Rand Shrugged

Post some invigorating discussion about ayn rand’s work & my viewing of the brilliant ‘a man for all seasons’, I am compelled to shrug this strange ennui that seems to have taken over my life recently. Am gonna divide this into two posts – one about rand’s work & why I don’t derive much comfort from it (to put it mildly) & the other about how the most noble of men can also be accused of acting out of absolutely selfish needs.

A few days ago a couple of us had gathered together & one thing led to another & we sat there debating the merits & demerits of ayn rand’s work & philosophy; how much should rand be taken at face value, if at all; how her cult following is so immense that political writers & analysts frm ‘the independent’ credit the triumph of unabashed materialism, celebration of utter selfishness & moral ambiguity in America as a fall out of an all-embracive attitude towards rand & her philosophy of objectivism. Unlike most others I have always been uneasy with rand’s glorification of ‘objectivism’. Part of it I attribute to childhood conditioning when one was always taught that the act of serving others while delegating ones own interests at the very back was the ideal to be striven for; a code to be rigorously adhered too. To this day, ma refuses to entertain any discussion about the trouble I may be encountering from demanding in-laws or ever-cribbing relatives. Her mantra is simple - serve them better & overlook their criticism. Anyway, that’s all about what I was told & still am whenever I start to question my selfhood, or wonder if there is anything I may do that I want to v.badly, knowing it will leave many others’ deeply hurt or at least, dissatisfied.

Even after I’d shaken off this belief in complete & abject selflessness & knew that personal freedom came before all else, rand still evoked a disquieting sense of things left unsaid, of truths only half revealed. If men & women indeed started behaving as she dictates, there is an ugliness that would creep into this world that no amount of economic prosperity, individual blossoming or rational thought could rid.

In my lifetime I have met only two people who cud withstand the peculiar appeal of rand’s writing & over the years, I have lost several arguments & friends in the course of discussing her philosophy. For me it’s quite simple, no person who has read & fully comprehended ‘objectivism’ can seriously embrace it, let alone condone it, for it’s nihilistic, it teaches us to ‘take’ when the world around us cannot function if we don’t ‘give’. I’ve read ‘fountainhead’ & ‘atlas shrugged’ twice & was surprised to find myself even greatly dissatisfied the second time. What do u make of a writer who pronounces with self righteousness, “Don't consider our interests or our desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself/ What are your masses but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it.” Though she claims that she outgrew Nietzsche’s influence, her assertions of superiority & the right of the individual to achieve his way through any means, sounds eerily like the older philosopher. What is sad, however, is that there is so much about rand’s thought that came so close to perfection, that celebrated individual freedom & rational self-interest. But it is as if she must veer towards an extreme & in doing so she forsakes positive liberty. Her dictum which she openly declared in her saloon readings, “What is good for me is right”, sounds like the pathetic cry of a sociopath, one who cares only for the preservation & interests of the self, no matter what it costs others. I am sure george bush feels that way too!

Devotees of her writings would do well to remember that rand herself hailed from a wealthy Russian family, who was driven out by the Bolshevik revolution, a mass rising. Small wonder then that she’d nurture a lifelong abhorrence for the will & might of the masses in determining economic principles or parity. (Would mary antoniette ever empathise with the starving & the homeless?) What is sad is that nowhere in rand’s work do we see the kind of celebration of capitalism mixed with altruism that one witnesses in adam smith’s ‘wealth of nations’. Nowhere is there a positive denunciation of collective will & herd instinct that governs the work of Ionesco. If the self is indeed higher than all else, how do we distinguish the hierarchy of needs of individual souls clamoring for fulfillment? Is it correct to pronounce that the stronger should always prevail & why isn’t a similar road to salvation outlined for the weak, the poor, the ordinary? In short, how pertinent is a philosophy that unabashedly claims that it is to do with the leaders, the few who possess the will & strength to shrug all cares & concerns save their own & follow the path of complete self fulfillment?

