GPS – Teen Murti of India’s Independence

                         

                                                     GPS – Teen Murti of India’s Independence

India has had the unique distinction of being the first nation to have a GPS as long back as 1947 when she got her independence. It was a resounding accomplishment for India to position herself in the world as a champion of non violence after bringing to a close the 200 year rule of Great Britain. Soon after independence, not much time elapsed before India positioned herself as the pioneer of non aligned movement in a world dominated by Western capitalism and Soviet communism. India retained her independent stature by refusing to align both with the Western and the Eastern blocs, led respectively by the United States and the Soviet Union.  She showed the way for settling international disputes by non violence and international cooperation. Nonalignment was a consistent feature of India’s foreign policy with Pandit Nehru outlining its five basic policies:
Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty

Mutual non-aggression

Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs

Equality and mutual benefit

Peaceful co-existence

The concepts of Non violence by Gandhiji, of Non alignment by Pandit Nehru  and the Vision of a modern India as one nation, one culture, and one people by Sardar Patel formed the core of India’s GPS system. India led the way for many of the colonized countries in Asia and Africa to gain independence without shedding blood and a majority of the newly independent nations embraced the Non alignment movement. The architects of India’s Global Positioning were the three outstanding GPS of India- Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel. The three exemplified the Panch Sheel of peaceful co-existence ( though the term was applied to the relationship between India and China) that was built on mutual respect, humanism, peace, restraint, compassion and broad mindedness between nations- a policy best phrased by Schiller : “Live and let live”.

Where are we today? The post GPS period has seen a slow attrition of our Global positioning as the Human index, Happiness index, Poverty index and the Good Country index(which includes global contribution to Science and Technology, International peace and security, World Order, Planet and Climate, Happiness and Well being, Prosperity and Equality, Culture etc).  India’s rank is 122 out of155 countries in Happiness index and is one among the ten countries witnessing the biggest Happiness decline. In Human index it is at 130 out of 188 countries, while it ranks 110^th in sustainable development index. As for Poverty statistics, 55%of its population is poor, placing her at 61^STrank out  of 163 countries.

The GPS of India has declined further (though not of her own making) as daily one or two-if not more of her soldiers are martyred by cross border firing from the Western neighbour. All efforts to renew peaceful negotiations between India and Pakistan have failed and even the sporting ties between the two nations have ground to a halt. India cannot maintain her position as a leading military power in the South Asia region and has been compelled to carry out surgical strikes against Pakistan to put an end to the killing of our armed forces personnel. The concept of Panch sheel with its emphasis on mutual non interference in domestic affairs of other nations was abandoned when India openly ( and truthfully) charged Pakistan of genocide in Balochistan  which is a part of Pakistan.  This was almost a tit-for –tat for Pakistan’s interference in Indian side of Kashmir, fuelling hatred and animus against our nation. We find it difficult to get a seat in the Security Council that will add an extra dimension to our GPS. While we are among the top ten countries that include Japan, China and North Korea among the Asian countries in Space programmes, we share the ignominy of being the least honest countries along with China, Japan and South Korea. Despite boasting the world’s second-largest population (more than 1.25 billion) and one of its largest economies, only two Indian universities appear in the top 75, The Indian Institutes of Technology (72) and the Indian Institute of Science — Bangalore (73) while among Asian universities the first 17 positions are taken by China and Japan.

So we are no longer positioning ourselves globally as a leading nation. If any comfort is there, it is that we have done well in IT service sectors and moved from being a under developed nation to becoming a developing nation. To take our honours by the side of developed nations, we need a new set of GPS who can inspire the nation as the venerable GPS(Gandhiji, Panditji and Sardarji) had done three quarter of a century ago. The three exemplified spiritual, moral and intellectual strength. The three together established the fledgling independent India on a strong, secure, secular and ethical foundation. Plato and Aristiotle had written about six forms of governance, one following the other in almost a cyclical fashion. While the basic forms are three – Monarchy, Aristocracy and Direct democracy, the deviant forms of each of them corresponds to Tyranny or Dictatorship, Oligarchy or Plutocracy and Anarchy. Starting with monarchy where the governance is in the hands of an ideal ruler- a philosopher statesman, in course of time it degenerates into a tyrannical, despotic rule. The success of  aristocratic form of government-rule by a few virtuous elites and ruled by  law an d for the people- its deviant form is Oligarchy which is greed based rule by a few possessing wealth and power. The last Democracy where it is supposedly a rule by, for and of  the people, it  declines swiftly to anarchy, the tyranny of the majority.

