Savner Deg!

I miss the days we had together in Norway and Bangalore, and of course the moments we enjoyed together in Hyderabad. I miss the random rambling, the night time walks, the music we made and I miss your love.

I remember the evenings, at the kiosk, the afternoons at the CSA office, the camps we went on, and the dinner dates (I don't have to correct myself, you know what I mean). The romali rotis, the chilli chicken ( yes, those days where you were not a vegetarian), and the numerous conversations. They were happy days. They were days where you could go on, and on, and on and not feel weighed down. Yes, there were tiring times, but the energy we shared rejuvenated me. Do you remember, the 2am walks around college?. The walks down S.G.Palya?. Sultry days,indeed.

Do you remember the Hoskote incident, and the time when we waited at Sagar Apollo, for a surgery to be completed on someone who was a service warrior, the time where we were scared for his life, does that strike your memory?

The times where you helped me when I was in hospital, buying my medicines, feeding me curd rice, holding me, loving me, for those moments, I am ever so grateful. A memory comes to my mind of cleaning up your puke at the volunteers room, just Mathews and I, cleaning away, and somehow there was no resentment or disgust, but just love my friend, just love. We were like one unit, alike in so many ways, but different in other ways, and those differences held us, and still holds us together as well.

My friend, do you remember the time, when we got onto a air-plane, and flew away, miles and miles away, to a land so foreign, to a place so new and yet we survived those ten months, through rain and sun, through warm and cold, through -40 weather and of course getting our testicles frozen in brazen sea baths. The numerous bars of chocolate we ate, the jazz we tripped on, and darling, do you remember the rather hippie experiment of trying to hitch-hike from Trondheim to Inderoy? The petrol stations we stood at, waving our thumbs like idiots, but still having hope that some kind soul will offer us a lift, but no, that didn't happen. However that village we saw, with houses painted with shades of pink, blue, purple, orange and green?. Man, I loved that.

Our trip rundt omkring Bergen?. The bus rides, the ice creams, Greek themed nights, sword fights, good food, great people around, walking on hot coal, Fana, Bomlo, Voss, Aasane and so much more. Wow! We did some serious travelling.The lovely lady who kept us for one night, at her home, the talks we delivered, the nights we spent working on presentations, they are all very sweet memories. I remember I did jump out of a window at Fana, and seriously sprained my right ankle. However I guess, I walked on it, till it got better. Good times ey?

Skiing, visiting Marita, going to watch Therese play, swimming, chilling out with Ellemari,bugging Blossom when she showed up, and so much more, that we got up to in that span of ten months. Such beautiful memories, gorgeous moments. All with you. I cannot avoid mentioning, the regular ranting about ' ahem' you know who I am talking about, and the cookery sessions with the occasional flaring of tempers. All, nice times to think about. In retrospect, they only made the bond stronger.

We flew back, to Incredible India, shaved off beards, trimmed our hair, and got back to adapting to a system, we were honoured at honours, and grappled with expectations people had of us. We lived together that year, trying to play house, cooking for three months, and I believe we did well. I remember you making my bed for me as I was lazy. I still laugh thinking about my five minute shower sessions and your forty five minute shower sessions, and the regular haggling for Auto-rickshaws in the morning and I even remember riding double to college on my bicycle.Aunty Ma, Fudgy Ma, the hurriedly gulped down milk, and bleary eyed nights, trying to get on with studies, to meet deadlines and to get by. We did well, my friend. We did ourselves justice.

2011 came, and we parted ways. But, our hearts never parted, our bones never separated. We are still one, still bound together in friendship and love. We met after that, in Bangalore and in Hyderabad. We hugged, made platonic love, we discovered Atta Galatta, we cooked and we sang. Sigh, such beautiful,surreal moments of joy.

Jai guru deva...om...

Snakkes Snart Kjaere Venn!:) Klem!

again?

Starglow peers at me from a distance, and asks me, "Why didn't you study biology?"

Spectres of blue, water flowing down my skin, and neon lights remind me that life is but Act III of a Shakespearean tragedy, on repeat. Minus the catharsis.

