Worldly-wise vis-a-vis Truly-wise

A friend of mine quite casually gave me a name, which I found quite amusing! Idiot. She even felt so bad and embarrassed at giving me this beautiful name. I am not kidding, I like this name very much, and as I just look at this word, a lot of associations float in my mind. Needless to say, idiot is synonymous to fool, and having gone through the Shakespearean literature, especially his plays, I realize to be a ‘fool’ or an ‘idiot’ is a rare privilege. The Shakespearean ‘fools’ are often just the opposite of what we might think them to be; they infuse wisdom into characters, in their associations, and they cannot be taken for granted. It is these clowns and comic characters who, while providing the much needed comic relief, provide an insight into the plot.

It is said that often we come across fools who appear to be wise, but in reality remain fools; the wise may appear fools, but beyond their deceptive appearance may be truly wise. The philosophy of being a clown is that it is better to appear a fool, than to be! But in reality, most of us spend most of our time, energy and resources to appear wise, and at the end realize we have been fools. It is in this connection that it is a wonderful thing to appear a fool, and at the end realize that beyond the foolishness, we have insight into reality, which can go beyond the flimsy side of life. It is only the people who acknowledge themselves as fools, who can reality take a dip into reality of life, where we may discover pearls of wisdom.

Is it a crime to be a fool? In our society, foolishness is often associated to lack of adequate knowledge (ignorance, or avidya, to use a Vedic word), lack of common sense, lack of presence of mind, not being prepared to respond promptly to situations and circumstances. If we apply these criteria to foolishness, then every computer should be deemed wise, far better than human persons, who may not have much date at their finger-tips. Believe it or not, every one born as a human person has a large size of foolishness ingrained in us; the degree may vary from person to person, but no one can claim that s/he cannot be considered a fool. Denial of foolishness maybe the first and major symptom of being a fool par excellence.

If ever we claim ourselves to be too wise for this world populated with foolish men and women, certain per cent of the blame will go to the world and our social upbringing. When we are born, we enter into the new world as tabula rasa! We know almost nothing; instinct tells us that for survival we have to start breathing, and begin to suckle the breast of our mothers. But at this stage we are quite happy to be ignorant about the ways of the world, and are not much bothered about it. As we grow, we realize that not knowing things is not a positive element, but a matter of shame. So we make frantic efforts to overcome ignorance, and begin to project ourselves as wise men and women.

Am I a fool, and an idiot? I see all around film posters on 3 Idiots, a film by Amir Khan, and though I do not know much about the film, yet I could remove the 3 and make it four, adding my name in that list. In fact, if I am not mistaken, all the three ‘fools’ depicted in the film belong to the Shakespearean model, and therefore cannot be equated with the commonplace ‘wise-appearing fools’. When it comes to the final analysis, what matters is not how we appear to the world, but how we appear to ourselves. If one has a reasonably positive self-image, no wise-fool can make him/her part of his/her own clan. And ultimately that is what matters in life!

Learning to be a Literate

While talking on the ceremonial conclusion of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of St Xavier's College in Kolkata, the Prime Minister of the subcontinent made it clear that the government was keen on eradicating illiteracy from the country, and more so of female illiteracy. Every child should have the fundamental right to education, which goes beyond the scope of basic literacy. Unfortunately today all those who know how to sign their names are deemed literates by the government records, but will that ever suffice to live a honorable, diginified life, where education is all but taken for granted?

If the country has not attained 100 per cent literacy, even 63 years after its independence, who should be blamed and be held responsible? On the one hand are the selfish exploiters, who would make use of people's ignorance and illiteracy in order to fulfil their selfish goals, and on the other are faulty government plans and policies which had not made basic literacy an obligation. But now that Right to Education bill has been passed by the government, more effective ways of implementing literacy programs is expected to be operative soon.

One of the main reasons for illiteracy in every nook and cranny of the subcontinent is faulty literacy methods; the government had been pushing a uniform pedagogical method in all cities and villages, hoping that children would benefit from the methods; but the method has failed miserably in the rural areas, where the students come to school with different kind of expectations, preoccupations and hopes and aspirations. We still believe in chalk-and-talk method of teaching, which is an alien concept to village children.

No one in a tribal community teaches the children the art of archery, hunting, swimming, singing and dancing. The community takes responsibility to introduce the tiny tots from their very early age to the different artistic repertois of the community, and one cannot come across a tribal young man or a lady, who does not know how to sing and dance in his/her own tribal language! But how is it that the ministry of education has not thought about this kind of innovative ways of imparting true education. The same thing is also true of the art of farming that the children in villages learn from their parents, and can't it be called an art in its own right?

