When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
- I was learning to read. A library of books appeared in a government school in 1990-1991. This box had books from Eklavya publications New Delhi.
- The books had a lasting impact on my subconscious. After coming of age, when I questioned my spiritual enlightenment I looked back at that particular batch of books. It included Chakmak magazine. Not to mention syllabus books.
- Television, radio and local dialect shaped my world view.
- As usually happens to young children I was fascinated by martial arts in Bollywood movies and TV.
- I wanted to be a hero. A filmy hero who was able to defend great causes by being one many army. A saviour.
- Even that was possible as grandpa once told. There was a switch behind the medium size television set we had. That would have let me land in Bombay Bollywood to be a hero.
- Heroes were of many types. Delhi Doordarshan’s sentimental appeal to sacrifice yourself for Matrix, Patrix etc wasn’t really balanced by Bertrand Russell’s “patriotism is willing to die for foolish reasons.” I came across that only after college.
- Therefore, heroes who were warriors or army men brainwashed to die for their countries to receive accolades like Paramveer Chakra or Ashok Chakra.
- If someone thinks I mean they don’t value anything: it’s not so. Yet, in a world view there might not be a need for Jacob’s Ladder or Grave of Fireflies.
- If parents convinced me to not be a warrior I wanted to be at least a policeman. Most of the Bollywood movies which aren’t brainy show policemen as actual action heroes. Administrative officers, Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy, banking, media, politicians, mafia, priesthood and the rest don’t appear in the budding psyche of young children.
- Prompts are merely an excuse to rant. I am deleting old articles to create space for new. Reason is simple: though new WordPress websites are available it’s more difficult to get subscribers or to actually buy as much space as there was a decade ago. I have contemplated about using another platform for blogging but this one seems to be most comfortable at the moment.
- This year I visited that village where people barely recognised me as I was visiting after college days. Even then I was visiting with my father who was a teacher there for almost a decade. The librarian then offered to help me with those books I had read and touched as a young child of five or six.
- They were a treasure. I looked up Eklavya publications archives online but they were different books. It disappointed me like most things online do.
- Look at Spotify or other music apps. Even though classics are available they often come with deluge of compulsory advertisements. As much as home ministry mixing devotional chants with abusive words at such a refined level that a novice gets baffled.
- Art of livings chanting of Om Namah Shivay was mixed with home minister’s swear words during announcement of a new law which was popularised as a meme. Who’s going to protect Dharma?
- And how’s Dharma going to protect its protectors if all you have are life insurance corporations agents who compel you to sign papers without insuring basic life sustenance needs. Are farmers still dying because of loans or bad weather?
- I have definitely come a long way. Doctor Win Wenger PhD suggested that sowing of wild oats stops when you turn forty. I think I convinced myself that I was way past forty. What a relief. I got another job which actually paid instead of labouring for an NGO which actually had a king who was no different from Gujrati kings who only compelled you to surrender your imagined properties to them by showcasing great virtue on occassions which suited them.
- To be or not to be what you wanted to be when you were five is more an analysis of world view created by literature at that time than individual psyche which might have held certain promises for stakeholders who were investing into that world or crop.
- This verse:
- कल भात आएगा,
एक पतीला;
गरम गरम,
और गीला गीला! - Sums up the make up of this five year old’s mind by providence which wanted him to realise his birth in a commune or orphanage where he only talks to a postbox 📬.
- The postbox 📫 takes up role of singer of this refrain which means:
- Tomorrow there will be rice;
- One big bowl full of rice;
- It will be hot steamy rice;
- It will be wet hot steamy rice like you prefer.
- Young, naked five year old crying its heart out to a postbox where crops might have failed. Parents might have abandoned the child. Satellite cameras might have been capturing images to project them onto a Truman Show like grand reality.
- Subconscious of child had questions like those asked by Nachiketa to Yama or those in the Seventh Seal if you would. Upanishads or Vedanta. They’re all answered in due course.
Dancing light of grace 