An evening in the presence of Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma

Only the other day I went for a concert by renowned santoor player Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma. It was my first experience of a live santoor performance and I, weary from the long day’s activities, settled down for a delightful evening.  Closing my eyes, I took in as much of the music as I could. Every note seemed to resonate in my heart.  Delightful though the whole experience was, at the end of the performance I was left with a question that has been nagging me ever since.

I can’t vouch for the other members of the audience, but I enjoyed the performance from the very start, even the tuning of the instrument without being aware of. It was only after Panditji thanked us for applauding even for the tuning that we realised that every note the instrument exuded was  worth relishing, be it just a few random taps at the strings. However, this little bit of information that Panditji let us in on also brought to my mind something that is ingrained in my human mind. When he was done with the first part of the show and about to proceed to the second part, he had to tune the instrument again, for it was a different raaga.  Now that I knew that Panditji would repeat the process of tuning again, I didn’t pay as much attention to it as I had done before.  I failed to observe the beauty in the notes because it was not the performance, in short not of utility. When I came out of the auditorium, I was ashamed of myself, for I have tried to assign value to only that was useful. My human instincts had kicked in and I was trying to find beauty only in things that have some value.

 Can’t we human beings enjoy beauty without looking at the value aspect of it? Even the most useless of things has some beauty in it; only a perceiving mind is needed. And it seems I lack it.

Corrupted Nation

Does the word corruption ring a bell??

If you are an Indian, it would have set off a string of alarms. Or it wouldn’t have rung any at all. We have largely started to ignore corruption as it has become far too common for us to pay attention. The 2G scam, fodder scam, Bofors Scam, Commonwealth Scam, Satyam Scam…. the list never seems to end. I doubt if there is a single public office where you can have attention being drawn to your case without exchanging some sort of favour, be it monetary or of some other kind. Present politicians almost never have a clean sheet. Some sort of corruption seems to be lying around in some corner for most of them. It is not my intention to classify all of them as corrupt but going by the trend, corruption seems to be the most common trait. There are other classes of the society also who have hogged the limelight……military officers, judges, police officers, industrialists, even cricketers; match fixing is also a form of corruption. Even the anti-corruption department may have some names to brag about.

So what makes these people make such a misuse of the state’s resources and still maintain a clear conscience? India, with all its numerous gods and goddesses, is the last place one would expect such a malpractice to thrive the way it does. So has religion has lost its value? How can one be religious and still carry on with such an unethical action? 

Indians are a very soft hearted people. Ruthlessness has never been a part of the culture. Otherwise, who would have let themselves to be ruled by all sorts of foreigners? We accept everyone from everywhere and let them assimilate into our society. We have never been warring people and thus we lack discipline. So a little bit of tweaking of rules is not such a big thing. Even in our scriptures, we have tweaking of situations to suit the mythological heroes. Even Lord Vishnu has a few such incidents to his name. He assumed the form of a lady to steal the Amrit from the demons. Such incidents are strewn all across our sacred books. The good always prevail in the end in all of our sacred texts but there always seems to be some kind of corruption by the divine Trinity. One would argue that 'that' bit was done for the good of humanity, but corruption is corruption, no matter how insignificant and what might be the end purpose. And they were the powerful people. Who was to decide if their actions were righteous or not? And most of the times their actions were undetected by the people who could cry foul. If a wrong remains undetected, it is never done. Our accepting nature made us overlook that weeny bit. It was all done with a sense of good purpose with a clear conscience, after all. So how can we blame the present day politicians, who also have a clear conscience about making their own fortunes?

I don’t want to justify the present day corrupt actions that are so ubiquitous. My intention is quite the opposite. But I just want a change in perspective before we all start making these corrupt people scapegoats because most of us have been part of some sort malpractice. Only we were not caught and these people have done it at a magnificent level (they made it large!!!!…..remember the Seagram’s ad) and brought all attention to themselves, most of the time unwanted. Even I can’t claim to be completely free from any corrupt practice. It has now become almost imperative for Indians to accept corruption as a part of life.

Not that corrupt practices don’t take place in other countries, but what concerns me most is that we don’t look down upon corruption as we ought to. Only if we develop in ourselves an utter disdain for malpractices can we hope of becoming a developed nation…

A Plagued Age

        I couldn’t have chosen a worse time to be born; of course birth and death are not in my hands you would argue, leaving me incapable of proving my earlier statement, which is based on the assumption that I command all the aspects of my life, a brazenly bold one so to say. Sure, I don’t command all the aspects of life and most I leave for fate to intervene, if there does exist such a thing as fate. So, whether I was born by the sheer will of God or due to the consequence of some cosmic incident is of little relevance now that I am born and can’t return to the state of being unborn.

