Bergman

There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.

Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died without being more or less important than other artisans; 'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility. Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of artistic creation.

The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering each other to death. The individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the existence of each other.
We walk in circles, so limited by our own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false, between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal. Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an angel, a devil — or perhaps a saint — out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts.
Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.

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I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then.

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When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure...

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My basic view of things is — not to have any basic view of things. From having been exceedingly dogmatic, my views on life have gradually dissolved. They don't exist any longer... I've a strong impression that our world is about to go under. Our political systems are deeply compromised and have no further uses. Our social behavior patterns — interior and exterior — have proved a fiasco. The tragic thing is, we neither can nor want to, nor have the strength to alter course. It's too late for revolutions, and deep down inside ourselves we no longer even believe in their positive effects. Just around the corner an insect world is waiting for us — and one day it's going to roll in over our ultra-individualized existence. Otherwise I'm a respectable social democrat.

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To the fanatical believer physical and spiritual suffering is beside the point, compared with salvation. That is why, to him, everything happening around him is irrelevant, a mirror-image, a mere will-o'-the-wisp. ... I can really never get shot of them, the fanatics. Whether they appear as religious fanatics or vegetarian fanatics makes no odds. They're catastrophic people. These types whose whole cast of mind as it were looks beyond mere human beings toward some unknown goal. The terrible thing is the great power they often wield over their fellow human beings. Apart from the fact that I believe they suffer like the very devil, I've no sympathy for them.

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People think there's a solution... If everything is distributed in the proper quarters, put into the right pigeonholes, everything will be fine. But I'm not so sure. ... Nothing, absolutely nothing at all has emerged out of all these ideas of faith and scepticism, all these convulsions, these puffings and blowings. For many of my fellow human beings on the other hand, I'm aware that these problems still exist — and exist as a terrible reality. I hope this generation will be the last to live under the scourge of religious anxiety.

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I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.

Ju Dou

Ju dou wasn't that great, but it belongs to the genre that Yimou experimented with in late 80s and 90s- tales of feudal china. It was good, but not as good as huozhe (to live) or raising-the-red-lantern. yimou is completely different in these movies, and his cinematography is the best in all of eastern cinema I have known.

The difference between raising the red lantern and flying-daggers would be 10 times more than that between Spielberg's Schindler's list and 'jurassic park-the lost world'. You can't always compare two such movies from the same director, not in such case of Yimou by any means.

Apparently Ju dou was banned in Chine because it was considered to have shown the lead female character rebelling against the male authority.

Must watch

This are the movies I have rated 5/5 on netflix, and I think, they all must be watched by anyone who ever loved movies :

(reverse alphabetical order)-

Yojimbo
X2: X-Men United
Wild Strawberries
White
The Virgin Spring
Umrao Jaan
Trainspotting: Collector's Edition
Trainspotting
To Live
Throne of Blood
The Three Stooges: Curly Classics
A Story of Floating Weeds
Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars: Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
The Silence of the Lambs
The Shining
The Shawshank Redemption: Special Edition
The Seventh Seal
Seven Samurai
Schindler's List
Scarface
Run Lola Run
Rosemary's Baby
Roger Dodger
A River Runs Through It
Ridicule
Requiem for a Dream
The Red Violin
Red
Reality Bites
Rashomon
Raise the Red Lantern
Pulp Fiction
Psycho
The Pianist
Pi: Faith in Chaos
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Mughal-E-Azam
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Memento
The Matrix
LOTR: The Two Towers: Extended Ed.
LOTR: Return of the King: Extended Ed.
LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Ed.
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Jules and Jim
Human Nature
The Hours
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Good Will Hunting
Gol Maal
The Godfather, Part II
The Godfather
Girl, Interrupted
Ghost in the Shell
Full Metal Jacket
Forrest Gump
Fight Club
Fargo
Eyes Wide Shut
The Exorcist: Restored Version
The Exorcist
The English Patient
Driving Miss Daisy
Downfall
Donnie Darko: Director's Cut
Donnie Darko
Dial M for Murder
City of God
Cinema Paradiso: Director's Cut
Central Station
The Bridges of Madison County
Boys Don't Cry
Blue
The Big Lebowski
The Bicycle Thief
Ben-Hur: Collector's Edition
Ben-Hur
Bawarchi
Battleship Potemkin
Babette's Feast
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Andrei Rublev
Anand
Amores Perros
American Beauty
Almost Famous
All About My Mother
Adaptation
The 400 Blows

Songs

What folk music is... is based on myths and the Bible and plague and famine and all kinds of things like that which are nothing but mystery and you can see it in all the songs….All these songs about roses growing out of people’s brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels…and seven years of this and eight years of that and it’s all really something that nobody can touch....(the songs) are not going to die.

