Iago Speaks. . .(to a priest)

Priest: Thou art a sinner, who fears no God,

Who speaketh a lie, who betrays his master,

Who torments his wife, who maketh a fool of a loyal man,

Who casts a spell on the General, who kills his wife!

Iago: Talk not of indulgence, for what you do is no lesser sin.

You maketh religion a garb to hide your misdeeds,

You use Jesus to kill the mortals, you use God to betray people.

Never said the Holy Father to kill and torment,

Fellow beings from the East.

He never asked to make slaves, the people

Who know no wars; the people across the seas

Who know no discrimination; born to be respected,

Not for being bonded Ariels or Calibans.

Talking of Christianity, you made the circumcised Moor the General;

Where was your religion then?

Where was the moral of honesty, loyalty and divinity lost?

Or did you fear honesty commanding your land?

You follow not a single word of the Holy Father,

You scoundrel, preach no more religion to me;

For I know what I did was wrong, but it did

Reflect what I saw when I was innocent.

Denied education because I refused to submit,

Denied praise because I refused to cheat.

I learnt to survive this state of affairs,

Be not honest as honesty hath no value.

I turned to dishonesty, betrayal and violence; as

It gets you a job, its gets you education,

It gets you praise, it gets you promotion.

P.S. This was a part of the submission for the course ‘Shakespeare and the World’ last July. In this piece and other pieces which supplemented it, I had tried to present Iago’s background and the hypocrisy present in the society due to which Iago was forced to take extreme steps. In this piece, after being reprimanded by a priest, Iago tries to bring out the misdeeds of the entire social framework of Venice and the double standards of the aristocracy which runs it.

The Road Accident

That day while returning from morning walk, I saw something which I had never seen in my life. I witnessed my first-ever ‘serious-looking’ road accident happening right in from of my eyes. I experienced the immediate fear which cripples one for some moments just after the incident. I felt the anger for rash drivers running down my veins for some time. Despite my serious and sincere effort to contain my rage, I could do little to prevent it from overpowering me. And last but not the least, I felt sad, helpless and hopeless; for road accidents happen every day. Today, it was someone unknown to me; tomorrow, it can be me, or my near or dear ones. I cannot just sit quiet and watch it happen, but I feel weak as I can do nothing about it.

The story goes like this: I was coming back to the hostel from my half an hour of morning walk session in Sanjay Park, Qutab Institutional Area. All of a sudden, I heard a loud bang behind me. The sound was of the intensity which one does not encounter daily while walking on roads. Startled, I turned behind to see what was going on. What I saw froze me for a few seconds. There was an old man lying on the road with his old scooter beside him. And a Honda City was racing past him and within moments, it raced past me. Not having witnessed a road accident before, it struck to me a bit late to note down its number; and by the time I realized that I should take the number of the car, it was way ahead of me away from my sight (However, people told me later that there was no number plate on it.).

I ran to the old man who was lying unconscious in the middle of the road. People had gathered around him. Meanwhile someone decided to take him to the nearby trauma center. And with the help of an auto-driver and ‘his’ passenger, he was taken to the hospital.  I returned to the hostel, thinking about the incident feeling both angry and sad over what I witnessed.

It is easier to blame the car-driver who was involved in the accident. It should be noted that I have used the term ‘involved in the accident’ and not ‘caused the accident’. It might be the old man who was ‘more’ responsible or the only person guilty. The car-driver might have blown the horn and the old man might have panicked instead of giving him the way which led to an unfortunate incident. And then, in order to save himself, the car-driver might have ran away. After all, if not the law, the public must have gotten against him if he had stayed. And if he were taken to the police, who knows what would have happened to him and his car? I am not being the pro-car-driver and anti-old man here; I am just giving an alternative possibility of what might also have happened. There was an accident and I do not have enough information to comment on whose fault it was. But what keeps me thinking is “whose fault is it that he (or she if it was a lady who was driving the car) did not stop to help a guy who needed immediate help? The law or the pubic or his own?”

Having said that, I also question the moral sensitivity of the car-driver who thought it wiser to run away without caring about whether the man was even alive or if he immediately needed to be taken to the hospital. We, as a nation, are developing each day. God knows when we will develop our sense of compassion for others.

