I was born...

I was born in 1988, in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh in a small community hospital in Bijoynagar, ten minutes away from the political capital of Paltan - the same Paltan where the politicos pulled absurd stunts with mob violence and made public statements and press-conferences with a degree of irresponsibility that would embarrass five-year-olds. And it was Nineteen Eighty-Eight - the year of ridiculous shamelessness and many a nature's wicked tricks.

Nineteen Eighty-eight, when General Ershad organized a mockery of an Election where nobody else participated and he won an overwhelming victory with the record lowest votes ever casted in an Election, and eventually in a desperate act to win the illiterate masses, made sweeping hard-right changes to the constitution, and sent Bangladesh on a permanent one-way metaphysical journey of identity crisis. It was also the year of the great flood, Bonna, the worst ever seen, most documented by media, the one that gave the perfect excuse to our politicos to set out to the West with their begging bowls, and the one that is primarily responsible for the Westerner's mental picture of Bangladesh as a place submerged in chest-deep water, with scantily clad, bony brown people wading-swimming-boating and whatever else flood-victims do and flashing teeth at cameras from the sheer delight of having their picture taken. It was a messed-up year.

And then, to make things worse, I was born.

Gibberish

Suppose you wake up one morning, yawn some, fall back again, roll a little, get up, stretch a bit, and go of instead of the washroom to the window, fly it open and find to your shock (or awe, or anything for that matter) that the world has taken a tinge of pink! The sky –baby pink, the greens - greenish pink, the oblong concrete monsters – pinkish from the baby pink sky, and to top the already toppled over senselessness of the situation, the air is scented with a trace of fruitypink! Rub rub, rub your eyes, pinch your tummy, breathe deep and exhale. Still the same!

What would your reaction be to such a phenomenon? Honestly now, and seriously too. Would you be scared? Confused? Puzzled and anxious? Would you telephone the police? Would you pray? Or would you numbly await an explanation, refusing to analyze the event or even experience it with your full emotion until you had read the papers, tuned in the news, heard how experts from the universities were explaining the chromatization (or, fuitification or whatever it maybe), learned how the geologists planned to deal with it, were reassured by the Prime minister, who might insist, as Prime ministers always will, that nothing really had gone wrong?

Or instead of fear, bewilderment and anxiety, or in addition to fear bewilderment and anxiety, or instead of a hard impulse to dismiss the happening and get back to business-as-usual, or in addition to a hard impulse to dismiss the happening and get back to business-as-usual, do you imagine that a bright trace of delight, unnamable and indefensible, might tickle down your spine; could you feel in an odd way elated – elated, perhaps, because, in a rational world where even sickening-malicious-crimes are familiar and damn near routine, some thing of almost fairytale flavor had occurred?

On Minor (?) Post-colonial anxieties

Back when I was smaller, 1971 was a thing of paramount importance to me. This happened through my reading. Recent Bengali children's literature seems to suffer from a severe dearth of subject. The only issue it covers is the war of 1971 and the liberation of Bangladesh. Elaborate details of heroic deeds of young Bengali guerrillas is discussed with insidious facets of massacre, mass killing, assault, rape and violence done by the Pakistan army; this is done without providing any preceding historical references. As if all of this happened out of the blue.Back then, I was too small anyways to doubt or try-to-look-through anything that is printed and bound. So, I hated Pakistan. 

Racism was inflicted to the unwitting mind of an adolescent with the ebony tentacles of half-finished-tales and history-in-fragments. History was hidden from me/us. Inaccessible. The politicians did it because they didn't need to rewind any far backward to achieve their goals of attaining popularity and the authors did it because they could not come out of their petty emotions. I cannot blame either much; the former, because I already ceased to expect from them and the latter, because the war had happened during their youth. Their [latter] closest ones had been murdered or raped or both. But they must come out of this. It is about time they give the children a comprehensive detail.

