Stars in the Sky
Two days ago, after a small-scale celebration of my dad’s 75th birthday, I had to drop my sister and my five-year-old niece Aarushi to my sister’s in-laws’ place. Sitting behind me on the scooter my niece looked at the sky and asked her mother, “Amma, how come there are so many stars in the sky?”
Living in a polluted city, though she has seen stars, it is beyond her imagination that there are countless stars in the sky. From countable dots in the sky, as seen in the city where they live, suddenly in our small town the stars became innumerable scattered pearls shining brightly… That which is natural appeared unnatural to her and that which should have caused wonderment puzzled her.
As I continued to drive the scooter I wondered if this is what we have done to ourselves in a bigger way… The natural potential of human free will, the expanse of human imagination, the depth of human hearts, the possibility of creative existence– have they all been lost sight of because of the polluted ways of life orchestrated by profit-hungry economic systems that reduce humans to consumers and by politics of power which reduces humans to identities. Have we limited the possibilities of the human world so much that when we occasionally catch a small glimpse of the width and depth of life-affirmative energies, actions, and gestures, they puzzle us and cause a kind of disbelief? The natural appears unnatural and the richness and beauty of human life are looked at with suspicion.
I am still wondering how many stars are there in the sky and how many I have lost sight of.
Rebuilding Relationships
Aarushi, my five-year-old niece, asked me to read her the storybook ‘Best Friends, a book she borrowed from her school library. The story ‘Best Friends’ is about two Hippos named Keesha and Ebenezeer.
One day, in the story, Keesha’s knicker gets torn and is gifted a colorful handmade knicker by Ebenezeer. Keesha accepts it happily. The next day when she wears it to school, she finds Ebenezeer also wearing a similar knicker. He had tailored a similar knicker for him as well. Seeing both wearing colorful knickers other hippos laugh at them. It doesn’t impact Ebenezeer but does embarrass Keesha. She returns the gift to Ebenezeer. Hurt by this act, Ebenezeer doesn’t go to school the next day. Keesha realized why and went to meet Ebenezer at his home. But he did not open the door. Keesha wrote an apology letter to Ebenezeer and the next day they both wore their colorful knickers again. The story ends by saying Keesha cared more for friendship.
What really moved me is how the story resolves the issue. Keesha not just realizes her mistake and makes an effort to reach out to Ebenezeer, but also apologizes genuinely, and more importantly, repairs the damage exactly where it is broken. She wearing the colourful knicker is not a result of mending things, but an act towards mending things.
What I’ve experienced & witnessed, in many & also myself, is the inability to do the last bit- attending to the wound in its exact place. Many of us do realize the hurt caused, & do feel apologetic too. But we fail/ fall short of expressing genuine apology & cementing the exact place where things have cracked. Instead, we do some compensatory work, which is good, but probably not sufficient.
Recently someone told me that the one who causes wounds cannot cure it. I said I don’t agree. Though I had read such statements earlier (and disagreed every time), nobody had ever told those words to me. When someone did tell me, I couldn’t tell them why I disagreed. I could’ve elaborated, but didn’t. Today I have found clarity in crispness for my disagreement. But it is a bit late, I guess.
How many times do we fail others, ourselves, and each other not just by caring what the world says and/ or by using our rationale to eclipse what is our natural instinct- to connect like Keesha and Ebenezeer!
Collaboration is completion
My newly published book- translation of Jacinta Kerketta’s poetry collection into Kannada- has a striking image created by Vandita Jain on its cover page.
Recently when my friend Divya visited us, I gave her a copy of my book. Her daughter Jhari was also present.
The next day Divya recollected what Jhari told her after I left. Jhari picked up the book, looked at the image on the cover, and said to her mother, “I don’t understand Kannada but this book looks interesting.” When asked what about the book did she find interesting, she replied saying, “The leaf is cut and not full”. The mother asked the daughter why she found the half leaf interesting and the ten-year-old Jhari said, “The rest is for us to complete in our minds.”
I think her response tells us something about children– they don’t like to be ‘told’ or ‘shown’ or ‘taught’ but like to be ‘invited’ to the game/ process/ learning.
Jhari’s response also makes me realize why the best of art, and above all poetry appeal to us so deeply. They don’t give us things in complete form. They invite us to join the dots and complete the picture or rather make our own picture. It triggers our imagination!
