The lonely peg

 What does it mean to be alone? For some others, selfie is the the loneliest thing that a human being can do. For some, the worst feeling is to drink alone. 

The problem lies with the definition of "alone"! What if I say that I drink with moon, mosquito and the mystic smell of the madhabilata which I so dearly allowed to invade in my privacy? What if I say that even when I am alone, I am not really alone, I am inside and I have inside the souls that keep on defining what I am?

Does a peg or two in the middle of the night define loneliness? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, perhaps love!

 

... moments you carry home

Moment by moment we live with a promise of living together beyond those moments. 

What happens beyond moments? Do we live separately! Perhaps not, we live with those moments. Bodies carry the marks of those moments, soul is etched with the words you have been whispering, the warmth of breathing on your skin speaks of the absent trace. You don't really leave thoae frozen moments, you live with them perhaps for ever. 

The fast times, crossing the physical space and creating distances no matter how materialistic it appear your moments envelope you! The absent trace is never quite over, so is your presence being never enough. 

Lovebirds on the go

Kaleidoscope could feel the bridging gap between the young and energetic girl and the boy sitting face to face at the fag end of the Tata Magic van which carries twelve passengers instead of its capacity for the seven. As the magic sped up the back-stage of the car started to transform itself into a different world. Their love filled gestures, holding hands, touching and whispering smiles were infectious. A windy ride with a beautiful couple exploring each others in the middle of nowhere - Kaleidoscope knew, it was a wonderful world! 

of matters Time, when you make love

It is the meeting and melting point of day and night that make people realise how fast time runs, kaleidoscope! The half finished tea cup said. It was a windy late spring afternoon and as slowly darkness started to spread its tentacles, Kaleidoscope knew its time to rethink time. Is it the fast moving Sun that makes people realise that time runs fast? No! Kaleidoscope exclaimed! 

Time runs fast when you hold hand of the person you love the most. Time speeds up when you forget everything else and make love. A liminal day only brings night, as the tea turns towards the soda! 

A Destination nowhere or a time travel

It is their turn to meltdown as the entire city attempts to engulf a small cab. It should be the yellow one, Kaleidoscope thought. What would be best way to end an wonderful day as the love struck romeo and his princess had surreal hours of togetherness. You are not the author, or are you, Kaleido? - The city asks him. Kaleidoscope didn't know what to say as he saw the princess was already melting down in the warmth of the space where she sat for the last few hours. She is beautiful and she shouldn't just leave the Romeo now, not in this way, thought Kaleido. But he is not the author, or is he?

They hurriedly left, as the love-struck Romeo was already bridging the boundaries between the possible, impossible and beyond, between the known and the unknown, limits and beyond. Would they go for a smoke now? Would they walk through the alleyways where the neon lights, streetlamps and trees were busy making a twilight? Would they wonder as the city was preparing for a more mesmerizing hours? 

Yes Kaleidoscope is not the author. Ah! a yellow taxi. City is writing the rest of story, Kaleido thought. 

So an impossible journey begins. A journey that doesn't have a destination. Nothing to achieve, nowhere to go, Princess and Romeo were melting down inside as the yellow taxi directed by the city itself move passed through the city traffic and neon lights. They were rather quick to become one and a frozen moment was created. They reached nowhere in time, yet they moved through the space, only the frozen moment remained like an absent trace that lingers. Thousands of these absent traces in-scripted by the city itself make up the city, a beautiful love affair. Kaleidoscope knew he is not the author.  

Emptiness and love affairs - the absent trace

 Kaleidoscope with his endless succession of depthless presents embraces an empty signifier the whole wide world likes to call as love. Love, to be loved is often a longing for a home that never exists. Indeed this empty signifier makes love ever more coveted. Kaleidoscope like his fellow countrymen aims at attaching love with person, objects and over and above everything fleeting realities. 

... and then against all the odds, love arrives, in its purest and tender form, like a neverending storm. Is this home? Asks Kaleido? Home? what is a home? does it exist beyond the moment in which Kaleidoscope immerses and finds himself. One kiss, one touch, one moment of holding hands, touching fingers and looking at the person, while everything else melts down. Is this going to last forever? 

What is the forever? Why Kaleidoscope is so enamored with permanency when the entire world is becoming more transient and mirrored? In the heart of the built in city, Kaleidoscope notices the buildings only have the foundations, the rest is glassy. Glassy! yes, non-permanent, transparent and again fleeting. What if the mirror breaks down?

What if the mirror breaks down? Kaleidoscope looks at the ceiling of the his favourite joints, they are all black! Why black? Because no one looks at them? Who says no one? he was looking to find  out post-office red painted water pipes, what if there is a fire? also the AC ducts hanging naked! Werent they supposed to wear a proper false ceiling. 

False ceiling? False and ceiling, where is the true ceiling then? Well its painted black, invisible! 

Kaleidoscope kisses everything that he feels like permanent, loneliness, emptiness, fleeting signifires, black ceilings, even if they are invisible, even if they are leaving an absent trace. 

Kaleoscope decides to seek the fleeting and empty signifiers for the rest of his life, be it dark, be it dampy, be it moist and full of tears, Kaleidscope still believes in love affairs.  