Why should a child live with an animosity towards his neighbor country, only because he chose to read? Who is to blame? "There are things which took place on the night of the March 25^th [1971] which must remain permanently in the state of confusion"- Midnight's Children. Who is to blame? The only acclaimed literary giant, who spoke about the unsurpassed, unparalleled and unthinkable wrongdoings of modern political history, with comprehensive specifics of the three preceding decades, is banned in Bangladesh. The west, however, reaches out so far as to honor him with knighthood. Whether they do it out of appreciation for good literature or out of a sense of guilt, I doubt. Who is to blame? The religious fanatics? If so, why them; who made them, I ask.

The west condemns the East (largely Muslims) as religious terrorism. On the 3^rd June 1947, Viscount Lord Mountbatten of Burma, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan, under the provisions of the Indian Independence Act 1947. At the stroke of midnight, on 14 August 1947, India became an independent nation. And the partitioning – let's not go into the back-then- prevalent political ideologies – was done on the basis of religious identities of the peoples; the chain reactions that would follow should have not been unanticipated by the great political minds who entered these lands in the name of the "Lord". Now there are grown up men who write books justifying colonization; I doubt neither their motive nor their ethics; I doubt their faculty of logic.

Why should a youth intent upon knowing his history end up with an identity crisis; Who is to blame?

Ishmael (and others)

I was re-reading Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), which, in spite of being a magical realism post colonial literature, explores the theme of recurrence. Saleem (protagonist cum antagonist) discovers himself entangled, time and again in the labyrinths of  the spider webs of the past, present and even the future.

It is so beautiful to see how recurrence fails to get banally repetitive. As I read Ishamel, I could not help but relate it to Sophie's World (and even to Midnight's Children because in Ishmael, magical realism had seeped in), where young Sophie learns about human knowledge through an epistemological approach. Her mentor Alberto Knox shares basic forms of alienation with Ishmael.

Ishmael's propositions on alternate knowledge are very profound and provoking. Even though Biblical characterization and speculations on its[Bible] metaphors have been major themes in many literary works, Ishmael seems to present them in a way that makes one really ponder; mostly due to its inexorable relevance with the world we live in.

In the second page, I found something very interesting. There, Herman Hesse's Journey to the East was referred to. How Hesse failed to identify the ingredients of Leo's "awesome knowledge" was mentioned. Now, Hesse is a very favorite author of mine – owing largely, to his Western origin and Eastern interests (he also shares with me a penchant for water colors). I had read most of his books, but not chronologically.

I looked up the chronology now, just to make sure. In Siddhartha (Hesse's other novel, published in 1922, some 10 years before the publication of Journey to the East) Hesse does account for the source and making of Siddhartha's enlightenment. Had Hesse, over the course of ten years, reiterated his beliefs and concluded that it was impossible to account for a thing of such magnitude? Makes one muse; and yes, recurrence is inevitable.


I started this to write about my thoughts on the book Ishmael. Look where I ended up. Justifying Peripheral Pigments, I guess. :-)

Lately, I have been using a lot of brackets. It is the effect of Midnight's Children. I can't help it – the authors I love to read find their way of seeping into the way I write. Yeah, recurrence is inescapable. :-)

A History of Doubt by Krista Tippett

Speaking of Faith, the popular radio program by Krista Tippett, discusses the role of doubt in religious beliefs throughout the ages in the episode A History of Doubt. Tippett is joined by historian and poet, Jennifer Michael Hecht, and Hecht's book, Doubt: A History, forms the basis of their conversation.

Jennifer Michael Hecht has a very encouraging outlook on the issue of doubt. Only recently has "doubt" been directly associated with non-believers. Doubt, to question what seems to be wrong or incredible, had always been a constructive force, a force that was built on the possibility of answers and explanations still uninhabited by the human mind. It had been the ladder to progress in many ancient societies and the key to numerous innovative ideas and philosophies. This is often forgotten today and the steady times throughout history are concentrated on as being the most flourishing. 

