Writing Life and Life Writing

(pic from net. For representational purpose only)

I did not know where to go, where to turn and where to look. It was 2005. But inside me I knew that the place where I found myself was not the place where I was supposed to be forever. I also knew that there were some turns out of which one would help me to hit the right path. Ironically, I knew it for sure that there were places and people to look up to. But something was there that prevented me from taking the right and appropriate turn. Like many people of my age at that time, I was afraid of a disastrous future. The false sense of security, in whatever way it was seen and felt at that time, was extremely important or I felt so. Breaking free was difficult. Coming out of the system that had given me this sense of security looked like a remote chance yet it was so alluring that I could not have avoided looking at its face, even from a distance, at every other moment. It beckoned me from far, sometimes from very near. I could feel it’s breath on my face; it was that close. At other times it was like a mirage. The more I ran up to it with all my desire and force, the more it moved away, dazzling me with its possibilities. The pursuit was all the more frustrating. But I kept my momentum on, hoping against hope that one day I would catch it and free myself into it.

This feeling of uncertainty however, was not new. I had experienced it before; at every juncture of my life. Any human being, anywhere in the world, at some point faces this uncertainty, this helplessness and this inability to take a decision. Some of them come out of it sooner than later and some remain there. Yet another group of people keep going in and out of this feeling of uncertainty throughout their lives. They are some kind of epic characters, destined to fail and end their lives in tragedy. Perhaps, their lives look successful for others but in reality they know intimately and painfully that their life is a tragedy beyond definition. If they could talk about the tragedy, it would have alleviated them from the pain of living it. If they could arrive at a decision whenever such decisions were demanded they would have lived a peaceful life. But something perpetually haunts them and hunts them down. Most of the people prefer to find their paths by the age of thirty and even if they don’t, whatever path available is taken for a chosen one. It could be a routine one, still they make peace with it and move on. I have seen a lot of my friends doing it. One of them could have been a wonderful poet; but he became an advocate. One of them could have become an actor but he became a shop owner. One of them was really good at martial arts. But he became a contractor. Whenever I see them, I do not find any conflict in them. They have taken their paths quite naturally. But people like me are like Hamlet; characters caught between desire and duty, and determination and doubts. End of the day, such people lead a very painful life. But those lives, provided they register it for the posterity, might impart some experiences, if not lessons.

An artist is such an epic character with very few provisions to vivify himself or herself other than the chosen mediums that they have. Even if they have chosen their mediums, we cannot say that they have hit the right path or taken the right turn. At some point they feel that they are in the right path and soon they realize that the path that they have taken is not enough. A search for perpetual renewal is bound to happen then. Who is going to help them in finding the right path? They may be fifty years old or even seventy. But still they face the same issue. Have they been right all these while, despite all the success, fame and glory? A true artist is worried about his present stance because he is still sceptical about his creativity. He and his works may look quite resolved but still he is in throes which nobody could understand. The silent pain that such creative people undergo makes them ever fresh and meaningful, and their works reflect such freshness. Their immense experience could guide you but they would warn you that they have not yet found their right path. They will not warn you with words or works. They will warn you with a sort of kindness as well as indifference. If you don’t understand the artistic indifference of an apparently resolved creative person, you just don’t understand him or his works. I have seen many women, who look so resolved but still searching for the right path to come in front of them. Women artists could make wonderful art but they do not do it generally because they are afraid of hitting the right path even when it manifests right in front of them. I am not being judgemental here.

In 2005, when I was looking for the right direction or waiting for something to happen to me, the only medium through which I could free myself from the fear of insecurity was writing. Writing was a way of abandoning everything that I had; job, money and family security. When you write and write like a warrior you cannot be within a defined system. You have to get out there and write. When you are war with yourself and the system that has made you a slave, there cannot be any kindness, primarily not even unto yourself. You have to be utterly unkind and do things as if you were doing it for the first and last time in your life. When you do it for the first time you do not know what exactly or how exactly you are doing it. When you are doing it the last time and you know it that it is the last time and there is no final chance again, then you do it with finesse. So your writings have the freshness of beginner and the skill of a seasoned writer. I liberated myself, as I had done many times before that by just writing about my life. I wrote continuously for a few days and finished ninety pages. Once I finished those pages I thought how little my life had. When I read those pages I felt I was utterly insignificant. Knowing that insignificance was the only way to free myself forever, and I was sure that I would come to the same dead end again and again in future too. Then I just took the autobiography of a sex worker written in Malayalam and started translating it into English. Nobody asked me to do it. But that was the way I found for myself to free myself from routine and fear. Once I finished that translation, I heard that a major publication brought out the translation of the same book exactly after a week I finished my translation. I smiled at myself. But that was just a beginning. I was setting myself free before I became a slave several times later on. In the coming sections I will write about all those experiences of freeing myself through writing, translating and living a life in freedom at least in an inner zone where nobody binds me with any rules or regulations or conditions. Very few people could enter that space inside me, only if they could love me unconditionally, with love, care and respect. I invite only those people to read the following chapters.

When Restoring Order Fails a Movie of its Purpose: Reading Kunjanathante Kada

(Poster of Kunjanathan's Shop)

Mainstream films could be social critiques. But only problem with them is that they give quick fix solutions to any socio-political and even cultural issues within two hours. Often solutions (for whatever kind of problems) are given by/through the intervention of the superhuman male hero. He pits himself against either a group of villainous people or the state, and fights not only for his rights but also for the rights of the society. By the time we reach the final frame of the movie, after some blood spilling as well as chilling fights, the hero brings back social order for everybody’s happiness. We leave the theatre reassured thinking that everything is fine with our lives and an ideal system, which has been temporarily shaken by the ill deeds of the villains or the powerful, is restored. By such solutions, in fact the mainstream movies defer our ability to act and interact, lulling our creative and critical faculties through the transference of it to a super hero and his projected sense of righteousness and the superhuman abilities to fight for it single handed. Subtexts are so abundant in mainstream films that we cannot call them completely aimless. But instead of flagging out the issues and suggesting possibilities of feasible solutions and demanding realistic methods of resistance, they let the people to take away a false sense of comfort and satisfaction, which in turn assures the returning of the same audience when another issue is debated and packed solutions are handed out by the last reel. A Malayalam film, ‘Kunjanathante Kada’ (Kunjananthan’s Shop, 2013) directed by Salim Ahmad could have been a very powerful film had it not ended up in giving away quick fix solutions.

