“In the midst of winter... an invincible summer”

We are living through trying times. There seems to be a scary new virus that has managed to escape from one tiny district of one massive nation and gone on a world tour, leaving thousands dead and millions more panic stricken in its wake. Entire nations have come to a standstill, with social isolation, work from home and lockdown becoming buzzwords for the day. The most disorienting part of it all is the speed at which the entire scenario has unfolded. The virus was first identified in Wuhan in November 2019, but it arrived in India only in early March 2020, and became the all encompassing area of focus for the entire country barely in the last week or ten days. Right now though, it seems like all there is left in the world to talk about.

I do not want to talk about the virus, or the disease, or the death toll, or the lack of adequate healthcare resources should community transmission progress aggressively in this country. There is far too much of that out there already. I want to talk about the social and personal fallout of this entire scenario, a factor that seems to have gone largely unnoticed or at least unaddressed so far. The country – and the world, in large parts – has been plunged headlong, without warning, into an era of social isolation, bringing everyday life to a grinding halt for millions.

Over many days now, the vast majority of the conversations I have been having with friends and peers have revolved around the virus. It had started off casually, and there had been a fair bit of excitement at the prospect of being able to work from home. At that point, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity to laze and spend time with friends, a mini staycation of sorts. I myself had imagined that it would be fifteen days of reliving summer vacations, waking up at noon and eating ungodly amounts of dessert. Maybe this would be the time when I would finally be able to convince my partner to stay over for a couple of days without spending a majority of that time bent over his laptop, working on the latest assignments from work! The reality turned out to be vastly different, of course. The panic moved rapidly, and with more and more social institutions shutting shop and governments enforcing lockdowns, people went home to their families and hunkered down in quarantine for the foreseeable future.

This is where the trouble starts. It must be acknowledged that a situation of enforced isolation, particularly as a means to combat a contagion, is bound to create panic and mass hysteria. And this hysteria creates artificial crises that often supersede the real, existent dangers. Around the world, there has been a large scale shortage of basic groceries and staples, including ridiculous items such as toilet paper, because people have started hoarding essentials to prepare for shortages in the upcoming months, ironically precipitating the very thing that they most fear! This has, of course, left the old and the infirm, as well as the financially badly off, out in the cold. Similar patterns seem to be unfolding in India, despite repeated assurances from the government that essential services and products will continue to be produced and made available in markets. 

Panic buying is perhaps the most visible impact of the disruptions unfolding through the virus scare. There is another, much deeper malaise that is bound to wreak its own variety of malignant havoc. I do not think that people appreciate how devastating isolation can be, particularly when it is coupled by the prospect of an indefinite future. Dark thoughts threaten to overshadow the human mind, and apathy sets in. The current scenario is rife for the worst sort of emotional and psychological disruptions in people. Many are isolated alone, in cities far away from home, and this causes increased levels of anxiety for the family’s well-being. A lot of others have been forced to return to family homes that are abusive at worst, and distant and uncaring at best. Some of us have the privilege of being able to continue with our work remotely, but for others, this is an enforced holiday that they had never wanted in the first place. Not knowing with any kind of certainty when life will be able to return to some degree of normalcy makes the situation many times worse.

The days seem interminably long. It has been less than a week since I started working from home, and a little less than ten days since I last saw my friends. Yet time has slowed down to a painful crawl, and every minute that drags by is laced with some thought – or conversation – about the virus and the upheaval it has caused. Social media has shown once again what a phenomenal pain in the neck it can be during times of crisis. Every Whatsapp group conversation is filled with incessant videos, articles, circulars, notices and updates about the virus’s latest victims. The tone ranges from somber to hysterical, adding fuel to an already steadily heightening and pervasive fear psychosis. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to log on to any site or platform without your senses being assaulted by factoids about the disease. And the worst part? The focus is entirely on the fatalities, the gruesome nature of those who are seriously ill, and the ostensibly indefinite duration that this outbreak and quarantining will continue for. If one were to take some time out to research, one would also come across enough encouraging articles – this one is a good example – about people recovering from the disease, and about possibilities of the outbreak getting controlled and life going back to normal at a reasonably early date. But of course, these stories are not highlighted, because where is the sensationalism in that?

One good thing has come of this entire series of unfortunate events, though. More and more, people are reaching out to friends and family that they had fallen out of touch with, and really talking to the ones who have been around. Over the last week or so, I have been making full utilisation of Whatsapp’s video calling facility to talk to friends from all over the country. I also feel closer to my partner, keeping more closely in touch with each other than we’ve ever done before. Crises of these kinds tend to bring out life’s priorities with a lot of clarity, and I for one am glad to have realised that there are so many people that I care about. This is also the time to slow down and reflect. Far too much, we have become dependent on external sources of joy and entertainment. Gatherings with friends are dependent on the spirits on offer, romantic relationships are founded on the amount of money spent on dates and dinners. The joy and depth of conversations are lost in the midst of loud party music and psychedelic lights. Now, maybe, is when we go back to communicating with people because we like to talk to them, to know their minds, rather than because we only care about dressing up and going out together! Even more significantly, now is the time to think about non-personal hobbies and occupations. This is the time for the introvert to come into her own, and the reader, the thinker, the artist to flourish. These identities do not have to be the exclusive reserve of a tiny handful. Most people find some creative instincts if only they dig deep enough, and what better time to do so than now?