Canal transforms - nostalgia and kitch in New Town, Kolkata

  There used to be an unimportant route of memories to meet river, often unchecked. Yes it did carry water and since until recent times it was a country side, the water was nicer. Just nicer enough to grow water Lily and some edible roots and underwater growths. Kaleidoscope could see villagers reclaiming the canal, collecting water Lily flower seems and roots to consume.

Just yesterday it was, kaleidoscope remembers unkempt spiking trees and bushes along with the reflection of the sky added some tales of past. Not to forget birds especially three different types of Kingfishers added extra attraction to kaleidoscopic imagination.
Meanwhile, blue-white encroached and parallel running lanes were paved. It was a slow but definite entrance of the state to reclaim and redesign the space, taking away from the lap of nature.

While kaleidoscope could see trees trimmed there is this recent addition - lightposts. Soon to follow the charaistic blue-white led drapes. Perhaps another end to the beauty as it is and an onslaught of transformation to something which can be best described as kitsch.

While kaleidoscope walked pass the kanak-champak flowering tree someone whispers from the tree "let there be darkness".

See how the trees added spring to the canal
http://sumanparole.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-spring-has-to-come.html?m=1

See how the canal side looked before the addition

https://sumanparole.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-last-canal-newtown-and-great.html?m=1

The spring has to come

As the canal side road continues to amaze kaleidoscope with one thing or the other. A sudden appearance of tiny little common kingfisher making it's typical water close flight, or momentary call of blak headed Oriole and awesome call of the kite from hundred feets above distracts him, pushes him towards some riverine past. Like the tale of thousands of missing love affairs and painful separation as the river has to leave a place and go towards the sea - the bigger picture, kaleidoscope waits for the monsoon to fill up the gorge.

The remembrance of the untold love affairs halts kaleidoscopic pace as he encounters a rudra palas on the other side of the canal - lonely and yet colourful. There may be fallen flowers, wait that would last forever but no regrets. The spring has to come. 

Farmland, shopping mall and a walk: A futuristic romance

There are avenues of escape even in the midst of concrete jungle. Its not that hard to imagine a mesmerised surrounding engulfing you slowly in a place where you tend to sit for a while, for some time, for eternity. Shopping malls are never thought of such a place where you can romanticise your imagination. These are the places where you are supposed to come, buy, consume the space that surrounds you, eat or get dressed and look beautiful. Once you have finished the cycle you can take a selfie.




That has become part of our late capital, postmodern everydayness. Suddenly the world seems to be unbearably hot for Kaleidoscope so as to compel him to do every meeting with friends at one of those spaces. Being in a shopping mall definitely makes you conscious about how you look, how you walk, how you dress, how you eat and how you talk to others. However, there is one that carries the legacy of its past nearby. Yes, City Centre II, of Kolkata happens to stay at a place close to an existing farmland. You can stand on one of those foot bridges that connects two massive constructions to have a glimpse of it.




Kaleidoscope, happens to be one of those consumers who happened to go to the place for quite some time now. His earlier thought was that the farmland will disappear soon to give rise to high rises. He also thought how ugly the place will become if the other side of the major arterial road consists of highrises. Wouldn't it be a jungle of concretes only? Kaleidoscope asked himself several times. However, as he walked towards Chinar Park there is another wonder. Between high rises plazas there stood a small tract of village life near No-Para. A couple of buildings, a bamboo garden and a peaceful graveyard. Kaleidoscope thought again, how long one can hold on against the land grab. Meanwhile, the greenery continued to add hints of past country feeling in the midst of cacophony, highrises, reflecting glasses.




However, even after all these years, they continue to live on. The bamboo garden, the farm land continue to invite Kaleidoscope to an imagined past, perhaps to an imagined future. What would happen if suddenly, City Centre II, nearby Spencers supermarket and the like disappears from there? Ambuja group or the Goenka group would certainly loose nothing. Afterall, they have effectively rented the space to the latecapital consumers at an "affordable" high cost. They wouldn't mind abandoning a pile of concrete structure and glass panels! Would they?


What would have happened next? Trees would definitely outgrow the fashionable gardens, the farmland will continue to be cultivated. Soon, the greenery will show its signs of invasion to the concretes. Kaleidoscope, nevertheless thinks concrete buildings awaits such moments. There seems to be a pause in that eternal lovemaking  -  the pause is anthropocentric - the source of most the pauses in this planet.  

Varanasi diary: A saint and a friend

Ghats do become lonely at times

Well Kaleidoscope is not going to give a five ten or fifteen pointer about Jogi who has just climbed up chair and is expected to saffronise the country. While there was no Jogi on the show, Jogi was there declaring how to rape, whom to rape, what to wear, where to install what and also trying to rewrite and make new history. A lot of others would continue to write on Jogi! Here Kaleidoscope will write something about a different sort of jean clad jogi at Varanasi. This gentleman roams around the ghats of Varanasi, belongs to an extremely renowned family which owns the worship rights to more than ninety nine percent of the temples there. Yes, Kaleidoscope met him on the Daswasamedh ghat when he was trying to take a few photos of the Sannyashis in the ghat. Let us call this gentleman Shiva.

