Clear the Smoke!

I don't think this world exists. I exist, but then the Pranav my mother knows is different from the Pranav I know, the Pranav you know, the Pranav one of my friends knows, and the Pranav another friend knows. So there are about a hundred Pranavs and only one real one-the one I know. But it cannot be so with the world because it has no universal soul. Or may be it does, but not on an earthly level. Therefore everyone "knows" something different from everyone else, even about the same thing. Therefore reality does not exist. Most animals see trees to be grey or black or white in colour. We think they are green. So the truth is that "colour" does not exist, and neither does the tree. But when the world ruled by humankind ceases to exist, we have a problem.

Senseless? Made no f*****g logic? But it does.

Firstly though, we need to differentiate between good illusion and bad illusion. Good illusion is the apparent difference in things due to the difference in naturally bestowed qualities. Animals are colour-blind, humans are not. This cannot be a cause for indignation. It is a fact. But bad illusions arise when humans create something, and destroy it themselves a million times over.

Let me explain with a potentially outrageous example. Did the Holocaust really happen? Methinks it did. Iran doesn't. The USA and Western Europe think 6 million Jews were murdered. Lets not forget that the USA and Great Britain won World War II and rewrote history. Methinks the figure was closer to 2 or 3 million-an educated guess-the golden mean always takes us closer to the truth.

Now we cannot ask Hitler, or Goebbels, or Himmler, for they are all dead and gone. And if they were to be alive, what was the guarantee they'd tell the truth? So the truth will never be out.

Similarly, everything before us is a cloud of thick smoke. No one knows the truth about virtually anything. Did Mahatma Gandhi actually say "Hey Ram" while dying? Was Shakespeare a plaigarist? What is the real aim of the BJP? Who actually runs the media in India? Does the Illuminati exist? Who really wielded influence while naming the street across my society?
In other words, in the huge mass of information, and the fact that humans create and destroy knowledge for their own selfish motives, results in a haze of smoke over our eyes. No wonder then, that the world is an illusion- in short, no one really knows who they are, what they are, why they are what they are, or who someone else is and what is their motive. Period.

Mind One versus Mind Two

Hi everyone.

As promised here's Part 1 of the Mind One versus Mind Two debate. Basically both represent the dilemma and conflict I face every day, at virtually every juncture.

Mind One is the liberal, pro-freedom, pro-women, pro-globalization, egalitarian humanistic mind. It is the stronger one in this mind war. It has been strengthened by years of training and persuasion. Mind Two is the Indian mind, the conservative, family and society-oriented mind. It is not absolutely anti-women, but certainly a cynic and a traditionalist. It is very weak and fragile, due to years of invasion and erosion perpetrated by Mind One. Nevertheless, the two minds are still at war, even though Mind Two knows it's losing fast.

Mind One: Ahh..what a nice day..Ramadoss is very likely to resign. I feel so happy. No more moral policing in the name of protecting people's health.

Mind Two: Oh really, Mind One? What about the girls billowing smoke at the hookah parlours in Bombay? Isn't it shocking?

Mind One: So? Have you ever noticed the guys there? Or just the girls?

Mind Two: Men are intrinsically, biologically wasted creatures. No use grudging their activities.

Mind One: What an excuse! So it's fine to be imperfect if you're a guy, but girls must live as society wishes?

Mind Two: But smoking is harmful to a woman's reproductive system.

Mind One: And what about men? Does it not harm them too?

Mind Two: But if a woman's reproductive system is damaged, how will she produce children?

Mind One: (Angry) Is that all a woman is supposed to do? Is she born so she can raise children and look after them all her good years?

Mind Two: So how will a society survive? Do you know that Western Europe actually has a negative population growth rate?

Mind One: We don't need any more population in India than we already have. Also this family preservation thing is stupid. Anyway your whole premise is biased and chauvinistic, baseless.

Mind Two: Why? Why?

Mind One: Any philosophy that actively or passively seeks to or promotes subjugation of half the human race, over several centuries, in order to "preserve" society in the way it sees fit, is evil, purely Satanic.

Mind Two: That cannot be helped. An equal society will self-destruct in a short while. Look at the West.

Mind One: Oh do you know the West so well? You've never been there. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones at others.