So let the news channels and the disease updates be, for a while. Pick up the phone and call someone. Or better still, pick up your pencil and practice doodling. Read about mindfulness, and then try incorporating it in your life daily. Go for a walk if your town still allows it, or sit out on the terrace, and let the sun fall on your face.  Dance, for no other reason than you can. Give your maid paid leave and do some household chores while listening to podcasts. And the next time you get to hug your friends or kiss your lover goodnight, remember that human proximity is a privilege, and be grateful. Human beings have an extraordinary well of resilience in them, and time and again the world gives us the occasion to delve into that “invincible summer” inside ourselves, pull ourselves back on our feet and carry forward with life. Now is such a time, and it would be a sorry waste to allow oneself to fall prey to the gloom of uncertainty and desperation. Life derives both beauty and meaning from some of its toughest phases. I sincerely hope, for myself and everyone I love, that we are able to look back on this phase years down the line, and pat ourselves and each other on our backs for how we conducted ourselves during this time.

Reflections on money and the moneyed

When I was a little girl, my parents never gave me an allowance, or ‘pocket-money’ as it is called here. Instead, they asked me to lend a hand with household chores and gave me ‘payments’ for whatever work I did. Now I know a certain line of thinking about parenting would condemn this as a bad idea since children should learn to do household work as a matter of course and not as something for which they are rewarded; I do not want to go into that debate here, because while an interesting thought, it is a completely different issue from the one I now have in mind. My parents’ method successfully taught me the joys and responsibilities of owning money that is hard earned. In other ways too I was exposed to the family finances from a young age, and as such came to handle significant sums of money with confidence and care far earlier than most of my contemporaries; indeed some still probably don’t, particularly among the girls, and we are now in our twenties.

I never put a lot of thought into my relationship with money, though. I come from a well-off middle-class family, which puts me into the top 1% of India’s population. By God’s grace and Baba’s hard work I have never had to know financial hardship, and my only exposure to poverty has been through literature and cinema, and the fact that I live in a country with an abysmal and ever-growing gap between the haves and the have nots. In my family, the norm has always been to put money firmly in the role of an instrument providing safety, comfort and convenience, along with the ability to indulge in charity and the occasional luxury, the former being viewed as an integral duty by virtue of being human, the latter highlighting rare and special occasions such as vacations, the savouring of fine liquor or festive shopping sprees. Our family has always believed strongly in the value of living simply if not frugally with little attention to conspicuous consumption. I spent the first sixteen years of my life in a small town without ever using a ‘branded’ lifestyle product. Cell phones came late in our lives, smartphones later still. Eating out was done maybe once in six months, maybe less. The family car spent far more time in the garage than it did ferrying any of us about. And our lives were none the worse for any of this. I never felt any sense of loss or inadequacy from the absence of any material objects and experiences that most families in our social class see as integral parts of their lives, particularly in the big cities.

When I moved to Calcutta for my higher secondary education, I joined a somewhat ‘elite’ institution where a large number of the students belonged to one of the richest business communities in India. Soon, I got used to seeing luxury cars outside the school gate, and a certain snobbish stance in classrooms that translated into the financial and psychological equivalent of ‘tu janta nehi mera baap kaun hai’ (don’t you know who my father is?!), though the latter was never directed at me personally given that I was academically far ahead of most of them and somewhat intimidating in my physical appearance and demeanour! This crowd was conspicuously absent during my years at Jadavpur University, where the student body’s so-called Marxist stance in life made way for the reverse snobbery of turning up to class looking like homeless madmen who had just woken up from a roadside ditch the done thing. Since I moved to Delhi though, the high school variety of people have skyrocketed in my vicinity, particularly in my university, which attracts that very crowd through its social as well as financial model. I now reside and study in an atmosphere where branded merchandise rule the day, as do parties and ‘fun’ that involve all sorts of lavish lifestyle choices. And recently, from my time working at the India Art Fair in Delhi, I have first-hand stories about the uber-rich who throw money at artwork the way kids do in candy stores, and I am talking about seven-figure sums here.

I have had the time to muse long and hard about the issue of money and how it affects human lives. And at this point, I feel sufficiently confident of having seen the entire spectrum of financial capacities of people. And I must admit, I have come to despise money and the moneyed more than ever before. I also pity them greatly, and I will presently explain why.

My first and possibly greatest grievance against the moneyed class is how money and civility seem to be inversely proportional. This, I suspect, is particularly true about the rich in India. We as a nation do not place much value on politeness and courtesy to begin with, and the few of us who do practice these values to some extent often do so more from the fear of being called out for misbehaviour than from an innate sense of civility. As money brings a certain privilege and social protection with it, that fear melts away, exposing the natural rudeness and uncouth behaviour of the person. It is also a way for them to exercise their power over the lowly plebeians; after all, how many will raise a voice of protestation against someone who earns a hundred or even a thousand times as herself? This brings me to the inflated sense of self-importance that these people have about their lives and work. As part of my work for the Art Fair, my group had to collaborate with some fashion designers, upcoming names in the Indian fashion industry. One of them was an uncivilized lout who liked to strut about ordering people with a sense of importance that was frankly ludicrous for someone who is, in essence, a glorified master tailor. I am happy to say I had the chance to take the individual down a peg or two and made good use of it. Afterwards, as we trundled around the Art Fair thoroughly uncomfortable in the rather mediocre looking but cut-throat priced designer-wear, we were congratulated by several of the collectors (I have been using a rather less civilized term invoking the canine family to refer to them in private conversations, as it seemed to reflect their attitudes more aptly, but I will desist here for the sake of propriety) for our ‘luck’ at getting to wear them, and advised us to ‘enjoy’ it while we could. I could not decide whether to be more astonished by or full of pity at their idea of what brings joy in life.