Sometimes I wonder what is my role in spreading the vibrations of literacy and true education around me? I am a single man, and my area of operation is quite limited, and yet how could I be part of the process of spreading literacy around me? Can I just close myself from ignorance all around me (and the Indian Vedas would call 'avidya' as the root cause of all trouble, evil in the world), and live in my glass house? If I am not able to come down from my pedastal to reach out to the hundreds of ignorant children, men and women and teach them what they know, and learn from them the art of caring for the earth, singing to the tune of birds of the air, to flow with the carefree currents of the brooks, to lie leisurely with drunken donkeys... I have a lot to learn, and am now ready to take my literacy classed today!

Waiting is Wanting

Believe it or not, there is a lot of thrill in waiting, mingled with certain amount of anticipation, colored with a dose of anxiety. Waiting for something new is all the more exciting; for instance waiting to meet a friend about whom I had heard a lot but had never met him/her is something that cannot be adequately expressed by words. We imagine things – long hair or short hair, fair or darkish in complexion, introvert or extravert, jovial or serious, and the list is quite endless. But at the time of meeting, all our expectations and imagination of the person fade into oblivion, and we never recollect what we had imagined. Every waiting has the potential to either put us in sheer joy, or drown us in perpetual sorrow. The longing that we anticipate in waiting for a person, can only be experienced, and it might be hard to verbalise the feelings that accompany the waiting.

Those who had the privilege of being introduced to modern English literature would have come across a play Waiting for Godot, which is included in the category of Absurd Theatre. In fact it would be quite hard to say even a few words about this play, which had brought Beckett to fame in literary circles, because it portrayed reality as we encounter each day; Beckett need not tell us that our lives are full of absurdities, whose meaning and significance we can never fathom. Waiting for Godot is basically about waiting for no one, because Godot does not turn up, and was Godot a real person or just a concept we take it for granted? Those however are questions that literary students can crack their minds with, and we on our part can only say that it was a different kind of waiting, quite contrary to the kind of waiting that we have just mentioned in the first paragraph. You may ask me, but can there be two kinds of waiting in reality? Isn’t reality one and undivided? Every sage worth his/her name in India has said something or other about this undivided non-dualistic (a-dvaita) nature of reality. But let us quickly say that reality is one, however our perceptions can be deceptive, and we may take a rope for snake, and we may blame ignorance (avidya) as the root cause of it all.

Waiting… can be excruciating; there is a sizable amount of anxiety that this waiting arouses in us; what if… is the phrase that keeps flickering in our mind. What if the person does not turn up? What if the train is cancelled? What if something were to happen to my friend who is to come to my home for lunch on the way? It is not easy to put up with these questions, often unrealistic, but the mind does not leave any possibility outside its domain; it is true that it often projects only the worst and we have to fight a fierce battle to complement the mind’s projections. It is often said that it would be better not to expect anything in such moments; expectations are bad, we are told at every important juncture of our life. Don’t expect too big things, because when such things do not happen, you are thrown into pits from where you might find it hard to climb out. But sadly waiting and expectations are wedded to each other, they cannot be separated.

When conducting short sessions or seminars or workshops, sometimes we ask the participants, what do you expect from this session; a good many of them would frankly say their fears, anxieties and apprehensions. But a small group would often say that they don’t have any expectations, and unfortunately such a situation cannot arise. All of us have some expectations or other, positive or negative. In order to hide the negative or destructive expectations, we would cover them up with no expectations. On the other level, we can also realize that we are sometimes not aware of the movements of our heart, the direction of our minds; what it thinks, where it goes, when it returns and who accompanies it.

Today I am going to freeze two minutes from my daily schedule, in order to capture my mind as to what it is thinking about a certain waiting… expectation, that is to take place either today or tomorrow. We often wish to by-pass such waiting or expectations, and try to divert our attention to things which will make us forget about the things that zoom into our selves. But today I am not going to run away, but wish to stand and watch these waiting and expectations cast a magic spell on me. That is reality and I am here to embrace it, without any attempt to run away from it, even if it drowns me into swing of moods. Because I am here to know and understand that behind every waiting and expectations is there a good tiding, a fulfillment, completion of a task assigned. When I begin to stand erect and face reality as it approaches me, I am proving to the world that I am in control over reality, whether it is positive or negative. After all, I cannot forsake my own shadows!