The issue that drives the ‘action’ of this movie is ‘development’. Vattippara is small village in North Kerala. Kunjanathan is one of the five shop keepers in the market junction there. Though they run these shops, technically and factually these small buildings do not belong to them. Nambiar, who is the owner of Kunjanathan’s shop, wants it to be sold but Kunjanathan does not budge as he has inherited the shop from his father. For him the shop is not just a means of income but it is what something that gives meaning to his existence. Kunjanathan cherishes fond memories about his father who used to run the same shop. Sitting on the same chair where his father used to sit gives him a sense of protection from all kinds of pressures of life including the once created by limited financial means and a nagging wife. Kunjanathan, after closing his shop at night before leaving for home, which is close by, pastes a few messages on a notice board and on some public walls. He believes that he is supposed to live in that village and die there without making any noise. And he finds some sort of happiness when he pastes these messages on the notice board. One day, officials from land acquisition department come to Vattippara and give eviction notice to the shop keepers. The land is acquired for making a four line road. Kunjanathan makes all efforts to stop this. He meets the heartless officers in vain. As a final effort he even starts a Hindu Temple in order to avert the arrival of development. But he faces a catastrophe when his son falls from a tree and the undeveloped road becomes an obstacle in taking the child to the hospital in town. He realizes his folly and breaks the building himself letting the four line road to happen in the village.

‘Kunjanathan’s Shop’ begins with a particular narrative style which is familiar to the audience. We have seen so many movies in late 1980s and early 1990s when films spoke the ambitions, aspirations and resistance of ordinary middle class and lower middle class people, who did not pick up guns from air and shot the villains and restored social order. The pre-globalized Indian audience identified immensely with these characters and the slow but jovial narrative pace of these movies as they thought they reflected their own lives. These movies, which were qualified as parallel movies dealt with so many issues and never suggested a quick solution to any of them, instead they focused on the weakness of the human beings and their efforts to gain strength at the face of adversities. The latest glimpses of such narratives were seen in Billu Barber (Kadha Parayumbol, Malayalam Original) and Peepli Live. Kunjanathante Kada also progresses in the same line often making the audience wonder whether this film was written by and for Srinivasan, who is an accomplished film maker and actor capable of sharp social criticism through films. Though Mammootty, a mellowed mega star of South without any star halo around him this time, looks like a miscast in the beginning soon finds his foothold in the earth of Vattippara. But the problem of the movie is not in its star cast or in its technical crew which has star technicians like Madhu Ambat (cinematographer) and Rasool Pookkutty (sound designer). The problem of the movie lies in the story line itself. The director starts off with the grand idea of making human resistance as the central theme of the movie but towards the end he accepts the idea of so called ‘development’ as suggested by the World Bank (for World Bank is supposed to fund this four line road) and makes the protagonists resistance so far a foolish act even unto himself and causes a change of mind.

Kunjananthan’s shop is the hub of the village life. Postman leaves letters for people there. Poor farmers take their provisions on credit from there. Kunjanathan is a means through which the village reaches out to farther lands as he has a public telephone in his shop. His married life faces problems due to disparity between his and his wife’s world views. She wants him to be a government servant but he is happy with his shop. Though they have two kids their sexual life has reached a dead end as they sleep in two different corners of the same room. She perpetually nags and finds her solace in chatting with ‘fake ids’ in Facebook. Kunjanathan however finds his happiness in speaking to himself at night or to a rat that lives in his shop. The director deals with several layers of social problems including the difference of opinion amongst people regarding the broadening of the road. Kunjanathan is not against development as he suggests a different route for bringing the same four line road in Vattippara. Kunjananthan’s voice is the voice of so many people who have been displaced by development assisted by the loans from World Bank. They all resist such incursions though most of them fail and some still find energy to withstand the pressures. Personal catastrophes do not prod them to yield their larger causes of resistance. In the film, however, Kunjanathan’s idea of resistance move from the realm of public need to the limited zone of selfish interest. When the film ends, people still speak of Kunjanathan’s shop and its relevance as the hub of the village life is reiterated but the audience are not privileged to see the new location of his shop. However, we are allowed to see the new four lane road and the increased and ‘easy’ flow of traffic.

The film maker somehow seems to believe that development is all about four lane roads and connectivity between places. That should be read as increased encroachment on village lands, farm lands and increased pace of real estate business and related industries. Four lane road also means displacement of people from their own lands, occupations and careers without feasible plans of rehabilitations. From the text of the film we could read out that Kunjanathan must have got a shop (obviously in a new concrete building) somewhere near the newly formed junction. At the same time, a major fallacy of the film’s text is that the real catastrophe that makes the protagonist to change his mind from resistance to selfishness is not addressed at all. Why was Kunjanathan forced to take his injured son to the nearest town for treatment? His injury, as the text suggests, is not that grave. It needs either first aid or a few stitches. But Vattippara does not have a hospital and that’s why they had to rush to a town and had to face a few road blocks on the way. Hence, the film, had it been a critique of development, should have addressed development as basic necessities for the village. When the land acquisition happens for developing a four lane road, not a single character, including Kunjanathan speaks a word against it nor do they highlight the need for a hospital. The film becomes retrogressive in this aspect and falls into the regular rut of quick solutions; here development in terms of road is necessary. And the order is restored by the imagined rehabilitation of the protagonist. Perhaps film festival circuits will laud this movie. But for a critical viewer, this film is a pretentious one and any Srinivasan film would have done a better job with the same theme.

What I tell them, when Old Gods Come begging for Justice

(pic courtesy The Hindu)

Your eyes do not see things narrow

Though they are not like mine

Your skin reflects the yellow of ripe rice fields

Your sighs speak the words of forests and hills

You come to me as a stranger’s smile

You linger on like the vision of a spirit

I see you there in the streets, in railway stations

Shopping malls, cinema halls and tea stalls

Music comes naturally to you and your gait

Straight jacketed guys can’t imitate

The spikes of your hair challenge

The arrogance of mainland, silently

And you, like a peacock dances

Under the clouds of hatred, in love

I call you names and you call me by my name

Defeating my ego with your polite knowledge

I can’t distinguish you from many

As you belong to the same dream

That we have failed to dream

Your sturdy legs have climbed hills

Your strong arms have embraced

The passions of rivers and forests

In your misty eyes I see mountain peaks

In your rhythmic voice I hear angels speak

Still when you are around I recoil with fear

Of my own lacks; the procession of my own ills

So I raise my fists at your face

Confront you with ugly words

Sometimes I rape you and sometimes I abuse

At times I leave a few scars on your body

And once in a while I just leave you dead

But how can you die, when your death

Speaks the history of my own meaninglessness?

The more I live the more you live too

You are the river that flows from south to north

From west to east, defying all logics

And then spread out all over from North East

I can see, in your anger and in your protest

The old tribal chiefs and gods manifest

One day, yes one day you are going to rule the world

Once again as in the days when trees walked

Snakes talked and stones menstruated

Let me promise, then I will be with you

Accept me, if not as your friend, at least as your servant. 