That, I suppose, is my second biggest complaint against money, as well as the source of my contemptuous pity for those who have too much of it. The more one devotes oneself to the pursuit of money as the sole aim of one’s life, the more disconnected one seems to become from real love and joy and peace. Lives are given meaning through the possessions one owns, and the prices one pays for it. The art becomes insignificant unless the artist is expensive enough, the vacation becomes pointless unless it is where all the other millionaires also go and spend their money. The worst affected, of course, are not those who are the real earners of the millions, but those who are his family – usually the wife and children. The sense of entitlement they bring with them is mind-boggling, as is the stupidity that is often an unfortunate additive. But I suppose you do need the thick skin (and head) if you have to survive the plastic lives they do, with their kitty parties and leather bags and gossips about the latest ‘in’ things.

I feel saddest, though, for the middle class, the class that aspires more than anything to be like their uber-wealthy counterparts. And what they cannot emulate in earnings, they try to make up for with the spendings. We have more and more families that are aiming for designer trousseau and destination weddings but do not have adequate medical insurance or retirement funds. And, perhaps worst still, far too many people are giving into the lure of commodity fetishism and ‘living it up’ at the price not only of their futures but of their present mental and emotional growth.

Which brings me to the idea of charity. Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion that human beings are not inherently good and kind and keen to help others. They are often quite the opposite, in fact, and have to be coerced by social institutions into putting up a veneer of civility and self-restraint. Since no similar institutional coercive measure exists in the case of charity, it is a small surprise that few people, particularly among the rich, feel the need to do much about human beings subjected to poverty. A former friend from Jadavpur who belonged to one of the traditionally rich north Calcutta families and had no qualms while talking about his collection of pens worth lakhs routinely fought with poor rickshaw pullers over a few rupees and thought I was a gullible fool and a bit of a squanderer for giving money to the various aid seekers, usually the old and infirm, who regularly came to our campus for help. I am not denying that there are many rich individuals who give away huge amounts of their money for charity – I hear J. K. Rowling lost her billionaire status because she donated so much of her wealth. In India, however, it is too little done by too few. In my personal experience, it is often those who have to skip outings with friends because they have to buy groceries that make charity a regular habit. One of my history professors at Ashoka, while discussing communism in class, told us about how he heard people at his gym defending the Ambanis spending obscenely at the daughter’s wedding by arguing they had the right to do whatever they wanted with their ‘hard-earned money’ while criticizing the idea of loan waivers to farmers as it would make them lazy and encourage the bad habit of not paying back on future loans.  What does that say about the rich, and about those who aspire to be so?

I know many will consider this essay a classic piece of sour grapes, but I have myself considered this possibility and rejected it with a laugh long ago. As I started out by saying, I am acutely aware of my privilege of belonging to a comfortably-off family. Having said that, I have not been able to decipher how several more zeroes to the sum in the bank account would have made my life significantly more fruitful. Greater scope for charity would have been one, and it would have been nice, as Rowling had once said, never to have to worry about paying bills in one’s life, but apart from that? What could I have been able to buy that would give me greater long term life satisfaction? The consumer habits practised by the moneyed, I have noticed, is based almost entirely on the question of bragging rights. In my family though, the practice of discussing our incomes with outsiders or asking after another’s has always been seen as a sign of ultimate bad manners and unrefined culture, and the same goes for talking about the prices of our possessions. Growing up with such cultural inclinations, how on earth will buying a bag from Louis Vuitton or a watch from Gucci give me greater joy than my present ones from Dressberry and Titan respectively?

I will close with a reminder, to myself as much as to my readers, about what I said earlier about making money a mere instrument and not the master of one’s life. It is frighteningly easy to lose conviction if one is exposed to a frivolously wasteful environment for too long. Far too many of my friends in Delhi have Apple phones and laptops, and my open ridiculing of Apple users has, as a result, become more guarded. It is only a matter of time, I’m afraid, before a sneaking desire ‘invest’ in a designer accessory may take root in my heart. I hope I will remember to revisit my own writing then, to remind myself where that particular path leads to.

Goodreads Review: Twilight Falls on Liberalism

Twilight Falls on Liberalism by Rudrangshu Mukherjee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have the privilege of studying at the university where Professor Mukherjee is the Chancellor and Professor of History. I have attended some of his classes and been impressed by his command of the subject and style of delivery, and wanted to know how far his expertise was translated on to his writing. This was a major reason for my picking up this book, as also was my interest in the subject, and I must say that it was a worthy read.

Professor Mukherjee starts the book - closer to a long essay at 133 pages of a pocketbook - with introducing the current socio-political atmosphere around the world and the manner in which the ideology of liberalism is under attack from various fundamentalist and totalitarian forces. Then, true to his historian's method, he goes back to study the conception and growth of the idea of liberalism from its 18th century Enlightenment roots and its changing scope over the ages in keeping with contemporary world economy and polity. He touches upon the fundamental contradictions within the ideology and the paradox of its birth from the same roots that gave rise to totalitarian tendencies. He moves forward to discuss some of the critiques of liberalism and continues the chronological study of 20th-century eclipsing of the ideology through the rise of dictatorships across Europe. He traces the cyclical pattern of rising and diminishing popularity of the ideology through the century before closing with the 21st century socio-political attitude towards liberal ideals as displayed by the three major world events of the last several years - the election of Donald Trump in the US, Brexit, and the rise of right-wing governance in India with the coming of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister.

The major drawback in the book is the lack of analysis or at least historically moulded informed guesses as to the reasons behind the rising tide of totalitarian tendencies across the world. While Professor Mukherjee has touched briefly upon the economic meltdown of 2008 and the growing threat of Islamist fundamentalism as possible reasons for the decline of liberal beliefs, these interconnections could have been explored at greater length, providing a more nuanced understanding of contemporary world politics for the reader. This would have been particularly helpful for the lay reader since Professor Mukherjee's ability to explain complex philosophical and political ideas in lucid language makes this book intellectually available to a wide range of readers. That apart, this is a most interesting book by way of introduction to the political ideology of liberalism and is sure to get the reader enthused about learning more on the subject. 