Notes on My Own Private Idaho

Watched ‘my own private idaho’ today. Like other films like fight club, trainspotting, mulhollands drive, apocalypse now, this film too has a cult following & I’d wanted to watch it since ages. My decision to order it frm netflix was clinched the moment I saw its name on the criterion collection list.

Mopi is dark, disturbing, funny, poignant, evocative and achingly tender. Two things make this movie stand out – the fact that it succeeds in creating a mood of dreamlike utter helplessness; evokes tenderness without spiraling towards any overt sentimentality. Second, is the brilliant depiction of the theme of loneliness that resonates throughout the film without the slightest effort. And therein lies its universal appeal methinks. there r parts of it all of us will identify with despite the absol bizarre & alien way of life & chars depicted here. Btw, did I say 2 things? Was wrong. Add river phoenix whose mike is the protagonist of the film and who’s brazenly loose, clumsy, crazy behavior seems neither odd nor forced as he essays the role of a young gay male hustler, suffering frm narcolepsy that leaves him often at the mercy of absol strangers, who is always very, very hungry for love. In mike’s world nothing is permanent, so nothing is real. He is searching for his mother yet we don’t know whether his memories of her are real or imaginary. Narcolepsy makes him fall asleep at some of the most interesting & imp moments of his life but it doesn’t seem to bother him. After all, for mike, the only thing that matters is finding a home at the end of the road to Idaho where we see him at the beginning & end of the film. Hell, he isn’t even bothered when his best friend scott (Keanu reeves), whom he also happens to b in love with, abandons him in the middle of italy & takes off with a girl & later completely turns his back on him.

So accustomed is mike to the idea of being abandoned, never finding reciprocation, that one senses a strange spirituality abt him. In the true manner of the Buddha, mike actually expects nothing & is thus never disappointed. There is no anger, no resentment, only the gentle appeal of a meandering soul who is journeying forever on a long road and looks for a home, a place to stop. Whether he will ever find this is anybody’s guess. Though we see him being helped & carried away by a stranger in his car away frm the road to Idaho at the end of the film, we don’t know that he wont return to the same spot again. That’s what he’s been doing & like he says, “I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world.”

The strange thing is, mopi is strangely therapeutic. After the events of the past few days & esp in the light of what I’ve been feeling, it worked like a balm. Its ok to feel lonely, be lonely, it’s a universal condition, no escaping frm it. And like mike, I still don’t know whats at the end of the road. It needn’t lead to anger. Theres probably a comic side to everything that we take so seriously in life and get wrked up abt.

Place of Pride

i discovered this pic. tucked away at a remote corner of the UN’s visitor’s lobby, nesting un-praised, unsung beside several other pictures of the peacekeeping forces that the UN deploys across the globe. This is the only pic. of an Indian peacekeeping force; more notably, the caption informs that this is the first all-woman patrol team to be deployed by the UN. Formed on Jan 2007, the Indian team is stationed at Liberia.

I am not naively patriotic & like everyone else, am skeptical of the UN’s role in really providing aid, support & succor to an increasingly fragmented & divided world. In fact, it was disquieting to see our guide mouth a stream of banalities justifying the existence of the UN as an international organization that looks out for every nations’ best interests. I really wasn’t in the mood to get into any political debate but her continuous “Pls feel free to ask me any questions that u may have” finally broke any sense of political correctness I was striving to exhibit. In ans. to my query regarding the absol. breakdown of peacekeeping & lack of UN intervention in countries like Rwanda & earlier during Amin’s rule in Uganda, I was primly informed that the “UN has to work within the parameters set out by member nations & also follow a democratically approved manner of operation that imposes several restrictions on it, which may not be immediately apparent to outsiders.” I realized then what wonderful cover the English language provides for covert operations that ppl like me r to dense to comprehend!

