The Liberalization Generation

I was one among the 4 individuals who features in the Sunday Magazine of the Indian Express, which talks about the liberalization generation and their choices, pressures and aspirations. In a conversation which stretched over a couple of days, many things became apparent to me as I spoke to Ankita, who asked incisive questions to put her story together. Titled, 'The Winner Takes It All', the page long story brings out the concerns and comforts of our generation, which evolved alongside the Economic Reforms to which our country owes much of its present shape. You can read the whole story here - http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/the-winner-takes-it-all-2931791/ - and it was a privilege to be featured alongside my friend - Akshat Mittal, whose comment on how our generation has the ability to convert passions into professions was my pick of the lot.

While talking to Ankita, I realised, how fortunate are we to belong to our times. We do have our share of pressures, but the opportunity to exist as unique individuals is overwhelming, and available to all. The internet and social spaces have eliminated any filtering interface, which makes it that much easier to build ourselves into a version of our Visions. The opportunity is democratic - the skill and perseverance is the differentiator. Our aspirations are set high, and hence our focus must be set higher. The perils are there - too much interactivity, too many choices, too much distraction, too much pressure (active and passive both) - but the deterrents (and deterring addictions) have existed in all ages, and so shall they continue to. The point I am trying to make is, anytime someone tries to talk to me about social media as taking away from reality - I have scores of examples to quote where digital has been used (exploited) to create, curate and inspire real experiences. Secondly, it is time we understood virtual experiences as a part of our reality - enriching, informing, integrating and entertaining. And thirdly, if there are individuals who prefer a virtual existence to real - I'd like them to have it. Digital-social spaces have been empowering for people whose physical participation was often unconsciously discriminatory. Persons with Disabilities are a case in point.

The space to exist is huge. The chance to construct our dreams is tremendous. The power to bring people together is unprecedented. And the opportunity to just be ourselves, assertively firm and fluidly evolving, is overwhelming. Your struggle - to find who you are, what drives you, what lends you happiness, and what do your doggedly dream of.

There. For more perspectives, hop onto the Indian Express link and read on!

Read here - http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/the-winner-takes-it-all-2931791/

Love, Language, Literature

Her words
The ones she had borrowed
From love
Life
And literature
Left my palms aglow
As I rubbed them softly
Between my hands
Firmly pressing them into
The meandering lines of destiny
Filling up the cracks
Caused by an undone future.

The haste of chronicling
Her unbridled, scattered utterances
Dried up all ink I carried
But the nib continued scratching
Invisible letters
I later caressed
And comforted with my fingers
Sans comprehension.

Am I supposed to get meanings,
Or intents?
Am I to follow language,
Or expression?
Am I to catch words,
Or flow with the flow?
Am I to find myself whole,
Or scattered in fragments of her story?

The language of love
And of literature
Often leaves a true student illiterate.

Image Source - http://gihsphoto2.weebly.com/assignment-9-book-photography.html

Communicating on Communication

When I begin wondering, I wonder till the beginning. Even if that sentence sounded syntactically wrong, that is the best way I can put it. I wonder a lot, about a lot of things. Somehow, I am always keen to know where it started, how it started, who started it, how did it catch on. The search which thus ensues leads me on to very interesting vistas of knowledge, interpretation and analysis.

The thing I have been wondering about most, of late, is 'Communication'. This happened as a result of a work-place assignment, which needed me to build a programme on communications for students, including aspects of verbal, written, visual and digital communication. We named it 'creative communications', because we thought of firmly instilling the 'creative process' in the minds of our students (at Shiv Nadar School - for those who did not know where I worked), while giving them exposure to and insight into relevant skills and the practice thereof.

While I had an entire module ready on the nuances to touch while dealing with distinct aspects of communication, what intrigued me, again, was where did it all start? How did humans start talking? When did they realise they could produce sounds? Forget sounds, how did they realise that they could use gestures and organise actions and elicit reaction? Since language (and gestures) pre-date writing by aeons, there, obviously, exists no written record of the same.

A good way of understanding things which predate organised system of recording knowledge is to delve into myths and oral traditions. Man has the tremendous ability of crafting narratives around most happenings in the world, which have been passed down through generations. These passed down oral narratives hold the key to understanding many things which form the ancient history of mankind.

Now, even in myths, I have not been able to find many tales which relate specifically to the origin of speech (Tower of Babel story is an exception, but it helps one understand distortions, expansion and diversity, rather than origins). In most places, language or speech has been presented as a 'gift from God'. Anything inexplicable is conveniently bracketed here.

The Mythical Tower of Babel

Some interesting answers can be found on Quora in this regard, but my understanding after conducting some decent secondary research is that there is no conclusive word on it. There are biological (evolutionary) roads to understanding speech, and there are sociological routes to doing this. Linguistics based on sociology, of course, interested me more, since Biology bas ki nahi hai. So, I found the following really cutely named (nicknamed) theories on how humans started talking, attributable to various people -

1. Bow Wow Theory
Man probably started talking as an imitation of sounds around him. Humans have learnt much via mimesis, ape-trait, I guess, and language could be claimed under the same. So we'd hear the birds and chirp, hear the wolves and howl, hear the brook and gurgle - aah, the pleasures of the early man days!

2. Pooh-Pooh Theory
According to this theory, sounds were not generated as an imitation of something external, but emerged intuitively from deep within when man experienced extremes of emotions. So you step on a thorn and scream in response - that is the kind of sounds this theory is talking about. Only, these sounds are not unique to humans - they are possessed by most animals who did not end up having a language system as elaborate and nuanced as ours.