View all my reviews

Post-festivity venting

I am in a very irritable mood. I have been this way all through the evening. It is the first of November, but the temperatures seem to have no intention of coming down. Winter feels like a distant dream here in Kolkata, and instead of ordering boots and dreaming about hot cups of cocoa, I am still in my summer shorts and tees. But this is only an incidental cause for my present state of mind. What is really making me prickly is the seemingly never-ending season of festivities in this part of the world.

I belong to the tiny section of the population that cannot wait for the celebrations to end and life to go back to its routine of working days and weekends. The entire month of October has been one long period of limbo when it came to any sort of work getting done, be it in college or outside of it. People are ‘happy’; they are ‘taking a break’. A break from what, can someone tell me? As it is we Bengalis have a remarkable reputation for being lazy and unwilling to work. Anything that can be done in a week (or a month or more) will never, not even by mistake, be completed in any less time. And then there is the annual, month-long, socially acceptable excuse for dropping all work and wasting as much time and money as humanly possible.

Durga Puja did not annoy me too much. In fact I enjoyed shopping for clothes, going out with friends, going pandal hopping in Kolkata and Durgapur, the usual during festivals. But for some reason, the Diwali long weekend has driven me to tears of anger and frustration. It all started since last Friday, which was bhoot choturdorshi. I did not go to Durgapur for Diwali this year because I had to study and finish assignments and papers and I never seem to do any productive work at all when I’m back home with Dad. So on Friday I went out to Lake market to buy some abir for the mandatory Diwali rangoli (for the uninitiated, abir is coloured powder used to make designs on the ground – rangoli­ – during Diwali, and smear on each other during Holi). Lake Market is a busy shopping arcade on all days, but on Friday it was a sea of humanity. People old and young were crawling all over the area. Every second person seemed to have come in private cars, which led to traffic snags and parking lot shouting matches. Trying to navigate one’s way through cars and stalls and beggar children and dogs and cows was nightmarish. I did get the things I was looking for, and came away as quickly as I could. But the experience left me drained of energy and good humour. I spent the rest of the evening snapping at family and friends.

Kali pujo and Diwali (Saturday and Sunday respectively) would have gone fine enough, except that all around me people decided that the best way to enjoy themselves was to burst a whole lot of kali potkas and chocolate bombs and dodomas. Diwali is supposed to be the festival of lights, not sounds! It is deemed to signify the triumph of good over evil, light of darkness, hope over despair, not cacophony over silence! So many aspects of the celebration are beautiful – cleaning and decorating the house with fairy lights and oil lamps, drawing of the rangoli, making of mouthwatering sweets like laddoos and halwas, even the firework displays. I have nothing against real fireworks – fuljhuris and rongmashals, chorkis and tubris, various kinds of rockets that form coloured stars and parachutes and designs up in the sky. All of these are pretty to look at, reason enough to be used during Diwali. But what, pray, do you get from the bursting of bombs? Nothing but noise. It is beyond me why people enjoy the ear splitting explosions emanating from these pointless crackers. Why would you want to be reminded of battlefield bangs and booms for entertainment?

Diwali is one big reminder of how little Indians care about public inconvenience. The tyranny of majoritarianism becomes an ugly reality. So what if the elderly and the animals (and a few oddballs like yours truly) find the din physically painful and palpitation-inducing? The majority wants to have fun, the rest can go to hell. Then there is the added nuisance of songs blaring out from the speakers, volume turned up to the maximum. In fact, it is the middle of the night now, and still the scoundrels in my neighbourhood show no sign of turning the volume down. Just because they like to get drunk and dance like zombies to Bhojpuri songs, I have to listen to them too. Democracy and egalitarianism are nice concepts to think about and support; but right now if I could lay my hands on a gun I am pretty sure I would have caused a bloodbath here.

I just went over this post from four years ago. So much has changed in these four years, and yet so little. That Diwali was a happy one. The rangoli was beautiful. This year, I did make one, but it was uninspired and asymmetrical, an apt reflection of my state of mind.

I can sense that I am rambling; this sort of writing is more suited for the private journal I keep than the blog. But I had to vent out my anger in public. I feel much calmer now, and though the idiots here are still at it with their speakers and their crackers, I think I will be able to turn in for the night without shouting out my entire stock of expletives at them. Also, I had not written for such a long time. It feels good to be back at my writing. Maybe, just maybe it will not be months before my next post here. 

Fear of Freedom

What is freedom? Does freedom mean the same thing for everybody? Is freedom necessarily a good thing? Is freedom an end by itself or just a means to a bigger goal? These are some questions that find answers and explanations in Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, or The Fear of Freedom as it is known outside North America. First published by the Berlin born psychoanalyst in the United States in 1941, it was written at the height of the Second World War, when the ideas of freedom and democracy were in imminent danger at the swift rise of the doctrines of Fascism and Nazism in Europe. The book is an attempt at explaining the psychological causes that, along with socio-economic and political causes, led to the rise of Nazism in Germany. However the thesis laid out in the book is a study in human psychology that transcends any specific time frame or regional boundary and remains as true in the 21^st century as it was then, maybe even more so. As a complete beginner in human psychology as an academic discipline, I have neither the knowledge nor the intellectual capability to ‘review’ such a scholarly book. However, I shall talk about the various things that I learnt from this book, and the many thoughts that came to me while reading it.

