It's been a while since I posted something. In the midst of earning a living, struggling to grow in a new city, finding time for my people; somehow time for words took a back seat.
Meanwhile, struggling with severe anxiety issues and a spiralling self esteem, this post could probably be a revival for this sleeping blog. Here's hoping more time for regular posts.
I am here in flesh and bones
With the heart beating faster, breathing heavier.
I am here in full form and you see me “present”
Present… with a storm curling inside my guts.
You wonder why I slowly respond or, maybe, not at all
It’s to stop the guts from vomiting this storm outside
I am here… squashing my sentences short
Focusing on my breath that seems to take my heart’s side,
not wanting to slow down or pump less fear.
I am here with every inch trying to slow down
but the mind has a game of its own… finding spark plugs to keep the rhythm going.
Spark plugs. That’s what it is!
Sparking emotions and reactions that you play tag with, each quarter of a second.
I am here just reacting to the storm inside.
Reacting is all I do to show myself the way out.
Don’t worry, it’s not what my mind’s telling me to do.
It’s my body putting up with the games of spark plugs and doubt.
Don’t worry, I’m still here… maybe looking like the mess a storm leaves behind
Sedition:noun /sɪˈdɪʃn/ [uncountable](formal) The use of words or actions that are intended to encourage people to oppose a government
Source: Oxford English dictionary
The reason why I have started with a definition sourced from the Oxford dictionary is to showcase the symbolism of the source itself. The University of Oxford is believed to be established around the year 1096 and is understood to be one of the oldest surviving universities in the English-speaking world and I have aspired to be a part of it at one point in life. That dream is still not dead. Even when the student left of the institution is alleged to be institutionally antisemitic as per news reports [Source: The guardian]. It is an institution older than the archaic section 124 A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code which is still mischievously providing ammo to issues that are hollow as an empty barrel; fueling fires that need not be stoked. Apparently, the word “Sedition” does not occur in Section 124-A of the Indian Penal Code or in the Defense of India Rule. It is only found as a marginal note to Section 124-A, and is not an operative part of the section but merely provides the name by which the crime defined in the section will be known. [Source: Dr Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law University, Lucknow]
I am a proud Indian despite all that angers me about this nation. It angers me that after surviving on the same piece of land for 69 years, despite our differing cultural preferences, religious inclinations and ideologies, we can show no respect or tolerance to a thought that does not match ours. Thoughts change. Beliefs change. Change is the fuel that helps evolve a nation instead of intolerance and rising insecurity. Indisputably, open fearless dialogue should steer this change… but so should respect and tolerance. The confidence in thoughts and ideologies is imperative in debate for conviction, provided it doesn’t turn into arrogance. I doubt my nation’s knowledge and awareness on the multitude of cultures, traditions or even religions which have thrived and died in this country (beyond what is officially recognized) and I don’t blame them for that. The officially recognized religions and cultures in India form a rigid knowledge spectrum that limits a citizen’s awareness of anything that exists beyond it. We still have citizens who can’t differentiate between Tamil Nadu and Kerala, leave alone the cultural difference between the two states. The North East is still a mystery, in terms of its myriad cultures and tribes, to a lion's share of the nation. A niggling few might be aware of the struggles of civilians in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, while governments try to distract the nation, neck below. They can still not be blamed for their lack of awareness. However, curiosity is a far better reaction to areas beyond our comprehension, than medieval resistance and rigidity. Witch burning never killed evils, just gave birth to more.
India’s culture is not homogeneously distributed but it is not our Achilles’ heel. We are not weak enough to get incited by mere chants of inanity. Then how is this insecurity getting triggered? My brain sometimes starts spinning conspiracy theories around a greater agenda on the ruling party’s mind to probably deviate us from bigger issues. But when I look at the reckless handling of raging issues, I can only see insecurity and the helplessness at curbing a turmoil. What follows is desperation at proving your side and defending your stand.