What Makes a Great Artist? And More Questions

One of my readers asks: “What makes a ‘great artist?’ Why Picasso’s or Vangogh’s doodles are greater than mine?” She further asks: Why mostly great artists become great posthumously? Why their living years are a prolonged period of struggle? Is art an elite discipline? How does one know the ‘value’ of a work of art? if there is any value, who has the control of it, the artist or the one who buys it?

These questions are not new. Hence the answers also cannot be new either. These questions have been asked by many artists and art lovers all over the world and many people have answered them adequately at various points of time, depending on their ideological leaning. If someone from the current generation still asks these questions, then we should understand that the answers given so far are not adequate enough or rather these questions beg for answers in the renewed and renewing contexts. If such questions persist and refuse to fade away, we should also think that they are relevant questions. Like the questioner does I too deem them important and pertinent I make this attempt to answer them in my own fashion.

First of all I would say all these questions arise from the myth that always develops parallel to the academically informed art history. Art history originates out of a historical need to understand, verify and assess the value of a work of art produced in a given point of time to which the art historian takes an added interest. There are various methodologies to write art history and it heavily depends upon chronicles, diaries and art critical/appreciative writings as its source materials. Hence, there is an inter-relationship between the source materials and the art history refined out of it. As art history being a part of the economic activities evolve around a work of art, it unintentionally becomes a vehicle to create economic values. Art history, when translated, transcribed and transformed for popular use, which is a pre-requisite for making art collections/museums/galleries economically relevant, assumes the form of stories and myths, which add immensely to the mystery around the works. A work of art with certain amount of exclusivity and mystery around it attracts more people to it thereby turning the location of the work of art in question economically and culturally alluring. This view is applicable in the case of artists too.

An artist, whose work could transcend the barriers of temporal times, and whose world view could represent symbolically the times yet to come despite its adherence to the contemporary aesthetics, socio-political and religio-economic realities of his/her times, becomes a great artist mainly through the double mediation of history and mystery/mythology. Greatness is relative as we cannot weigh both Da Vinci and Damien Hirst using the same scale. While Da Vinci’s greatness is time tested, Hirst’s greatness is temporally created. While Da Vinci’s art has a mystery around it, Hirst’s has a very recent history, which is closely related to the economic activities. Often, art history has a hagiographic part, which paints the life of the artist in extra-ordinary colours. Most of the artists including Picasso and Vangogh come to us today with this hagiographic halo around them. For the maintenance of ideological and economic dominance over other regions, the west also has a vested interest in renewing mythologies and histories pertaining to them and their art in order to keep them permanently great, therefore world cultural icons.

Vangogh and Picasso stand at the ends of the same spectrum. While the former was absolutely a ‘struggling’ artist during his life time, Picasso was a living legend and superstar. Important thing is that while they were doing their works, they were not thinking about their future greatness. They were simply doing their works because they were born to create works of art. But they knew their self worth as artists that’s why despite all materialistic and spiritual troubles they kept on doing their works. History behaves funnily at times; sometimes it finds the greatness of the artists during their life time itself and at other times, it recognizes posthumously. As I mentioned above, economic activities around an artist is the reason for the late or early arrival of history or mystery. The ideal and purist art history and the identification of greatness happen in a different realm of scholarship where the artists whom the world once considered as irrelevant become relevant therefore great. But the catch is once such disinterested greatness is identified by some disinterested historians soon it will be co-opted by the art industry for economic purposes. However, I would say that greatness of an artist is not based on how history treats him or her. On the contrary, many a great artist remains unknown in areas where art related economic activities are not so vigorous. So an art teacher in a rural area could be a great visionary unacknowledged by the mainstream history. Greatness is relative to many other factors.

When you are great, you don’t go out there in the street and say that you are great. You don’t even hold a card proclaiming your greatness. Your greatness as an artist and as a human being is identified by your fellow beings. Greatness, if there is a definition for it, is like fragrance to flower; they cannot be separated. Proximity reduces the gravity of greatness because you know the person. The moment the person dies, we see him/her in a detached sense and realize the greatness of that person. But considering the economic activities around a dead master, one could say that dead masters do not produce any more works of art which automatically renders the existing works rare and exclusive. Hence, dead gain greatness and the living struggle. But the struggle, thanks to the art history of the west, is understood as material struggle and anarchy. But the myth busters say that most of the artists whom we consider as the perennial struggles were in fact well off people who were living on others’ expenses, including Vangogh. But the aspect of struggle gives them a romantic aura; they will be automatically considered as the people who have eschewed the world for higher purposes. The anarchy comes from their inherent sense of freedom. True, but it is percolated to us as worth following examples. So, most of the people who enter in the art colleges convert themselves into the religion called struggle and anarchy. But the truth is material struggle has very little to do with artistic struggle.

Try singing or dancing. If you are not a singer or a dancer you fail. But you are an aspirant. You keep trying. Here, the struggle that you undertake to become a dancer or a singer is the artistic struggle. It has a lot to do with finding the right rhythm and pace; it has a lot to do with injecting soul to your voice and movement. For a visual artist, finding a language of his own, or modifying the existing one to his satisfaction and developing on that is his/her real struggle. Find an internal balance with the expressive faculties and expression is the real struggle. Becoming one with the process of creativity is the struggle; it needs observation, study, practice and more practice. Once you achieve this rhythm, your intention and image become one and the same. Then the struggling period is over for you. But that does not assure you a period of greatness. You have achieved your rhythm and it is your freedom. Once you achieve that kind of freedom you could use any material, any medium and any idea which have found a place in your heart. Material struggle is an eyewash; it is the refuge of the lazy. Like any other human being, given no other chance, artists also would look for their food, security and comfort. That does not make you different or exceptional from other human beings.

Art is not anybody’s property. Anybody could be an artist. I should add that anybody who has inclination, talent and devotion could become an artist. Only because Joseph Beuys had said that anybody could be an artist, you need not rush to become one. Art could be cultivated by rich and poor alike. There was a time when most of the artists came from artisanal classes, though it was not a rule. Some people are genuinely talented and their class affiliations do not matter in them becoming an artist. There was a time when there used to be artists and patrons. Today, patrons themselves and their children do art, taking art to a different zone of experiences and expressions. I would say that though it is not bad, it has created some sort of imbalance in the arena of aesthetic creation, proliferation and consumption. To answer the final question, I would say that an artist knows the value of his works. But it is not the monetary value. Monetary value is created by others and the artists follow the rule only because they need to adjust to the market realities. It is neither a good nor a bad thing because this is the way things are. But the value remains even if an artist’s works remain unsold throughout his life. That value may or may not become monetary value. One cannot complaint.

Recognizing your Natural Flow: Answering a few questions raised by a reader

What if meditation is an act of self reflection, an act of remembering and acknowledging the self?