The timbers of the palisade are shaken; bolts, nails, and wedges falling out, as a fire devours.

And inside, deep deep inside, a babe plays with lotus petals in a blue pond of water and tears. "Nothing's gonna change my world" an echo hums. Looks up with its pretty, innocent eyes, stares at me. "Hi".

Could I rip out my heart, chop it up, and serve it to you on a sizzling platter? With some tabasco perhaps?

Drown in the blue pond, and be born again?


sarveshām svastir bhavatu
sarveshām shantir bhavatu
sarveshām poornam bhavatu
sarveshām mangalam bhavatu

sarve bhavantu sukhinah
sarve santu nirāmayāh
sarve bhadrāni pashyantu
mā kashchidh dukh bhāg-bhavet

Dadar, Mumbai

One gets a hint of the spirit, the geist, as it were, of Mumbai at Dadar railway station. You are washed over by people in constant journey from a place to another. A constant thrush of people, each in their own uniform harmonic oscillation, giving rise to an emergent order, like parts in a well oiled machine. Unlike cogs and chains, however, what passes by you are bundles of thoughts and emotions. Ambition, anxiety, worry, love, longing, yearning, despair, acquiescence... mostly all to do with something more; the present, the here, is but a means. Just like Dadar station. It is for most just an interchange, on the way to some place else.

And yet, it is this lack of fulfilment, and constant pursuit of it, that defines Mumbai. Each person and institution locked into a Red Queen co-evolution, constantly fighting, unceasingly moving either to climb ladders or to remain where one is. The city itself finds peers only in other global cities - none in India - and it is locked into the same global melee, running and running to remain in its place. This makes the geist of the city a restless one, and in this restlessness, mediocrity is overthrown, complacency is not an option. All of ones energies and abilities are to be used, honed, and improved upon. And this makes the city and its people brilliant.

No. It is no utopia. Inequalities and injustices of the world exist, if anything, more pronounced than elsewhere. It is far from offering a comfortable, safe, or secure place to live in. It is neither true nor good nor beautiful.

But one cannot doubt its brilliance. People strive to help in little ways, a culture of helping in need, for one could be a helper today and the one needing help the next (although I doubt whether the help would be forthcoming in bigger matters of life, given the constant struggle to make oneself). And there is meaning in life, for all of you is utilised in the run; there is no space for doubt - it is either a problem to be solved, or it is the scene of one's being run over.

I'm characteristically out of place here; with my sloth-pace and constant scepticism*. To stand and stare is to be eliminated from the game. I'm not a player, truly, but neither am I willing to be written off. So let me make my way across the gangway, and board another train, leaving Dadar en route a longer journey. Mind the gap.

(* - but neither can I claim "aamchi mumbai")

Stop anthropomorphizing!

This is a thought. Trying to put into words a discomfort that I've always felt. This is raw, not very well formulated, and not researched. I'm sure others would have written out the same or similar concerns, in a much better and more rigorous fashion. I hope to revisit sometime and make this better.

Categorical imperative: stop anthropomorphizing animal behaviour.

Premises:
1. Non-human animals exhibit behaviour that strongly suggests cognitive processes. (Highly probably that cognitive processes exist in non-human animals as inferred from intelligent behaviour)
2. The cognitive processes in non-human animals are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those to be found in humans; inferred from differences in brain structure. (caveat: although similarities exist)*
3. If cognitive processes in non-human animals are different from those in humans, their subjective experiences are also qualitatively and quantitatively different.**
4. Thus, their subjective experiences are categorically different from human subjective experiences.

Conclusion:
Therefore, we cannot apply human categories for subjective experience to the subjective experience of non-human animals.

* and ** - in holding that the subjective experience of non-human animals are quantitatively and qualitatively different, I do not hold that (1) they are completely different, nor that (2) they do not have anything like subjective experience. That their subjective experience is different or inaccessible to us is not reason enough to treat them morally different - insofar as our behaviour to them goes.

Coming back, to apply human categories to non-human animals is not just to be factually wrong, but also to be violating the agency of those non-human animals. If such wrong beliefs affect or effect certain actions of ours, those actions can result in consequences that grievously injure the animal or its interests.