Kanhaiya and Rohith are just talk points in the larger picture. They are vehicles for ideas and thoughts that can exist within India and can drive evolution in thought. These cases are not targeted at a particular government, but the society that eventually forms the four pillars of a democracy. These cases are opportunities for society to realize flaws in its thought process, direction and foundation. Kanhaiya and Rohith are citizens of India and were entitled to every right that an Indian citizen is entitled to. When defenders and facilitators of justice resort to blatant physical and vocal violence with an intensity which is garbed in patriotism for defence, it raises some grave questions. A society bound by words and laws defining a feeling shall never learn of it. A country trying to define patriotism shall never experience it. The debate needs to rise higher than religion and casteism. The dialogue should make every citizen of the country question their love for the country and how one defines himself/herself to belong to a country. Do we even want to belong to one country in the age of global citizenship? Because… honestly, it makes me sick; all this injustice in the name of nationalism.
In the end, quoting Charles de Gaulle to capture what could be a better debate in the country at the moment.
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
I believe souls don’t understand death the way bodies do. Souls don’t understand pain like bodies do either. Probably a sharp object penetrating the flesh feels like a twitch in the eye to the soul. Pain needs to pierce deeper than the flesh to leave an imprint on the soul. Way deeper into a vortex which is maybe located somewhere behind that rib cage. I don’t think it has anything to do with flesh, or muscle or veins. Not even blood. The soul goes deeper than those… somewhere in between the molecules. I believe the soul is ether and death goes beyond matter for it to feel its presence or lack of it.
I believe the body dies once while the soul dies a million times over and over again in every life. I might be terribly wrong here. Maybe the soul dies a lot more than a million times in each life, but I’m sure it does. It’s definitely not inconsolable because it is etheric and one cannot expect ether to be heavy with sorrow or suffering or any similar dense substitute. It’s waiting for the body to release it back to where it came from till it gets portioned into numerous other bodies. No wonder so much in each of us is similar and yet so much is different. Probably you and I have been caged in a common body before… before we parted and became others. Maybe a part of me is trapped in these words that you are reading while the other one-sixteenth is reading it on her iPhone in some vague location and wondering if she should go get some lunch. We are not so different - you and I.
I want to believe that the ether that I send out into the universe (once this body disintegrates) will carry with it the imprints of all the deaths that this body put it through; and parts of which will become a fragment of another body with a fraction of deaths from someone else. Probably we are all a culmination of deaths and imprints that added more spirit to it all. We are all fractions yet whole. Maybe that’s the reason behind emotions. The countless sentiments, intuitions and the overwhelming sense of fear or happiness are just those chemical reactions when the ether is exposed to a reparation or compensating fraction… wanting to be whole or to balance itself out. I want to believe that the only thing stopping it is the body which effervesces with these reactions because it needs to live and not disintegrate. The body needs the ether and cannot let it go.
The body is just the cage.
(Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s New York Mining Disaster - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)
I am Anisha Nair, raised in a middle-class Indian family in a humble locality in Delhi - a city where humility is hard to trace and compassion is somewhere deep inside a Punjabi aunty’s LV purse who’s traveling in the general compartment of the Delhi Metro on Monday at 7.30 PM from Gurgaon. Like any other human, I was born in a world full of promises and offered choices that I could make - every time. I have had the choice of being a victim in a situation or crawl out and take a larger bite of the opportunity. There were times when I bit more than what I could handle. All the choices that I have ever made and will continue to make in the future, all the choices that I don’t make or abandoned in the past, every opportunity that came my way when I was ravenous for experience, constitute a significant part of me. Even though I’ve hardly created anything artistic or significant enough in my life (significant enough to profoundly influence another being or existence), I consider myself an artist and my sole inspiration or force guiding me through every choice or piece of work is my own father.
My father is not my inspiration just because I am a ‘daddy’s girl’. Trust me, he’s not the pampering kind and doesn’t take the least bit of interest in flattering me useless, when I make horrible tea. The man believes that horrible tea should not be consumed, no matter who makes it! He believes that anything that comes for free is bound to be useless, ‘coz it didn’t fight enough to be worthy. He also has a strange belief that people with ‘cat-like’ eyes are not to be trusted blindly. Believe me, there's no point arguing with him on such ideologies. I have tried and given up for good. I remember him refusing to acknowledge me as his daughter for more than a year, when I cut my hair extremely short during a rebellious phase to prove something I can’t even recall anymore. He has never said “good job” or “excellent” or “you made me proud” on any of my achievements… at least not in words. Guess he never wanted me to perform for a reward. He wanted me to perform for something greater than a tangible reward. Some might blame him for tough parenting. But, that man still manages to inspire me.