What would be the extent of importance of TECHNIQUE in art? How can the artist know/accept/realize that s/he is an artist?

After reading my blog entry titled, ‘Praying and Meditating are Waste of Time’, one of my readers asks the questions quoted above. Before I take up those questions one by one to answer or explain my stance, let me briefly tell you what I have said in that blog entry. I said, praying and meditations are waste of time. People adopt various ways to pray and meditate. I have seen people silently standing in front of idol/s and praying for something or just trying to calm themselves down. I have also seen people reading from scriptures. Some people do yoga in order to keep themselves physically fit or mentally focused. These are various techniques that one applies to achieve certain objectives; here it is calmness and happiness. In spiritual terms one could say that people pray and meditate to achieve the state of bliss. Or they do it to realize their selves. Yet another way we could put it as a way to annihilate ego and become one with the eternal soul. Whatever be the case, praying and meditating pre-supposes a search therefore a fair amount of troubled thinking. Some people pray for the wellness of their being and that of others. That itself shows that something has gone wrong with their wellness or that of the others. If they are already well, then they are becoming a bit ambitious by asking for more. Some people do yoga to become one with the universal soul or physical fitness. That itself shows that they are not one with the world or they are not physically fit. Considering this pre-given condition, to which most of the people are bound, we could say that as techniques, praying and meditation are good. But the question that I raised in the article was about the lacuna between the acts of praying and meditation and the desired results. Had praying and meditation been effective, at least those number of people who have prayed enough and meditated enough would have stopped doing it. Once you achieve calmness, bliss, well being, then what is the point of meditating and praying. If you are continuing with it, then I would say such states are temporary because they do not give any permanent solutions to any of the human problems. If praying and meditating are temporary solutions then there are several ways of achieving such kind of temporary solutions; drinking alcohol, smoking weed, injecting hallucinogens, watching television, swimming, eating, having sex to name a few everything is a temporary solution to the existing problems. What I suggest in my article is simple thing; just do what you are good at. That is the ultimate form of praying or meditating. And that is the only way to be natural. That is the only way to be one with the universal soul. And that is the ultimate way to be free of all the worldly woes.

The reader asks, why can’t we consider prayer or meditation as self-reflection? If you are really serious about doing some self-reflection, in my opinion, you do not need any materialistic conditions to do so. You could do self-reflecting while cooking, eating, bathing, walking, while decking up yourself at the dressing table, in a train, bus or right in the middle of a street. Self-reflection is one thing that you could do with any other mediation or situation or condition. What you need to do is to become silent and delve deep into what you are or what you are doing. You can be silent while walking, cooking or cycling or while doing any other deed. But never ask yourself what happens to yourself when you are silent. The moment you ask this question you start speaking to yourself. The moment you speak to yourself so many things you tend to tell to your own self. Then you will be filled with silent noises. These silent noises are called thoughts. But how can you be silent without being self-conscious? For that thinking itself should cease. But if you deliberately try to kill your thinking, you would be violating your own naturalness. So the best way to be silent is to let the thoughts flow till they flow out and become dry of thoughts. When you let the thoughts drain out themselves you will know about yourself completely and you will be become light and free of burdens. But the moment you try to stop your thinking and meditate upon your process of thinking, then you are lost. Externally you may be silent but internally you will be crowded by noises and voices. The best way to self reflect is to let the thoughts pass through you, in you and around you. You will not even come to know when they have gone out. Once you are thoughtless (because most of the thoughts are useless) you are clear about yourself. Again I am telling you, to be in that state of thoughtlessness, you need not go to a temple or church or mosque. You can be doing your daily chores and still be silent and self reflecting. But one condition, the moment you feel or think or take pride in the fact that you are self reflecting, you are lost. You are again back in the crowd.

The reader asks further, can’t it be an act of remembering? Remembering is a forced act. The opposite of it is being aware. When you are aware you need not remember. Any human being who has lived on this earth for a few years is expected to ‘remember’ certain things. Remembering is an act against forgetting. But if you are forgetting certain things those must be insignificant things that have not got registered in your memory. Then why remember them? My contention in the article was that you know only what you know. Similarly you can remember only that you know. If you know well you need not remember. If you have forgotten or if you don’t know, even if you try your best you do not remember. Most of the people remember things through associations. When you see someone in the street, suddenly you remember your friend because that person looks faintly like your friend. But you remember your friend because you know him/her. If you don’t have a friend like that you don’t remember him/her at all. In some other cases you get a feeling that you know the place, person or even you have gone through the similar situation once; it is called déjà vu. It is a sense of mirroring the situation with so many similar situations that makes you feel not remember things in that way. Remembrance cannot be avoided. But you can remember only the things that you know. You cannot conjure up memories that you don’t have. If you do, you are lying to yourself. Prayer cannot be remembering; prayer can only be an act of expressing gratitude. For expressing your gratitude you don’t need to be in particular place or ambience. Your life itself could be an act of expressing gratitude to yourself and to the world in which you live.

The reader asks again: Can’t it be acknowledging the self? The idea of self that exists elsewhere or inside one’s body is an illusionary notion. Self is not separated from what you are. The rest is imagination. Self is not situated inside your body nor it is your body nor it is outside your body. Self is a totality and some people define it with body, some with soul and some with so many other romantic notions. But for me self is something that is integral to your being. When you live your life, that is the way you manifest your self. You cannot realize your self inside or outside your physical body and behave differently as a body. Your self is expressed in your action and your way of life. You cannot detach yourself from what you are. You could be a government clerk and at the same time you could be poet or painter too. But your self is not that of painter or poet because it is better than being a clerk. You are your self when your poetic sensibilities are expressed even when you are clerk or vice versa. There is no problem in being a clerk. But if you are bound by the clerk-ness of a clerk you do not realize or recognize yourself. You will be in perpetual pain. If you are a poet, you have to live the life of a poet. The clerkness cannot dominate your poetic life. Or when you are a clerk you cannot be overpowered by your poet-ness. It will put you into trouble. But your self is a totality, then you behave like a natural human being, who is kind, caring, loving and beyond any kind of corruptions. Then you do not need to sit praying or meditating. Whatever you do would make you feel you as a self and it will take you to your happiness.

