Thursday, February 26, 2009

Never-say-nothing-to-say

One of my classmate's Geography answer script used to be like this:

"X is an Indian river. There is an Indian river called X. We have a river in our great country India which people call X. X is one of the greatest rivers of India. India has a lot of rivers and one of them is X..............".

Most of the "Breaking News" moments in Bengali news channels are exactly like my classmate's Geography answer script. Just replace "X is an Indian River" with "There has been a fire in X". And then it's the same never-say-nothing-to-say spirit:

"We have just now heard that a fire has broken out near X. Our correspondent has already reached X and he's confirmed that a fire has broken out there. In fact, we can show you the live footage of the fire. You can see that there is fire in X. We have just got the news that there has been a fire in X. Our correspondent is a few feet away from the fire. You must be seeing the fire in your TV screen........"

It was a survival strategy for my friend.
For media, it's inanity.

But they are doing their job well- job of a perfect mirror.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Bypass at eleven

zero sky
blunt melancholy
neons
and billboards
jurassic trucks
waiting shadows
trembling speedometer
bypass
at eleven in the night

science city
culture city
dog's city
crushed dog
dogged love
loving police
police patrol

herr sergeant, would you be the woman of this night?

bypass
at eleven in the night

ruby island
emerald trees
topaz garden
cash and carry
free signal
no breaks
empty malls

there's no madhushala
no insight

bypass
at eleven in the night

then there're dusty trees
and sleeping chai shops
torn kites
and vigilant lamps
fading history
and rising cities
lakhs of citizens
and lakhs of homes
and that ghost
that fight
that solemn mass

let there be light

bypass
at eleven in the night

Thursday, February 19, 2009

On Silence

"Do not speak unless you can improve on silence."

I don't know who said this. Google search produces a plethora of sources- Buddhist Philosophy, Lawrence Coughlin, Chinese proverb, New England proverb etc. Doesn't matter really. I find an approximate corrollary of the same in the last line of Tractus:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".

Though this must be of immense philosophical importance and spiritual significance, I've a bit perverse, but more pragmatic reading of this. Given the social class ( in a loose non-Marxian sense) to which he belonged, Wittgenstein must have been tired of "words".

I often wonder about ourselves, people who are nothing but "words", perpetually talking and writing- writers, academicians, activists, journalists, executives- full gamut of educated, enlightened and voluble members of intelligensia. Don't we ever get tired of "words"- of self and of others? "Words" can be so tiring. It's not that we can't escape from it, but we don't want to. We are attached to it. We depend on it. Though we tend to think that it's just the other way around.

This is not about our day-to-day utilitarian communications. It's more about "profundity" of thoughts and ideas, supposedly achieved via our language, interactions and communications. Probably true, but I wonder why I feel so drained out and claustrophobic when I walk this path to profundity. One of most gifted speakers of our times, Swami Vivekananda, probably suffered from this fatigue at the end of his life when he gradually withdrew from active social interactions and started to spend more time with his pets. I got this impression from Sumit Sarkar's brilliant treatise on Ramakrishna: ""Kaliyuga", "Chakri" and "Bhakti": Ramakrishna and His Times".

I have always been a reluctant talker- reluctance often bordering on pathological shyness. I've been admonished too many times by my elder relatives for this, specially during my childhood. Though these days I've bettered in this resepct, still I nurture a yearning for silence. All these metaphysical speculations, may just be my way to find "words" for this yearning. It's ironic.

It's ironic that someone's first post on blog is on silence, wasting so many words. :-)

Disclaimer

Vilambit is not a specific musical tempo.
It's the speed at which I can post.