Our revered GPS gave us what we can define as rule by Aristocracy but worked towards achieving the Benthamite goal of greatest happiness  to the greatest number. Despite all the troubles of a new born nation, the three of them built the unity, integrity and moral fibre of the nation- something missed by Pakistan and other newly decolonized nations. In spite of the strides that the nation has taken in Science and Technology, in becoming self sufficient in food and minimizing starvation and famine as it happened in the pre-independence era, in adhering to the principles of secularism that meant non- interference of the State in religious matters and keeping alive our traditional spirit of tolerance and coexistence among people of different cultures, customs, traditions and languages, slowly we see the demon of intolerance, impoliteness, uncivilized behaviour, corrupt and dishonest practices raising their destructive heads with such rapidity that our descent into anarchy or chaos seems to be imminent  and unavoidable.

It is in our hands to save democracy from its descent into anarchy. We are privileged to have inherited the values from our revered GPS. We have to build our nation on that foundation and strengthen it with suitable additions and modification in keeping with the aspirations and outlook of the modern generation. If we lose sight of what our GPS had stood for, we shall never be able to gain our rightful position as a leading global player. Have we descended to anarchy already? If the cyclical process is to be believed, there has to be a re- ascent to Aristocracy that our great GPS had stood for. GPS are no longer with us, but their wisdom and insight into the soul of India lives on. Let us not mouth platitudes about their greatness on their birth and death anniversaries. Let us salute with gratitude and pride the great GPS and be forever inspired.

Opposition needs strategy not surgical strikes.

                                                 Opposition needs strategy not surgical strikes.

Whether it is loud or silent, the bugle for the battle of the ballot 2019 has already sounded. It depends on the quality of one’s auditory faculty to hear or not to hear the sound. Those who hear it feel that it sounds like Shanknaad –the organization which a few young people started four years ago  with the aim of fostering nationalism, patriotism and public awareness among the people of the nation, primarily through the modern medium of communication like the You tube channels,  Facebook pages and Twitter.  For the millions of acolytes of the BJP- in particular of the PM, the sound of the ballot bugle is powerful to clear all sound barriers to expose  ‘the breaking India’ forces that BJP attributes to all the opposition parties. The opposition prefers to remain deaf to the bugle like the cat that thinks it is night because it has closed its eyes.  This does not bode well for the Indian democracy as it is inching forward to the establishment of a single-party state imposing its own ideology and threatening to spread its tentacles everywhere. Unless the opposition wakes up from its Land of Nod, our democracy is in real danger.  The opposition will have to squarely shoulder the blame for allowing a one party, one person rule that has set its eye not only on the 2019 elections but the next one scheduled for 2024 ( assuming without a doubt that the BJP rule under PM Modi will not be aborted mid-way from now and 2024.)

What should the disparate opposition do now? Is there any leader of any party who can match the PM in articulation, in bombast, in his clever ploy to turn every wrong decision on its head and convert it to his advantage, in his show-off strength as a decisive leader and as one who inspires awe and fear, in his ability to showcase the previous government’s efforts like Aadhar, MNREGA as his own… Unlike those days of the weak  UPA government,when a scam a day kept the opposition in glee and held the ruling party at bay, the current NDA government is constantly under the surveillance of the all powerful PMO.  

The opposition is in palpable despair for there is currently no one among them who has the stature to match the PM either in his no holds barred attacks, or in his impressive presence( seen in his sartorial attire, well groomed look with not a strand of his hair out of place-all in keeping  with his passion for Swachch campaigns) or in his stentorian and strident rhetoric. His carping and nagging critical  speeches laced with sarcasm at the expense of  the entire opposition resonate splendidly with the masses and it is difficult to find someone who could combine his suave statesman-like oratory (reserved for his visits abroad) with his impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the masses. The opposition parties have a Mamta who excels in demagoguery, a Rahul who exudes naivety, a Patnaik who believes in the sound of silence , a Nitish who looks a double-faced Janus,  a Kejriwall who indulges in a querulous mew and a Yechuri, unfortunately labeled  as a JNU anti-national because of his tall intellectualism. The others either are sycophants to the leaders listed above or have abdicated their responsibility and their intelligence to remain in shadow.