Dad is not the protective kind, even though I now understand how much he wants to protect me. I remember him chasing the school bus on the mornings I missed it, fighting with the bus driver and embarrassing the marrow out of my bones in front of an entire population present to witness the wrath of a scorned father of a lazy school girl. But I also remember him leaving a 6 year old me at the bus stop all by myself, because I couldn’t stop crying at the thought of going to school. The choice was to climb that bus and drag my sorry ass to school or do as I please, ‘coz he couldn't be bothered by such petty fits. So I dragged my school bag all by myself and walked that road back home… following my father who just walked away in a fury without caring much about what my choice would be. I did go to school that day. My mother took me.
He doesn’t say much… not in words. People rarely see him lose his cool, but there is a thunderous quality in his quiet. I have seen people fear him when they are wrong and he doesn’t need words for that. Let me say this again, people rarely see him lose his cool. He shames people without words. He does that. One might imagine him to be a towering personality who might intimidate people at first sight. He is not. In fact, I’m taller. He’s not a socialite and remains to himself. Cracks a few lame jokes every now and then. The typical dad. But what inspires me is not who he is. My inspiration comes out of how he brought me up.
He relentlessly tried to contribute towards my evolution as a human being. When my classmates discussed the latest Jurassic Park movie that they saw over the weekend, I would tell them how my father took me for movies like the Bandit Queen, which was as heavy for a 10 year old as sand is for water. God knows what’s right parenting and what’s wrong. But the man always exposed me to radical stuff at an age when parents are usually sheltering their kids from “all that is evil”. He threw me into reality and never minced words for my delicate brain to masticate the matter and make it fathomable.
I have never told my father how much I love him (in words) and he has never done that either. But I guess, when I used to stand on the last step of the school-bus and hug him and kiss him goodbye, he knew it. I was told, when I left home to study in a different city, he returned home after seeing me off and just sat in my room for the rest of the day. On his part, I think it goes without saying how much he loves me. With time, I guess it becomes difficult for parents to believe how much their child still loves them and I woke up with this fear today. I doubt if I will ever say it in words, ‘coz dad's not a man who wants those words… not from me. We share a language that goes beyond that and I fear losing grasp of it.
I fear it so much that it wells me up because I owe the ‘Nair-ness’ in my name to him. I do.
She was lying there on her flat
tummy with her head turned away and, maybe, even her eyes closed. Her bare bony
shoulder peeked from in between the sheets while her jet black hair was strewn
carelessly on her back, maybe even hiding her face. The faint morning sun was
fighting with the light-green drapes to get in and expose last night’s
recklessness. He woke up to this scene with a frail recollection of reality and
a reluctance to accept it. A broken smile.
She moved the minute his head made a rustle
against the pillow. Light sleeper. Yes. And turned her head towards him while
the hair still covered her face. Her slender fingers reached out from under the
sheets to give her a clearer picture of him and parted her hair from her face.
She saw the smile. Amused she asked, “What? Was I snoring?”
“Nope! Purring rather”, he
replied as he approached to catch her waist and pulled her closer to himself.
“Hey look!” she said softly, “Don’t get me wrong but, I need to leave now.” She
slowly moved his hand away from her waist and pulled herself up and sat
crouching on the bed like she was praying. The sheet was shrouding her slender
figure and he could notice her breathing deeply. The smile slowly faded and
reality started setting in. She carefully crawled out of the bed to get her
clothes and started dressing up. Not once did she look him in the eye while he
was lying there on the bed staring straight at her. Now on his back with his
arms folded behind his head, he was carefully observing her while she got
dressed. Not even a glance his way. There was no hurry in her demeanour and she
took her time to wear her jeans and t-shirt that she usually slips into like a
Russian magician quick-changes her dresses.
“So, what time’s your flight?” he
asked, to force her to break that uneasy silence. “Hmmm? Oh it’s in the
afternoon” she said, “But I need to get home and make sure that I have
everything packed and ready.” “Do you need help?” he asked. He knew what the
answer was going to be, but he was a sucker for a better reply. “Nope. I’m
good!” and she finally looked at him and smiled. “You can enjoy the rest of
your day. You don’t have to waste it around me. I can manage.” Somehow her
words and her eyes just never spoke the same things. He had noticed this too
many times before and how that smile was used to mask the dissonance. She
reached for her bag, took a final look in the mirror and was probably going to
say bye.