Whether or not the car-driver was guilty of the accident, he should have been there on the spot when the old man was being taken to the hospital. But wow, no one even knows anything about him other than the fact that he was driving a number-less Honda City and he was not just driving it but was flying it after the accident. Though I am not sure whether driving a vehicle without number plate amounts to crime, over-speeding on a busy road certainly does! In such cases, I strongly feel that we are not mature enough to be left on our own. We need a vigilant police anywhere and everywhere we go, not only on roads but inside our houses too. Our actions need to be monitored every second. Probably, only then we will learn to be a little more civic. I have heard that in some countries, they have sensors on roads which track the speed of each car on the road. And in every case of transgression of road laws, a penalty ticket is sent to the car owner. Well, if we decide not to police ourselves, using technology to keep an eye on us everywhere is the only option!

P.S. This post was to be written on the day I witnessed the accident i.e. 14^th March. I had decided to write it down in the evening after my classes. But a lot happened that day (Yes! I got suspended on disciplinary grounds, but more on that later) and I could not write it for the next few day and after that laziness overpowered me. But as they say, “Better late than never!”

My New Year Resolution

To my friends and well-wishers…

The first day January makes me feel weird each year. For some reason, it is in my mind that this day has to be special; one needs to forget the routine life or do things differently on this day. I remember my mother used to make some sweet dishes for 1^st January evenings, when I was a child. Not that we had guests coming to see us, but for some reason it was customary to eat sweet dishes. Maybe, she did so to make us (my brother and me) feel good about this day. I wonder whether she does this even today. I think I will call her tomorrow and enquire if she cooked something sweet today.

No, it was not the sweets which made me feel weird on this day. It was this thing called New Year resolutions which made me dizzy. I was never able to find a good New Year resolution for myself. And I avoided asking people (read elders in my extended family) about what to resolve as I knew the suggestion would invariably be either to finish food in time or to be kinder to my younger brother. I still do not understand why those ‘bade log’ could not understand that there is more to a child’s life than his relations with food or younger brother.

Years have passed and I am a grown up now (Well, I think I am). However, I still struggle with the idea of New Year resolutions. After a full-day of brainstorming, I have finally come up with a resolution for myself. And the resolution is that I will be more open to people. I will try to be more honest to them; about myself and about them. More than my strengths, I will expose my vulnerabilities. I will try to be closer to people, trust them more, and be true to them.

Exposing vulnerabilities, as I had written in my last post, brings people closer and strengthens the bond among them. But  this idea, sometimes, sends shivers down my spine; probably because I am afraid. I am afraid of the fact that you might laugh at me if I tell you my feelings honestly. I am afraid because I think you would laugh at me after knowing some of my embarrassing weaknesses. I am afraid because I will be heart-broken if you laugh when I expect you to say (to me) “It does not matter. You are as dear to me as ever.”

I want to be honest to you; I want you to know not only my strengths but also my weaknesses. I want you to know that though I pretend to be sensible and smart all the time, there are moments when I behave like a complete jerk. I want you to know what those moments are. But as I told you that I am afraid. However, I resolve that I will try to overcome my fear and be honest to you.

But promise me that you will help me being true and honest. Won’t you?

To Be or Not To Be

Paradoxical Principles of Organizational Life (from the handout given by Professor Smith in Leadership class)

1. To produce change, preserve the status quo

2. To  increase autonomy, augment dependency

3. To create unity, emphasize diversity

4. To empower self, strengthen other

5. To gain control, relinquish command

6. To change other, alter self

7. To birth the new, kill the old

8. To see clearly, look at nothing

9. To lead effectively, follow diligently

10. To become “a part of”, grow “apart from”

11. To overcome hopelessness, give up hope

12. To generate possibilities, set limits

13. To facilitate growth, cut back

14. To build authority, authorize others

15. To foster trust, risk losing all

16. To be whole, embrace regression

17. To know self, encounter other

18. To develop coherence, hold onto chaos

19. To receive feedback, reveal self

20. To establish commitment, express non commitment

21. To accept the unimaginable, reject the possible

22. To reserve what is, reinforce novelty

23. To move on, plant roots

24. To accentuate individuality, heighten belonging

25. To acquire wisdom, affirm ignorance

To Be or not To Be is the question, To Be and not To Be is the answer.

by Kenwyn K. Smith, 1990

Professor Smith emphasizes in class to make vulnerability our greatest strength. It might sound a little illogical, but wait: are we not talking about paradoxes? And to think about it, is it not something which is true in all the situations? We are the best friends with people who know our weaknesses and not the ones who know our strengths. This is why we call the best of our friends as chaddi-baddis. They are so close to us that we share everything with them: even our underpants.