Kaleidoscope watched Shiva buying a Betel leaf from the same shop which offers good cigarette in the day and marijuana in the night. Shiva was watching kaleidoscope buying cigarette after he finished his work with camera. It was late February and the mid day Sun was quite hot. Shiva asked Kaleido about the heat of the Sun and whether he feared going to Manikarnika ghat - the palce famous for burning bodies. Something clicked between them and they remained friends since then. However two stories Kaleidoscope would like share here about Shiva.

First, Shiva is very fond of alcohol but he needs to go away at least a fifty kilometer to enjoy a drink or two with his friends because he is supposed to be a priest. Shiva, does worship everyday and does it with utmost dedication but also loves to go frenzy with daaru, meat and other things. Once, in their early twenties they went to a restaurant about a ten kilometer from the city and drank. At the time of payment the restaurant owner refused to accept the money, saying "you belong to the holy family, how can I accept money." That was Shiva's biggest embarrassment and he had to run away. However, while saying this Kaleidoscope could clearly understand the challenge and pressure of being saint that his friend is carrying for so many years.

Second, Shiva had a love affair but obviously he had to leave her because of his caste identity. Shiva had to understand this dynamism in his early adulthood and has been repenting being born in that family for ever.


No, not everything has a conclusion and life is unpredictable so does this blog!

PS. If Kaleidosocpe feels like he might write about their joint exploration of the city. Until then do find Human nature inside every flesh and bone or caste and creed, brilliant or stupit. 

Letting go 11: Surreal evening with the river

An evening with the river

Not everyday ends up in a surreal evening, not every sunset and darkness brings two lonely whispering souls to whisper their lonely love affairs without talking of love at all. Like two best friends share a secret and then disappear in the soil or turn into ashes to blow away with the river stream, whispering begins. The story however, remains unknown and concealed. Like the forest becomes library in the twilight, rivers whisper near the bank, a surreal world unwraps in an extraordinary sunsets. 

A walk along the riverbank in the twilight, sometimes during a surreal sunset reveals story threads. Stories and discoveries that never fails to make kaleidoscope mesmerised. With the approaching darkness kaleidoscope could feel the river engulfing his soul. Before disappearing he could smell the wind blowing. A homecoming storm comes out of nowhere and claims all the words spoken, the moment shared!The sandy dusts and water blows through kaleidoscope's face. Quite the same way wind plays with your hair in a windy highway, kaleidoscope could feel home coming storm inside. 

Words and moments begin to dance around his soul, like a stream of consciousness in blood rushing through his vain. It synchronizes with a rapidly beating heart, fast breathing. Kaleidoscope could see all senses synchronizing in the tune of riverine whispers. He could eventually smell the riverine aroma and before disappearing in the riverine darkness he could listen to the whispering words -  'all yours.'

Letting go 4: Can you talk of love at all?

So, how many times did Kaledoscope find himsef falling short of words to express what is going on inside his head? Well, it's countless. Kaleidoscope often have felt that there are lot to say, lot to make the other understand. He often has made  plans: a checklist of words, sentences  and points that he wishes to tell, to share, to make understandable by the other. However, when the moment comes he often fails miserably.

How does he fail?

1. He tries to put his thought into words and then after some time he finds so many fill in the blanks in his script! May be he expresses through his body language but such language often remains undeciphered or may be he is equally poor with his body languages.

2. With repeated failure he often stops talking. He often gives up saying things that he used to say regularly. Then all that are left in a conversation is idle chatter!

When the question of love comes Kaleidoscope can only utter the words to express the way he is dragged towards the image of love and not the love per se. In his intimate moments with person, places and the like he finds himself in an absolute shortage of words. He describes the situation as silence! Yes an word to escape from himself! Yes it is silence outside and a storm of ignited passion inside. He often asks himself 'what you talk of when you talk of love?' he has also documented in his earlier post that its the 'Silence.'

Well, silence of what kind?

Silence because of the shortage of words?

Silence because the other as Kaleidoscope perceives can read a lot from a silence?

Silence because of the pain he has to take up?

Silence for prolonged broken promises?

Silence because of memories and inheritance of loneliness?

Or perhaps a combination of so many things of compatibility and incompatibility with kaleidoscopic self , the world and the imagined world.

Kaleidoscope just like others still searches for the answers to one of his primordial questions now 'what we talk of when we talk of love?' In addition to another and more persistent one 'did we know what love is? Do we have the capacity to even imagine, the feel the passion the tenderness of a state of being we so reluctantly label as love?'

Letting go 2: what happens when you come back

Kaleidoscope went back to the wonderland for one more time, within a little more than two months' time after his departure. During the journey he enjoyed the beautiful landscapes from the 'nonstop bus.' As the time progressed he became increasingly excited about his return to the place, more so about his return to the river he loves the most.

The journey:

When the daylight was gone, he became on his own with a mix of loneliness- as he rarely travelled the distance alone, excitement - to meet the river, the wonderland, and anxious- because of his scepticism about the interaction with place where he is no longer a regular visitor. Would the place question him because kaleidoscope has made so many promises? Would it dance to celebrate kaleidoscope's return? Would it stop talking to him, because of the broken promises? Would it tremble if kaleidoscope touches it one more time? With the twilight he started to write a blog, easiest way to take refuge from storms inside that he has to handle every now and then.