Now the second part of the question does not have anything to do with the first part, apparently. However, I could see that this second part is also is an extension of the first part. The second part raises a question: What is importance of technique in art? Ask the same question in relation with the first part of the question. What is the importance of praying or meditating methods with the realization of self or bliss or other blah blah? Doing yoga is a technique to achieve something beyond that. So if someone stresses on yogic postures, it becomes a physical exercise. It will not take you to the so called realization of the self. If someone reads a prayer book for going near to God or anything like that, it is understandable. But if someone insists that reading scriptures is the only way to reach god then it becomes fundamentalism. Art is an expression of the human being that gives meaning to his existence. Most of the people express themselves in many different ways. They all use different mediums to express themselves. Each medium, over a period of time becomes traditional either because of overuse, or because it has gone beyond any kind of experimentation. Or else it has become too familiar to be called different. Mediums help artists to find a form. Form is the basic structure of expressions. Mediums help the artist to build the form either in two dimensional or three dimensional ways. In digital works or virtual works, software plays the role of the medium. Or even computer and other hardware become the medium in themselves. They are considered to be cutting edge mediums because they are no longer familiarized by over use or gone beyond experimentations. Possibilities are still abundant in those mediums. But if someone just revels in medium, then his expressions are going to be stale. Because an expression cannot be bound by a medium. When an expression goes beyond the medium, even while using it, it becomes art. When yoga practitioners go beyond the yogic postures they become yogis. Otherwise they remain gym instructors on a yoga mat with a different pack of words to qualify their practice.

German artist, Joseph Beuys once said that anybody could be an artist. Osho Rajneesh once said that anybody who does anything with a sense of involvement and rhythm becomes an artist. In that sense, in this world many people are artists and so many people are not. An artist becomes an artist when he/she comes to know that he/she cannot express himself or herself in any other way. Human beings have a lot of choices before them. They can become engineers, doctors, magicians, writers, runners, boxers, accountants, chefs, businessmen, property dealers, artists, singers, dancers and what not. The choices are too many. Out of that some people chooses to be painters, some become musicians, some become doctors, some become software engineers, some become yoga instructors. But anybody who does with utter devotion to what one does and to oneself, and feel that he/she cannot do anything other than that within the given context of too many choices, that person becomes an artist. A surgeon could be a great artist of human mechanism.  A motor cycle mechanic could be a wonderful artist in the field of mechanism of motor cycles, even he could be zen master, as they say. So there is no moment of realization for an artist to become an artist. He/she comes to know about it as a natural flow. Anybody who becomes artist by force or out of forced choice will not go too long in the journey of art. Being an artist is being in the natural flow of living. Nothing can stop it. Due to circumstances you may become a tandoori roti maker in a wayside daba. But if you are an artist there too you will make your tandoori rotis artistically because that is the natural flow of your life. Recognizing the natural flow is the most important thing to be an artist. But again, to know your natural flow, you need not sit in meditation or prayer. You just need to do what you are doing. 

Re-Reading Sholay as a Possibility of People’s Revolution

(Yeh haath mujhe de de thakur...nahinn...One pivotal scene from Sholay)

In 3D, the cult film, ‘Sholay’ (1975) feel like a ‘travel through a hologram postcard’. In digital manipulation, iconic figures become a bit lesser than their demi-god status. The crowd that has come to see the movie again in 2014, exactly after forty years of its making, is comprised of the generation of people who had grown up Sholay and the youngest ones like four year olds who have seen the film’s promo in television channels and have fallen instantly in love with the characters, especially ‘Gabbar Singh’, the dacoit who has been immortalized by the legendary actor, late Amjad Khan. ‘.. ke yahan se pachas pachas kos door gaon mein jab baccha rota hai toy Maa kehti hai..beta soja ..soja nahi toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega.. ’ (When kids throw tantrums in village, their mother tell them, Gabbar would come). And kids go silent, says Gabbar in one of the scenes. Children (who have seen more menacing characters than Gabbar in various other movies) still cringe at the sight of Gabbar on screen. For the grownups sighting Gabbar is a moment of nostalgia. What is that in those dialogues mouthed by various characters in Sholay that make even the kids of today repeat them with glee? None tells them to do so. The dialogues get into their blood stream automatically, like the myths, fables and folktales that they listen during their bed time. There is something in those dialogues written by Salim-Javed duo that transcends the apparent and takes them beyond feeling and imagination. Sholay has become a part of our consciousness. Various film institutes both in India and abroad still discuss the script of Sholay as a part of their curriculum. Some say it is a rugged movie done in the western cowboy movie style. Some say it is a movie inspired by Seven Samurais by Akira Kurosawa. But westerns are eminently forgettable. Seven Samurais, though capture the anger and passion of hired soldiers, it falls into comical depths at times. Sholay grips the viewer by force and it remains.

Noted film critic, Anupama Chopra, in her book, Sholay- The Making of a Classic (2000), gives a detailed narrative of how this movie was made in a remote Karnataka village, where the director Ramesh Sippy had found an adequate location for the ravines in the imaginary Ramgarh where the story of Sholay unfolded. Ramgarh is not a South Indian village. It is a nowhere place somewhere in the North. The closest allusion could be of Chambal Ravines in Madhya Pradesh where the famous dacoits of our modern times lived. But Ramgarh is a nowhere place, like Marquez’ Macondo, a magical realist place where anybody could exercise their imagination within the limited but sufficient economics of the place. For a movie that deals with the fight between good and bad, and the ultimate victory of good over bad with some kind of sacrifices on good’s part, a nowhere place is not a new thing. Except for those Bollywood movies that revel in the idea of city, struggle and success, most of the Bollywood staples have nowhere places as the ‘locale’ of the narrative. But Ramgarh becomes exceptional because in the movie the presence of city is nearly ruled out or even its presence is almost co-opted. Seen in this perspective, we could say that Sholay’s success lies in the national imagination as a part of its reclamation of a dream; the dream of/about an autonomous nation state devoid of colonial incursions and the ensuing slavery.

How does this reclamation happen in Sholay? Or to put in other words, why does that reclamation become absolutely necessary for the Indian population that looks for solutions from a depleting socio-political and cultural situation? Talking about the collapse of the grand Nehruvian dream might not help us here much. After Nehru’s time, India had regained its national pride through some strategic wars in the east; liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan and checking China from further incursions. Indira Gandhi was on the move. With carefully planned political strategies, she became the Prime Minister of India. Her younger son Sanjay Gandhi, like an autocrat with extra constitutional powers was trying to make India/Delhi a beautiful place through industrialization and beautification. In this process, with the collapse of the agrarian economy people were moving from the villages to cities, looking for jobs and better opportunities. Gram Swaraj (autonomous village economy), as imagined and upto an extent practiced by Mahatma Gandhi was not delivering anymore. While cities were shown as the places of hope, therefore a destination, villages were shown as the places of utter abjection. The hope that ‘Mother India’ (1957) had given to people through a single woman’s struggle against the male dominated system, was already gone. Perhaps, people saw a mother in India Gandhi (elevation of her image from being a goongi gudiya, silent doll to an aggressive mother proves it) and for a few years they invested all the hope in her. Despite the five year plans and five and twenty point plans of Indira Gandhi villages were losing out to the cities. The exodus was already on and it still continues. But in late 1960s and early 70s, villages were still a possible alternative though the possibilities had been killed at every juncture. It is in this context Sholay takes place; definitely in a village called Ramgarh.