Fromm begins his treatise with the very question that I started this essay with – what is freedom? Generally, one thinks of freedom as a situation of independence from an external, coercive force. However, Fromm does not stop at this explanation; according to him there are in fact two parts to the concept of freedom – ‘freedom from’ or negative freedom and ‘freedom to’ or positive freedom. Fromm maintains that ‘freedom from’ by itself cannot be an end, as gaining negative freedom from oppression without actively striving towards positive freedom that would involve active utilisation of the emancipated state from the earlier oppression leads to unfortunate results for the human psyche. Comparing this state with the natural progression of a child into an adult human being, he says that just as the natural bonds that a child has in its infancy and childhood with its parents are eventually shed as the child develops into maturity, leading to an intense sense of loss and vulnerability from the sudden absence of the sense of security that these bonds offer, so is the effect that ‘freedom from’ by itself has on human beings. The structure and consistency offered by oppressive authority in human lives – an authority that the people have become used to over generations as usually is the case with all social institutions – is lost once the people are emancipated from this external authority, leading to fear and hopelessness and lack of direction, rather than the joy and celebration that seem to be the more logical reaction to emancipation.

Fromm begins his study of the idea of freedom from the period of the Reformation in Europe. It was a period when the traditional feudal system collapsed and the wave of industrialization washed over the country at a rapid pace. The social structure of lord and vassal collapsed. It was a period when people lost the certainty of social position that the feudal hierarchy had offered. It was also a period of religious changes, as the theology of Protestantism became a powerful and widespread reaction against the oppression of the Catholic Church. Fromm explains the theology of Luther and Calvin as the religious extension of the Industrial Revolution, as it gave structure to the masses and prepared them for the requirements of the industrial world. Fromm feels that these theologies rose as an answer to the social needs of the time, addressing the newfound state of man as an individual entity separate from the social hierarchical model, yet maintaining a certain moral hierarchy with God as the ultimate controlling power as represented by the relationship between man and God in Protestant theology. The preaching of Luther and Calvin emphasized on work as the goal of life, as an end in itself, as work led to salvation and the grace of God. This was in fact a preparatory factor for the masses that were to become slaves of the industrial machinery, a social structure where work and frugality were most valuable. Fromm also points out that it was the middle class that underwent most social change in terms of religion, and shows how it was this class that faced most difficulties and upheavals that led to resentment disguised as moral outrage against the higher and lower classes.

Fromm moves on to modern man’s relationship with freedom. In this age of capitalism that had found its inception during the Industrial Revolution, Fromm feels that the principal of individualistic activity is of the utmost importance. It is this very concept that is found essential in the socio-economic aspects of capitalism that is reflected in the religious theology of Luther and Calvin. The emphasis on work as a major goal in life increases, as can be expected for the serving of the capitalistic institutions. There is an alienation in the relationships of man with man, as all contact continues to become impersonal where the individual becomes of little consequence, nothing more than a cog in the giant machinery of capitalistic institutions. It is from a situation like this that the seeds of authoritarian ideologies like Nazism grow, in order to fulfill the intense social emptiness and lack of structure and belonging. However, before continuing with the psychological sources of Nazism, Fromm talks about the various machinery of escape that human beings tend to take up in  order to escape the unbearable loneliness caused by negative freedom. He talks of the authoritarian character type that is both sadistic in his tendency towards absolute physical and spiritual control of his subject, as well as masochistic in wanting desperately to submit completely to a higher power. Surprisingly, Fromm shows these seemingly contradictory character types to be actually of the same origin and striving towards the same goal – removing one’s emptiness and loneliness through complete association with one’s subject. Then there is the destructive character type, an extreme form of sadism where the person tries to destroy the outer world that seems bigger and therefore ominous and beyond his control. He removes the source of fear in order to overcome it. And then there is the type that falls for automaton conformity – a situation where the person fully negates his individuality and becomes an unthinking automaton in service to a higher power. His method of overcoming the loneliness of freedom is by doing away with the ‘self’.

Fromm talks about the lower middle class in Germany – the biggest supporters of Hitler – as essentially members of the authoritarian character type. They looked up to Hitler with their masochistic urges towards submission, while their sadistic tendencies were fulfilled by the oppression of the very many victims of Nazism, most significantly the Jews. Hitler himself was a supreme example of the authoritarian character type. Fromm makes many references to Hitler’s own writings in Mein Kampf to testify to this. Hitler was obsessed with mastery over humankind, and yet accepted absolute slavery to Nature, God or Fate. Another section of the German populace that never supported Nazism but came to accept the regime without much opposition Fromm dismisses as the section that was psychologically tired and resigned and without much moral resistance. This chapter is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting chapters in the book. As a student of history I have read quite a bit about the economic and the political causes of the rise of Nazism. But I have often wondered about why the doctrine came to be as popular with such a large number of people, and also why in Germany specifically. This chapter greatly answers my questions. However, just in case somebody misinterprets Nazism as merely a psychological phenomenon, he clarifies repeatedly right at the beginning that a true explanation for the rise of Nazism can only be found by the study of the social, economic, political and psychological conditions in their entirety prevailing in Germany at the time.

Fromm concludes his book with a study of the meaning and value of freedom in democratic countries. He feels that the populace in democratic societies live under the impression of freedom, but in fact this idea of individuality is nothing more than an illusion. He maintains that the modern democratic man is not truly free; though he does not suffer the manifold external oppression that his forefathers faced, there is a great degree of internal oppression that keeps him from being truly free. He feels that the modern man is incapable of having truly individual thoughts because he is overwhelmingly brainwashed and conditioned by society. One cannot even adequately differentiate between original thoughts and ideas imbibed from the external world because these ideas have become so ingrained as to be a part of one’s own mind. What Fromm is talking about here is nothing other than ‘herd mentality’, often suger-coated as ‘social character’, a silent killer of all truly individualistic urges and activity. I quote here – “(Modern man) desperately clings to the notion of individuality; he wants to be “different”, and he has no greater recommendation of anything than that “It is different””. Does this not sound familiar to my generation? Is this not what we say we strive towards becoming? In this attempt at becoming ‘different’ together, we have only managed to become hordes of maddeningly homogeneous masses, all chanting the mantra of individuality while taking conformity to the highest level possible – conformity of thought and emotion!