The arrival:

When the bus crossed the 'gateway', Kaleidoscope could not hold his excitement anymore. He tried to look out in darkness, tried to make sense of the place which is engulfed in darkness. He failed to do so until he reached the crossroad near his workplace. The crossroad, the port lights, the rivery smell, the wind remained the same. They did not welcome kaleidoscope in any overwhelming way, but kaleidoscope could feel the connection began to build once again from within. They were not excited with the return, neither they remained indifferent, they rather looked at Kaleidoscope, as if questioning 'while you expect us to be the same, are you the same person when you revisit here again?'

The interaction:

Kaleidoscope had a wonderful reunion with his friends, celebrated the life, and continuation.

The place, surroundings interacted differently at different times. Sometimes, kaleidoscope felt at home, sometimes he cried out silently, because this visit, and every next one would be momentary. He cannot roam around aimlessly on the streets, talk over hours, wait with his camera forever to capture the right moments. This very momentary nature of his visit made all the difference. He attempted to see the not so conspicuous road side outgrowths, the birds, trees, reflections of the sky over marshy land and numerous tiny little things which lives happily and only comes alive in 'macro lens.' Kaleidoscope's inside shouted out 'miss you all, there is nothing like you here so big and yet so small.'

The river:

The river remains as lovely as the sunset moments, as warm as a lover's soft hands. Perhaps more inviting than a blooming flower. Kaleidoscope wept for a while along with the river. They told each other 'stay well/ bhalo thakis'- that's Bangla way of saying 'please don't leave, stay!' and then with darkness two lovers depart with longing selves living for another reunion.

Letting go: What happens when you leave?

Kaleidoscope has just finished his wonderful days at the wonderland. When he was shocked by the fact that he has to leave the place he fell in love with, has to stop seeing the river he can't live without, he was numb. He knew that best days of his life was about to get over. Its not that he never thought about this day. He knew he would be shattered when these days would be over. He had in his distant thought about the things that would have happened when he leaves the place he is so attached to. When the moment arrived he fell short of words to describe exactly what was going on inside his self.

The abrupt departure:

The nature of attachment Kaleidoscope had would made any departure abrupt to him.  He made it sure that he leaves without tears, he made it sure that he leaves with a positive mind. On his way back he talked to the river and to himself, said its not the end. Its a beginning with a new journey at a new place. He also expected a new journey with his friends at the wonderland. He expected new beginnings at the new place.

A divided and restless soul:

Its now about two months. One part of his soul still lives at wonderland and perhaps will never leave the place ever. Perhaps there is another part of his self,  an imposed division, which he had to make because of the sudden change of place. Now when he roams around the city where he grew up and has so many memories, he finds himself as a complete stranger in the middle of a crowded place, all alone, attempting to find a refuge, attempting to develop a language to converse with.

Everydayness and the loneliness:

He is transferred to a new part of his city, rather an extended part, specifically designed to house the Information Technology hub. Everyday he travels in a crowded bus to reach his work place. He cannot estimate the time needed because he almost forgot to calculate time and distance, keeping in mind the traffic conditions. He usually lets go most of the over crowded buses and stands alone in a fleeting bus stand to see people come and go. He sweats, looks around the busy people talking over phone, or arguing with the bus conductors and fellow passengers. Often nothing registers in his mind. He looks out, tries to transcend his contextual change and imagine the highway rides, sunsets over the river, kisses and smells of the waves that made him survive so many hurdles of his everyday life.

When stuck at traffic jam Kaleidoscope never gets irritated, he is usually in a process of churning the memories, because memories are all he has.

The return:

Kaleidoscope could perhaps never return to the wonderland, to the river, to the lover like he used to rush everyday, every moment. He could, perhaps never be the one with the wave. Perhaps he would never cry out thousand rivers. He would never be the same again.

However, kaleidoscope returns everyday, every night in his dreams, sometimes in a surreal way to his river. His soul claims the river, the sunset and the wonderful highway.

Would it ever be the same again? Would the river give him another chance, another time to cry, tell a story. The story of growing up misplaced. Would his highway set him free like it used to be?

Civilisation and question of love: part VI aggression, nature and our illusions

Taken from http://en.artoffer.com/Ricardo-Ponce/O-T-Emotions-Aggression-People-Men/4780

One of kaleidoscope's favourite philosopher-cum-Archaeologist Professor Gordon Childe commented that civilisation is  time when people started to have an aggressive attitude towards environment.

What is an aggressive attitude?

It means at least three things,
A. You forget that the thing you are dealing with has its will and consciousness (at least it has its internal working)and you tend to deal with it as only a material to be tamed for your own purpose.
B. you tend to make it twisted for your own purpose.
C. You tend to behave violently when it resists!

How does it affect you?

When you are aggressive towards anything, what you do is that you pursue self interest maximization, you behave rationally (from your often restricted and selfish economic rationality only) to undermine the value of everything else.

Hence throughout the history of human civilisation we devised several shortcut methods for our own good. Here are few examples of such shortcut methods and potential dangerous outcomes.