“Hey why don’t we go for a quick
breakfast and then you can come back home. I’m famished. Care to give me company?”
she said instead. The smile was back on his face beaming brighter than the sun.
“Of course. I’m hungry too and I could kill for some pancakes” he said jumping
up in his bed. “Our last breakfast together. Let's make you some breakfast.”
“Pancakes sound decent” she said
with a smile that brought a sparkle to her eyes. He was out of bed even before
she completed her sentence. He made the breakfast while she lent a hand with a
few things that he let her help with. He hated people invading his cooking
space but that was not important now. It was a perfect breakfast of pancakes, apples and some coffee with the
regular banter on the side. Not once did last night appear in the conversation, though it
was constantly on their minds. The regular nonsense was just to distract from
last night. There was desperation to fill in the awkward silences. No one
wanted to discuss last night or maybe that’s all that they wanted to talk
about.
They finished their meals and
washed the dishes together. Soon it was time for her to leave. "Could there be
more reasons for her to stay?" both of them thought. The moment they reached the door, she turned and hugged him tight. “It was awesome” she whispered to him and he
could almost hear her smile in his ear. “Yes, it was” he said. She looked at
him and beamed... and slowly let go of him. She opened the door, gave him one final glance and
said her final goodbye as she walked out on the pavement. When she turned back one last time, both waved
at each other. He took his time to close the door behind her while she walked away.
She trotted down the quiet lane, kicked a stone lying on the ground out of
her way and continued walking to her house.
'Ink-n-head' has always been a space that has been very personal and has always carried content that has been purely exclusive. The following post has not been written by me but every element in this commencement address makes me want to share it with every person I know and/or can manage to reach through my blog.
Tim Minchin’s commencement address,
University of Western Australia, Perth
upon receiving an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters
September 17, 2013
In darker days, I did a corporate gig for a big company who made and sold accounting software. In a bid I presume to inspire their sales people to greater heights, they forked out twelve grand for an inspirational speaker who was this “extreme sports” guy who had had a couple of his limbs frozen off when he got stuck on a ledge on some mountain. It was weird! Software sales people, I think, need to hear from someone who has had a long, successful and happy career in software sales, not from an overly-optimistic mountaineer. Some poor guy who had arrived in the morning hoping to learn more about sales techniques ended up going home worried more about the blood flow to his extremities. It’s not inspirational, it’s confusing. And if the mountain was meant to be a symbol of life’s challenges, and the loss of limbs a metaphor for sacrifice, the software guy’s not going to get it, is he? Because he didn’t do an Arts degree, did he? [laughter] He should have — Arts degrees are awesome, and they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none. [laughter] Don’t go looking for it! Looking for meaning is like looking for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook — you won’t find it, and it’ll bugger up your soufflé. If you didn’t like that metaphor, you won’t like the rest of it.
Point being, I’m not an inspirational speaker, I’ve never lost a limb on a mountainside, metaphorically or otherwise, and I’m not here to give career advice, because I’ve never had what most consider “a job”. However, I have had large groups of people listen to what I say for quite a few years now, and it’s given me an inflated sense of self-importance. So I will now, at the ripe old age of 37.9, bestow upon you nine life lessons, to echo of course the nine lessons and carols of the traditional Christmas service, which is also pretty obscure. You might find some of this stuff inspiring, you’ll definitely find some of it boring, and you’ll definitely forget all of it within a week. And be warned, there’ll be lots of hokey similes and obscure aphorisms that start well and end up making no sense. So listen up, or you’ll get lost, like a blind man clapping in a pharmacy trying to echo-locate the contact lens fluid. [turns around] Looking for my old poetry teacher…
Here we go! Ready?
One: you don’t have to have a dream. Americans on talent shows always talk about their dreams. Fine — if you have something you’ve always wanted to do, [funny voice] dreamed of, like in your heart, go for it. After all, it’s something to do with your time — chasing a dream — and if it’s a big enough one, it’ll take you most of our life to achieve, so by the time you get to it, and are staring into the meaninglessness of your achievement, you’ll be almost dead, so it won’t matter. I never really had one of these dreams, and so I advocate passionate dedication to the pursuit of short-term goals. Be micro-ambitious – put your head down and work with pride on whatever is in front of you. You never know where you might end up. Just be aware, the next worthy pursuit will probably appear in your periphery, which is why you should be careful of long-term dreams — if you focus too far in front of you, you won’t see the shiny thing out of the corner of your eye.
