Unless a paradigm shift takes place in the attitude and approches of the Marxists in India they will soon get pathetically marginalised in the political life of even Kerala and Bengal.There are atleast three or four things that they should take seriously into consideration with a view to bring about a total change in the policies and practices of the Party.
The Party should admit the fact that unless it has a different agenda the people won’t attach any importance to it’s criticism of the economic policies of Manmohan Singh Govt.It is quite evident that the peoople do not expect a revolution armed or otherwise and they have begun to believe that if India moves forward in the direction of development it has chosen at present things will change for the better.The communists can at the maximum tell the people that the Central Govt. is becoming a slave to America.People know that but they are lead by a blind belief that whatever might happen India could save herself. More than that there is a wide spread feeling that there is no effective alternative to Multinatinal Capitalism and it’s manifestation in all fields of life which is named Globalisation. Everybody knows that even the Marxist leaders have begun to say openly in a mocking tone that talking against America and globalisation for anything and everything is meaningless.In such a situation the Party should formulate realistic policies and programmes taking into consideration all the economic,social and cultural changes that have taken place in the world in the era of globalisation.Otherwise it will have to practise against whatever it preaches and it’s functioning will become totally outdated in the nearest future.Even otherwise there is no meaning in continueing in an ideologically schizophrenic condition.
The party leadership from top to bottom should get trained to behave with due human consideration to the common man. Passing resolutions in high level meetings admitting that there is impertinence in the behaviour of some local leaders is meaningless.Leaders should not be trapped in the dilema of not knowing what is impertinence and at the same time declaring that impertinence will not be tolerated.
The Party leaders of all ranks should learn to be thoroughly democratic and truthful in all their dealings with the people.During the last six decades after independence the vast majority of Indians have got familiarised with all the positive and negative aspects of Democracy. Their mindset has become totally antagonistic towards any sort of authoritarian rule.At present no one including the communists won’t have the self confidence to argue with strong conviction in favour of Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China.They also will admit that freedom of expression is as important as any other primary necessity of life.
As I wrote this much my mobile phone rang.A close friend during my college days was over the phone after many years.Our lengthy conversation reached many contemporary issues and at one point he said :Hereafter You should never waste your time thinking and writing about politics.Politics has become a different discourse in which only professional politicians need take interest.It is a business of the politicians,by the politicians and for the politicians.All others should abstain from this.Of course at times it may interfere in your life.Show the prudence and intelligence to save yourself.Apart from that you need to do nothing and even if you wish You won’be able to do anything meaningfully.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Kanam and Kaippad
Kanam and Kaippad two documentary films scripted and directed by Babu Kambrath are the results of extremely careful and committed directorial efforts.Both the films got national and international recognition.Kanam tells the life story of a midland hill and Kaippad gives us an authentic visual description of agiculture done in marshy lands near estuaries where the river joins the sea.I felt a personal attachment to these films because some of the scenes in Kanam were shot at Madaippara and almost all the scenes of Kaippad were shot at Muttukandy near Payangadi.I am familiar with both these places for more than five decades and in my creative writings their role is more important than that of any of the characters in them.Both the films are very much lively and fully capable in creating a keen ecological awareness among the viewers.These films take us to the inner rythms of nature which we usually miss in the hurry and haste of day to day existence. Here we see the birds, plants,flies,fishes and human beings participating enthusiastically in the celebration of life being conducted by nature.If you view things from a different angle you may find an element of over idealisation of nature in these films.But what we have to remember is that when the notion that everything on this earth is there for men to squeeze out it’s essence for his pleasure or to make the most profitable sale controls our very sense of nature even the most irrational mystification of nature is totally agreeable and justifiable.What Babu Kambrath has done in his films definitely demends our admiration and praise.These films teach us how unfamiliar and beautiful are infact those realities which we think quite familiar and mundane.That is the magic of art!
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Two Points
Last day I had a long informal discussion with Mr. Kanai Kunhiraman,the renowned sculptor,on several issues related to creativity.Among the many things Kanai said two points struck me the most.