According to Fromm, real freedom, or positive freedom is only achieved through “the active and spontaneous realization of the individual self”. The spontaneous self-expression without conformity to invisible social norms, without the constant urge to mix in and be one of the herd, is what the ultimate expression of freedom should be. According to Fromm, it is only when a person reaches this level of psychological maturity that freedom becomes truly meaningful – and even safe – in his hands. At this point he no longer feels the need to come under the forceful authority of external powers; it is only then that he is truly safe from submission to regimes and ideologies like Nazism.

 Fear of Freedom is undoubtedly one of the most enlightening books I have ever read. No amount of  rote textbook learning could have given me this sense of a certain level of understanding of my fellow man and his actions. In fact, Fromm himself talks about the ills of unthinking memorization of facts in this book as a deterrent to the growth of true individuality. How I wish we had more books like this prescribed as textbooks in high school. It might have led to a somewhat saner generation of human beings. Thank you baba, for recommending this book, as always. 

Women's empowerment and household chores

I did not mean to write a post for Women’s Day. I find it rather tiring to wake up in the morning and remind myself of my gender. I’d rather be just a human being. Wouldn't that actually solve a lot of problems, if people spent less time and energy asserting their masculinity or femininity, and treated each other merely as fellow human beings? Anyway, so here is the reason why I decided to write on a women’s issue at this point. All my Bengali readers take a look at this article. For those who cannot read Bengali, I apologise for not translating the entire essay. Here is a quick summary for them: The writer, one Swati Bhattacharya, has put forward the view that it is women’s attraction for and contribution towards all sorts of household chores – from cleaning and cooking to gardening and knitting – that has caused them to lag behind in the job market. The writer feels that the pursuit of such ‘banal’ and ‘petty’ activities makes women less willing to take up careers – something that would have automatically meant their ‘transcendence’ (uttaran) into better lives. She gives some valid examples about how there are much fewer women than men in most professions – journalism and writing and scientific research for example. She feels this is due to the fact that women have internalized the age-old dictum of their places being in homes and kitchens. She has lamented about how patriarchy has brainwashed women into wanting to return to the very families that abuse and torture them, and even, in some extreme cases, take their lives. She ends with the metaphor of prisoners wanting to return to their incarceration after the jail has been destroyed in order to free them: she feels that no amount of external freedom and opportunities can really free women unless they can throw away the ‘shackles’ that household work represents.

While I agree in spirit with the point Ms Bhattacharya has tried to raise about increasing participation of women in different fields of work, I am infuriated by the reasons offered by her for the gender divide in jobs. I have several things to say in this regard, so I will address the writer for the rest of this post.

Dear Ms Bhattacharya,

I am a fairly educated, independent, discerning young woman of the 21^st century, brought up in a highly liberal family. I have career ambitions and high hopes for my future, and I am sorry to see so few of my classmates having the same. I have never been indoctrinated by the ideas of a ‘woman’s place’ and gender roles. But I have been deeply insulted and pained by the views you have expressed in your article for Women’s Day. I am guessing you are a feminist; I am not. I believe in rights of a much broader sort: human rights. I believe in the right every single human being has to decide what sort of life s/he wants for herself or himself. Every single person has the right to live exactly as one wants to, as long as one is not doing this by hurting or unduly infringing upon the same rights of those around oneself.

Don’t feminists always shout themselves hoarse about how men are always telling them what to do and how to live their lives? Well, Ms Bhattacharya, what makes you think that just because you are a woman yourself, you have a right to dictate to other women about how to live good lives? What gave you the idea that the path shown by you is the only one that will lead to the liberation of women? Have you not noticed that you are doing the very thing that feminists always blame men for doing: trying to enforce your opinions on fellow human beings who are quite capable of making their own decisions – because for some reason you think you are superior?

Speaking of liberation, why should this word have only one interpretation: yours? You have understood liberation in one way; other people might have very different opinions. Personally, I find the Islamic burqa a rather restrictive device, and would hate to have to wear one. However, there are thousands of Muslim women – and not just uneducated religious fanatics – who claim that they find a certain freedom behind their veils, and wear them of their own volition without any male ever trying to enforce it. As my friend commented in the previous post, to each his own, and the sign of true civilization would be the acceptance of such differences without the automatic presumption of one’s own opinion being the only worthwhile one.  

You say that it is the importance that women give to household work that has led to their lower interest in career building. Many women give up their jobs once they get married or have children, because they want to devote all their time to their families. I have thought about this at some length. I think that in this matter a lot depends, or should depend, on the individual under consideration. There are surely many women in our society who would have liked to build their own careers – however small or big – and are forced into, albeit not always through abuse, choosing familial responsibilities over career-building. These women have my full sympathy, and I think it is a shame that even today women are compelled to make this choice without any support from either their spouses or their parents. But what you, Ms Bhattacharya, have tried to assert is that all women make this choice under compulsion, and all women would have done better to choose careers over families. Now there are two things that I want to say in this context: firstly, this idea of having to choose is not a worldwide concept. Women in many countries have been juggling families and careers for many years now. It is very much possible, and once our society – both men and women – start accepting this more readily, this problem of choice will hopefully subside. Secondly, for all the women out there who willingly choose to build homes rather than careers, who are you to say whether their choice has been right, or even good?