All right? Good! Advice, metaphor — look at me go!
Two: don’t seek happiness. Happiness is like an orgasm. If you think about it too much, it goes away. Keep busy and aim to make someone else happy, and you might get some as a side effect. We didn’t evolve to be constantly content. Contented homo erectus got eaten before passing on their genes.
Three: remember, it’s all luck. We are lucky to be here. You are incalculably lucky to be born, and incredibly lucky to be brought up by a nice family that helps you to get educated and encourage you to go to uni. Or, if you’re born into a horrible family, that’s unlucky and you have my sympathy, but you’re still lucky — lucky that you happen to be made of the sort of DNA that went on to make the sort of brain which when placed in a horrible childhood environment would make decisions that meant you eventually ended up graduating uni. Well done you for dragging yourself up by your shoelaces, but you were lucky — you didn’t create the bit of you that dragged you up, they’re not even your shoelaces. I suppose I’ve worked hard to achieve whatever dubious achievements I’ve achieved, but I didn’t make the bit of me that works hard, any more than I made the bit of me that ate too many burgers instead of attending lectures when I was here at U.W.A. Understanding that you can’t truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures, will humble you and make you more compassionate. Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on intellectually.
Four: exercise! I’m sorry, you pasty, pale, smoking philosophy grads, arching your eyebrows into a Cartesian curve as you watch the Human Movement mob wind their way through the miniature traffic cones of their existence. You are wrong, and they are right. Well, you’re half right — you think, therefore you are, but also you jog, therefore you sleep, therefore you’re not overwhelmed by existential angst. You can’t be Kant, and you don’t want to be. Play a sport, do yoga, pump iron, run, whatever, but take care of your body — you’re going to need it. Most of you mob are going to live to nearly a hundred, and even the poorest of you are going to achieve a level of wealth that most humans throughout history could not have dreamed of. And this long, luxurious life ahead of you is going to make you depressed. But don’t despair! There is an inverse correlation between depression and exercise. Do it! Run, my beautiful intellectuals, run!
Five: be hard on your opinions. A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like assholes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this, but I would add that opinions differ significantly from assholes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined. [laughter] I used to take exams in here! It’s revenge. We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs — take them out on the veranda and hit them with a cricket bat. Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privileges. Most of society’s arguments are kept alive by a failure to acknowledge nuance. We tend to generate false dichotomies, then argue one point using two entirely different sets of assumptions, like two tennis players trying to win a match by hitting beautifully-executed shots from either end of separate tennis courts. By the way, while I have science and arts graduates in front of me, please don’t make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don’t have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to make beautiful things. If you need proof: Twain, Douglas Adams, Vonnegut, McEwan, Sagan, Shakespeare, Dickens, for a start. You don’t need to be superstitious to be a poet, you don’t need to hate GM technology to care about the beauty of the planet, you don’t have to claim a soul to have compassion. Science is not a body of knowledge, nor a belief system — it is just a term that describes humankind’s incremental understanding through observation. Science is awesome. The arts and sciences need to work together to improve how knowledge is communicated. The idea that many Australians, including our new P.M. and my distant cousin Nick Minchin believe, that the science of anthropogenic global warming is controversial, is a powerful indication of the extent of our failure to communicate. The fact that thirty percent of the people in this room just bristled is further evidence still. The fact that that bristling is more to do with politics than science is even more despairing.
Six: be a teacher. Please, please be a teacher! Teachers are the most admirable people in the world. You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re in doubt about what to do, be an amazing teacher. Just through your twenties, be a teacher. Be a primary school teacher, especially if you’re a bloke — we need male primary school teachers. Even if you’re not a teacher, be a teacher. Share your ideas, don’t take for granted your education, rejoice in what you learned, and spray it.
Seven: define yourself by what you love. I found myself doing this thing a bit recently where if someone asks me what sort of music I like, I say I don’t listen to the radio because pop song lyrics annoy me, or if someone asks me what food I like I say I think truffle oil is over-used and slightly obnoxious. And I see it all the time on-line — people whose idea of being part of a subculture is to hate Coldplay or football or feminists or the Liberal Party. We have a tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff — as a comedian, I make my living out of it. But try to express also your passion for things you love. Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire. Send thank-you card and give standing ovations — be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff.