- Bob Dylan.

Through a glass Darkly

Bergman says it too. Believing in God is same as believing in love. If you can believe in love, you could rather believe in God as well. If by some rational explanation, God has to be completely ruled out, then by a similar reasoning there should be no reason for love either. A world without belief in God could be as dreadful to some as would be the world without any love, trust or friendship.

At the end of the movie, David asks his son, to stay calm and tells him that "God exists, because we all love Karin... Love is God! " We don't have anything to define our existence and so we have to pick up something and hold it to our heart. Whenever our holdings are gone, we pick something else up and hold that to ourselves. That is how we define ourselves - "Everything would be alright. Just keep faith in something".

I don't think anyone else can present existentialism better than the way Bergman does. He repeatedly makes me think that cinema is the best, most true, and most efficient form of art known to humanity.

Again, like in many other Bergman movies, I might not have understood all the connotations in the movie, including the title - Through a glass darkly, which is from a Biblical verse. In many of the dialogs there could be (and I am sure there were) allusions to Bible and some other writings, like a few by Dostoyevsky. Unfortunately, I am not too much aware of the literature that Bergman was expecting his viewers to be building the thoughts upon.

Nevertheless, the movie was terrific. It went boring for a while, especially the part after when the fact of protagonist's illness was known. But in around 20 minutes, the story picked up again and climaxed magnificently.

The performance by the protagonist was excellent. I don't know if anyone else could have done such a job. Harriet Anderson (Karin, in movie) suits very well to the character. Gunnar Bjornstrand played his role of the detached writer just perfectly.

The climax is magnificent, it rolls the whole movie into a few dialogs. All the chaos of the movie- Karin's pain, Minus's troubled juvenility and David's disconnection from it all, everything seems to survive just through faith - for faith is indeed such a powerful thing - the central theme of Bergman's movies.

Urdu Unicode definition file

Here is the Unicode keyboard definition for Urdu that I created to suite my intuition. I am sure this would be helpful for any Urdu/Hindi speaker who wants to write in Nastaliq. I would later write a key to help those who want to create a document in Nastaliq even if they don't know how to read nastaliq. Even better, I could write an ITRANS-> unicode converter at some point.

For now, just

i) download this file
ii) load the ukb file into Unipad or any other unicode text editor you may be using ( You can download Unipad from here)

and start using the keyboard.

اگلی پوسٹ تک کےلِیے الورہ


(good bye Until next post)

-created by entering the text "aglI posT tk kE lieY alvdO" in Unipad.

Patrice Leconte

Patrice Leconte is one of those typical intellectuals who know how to show off their exceptional ability in the their profession. On one hand, we see this gentleman who is very well aware of his status as a movie-director, and on the other hand, he could portray himself as being doubtful about his own career by saying that he didn't want to be classified as the classicism director.

Nevertheless, his movies, classicism or not, have been one of the best I would've ever seen. My first Leconte movie was Le Mari de la coiffeuse, and it blew me away. It was one of the moments, that told me how appealing to emotions, cinema could possibly become. L'homme du train was not as exceptional, but it told a truth with a fatalistic perspective, that Leconte seems to like a lot.

Then I watched these two classicist movies - le veuve de st pierre and ridicule. It is almost a time-travel into the early modern France, watching his movies.

Melancholy

Its not that I don't have sweet memories of Diwali from my childhood. Nor is it that I have lesser knowledge/adherence to Indian tradition(s). On the contrary, it is only because of my irrevocable adherence that I couldn't connect to the people around me who celebrate(d) Diwali.