So what is the solution to inject a new vitality to the debilitated, almost tottering opposition?

1.      There should not be any short term coalition but a long term co-operative alliance among the different parties.  This means to abandon the cliché  Common Minimum Programme. In its place, bring a Broad- based Maximum Programme which will evoke unquestionable acceptance from all parties despite their ideological differences. It can no longer be a loose federation known as coalition but the coming together of disparate parties for the purpose of collaboration. There is a difference between coalition and collaboration. Collaboration includes information and responsibility sharing, program coordination, and joint planning that stretches for a long time. Coalition on the contrary is short-lived and involves different parties getting together for a specific purpose and disbanding after achieving their immediate goal.

2.       Today almost globally the Rightists have taken the mantle of governance from the leftists and the centrists -both left and right of centre. But the moot question with reference to India  is:  is there any real difference between the different  ideologies(left, right and centre) when it comes to governance of a vast, heterogeneous  nation comprising the lowly poor and the ultra rich,  the traditional and the modern, religious majority and religious minority, the conservatives believing in varied cultural codes of  ‘do’s and ‘don’ts, and the new generation desiring uninhibited freedom of living without a paternalistic decree, and last but not the least  the adherents to middle class (pseudo) morality refusing all that goes by modern strands of morality yet desiring the new apps  brought forth by the giant strides by modern, revolutionary advances in science and technology?  The answer is No, there is no difference among politicians of different groups, for both the rightists and the leftists  speak in the same voice that they work for the poor and their main economic plank is development. But there is a difference.

 The pendulum today has swung in favour of the Rightists because they have resorted to galvanizing the hitherto dormant Hindu pride and Indianness- whatever that stands for. It has resonated well with the majority Hindu population and to add insult to injury, the rightist party dubs all the attempts of the secular forces as “minority appeasement” This  is a double edged cut for the opposition- for their failure to instill pride in being a Hindu and for their hitherto lop sided encouragement of just one minority community(not all minoriities).

3.      So the new opposition strategy must strongly abhor from references to religion and focus on development of Indians as a whole where class, caste, religion find no mention. The present column in any application form asking whether one belongs to SC/ST/OBC community and whether one is a Hindu, Muslim or Christian should be done away with. Any Indian below the poverty line, any Indian who for centuries had suffered discrimination because of caste lineage, any Indian who needs sustenance, education, healthcare, and basic amenities such as housing, food and clothing has to be provided without any caste and religious identity.

This essentially means a new approach to secularism- to return it to its original meaning of no state interference in the beliefs, faiths and religions of the people. There should be a scrupulous avoidance of identifying a person through his caste and religion. In a well thought out article Madhu Kishwar says the Uniform Civil Code need not be brought in. For example in the case of triple talqk, she has argued that if a woman feels aggrieved on being forced to divorce on the basis of triple talaq, she should seek justice from the courts which work within the Constitutional regulations. This is the best way of leaving religious decrees and customs to the practitioners till such time one of the victims of such a biased custom appeals for justice under the Indian Penal code.

4.       There is no need to attack the ruling party by references to the danger it poses to secularism, pluralism, multi- culturalism –terms that have become clichés  and they should  be substituted by Indian-ism that exemplifies all these attributes. This is the new coinage Indianism-  as against Hinduism and majoritarianism - that takes diversity as its core and forges unity around it. Avoid using words like underprivileged and deprived groups. Make a bold statement there is only one Indian who is rightfully and constitutionally privileged to share and participate in the welfare schemes of the government aimed at equitable distribution of the nation’s resources. The new slogan shall be Diversity in Unity