1. When a style is repeated it becomes a design.Design has nothing to do with creativity.It results in the mechanical reproduction of a work with slight modifications or variations without moving a step forward in the direction of a new creation.Many of our writers and painters forget this and mock thier own creativity imitating themselves for decades.
2. If you use words as the medium of your creative expression you have the right to express yourself in all the literary forms.In fact you will have a natural inclination to do so and you should not curb or prevent it.That is unnecessry and foolish.
These were ideas I myself had pondered a thousand times.But,when Kanai presented them in his own words I felt them to be quite refreshing.
1. When a style is repeated it becomes a design.Design has nothing to do with creativity.It results in the mechanical reproduction of a work with slight modifications or variations without moving a step forward in the direction of a new creation.Many of our writers and painters forget this and mock thier own creativity imitating themselves for decades.
2. If you use words as the medium of your creative expression you have the right to express yourself in all the literary forms.In fact you will have a natural inclination to do so and you should not curb or prevent it.That is unnecessry and foolish.
These were ideas I myself had pondered a thousand times.But,when Kanai presented them in his own words I felt them to be quite refreshing.
The Poison behind all Poisons
Participating in a conference organized by the India Vision as part of their Anti Endosulphan Campaign at Govt.College,Kasaragod on 20th December 2010 Leela Kumari Amma a one time employee of the Dept.of Agriculture responsible for the aerial spray of Endosulphan in Kasaragod area said:We were ruined because we opted big life for small life and over production for production.Her speech was very precise,sharp and to the point.She remembered the days when vegetables for daily use were cultivated in the plot adjacent to every house using only cow dung and other organic manures.She said that Endosulphan was nothing but poison labelled pesticide.
Beautiful small life and production just enough for one’s own needs are good old ideas forgotten by everybody.It is very difficult to bring back and incorporate them in our life because everybody is hasty to grab everything and anything that appears in the market. Everybody wants to prove that he/she is fashionable and capable of acquiring anything that the market presents before him/her as signs of good living.As no philosophy or political ideology is alive and active in the public sphere nothing can prevent the people from this rat race and as far as everybody is ruled by the mad craving for possessing all the latest objects and amenities a life beautifully tuned to the rhythm of nature will remain a colourless distant dream ignored by the social psyche.The irresistible market forces that perpetually generate new wishes and needs,most of them quite irrational, is the most dangerous poison about which we in general are almost unaware.Until a new order or system evolves democratically for the social monitoring of all the developmental activities and attitudes having a direct or indirect impact on the public life no welcome change can be expected .
Beautiful small life and production just enough for one’s own needs are good old ideas forgotten by everybody.It is very difficult to bring back and incorporate them in our life because everybody is hasty to grab everything and anything that appears in the market. Everybody wants to prove that he/she is fashionable and capable of acquiring anything that the market presents before him/her as signs of good living.As no philosophy or political ideology is alive and active in the public sphere nothing can prevent the people from this rat race and as far as everybody is ruled by the mad craving for possessing all the latest objects and amenities a life beautifully tuned to the rhythm of nature will remain a colourless distant dream ignored by the social psyche.The irresistible market forces that perpetually generate new wishes and needs,most of them quite irrational, is the most dangerous poison about which we in general are almost unaware.Until a new order or system evolves democratically for the social monitoring of all the developmental activities and attitudes having a direct or indirect impact on the public life no welcome change can be expected .
Monday, December 13, 2010
A note on Bhagyanath's Drawings
Man is a late comer. Darwin’s theory is anticipated by origin myths of tribes
all over the world.They say there were beings that preceded our human ancestors : be it simply a hen or crow, or creatures fierce and fantastic. Links are direct in myths while for science there is the eventful process of evolution before the emergence of our distant predecessors .What irresistible force draw us to the memory of those mysterious days when the human beings were only a slightly modified replica of the beasts whose fate they shared to a large extent?And what do we gain from this inheritance of memories from time immemorial?Psychologists and aestheticians generally have a sway over this domain of enquiry. For an artist the very celebration of this awareness, this revelation to which he is raised through visual images up surging from the innermost depths of his self, and the pain and ecstasy of transforming them in one’s own lines and shapes, is an end in itself.
