A Vanishing Art

Two of the blogs I often visit, carried posts of a certain degree of controversy this week. One was by a Bangalore techie, popular amongst the tamil-speaking blog junta. The post was on one of tamil nadu's yester year revolutionaries whose scent still smells strong in the state, and on the scandalous lyrics of a movie being made on the afore mentioned leader. The second blog was by an alumnus of two of India's most prestigious instituitions, on the vagaries of Tamil names and the way they are spelt and pronounced. A seemingly funny post on the noise introduced in the sanskrit -to-tamil-to-english migration of names that tamilians carry upon their persona. Both posts discuss pertinent issues and topics, worth a healthy discussion. But, the former ended up being acutely judgemental and the latter a kaleidoscope of disguised prejudices. In both cases, More than the writer, or his actual intent what disturbed me is the flurry of fascist sounding comments they provoked in their wake. I have often wondered about the dynamics and genesis of hate. Crude, barbaric and uncivilised hate. Got a glimpse of it the past week. I am not very sure if I shall survive the full view.

The post below is from an older blog of mine. On a dying art. The art of acceptance.


THE ART OF ACCEPTANCE.

Prejudices run deep. I have seen cats and dogs assert territorial sovereignty and try to be very exclusive. But, men, with the tell-tale sixth sense , the sense to discriminate right and wrong, ought to have , by the laws of evolution , matured beyond such pettiness and rightfully so.Youth of today, however keen on their personal betterment, should look at their world with an all encompassing attitude. The benevolence of a Mahatma is too much to ask for, but a rise above frivolous misgivings and misconceptions is but a humble request.In a country like ours, so rich in traditions and colossal in grandeur, the least influence its cultural wealth could have on us would be a sort of sensitization to our surroundings.Even animals, can sense frostiness, a lack of welcome, and alienation. Many schools in the west have racial clashes reverberating in their classes. Differences in religion, creed, color, wealth, status and grooming create a haphazard multi- tier system in every walk of life. The primal reason behind this malady would be a kind of evolutionary disorder, where people fail to realize that they are human beings, and that their existence lies in their progress, progress of the material kind, and more significantly progress of the mind. An eye that sees the inner beauty of every human ,a heart that resonates the inimitable beat of every other and a soul that realizes itself to be, even for a split second, a microcosm of the Supreme macrocosm, conjure the real human being. A being that is superior inherently, that glows in that supremacy. A person who prides himself for having great looks, a grandiose lineage, formidable wealth and power, declares himself to be a paragon of purity, basks in the borrowed glory of these possessions of his.Variety is the spice of life. Imagine a world where you would have to live with people who were clones of yourself. Maybe to add a pinch of salt, brothers or half brothers of your clones. Even then life would be hellish. The moribund dullness of homogeneity could be maddening. Yet, men don’t relish variety. They yearn in vain to make the world reflect their identity. Little do they realize, in this childish endeavor of theirs, they destroy the very identity that they are trying to popularize.I am not only talking of the fascists and fanatics, who under the incarceration of prejudice, go to extremes to establish themselves. Again the laws of evolution could justify their act. Survival of the fittest. Alright, you are fit, and you survive too. But why do you need to survive? To wake up every morning, to look at the sameness, the grey uniformity, the precarious bubble of your sanity at the very edge of its doom. What kind of a survival would that be? Death would be more interesting. If the Hindus went on destroying the Masjids and Muslim artifacts, would we have the Taj Mahal standing serenely as the symbol of eternal love?Prejudice and hatred create havoc and destruction in their wake, they destroy in the bud, many a potential friendship, and foster animosity in would-have-been genial relations.In its most virulent form, prejudice mutates into hatred, jingoism and fanaticism. But seemingly harmless too have their long term repercussions.A fetish nurtured by many amongst us, is the desire to stay exclusive. And more often than not, these exclusive closed congregations are mistaken to be elite.When you meet someone new, there is the instant wriggling of the nose, a Lady Bracknell attitude that sets in to nothing more than a mere digress from your tastes. There’s no harm in being self opinionated, but intolerance to differing views is a marked symptom of mental immaturity. An open mind is the most receptive mind. Many scions of royalty, have in the past, denounced their age old customs, which they saw in their true colors, as anachronisms. They are the true men and women who have grown out of the cocoons of adolescence.Every creature learns its environment by exploration. [even a Hobbit!!]. Man is an explorer not only of nature, but also of intellect. To see beyond differences, however indigestible, they may be, to explore the human mind, however tough the hurdles may be, is a supremely enriching experience.People who may crusade for world peace, equality of all human, and the burial of all differences, fail to acknowledge the mere presence of a subordinate in a public place.It’s a textual requirement of corporate etiquette nowadays, to follow a horizontal hierarchy as far as possible. The human mind is unfathomable, and it is the power of the mind, that decides the quality of human life. A curiosity to know what others think, how they think, how they perceive, how they express, is innate in every one of us. The thought process weaves its intricate yet unique patterns in every single person. A desire to discern these wonders makes you not only an amicable person but also a more enlightened one.You never know whether a novel idea lays buried in the most nondescript of minds. A stroke of brilliance can make a whale of a difference.The differences that have ingrained themselves have had their origins in unity. And its not these differences that are to be shunned. They are in fact the livery of civilization. Maturity lies in rejoicing in these differences, never letting them even once, to impair our progress.

“Civilization is the degree to which diversity is attained, unity retained” --W .H Auden.