I have had many friends through different phases of my life, be it different schools, college, jobs and random friendships. But the ones who I have stuck on to are the ones who I could share my feelings with. They are the ones who know what the situations are where I behave like a dumb ass  They know exactly what my fears are and what makes me anxious.

This is the reason we are so close to our parents, our siblings, and our family members. They know us so closely that they can write essays on our weaknesses.

Now when I reflect, I think that if I would have exposed my vulnerability to everyone I know. Probability everyone would have been such a great friend. The world would have been absolutely fantastic with all the love and warmth. :)

Who is Happy?

“If migration improves the socio economic conditions of the migrants, isn’t it a good thing?” asked a student to Dr Amitabh Kundu in the Science Po (Political Science) lecture today. The lecture was about migration in Indian cities and we were looking at migration in Indian cities along with its effects and causes. Though the question looks simple, there is no straightforward yes or no answer to this. Clearly, the professor did not have a direct answer either. And to answer this, he narrated a small story from the great epic Mahabharata. The story goes like this:

When the Pandavas were in exile, Kunti, the mother of the five Pandavas expressed the desire to drink water on a particular day. One of the sons went to a river to bring water for his mother. But he was made captive by Yaksha. Another son of Kunti went to free his brother and bring water but met the same fate. Similarly, two more sons of Kunti were made captive by Yaksha. At last Dharma, the eldest of the brothers and the wisest, went to Yaksha. Yaksha put forward a series of questions in front of Dharma. And one of the questions was, “Who is happy?” To this Dharma replied, “One who earns his bread and butter through mental or physical labor and is not a migrant is happy.”

What immediately came to my mind were two separate conversations, one with Nishit and other with Mayank. Both of them were going to the States to pursue Masters and both of them were worried about going away from their respective families, friends and their country. When they had told this to me, my reaction was full of surprise. I told them that they will make friends there and they will get adjusted there like one does in a new city.

But today when I am planning to go abroad for doing Masters, I feel shivers down my spine. For some reason, I feel nostalgic before applying for masters. The only thought of going away from India that troubles me. I have also been thinking about being a migrant in the national capital for the past few months. What is it which has held me to this city? There were aspirations which drew me to the city but probably now there is nothing. At times, I yearn for going back to my hometown and settling there. I agree that there are less opportunities and more struggle to make a living there. But what is there and will always be there is the familiar air, the familiar smell of earth and, most importantly, my family.

There are many things which this city has given me and I will miss them when I give I am not here. But I know that I will be happy if I am with my family. I know my family will be happy if I am with them. And happiness is something which we want in life. Ain’t it?

P.S. Professor Rudrangshu Mukherjee said in the class, “We must put any historical personality in context before commenting on his or her actions.” On the similar lines, one might argue what Dharma said to Yaksha might be true in that context. I have only one answer to this, “If you are a migrant, ask yourself if you are happy living in a foreign land.” :-)

The Masked Men

I grew up surrounded by masked people. And I never met the same person more than once in life. Every time I saw a woman who caught my attention, she would go away in the sea of masked men, never to reappear. And then I would keep on finding the same face in the vast sea of theatre artists I grew up with. This was maddening. I could not understand why I was not able to see the same person again. What was more baffling was the fact that different people were always called by the same name, every time. On the other hand, I also did not understand the logic of the fact that Ajoba (grandfather) was called Bhau (brother) by everyone. While the different-looking people around me had the same name, the same person was referred to by different names.

It was not until I was five that Ajoba told me that I did not have a mother. And then I realized the reason why ladies caught my attention more than men in the vast sea of different and sometimes scary-looking people. It was my inner longing for my mother. Though Ajoba tried his best, in spite of his age and ill health, to be a loving and caring father to me, he was too masculine to become a mother. Not only was he not able to cajole the crying child, who was hungry, he would sometimes turn his back on me when I was crying due to waking up because of a bad dream. I would cry for some more time and then when I got tired of crying, I would sleep peacefully. Though I was a little afraid sometimes to go near Ajoba, I loved him as he was the only person I had met more than once in life.