Anyway, as I saw this pic, i wasn’t aware of any conscious sense of pride. However, happy I was at finding this small token of India & indianess in a place thousands of miles away from home. Also, an overwhelming feeling of being connected to India, of being strangely moved, of gratitude that it is thru. the efforts of these men & women that nations write off international debts & any political party who attempts to arrogate such credit to its share shud be kicked. My camera was acting up & despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to keep the flash from exploding. Yet, I wanted to share it with those who visit my blog.

This is seemingly unrelated but made me happy. Just read about Prez Kalam’s pan-African E-Network Project. If Africa has to progress with the rest of the world, this is the manner in which it must be done – by linking commercial interests with progress. For India, this is a magnificent opportunity to foray into the dark continent's ICT development before China sets shop. India will have a ready market to sell its telecom apparatus, IT services & peddle its expertise in long distance education & tele-medicine. For Africa, this is a unique opportunity to connect its 53 countries thru. a fiber optic network to enable better access to healthcare, education & technology at supremely affordable costs.

With the traditional concept of armchair charity being replaced by a more healthy & competitive idea of charity generating revenue for both the recipient & the giver, the E-Network Project seems a much better alternative to Africa’s woes rather than the UN’s doling of aid to the starving masses of sub-Saharan Africa.

Notes on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind y’day again & was surprised by how much it still appealed to me. Most films that offer a twist in the narrative seem tedious on second viewing (a beautiful mind, memento, fight club, the usual suspects). Add to this the fact that Eternal Sunshine belongs to the ‘maze film’ tradition where seemingly disparate & random set of events r connected by either the characters or incidentals that change their life. While I enjoy taxing my grey cells occasionally, for me films like ‘memento’ r better understood than experienced, more interesting than appealing; Eternal Sunshine is both.

Jim Carey as Joel Barish, an introspective, shy guy who is more at home penning his thots in his journal than voicing them, who believes that Valentine’s Day is “a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap”, who falls for the wild & completely unpredictable Clemetine (Kate Winslet), is a surprise to all those who remb. him as Ace Ventura or a dumb moron. He decides to have memories of Clementine erased after he learns that she has had enuf of their tumultuous relatnship & has erased him from her mind. His doubts, fears & irritations r all our own as is his desperate endeavor to reverse the process of erasing memories, once he realizes that tho. it all ended badly, memories are all he has of Clementine, that even her memory is better than losing her completely. And that lends some meaning to life, for Barish at least.

In an age of fast divorces and the even faster need to move on, one wonders if totally erasing all memories of failed romances wud really make us happy? Isn’t acknowledgement of these memories essential for us to grow, evolve and accept?

Kate Winslet is spectacular & it’s a wonder that she comes across as refreshing and as alive as she does here. She is that lil girl who wants the candy, the daisies & a prince charming who will stand up for her, no matter what. She wants to be loved for her blue hair, bizarre clothes, outrageous comments, and the fact that Joel often finds her pedestrian, hurts her. She loves Joel but is frustrated by his avuncular bearing and dull lifestyle. I especially loved her in this scene where Joel says, “I don’t see anything I don’t like about you” & she replies, “But you will! You will, and I'll get bored with you and feel trapped, because that's what happens with me.”

Rarely has a love story been more tenderly told or in a wittier, racier manner. The pain of relationships ending forms the core of all great romances (love story, brief encounter bridges of madison county) & yet Gondry uses none of the stock motifs that abound in these films. No death-bed monologues, no teary farewells at the railway station & hysterical outpourings of a mind ravaged by the lover’s separation. There r even times when u do feel that Joel is better off without Clemetine, that he’s too much of a stuck-up prick for a woman as vivacious & uninhibited as she is. Not once does Gondry suggest that these 2 r perfect for each other, comprise 2 incomplete halves of a whole, yada yada….. They have as much reason to stay tog or part ways as any of us & it’s the film's peculiar genius that it lets them make that choice without resorting to the usual ploys of romantic comedy. After all, Clementine does erase Joel frm her mind & both are unaware (at least initially) of their shared past & its joys & pains. There is no apparent reason for the 2 of them to be together, they even decide not to, & yet, inexplicably, try again. To look for reason in matters of the heart wud be a travesty of love. Love isn't built on reason, just like Russel Crowe says at the end of ‘A Beautiful Mind’:

“I've always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, ‘What truly is logic? Who decides reason?’ My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional -- and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reason can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons.”