1. No need to hunt grow your food
Result: high level of malnutrition in most part of the human civilisation, crop failure and famine even in 21st century Africa.

2. No need roam around, settle down
Results: power inequality, slavery, class formation (hence struggle!), resource accumulation, greed and warfare (even today)

3. No need to have individual identities, remember people in classes(kinship, age set,caste and so on)
Results: you tend to objectify people and do not dwell on the richness of individual relationships. You suffer when you cannot fit in to categories (everyone knows the pain of being attracted towards a kin and not being able to tell, even share with others)

So, what's now?

On the one hand we have developed aggressive attitude towards nature, people and other things, and on the other hand we have forcefully created our environment and the violently tried to adapt ourselves in. Today we occupy several different built in environments everyday where we are constantly adapting. In the morning we are at home then on road then on vehicle then at office with work then we break at canteen then again back to work then again on road, in a vehicle then back home again. I know the above sentence has been monotonous but just think about the tremendous psychological and also physical pressure we are taking to adapt ourselves in environments in which we are forced to adapt. To adapt to this complex world human babies have to spend almost one third of their life in learning!

When we tend to dwell in this complex world  of ours we are being told and made believe that civilisation is  gift to make our life easy! Kaleidoscope with his pea-size intellect is still searching for 'how civilisation has made our life easy?'

It has rather made us forget fundamental beauties of consciousness like falling in love, making love, appreciating nature as it is, living in harmony with others and appreciating the fact that world is a home for not only the human species but for all!

Civilisation and Question of Love: Part V Choices we Make

Taken at Max Life Style, in City Centre II, Rajarhat, Kolkata

Kaleidoscope wishes to discuss the question of choice which has become so much important in a late capitalist society. He teaches his students that development is the question of the enhancement of choices. One of our famous noble laureates speaks about development as freedom, Kaleidoscope like many others understands it is a freedom to choose. Therefore increasingly we are looking for more alternatives in our lives. We wish to avail services where we feel that we are having more choices. Lesser choices most frequently disinterest us.  

The bigger questions are therefore:

A. Does enhancement of choice mean empowerment?

B. How enhancement of choice connects expenses, restlessness and craving?

C. What happens to those (or them) whom we do not choose (or choose to leave behind)?

D. How do alternatives enhance our freedom?

E. How the question of love, choice and alternatives connect?

Choices and individuation

The most significant gift of the civilisation is freedom of choices. What we are taught to truly value is our independent individual existence. For example while a generation earlier it was taught that one must not forget the value system of one’s “culture”, one must be dutiful towards his/her significant others often including neighbours, with the advent of capitalism the philosophy has been turned upside down. The futuristic growth model which the state and market as scholarly twins of the industrial revolution thought needed a push. In order to satisfy such a need the state intervened family matters in the court of law through the army of state machineries, market continued to send army of products which first challenged the local products and then completely wiped them out with international standard branding. Therefore, while Kaleidoscope wears a Levis Strauss jeans he can truly identify himself with his friend Jan Kaweretzke staying at Berlin. However, this was not enough to break the bond of the family and community; therefore, the twin of the industrial revolution has given another dimension, a dimension that is stronger than such “pre-modern” bonding, i.e. the power to become INDIVIDUAL.

It means that

1.       Marry the person you like.

2.       Leave him/her if s/he does not suit you eventually.

3.       Choose from different alternatives and crave for more.

4.       You do not need to depend on the family and community for basic things like food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare and of course employment.  

Interestingly the individuation issue is way too opposite than what we are taught by the millions of years of evolution. We have been co-operative with each other, we lived in communities, and we evolved and become the major force of the planate because of this co-operative ability. Within merely about two centuries we are becoming independent individuals. Today while market is providing us with choices like never before, state is doing constant surveillance over families. For example in many countries the state can sue a person to a slightest of ‘negligence’ over their children. State compels you to send your children to school, can take away your child if you do not behave with them according to the legal terms of appropriateness.

Rationality as New Barbarism:

All these are done under a powerful concept of ‘rationality’, often which is backed by another heavy loaded term “scientific.” The scientific rationality in the intellectual sphere has fuelled in the process by inventing child psychology, individual psychology, discovering diseases which were not there before the advent of certain forms of life styles. With increasing specialisation in the academic disciplines we have invented and regularly updated DSMs, by the American Psychological Association and then thrse are used across the world without often thinking about the contextual and cultural richness of different places other than America. The rationality based on logic has taken away to a significant extent the vital inputs of affect and emotions. Rationality often speaks against emotions. For example with scientific rationality we can make fun out of our medieval ancestors, even to a certain extent our own parents who still believe that there is something called afterlife and work for divinity. From a purely scientific point of view we can say human life has absolutely no meaning at all. We are outcome of a mindless evolutionary game. If tomorrow our planet is blown up, nothing will happen to the universe, and it will continue to mind its own business. Hence, any meaning that we attribute to our life is a delusion.

How does it make a person feel who continued to thins his unfulfilled aspirations will be fulfilled in the next life?

How does it make you feel if you have just fall in love and your love is reciprocated?

Yes, it is gruesome, science, or for that matter rationality is gruesome exercise.