Bhagyanath’s drawings attain a unique strength of communication when they portray the sharing of fate or predicament by a human being with an animal, most strikingly the monkey. This sharing is made possible to a man only when his soul is totally denuded. In those pristine moments a secret play takes place between man and the beast where both straddle the concerns of success and failure. This is followed by a mutual transference or passionate absorption of the other self. All the primordial instincts of life and death are aroused in this process and an indescribable experience, which may perhaps be compared to that of rebirth, is actualized.I think it is an emotional ritual which many artists unknowingly and at times with a magically awakened intellect practice as part of their creative life-a life which otherwise gets muddled with the mundane realities of daily existence. Bhagyanath has brought out with an inspiring ease in his drawings the mysterious beauty, grandeur and even pathos in man’s secret plays and dialogues with the other representatives of the animal world. This is something about which any artist may feel a sense of spiritual delight and elation.
(An exhibition of Bhagyanath’s drawings is held at Kashi Art Gallery,Burgher Street,Fort Kochi,Kerala.)
all over the world.They say there were beings that preceded our human ancestors : be it simply a hen or crow, or creatures fierce and fantastic. Links are direct in myths while for science there is the eventful process of evolution before the emergence of our distant predecessors .What irresistible force draw us to the memory of those mysterious days when the human beings were only a slightly modified replica of the beasts whose fate they shared to a large extent?And what do we gain from this inheritance of memories from time immemorial?Psychologists and aestheticians generally have a sway over this domain of enquiry. For an artist the very celebration of this awareness, this revelation to which he is raised through visual images up surging from the innermost depths of his self, and the pain and ecstasy of transforming them in one’s own lines and shapes, is an end in itself.
Bhagyanath’s drawings attain a unique strength of communication when they portray the sharing of fate or predicament by a human being with an animal, most strikingly the monkey. This sharing is made possible to a man only when his soul is totally denuded. In those pristine moments a secret play takes place between man and the beast where both straddle the concerns of success and failure. This is followed by a mutual transference or passionate absorption of the other self. All the primordial instincts of life and death are aroused in this process and an indescribable experience, which may perhaps be compared to that of rebirth, is actualized.I think it is an emotional ritual which many artists unknowingly and at times with a magically awakened intellect practice as part of their creative life-a life which otherwise gets muddled with the mundane realities of daily existence. Bhagyanath has brought out with an inspiring ease in his drawings the mysterious beauty, grandeur and even pathos in man’s secret plays and dialogues with the other representatives of the animal world. This is something about which any artist may feel a sense of spiritual delight and elation.
(An exhibition of Bhagyanath’s drawings is held at Kashi Art Gallery,Burgher Street,Fort Kochi,Kerala.)
Random notes
Two things are happening in the education field of kerala.
1.The teaching community is asked to step down from the heights of teaching and they are being made facilitators whose only duty is to arrange proper facilities for the students who themselves should collect the data and informations necessary for thier studies.As a result, from a very early age students begin to nurse the wrong notion that they are the creators of knowledge.They feel that whatever has been so far achieved in the field of knowledge by the painful enquiries and efforts of generations is something that they could collect easily and put into use without much strain on thier part. Within a short period they begin to presume that to be able to talk pretentiously and superfluously on anything under the sun is a great virtue.They will also master the technquesof make believe in presenting seminar papers and preparing assignments.A baseless pride and arrongance follow these and reflect in social life as disrespect for almost all human values.
2. Literature and all forms of creative expressions in any field of knowledge are marginalised in the new syllabus.Creativity is looked down upon and the ability to collect informations from various fields is valued very much.The choice based credit system that has been implemented in colleges has created an aversion and contempt towards in-depth knowledge in any area of study and the students have become adomant in hailing peripheral knowledge as real knowledge.What the authorities want them to be is clear.They aim at creating a generation capable of floating freely without any serious concern about anything in a world controlled by the forces of free market.
The horrifyingly subversive changes taking place in the field of education have affected quite adversily all walks of social life in the state.The disbelief and tension swelling up in social psyche have made genuinely serious cultural activitiesand communication impossible. Except a very few NGOs no one is there to take up the burning issues in social life.NGOs have their own limitations.They are often controlled by unfair agencies whose real interests are always kept hidden.In Kerala which is considered a strong hold of left politics to be apolitical has become the ideal of a considerably large section of the people.