Shrink-ing Self

The guys @ blaugh are getting better day by day. This one's a real howler. Enjoy!

Big Apple Difficult to Digest

Just back from a rather exhausting east coast trip. A lot to see, absorb, learn & be shocked at. In retrospect, California seems rather laid back & a far friendlier place. From downright rudeness, unfriendly demeanor, uncooperativeness (Holiday Inn, Queens), to unabashed racism (Madame Tussauds, River Inn (Niagara), I think we glimpsed all this in the last 10 days.

Of course, it’d be absol unfair if I didn’t mention the M42 bus drivers & pedestrians who helped us with directions; the sweet young couple at central park who wanted to gift a ‘free’ balloon to my daughter & whom I unwittingly refused (rather primly), driven by my suspicious mind that there had to be more to their apparent friendliness; the kind old lady at the airport who offered snacks to my lil one after AA deigned to let on that our flight was cancelled (without as much as an apology!)

Thing is, NY left me angry & I can’t shake off the feeling of resentment at the hostility that I sensed there. It’s akin to what one might feel in a city like bombay/delhi if one were accustomed to the genteel & refined ethos of a Bhopal or a Calcutta. I remb how i'd shudder, when I’d 1st arrived in bby, at the way women in crowded local trains behaved for a wee bit of space. Forget kindness, they lacked basic etiquette's & decency. They’d even jostle & push a blind kerchief seller to get to their ‘reserved’ seats. Much later I realized, when ur commuting close to 4 hrs daily, chopping vegetables in the train to save time at home, working ur mind crazy trying to figure out ways to book that 1-BHK at kalyan & wondering whether ur teenaged daughter is hanging out again with the shady guy on the chawl verandah, things like etiquette & kindness take a backseat.

I sensed the same desperation, anger & mind-numbing fatigue in the rush hour NY subway & streets. A walk down canal street on Bronx which is lined with shops & itinerant vendors selling everything from smuggled electronic goods to perfumes & purses, where pimps, beggars & hawkers will accost u every 2 ft, where pedestrians r forced to walk on the streets (which causes an eternal traffic jam) as the pavements r clogged with hawkers & their small stalls, will take u readily back to good ol’ gariahat in Calcutta or lokhandwala market in bombay & give all those who wax eloquent abt Times Square & Lexington avenue a much-needed reality check.

Take away the mid-west with its vast open spaces, multiply the black population in Bronx a good 10 times & sprinkle them across the country & US wud not be entirely different from any other crowded city in India. What irks me is when ppl behave as if traffic snarls & dirty streets r relics of starving, developing nations & have no place in the higher order of things that exists in civilized places like NY, London, etc.

Immoral Policing

Click here to read original piece.

Just read this juicy piece on rediff.com about shiv sena activists going on a rampage against cyber cafes in kalyan as a protest against certain anti-shivaji & anti-thackeray forums that have sprung up on the popular site orkut. what is it with these shiv sainiks? despite balasaheb's bravado, the party continues to reel under the defection of royal sena guards like raj thackeray and narayan rane and has also lost its stronghold in traditional areas like the konkan belt. seems it'll go to any extent to stay in the news and like any wounded, aging tiger, assert its existence with the occasional roar.

leila aboulela in her debut novel 'the translator' writes that according to one of the sacred hadiths "the best jihad is when a person speaks the truth before a tyrant ruler." in an age of rampant fundamentalism there is a special lesson is this for all of us. it is interesting to note that aboulela writes that such liberal hadiths were seldom printed or taught by the islamic clergy. the reasons are obvious.

the tyrant has been the same in all the ages - ignorance, vested interests and the power to suppress the voice of dissent. it is important that we fight all such forces of tyranny who attempt to take away from us our right to feel and express what we believe in.