The indifference:

With the enhancement of choices and formation of atomic individuation we have learned another thing, i.e. indifference. In fact, our building architectures, essential life commodities teach us to become indifferent everyday.

 

South City Shopping Mall, Kolkata

Mies van der Rohe Seagram_building Chicago

Technopolis office building, Sector V, Kolkata

The pictures above shows indifferent architectures designed to cater the issue of space rationally. All three has amazing similarity yet are designed for different purposes. They are all air-conditioned, indifferent towards the outside world, they all reflect, i.e. simply throws back the outside world, not allowing them to enter into the inner space.

While our buildings, air-conditioned cars, houses, and offices are indifferent, we too are indifferent. What we really care about is the question of choice. While we are having many things to choose from, our mind continues to crave for more. Even what we crave for years or decades only gives us a momentary pleasure and then becomes part of our regular life, making us crave for more. Therefore, we are increasingly becoming indifferent towards the world that surrounds us, relationships that contend us to focus on our individual pursuits which are actually shaped by the strategic nexus of state, market and science. Because there is an uneasy relationship between individuals (who also crave for relationships along with other things) state, market and science our species is increasingly becoming restless, tensed and dissatisfied.

Love and the trickledown effect of choice:

While we have an enhanced ability to choose from ever increasing alternatives we have started to believe (unconsciously may be) that we can get everything we want. We have forgotten to accept the defeat. Whenever we face a defeat we tend to seek revenge. Because of our indifference towards the world in which we tend to live, we hardly have anything to care for. When the question of love comes, it is often seen that we tend to seek everything from a finite person, and when we fail to have it all we seek newer relationships. Often badly hurting the persons whom we choose to leave. Often we do not leave, we continued to stay but in a void, constantly thinking and seeking other possibilities. Kaleidoscope can still remember one of his friends saying out of frustration that he cannot find new pornographies. Many of the so called new pornographies are actually old ones and repetitive.

The two scholarly children of industrial revolution, i.e. state and market along with their best friend science is sincerely manufacturing individuals with choices to make. Increasingly state-market-science nexus in their affair with individuals is pushing people far away from the affect and love, replacing them with scientific rationality and polishing them with choice. 

The Civilisation and Question of Love: Part IV Farming and Biggest Blunders

Yes the exploration continues over the question of love. In doing so kaleidoscope wishes to show how the advent of farming has severely affected the nature of love. While kaleidoscope says so, he presumes two things first, love is a different feeling than sexual drive. Although sexual drives do have significant connection with love, but love as a feeling can transcend sexual impulses. Therefore, one can love asexually; one can love even without thinking about sex at all. Second, love is a pleasure that comes instantaneously but it requires investment of time and emotions to nurture it. It does mean that if you do not have time you would definitely lose love to a significant extent. 

Love is a highly valued commodity now a day

Love is highly valued but less thought of or cared for. We tend to equate love with commitment to monogamy. We tend to equate relationships with the concept of property. Therefore, everything related to commitment boils down to the question of physical relationships. Being physically intimate with someone else than your partner is the highest form of betrayal. Even in the court of law this holds to be true. In this blog Kaleidoscope wishes to address the issue of love, temporal investments in love and its link to farming and rest of the civilisation.

THE HISTORICAL BLUNDER

For millions of years we were happy with hunting and gathering. We have colonised most part of the world and yet remained hunters and gatherers. The massive mistake, yes kaleidoscope calls it a mistake was conceded by a group of people about 10 thousand years BC somewhere near south western Turkey. The surplus theory which says that the entire civilisation, development etc. has come out of agriculture surplus has actually resulted in misery in average Homo sapiens life and has generated population explosion, and a class of elites (Diamond 1997).

What makes kaleidoscope conclude that farming was a blunder? From purely biological point of view farming before the advent of market economy has yielded nothing but toiling of our ancestors. We were supposed to be expert climbers of trees, trapping games and collecting a wide variety of food to satisfy our omnivorous selves. Instead of doing that we have started taking care of wheat plants throughout the year and there was no look back. We cleared up rocks for them, we fetched water for them sacrificing our lumbar spine and in return wheat has given us carbohydrates. Because these plants needed constant care they have domesticated us. We could not roam around freely. Even today we crave for a vacation, and we spend thousands to enjoy the vacation. If we did not cultivate we could have been much smaller in number with much larger space to live in and a much larger forest to roam around.

Although it is difficult for today to imagine the dire consequences farming sitting in an air-conditioned room enjoying all the luxuries of capitalist society, however we are enjoying all the luxuries at the expense of our ancestors who died of malnutrition, settled to take care of plants in settlements which were hotbed of infectious diseases.

In a foraging society people are usually happy with a wide range of foods to eat, almost no question of malnutrition. In contrast with settled farming society people are to depend more on a particular kind of diet. While our ancestors thought that they need to work harder to make farming more profitable, they did that and for a while they fetched returns too, but the philosophy of their life altered fundamentally. The new philosophy said the harder you work the more profit you make, thereby you are more secure in life.