Prof.Vinaylal, who has extensively studied the cultural and socio-political nuances of ‘Deewar’ (1975) observes that pavement is an important metaphor in this transitional phase of demographic shifts (from villages to cities). Pavement is another nowhere place, between the sheltered and comfortable places of living and exercising of power, and the road that makes the movement of this power possible. The villagers who abandon their natural environs come to a city and settle in this in between zone. Unlike the romantic hopes expressed by Raj Kapoor in his movies, though his domain is road/pavement, these villagers do not get easy access to buildings where comfortable living and exercising of power is possible. Most of the time, for Raj Kapoor and the later heroes, the movement from pavement to power is through the agencies of state, women and crime. In Deewar, Shashi Kapoor moves to comfort and power through the state as he becomes a police officer. Amitabh Bacchan moves to power through crime. And both of them take a good look at the pavement from where they came to their present positions. In Raj Kapoor movies, the agency is often through women, as the hero is a permanent outcaste. His good nature is not accepted by the powerful society so he has to exercise his darker sides to survive in the pavement/road. Only through a compassionate agency could identify and understand the good sap that flows behind the troubled waves of his exterior behaviour. In a sense, the nowhereness of pavement becomes a possibility in most of the film narratives of the time. The only catch is either you have to become a part of the state which has pushed you out of your village (that is a grand compromise) or you have to move against the state through crime. In most of the cases, state co-opts the criminal as he is perennially good and accommodates him within the structure. If he cannot be accommodated in this way considering his past deeds to move from the pavement to power, he is easily killed in an encounter, either by mother (then the killing is justified as a godly intervention) or by brother (he protects larger interest as he is already a representative of the state) of by the state itself (through police). In Sholay, this familiar structure is broken.

If in other films of that time, the villagers were moving from villages to city, in Sholay, the city moves to a village. And the pivot of pavement is completely abandoned in its narrative. In one of the story establishing shots, what we see is a completely autonomous village; with its cobblers, farmers, blacksmiths, priests, temple, water tank, irrigation facilities, storages and so on. Everyone is completely happy in doing their allotted/inherited roles. There is no police station or school directly shown in Ramgarh, not even a hospital. I would say that it is a very deliberate erasure of the ideological state apparatuses (as Althusser sees these structures) therefore the erasure of the state. This nowhere place lies outside the larger economics of a nation state, and shows a possibility and extension of Gram swaraj. In this village, the presence of the state, if at all it is faintly there, is shown as a failed state in the image of Thakur Baldev Singh, the police officer, portrayed by Sanjeev Kumar. His hands have been cut off Gabbar Singh. That means the state has already been rendered useless here. To bring order one has to get some agencies that operates outside the state and its rules. So in Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bacchan respectively) we have two jail birds, who are taken out of the jail to wreck revenge upon Gabbar. Interestingly, here the roles are reversed. Gabbar becomes the state, which is ruthless, taxing and making unusual demands from its subjects. Gabbar exactly does what the state of 1960s and 70s was doing to its people. So, in Sholay, if at all there is a villain, that is state. So shall we see two guerrillas in Veeru and Jai as we had seen two revolutionary fighters in Fidel Castro and Che Guvera?

In retrospection, we have all the reasons to see a Fidel and Che in Veeru and Jai. Veeru is aggressive and playful like Fidel is. Jai is moody and romantic like Che. They come from the city as their clothes show. They wear denim jeans, shirt and jacket. Even the colour coding is very striking; Veeru wears dark blue and Jai wears light blue. They are the two sides of one and the same principle; revolution. The symbolism becomes all the more poignant and important when we see the coin that Jai uses to decide on things by flipping it in the air, has only head on either side. That means they are not Veeru and Jai as two different people; they are the two sides of the same person, who has decided to operate himself out of the state; Thakur. The song ‘Yeh dosti hum nahin todenge’ (we will not abandon this friendship) accentuates this symbolism further. Sholay’s revolutionary edge gives it the evergreen cultic status because people of all time including the four year olds cherish the ingrained idea of change, the revolution. And when a film shows that it does not operate from the limbo of the pavement but from the definitive space of anti-state or out of the state, their presence becomes all the more appealing. Because they are the breakers of all kinds of rules and regulations. While singing the song about friendship they wreck havoc on the pedestrians. Initially, when they come to become the foot soldiers of Thakur, they expect money in return as they do not feel any commitment towards Thakur; once again reiterating their status as people with no roots, no commitment but people who live freedom and change. But the moment they understand the scenario, they even return the money, a possible medium that connects them with the state. They are now absolutely free agencies of Thakur, who has pushed him out of the state. They become the friendly aliens in the village. When they are not on job, they just play fools.

For the time of its making and its release, Sholay is very much a revolutionary film. Veeru and Jai have Eros as their guiding spirit. Veeru falls in and out of love with any woman whom he comes across. Finally, he meets Basanti (Hema Malini), the tonga-wali in the village, then he is hooked up. But Jai says that this too is a passing fancy. Even if in the last scene of the movie, we see Basanti is waiting for Veeru to take her along with him, the very aspect that Veeru does not given any importance to the institutions of the state, including marriage, must have been a very fascinating therefore liberal and revolutionary idea for the audience of that time. This freakish character is counterbalanced by Jai’s silent romance with the widow enacted by Jaya Bhaduri (later Jaya Bacchan). He is calm and silent and he does not demand anything from the girl other than a few glances. Finally, Jai too decides to marry her though providence does not allow him to do so. Interestingly, marrying a widow by a heroic character was scandalous at that time and the rule of the land was kept intact by killing Jai in the encounter with the thugs, but still the possibility of widow marriage too looks quite revolutionary for the time. There is no running around trees, there is no singing of songs; what exists between Jai and the widow is a wailing note of harmonica that he plays. Like she puts down her passion for him, she every day enacts the ritual of turning off the lanterns.

Good finally wins over the evil. The anti-state agency kills the state and restores an autonomous village economy. Considering the time of its release, we can see that Sholay got a wonderful response from the people because it was the time of Political Emergency in India declared by Indira Gandhi. In one go, it decimates all the rules of the state and shows that the village economy and the idyllic life is possible. Sholay, in a way demands political decentralization but it also says that it can come only through tragedy. A revolution takes place through a series of tragedy and only those people who can see things in perspective from outside the system could alleviate it from all the woes. Anupama Chopra tells us that when it was released, Sholay was a big flop. The prints were pulled out of the theatres for a second cut in order to reduce the length of the movie. But within a week’s time, people started talking about Gabbar, Veeru and Jai. Basanti talked her way into the heart of the people. The viewers knew that something was happening to them while watching the movie but they did not know how to articulate it. It was not just cathartic. It was a thing to live on with. Sholay showed the possibilities outside the state and Sholay established the fact that freedom was possible.