Now, I don't celebrate Diwali anymore, nor do I think I would in the near future. When you can't relate to the people that celebrated Diwali, you don't really celebrate your Diwali with them; niether do they know nor would they possibly understand what Diwali means to you- is there any point, then, in just saying you do enjoy their celebrations while you don't?

I won't.

Happy Diwali? why not? to you!

A little something about myself

(If this stuff goes onto a resumé it would be the best one not to ever land up with a job)

I like to think that I am a person simple enough, not needing a whole buncha preferences for describing myself. I just feel better trying to define my essence, than listing out what I have donned from this world. I don't do that intentionally, must be beacause one of the instincts I carry.

Given my obsession with simplicity, I hate to modify problems to make them fit a made-up solution, in general. I think my world would've been a better place to live, if search for simple and justified solutions was the approach to problems, instead of marketing of complicated systems that I see so much around. My affinity for simple rules causes denial of artificial values and concepts. I really never want to voice or emphasize my group identity; I hate to feel like I am made for the institutions rather than them being made for me.

Right now, I am liking being a loner, in love with the solitude around me. I don't make friends myself. All the friends I got, I like to maintain and am (usually) ready to do anything for them. I don't really choose my friends, I don't think I can either. I am not a fatalist, but I do think like Schophenhauer in that regard.

But not even two atoms are alike, so I don't expect everyone to become like me or give up their natural tendencies for sake of integrity at conscience. I am an idealist, I think that my self-restraint or my conscience are as much a biological reality as are my animal instincts; To some people, I am a hypocrite, to most, I am just being myself.

Even when I am playing my guitar, I try to linger between noise and melody, in a mood to discover the order that creates 'music'. Not too surprisingly, I find primitive instruments-arts-writings to be simply very appealing too.

My approach to anything undiscovered stays simple: deconstruct, analyse, try to find out 'essential' rules, that give order and the very meaning that I observed; I simply love nature, art, music and maths.

Sacrifice

Watched this movie by Tarkovsky, called Sacrifice. I have this movie in Swedish, with English subtitles; I have kinda gotten accustomed to the Swedish movies watching so much of Bergman.

The movie is typical Tarkovsky- excellent visuals with a deepening impact and We don’t expect anything less from Tarkovsky. The cinematography in his movies seems to exhibit much more the skill of a still photographer than that of a movie-maker. Right since when the movie starts, the stills are in the right place. Like any other of Tarkovsky's, stills speak a lot here, probably the most about the story. The serene lake, with little signs of human activity, have an overall gloomy effect, possibly due to the wrongs of the human intervention. The human acts never fit the nature in these depictions.

Nature has this mystic beauty which human beings at first seemed so fit (because this imagery is indeed so appealing) the part that Tarkovsky unveils to is usually very dark. Through the dark imagery, Tarkovsky highlights the failures of our civilization in surviving as a part of nature. To think of manipulating nature, appears to be an implicit and necessary anomaly through his movies.

My favorite pick among all his movies still continues to be the CTALKEP (Stalker). That movies was packed with everything that Tarkovsky has to offer us, with dialogues as pithy as they can get.

Sacrifice shows us this family that has a philosophizing and introspective member named Alexandro, who seems to voice what Tarkovsky himself could be thinking. The conversations with his family members depict the conflicts and dissents among Western culture. Alexandro is in search of truth; but at the same time, he rejects religion. The way things progress in the movie, after the outbreak of a war (whose particulars are not necessary, although this is supposed to be the third world war) the old man Alexandro falls back to religion, giving way to his emotions and beliefs over logical understanding, which would eventually result in irrational but unavoidable 'rituals'.

The essential conflict like always, is that of rationality and ritual. Fighting with himself, and lost in his dilemmas, Alexandro still fears God. He decides to sacrifice the kid in the family, and even performs the ritual union with the assumed witch (overcoming his rational self). In some mystic fashion, union with a woman, although apparently evil is always seen as a redemption, as a blessing-in-the-end. A comparison of the feminine and the mystic with Mother Mary is thus bound to occur.