1.The teaching community is asked to step down from the heights of teaching and they are being made facilitators whose only duty is to arrange proper facilities for the students who themselves should collect the data and informations necessary for thier studies.As a result, from a very early age students begin to nurse the wrong notion that they are the creators of knowledge.They feel that whatever has been so far achieved in the field of knowledge by the painful enquiries and efforts of generations is something that they could collect easily and put into use without much strain on thier part. Within a short period they begin to presume that to be able to talk pretentiously and superfluously on anything under the sun is a great virtue.They will also master the technquesof make believe in presenting seminar papers and preparing assignments.A baseless pride and arrongance follow these and reflect in social life as disrespect for almost all human values.
2. Literature and all forms of creative expressions in any field of knowledge are marginalised in the new syllabus.Creativity is looked down upon and the ability to collect informations from various fields is valued very much.The choice based credit system that has been implemented in colleges has created an aversion and contempt towards in-depth knowledge in any area of study and the students have become adomant in hailing peripheral knowledge as real knowledge.What the authorities want them to be is clear.They aim at creating a generation capable of floating freely without any serious concern about anything in a world controlled by the forces of free market.
The horrifyingly subversive changes taking place in the field of education have affected quite adversily all walks of social life in the state.The disbelief and tension swelling up in social psyche have made genuinely serious cultural activitiesand communication impossible. Except a very few NGOs no one is there to take up the burning issues in social life.NGOs have their own limitations.They are often controlled by unfair agencies whose real interests are always kept hidden.In Kerala which is considered a strong hold of left politics to be apolitical has become the ideal of a considerably large section of the people.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Random notes
5th December 2010
An evening at Mappila Bay,kannur.From 12 noon I,Artist Satheesh and Masood of Radio Mango were in the Kannur City. We went to the Arakkal Museum and then met Rashid who is in charge of ringing the bell at Arakkal Kettu,five times a day,informing the local people the time for prayer.We also met his father Majeed, an old man aged more than eighty who owns some pigeons which won him 2nd prize in the competition conducted by the District Pegion Flying Association. For more than 2 hrs we were with Anthikka,the famous Mappilappattu singer and Music Guru of the City.He was once well known among the football lovers of Kannur first as a brilliant player and later as very efficient referee.Anthikka is now 73.We left Anthikka's house at about 3p.m and drove to hotel Sona to have our lunch.A large group of Coorg women were there.It was easy to assume that they were returning from Parassinikkadavu after witnessing the Puthari Festival there to which the coorgies attach special importance.
After lunch We went to the famous Attakka Palli and then moved to Maidanappalli area and walked long distance along the seashore.When we came to the Mappila Bay Hanneefa Kurikkalakath,a jounalist recently retired from Siraj Daily joined us.Till dusk we were there exploring the local history of the City area.It was definitely an inspiring experience.
An evening at Mappila Bay,kannur.From 12 noon I,Artist Satheesh and Masood of Radio Mango were in the Kannur City. We went to the Arakkal Museum and then met Rashid who is in charge of ringing the bell at Arakkal Kettu,five times a day,informing the local people the time for prayer.We also met his father Majeed, an old man aged more than eighty who owns some pigeons which won him 2nd prize in the competition conducted by the District Pegion Flying Association. For more than 2 hrs we were with Anthikka,the famous Mappilappattu singer and Music Guru of the City.He was once well known among the football lovers of Kannur first as a brilliant player and later as very efficient referee.Anthikka is now 73.We left Anthikka's house at about 3p.m and drove to hotel Sona to have our lunch.A large group of Coorg women were there.It was easy to assume that they were returning from Parassinikkadavu after witnessing the Puthari Festival there to which the coorgies attach special importance.
After lunch We went to the famous Attakka Palli and then moved to Maidanappalli area and walked long distance along the seashore.When we came to the Mappila Bay Hanneefa Kurikkalakath,a jounalist recently retired from Siraj Daily joined us.Till dusk we were there exploring the local history of the City area.It was definitely an inspiring experience.
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