Ajoba once told me that he found me at the Grant Road station. I was sleeping in serenity when he saw me for the first time. I was so calm that he thought me to be dead. He says that I looked so beautiful that he kept on looking at my face. He kept doing that for almost ten minutes when my lips twitched. By then I had enchanted him so much that he had decided that I was going to be saved. I was going to grow up with him, in his house, around his acquaintances, around his profession. For long, I was not able to figure out what Ajoba’s profession was. All I could see him doing was giving directions to different people every time to do something or the other on stage. Like I didn’t see the same person again in my life, he didn’t give directions to the same person again. It looked after doing what Ajoba asked him to do; they vanished, got lost in the wave of masked people. The same wave which washes away my name written at the Juhu Chaupati everytime I write it when I go there with Ajoba or one of the masked men.

Ajoba did not have a family. I once heard some masked men saying that Ajoba was adopted by a theatre group when he was one year old. His mother had poisoned her husband and then drunk the same poisoned juice to end the misery of life which comes with the chawl life. She tried to poison him as well before she poisoned herself but something stopped her from doing that. Perhaps, the calmness with which Ajoba was sleeping prevented the possible death. Perhaps, death got scared by already existing calmness. He was then adopted by a single lady living in the nearby kholi who worked in the theatre group. And thus he was adopted by the entire theatre group when the lady who adopted him died in an accident after a month of the death of his parents.

When I was six, Ajoba first talked to me about acting. He provided answers to my questions of why I was not able to see the same person twice in life. He told me about why he had two different names. He told me the reason for which he was always keeping directions to people. He told that a director has to do that all the time. He told me that I was born to be his son, I was born to be an actor, I was born to be a director, I was born to carry forward his theatre company.

Ajoba told me that the entire world is also like a stage. When I asked about the director of the world, he would talk about the God. He would say that that we play the part as decided by The Director. He was just playing the role of a director. This is how it was destined to be. I was destined to play the role of his son; he was destined to play the role of my father. The masked men were destined to play the roles of the masked men. And once I thought about it well, I was able to relate everything I saw with a stage. The swarm of men coming out of the Dadar station in the evening was nothing but a stage setting with many actors at a time while a child sleeping peacefully at the Grant Road station was also a stage setting with a few days old child playing the lead.

At seven, when I went to the school for the first time, they asked me what I wanted to be after growing up and the only thing I could think, say or write was ‘actor’. I knew of nothing other than masked men and the impact was so much that I have started thinking of everyone as a masked man, even Ajoba.  I was a good student at school, a little afraid though. I was afraid that someone would snatch my tiffin box which Ajoba made me every day; I was afraid that someone would take my books away and then Ajoba would shout at me; I was afraid that someone would send a goon at night and take my Ajoba away from me. I loved Ajoba and didn’t want to be away from him. Ever!

I left school not long after. I could not see any sense in learning what they taught at school. I was learning whatever was required for me among the masked men. People without masks made me afraid. Ajoba resisted my decision not to go to school. I told him that I wanted to act, direct and run his theatre company and it didn’t require any knowledge of Science or Algebra. He shouted at me, even raised his hands to slap me, but he stopped. I do not know why. And the moment his hands stopped, I knew that he had given his consent. Ajoba was my teacher for the rest of my life. He taught me everything he knew about acting, directing and running a production house. He taught me that masked men need unmasked men to support them and vice versa. He taught me that people become better humans after wearing masks. He taught me how to wear a mask every time.

Today Ajoba is not there. I am an orphan again. I still remember the day he died. He was not feeling well since the morning. I asked him to visit a doctor but he refused. He told me that some malignancies cannot be cured. As the sun went up, so did his body temperature. But unfortunately, it did not come down as the sun started coming down.  He was panting and gasping for breath in the evening. I was sitting beside him; I didn’t want to move an inch away from him. I was praying to the Director to let this director play his role for some more time. I was holding his hands to make him sure of the fact that I was always there for him. I was touching his forehead again and again to check if the temperature lowered. But it was decided that that this actor had to make an exit. He had to go leaving the stage for other masked and unmasked men. And before midnight, he went! The director made an exit. I did not weep. I did not weep for the fact that I did not know that people weep when someone dear dies. I just sat there holding his hands and looking at his calm sleep. I held his hands till it was as cold as ice and it became unbearable for me to hold it further. We took Ajoba for burning his dead body. I felt like an orphan for the first time. I was really an orphan now.