FUTURISTIC DREAMS:

The very concept future might be linked to farming. In a hunting gathering society there is no point of thinking about tomorrow. It has been a society which is ever present. Everyday you need to go out with your band to hunt and gather. You get your share, you eat, you sleep, you play and you listen to myths and perform rituals. When games and other resources are increasingly becoming scarce you migrate. Not much to think about. With the advent of farming you are constantly thinking about the future. The entire life's philosophy is futuristic in terms of yield, weather and uncertainties. Living in future is a trend that we have inherited and carry with us all the time.

As many of the ethnographers who have worked with recently settled hunting gathering tribes know how difficult it is to make them understand the importance of savings and having bank accounts. Kaleidoscope has studied the savings behaviour of Santals and compared them with neighbouring Mahato communities to find a stark difference. In Jindal Steel Works at Salboni he has found that while Mahatos are able to save some amount of the compensation money, most of the Santal families have made immediate expenditure mostly by celebrating festivals, and in consumption of liquor.

The whole philosophy of work harder for a better tomorrow (which of course never comes) is rooted to this grave mistake of farming. Therefore, Santals who are still hunter and gatherers in their soul fail to understand the need for savings for a future. While we were told that hard work will result in better (luxurious) future it was a lie. It was a lie because what we consider luxury today becomes tomorrow's necessity with newer luxuries hanging beyond us.

FUTURE, SPECIALISATION AND LOVE:

When we constantly think about future uncertainty and luxuries we tend to toil harder in our work at hand. Our brain is taught constantly to work harder with an immediate and also long term goals to achieve. Working hard does not end. We have to be very focus on what we do. Therefore, we are to choose from the available alternatives. These alternatives are given by historical forces, such as family, friend and other associations. Most often we fail to choose what really interests us. Therefore, we are living in someone else's life from the very beginning, we take the burden of someone else's dreams, we are worried about future which was designed for someone else.

In a relationship we tend to equate property rights over the rights over individuals. Womenfolk are the worst sufferers of such a concept. They have been equated with land and reproductive instruments. With time these have only become altered to adopt different forms. Even today virginity is considered as a woman's greatest virtue. Faithfulness is equated with pretention of having a happy life within the lawful marriage rather than love and care.

With such entanglements of someone else in my body and soul we tend to mount on a career horse to reach a future, thereby making our lives ever more complicated. Durkheim once stated the difference between mechanical solidarity (feature of pre-modern society where people usually perform similar tasks) and organic solidarity (modern society works as a organ system with specialisation, people perform different specialised roles). Yes we are specialised to perform certain kinds of works and we do them with ever greater hardship.

Therefore, we have specialists for everything. We even have specialists for working on love and relationships we call them poets, writers and sometimes Archie's gallery. Specialists are framing words, taking photographs, painting and selling them to us in exchange of our labour in our particular field.

The more we engage future, the more we need to work harder, the more we work hard in a specialised arena the less we have time to do other things. The more we are integrated in organic solidarity the less we have time for other things, such as love. Increasingly our species would become lonelier and miserable with machine like soullessness.

The Civlisation and Question of Love: Part II Images We Live With

It seems that the question love in the civilisation is constantly poking Kaleidoscope's insatiable soul. Kaleidoscope is surrounded by people who wears masks, Kaleidoscope also has masks to wear. However, while making conscious choices for making friendships he is usually looking for persons who has least number of masks and especially he choose to be friend with those who surrender their true selves in moments of intimacy. This is nothing unusual, we all do it at some point of time. In this article Kaleidoscope wishes to trace the origin and continuation of the "images we live with."

Imagined lives, imagined cares and imagined communities:

The money economy in a capitalist society has largely replaced older maintenance system which was based primarily on the family, kinship, age-sets and community. People in small scale rural communities knew each other face to face. With the advent of capitalistic economy, market dominated neo-liberalism shaking hand with the state machinery has largely replaced the functional value of such communities. Now it is okay if you cannot spend time with your family because you are working quite far away. You can expect professional help by calling a center when in need to get the professional help. State will look after your old age needs when the young part of the population is busily engaged in contributing to the growth of the nation. There are numerous aspects of such imagined life, beginning with the very notion of the nation, and national identity to Elvis fan club. These imagined communities as we will see is contributing to the images we live with.

Choices we make images we build:

Not many years back dowry and bride price has been quite an acceptable thing. Although the society in which Kaleidoscope lives has substantive existence of dowry but at least there is a rising concern that taking dowry is a crime and in at least urban centers there is some form stigma attached with it. While earlier the marriages were fixed by the families sitting together exchanging dowry and bride price now we fix our marriages. We see each other in restaurants, pubs, we hang out to get to know each other and we give money to the waiter and to exclusive stores. In consequence the exchange is there not in the form of Dowry or Bride price but in the form of feeding the capitalists. 

There has been a video (referred above) projecting one of the prominent bollywood actresses Deepika Padukone boldly stating "MY BODY MY CHOICE." "To marry, not to marry, to have sex before marriage, to have sex outside marriage, to not have sex at all..." 

The late capital society has enhanced the freedom of choice. While kaleidoscope teaches development to his students, he often refers to the question of choice. Development can simply be seen as increasing freedom for people to choose to live in a particular way. However, this choice is an endless succession of depthlessness too. For example when we choose our spouse, friends and neighbours, they may choose to leave us. The incompatibility in a relationship (which is increasingly becoming a common feature) will make us lonely, severely affecting our mental well being.  As the individuals are storing enormous power of making choices and freedom to live in a particular way we are heading towards a situation where the space for such words as commitment is increasingly becoming difficult to maintain. The harder it gets to commit the lonelier our species would become and we are heading towards that.