Probably Jhari’s response also suggests that reality alone doesn’t ‘complete’ things and the real becomes real and complete only with the handshake of imagination.
In addition, her response also reflects the true nature of human life– we have to collaborate towards completion, and that is the joy of life and that is what makes life interesting and fulfilling. Isn’t it? To collaborate towards completion. Or, maybe the completion is in the act of collaboration itself. Collaboration is completion.
Having Faith in Fixing Things
When Rumi gifted me his painting, I was happy. But I also wondered, heart in the heart without making it visible, how would I carry the painting home, given I had an overnight bus journey to make to reach home, before which I had to travel within the city to go meet my sister and my niece. Love will find its way- I told myself.
Rumi asked Appu Sir to pack the painting and I left for my sister’s home. On the auto rickshaw to the metro, I carefully placed the painting on the seat and gently placed my hand over it to ensure the jerks on the road wouldn’t make the painting fall from the seat. When I had to enter the metro station, I had to run all my bags through the scanning machine. The security person wouldn’t let me carry in my hand something that was covered so neatly. Along with my bags, I placed the painting as well. As I left my belongings to run through the scanner and went to the guard to get myself scanned, I heard a ‘thak’ sound from the scanning machine. As I turned around I saw my bags coming out of the scanner, followed by the neatly covered painting with the paper cover torn on the edge. I realized that probably the frame of the painting is broken. When I swiftly walked to collect my bags and painting, I touched the frame where the covering was torn, and yes, the frame was broken. But the cover held the frame tight, ensuring the frame wouldn’t fall apart. I held it carefully and took the metro.
While in the metro I told myself that on reaching my sister’s home I would use good-quality glue and fix the frame before taking the night bus. I also told myself that I would keep the painting with me in my hand on the bus, to ensure it was safe.
On getting down at the metro station closer to my sister’s place, I called my sister to ask for the map, and my sister said she would book a rickshaw for me. I, the technologically paralyzed, agreed to it for it was convenient. Holding the painting close to my chest, and carrying my bag like a cross on Christ’s back, I got down the stairs of the station, I stood by the road waiting for the booked rickshaw to arrive. It was mid-noon, and the sun was a bit unkind. So, I walked slightly towards the stairs of the metro and stood there under the shade. The driver canceled the booking. My sister booked another rickshaw. I continued to wait. As I waited, suddenly I felt some movement before my eyes, and heard a ‘dhup’ sound! A lump of pigeon shit had fallen from above. I looked up and there were many pigeons there. Checking whether the pigeon shit fell on my dress, I walked a bit away from where I stood. As I walked, I was relieved that the pigeon shit hadn’t fallen on my dress. But then my eyes moved to the painting and there, the pigeon shit had fallen on the painting I was holding close to my chest, hence my dress was clean. There was pigeon shit very close to the place where the cover had torn because of the scanning machine. I immediately checked if the pigeon had conspired against me and shat right through the torn part of the cover. Thankfully my fear was proven wrong. But I saw the pigeon shit because of its dampness was slowly weakening the paper cover around it. Just then the rickshaw arrived and I got into it.
As soon as I got into the rickshaw I took out my notebook from the bag, tore a page, and tried wiping off the pigeon shit from the cover so that its dampness doesn’t tear the page and automatically the shit won’t fall onto the painting. But by then the area had become wet and the paper weak. When I tried to cleanse the pigeon shit, the paper that had covered the painting tore even more. As it tore, my heart also tore. I feared the shit falling on the painting and ruining the painting. So, I decided to remove the paper that was used by Appu Sir to neatly cover the painting. I pulled off the paper quickly not wanting the painting to get spoilt. When I pulled the cover, one part of the frame fell down! The cover had held the frame together even after it was broken by the scanning machine. The pigeon had forced me to remove the cover and now the frame was in two pieces- one piece on the floor and the other in my hand, still holding the painting in its arms. As I bent down to pick one part of the frame, my grip on the other part of the frame that held the painting weakened a bit and the wind almost blew away the painting. I dropped the part of the frame that I was picking up and held the painting. I gently placed my feet on the broken part of the frame that was on the floor, to make sure the bumpy road and ride wouldn’t throw the frame out of the rickshaw. I wondered why this painting was being tested so much in such a short span. Gathering myself, I told myself to not drown in such thoughts when the moment demanded I take care of the painting.