Now here is a word on Cast, and hence of course, on women. But first off, Alexandro is done a splendid job. His dialogue delivery and expressions are impeccable. Women are not exceedingly beautiful, and they are not supposed to be. What they are made to appear in the movie are women of dinivity, with strong features that don't fit the norms of classic beauties. The whole effect is contributed by images of Russian saints (a very incompatible set of ideas with Communism). Russian religion and belief-system is an integral, probably central part of Tarkovsky’s cinema. This movie probably has been the best expression of that idea.

Like many of the art cinema, there is what I call the after-effect of this movie. You may not understand fully what was going while watching the movie. But after you’re done watched the movie (fully) and back-reference it to various themes in your mind, you seem to understand how great the movie was, and you even may want to watch it again so as to really confirm that you didn’t miss anything that could have helped connecting the dots better. Of course, if you have visuals of this deep an impact the whole experience is worth re-experiencing.


No other art can fix time except cinema; Time we have lived is settled in our soul in and the experience is placed within time. Present slips acquires material weight...

- Tarkovsky


How time is turned back is what he wants to imply through this movie.


Sometime, I would want to know what exactly went on with personal life of Tarkovsky, so that I may understand what eventually drove him to such a dismal rejection of the progress of mankind. As a person, Tarkovsky is like me and probably like Bergman, he has emotional recalls but not exact recollections of memory.

Virgin Spring

Source: Wikimedia

It is rarely when a work like this surfaces in the world of cinema. Bergman's imagery is just amazing starred by the excellent performances especially the one by Ingari.

Most people I talked to about this movie, see it as one that inspired a similar hollywood movie. However, there is indeed much more to the story of Virgin Spring. Bergman's way of presenting existentialism, his depiction of conflicts between paganism and Christianity on which the movie is primarily based upon, is truly amazing.

The story of Virgin spring, is taken from an actual ballad about a spring that appeared on the spot where the virgin had died.

It only rarely that such dialectics of philosophy are expressed with so much clarity in cinema. That justice is ultimately His and that the mortals are bound to be sinful could not be explained in a better fashion.

Taking a note on cinematography, the cinema art seemed to have learned a lot from Kurosawa at the time this movie was made. In Rashomon, similar camera movements and characterization are used to exhibit the dilemmas and confusions of mankind. When human beings try to separate right from wrong and good from bad, it becomes hard to judge some everything. In both the movies, the classification of right and wrong doesn't seem to be always so sharply clear- Virgin Spring tells a very similar story only in a different culture, using different set of morals, ideas and values.

Bergman is one of those few directors who have mastered cinematography beyond what anyone can even dream of. In his own words, "cinematography is the only art that can present things as close to the ones in our dreams". This movie then, should be dreadful, yet a sublime and profound dream.

Since the very beginning of the movie, ingari worshiping a pagan god (Odin) is seen in pain - a very dark depiction of Ingari, indeed. Ingari seems to be possessed by the evil forces. A very significant part of the movie, thus, is about how intensely the evil takes her over. The end of the movie is when she seeks repentance.

Almost all of Bergman's movies are influenced by the Lutheran religion. Although he didn't practice religion as an adult, his childhood spent under stringent rules imposed by his parents (which he admits wasn't because of their malcontent or shortcomings as parents) ingrained religion in his way of thinking ; that in itself could be a very simple way to understand existentialism.

Need of culture

The social conditions of the aborigines became considerably worse when they were not allowed to relate to their cultural background, as their memories were fragmented and no landmarks were left on the basis of which they could narrate.


http://axess.se/english/2006/05/theme_svensson.php

Junoon - almost a legend

Not active so much any more, but Junoon was indeed a phase in the lives of all of us who grew up at the end of last millenium.

Their journey into music is quite amusing. The Junoon would have been just another college rock band, trying to impress the college chicks, imitating their favorites icons from 60s and 70s, going hippy, and just enjoying with the target crowd of college-going pakistanis. But it was only when they started experimenting with the sufi music that they could reach the masses, crossing the boundaries of countries and ethnicities. It was all due to Brian, may be, if he hadn't unified the other guys, the band would have never become the phenomenon that it eventually became.