Late capital depthlessness:

Simulation, Implosion and Hyperreality has been catchy to what kaleidoscope means with the loss of love. 

Fast-track advertisement using Woman's body and the tag of sale. Projecting the desired body and not the products. 

The film Nirbaak projects the love for the self in the mirror (role played by Anjan Dutta, especially the mirror smooching scene). While Susmita Sen is disappointed with his lover, he was told by Anjan Dutta "Love yourself, for a change." Perhaps the simulation and hyperreality is surrounding us. Today we tend to identify ourselves with the supermodels. We love wine, fast food, and yet desire a body of a supermodel. Hence, we are constantly constructing body as "desiring machines" that casts off socially articulated, regularised and subjectified circumstances (Deleuze and Guattari 1984).
The question however remains when we started to lose the essence and stepped in the hyperreality? Perhaps Kaleidoscope would argue it started with advent of script. The essential arbitrary nature of the scripts especially the slippery relationship between signifier and signified (yes our all time favourite Saussure) started the hyperreality. However, the nature and extent of its extension has seen unprecedented growth affecting every aspect of our life with advent of late capitalistic consumer society.   Hence we tend to shape and wrap our body the way in which it is acceptable and 'attractive.' We meet with friends, or fiancee and then keep ourselves busy with mobile phones.

A typical scene that we encounter everyday.

We are heading towards

1) a new flatness and depthlessness in our conversations, relationships and in choices too.

2) an endless search for uniqueness of selves while its sleeping away.

3) a replacement of affect with euphoria.

4) A constant nostalgia - in Boym's sense the lost home, longing for a home that no longer exists

The question of soul:

Hence what we have is images, hyperreality in our everyday life. We touch body, we touch photographs, our romance and fantasy is increasingly shaped by pornographies and virtuality. Advertisements are playing even more crucial roles. While we spend hours online, making new friends, communicating through whatsapp, we often lose the depth. We touch body, we enjoy sex, we enjoy shopping but we forget to touch the soul. Well there are people Kaleidoscope knows who can ask what is a soul? 

Concepts taken from:

Baudrillard, J. (1990). Cool memories. Verso.

Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction, trans. Brian Singer (New York: St. Martin's Press,1990), 31.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan press.

Deleuze, G. (2004). Anti-oedipus. A&C Black.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1988). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia.  Bloomsbury Publishing.

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Duke University Press.

Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (Vol. 10). U of  Minnesota Press.

Lyotard, J. F. (1988). Le différend (Vol. 46). U of Minnesota Press

Vattimo, G. (1988). The end of modernity: Nihilism and hermeneutics in post modern culture.

Vattimo, G. (1992). The transparent society (pp. 68-69). Cambridge: Polity Press.

Random serious vis-a-vis random casual: salt, sugar, pepper with their endless possibilities

If not now... when will you learn to love?

Souls meet, souls depart - often a painful and tearing apart journeys and nostalgia for a home that never really exists. We meet hundreds empty faces everyday - none of those matters until that one face comes and your life is changed for ever.

The essential question that needs to be asked is combination of salt, sugar and peeper. Whether the combination of these three is already given, or are created in the process or are constructed in the mind of the souls which is often far from the actual combination. Because you never know when the combination is flawed and its time for good byes.

When it comes to the question of good byes, its the distance that matters. You find the distance between two bodies drifting apart. Much like elements floating at random in space. The distance increases until you are into a complete void.

The essential question that needs to be addressed is the combination of the three... The combination that is never static and keeps changing often at an unimaginable pace. If the combination in a person, in a relationship really matters, is it possible to slow down for a bit, so that the other person can keep up with it? Kaleidoscope finds it difficult to decide because of several reasons. First, often it becomes difficult to identify the need for the existence of such relationships, second, it is not always possible bridge the gap which becomes too big, too huge to physically cross over, third, no matter how much you slow down, other persons' picking up the pace (/tuning up to the rhythm) does not remain only a matter of choice, but a matter of competence/ willingness/ likes and dislikes.

Again the old question comes, whether there is a sudden change in the combination of salt, sugar and pepper? Or is it a failure in ability of taste (/to test!) in the first place? Or is it an outcome of the construct that people conceptualise regarding a person with (imagined) such and such combinations? Or is it the pretense of the other person in the never-ending process called the presentation of the self (or straight face hypocrisy)? and more importantly is it an outcome of a constant play of simulated games by some with real players, real relationships?

The best answer might be a combination of all, with numerous permutations and combinations in different relationships, in different contexts, in different modes!

What about the real people, with minimal pretense in a not so sure games with the others? Most frequent ending is beyond the wining or loosing, beyond pleasure and pain, beyond happiness and sorrow. It ends up with a void like the space and increasingly drifting apart bodies - floating endlessly.  

Frustratingly enough Kaleidoscope lives in a world which does not have much to offer in terms of words, thoughts or actions to fill up such a void... at best being there alongside matters - to what extent, he does not know!