Allowing myself to breathe deeply to calm myself, I slowly picked up the other broken side of the frame and held it in my hand. The painting was constantly fluttering like a flag. I decided to free it from the other part of the broken frame. I gently took it out and placed the broken parts of the frame on the seat. With my hands, I held the painting, tight enough to ensure the wind didn’t carry it away and gentle enough to ensure the paper on which the painting was made didn’t crumble.
When the rough driving of the auto driver, in the middle of unruly traffic, on a badly maintained road, made it difficult to hold on to the painting, the broken pieces of the frame, my bags difficult, and sitting even more difficult, I wondered if I should just let the broken frame and just get a new frame done for the painting on reaching home. But for some reason, I just held to everything even when holding on to them wasn’t difficult. It felt like a summarized version of my own life, and my recent reality. My thoughts were connecting this incident to many episodes of life and as these thoughts sucked me in, tears began to well up in my eyes. Soon I pulled myself out of these thoughts when I saw holding on to all the broken parts, the precious painting, and my bag(gages) required a lot of effort and concentration.
When I got off the auto-rickshaw, it was difficult to pull out the bag, put it on my back, while not letting the painting crumble, ensuring the broken parts of the frame do not fall apart, and at the same time balance all of them while signing at the security gate of my sister’s apartment. It became even more difficult to press the elevator button with so much to carry and me having only two hands. I somehow held them all and reached my sister’s home.
On seeing the painting in my hand, my niece Aarushi asked me why am I carrying the painting in my hand. I told her that the frame had broken and I had no other option. She kept looking at the painting and then saw the broken pieces of the frame. She then asked how did it break. I almost wanted to say it broke because of my being ill-fated. But that wouldn’t make any sense for her. So, I asked her if she would help me fix the frame. She said, “Okay.” Later in the day with the help of my sister and Aarushi, I fitted the painting inside a broken frame first and then using high-quality glue fixed the frame and let the glue dry.
That night when going to board the bus, I had to be more careful, not just because of the fear ripples created by the experience in the day, but also because with the frame being broken and fixed again, it was more vulnerable. I kept it beside me while sleeping and then carefully brought it home.
Now, the painting is in my room, and whenever I look at it, I am reminded not just of Rumi’s affection and the struggle I went through to bring it home, but also reminded, contrary to popular belief, that it is not a sign of foolishness to hold on to broken things. Additionally, it need not necessarily be considered wise to leave behind things. Especially when they get broken because of the ways of the world and negative coincidences. Disposing of things easily without giving them a chance to be fixed, is a sign of a lack of faith in life. Holding on to broken things isn’t a bad thing, when one sees the possibility of fixing them- I realize. It is life-affirmative energy. But, at the same time, it requires not just seeing the possibility but also patience and cooperation. Life experience tells me that sometimes we don’t find the latter, even when the earlier dawns on us. The possibility of the earlier doesn’t dawn on many because a capitalist, consumerist, market-driven society has tuned us and our thoughts in a way that scarcely can have faith in fixing things, giving things a chance, maybe a second chance. Now this painting with its frame, tells me that if given a chance things can come back to life, at least in some situations. I hope life confirms and affirms this learning in other realms of life too.
Beauty and Safety at the Cost of Truth
Celine Song’s directorial debut Past Lives did not captivate me the way it seems to have moved many. Yet, when I watched it in mid-July, it left me with some thoughts. But, people’s deeply emotional response to the film pushed me to second-guess my own views. It made me wonder if I failed to grasp something crucial. But parking aside my self-doubt, I am publicly sharing some thoughts that I had shared with some friends weeks ago.
Nora and Hae, the key characters in the film, frustrated me because of their unwillingness to engage with their emotions wholly. The two are reluctant to meet eyes with their feelings. To use an allegory, the two are reluctant to place their feet on the floor. Even when they do, they make sure their feet are covered with layers of socks and a shoe, which makes the floor and feet meet yet not meet. The fear of dirtying the feet, or worse, the fear of the possibility of thorns or pebbles injuring their feet seems to be high. In wanting to ensure safety, the two deprive themselves of experiencing life in its real sense. Be it love, be it fondness, be it pain, be it longing, be it yearning, the two look at their emotions from a slight distance, and hence are unable to meet each other, and sadly, also themselves.