I run the theater company after Ajoba. It has become big now and we do not need to struggle for survival anymore. We are going out of this city for the first time to stage a play. But I miss Ajoba. I cry in bed at nights thinking of him. Truths are scarier than bad dreams. They do not let one get tired of crying. The masked people have to hide their emotions behind their masks. I have done the same. I do not show the emptiness which has crept into my life when Ajoba is not here. Though it has been seven years now, I feel the same pain which I had felt when I returned after his funeral.

Descartes: The Method of Doubt and Cogito

Descartes occupies an important place in western philosophy. He starts philosophy at a time when it had dried out by the end of 1600 AD. He wants to find a foundation on which other knowledge could be built. Thus, he can be thought of as a foundationalist. He believes in the Plato’s idea that ‘knowledge requires certainty’. But at the same time, Descartes rejects Plato’s ideas that the physical world is not knowable. In fact, he tries to build a certain and stable foundation to know the physical world.

At the time when there was rejection of Aristotle by the contemporary western philosophers, Descartes remains a rationalist. While the contemporary philosophers like Locke, Berkely, Hume and others started and became a part of the empiricist movement; Descartes is still in Aristotleian tradition. Descartes is the champion of what is called as mechanistic philosophy. He argues that the world is a giant machine. Objects do not move themselves, rather one movement leads to another. Thus Descartes focuses on causality. (Brown)

As stated earlier, Descartes believes in certainty. He is looking for a stable foundation which is certain and which cannot be doubted so that he can use that as a base to build upon knowledge. In this process, Descartes comes up with the ‘Method of Doubt’. According to the method of doubt, anything which can be doubted is false and hence that cannot be used as a foundation for building knowledge:

“For the purpose of rejecting all my opinions, it will be enough if I find in each one of them at least some reason for doubt (Descartes)”.

However, it must be noted here that Descartes does not actually believe that the things which can be doubted are literally false. It just means that Descartes discards them of being capable of providing a foundation or being used in a valid argument. Descartes believes that if he can find something which is not doubtable in this sense, it can be used in a valid argument to build the knowledge of the physical world.

In order to search the ‘undoubtable’, Descartes starts with doubting the three faculties by which we come to know the world and the things. These faculties are the senses, the imagination, and the reason or understanding. He starts off by doubting the senses. His argument is that the senses are unreliable and hence cannot be used as foundation. We might get into an illusion by our senses. For example, the scientific experiments of optical illusion prove that we might be misled by our vision. Similarly, we can be misled by other senses. Since the senses are unreliable, they cannot be the foundation.

Now Descartes moves on to doubting the physical world. To doubt the physical world, he uses the argument that he could be dreaming that he is in the physical world. And thus, the physical world becomes an imagination of the mind. Similarly, he extends this argument by saying that this possibility cannot be ruled out anything or any experience in the physical world.

Further in order to doubt the physical world, Descartes introduces the idea of the ‘Evil Genius’. The evil genius has the powers of the God but he is not God. The evil genius can deceive us about the physical world. It is possible that the evil genius created illusions all around. Even the stars, the sun and all the celestial bodies are illusions created by the evil genius. However, it must be, once again, noted here that Descartes does not believe that the evil genius really exists but he is just using this argument to doubt the physical world. According to him, this is a possibility which cannot be ruled out.

Finally, Descartes doubts the disciplines like physics, astronomy, medicine and all the others which are based on the study of composite things. He doubts the simple and general disciplines like geometry, arithmetic on the grounds that these are study of things whose existence in this world is doubtful. He takes the example of a math problem and says it is possible that everyone is making a mistake in solving the problem and no one in the world is aware of the mistake. To understand this argument better, let us look at the following math example:

Let us assume, x=1

ð   x=x^2

ð   x = x^2 -1

ð   x-1 = (x-1)(x+1) [Expanding the RHS]

ð   1=x+1 [Dividing both sides by x-1]

ð   0=x [Subtracting 1 from both sides]

ð   x=1 & x=0.