Example: Ah, the cat gave me an ugly look. Maybe I should keep away from it.
Example: My dog is feeling sad because it's left out of the festivities, let me give it some good rich food so that he feels good. (when he is actually just scared by the firecrackers, and what he requires is not rich food, which will make him sicker, but darkness and peace)
Example: That elephant looks pitiful and existential. Maybe it's time to put her to sleep.

Are non-human animal's subjective experience accessible to us? Possibly. I would like to think yes, in some ways. For example, I think perhaps pain is a pretty universal feeling. But the emotions and thoughts that follow the experience of pain is bound to be different. But I do not know anything about it to take a stand. I do know that the way is definitely not by anthropomorphizing their experience and behaviour.

Of course, these are all highly speculative.

Reminiscing a romantic

The romantic is ever punished with pain. Yet,'tis pain and the colour red of blood that makes the romantic.

It is to listen to the quavering tremulations of the heart. To pack your soul, and go on a leap of faith into the deep abyss of nextitude, with no rhythm or reason but, that the heart so aches.

To sell my soul to the next salesman who comes a knocking, if that is what it takes to hold you hand, and bash my heart against the petrichorous rocks of your pulchritude.

To wander with my heart on a platter, and to yield it to you. Make an element of all my energies and heartbeats, throw it to you, and trust the universe to take it yonder.

It is to believe in you, in me, in this moment - this set of events that is the now. And to seize it, to embrace it, to feel the essence of it, to resonate with it, and to make it: with it.

It is to be vulnerable. It is to be hurt. It is to take that red raw heart, make it my work of art, and birth the next moment of gladful gratitude. Mayhaps to crash again at your fort of contritude. But then to let the cosmos take my next dance, swing; whirl, and fling my soul into the next fallness of my being.

~
It is to be me. To gently unsew the threads that make my congruity. And it is to make your being with you. And have you create my being with me. To kiss you, to kiss me, to kiss this infinitesimal tick.
~

It is to be two coupled springs. It is to be defined in recursive dynamical equations. It is to be coupled variables in a phase space with infinite iterations.
And let everything in the universe couple itself so, if so the heart shows.

To be a romantic, is to live so. Is to ache so. Is to be so.
To be a romantic is to constantly be in this reverie of high bliss.
To be a romantic, is just to Be.

(a tribute to, inspired by, Fromistcy)(dedicated to Niv)

Sadness what 2

every single thing around me breathe stories.
Stories of poverty, nonchalant labour, of hope.
And I realise that everything I own, I have, I wear-
ever,
Were made by stories of hunger, thirst, and mortal need
That every thing that lay claim to my happiness
Talks naught of happiness.

I am mere partner in this injustitude
So much so
that I want to kill myself
to not be a part.

And yet, when will humanity realise?
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Rage.

A kiss for your thoughts, University of Hyderabad [crosspost from Kafila]

‘That is knowledge which liberates’, proudly proclaims the crest of University of Hyderabad, a prominent central university in our country. A University space has been traditionally seen as the vanguard of socio-cultural critique and change. Universities pride themselves in upholding the values of freedom of thought, expression and debate. And yet, the reaction of the administration of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to a recent event, in an otherwise liberal-tolerant and progressive-leaning campus, leaves much space for thought.

On November 2nd, a group of students organised an event on campus in solidarity with the much discussed “Kiss of Love” protest in Kerala. Titled “UoH Against Moral Policing”, the on-campus event, publicised solely on online social media, was supposed to create a space to discuss issues surrounding moral policing and the chain of Kerala incidents, bring out narratives of moral policing, talk about morality and Indian culture, and recite poetry. Also planned was a symbolic act of kissing on a chart paper, with the slogan “Our lips don’t char”. However, some ABVP and BJYM activists, with the aim of saving the students and the Indian culture from Western “immorality”, barged into campus and tried to attack the student protesters. The Telangana Police and campus security, who had failed to stop the intruders, did later succeed in cordoning them off from the protesting crowd, while insisting that the students call off the protest and disperse.