Both Nora and Hae find partners in their own orbits because coincidentally things work out conveniently for them, with no risk involved, and no labor required. The two almost settle down for what just works out easily and refuse to work for love that holds the potential to expand their inner horizons.
Some argue that the film is about such characters. I don’t find it not entirely convincing. For a film to be of characters who can’t embrace their own hearts wholeheartedly, it (the film) need not become like its characters. If the film is about such characters, it could explore the inscape of such characters, the reasons for characters to be so, and/ or the repercussions of choosing to live in such a manner. The film, like the characters, seems to be scared of exploring what lies beneath the surface and what lies beyond what the eyes can see and (conscious) mind can perceive. The unknown scares the characters and the film too.
To add to the disappointment, the characters don’t want to acknowledge their fear of emotions. Instead of embracing emotions or confronting the emotions, the characters take refuge in philosophy (‘In-Yun’) and convince themselves that it is the ‘meaning’ of their state of being. Humans taking the help of the wisdom of people who have walked on the path of life earlier is not a crime. It is something humans have always done. But there is a difference between taking shade under philosophies while grappling with reality while trying to make sense of things while struggling with life, world, and self, and taking shelter in philosophies to avoid meeting eyes with reality, the situation, and the self. To use wisdom, or philosophy as an excuse to avoid confronting a situation and justifying/ reasoning/ absolving one’s own inactions, is an act of self-deception.
The film too, like the characters, uses this philosophy/ wisdom to run away from diving into the depths of the situation and understanding itself. The characters and the film use this as a crutch to compensate for their own inability to embrace themselves and confront themselves. But they do it in an extremely lyrical way, and convince themselves, and also try convincing the audience that the lyricism is poetry, and the situation at hand is just poetic. Sadly, the lyrical nature of the film is just superficial and it isn’t poetry in its depth. Even the characters and their (in)actions seem complex, because of this lyrical presentation and the coloring through philosophy, but at its heart is nothing but an inability to feel wholly, live wholly, and a reflection of the compromise made to live a rather shallow lie than explore deeper truths.
Not surprisingly this is the kind of humans we all are becoming, or rather have already become. When I ask my students to watch a film, before watching the film they wish to know the IMDB ratings, read some reviews, and make up their minds about the film even before watching the film. Many friends wish to know the ratings of the restaurant they wish to go to. People want to be sure of the people they are meeting for a possible romantic/ sexual encounter. These are just a few examples.
Of course, one can justify these behaviors in one or the other way, but at the depths of it, these are nothing but the fear of the unknown, unwillingness to explore the unknown, wanting to be risk-free, wanting to be in complete control of the situation, even if it results in limiting the scope of the experience life can offer.
The saddest part of it is that we have all become intelligent enough to lie to ourselves and convince ourselves that the lie is the truth. We are all capable of doing it in an aesthetic and philosophical way too. Past Lives and its characters too do the same. For safety they deny the truth and dodge the truth, but all in great beauty!
So finally there is beauty, there is safety, but there is no truth.
The characters live a lie, having convinced themselves it is the truth. The film too compromises on truth while being superficially beautiful, believing that beauty created through (self) deception can compensate for the absence of truth.
If this is the truth of us as human beings in the new life conditions, the film could have at least gone beyond that and explored more about this phenomenon. But it too lacks the heart and courage to embrace reality and confront it. It too, like its characters, is more than happy to settle down for a beautiful lie.
In beautifying such a self-deceptive shallow living, the film is almost okaying such an existence. That, for me, is the most discomforting thing about the film.
(Thoughts shared with a couple of friends via whatsapp text on 02 Aug 2023)
Only Living Can Heal Us From Life
In a class with the ongoing batch, while discussing a particular script on the subject of organ donation, a student whose mother- a health professional- had closely worked with organ donors, shared an important piece of information.
When organ donation happens, he said, the donor also goes through risks as much as the receiver, and the donor’s healing and recovery requires as much care, attention, assistance, and support as the receiver requires.
It means, the donors, like the ones receiving the organ, are at a risk in the absence of proper care, and the path to recovery of donors is equally tedious, tiring and long, like that of receivers.