3. Ding Dong Theory
This theory is based on the idea that man started referring to objects by the virtue of the sounds they made. It would be like calling a door 'knock-knock'. In fact, a more realistic example can be drawn from the Chinook language, where heart is called 'tum-tum', probably the interpretation of the sounds the beats make. The same 'tum-tum' is used to referred to 'feelings'. So pretty!

4. Yo-He-Ho Theory
This is the sound of effort. Rhythmic chants on grunt noises which people made during organised effort is supposed as a possible source of speech origin. Consider our own 'zor laga ke,, hayeesha!' While hayeesha doesn't mean anything in particular, it is what helps organise action while rowing huge boats.

By now, my students in the class were convinced I had made these up, so I thought it best to not introduce them to the 'Ta-Ta' and 'La La' theories. Truth be told, I do not understand them that well myself.

The question of origin of speech was abandoned for quite sometime, but it gained traction again sometime back. Now, the answers are being searched for in the domain of evolution, using the tool of palaeontology. Some people out there are actually doing really creative work, and this is one field I would love to stay abreast with.

Leave me nuggets of knowledge if you happen to know something on these lines. I'll tell you more about classroom escapades in my future blogs, because these 'Creative Communication' lectures are really teaching me so much! Till then, ta-ta! And la-la-la!

Source - idoartkarenrobinson.com4

Historicity of the Mahabharata by B. B. Lal - A Glimpse

धर्मे च अर्थे च कामे च मोक्षे च भरतर्षभ
यदिहास्ति तदन्यत्र यन्नेहास्ति न तत्क्वचित् ।

Mahabharata has been a subject of limitless fascination for me, now since two years. It is amazing what interest can make you do. In two years, I have read more texts on Indian history, myths and mythology than anything else, as a result of which, I have grown a lot more thirsty for knowledge than ever before. The desire to know more and more about these historical epics is unquenchable, and it is motivated by this steady desire to understand the origins.

I have this strange belief that if I could understand where I come from, where we come from, where are stories come from, and where our languages come from, I will have a clear vision of where I am and where I am headed.

When I noticed this amazing book titled 'Historicity of the Mahabharata' is the library of Shiv Nadar School, Gurgaon, I know my heart thumped at insane decibels. While we were still debating in the realm of imaginative discourses if Mahabharata is a historical text, or an imaginative narrative conjured by an ancient bard, here comes in front of me a research laying down ample, convincing evidences to show how a great war did actually take place at Kurukshetra.

Since it a work of pure research, I can provide a plotline of the book. What I can tell you is that to test the veracity of claims of the MB narrative, researcher B. B. Lal undertook many routes - through internal extracts, through excavations, through architecture and through contemporary and later secular texts.

While building an understanding of historicity, the text also serves well to educate a reader about the various topographies to traverse while trying to build an archaeological-historical argument. Not just that, it also delves deeper into relevant sections of the Mahabharat to throw light on the politics of certain instances. For examples, were the Pandavs really being humble in their demand for the paanch graam from Duryodhan, or was they a larger game at play? Think geography and you will have your answer.

While I admit it is an unimaginatively written text, it serves its purpose well - that of piquing interest and setting a seeker on course to find more instances of truth a literary body shrouded in myths, not acquiring religious colours.

Must read for MB lovers!

PS - The next Maha Varta session, whenever that happens, shall revolve around the myth v/s mythology v/s history discussion. 

Dear Anonymous Letter Writer - Birthday Chronicles

I make a big fuss of birthdays, each time. Especially if it is mine. Of course.

And you know what counts as luck? When you find others who make a bigger fuss of birthdays than you. And I'm the lucky one, who has not one, but about a dozen crazies around her, who've been investing time and mind into creating little gestures of warmth, leaving a wide, uncontrollable smile on my face.

A recent pretty phenomenon is a red coloured note, which I find stuck to my almirah with the help of magnets, each day when I get back home. These notes/letters contained words of love, which, as hard as I might try, I cannot identify the source of. I thought of cheating, because, it is easy to (all I need to do is steal my sister's phone - I already know the password). But then, I thought of living the experience through. I have analysed the handwriting, the tone, the language, the emotions - and honest admission - I have zero idea of who he or she is. I think the writer is a 'he'. Just, instinct.

So, while I have given up trying to establish the identity of my anonymous pen-friend, let me write him (assuming 'he') a letter of my own. I am doing this, because unresponsiveness is among the things which irks me most in life. Even though I do not know who I am responding to, I will still go ahead and do it, because words deserve words, love deserves love, emotions deserve emotions, and letters deserve letters.

Here goes, a short one, for the person counting down 26 days to my 26th birthday.

Dear anonymous letter writer

I want to thank you. Not for writing to me, but for writing in general. People have quite forgotten the genuineness and touch which ink and paper hold. People have also forgotten that at times, all it takes is one little gesture to completely light up someone's life. Like you are lighting up mine. I look forward to your notes each day. It is a habit I could fondly cultivate. 

Thanks for making me realise how old am I going to be. No sarcasm. I am happy to know how far I have come in life, and also to get a glimpse of how others have journeyed along with me. 

A little word of caution though. When I finally get to know who you are, we'll work a little on your handwriting. No offences, just, my way of saying I think I like you enough to want to work with you. 

Looking forward to note number six. 

Thanks. 

Love, 
Saumya.