Today, when I see it again, perhaps fifth or sixth time, I can feel how each frame made sense to people at that time. In the opening shots, when the dacoits follow the train and the shootout takes place, horses with no riders on their saddle madly run along with the train. It is one of the classic shots in the movie. The total annihilation of Thakur’s family is one sequence that has made its mark through freeze shots and abrupt cuts. Sequences and frames have international classical movies without copying any of the shots from them. Sholay is an eminently inspired movie. From Bustor Keaton to D.W.Griffit to Bergman to Kurosawa to John Ford to Chaplin to Clint Eastwood, every possible inspiration is taken into the making of Sholay. But they do not stick out from the movie. Sholay, pays tribute to the whole idea of ‘moving pictures’ by introducing the famous train shot as one of the first moving pictures in the history was about/of a train coming to the station. Interestingly, Sholay has become point of reference for so many Bollywood movies. In Karan Arjun made exactly after twenty years of Sholay, almost imitates the cult movie in story line and frame division. But still Sholay remains Sholay. To conclude, I would say, Sholay has become a cult film not just because it has the right ingredients but because it shows an alternative, a reversal of games and the possibility of a revolution. For the young generation, it is the fascination with a myth. Sholay is not just a movie but a culture.

Wayside Tea Seller, Crows and the Lessons on Unconditional Love

(Wayside tea seller - image for representational purpose only)

From a walk I come to this wayside tea stall. The stove is already lit and a kettle hisses on it. A husband and wife, unbeaten by the hardships of life, enthusiastically do their chores. I observe the paraphernalia of their business; a few aluminium vessels, tea making devices, a small wooden cupboard and a little cash box. A bench made out of several pieces of abandoned wood is kept by the side of the trolley on which these utensils are kept. It is has a canopy over it. Though the concept is of moving it to their living place once the day comes to an end, most of such trolley-based stalls are more or less permanent on the pavements of any city in India. They are moved only when the policemen ask their owners to do so. Cities, despite their harshness towards the economically deprived, have developed some sort of kindness to accommodate the poor sections. Perhaps, policemen take their weekly bribe from them, some pittance or a few rounds of free tea, a free shave, a free meal and a bunch of free fruits when money becomes too dear to be transacted. The city is on its wheels, always rolling, hardly resting. But these wheeled stalls on the pavement never moves; they witness the movement out there on the roads. Life passes by, in varying colours and paces. But these wayside survivors remain there, without changing the course of their lives much though they wish it to change proportionately with the changes happening before them. Then they slowly find happiness in their existence. That’s why unlike the rich and obscene, powerful and health conscious on the joggers’ park, these people do not talk much about money. This couple who runs this tea stall does not talk about money. My Bengali is very poor still I could gather their conversation and make sense out of it. They talk about computer education; they are talking about their son’s education.

Sitting on the wooden bench I look at the road with all intention to overhear the conversation of this couple. But they stop talking. I ask for a cup of tea. Surprisingly, nobody has come to the stall to have a cup of tea so far. Am I too early or too late, I ask myself. But the lady, who looks like the thinner version of a Laxma Goud character with a rustic sense of charm about carrying herself, takes an small earthen tumbler, which is called a ‘kullad’ in India and pours hot tea from the kettle. The smallness of the tumbler makes you to give and take it with some kind of a body language (perhaps, added by the hotness of the liquid which has been poured into it right then) that resembles reverence. I understand it as reverence only. You are filled with some sort of strange gratitude to anyone who gives you a cup of tea like this. I realise that in your hotel room, or in the restaurant or an upmarket coffee stall, you do not receive a cup of coffee or tea like that. You show your arrogance; you are paying a lot of money for showing off your self-importance. You can be absent minded when you open the packet of brown sugar and transfer its content to the shiny porcelain cup in front of you with a smile etched with cream by the unsmiling boy at the counter. You can look at your lap top screen and jab away digits and letters into it. You can read a magazine or newspaper. Or even you can have huge decisions in your life over a cup of coffee, with no reverence towards it. But in wayside stalls your body turns into an expression of gratitude. I realize it with a smile. I sit firmly on that wooden bench, which is a collage of refuses.

Silently I sip at the kullad. The feeling is intense. First, the dryness of baked clay touches your lips. Your lips are already dry. You feel earth, provided if you have ever felt earth in that fashion. If you have memories, you go into reveries where you see a lump of clay on a wheel, turning into a small cup, fingers of an unknown man, child or woman picking it up from the wheel while it is still circling, with trained fingers. They are coarse but still look at the dexterity with which they pick up the supple clay. He keeps it on his side. Someone picks it up with a lot of care and beat the bottom of it with a paddle. Someone else comes and takes it to the sunlight where thousands of such clay cups are drying. Then faceless people come, they pick the dried ones and stack it up elsewhere. When a huge number is ready in this fashion, a few people carry them to rustic kilns where they fire it. When the fire embraces the earth, water content in it goes out as vapours. From their earthy brown and grey, they turn into fiery red. Later the fire is killed. The cups are taken out. From the potters’ basti, they travel by different modes, carried off carefully and reverently by unknown people to various parts of the country, where unknown people like me sit at the way side and kiss them with reverence. Hot tea, then touches your lips. You could hear a silent hissing at the edges of the cup and at your lips. It gives a jolt in your brain. The tea does not taste like the teas that you have already tasted in your life. It is different because the tea maker is different. You are drinking a part of the tea maker’s life. The tea has his or her story in it. It is hot and it is different.

The man at the stall opens a fresh packet of bread with no brand name etched on the cover. He rips off the polythene cover, takes a plate crumbles the bread into more or less identical pieces and adds some curry to it from another vessel and mixes it with his fingers as he talks to his wife in a tone which oscillates between wailing and hope. I think about him eating the mix of bread and curry as his breakfast. But he walks past me and goes to the iron railings that part the pavement from the road. All the railings, road dividers, public walls and all possible surfaces that are owned by the public sector undertakings are painted in a faint blue and white. Kolkata is slowly turning into a city of blue and white stripes. Like the colour coded cities all over the world, Kolkata slowly assumes the colour of blue and white. You think about it. What could be the reason for such a government decision? In South I have seen most of the temple cities have brown/red/saffron and white stripes all over the places. That connotes the presence of religious establishments there. It is a great feel to see a temple pond reflecting the red and white stripes on the walls around it with the shiny gopurams inhabited by innumerable images of gods and goddesses. This reflection is the inverted sight of the world around. It puts the world in perspective; part real and part illusion. But in Kolkata you don’t see such reflected images of the world. The more I think about the logic of blue and white stripes the more I come to think of the white saree and the blue border of it worn by late Mother Theresa and her flock of sisters. Mother Theresa had adopted this city and alleviated many from their destitution. She wore white saree with blue borders. But my friend tells me another story. West Bengal whose capital is Kolkata is ruled by Trinamool Congress led by Mamta Banerjee, a strong leader who came up from the roots but turned into a corrupt autocrat. She too wears cotton sarees, to emphasis her humble origins. But the information given to me is a bit shocking. Someone from the ruling party runs a paint company and all the paint for turning the city into blue and white stripes come from his company. When the man goes to the railings with the plate of crumbled bread in hands, I think about the man who runs a paint company.