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to extend this learning and arrive to an understanding on how it is the same with emotional labor too.
If those providing support, care and comfort to people at an emotional and (non-religious) spiritual level, do not find sufficient support and care, eventually they will become deflated at the level of human life-spirit.
Life is not easy, and living is the only solution for the question, the puzzle that life is. Only living can heal us from life. Living is not and cannot be an individual work. It is a collective work. At an emotional and (non-religious) spiritual level, we all have to become the donors and none of us can escape being receivers.
To make this easy for all, the least we have to do is offer each other sufficient assistance, attention, support and care. Also, ensure some do not become permanent receivers and some do not remain perpetual donors. More importantly, by being there for each other at the deepest emotional and spiritual level, and making sure our (in)actions do not damage people, and does not interrupt their living and healing, while they receive and donate as a part of this collective exercise called living.
The Lost Child
At 3:45 hrs this morning, I woke up from sleep feeling uneasy.
I don’t know where I was until a few seconds ago. It was a place I have never been to. I was walking on the roads of that unknown land, looking at the architecture of the city. I was so absorbed wondering what place it was and wondering what life there was like, without me realizing it, a dog began to follow me. I, who is scared of dogs, instinctually tried chasing the dog away, but did not succeed. I tried walking fast to escape the dog, but it caught pace and continued to follow me. It kept coming close and rubbing its body against my leg. I kept pushing it away, but it kept returning. When I pushed it for the nth time, the dog turned into a child! The child was around 3-4 year old and was crying non-stop. Saying something in a language that I couldn’t follow, the child kept coming towards me. Ached to see the child weep, ached by not understanding what it was saying, moved by its attempt to say something to me, and coming towards me, I thought the least I could do was hold the child. But the child turned away when I tried to pick it up. When I still went ahead and tried to hold it, the child twisted itself and slipped from my hands. When I took two steps back wondering what did the child want, it again walked towards me saying something in a language that I do not follow. I stood motionless wondering what to do and the child just kept crying and repeating what it was saying. Unfortunately I couldn’t console this child. I tried leaving it behind and moving ahead, since I couldn’t do anything.
But the child kept following me. I stopped, turned around and tried asking people passing by us, what the child was saying. Someone stopped by and told me something in a language which sounded familiar, but still I couldn’t understand what they said about the child. I stopped another person and requested them to translate the child’s words for me. Again, the language they spoke in was familiar but still I couldn’t understand what they spoke about the child. While I kept trying to converse with random people and bridge the gap between this child and me, the child kept crying endlessly and continuing to repeat what it was saying from the moment we met accidentally. It kept extending its hand towards me, but refused to be picked up by me. Strangely, none of the people around us tried consoling this child or even asked the child what was the matter. They all went their way, went on with their lives. Maybe I too would have done the same had the child not followed me. Since the child was crying and saying something to me, it was not possible for me to ignore it.
Distressed by not finding a key to this locked moment, I woke up. Even after I had escaped that dream, in my heart, I could still hear the child weeping and its words, spoken in an alien language, kept echoing in all the chambers of my heart. I wondered who the child could be speaking to when I snapped out of the dreamscape. The fact that the child followed only me, and the fact that nobody else bothered about the weeping child, made my heart ache. Despite all my concerns, I couldn’t go back to the same dream, to try and console the child or/ and try and understand what it was saying.
I hope this child finds someone else in their dream who it can weep to, and hope that in that someone’s dream its words will be understood, and in that someone’s dream it will not refuse to be held by that someone, and hopefully then the child will stop weeping.
I hope that child will forgive me for failing to understand what it had to say, for failing to console it and forgive me also for abandoning it by snapping out of the dream. I hope that child is safe till it finds the path into someone else’s dreamscape.
The Real Lokamanya
“To combat a deadly disease, drastic remedies are required,” said Dr. Ambedkar when some around him wondered if the decision to go to Mahad and drink the water from the Chowdar lake was an “impatient” one. Following the act of Babasahaeb and his comrades of concern, the upper-caste people of Mahad had not just beaten up the Dalits of the village but also performed a ritual to ‘purify’ the Chowdar lake, which according to them had been polluted by the untouchables. Mere education, creation of awareness and exposing the truth of scriptures wouldn’t be sufficient to battle untouchability, opined Ambedkar and decided to launch another Satyagraha at Mahad.