Eight: respect people with less power than you. I have, in the past, made important decisions about people I work with — agents and producers — big decisions, based largely on how they treat the wait-staff in the restaurants we’re having the meeting in. I don’t care if you’re the most powerful cat in the room, I will judge you based on how you treat the least powerful. So there.
Nine: finally, don’t rush. You don’t need to already know what you’re going to do with the rest of your life. I’m not saying, sit around smoking cones all day, but also, don’t panic. Most people I know who were sure of their career path at twenty are having mid-life crises now. I said at the beginning of this ramble, which is already three and a half minutes long, that life is meaningless. It was not a flippant assertion. I think it’s absurd, the idea of seeking meaning in the set of circumstances that happen to exist out of thirteen point eight billion years worth of unguided events. Leave it to humans to think that the universe has a purpose for them. However, I am no nihilist, I am not even a cynic — I am actually rather romantic. And here’s my idea of romance: you’ll soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough, and God, it’s tiring, and you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad, and then you’ll be old, and then you’ll be dead. There is only one sensible thing to do with this empty existence, and that is, fill it. Not “fillet”, fill it. And in my opinion, until I change it, life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can, taking pride in whatever you’re doing, sharing ideas, running, being enthusiastic. And then there’s love and travel and wine and sex and art and kids and giving and mountain climbing, but you know all that stuff already. It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours! Good luck! And thank you for indulging me.
“Even a bad cup of
coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
-David Lynch
It is a shame if you never
realized that you know how to make the best cup of coffee on this planet. Maybe
even in this universe, but I would not like to say that, since I’m not well versed
with the ways of the universe. And there is a great possibility that out there
is some all encompassing power that controls how we make coffee. So, for now,
let’s just stick to this planet and plane where we assume to have complete control over our affairs.
How you love your coffee is
completely your business and nobody else’s. If you know how to live your life
like a pro, then you can very well make yourself a good cup of coffee. You can
brew it, boil it or even burn it! Maybe even sleep with a bag of coffee beans. You are your own sensei for coffee.
Don’t tell me you don’t like
coffee. ‘Coz you do! You just didn’t give it enough time to fall in love. You never
gave it enough permission to infuse its strength onto your taste-buds. Maybe you
were too stubborn to let it overpower your senses. Just let go.
There’s the regular espresso and
the latte. Take it with a pinch of chilli or infuse it with a cinnamon stick. Lap
it up with some whipped cream or brew it with a little ginger. It’s happier
than vanilla and potent with flexible magic. Just give it some love and pour
yourself a cup. You don’t have to move mountains to deserve it.
"Reality is merely a perception, albeit a very persistent one."
- Albert Einstein
The Asian Paints advertisement with the catchy tagline
“Merawala red!” or “Merawala green!” popped in my head when I was pondering over
the reality of colour. Colour is merely a ‘sensation’
felt by the brain when the eye transfers light bouncing off an object. If that
defines colour, then how can we standardize the sensation to each and every
brain? Is it right to generalize colours (or sensations) felt or perceived by
the brain? Merawala “Red” could be very different from anybody else’s Red. But,
since I was taught to identify the sensation as red, my sensation has been
termed the same as yours. If this was to be true, could it be possible that all
of us have the same favourite colour? But, this is difficult to believe. What if
my brain is recording red as green but I keep calling it red? Lots of questions
there. Now, let’s get down to some problem solving.
The Reality of my world could be very different from anyone
else’s. Some realize the difference and some don’t. The mind works way beyond
what it sees. Sight is just one of the sensations. Humans have been unable to
come up with a language that can help convey these perceptions to each and
every living being homogeneously. Imagine a world where each and every
individual feels the same way and reacts the same way for every single event or
action that takes place. Probably losing way in the complexities of the human
brain can be totally cancelled out if a common language of expression can be
formed for the whole of mankind. At present, we are not communicating. We are
perceiving. If the expression is not perceived in the same way as the expresser
of emotions, the message has clearly not been conveyed. So the root cause of
all the mismatch in communicating is the difference in perception.
One common language. One common expression that evokes the
same desires, feelings and reactions. If discovered, we probably have an answer
to all questions in life.