Unaccustomed to Police chauvinism and empowered enough to insist on their rights, the students managed to continue with their planned activities, although once in a while some right-wing activists managed to break ranks and tried to incite violence. The campus community however showed great restraint and continued protesting peacefully.  In response to such moral policing inside campus, the 250-plus students spontaneously started hugging and kissing each other, before dispersing.

One would imagine that the university – concerned about the breach of security and intruders trying to dictate morals to the campus community – might order an investigation. Instead, the very next day, the Registrar and Pro-VC, egged on by an over-enthusiastic Circle Inspector of Police, filed a case against its own students for organising an event without permission, and for indulging in the obscene act of “public kissing”. This led to a protest outside the Pro-VC’s chamber, where the Pro-VC and Registrar refused to withdraw the complaint. However after 14 hours of continuous protest by students, the administration agreed to revise the complaint.

Two weeks later, the saga continues. Following a complaint filed by an outside group against the University for holding the event, the University reverted by filing a complaint against the intruders. Meanwhile, the Police have been going through media footages to identify and charge students for obscenity under IPC Section 294(a). The Police complaint by the university has been revised. A section of the faculty, outraged at such a curtailing of free expression, have been voicing their dissent as well. This probably led to a softening of the administration’s stance, who later assured that they will not let students be prosecuted for protesting. Yet, despite the numerous meetings and dissent notes submitted by students and faculty, the complaint filed by the University still has not been withdrawn. An Internal Enquiry Committee has been constituted, but sources inform that their mandate is skewed in favour of penalising students for protesting.

There are a few threads that are especially phosphorescent in this chain of events. One is of course the university’s attitude. Second would be the Police’s proactivism. Third would be the right to protest. Fourth, and very importantly, other narratives which should have been more in the highlight, but now lost in the tangle, like the form of protest.

It is only expected that in a nation struggling with post-coloniality, someone takes up the defensive flag of Bharatiya sanskriti. Such a group feel would also be immensely threatened by such rampant breaches of Bharaitya sanskriti like kissing in public, and march against an event in support of such acts. However, what was unexpected was the UoH administration’s stand. The administration turned out to be empathetic to the insecure sanskriti defenders; especially when such a stand was dictated by the Pro-VC and the Registrar, who happen to be professors of Sociology and Political Science (respectively).

 

Much has been said and discussed about what indeed is the so called “Indian culture” and who are the bearers of Indian culture. As a legitimate citizen of India each individual is the bearer of the Indian culture. Through the actions of each individual then, Indian culture gets redefined and reproduced iteratively. There is no one single, linear and all-encompassing definition of Indian culture. The pseudo-bearers of Indian culture have again and again threatened the democratic structure of Indian society to hijack ‘Indian culture’ and normatively frame it after their own interests. (It is ironic that in this case, the so called defenders of ‘Indian culture’ use IPC section 294(a), drafted by Lord Macaulay and informed by Victorian morality, to defend Bharaitya sanskriti).

One would expect an academic space, especially a university, to be very familiar with these notions. And one would expect such academic spaces to spearhead the cause for rationality and liberality. But when the university administration fails to protect this space and becomes a mute complying spectator, one is lead to wonder if these undemocratic moves are not of the officials own volition.

The Telangana Police have been active participants in the chain of events. They appeared on campus learning about the “sensitive” nature of the event, and asked the students to disperse. After much debate, they let the event proceed but told the students not to “invite trouble by kissing”, threatening to “show the real face of Police” if the students did not “behave”. They did not remove the trespassers, even a woman activist who tried to physically assault students. The first complaint against the students was drafted in the presence of the Police, and did not mention the trespassers or their attempted violence. Later, they were present with the Pro-VC and Registrar in a meeting with students. They continuously threatened the students saying they had video evidence of them kissing. Terming it indecent, they clubbed kissing along with alcohol and drug abuse. The Inspector even made a statement that the recent EFLU gangrape was a result of “over liberty” given to students. Students, taking offence on this statement, questioned the university officials if they agreed to the Inspector’s statement, to which they meekly nodded.