This decision was welcomed and supported by the non-Brahmin leaders Dinkarrao Javalkar and Keshavrao Jede. But the two leaders had a condition for Dr. Ambedkar. They wanted no Brahmin to participate in the proposed conference at Mahad or in the whole of the second phase of Mahad satyagraha. The bitter memory of what had happened in Mahad earlier was probably what prompted Javalkar and Jede to make such a request, and it was not unjustified. Babasaheb strictly said no to the condition put forth by Javalkar and Jede saying “the view that all Brahmins were the enemies of Untouchables was erroneous,” and explained that what he hated was the men who were possessed with the spirit of Brahminism. He added that “a non-Brahmin filled with such ideas of highness and lowness was a repellent” to him as a “Brahmin free from this spirit and sense of these privileges and unjust power” was welcome to him.
The stand taken by Ambedkar, so different from the position of Javalkar and Jede, reflects the worldview of his. In addition, it is possible, it is a glimpse also of his own experiences- shaped by some true allies of anti-caste struggle coming from the Brahmin community. One among them, a close associate of Ambedkar and his fight against Untouchability was Shridhar Balwant Tilak alias Shridharpanth!
Shridharpanth who founded the Pune branch of Samata Samaaj Sangh, an organization started by Ambedkar, and also served as its Vice-President, was the son of Balgangadhar Tilak. “It is a miracle that an Ambedkarite was born in an extremely brahminical set-up,” says Shatrughn Jadhav, author of a book on Shridharpanth and his close association with Ambedkar.
Though it shouldn’t be expected of the children that they always follow the footpath of the parent, the overpowering influence the family environment has on individuals, especially during their formative years, is undeniable. An Ambedkaraite coming out from the Tilak family appears like a miracle, not just because of the influence parental figures have on children, but also because the battle of ideology, and the social-political and legal fights that were happening between the two camps, the conservative Brahmin nationalists, whose idea of a nation was based on a castist idea of a society, and the non-Brahmin warriors of social justice, who envisioned political independence through the lens of social justice.
The intensity of the battle between these two streams can be better understood by having a closer look at the saarvajanik ganeshotsav (collective celebration of Ganesha festival) in Pune.
At the end of the 19th century Sardar Krishanji Kashinath alias Nanasaheb Khajgiwale witnessed the public celebration of Ganesha festival in Gwalior and replicated the same in Pune the next year. Though there was only three public celebrations of Ganesha that year in Pune, the idea captured the imagination of Balagangadhar Tilak who in his Kesari editorial wrote great words of appreciation about the new culture. As a result of this and the calculated and concentrated effort of Tilak around 150 public celebration of Ganesh were held in Pune the next year.
Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav popularized by Tilak has been hailed as a master stroke since it played a role in mobilizing people against the colonial rule. But along with creating a political awareness against the colonial regime, these public celebrations were also used as political tools or weapons against the majority of Indians. This needs a bit of an elaboration. Those days with the blessings of Balagangadhar Tilak a music troupe named Sanmitra Mela, who sang during the Ganesha festival. The songs of the Sanmitra Mel would ridicule and belittle the political opponents of Tilak, namely Gopalkrishna Gokhale, Firoze Shah Mehta, Rajaram Shastri Bhagawat and the song package of Sanmitra Mela also had songs that were anti Dalits and spat venom on girls going to school, and upholding the views of Tilak against girl education. These songs were harming beyond the public celebrations, when children listening to these songs would go to school and repeat them before girls and Dalits. Many of the girls and Dalits finding it humiliating, in addition to other humiliations caused by caste discriminations, opted out of school! This condescending and dehumanizing music culture continued for many years with the blessings of Tilak.
Some years later, as a response to the Sanmitra Mela, under the guidance and leadership of Jede and Javalkar a new music troupe came into existence. The new troupe was called Chatrapati Mela. The songs churned out by the Chatrapati Mela sang the glory of Shivaji, Shahu Maharaj and mainly Phule. The songs also took on themselves to spread the values lived and upheld by these icons and leaders. Also, the songs of Chatrapati Mela critiqued the vision and action of the Tilakites. Javalkar collected these songs and published them as a book under the title Chatrapati Padya Sangrah.
