must take a strong stand in one direction. These choices are made every day. We take a stand basis the information and experience we have. I am not saying to not take a stand. That is stupid and a complete waste. Devil’s advocate is a nice term for it and as one of Devdutt’s piece on this explains (link) this is many times the wrong way to discuss. Just a few days back, at the gymkhana where I got active with the swimming department, we were presenting the budget. Most of the office bearers were understanding and practical. One fellow was completely irritating. He kept switching sides and said, yes, that’s a good idea to every point and on both sides of the same point. Yes it was nice and diplomatic but it just prolonged the meeting and got nowhere. Endless argument and recognition of both sides got no one anything.

It is important to see both sides, to hear both sides to recognize both sides, to understand that both exist and that both are right in their own way. But at the end life and reality is that you have to take one side and move on. You have to take a stand while being polite and accommodating of the other. Its easy to be brusque about the other side. I have been guilty consistently about this. I have tried my best to change. From merely brushing them off to thinking actively from the other side I have understood another point of view. Now instead of brushing the other side I try and make an argument to convince the other. But that itself creates another sense of pressure on the opposite side. A convincing argument is so difficult for the other to accept, possibly more difficult that a brush off. One can be forced to accept defeat to power but not to reason. Oh dam!

But we all need to understand the other side. See that it exists, acknowledge it and try to live in that shoe. Possibly then we realize that the demons on the other side aren’t that demonic after all. They too were just acting on their prejudices. That’s all.

Like this quote my friend showed me “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” - William James

Side note – I was talking to a colleague who happened to be a Kashmiri Pandit who too left when he was 9 yrs old. I urged him to read both the books. HE ordered one. Rahul’s book. He was reading it and he said a lot of that was the truth. He was pretty excited. It was going to be the first book he has ever read. On any topic! That’s a good start. I asked him if he ordered the one by Basharat. Nopes, he dismissed it. Later. Possibly.

I guess we only know what we want to know

there is something about opposites that i love

gyan on the Natraj with reference to my blog title and previous blog.
source: http://www.hinduism.co.za/nataraj.htm
A strictly bounded body does not exist. Our roots go deep; we are anchored in the stars.
The biodance, the constant renewal of our body from the world outside, stands in playful contrast to our ordinary idea of death. We do not wait on death, for we are constantly returning to the earth while alive. Every living moment a portion of the billions of atoms in our body returns to the world outside. This constant streaming is so pronounced, so necessary for life, that the very notion of 'boundary' begins to appear as an arbitrary idea rather than a physical reality.
The dance of Shiva is considered an act of creation. It arouses dormant energies.This productive energy of the Absolute in its pristine strength represents the forces of evolution and involution, the appearance and disappearance of the universe.
Every aspect of life has two opposite entities. Deva is the divine principle and Bhuta is matter. Deva is light , truth and immortality; Bhuta is darkness, untruth and death. One is positive and the other is negative; one is life and the other is inertia. The cycle of life and death can only proceed when these two basic opposite forces, represented by the Devas and the Bhutas are finally reconciled. These two opposite principles are eternally in conflict (Daivasuram) but become reconciled in the body of Shiva. Their co-existence is expressed in the rhythm of Shiva's dance.
Natraj - the cosmic dancer - represents the constant biodance of life- creation, maintenance and transformation and indicates the perfect balance between life and death. Shiva's dance is the most inspiring and pragmatic act typifying the eternal rhythm which is the cause of the infinite creative process. Shiva is the presiding deity of the mind. The entire universe created by Shiva is his SHAKTI (Prakriti, or Nature) or energy. Shiva's dance movements represent the movement of his SHAKTI or energy.

opposites can be true

Another way to look at opposites reconciling is to know that whatever you think is the truth, the opposite might also be true. To this here is an extremely short video (2min) from ted.com. Have fun. Hope it explains my blog title a bit.