The innovation into the music was nothing spectacular, at least in terms of the musical rhetorics. The sufi music is well established in South Asia, just the way Rock is in the whole of West. A band made of college goers who had the usual dreams of getting to become the next led zep or guns and roses, aimed to express the soul of Pakistani music with all what they had. This was not to be encouraged too much in the islamist country they hailed from. But still the music clicked. With the rhythms in the harmonics of tabla, the deep and polished voice of ali azmat, and the really impressive bass lines by Brian, the band was ready to hit a huge market otherwise dominated by cheap Indian music that should be appropriately considered devoid of any art at all.

It wasn't hard for Junoon to get popular in India. The reasons were simple. There is and never was any rock scene in India. All the rock bands localized among the elites of big cities, popular not even in all the colleges of the city they were in. Rock in India, like in most of South Asia, was never about anti-establishment and world peace, or about ideal of freedom of human soul. Rock in india is yet another commodity imported from West, which neo-rich people show off to serve their elitist snobbery.

The mind of youth seeks escape from the norms of the world, and it found its expression in Junoon. The Junoon had expressed something as traditional and mystified as sufi music with western means, something that symbolically represented what the minds of those in the colonies are always trying to accompolish.

I haven't been so much of an ardent fan of Junoon, even though it remains a fact that the only reason I took up the task of reading Nastaliq script was because I was having trouble looking up for some of the lyrics of their song, and was really disappointed at the way the available lyrics were transliterated into Roman script. Transliterations or translations really don't help too much when you wish to feel the spirit of a language or a country and its people. That was my personal infatuation with Junoon. Once I felt what they meant, I knew that nothing what they said could be limited by countries and religions.

Woody Allen

Probably its only because of my stay in the US, I have started liking Woody Allen way too much. His cinema might not have transcended boundaries of this country, to get the acclaim that some more profound directors have got. But his movies make so much sense here, mirroring the American life as beautifully as possible.

Now his movies are not like most Americans actually watch. His movies are those art-movies, the ones an average American would watch once every ten movies or so. Not quite unexpectedly, Woody Allen has been heavily influenced by European cinema instead. The characters in his movies, though carved out sharply in the script, are not so much of an imagined portrait of someone you hadn't seen yet. His characters are not exceedingly different from the ones in our daily lives either... and that is probably why neither does one have to have the taste of art-cinema, nor does anyone even need to relate some complex idealism to reality in order to comprehend Allen's existentialism.

The most profound of things could have been said with a sense of humor in his movies. The dialogues and the actions in the movie like you would expect, are just as natural as what you see in the people from everyday life.

I just finished watching melinda and melinda, and liked the movie. Its not really so much of a popular movie but I find it to be a powerful depiction of the Western life - the critical situations which individual desires bring you into, and the shimmering relationships that try to address them. The whole movie, like a good fiction, is so fluid and so gripping, that it becomes an emotional experience in itself. You can't avoid starting to ponder over your own life, while thinking about what you could possibly do to help melinda.

Bible Readings

"nor scrip for the way, nor two coats, nor sandals, nor staff -- for the workman is worthy of his nourishment" - Matthew 10:10

Doubts:

"A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his lord;sufficient to the disciple that he may be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord; if the master of the house they did call Beelzeboul, how much more those of his household?" Matthew-10:24,25
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"It is proper for you, Kalamas [the people of Kesaputta], to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them."

This was by Buddha, Kalama sutra

Authority and monotheism

I feel that belief in God or a supreme authority has been necessary in Western world. This comes from my contemplation over the state of judiciary in the US. While on one hand, I felt it is very powerful (which is good) on the other, I found that there is very little justification for their existence, that is presented by laws themselves.

Circumventing laws, overriding the very intent why laws were created, is so much rife everywhere. Laws and ethics are completely two different things. Laws can only reward and punish people; they really don't make sure that anything wrong does not happen, nor do they attempt to. Its left to people to think and introspect about their actions, the end goal being getting most rewards and least punishments. You don't have to obey laws to be good, nor is it ascertained that if you are good in your own way you are going to be rewarded - what matters is how you appear in the eyes of the supreme.