Mind Two: It's quite plain that the West is a decaying society. And it's primarily because of this equality rubbish.

Mind One: When will you learn not to point fingers at women for each and every ill of society?

Mind Two: C'mon, it's true.

Mind One: NO IT'S NOT!!! It's just bias, bias, bias. Look at India first. What about our social evils?

Mind Two: Some of them.....are curable....should not...be there...

Mind One: Why only some?

Mind Two: Gender equality...will ruin everything...our religion...our families..

Mind One: That is because you are unwilling to change fundamentally. Yes the present social structure will be uprooted, replaced, and all for the good. But you are not ready for the change.

Mind Two: This is our culture, our tradition. It's comfortable. Don't shake us up so badly.

Mind One: I will. I will do it for my fellow beings. You will have to face it, accept it.

Mind Two: I can't...

Mind One: You will. Slowly, surely, you will.

Mind Two: I'd rather perish.

Mind One: Oh you will, certainly, if you so wish. You are so weak within the brain of this Pranav Joshi.

Mind Two: But I'm really strong elsewhere. In fact in many people I'm the only mind that exists.

Mind One: Oh, I'll fight my way in there. I can.

Mind Two: You can't, never. I'm too strong there.

Mind One: (Sad) Hmmm..I have hope. And you are just a cynic.

Mind Two: I'm a realist.

Mind One: Stop living in the old world for God's sake! Learn to respect women, their choices, their feelings.

Mind Two: All this...leads to erosion of manhood..man's power and control....but I'm tired now.

Mind One: You would be. You're so weak and you're yelling too. Fine. We'll end it here for today. I have other things to do.

Mind Two: Yes, later. I'll be back with renewed energy.

Mind One: Bye!!! But I won again! 

At this point Mind Two is further weakened, exhausted. These debates are what have been killing it slowly.

I go off to office, or for a quick shower. Hope it wasn't boring! I'll publish more of this later if it wasn't.

My Transformation through the Ages

In my last post I mentioned that the regeneration phase was still not over. Ever since I started discovering myself, my ideas, my desires and world view, I have been continually confronted with these questions: The equality of the sexes and the freedom of expression. The first one is irrevocably intertwined in the second, for depriving 48% of the country's population of human rights does not seem a good advertisement for the freedom of expression, a basic fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India.

It was not always that I was egalitarian. It was not always that I felt this way. But by the time I was 14, I had enough brains to think beyond cricket and homework.

Firstly, though, let me say that for all the Puritanism and prudishness in my family, never were we, the children, taught to abuse women, physically or mentally. There were quarrels, as there are in every household, but never did (and never does) my dad hit my mom, neither did my grandfather hit my grandmom. However, this by no means implies that my family ever believed in gender equality. I have seen plenty of women suffer, struggle in my family, because of orthodoxy and harassment. I would not like to elaborate on that as it would be too personal.

So by Age 14, I finally began to analyze the world around me. I firmly believed in the concept of everlasting love, romantic love, so glamorized and popularized by Hindi cinema. I visualized my ideal companion as being pretty, caring, loving, and understanding. I expected her to obey me and be modest and simple. It was the typical doll-like interpretation of a "good girl". It was accentuated and bred by the society's indoctrination. I considered "skimpy wear", smoking and drinking as things undesirable to be practiced by women. However, I always believed in reciprocating love, and never dreamed of violence against women.

By Age 16 and a half, I was in college and the youth years had hit me. I had managed to carve out a considerably more liberal personality. I began to question, internally and with my friends, society's old mores and traditions. I began to see women's freedom as a sign of advancement and liberation. My views regarding the "sanctity" of women became less extreme and I began to accept humanism for the first time, though serious dilemmas undermined this. I was still the kid with the "suburban mentality", the person who so wholeheartedly believed in the demureness of women. Their freedom would be granted to them out of righteousness and compassion. It never occurred to me then that freedom could be a woman's birthright, unquestionable.

By Age 19, I had opened up considerably to the world outside, widening my horizons through both seeing and hearing things I had never seen or heard before. The notion of a class divide between the "high-class" "liberal" metropolis and the "conservative" suburbs began to disappear. By now I was quite clear in the head about my ideas and values, the left-liberal stance. Although I finally began to realize the unquestionability of human rights for one and all, the "protective streak" remained, a faith in acting as the government in regulating the actions of women by occasional intervention.