5.       On (Un) Employment:

There should be a scheme on the British lines of The Work Experience programme . This is a voluntary scheme for people between 16 and 24 who have been unemployed for more than three months, but less than nine. They shall be paid subsistence allowance by the government. Companies and manufacturing sectors, small scale industries, housing sectors, shops etc must be told to hire these jobseekers and train them for their specific requirements.  They will not be paid for four to eight weeks by the hiring firms and they must  work 25 to 30 hours each week during which period they  will continue to receive jobseeker's subsistence allowance from the government. However, anyone who cuts his/her placement short after more than one week will have the subsistence benefits stopped for two weeks. On successful completion at the end of the stipulated period of training, they shall be employed by those units and given proper wages/ salaries. This scheme aims at combining training and work placement to unemployed youth.  Anyone completing a placement is given a guaranteed job with the organization where s/he had been trained. This scheme is to bring together the moneyed class and the poor. This is a step forward over the present Skill India programme because (a)  it guarantees jobs for the trained people,(b) the government provides  the  subsidy by way of  subsistence allowance to every unemployed youth for a short period(4-8 weeks) and(c) it compels the employing organizations to provide training (without any expense for them) and  later provide employment.

6.      On Education:  Education has to be made compulsory up to class X. All those who pass class X and decide to take up skilled jobs shall be given subsistence money till such time they are trained to take up jobs. If the student fails to clear class X, s/he will not get that allowance. This shall be the incentive for students not to drop out of schools. Education till class X must be qualitatively on par with global curriculum.

While the basic structure of school education should remain uniform, states should be permitted to introduce new courses as per the state’s requirement. Schools on the coastal area can introduce, fishing that includes manufacturing and repairing of fishing nets, trawlers and mechanized boats, packaging of tinned fish for export purposes, production of fish oil etc.  Those in Karnataka can include courses on silk industry- manufacturing of silk products, rearing of silkworms, in Himachal Pradesh fruit preservation, manufacture of jellys and jams, juices and squashes etc. What is to be reckoned is the youth must get gainful employment within the state and this is possible, if trained in that state’s main source of livelihood.

Recognition of Madarsas and throwing them open to all and not limited to Muslims will go a long way towards integration. While madarsas and convents can include teaching their respective religion, they should adhere to the basic syllabus that is uniformly taught across the nation. Every student will take the Boards in the IXth and the Xth. One important policy should be no separate schools for boys and girls, as common schools will promote healthy respect for the other gender

Higher education must be only for those who opt for studies beyond class X.  Bifurcate XI th and XIIth into professional and academic courses. Those who study academic courses go to colleges and universities and the others go for professional studies. University and professional institutions must focus on liberal studies along with discipline- specific courses. For example a student of science must have a course in Philosophy and Sociology and a student of Humanities/ Commerce must have a ground knowledge of Science and Technology . These are not to be treated as subsidiary courses, but as main courses. Those in professional courses shall have one half of the day for academic studies and the other half for training in industries. Teacher training institutes have to be on the lines of Open Learning while they get practical teaching practice in schools. The target should be to increase school teachers strength qualitatively and quantitatively.

     Environmental studies have to be a part of every syllabus. So also gender studies, sociological issues that we see daily debated on the TV including entry for and pujas by women in all places of religious worship, gay-lesbian marriages, transgender problems, parliamentary democracy, etc. Debates and discussions are central to the development of mind and the students should be allowed full freedom to discuss these issues.

    No reservation except monetary help in the form of scholarships to the needy must be the principle in all the institutions. There shall be no mention of caste and religion in the application form. Those who need financial assistance should apply separately.(This should hold true of jobs ,training programmes also). Let the word reservation be done away with. Those who are financially needy in pursuit of education must be given the necessary help.

7.      On Health: Health schemes have to be introduced in a big way. Mohalla clinics will have to be strengthened. At least a minmum of 2% of the GDP should be for Healthcare towards setting up primary and secondary healthcare units –especially in the rural and tribal areas. All students of medicine will have to work for a minimum of two years in rural/tribal areas as a part of their MBBS syllabus and government should incur the expenditure on their salaries during this period. More hospitals and more schools must be at the core of all development programmes.

8.        On Environment:. Special schemes have to be drawn for the conservation and protection of environment. The AAP government’s incentive to waive off water and power bills when the consumption is less than 400 units per month has made citizens aware of not wasting the two essentials.  

9.      The opposition will have to start a new page on the social media. No twitters please as they encourage abusive language. In place of Quora which seems to be an unofficial propaganda forum for the ruling government-(Quora is question and answer where planted and slanted questions are given answers that are panegyric in nature of the ruling party,) start a new platform for spreading the policies of an alternative kind.

