Friday, September 13, 2013

A fake coin and the postmodern depthless presents in everyday life


Kaleidoscope and the queen rushes to the expressway connector in order to reach their destinations. It is a hurried moment and as always happens both of them are in no mood to waste a moment. Meanwhile a person approaches "could you please spell out what is written on it?"
Kaleidoscope and the queen become speechless to find out an East India Company 1818 coin in his hand. He convincingly says that he has found it underground while working in a place close to airport. 

The impression that the coin bears is also available in internt: http://kalyan.olx.in/east-india-company-1818-shri-ram-darbar-5-headed-shri-hanuman-rare-temple-token-coin-iid-153375084

Sell it:

Kaleidoscope with his pea sized intellect reads out the inscription and he fails to understand the hidden strategy. The person keeps on saying that he intends to sell it if someone pays him 'a-man-day'. Kaleidoscope asks "which is?" "Yes, it is Rs. 300/-" the man replies. Kaleidoscope (still thinks!) does not show any interest in the coin but reluctantly offers Rs. 50/-. 

The religious issues:

Since the coin numismatically Hinduised. It includes Lord Ram, his brother Laxman, his wife Sita and Hanuman. The man promptly says "I am a Muslim and my contractor says I should not keep it." 

Sold!

Not because of any attempt to save Lord Rama from a Muslim possession, but just because Queen is from archaeology, and Kaleidoscope is magically inclined to old things they make the purchase. 

Fake or Real:

Now comes the real test. Should Kaleidoscope feel the pride of possessing a coin nearly 200 years old, or he has just been cheated. The queen's father and many others (excepting Kaleidoscope, perhaps) have experiences of such encounters with fake coin sellers. Furthermore, one of Kaleidoscope's neighborhood sister from archaeology also says as the queen feels too that the coin, most probably is a fake copy. Kaleidoscope comes back and asks google, as google knows everything. While Kaleidoscope finds out, the design that the coin carries indeed resembles 1818 East India Company Coin.
Meanwhile a thought passes Kaleidoscope's mind, are not we living in an era where restorative efforts, such as Kaleidoscope's inclination towards old stuffs in postmodern condition, reflects the loss of an active relation to past as we have lost a sense of historical location and are locked into an endless succession of depthless presents (Jameson 1991). Hence, Kaleidoscope finds the answer. Whether or not the coin is true or a true copy of the original does not really matter. He is in the world with a whole historically original consumers' appetite for a world [that] transformed into sheer images of itself and for pseudoevents and "spectacles" (the term of the situationists). It is for such objects that we may reserve Plato's conception of the "simulacrum," - the identical copy for which no original has ever existed.

Kaleidoscope is amazed to find out:
  1. His consumer-centrist attitudes towards the endless successions of depthless presents
  2. His and queen's crave for a restorative efforts in their nostalgic (/colonial) hangover in a postmodern condition.
  3. A juxtaposition of religion, consumerism and images in which Kaleidoscope finds the world in which he chooses to live. 

2 comments:

  1. Depth less indeed... Cheers to the depth-less-ness

    ReplyDelete
  2. Superb... cheers to Jameson and you...

    ReplyDelete