Its one thing to obey the laws and its another thing to think of not thinking of harming someone. So, the intent is seldom under check. You can harm anyone if you want, but still be righteous in the eyes of others if you could circumvent the law. You can even fool God by gifting and giving. Everywhere, your own conscience is never under check by the laws. Laws and ethics are completly disconnected, which is certainly not desirable.

As an example, even if you know that your organization is doing some wrong activity (which you feel is not ethical) you can't publish it or tell it to others, because you are bound by something like a non-disclosure agreement. Submitting to the authority becomes more important than your own conscience. Honesty is upgraded to an organizational level, and addressing to honesty at personal level becomes less important than the one at higher (organizational) level.

But this disconnection of law and ethics is a serious void! How is this filled? Why doesn't this system crumble? The answer is the belief in supreme. The act of submitting to authority in the hope that your conscience is right, is exactly what the concept of 'God' is. I think it was a trade-off between such a void and unstablities of a system with no central authority, which made West fall back to its Greek-roman culture, admitting a bit of paganism, and relieving a bit of seriousness about believing in God a very Christian way. Still authority or God is a very important concept in the Western world, something central to at least the judiciary I know about.

Submitting yourself to the universal authority, preferring duty over the desire, is something that Christianity has imparted to the Western culture. Hence the 'concept' of God is key to such systems. If the belief in God is relieved, people would take the liberty (quite literally) of connecting the ethics to laws themselves. Something of this sort did happen in the times of Renaissance, whence the ideals of freedom and liberty came from. Again, it won't have been possible without the Greek-roman influence.

Not surprisingly, the concept of a modern democracy is due to a thinker who was criticized for his atheistic perversions, who contention was that the order of this world is decentralized, inherent in the whole creation. The metaphysics of God is inside every mind, and hence we, as human being are able to make our own choices, unbound by our own conceptions of God.

Pessimism

I have repeatedly come to the conclusion that optimism is about a little bit of ignorance- not necessitated not inevitable, but a consciously chosen one. If you were really sure that you are going to succeed there would have been no need of that feeling what one calls optimism.

I can see that knowing too much about everything gives birth to pessimism and that it is inevitable: The real underlying problem is that you never actually know everything completely. You can only claim or believe that you know everything. The point where you think you've known everything, or realise that you know too much about everything, you see every thing as deterministic, doomed. Your own conclusions bear a lot of certainty, only in your mind. That is where pessimism begins from. Knowing too much, I think is highly likely to lead one into pessimism.

I can see that in my personal life as well. The people around me knowing very little about history, politics, philosophy are the happiest one, brimming with energy, and very much optimistic about life. Since they don't know, they don't predict, nor do they expect failure. Keeping on trying in hope of success is what an optimist does. Once you choose to think about the metaphysics of success and failure, you are bound to become at least a bit pessimistic...

I could go on talking about it, but thats all for now...

Not so good on bass

I'm a serious guitarist...

In retrospect

Theorists say that there were many migrations in the period. A big invasion was not there. It makes sense too because it aint plausible that Aryans would ransack native (dravidian?) harrappan cities to go all the way down in order to clear forests and start a new 'civilisation'. Harappans are known to have traded with Egypt and mesopotamia-bactria. I won't be surprised if some people crossed the Indus for more 'opportunities'

The battle against AIT guys is more because of the search of Indian-pride than anything else. Just the way AIT was invented to establish the colonial superiority, those opposing the AIT with their rather 'strong' indological arguments, try to prove that most of what Indian culture became is because of stuff that existed in India, much before Aryans might have come. Aryans, like later migrators, didn't destroy it but got established in the pre-existent fabric. According to them, its wrong to say that Aryans were the ones who established Indian culture.

Consequently, sanskrit (something that is known to be literary "exclusively" in India) is not an "Aryan language" and niether are Vedas Aryan (although the sanskrit used in the latter might be different) For that matter, Vedas (in the literal sense) are considered eternal from a Hindu perspective. That is more like the semitic belief that scriptures have been handed over to human by God. It doesn't really matter, if Aryans dominated brahminhood for some time, or were the most ardent contributors to the eternal 'Vedas' (with the four they brought)

Well, AIT has really lost hold in academia. India still has it popular for the sole reason of its academia being dominated by the leftists.