Hence, it is proved that 0=1.

However, there is a mathematical error (dividing both sides by x-1) in the above example, it is very difficult to figure that out for someone who is not adept at mathematics. Similarly, it is possible that we all are doing some mathematical errors everyday without realizing it.

Thus, Descartes rules out all the truths which are derived from senses or imagination and eliminates almost all the truths which are derived from logical reasoning or understanding. And this elimination takes places by doubting those truths. However, he says that there is one thing which is certain. He cannot doubt his own existence. When he doubts, he must exist. Even if there is an evil genius who is deceiving him into illusions, even if all the mathematical reasoning has got some unknown mistake, but the fact that he is able to think about these means that he exists. The evil genius cannot deceive him till he is not there in existence. So when he is thinking, he knows that he exists which cannot be doubted. Hence, he finally concludes  (Descartes)”

As stated earlier, Descartes is looking for a foundation on which he can build other knowledge. ‘Cogito ergo Sum’ is the foundation on which he can build all that he doubted. This piece of knowledge has the quality which he calls as being clear and distinct. He says that an idea is clear if it manifests to an attentive mind. This means that if one is awake, attentive, well fed and not distracted, one would be able to see that it is true. He further adds that an idea is distinct if it contains nothing but clear ideas. ‘I think, I exist’ is self evidently clear and distinct.

In the next step, Descartes extends what he has discovered till now. He knows that he exists and the essential characteristic or requirement of his existence is the fact that he thinks. This means that it is possible for him to exist without a body but existence without a mind is not possible. However, it must be kept in mind that by thinking, Descartes means anything which is a mental activity. It may include seeing, feeling pain, believing that two plus two is equal to four etc.  Thus, when Descartes says that ‘I exist’, he actually talks of the existence of his mind.

The proposition ‘I exist’ comes from the fact that ‘I think’. It means that Descartes has assumed that I exist before he could prove the existence of ‘I’. Moreover, there is another assumption in this case which says that thinking things exists. There is no reason given by Descartes on why or how thinking things exist.

There is some certainty in the proposition ‘I exist’ but there lie many ambiguities on the grounds of assumptions taken in the proposition ‘I exist’. The first one comes from the argument that I exist because I think. This means that Descartes has assumed that the thinking things exist in the world. However, he has never mentioned or proved the existence of ‘thinking things’ in his arguments. The second assumption is that the process of thinking is believed to be done by ‘I’. By saying that it is ‘I’ who is thinking, Descartes has not considered the fact that the thought which is passing through ‘I’ might be something which is put in it by the evil genius. Thirdly, as Soren Kierkegaard says, Descartes has inherently assumed the existence of ‘I’. It is also possible that this ‘I’ is something which is part of the evil genius which is controlling the body and our experiences of the physical world. This means that there might be no existence of ‘I’. Thus it is wrong to assume that the ability to think is in the mind as it can be a part of the evil genius. Moreover, Descartes says that ‘I’ can exist without a body but ‘I’ cannot exist without a mind but he has not shown how the mind can exist without a body. This is something which Hobbs also points out in his argument.

Using Descartes principles of Cogito, we can also think of the existence of man-made robots and computers. Since robots are capable of thinking and taking their own decisions in different situations, so we can assume that robots also exist. But it becomes difficult to explain how a machine exists which was assembled by human body whose existence is doubtful.

Though the above arguments question the existence of ‘I’ but these arguments also accept the existence of something in which the thoughts are being put by the evil genius. And if we consider the possibility of ‘I’ being a part of the evil genius, we also arrive at the certainty of the existence of the evil genius. If we consider the existence of ‘I’ with a mind, it is unclear how it can exist without a body. Thus, it can be concluded that there is something which exists but its nature is unclear and arguable.

Works Cited:

Brown, Dr Richard. Descartes-1, Method of Doubt. 29 July 2012, youtube

.com/watch?v=ncEoWxsnXyc>.

Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy [Meditations de prima philosophia, 1641], Meditation I and part II. Trans. J. Cottingham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, rev, edition 1996.