The tea stall man puts the bread crumbles there at the pavement and walks back to the stall. I ask for one more cup of tea and the woman pours it into the same kullad that I hold before her with some sort of unintentional reverence. I come back to the bench, rather a local constructivist collage (I cannot help mentioning it) and once again sip at the cup. This time memories do not flow. I have come to terms with the memories. But I watch the theatre of life unfolding before me. Tens of crows come down from the nearby trees. They have been sitting there all the time, which I have not noticed before. I had seen them, while walking at the lakeside, right in the middle of the lake, on a leafless tree with each branch filled up with crows as if they were black flames from a surreal lamp in the shape of a tree. These crows clean the place within a few minutes. They do not fight each other. They wait for their turn. These crows look healthy and they all have shiny black feathers. They do not make too many sounds. After having their breakfast they fly away. What surprises me is the attitude of both the crows and the man. They do not go to the man to say thanks. The man does not even look at the crows once, expecting some kind of gratitude. Perhaps, it is daily ritual. They are already bonded in an invisible thread of selfless love; unconditional love.

Love is a problematic word. I consider it as a linguistic problem. As there are not too many words to express the human bonding filled with kindness, care and gratitude, we all use the word love. From parental love to the love talk of spiritual gurus, from lovers bonding to city planners’ caring for the city, for anything and everything we have only this insufficient word, love. But it has become a powerful word of its own merits and rights. It is perhaps one word that has not lost its charm after all these ages of overuse and misuse. The adjective ‘unconditional’ makes it further problematic. Most of the people develop relationships with the others on conditions. When people get married they take vows of marriage; these vows are conditions. When attend spiritual sessions, we follow certain conditions. When we love our pets we expect certain returns from them; another set of conditions. We are full of conditions. We do something for the world because we expect certain things in return; name or fame or fortune. If we are not getting it, we leave it there. We carry conditions and norms along with us. The most ironic thing is that the more we talk about love the more we think about conditions and returns. People say that their love for god is unconditional. If it is unconditional why people carry offerings to the god and ask for so many things. It is not unconditional love. It is bribing and asking for favours. People say that god loves everyone unconditionally. As we do not know whether god is out there or not, we cannot believe in his/her unconditional love either. There are interesting stories about the unconditional love. For example, a man went to god and complained that when he was in his happy days, he could see two pairs of foot prints wherever he went; of his and the gods. But when he was lonely, tired and was in trouble, he could not see two pairs. Whatever he saw was one pair of foot prints. God smiled and told him; Look, in those days I was carrying you on my shoulders. It is good to listen to stories. But this footprint story is all about making you feel good.

Unconditional love exists in rare areas of human relationship. Whether you accept it or not, the biggest and strongest form of unconditional love exists in self love. You cannot love anybody else unconditionally than yourself. The more you love your own self unconditionally the more you could love other unconditionally. How can you put conditions on your own self? How can you go to a gym and tell your right hand secretly that ‘look man, I am going to give you some extra pushes today because you are more useful than the left one.’ We do not do it. The supreme kind of unconditional love is there in self love. I am not talking about selfishness. Selfishness is conditional. You love yourself and use others and relationships for your means and ends; that is selfishness. Self love is all about taking care of yourself without expecting anything in return. How can you punish yourself because you are angry with your face or stomach? If people are doing it, they are all the victims of perverted thinking not only on an individual level but also on a collective and societal level. If you love yourself unconditionally and your being is so aware of that then you could love others also unconditionally. That’s why sports people who makes the greatest physical efforts to make themselves fit and competitive (not with life but with other sports people within the given competitive fields) generally do not hurt others. They know the pain that they have taken to perfect themselves. How can they ruin others? If someone does it, then they do not love themselves. They are driven by the passions of revenge and hatred. You cannot destroy anybody if you love yourself. Hatred comes from self hating. If you love yourself unconditionally, you will love everyone unconditionally. If you are not loving anything and anybody unconditionally, the inference is simple; you are not loving you unconditionally.

The only relationship in which people behave and love unconditionally is parental love. But let me tell you, this too is a false belief. Children are brought in this world by parents. So they take it up as their duty to love them unconditionally. But this unconditional love happens only within a given context. When things are good or threatening, parents love their children unconditionally. When parents themselves are troubled, they just do not love their children unconditionally. They, then deliver their duties. Think about parents who beat up their children ruthlessly. Why do they do that? Is it because of unconditional love? I do not think so. It comes from self hate. We give education to children thinking that they would bring us the returns. If we are just educating them to be full blown individuals we will not think about their future. We will think about their present and will be absolutely happy about it. But most of us think about the future of the children. When we do it, we are just investing in their as well as our future. They will have a secured life, which will automatically give us a secured and safe happy life in future. And we call it unconditional love. But fortunately, we do a lot of things towards unconditional love when it comes to our behaviour towards our children. We feed them before we feed ourselves. We try to give them the best clothes. We try to keep them happy. We try to do whatever they ask us to do. But remember, whenever we oblige our kids, we are actually showing love towards ourselves. When we pamper our kids we pamper the kids in us. We love ourselves so much and in our love for our children that love gets expressed.

I can tell you for sure that unconditional love stems only from self love. The more you love yourself the more you could love others. The more you care for yourself the more you care for others. The more you avoid rules and regulations for yourself the more you bring down the barricades that you have set up for others. Self loving is a way to deliverance and freedom. I am not talking about deliverance to moksha and such romantic things. I am talking deliverance in terms of happiness. Freedom brings you happiness and freedom comes when you love yourself unconditionally and love others unconditionally. Otherwise you will remain as a bonded slave to your selfishness and hatred. However we qualify our love for nature or kids or ideology or anything, if we are looking for returns it is conditional; it is not unconditional. The man who spreads out bread crumbs before the crows shows unconditional love for them. And for whatever reasons he does it, it comes from the love he has for himself. He knows hunger so he knows the hunger of the crows. He knows what quenches his thirst and hunger so he gives the same to the crows. Unconditional love happens when you are free. A way side tea seller is a better guide than a guru who misguides you for profit.