The biggest blow to AIT, in my view was presence of Harappan sites on the erstwhile Saraswati river. Before that, everyone (esp leftist hist) rejected the R. saraswati as yet another disgusting Hindu belief. The drawings on large red pots used in their granaries, are now interpreted as representing some Puranic stories (Hindi: PaurANik). For example, the very belief of soul crossing the river Vaitarni before going to heaven, although present in Puranas is known to be of Greek origin. Since, we know that Harappans believed that and we know that its written in Puranas, there is really no reason to say that Aryans wrote Puranas.

That makes sense too, if you see that puranas or the classical upanisads don't express any spirit of nihilism. Its really hard to believe the big 'invasion'!

Besides, looking from the other side, there is another interesting set of theories that want to prove the preservation of pagan ways in the Roman Christianity that dominates the world. For example, there are a lot of similarities between the practices of Romans and North India's hindu (and I mean, nuu...merous!). Its sensational part kept aside, both civilizations might have shared ideas before Chrisitanity.

indian double standards

(image from Wikimedia)

when India considers creation of Pakistan to be the most fatal injury it suffered in her history, how can she concede to give away even an inch of a land to Pakistan so easily?

What india did in East Pakistan, might have been a scaled down version of what Pakistan is trying to do in Kashmir. (its a different story how bangladesh slowly became India's enemy too, as far as its political dominance goes) But then again, do we recognize Pakistan as a valid state at all? Most of Indians consider it a political mistake! Give'em a chance, and they want to declare it a terrorist state or something equally condemnable like that.

We (the hindustanis, at least) love the people of Pakistan, love their culture, but all that, at the same time makes us wish that partition shouldn't have happened. Does this feeling work against the recognition of Pakistan (which obviously, seems the only way to peace)?? A lot, I could say.

the question is- is there a middle path here? On one hand, we talk about building trust, opening borders, and then on the other hand, following the same peace argument, we are asked to give away another piece of land, making some more people suffer by leaving their homes, getting wiped off the map as a cultural entity?

Giving away Kashmir to Pakistan is obviously not the way. But since pundits have been made to leave the PoK anyways, why not just admit the LOC as international border, with only Kashmiris allowed to cross it.

But the fact is that, all this doesn't make any sense in pakistan. the spirit that drives pakistan constitutes the desire to absolutely eliminate kafirs (hindus, in this case) from the face of this earth. That, I think is exactly where the whole trust between Pakistan and India crumbles. Its impractical, even impossible to even think that there would be peace between these two countries, with Hindus thinking Muslims caused their downfall in history, and Muslims thinking that these Kali-worshipping baniyas need to be eliminated in the name of God. Kashmir has been the battleground for the imminent jehad.

And that is exactly why, IMHO the understanding and appreciation of each other's culture and religion is primary, not the Kashmir issue. Without the people's support, no political action can be justified. Kashmir might be the 'only' political issue, but I don't think politcal decisions should be taken without people's choice. I don't want to enact the British, deciding upon a country's boundaries without even thinking what people's culture is, and what their aspirations really are.

It might be another double standard not to hold the plebiscite, but the plebiscite frankly, doesnt make sense to India either. Heres why: Pakistan could always create a thousand Pakistans within India, following the same strategy, send military disguised as civilians - choose a bunch of uneducated poor youth - mindwash 'em with their own interpretation of the Holy book- and ask 'em to eliminate all pagans from Earth. We know Pakistan is good at it, and we really don't want that to happen all over India. Its not a double standard, its actually a move to preserve the "integrity", au contraire. (Remember that sleepy town Varanasi, the holiest of saivite places, where some freedom fighters brought some monkey-worshippers to justice, had 30% of Muslim population!! and that is a Hindu dominated region.)

I know that Pakistan thinks Kashmir never belonged to India, but from the understanding of Kashmiri culture India has, she thinks exactly the opposite. The idea of india, as an all-welcoming organic culture, is a direct antithesis to the radical hindu-hating nationalism in Paksitan. That should be the first settlement to be made.