The fight between these two forces got so intense that from mere battle of bands, it got physical when to combat Tilakites formed a vigilante group to tame the Chatrapati Mela. In response to this move by the Tilakites, another group of vigilantes was formed by Jede and Javalkar.
If one is to observe this battle of titans closely, it does seem like a miracle that an Ambedkarite emerged from the house of Tilak!
Shridharpanth, unlike his father Balagangadhar Tilak, held views against untouchability, girl child marriage, shaving the heads of widows, and also worked towards their abolition. This shows how his views and understanding came very close to that of Babasaheb, who in his writings had shown how these very elements – girl child marriage, enforced widowhood, degradation of widows- were at the heart of caste system’s formation. Hence fighting against these matters were essential to the politics of Ambedkar and preaching superficially against untouchability alone wasn’t sufficient to annihilate caste. Shridharpanth shared this dream, and also worked with Ambedkar on the same lines.
Even before coming into contact with Ambedkar, Shridharpanth held progressive opinion and anti-caste views. He would argue with his father saying political freedom and social justice are both important, while his father largely believed that the matters of social justice were a mark of ‘loss of nationality’ and it ‘denationalized’ persons. This deviation of Shridharpanth from the path of his father caused a lot of discomfort among the colleagues and followers of Balagangadhar Tilak.
The discomfort of Tilakites reached its peak because of three reasons. One, the political views of Shridharpanth became sharp after him coming to contact with Ambedkar. After the Dalit students’ conclave in Pune, the young Tilak not just took Ambedkar to Gaikwad-waada of Tilak, this and him starting the Pune branch of Samataa Samaaj Sangh made this friendship and camaraderie very clear and loud. To make it worse, outside the Gaikwad-wada he put a board that read ‘chaturvarnya vidhwamsak samiti’. These became the second reason. To top it all, Shridharpanth organized an inter-caste dining at Gaikwad-wada and invited nearly 200 people from the Untouchable communities, which included many singers and instrumentalists from the Chatrapati Mela. The main guest of this inter-caste dining was none other than Babasaheb Ambedkar. This became an unbearable matter for the Tilakites, majorly those from the Kesari-Marhatta Trust. They sweated quite a bit to stop this inter-caste dining from happening. When all their efforts failed they broke the electric wire and cut the power connection from Gaikwad-wada when the guests were about to arrive. Though this created a small commotion, Shridharpanth handled it calmly. He requested the members and allies of Samaaj Samtaa Sangh to bring in lanterns and lamps from their homes, which they did, and finally the inter-caste dining happened with hundreds of lamps and lanterns providing the necessary illumination.
What followed this was tragic!
The members of the Keasri-Marhatta Trust who were against the property being handed over to Shridharpanth, sketched conspiracy against him and his brother Rambhavu who too was a progressive minded person, and began torturing them psychologically by making a legal move with regard to the ownership of Kesari and Marhatta newspapers and the Trust. The brothers faced a lot of humiliation, ridiculing and harassment from the Trustees who were being supported even by the extended family of Tilak, after Shridharpanth organized the inter-caste dining at Gaikwad-wada. They began speaking lowly of him in public, tarnishing his image and thus creating a public opinion against him. Some relatives of Shridharpanth, the well-meaning ones, unable to see the targetting of brothers, requested them to reconcile with the Tilakites and give up their ideological beliefs. But both the brothers refused to do so.
Probably striking a balance between a tender heart and a sharp mind became difficult for Shridharpanth. Unable to bear the torture of the conservatives, he jumped under a running train and killed himself on the 25th of May in the year 1928. He was just 32 then.
Just before killing himself by suicide, Shridharpanth wrote three letters. One to the the then Collector of Pune, one to the newspapers and one to his friend B.R. Ambedkar. In his letter to Babasaheb he wishes best to the anti-caste struggle, expresses his solidarity with the movement and Samaaj Samtaa Sangh, and in a moving line says he is going ahead in time to let the Almight know about the grievances of his Dalit brothers and sisters.