The hour starts with the discussion of the vocabulary that was used to classify doubters during the time of the Greek civilization and what those words stand for at present. The word "cynic" comes from the Greek word for dog and was referred to the nonchalant lifestyles of some philosophers of the time as opposed to the nihilistic stance that we use the word for today. Alexander the Great and Diogenes the original cynic, were known to be much similar at the root, but how the difference in their ambition and philosophies shaped their lives in reverse directions, come up in the context. 

As Wilson Mizner, playwright of The Deep Purple said, "I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education", without doubt and questioning, there can be no innovation. The greatest imperfection in most religious schools of thought is probably the dissuasion that they impose on the exploration of new ideas. The resulting lack of curiosity leads to the bland lifestyle and thinking process that we have seen many people face today, as well as in the past. However, it is thought that religious beliefs are crucial to the common people, for whom it may be difficult to accept the uncertainties related to these philosophies. The possibility that there is no justice in the universe, and that death is the ultimate irrevocable termination of our existence may come as a frightful shock to many. 

This widely acclaimed episode has much to offer to the curious and doubtful hearts out there. With the discussion of how doubt has been present all through the pages of history, we find that doubt is not as modern an idea as it might have been perceived to be, but an omnipresent line of thought in all great communities and civilizations throughout the ages.

So yeah, that's about it. I just made brush over sketch of the talk. Interested folks may want to download it from the link provided. It is, of course, a free download. J

A History of Doubt by Krista Tippett on Audio Download

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The Eastern Dog

Have you noticed the prevalence of cats over dogs in a mediocre Bangladeshi house hold? I did. Having house pets (not dairy or farm animals and those are not house pets anyway) is not a very popular convention in an average Bangladeshi household. Still in exceptions where there is a pet it is invariably a cat and not a dog; if it is a dog it is almost always treated as a farm animal that lives outside the household, barks incessantly and eventually bores itself to silence, does not produce milk or any other edibles for that matter and wags its tail violently in an outburst of glee when the master does so much as call it by its "western" name. The post colonial dog does not have the permission to enter a Bengali house hold. Its fate is like that of colonial India, which is reflected in a mock rhetoric dedication of Nirad C. Chowdhury's " The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian" which read, 'To the memory of the British Empire in India ,Which conferred subject hood upon us ,But withheld citizenship.' The dogs that are there not really pets you see, they are just animals that add to the master's elegance and fine taste. They are turned beautifully bovine, while their feline counterparts are given a virtual membership of the household.

      Here, dogs are considered impure. But why is that? What is the actual reason for this animosity towards dogs? Why do we persist in saying dogs are impure, and cleaning and purifying our homes from top to bottom if a dog happens to enter? Why do we believe that those who touch them spoil their ablutions? If our dresses brush against their damp fur, why do we insist on washing that dress seven times like a frenzied woman? Only the fanatics could be responsible for the slander that a pot licked by a dog must be thrown away or re-tinned. Or perhaps, yes, cats…….

Painting Portfolio

“And if their interest wandered, I would tell them, in the end, a love story, about a king called Shantanu and how, on the banks of the great river, he spotted a woman of dazzling beauty. This was of course, none other than the Ganga herself, but the king had no knowledge of this. On the banks of rivers even the most temperate of men lose their heads. King Shantanu fell in love, wholly, madly; he promised the river goddess that he would grant her whatever she wanted, if she chose even to drown her own children he would not stand in her way”

Love flows deep in rivers. With more than 700 rivers and tributaries flowing through the 55,598 square miles of Bangladesh, it is justly called a riverine country. Much of the men’s lives, their joys and sorrows happen around the rivers. The vast waterways flow ceaselessly shaping thousands of lives around them.  The sheer number of colors that float on these river channels is amazing. This portfolio is an attempt to recreate those hues and their alterations with the changing backdrops of sun, rain, wind and storm. Sometimes the subject shifted from the waters towards the land.

I have used experimental pigments in most of these paintings, namely, emulsion color. This is an industrial pigment that is used mainly for coloring walls. That makes it cheap, easily available and very long lasting. It can be used both as water color (commolex background) and oil paint (only it does not require linseed or turpentine). In the others, I used poster paint and a black gel pen for borders and highlights.