Even if we give away the whole of Kashmir.. with the Mullahs rejoicing over their victory over Hindus, and the Hindus swearing the seculars who made a deal trading their motherland. You still have people hating each other, wanting to efface each other's people from the map of this world. I don't think its gonna stop after Kashmir. Pakistan may very well choose any other piece of India, and have a chance of creating another liberated land for Muslims, or even non-Muslims. Remember that Khalistan, that Pakistan just fell in love with? Obviously, we can't afford anything like that. Again no double standards involved.

Why I won't like The Corrs anymore

... and I feel like I once did probably more than 10 years back, when as a kid, my toy-cars and board-games had at once, lost their meaning. The things that would keep me involved for hours started sounding the most foolish things to do. The favorite music, the favorite TV shows, which were a bunch of cartoon shows and their songs, could not have me interested anymore. I could no more enjoy making silly things with paper and sticking them together to claim my magnum opus, although nothing more than a paper-crow or a wall-hanging.

However, its different this time. Back then, I was probably so excited in the new phase of my life, that I didn't feel like I had really lost something, although I probably did which I realise at this point. There was a whole new world for me, waiting for me to be taken over by. There was hope, and promise for me everywhere. Although as an illusion, the control that I had over things was worth living for.

I can't like the pleasant sound of Corrs anymore, and I don't feel good about it. I wish I could just stay the same, kept my belief in love, faith, interdependence, instead of this mean rationality. I wish I never needed to present the lame existential arguments, just to live on. My religion taught me that uncontrolled desire kills you, so did the other religion that late J C preached. I wish I could have just held onto that belief.

I know I am sounding like an existentialist again, but I actually don't take that seriously either. I never knew that such duality would take me over. On one of the trips to home to Varanasi, when I was reading Nirmal Verma on the reflections of West on East, I was praising my culture, for it gave no space to duality. But here I am, failed and jaded, victim of what they call the duality of man, seeing rationality both as a helper of humanity, and an enemy of emotions. Things would never be the same.

The denial of everything, leads to confusion, chaos, and exposure to all what could harm you. The introspection that follows, asserts individuality, and certain other non-existent base of emotions, that only keep you away from the truth. You seem to be drifting away in a direction that you never wanted. But there is little you could do about it either way.

When I don't like Corrs, or found them 'corny' I like Rammstein, death metal, music that supports killings and annihilation, so that nothing remains alive, because nothing is alive, in this world of wankers, where everyone is making deterministic moves in the matrix. You feel hurt and find that hurting is what is going on everywhere, just that there are few who realise it, but most don't, and they call this ignorance as happiness.

Choose one- go back to your beliefs, or just be drifting into the chasms of individual accompolishments. I can't really postpone this belief for so long. Is that where the idea of judgement day came from?

Escher uvach

I do indeed believe that there is a certain contrast between, say, people in scientific professions and people working in the arts. Often there is even mutual suspicion and irritation, and in some cases one group greatly undervalues the other. Fortunately there is no one who actually has only feeling or only thinking properties. They intermingle like the colors of the rainbow and cannot be sharply divided. Perhaps there is even a transitional group, like the green between the yellow and the blue of the rainbow. This transitional group does not have a particular preference for thinking or feeling, but believes that one cannot do without either the one or the other. At any rate, it is unprejudiced enough to wish for a better understanding between the two parties... It is clear that feeling and understanding are not necessarily opposites but that they complement each other.

To have peace with this peculiar life; to accept what we do not understand; to wait calmly for what awaits us, you have to be wiser than I am.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

I don't use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.

To tell you the truth, I am rather perplexed about the concept of "art”. What one person considers to be "art" is often not "art" to another. "Beautiful" and "ugly" are old-fashioned concepts that are seldom applied these days; perhaps justifiably, who knows? Something repulsive, which gives you a moral hangover, and hurts your ears or eyes, may well be art. Only "kitsch" is not art - we're all agreed about that. Indeed, but what is "kitsch"? If only I knew!

If I am not mistaken, the words "art" and "artist" did not exist during the Renaissance and before: there were simply architects, sculptors, and painters, practicing a trade.

We adore chaos because we like to restore order.
-Escher