Beyond the pale...

Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor, and perhaps the last Philosopher King to grace the earth, says in his Meditations,

“He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if you shall have no sensation, neither will you feel any harm; and if you shall acquire another kind of sensation, you will be a different kind of living being and you will not cease to live.”

Indeed, death, in its most raw form, is something that mystifies, yet terrifies, all who should bother to think of it. To be mystified, that is an admirable quality, for Descartes has said “I think, so I exist”, so evidently illustrating that the ability to think, to imagine, to question why things were the way they were, is the supreme mark of a living and sentient being. The two words, though seemingly related, and in truth very synonymous, are yet very distinct in each other. We all live, we live amongst the billions of insects, animals, birds, fishes, etc., and yet what is it that distinguishes us from them? To those who would retort a brain that can think and distinguish between right and wrong, I would gainsay, for even these beings possess this ability, and often they are seen to use it better than what most humans can be credited with. I feel, and this remains my own opinion, that the real strength that humanity possesses within it that makes it so different from the rest is its ability to think and ponder over why the pattern of life is just so.

Descartes says that if you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. If you do not care to query, then God denies you the right to call yourself a sentient being, although you are alive. A few may demur, that after all to live is to sense, and if I am to be deemed alive, it is but obvious that I am sentient. It isn’t so. Just to breathe isn’t the same as to celebrate the wonder that is the human respiratory system, to feel the sense of touch isn’t the same as to stand in awe at the miracle that is the nervous structure, to see isn’t the same as to bow down before the great marvel that transforms mere sight to the grandeur that is vision. Most of us take our lives so much for granted, that we simply forget to honour the spectacles that we see everyday. Only when a marvel is blemished by doubt, and I use the word here very specifically, does its wondrous nature become even more evident.

I started out with Marcus Aurelius and his thoughts on death, and have throughout the last few paragraphs, stated why being sentient is more important than just being alive. And yet, Marcus Aurelius was dismissive of death being viewed as a possible conqueror of the senses or the giver of new sensations. For, in Marcus’s words, if death is to take away your senses, then what is pain to you? Whence your senses desert you in life, whilst you still breathe, if you feel no compassion, no fear, no emotion, then why the morbid fear of death, which grants you the same “feeling”?

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning....?

So the cookie finally crumbled. A most excellent opportunity for the Indian National Congress to demonstrate once and for all that they are a people who will gladly give up power for the sake of their principles, has been whittled away into another episode of the Congress’s spinelessness. I have no regard for the Communist bloc; frankly, they may have good ideas, but their manner of presenting them just puts me off. That they have secured their highest-ever quanta of seats in Parliament shouldn’t have lead them to start believing that the country is ready for a Communist Revolution; rather, it is more like a swansong now.

Energy and development have never before been as closely related as now. While I am not exactly a die-hard fan of nuclear energy, it is an option that is available, which is somewhat cleaner than thermal energy (which forms the mainstay of India’s energy policy till date), and offers plenty of scope for sustainable development. The Indian State has frankly not been very proactive in investigating clean sources of energy, as also energy options which will enable us to become independent of blocs of crazed tyrants. It would seem that we are still stuck in an age when oil, gas, and coal are the core of the nation’s energy policy, and thinking otherwise is cause for institutionalization. That the nuclear deal is as good as dead is not so much a matter of concern for me, because frankly, deals come and deals go; what remains is the will of the people to better their lives.

And that is where the Union Government will find itself paralyzed. The Left, embittered after the nuclear deal fiasco, will not be ready to support any of the Government’s recommendations and legislations as readily as before, and would want to extract their pound of flesh more often than not. Crucial reforms in the areas of labor relations, infrastructure, education, healthcare, retail etc. will now be subject to political grandstanding.

A fine statement made by a BJP politico last week was that a marriage based on the hatred for a common enemy cannot hope to be stable for too long. The Left has now started complaining that the Sethusamudram (forgive my atrocious spellings) project is being delayed because of the Union Government’s 'pandering to communal interests'. I find that an amusing thought. I mean, they found it expedient to delay finding a solution to our energy problems on their own interests, and now when someone else tries out their tactics, they yell blue murder.

We may have avoided mid-term polls for now, but the matter really hasn’t completely ended here. Quo vadis, India?

An Ode to Books....

Thomas Carlyle once said, “After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.” No matter if Mr. Carlyle said these words during the Victorian era, but they still ring true in this age as well.

To my mind, there is no greater joy, no more divine bliss, than to have a book to read. There are good books, there are great books, and there are books which simply are unmentionable except as expletives. And yet, despite all this, each and every book has a story to tell, no matter how drab or dull it may seem. In this respect, books are like people; you have interesting people, beautiful people, charming people, boring people, obnoxious people, dull people et al. You deal with each one of them in a different manner, but you deal with every one of them, sine prejudice.

I have a habit of buying the books that I read. I find it most cumbersome to read a book and then return it to a library. The joy of reading a book is not so much in breaking the freshness of the print, as in revisiting the text, like one goes back to an old friend. One cannot take such liberties with borrowed books; it’s somewhat scandalous to think so.

Of late, I have spending a lot of money on books, to the extent that my parents are wont to boast that my salary seems dedicated to buying books and no more. I don’t find it a distressing thought; come to think of it, I recollect having read that when a habit begins to cost money, it’s called a hobby. So, buying books would be my hobby, though not one which I can list down in my curriculum vitae.

It is said that people don’t find the time to read books nowadays. I don’t know where the statisticians quoting these ‘facts’ are finding their data, but looking at the crowds in the local book stores and the bags of books that they buy, I wonder why they must buy them, if not to read them. Bibliophiles are, or rather have never been an endangered species. Au contraire, they are a flourishing breed; if not more overt, they are certainly more discriminating in their choices.

Whatever this may mean, I only see a good future for books, irrespective of distractions like television, the computer (read the Internet and e-books) and video games. After all, In the end, you can’t take a computer to bed, or snuggle into a comfy chair with a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day with a television in hand.