You talk of how the only thing worth doing is bringing about ‘transcendence’ of the human condition. Let us consider the many women who do take up various professions. You are a journalist yourself. Think of all the page three material that journalists write about on a daily basis. Is that transcendence? Many women take up teaching in schools as a preferred career. Having recently finished my fourteen year long school life, I will say that the biggest contribution of my teachers in my life have been bitter memories. School teachers spend a large part of their time thinking up ways in which to torment, irritate, gag and manipulate their pupils. By choosing to build careers, these women have permanently tarnished the reputation of schools and the experiences of students. And the many women who take up jobs in various IT companies, earn pittances and then waste it on exorbitant objects of self-beautification, and spend all their free time moving their backsides in discotheques trying to attract males of the very same mental level: have they achieved ‘transcendence’ of any sort? You have used the word uttaran, which translates into ‘transcendence’, but can also mean ‘climbing up’. Do monkeys also achieve uttaran when they jump up walls?

The ISIS think they are bringing about transcendence of the human condition by chopping off the heads of all non-believers. Hitler thought the same when he tried to make the Germans the master race and exterminate all Jews and anybody else who did not fit into his description of the ideal Aryan. Maybe you will call their actions progressive and ask all your fellow working women to mete out the same treatment to their non-working contemporaries? And if not, why not? Because their views don’t agree with yours? Or because you feel comfortable to think that your views somehow have to be right?

And now I come to the part that I find the most offensive of all. You call household chores banal and petty. How dare you? Who on earth gave you the right to decide what is petty and what is important? You say that there is no glory in making a perfectly shaped luchi: and I suppose it is so much more glorious to be a saleswoman in a supermarket or a grumpy ticket seller in a government bus station? Or maybe, a journalist who writes on topics which are ‘in’ at the moment? And why should everybody have to chase glory anyway? If I enjoy cleaning and decorating my home and cooking for my family, I am one happy woman doing these things, and my family is one happy family with a warm and cosy home to come back to. So what if I am not helping to take forward some ‘greater cause’? Maybe I have found happiness and fulfillment in my life that way: why do you grudge me that? In the example you give of your writer friend lamenting about how her acquaintance gave up a career in writing in favour of gardening and looking after the dog, all I can say is that just because you may not love dogs it doesn't mean that all women mustn't! You say that somebody else could have fed the dog while this girl honed her writing skills. I suppose you will laud only the woman who lets somebody else bring up her children and look after her aged and ill parents while she concentrates upon her career. After all, parents and children are part of the family, that prison-like system that prevents women from becoming (mostly) professional mediocrities!

Are you yourself a pathetic cook who has never been able to tell the difference between tea and kalo jeera, and keep your room like a permanent battleground, depending on your mother or your daughter or your maid for looking after your daily needs, while you can look down on them with scorn from your throne of a woman who earns her own living? If that is so, I have nothing but pity for you. Yours is a pathetic lot indeed; having failed to do anything of real significance in your career (from starting your own company to a charitable institution that does some real work for deprived women to writing a great book), you are now taking out your frustration by sneering upon women who perhaps have found happiness in life through their families and households. Believe me, there are millions of such women all around the world. Thankfully, your voice is really of little consequence: I will still go on keeping house and indulging in my feminine interests like knitting and cooking and colour coordinating upholstery, and hopefully my husband and children will derive much pleasure from these one day, just as my parents do now.

But be thankful that you and I shall never meet, for I’ll make sure to put salt instead of sugar in your coffee and darn your white dress with black thread – just to remind you of the significance of household activities and of those who take these activities seriously.

Is humour the bane of civility?

A very belated happy new year to all my readers. It is shameful for how long I have been away from the blog. I have been suffering from a heavy bout of writer’s block, and maybe an even heavier bout of sheer laziness. Anyway, I am back now, and hopefully I will be more regular with my writing this year than I have been in the previous few years.

Though I have not written in very many months, I have been thinking a great deal all this time. A lot of issues and ideas have swirled around inside my head, clogging me up at times. I will talk about some of them as I write throughout the year, hopefully. Right now, I have something in mind which is, I think, very pertinent in every human life. I am talking about humour.

Humour is an integral part, a basic necessity even, of life. Nobody likes being around a person who is a grumpy old bore. One reason why Percy Weasley was such an irritating character was that he could not recognize a joke even if it danced in front of him wearing only Dobby’s tea cozy. A sense of humour quickly establishes a person’s goodwill. The lack of it, especially in people working in public relations of various kinds (in my personal experience, teachers are common offenders of this kind), can make life miserable for not only oneself, but even more so for people one deals with. It also comes in handy while going through the rough patches of life. The man who can laugh at himself and the troubles he faces is a happy man indeed.

What is it that makes people laugh? This question is universal in nature, and yet it will elicit vastly different answers from different people. What one finds funny and enjoyable, though seemingly a very personal choice, is actually influenced by a lot of external factors: which country and which time in history one is born in, the religion one follows, the tastes and preferences of one’s parents, relatives, and not to forget, one’s peer group, are some such factors. These factors are much more powerful that they are generally credited to be; they colour a person’s character and form his personality to a large extent. And that is precisely why there is cause for worry when a large section of the population starts “enjoying” themselves at the cost of another very important social need – namely, good manners.

To a person born in Roman times, gladiator fights and no-holds-barred chariot racing were sources of entertainment. The 21st century man shrinks in horror at the thought of it. How barbarous, he thinks! We have advanced so much now than those poor savages, he says proudly. We live in the age of human rights! Of free speech and expression! And then out he goes, and spends thousands of rupees to buy a ticket to a “roast” by AIB. Now this is what you call civilized entertainment. Right?

For those of you who don’t know – I was one of them till a few weeks ago, and not much of a loser for that – a “roast” is a “comedy show” where celebrities are subjected to insults of all sorts for the entertainment of the wider audience. Wikipedia tells me that this type of event was created as a mock counter to a toast. Originally, this was supposed to be an event where a guest of honour was subjected to good-humoured jokes – good humoured, mark you – at his own expense. This was supposed to be a unique way to honour a famous person. The idea was born in America (small surprise there) and was made famous by the channel Comedy Central. Now let’s come to AIB’s recent attempt at organizing an Indian version of the same featuring actors Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh with director Karan Johar as the roastmaster. Oh and I forgot to mention, AIB (look up the full form if you care) is an Indian channel on Youtube which specializes in sarcastic comedy videos. They do have some interesting videos up there. Again, look them up if interested.