        The ‘time’ that I used does not imply the exact moment of my birth nor does it refer to the exact position of the stars and constellations that supposedly determine the life I am to lead from thereafter. I simply used it to associate with the period in the space time continuum in which one finds me with the highest probability of existence on the planet, which we- the most tyrant of its inhabitants -call ‘Mother Earth’, an absurdity in itself because we don’t give it the respect as is deserved by an object that is assigned to the name ‘mother’ according to our own comprehension.
        The period that I am speaking of is a bountiful one; ushered in by the realisation that physical overpowering of one another is just not enough to remain powerful. We have moved on from trying to overpower each other by ransacking each other’s home and territory to trying to rule one another by trying make them slaves of a comfortable life, thus creating a pack of nations which wrestle with each other trying to grab markets for themselves, which are nothing but consumers of their much hyped technological accessories promising a better life, an utopia for fools, for it is fools that what we all have become, in spite of us being the most intelligent beings in the universe known to us. People are now overwhelmed by the products of development, of technological advancement which manufacturers claim would help them lead comfortable lives, help them do more with less effort, undoubtedly a noble aspiration, but if only it were that they were genuinely inclined towards achieving that goal.

        Thus, living in such a period filled with artificial things and enjoying most of the recent pleasures that can be afforded, it seems only quizzical that I deride and question most of the things around me, which have become integral to my being, though I can as well be better off without many of them. We have been endowed with a beautiful yet dangerous thing, which separates us from all the ‘lowly’ creatures that crawl the earth, a mind that allows us to think, and this mind is the very source of my whimsical thoughts. Blame it on God for giving me an unsound but working mind, that I doubt the workings of His world, my race and have as a result ended writing a piece that does, in essence, try to belittle our achievements.

      Our achievements, at the turn of the 21st century include mostly material objects, which have greatly reduced our interaction amongst ourselves; society now has become nothing but a fluke, with only counterfeit feelings being shown to our fellow beings, words that have no genuine implications; we have become more concerned with ourselves, our life, comfort and all material objects that the modern age has to offer. Austerity was, in the past, considered a great virtue, simplicity a way of life; but in recent times, abstinence is a thought so repugnant to people that they have shed away all their inhibitions just to continue their present way of life.

        Spendthrifts, a term that people of yore might have used to describe the present populace, has been replaced by ‘shopaholics’, no longer is spending more considered a bad thing; it actually is a matter of pride that one can spend more than one’s neighbour. So, taking a plunge into this deluded worthless race of spending more, people have begun working longer hours, even to the extent of literally living in one’s workplace, not because one loves doing it, but so that one can earn more and spend on useless objects which have no use altogether except maybe a moment’s satisfaction. This view has been handed over to the new generation, of which I am a part of, immature and under the illusion of a beautiful life filled with material objects, we have taken the degradation, if you allow me refer the situation as such, to a level which, I can best describe as ruthless.

       Peer pressure has always been a factor in making people do stuff their conscience would not readily allow them to, but in our generation, not having been tutored in values that can shape us into better humans - not having parents around us as we learn the basics of social life being the prime reason – we tend to be influenced more by our friends and end up doing things without even a pricking conscience. And with a never ending flow of money to our pockets – parents unlike us do tend to have a troubled conscience – we end up enjoying to our hearts’ content without any remorse for spending on useless things and also learning nothing about self-restraint. The only remorse that might be there in our minds might be that a friend bought a better and costlier gadget, leaving us with a resolution to buy an even better one the next time. Also, there is the need to keep up appearances – you need good clothes, the latest cell, the most stylish motorcycle (a car would definitely be better) and such and such. Having a girlfriend earns us respect among our friends, the less unfortunate ones without female friends are pushed to the outside perimeter of the friend circle, others look up to us as a role model, and are always under pressure leading to relationships that are hollow to the core. Being a cool guy is more important to us than being a good person; pursuit of the truth, the good is for the deranged is the present thought that is so prevalent among the present generation.

       What would I have not given to be born in another age, even if it might have been the dark ages or during the world wars, able to experience feelings that were not as counterfeit as now? Even if I had been forced to believe something that my mind doesn’t allow me to accept, I would have had the unconscious knowledge that I am doing something that is not good. In this present age, forced to face people who work only for their personal interests, their pleasure and comforts, without the slightest of trace of knowledge that their actions are not as noble as they think – I doubt they even have time to consider what is noble – who are draped in nonchalance, conviction in nothing but the need to fulfil one’s interests, I am filled with nothing but disgust.