Sources inform that the Police have continued to identify students using sensationalised media visuals to charge them under IPC Section 294(a):

294. Obscene acts and songs.—Whoever, to the annoyance of others—(a) does any obscene act in any public place

It is interesting to note here that no one has explicitly expressed “annoyance”. It is also to be questioned whether a space in a private gated community is a public place to people from outside the community. The university administration, as an abstract entity, cannot be a “witness” to the event and take annoyance. Moreover, the Delhi High Court in a 2009 ruling, and the Supreme Court in the famous Shilpa Shetty – Richard Gere case, had ruled that kissing in public spaces in not obscene. Have not the Police been reading their newspapers? And what is the Police to uphold, the morality imposed by the pseudo-bearers of “Indian culture” or the constitutional morality?

The University complaint against the students, even the revised version, accuse the students of “public kissing” and organising an event without permission. These are also prominent points in the mandate given to the Internal Enquiry Committee. Interestingly, being a highly politically empowered campus, several events and protests are organised almost every day. Most of these event organizers do not even inform the university administration of their being organised, let alone take permission. Nowhere in the publicly accessible university rules and code of conduct are peaceful non-disruptive student events or protests not allowed. Nor does it say that the administration has to be informed, or permission taken. Indeed, to take permission to protest would be to undermine the very notion of protest.

Article 19 of the Indian Constitution empowers each Indian citizen with the right to free speech and expression, and to assemble peacefully. To protest is to express dissent, which is a form of free speech and expression. Understanding the reformative socio-political prowess of a University space, the UGC Student Entitlements, which every college and university in our country has to abide by, state that “the college/university must allow space for free exchange of ideas and public debate so as to foster a culture of critical reasoning and questioning”. And that the university should “not impose unreasonable, partisan or arbitrary restrictions on organizing seminars,lecture and debates that do not otherwise violate any law”. In the spirit of these rights and laws, one can see that the university’s complaint is vacuous. One is led, again, to wonder what lies beneath the university’s attempt to deny the students a fundamental right.

What the organisers of the event can be happy about is that they have initiated a vibrant discourse on campus. On one side of the spectrum is the outrage against the encroachment of the freedom of protest. On another side are alternate narratives and readings of the wider chain of events and the form of protest. “Kiss of Love” have been criticised as reducing important communal and religious questions to an issue of moral policing. Organisations taking the caste struggle forward have critiqued it as an elitist and exclusive protest. Their arguments are to be taken seriously. One cannot disentangle moral policing, or notions of morality, in India from caste-class structures. Several events have stemmed out of the November 2nd incident, including academic discussions, poetry jams, protests, and of course, most importantly, heated over-the-chai engagements.

The point of the protest was lost in all the media sensationalization. A locking of lips, or an embrace, is the site of protest, of dissent, of expression. And not for obscenity or voyeuristic titillation. The greater cause was not the freedom to kiss, but the freedom to be whoever one wants to be and still be a bearer of Indian culture. A cause that has emerged en route is the freedom of expression.

One wonders if the reason for the university’s undemocratic and benighted stand is due to what it reads off the media. This is possibly a naïve thought, but if it is indeed true, then it needs to wake up. A university is charged with being the knowledge capital of a society. It is a space which social and political decision makers turn to for authentic and reasoned counsel. It is a space for constant review and questioning of our social practices and culture. It is a space where innovation and social changes are nurtured. It needs to be a space which allows its community to dare to question irrational belief. It needs to be a space where critical initiatives are fostered, guided by academic discourse. It needs to be a space which ensures, and does not require protests for, students’ basic rights.

In recent months universities in our country have been cracking down on their students. EFLU, Jadavpur University, and Visva Bharati have witnessed more drastic incidents than UoH. The Police is an external agent, insensitive to the socio-political dynamics of a varsity. Campuses need to evolve, and defend, own mechanisms for discipline based on liberal and progressive attitudes. It is only thus that changes in our society lead by students or academic communities be incubated, and allowed to reform our nation.

Anu K Antony, Mohan K Pillai, Sinjini Bhattacharya and Vaikhari Aryat are research students at the University of Hyderabad.

Cross-posted from Kafila.org.