I did not watch the roast. As soon as I looked up the meaning of “roasts”, I was pretty revolted and decided to give the video a miss. But after a while, what with all the hype on the internet about the controversy over the video, my curiosity got the better of me, and last evening I skimmed through some parts of the video (it has been taken off from Youtube after complaints, but is still available on other sites). I was sorry that I did. The show, which is nearly an hour long (I did not watch for longer than ten minutes, all taken), is a splendid display of all that is crass and vulgar and disgusting about human beings. The so-called jokes are mean and dirty, and do not have a trace of humour in them. Or so I thought. It is evident that thousands of people disagree vehemently with me. The audience roared with laughter as the hosts and participants carried on their game. To watch some people get nastily humiliated in public seemed to have become the most entertaining thing ever!

Generally, I would have ignored the video as something irrelevant to my life and therefore not worth my time. But then, is it really irrelevant? A great number of people are finding this sort of thing funny and enjoyable. The concept is being lauded as the sign of the “open-mindedness” and “tolerance” of Indian society. People are talking about the freedom of speech and that sort of thing in this context. Similar arguments have been used in the context of the Charlie Hebdo incident: after all, the magazine did not criticize only Islam, it was even-handed in meting out insults to all religions. So, what is basically being said is that in both cases, it is their right to be rude and vulgar and deliberately insult and cause hurt to others. Since people who are in the limelight seem to have by and large accepted and even welcomed this idea of humour, it is hardly surprising that a great number of the common folk have started emulating them already. I have classmates who take pride in calling themselves rude (I know someone who openly boasts about that, not kidding), and are often invited to be hosts in school programs where their natural affinity towards causing offence comes in useful. Just before school ended, such a program was organized by the class twelve students for themselves. In this “award ceremony”, titles were given out to their friends, people they have grown up with. Some of the titles were “Dumbelina” and “I always cheat” – you get the idea. These were friends complimenting friends, apparently. This is what entertainment and laughter has come down to. In a world where teachers are being heavily penalized for reprimanding erring students, it is considered smart and cool to be crass. To protest against such dumb spitefulness is to display “narrow mindedness” and “backwardness”. Why are all the rights and freedom meant for the perpetrators of hurt and abuse, and nobody talks about the rights of the victim of such verbal abuse? Because abuse it is, nothing can convince me to the contrary. Has our world become quite so soulless that physical pain is all important, and emotional hurt makes no difference at all? How long, then, before physical abuse too is considered to be okay, and it becomes all about survival of the fittest, where people start moving about once again with weapons and killing and maiming human beings become a form of entertainment once more?

The world is becoming an increasingly more violent and uncouth place, and nothing shows that more than such comedy shows and other forms of entertainment. We have managed to get rid of all considerations of good manners and refined tastes in the name of freedom and equality. In the many comments and discussions I read in support of the AIB’s event, one common argument that has come up in their favour is that condemning the group for showcasing in a public event the sort of language and entertainment that people use all the time in their daily lives is hypocritical. True, but I have two things to say about this: in everyday life expletives are often just used in moments of great exasperation to convey irritation and displeasure. But when dirty language is used purely for the purpose of so-called “entertainment”, surely that cannot be equated with the aforementioned circumstances and condoned in the same spirit? Also, just because something has become a norm nowadays does not necessarily mean that it is a good thing that is worth conserving. Most people swear (I must admit that I myself am guilty of it occasionally, but I do try to guard against it), but when you come to think of it, does using abusive language really make one “cool” and “smart”? Does it not show an inability to express one’s thoughts adequately through polite vocabulary? How on earth can this sort of inability make a person any more suave and sophisticated than somebody who can and does express himself only through refined, polite language? In To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus says that bad language is a stage that all children go through; it becomes a cause for worry only when it doesn't pass with time. It seems today’s society has made a concerted decision to not get past that stage of juvenility.

Speaking of laughter, I was reading P G Wodehouse the other day, and almost fell out of my bed laughing. And guess what, there was not one unpleasant or abusive word in the entire book! Think about Gerald Durrell’s writings and the Don Camilo books. For my fellow Bengalis, bring to mind Narayan Gangopadhyay’s Tenida and his ridiculous adventures, and Ghonada’s preposterous stories. Tell me, then, is dirty language really necessary to evoke laughter and joy? Or will the modern champions of free speech and rights of creativity call such works too hopelessly prosaic and restrictive to match today’s expectations of entertainment?

It is highly telling, how the politest people we meet nowadays are salesmen and hotel managers and waiters – people who are try to sell us something. Is that what politeness has come down to? Merely a means to an end, to be employed only for monetary gains? I have seen my father and some others like him who try their utmost to be polite and considerate and even bend over backwards in their efforts to ensure that the people they are dealing with are not harassed and hurt, only to be exploited for all their gentleness. Will the world really be a better place if all such instinctively nice and polite men and women decide to give up on civility and take to exploitation and gross misbehavior wherever they can get away with it?

So where do people like us go from here? People who object to coarseness, who have an affinity for gentle, subtle humour and dignified conversations, who value politeness and decency, and try to act accordingly in their day-to-day lives? The world will call us prudish and backdated, but how exactly do we change our approach without giving up on what we believe to be good and valuable? Maybe it is best for us to keep to ourselves and not get too involved in what happens in the outside world. The life of the recluse seems to be the only one for the likes of us.