All Eat All

A lrb (London Review of Books www.lrb.com) essay. It draws on the various meanings of the term cannibalism, its historical sources, contexts and references. The essay starts with the story of a couple of real life cannibals – Amin Miewes and Bernd Brandis, modern people with decent jobs. The later voluntarily subjects himself to be devoured by the former. This news, the writer uses mostly to draw attention.

The essay is followed by the origins of cannibalism. He mentions Marco Polo's reference of cannibalistic and dog-headed colonies and later assertions of Columbus and Avramescu of such existence. The word, it is suggested, has its origins in 'carib' from Caribbean. There are references of Robinson Crusoe and implications on how colonizers had intentionally coined the 'savages' as cannibals to give meaning to their merciless exploitations.

There is a certain example drawn from Othello which lacked relevance. The essay eventually takes a more passive turn and reflects more on cannibalism's anthropological aspects quoting from and relating to the likes of Rousseau, Locke, Father Labat and Swift's 'Modest Prosposal'.

The ending was quite interesting and more so to me as it relates Freudian (lately my subject of interest) interpretations of greed behavior with cannibalism. It ends with the example of Sweeny Todd the movie and suggests that modern cannibalism is really the corporate greed devouring the common man.

It is probably the alacritous and mellifluous adeptness with which the essay addresses otherwise dry or rather pedantic issues that liked so much.

Also the way the writer seizes the readers' attention with an example that has almost nothing to do with the matter that follows is very noticeable.

Anyone interested to read the essay can follow the link below:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n15/jenny-diski/all-eat-all

Question The Premises

Albert Camus had once written “There is but only one true philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental questions of philosophy.” This claim holds profound relevance as it encompasses the rudimentary elements and ideas of life. In context, however, it poses to ask whether life at large is worth living or not, but I see it in a different perspective. The question before us is whether we want to embrace the tradition of our society and not necessarily make it the only and dominant tradition. The idea of suicide, at a perfunctory glance may be altogether cowardly, but is it not really the premises of suicide that should really decide the relevance or meaning of the act? To condemn a situation without judging the set of events that precede it is but an act of foolhardy rashness.

Of a person, who has been continuously held back by series of rather unfortunate set backs and thus left unsure of his future endeavors, suicide poses itself as a rather quick and easy remedy. This is really a very tricky situation because the premises or determinants of well being set by his standards may vary from those of the norm. These standards surely offer flexibility for professional judgment but there are situations which are not so dubious and a common judgment to those can be availed. I have heard of various incidents of suicide or attempts of suicide where it appears to be the best decisive act.

A friend once told me of this fire accident that he had witnessed. A commercial building had somehow caught fire in the middle of the night and my friend who happened to have a warehouse in that building had to rush there immediately. What he saw that night were horrific realities that surface only in the close proximity of death. The fire had started on the second floor and was fast rising up. Three unfortunate victims got stuck in the 3rd floor. With no help approaching, they decided to jump off. It is obvious that in spite of what may seem like suicide they had only chosen an alternate/’preferable’ means to their ends. They only decided to end it quickly instead of being subject to prolonged suffering. In doing so, I believe they had undertaken an act of bravery.

But that is not the point of the incident. After two of the victims had jumped, the third could not decide whether or not he too shall jump. The direct consequence (immediate death) of the act had left him dubious. What had seemed like a cure was now nothing but exercising vanity. Judging the premises of suicide is a very delicate matter.

Social standards demean suicide. The laws try to prevent it. But, the implication that there are people who would not commit suicide because of the social stigma or the illegitimacy associated with it, is to me, the punch line of a very flat joke. It is only logical that a person, who has decided to end his life, does not bother much about such things as the law, and he definitely cannot be too pleased with people to care much for what they think is best for him to do. A person who has decided that suicide is a reasonable option cannot simply be expected to differentiate right and wrong through such social standards; his decision is an embodiment of his denial to those values.