The day this letter reached him home, Ambedkar was in Jalgao where he first got the news of Shridharpanth’s untimely death. Ambedkar in his obituary to Shridharpanth wrote about how he kept wishing that the news was a false one. But since the news came from the Pune members of the Samaaj Samta Sangh, of which Shridharpanth was the vice-president, the chances of it being a lie was less and Ambedkar had to believe the news and this, he says in his obituary, made his heart heavy with pain. He also speaks about how he immediately saw that it could not be a natural death and was restless to know what had caused the death. On reaching home Babasaheb went to pick up the newspaper to read the details of Shridharpanth’s death and along with newspaper he also found a letter written to him by Shridharpanth. It is said that Ambekar wept on reading the letter by Shridharpanth. In the same obituary Ambedkar holds the conservatives of Pune and the Tilakites responsible for the death of Shridharpanth and also calls his untimely death a great loss not just to Maharashtra but to the whole of India.
Later in the obituary, recollecting how Balagangadhar Tilak spoke dismissively about his paper Mookanaayak, and also about the Dalits, Ambedkar declares that a man like Tilak is not worthy of the title Lokamanya. He says that the ‘loka’ (world) of the so called Lokamanya was casteist and non-inclisive. This was not the case with his son Shridharpanth, says Ambedkar, and declares that Shridharpanth is the real Lokamanya.
(Originally written in Kannada for my fortnightly column daarihoka for the webportal ee-dina)
JHUND: On Extra Baggage and Flying
In Nagaraj Manjule’s JHUND, at a very early stage of team building, Vijay Borade, the coach of the yet-to-be-built team, is having a freewheeling discussion with the team members, and an airplane flies over their heads. Breaking away from their then happening conversation, Vijay takes a detour and explains how airplanes fly. He explains, “There is a life lesson in this knowledge of science,” and without much underlining, very casually tells how it is important to go against the force to be able to fly.
After nearly an hour after this scene, we see one of the key players of the team, and the film, Don, played very beautifully by Ankush Gedam, is unable to board the flight that promises a tour that can change the course of his life. The hurdle in the path is partially because of his past records, unmistakable caused by the uneven order of things in the world, and also partially by external forces which are structural. Somehow he, with the support of his friends and well-wishers, clears some of the hurdles and gets his passport, only to be stopped at the checking. Here the narrative moment turns into metaphor and sheer poetry… Don is now expected to overcome a hurdle within, externalized in the narrative through a weapon, which signifies rage and the need for revenge, without which the gate to liberation will not open. He is stopped and also made to go back. He has to throw away the weapon and only then the doors will open. When it does open, the gates of a damned fate open, and also the gates of the until then dammed tears. It lightens the chest and lets the wings open. Don flies.
Restoration of the self, by getting rid of the rough edges created by the unequal world becomes more important than retaliation.
kyun rehati hai tu
dhoop kay mausam ko kosti
behtar hai karley zindagi
baadal sey dosti
jeena hai toh aur jahaan bhi dhoond ley
saahil na sahi tinka hee dhoond ley
Beyond the structures of the world there lies a human self, and human will. Though this self gets shaped by the world outside and the interaction of the self with the world, it, in spite of all despairs, still has the ability to fly. For that to happen, it is important to fight the forces and go against the wind, like it is for the airplane, as explained by Vijar Borade. But the writer-director goes one step further and through the narrative says, it also requires to give up, or rather throw away things kept/ built within us, (the weapon kept in the secret pocket and the rage built up in the body-mind) even if it is kept/ built (consciously or unconsciously) for our own defense in an unjust and unfair world. The weapon and the rage both cut two ways and it is this which makes the vulnerable seem violent and also clips their wings. This extra baggage within makes the flight impossible- suggests the writer-director in this extremely Manjulesque scene. To overcome this also becomes important, says the film, along with collectively going against the force.
It is here that the writer-director’s vision, not just as a creative artist but also as a thinker belonging to a long intellectual history following the likes of Phule and Ambedkar, becomes evident. This vision which existed in all the previous works of Nagaraj Manjule becomes visible, observable, and extremely clear in this defining sequence from Jhund. It is for this vision of the writer-director and the person Nagaraj Manjule, that Jhund is a film that we all need to welcome with all our hearts and celebrate, despite some of its limitations.
Nagaraj Sir, please accept my salutation and a warm hug! Love you till the end of eternity and the end of the horizon!
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Crazy Mind's Eye 