By Age 20 and a half, several external experiences and changes had caused almost seismic shifts in my social ideologies. A mass wave of moral policing finally began to completely antagonize me from the right-wing once and for all. It was a reactionary sentiment against the censorship of youth culture and values, but it did the trick of finally liberating me from a perverse "Indian" mindset. Theoretically, ideologically, my regeneration had reached the pinnacle, or as close to it as possible, already. Practically though, the internal conflict was reaching its peak too. It was all right to theorize, but now the challenge had finally shifted to the practical application of my beliefs.

Today, at Age 21 years, 9 months and 17 days, the realistic change has finally begun taking place. I am now driven by internal, psychological, spiritual forces. My desire for a free and equal world has transformed itself into action. I have come face to face with the ideologies that I myself theorized about, shaking the ground beneath my feet, attempting to live up to the challenge of women sharing equal psychological and material place with men. The internal conflict just got tougher, the world just got more interesting, and the Enlightenment that I so desperately seek is now very achievable and very close.

I have published this overlong post in order to sketch my journey through the shackles of dogma and tradition into the arms of humanism and self-realization, at least in one particular way. I intend to convey this psychological dilemma further in my next (shorter) post, in a Mind 1 versus Mind 2 debate.

Of Fanaticism, Revolutions and Soul-Searching

1) Some fundamentalist goons from a little-known Sri Ram Sene attacked women in a pub in Mangalore, since they felt it was against Indian culture for women to visit pubs and consume alcohol.
I was infuriated, unhinged, my blood boiled and I was desperate, I wanted to do something, to rip out Muthalik's intestines, but I couldn't. I was distraught.
Then I joined the Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women.
I joined Blank Noise too.
Now I have a purpose, a vision, a cause. Now I have an emotional sink too-though we know too well that there would be little we could do to stop fundamentalists if they came calling elsewhere.

2) The activism has been running strong within me. Ask the owners of Blank Noise and Pink Chaddi and they'd tell you I'm very enthusiastic, a far cry from the lazybones that I'm known as at home. I ascribe it to the dual nature of Gemini.
So I have been very active, running around, getting Marathi stuff translated, getting in touch with printers for wallet cards, and shooting videos on Women's Day. Because I've got a thing that I'd love, I've discovered something here- a goal, a dream, an ambition, a utopia.
Now that I'm into social causes, it's easy to see how difficult it is to maintain one's composure, to live up to your own expectations, to understand people, attitudes, the milieu, and things. That is one part. The other part is constantly lifting yourself, reminding yourself of the tasks ahead, and visualizing all this as the starting point of self-actualization.

3) Self-regeneration is a HUGE task. An onerous ordeal. Things are much easier said than done, and much simpler to preach than practice. It may be human nature, male nature, it may be because I've lived in the suburbs all my life, or probably because it is very deeply ingrained in the Indian male psyche to consider themselves the only deserving species on Earth, and relegate women to lesser animals.
I've been trying, trying since the age of 16. I've tried to wash away the chauvinism, the feeling of superiority, that keeps hammering itself on my mind through the external, twisted world.
It's hard. Very hard. Methinks women may do as they wish, methinks egalitarianism is great. Me also thinks it scary to see women occupying equal space, physically, psychologically, with men on a public platform. But I want them to. I want them to tear away the bonds of social expectation, social prudishness and oppression. I love it when women apply for divorces. I love it when they are still spinsters at age 30. I love it when they are powerful heads of organizations. I also love it when they assert their independence and equality by smoking, drinking, abusing and freaking out, though these are not necessarily desirable habits for either men or women.
There's still this tinge of chauvinism left though. Still some fear, some intimidation from experiencing such free-spirited, assertive, independent women. It's one thing to say you believe in it and quite another to experience it. And yet, in this deep, conscious, spiritual struggle, I find my heart winning, I find the chauvinism losing, egalitarianism and feminism winning. Slowly but surely, the right side is taking over. I don't yet claim to be completely reformed. But I'm getting closer, very much closer.