10.  Universities, colleges, media and all educational institutions should be free from the control of the government so that free exchange of ideas can be generated.   University polices, structural changes in syllabus, rules and regulations should be the responsibility of the academic community. The present unseemly tug of war between writings of rightists and leftists should be stopped and both kinds of writings should be available for the curious young minds to come to their own judgement. If one side is blocked as it was done in the past and the other side banished  as it is attempted today, no genuine research will be possible and no fresh insights will be made. Today the intolerant attitude to what is nationalism shows the myopic mind set of the debators. The students must learn to accept another point of view. They must understand my nationalism may be different from your nationalism but that does not make either of us anti-nationals. We both are Indians, we live in India and we want to preserve a secure and safe India for all of us. So why do we accuse one another of being anti nationalistic just because our views differ.

 University is the only forum where such debates can be held and they should be free of violence, abuse and disorderly behaviour. Animal spirits need not be aroused inside a university. The opposition should show the way for restoring the role of mentor and ideator to universities. If this is not done, the possibility of generating new ideas will remain just a unrealizable ideal. The opposition must state its policy to free universities from governmental interference and provide them space to develop in consonance with the requirements of the society. The government should give up being paternalistic and limit itself to providing funds for university projects that will augment a positive impact on the growth and welfare  of society.

11.  The opposition should come out with a blueprint of its foreign policy that has non alignment as its cornerstone. Friends to all, foes to none must be the slogan and the objective should be towards cultivating humanity. Remember Shakespeare’s wise counsel :

“Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.”

12.  The opposition has to impress upon the people that it will free the nation from moral policing.  State policing is only with the people’s consent as is done in Britain. This shall be the new approach to Police reforms. If police personnel are restrained by not giving them guns, the people should also be restrained from using guns. Today at the slightest provocation, whether it is road rage or any form of dispute, gunshots are fired. The opposition should state that there will be no easy access to guns and this will be the first step towards restoring law and order.

13.  There are many more issues on which the broad based maximum programme can be chalked out. I do not have too much knowledge about economics to thrash out a new policy that is the least iniquitous for all men and women. The main point for the opposition is to be proactive. There is no need to indulge in verbal attacks. Politeness, courtesy, civil behaviour are mightier than verbal assaults. Let there be restraint and let the dialogue with the people be not turned into sledging the opponent. Let dignity be the guiding principle of the opposition and that will pay dividend. One is pained to see the arrogance of those who appear on the TV channels to blast the opposition  as also the angry remonstration of those blasted in language that is unbecoming of a civilized society. So is the rude  behaviour of the channel anchors who speak as though the y are omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent and are even superior to the Supreme Court judges. There has to be some tempering of tone and language which the opposition should show to the society . I cannot but quote Shakespeare :

“Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.”

14.   The focus should be a skilful blending of tradition and modernity. Tradition consists of core human values of tolerance, amity, respect for fellow beings, acceptance of different cultures and religions, humanism, peace and non violence- what Indian history from the epic days of Rama through Ashoka and Buddha to Gandhi and Nehru hasexemplified. Modernity is an advance on these fundamental principles supported by Science and Technology to bring about all round development and welfare not only to India, but towards the global community of men and women.

15.  Let not the new manifesto talk about who is who in the present government or seek to unearth all their Achilles heels but to present a new pair of heels, spotlessly clean, strong, energetic and capable of carrying the weight of  humanity.

16.  Last but not the least, no one can be a winner on a negative campaign.PM Modi might have succeeded because the then UPA government had too many scams for him to cash on the one catchy slogan-“a corruption free  government”. Anna Hazare had paved the way for the then opposition(BJP) to attack and win.  But now merely attacking the PM and the ruling party, seeking to find a ghost when none is visible, replying word for word the insinuations made by the ruling party against the Congress for its omissions and commissions that had happened as way back as during the dark period of emergency can at best provide entertainment of the dishum-dishum kind, but bereft of an alternate attractive policy, such tactics are trite and  sound hollow and hilarious. The opposition can leave the surgical strikes to the ruling party wherever necessary, but what is a surgical strike without a strategy?

 I may sound naïve as I am not schooled in politics. But I feel time is ripe to erase the “N” from the current TINA factor and present to the people of India the concept of TIA(there is alternative). Can the Opposition work on TIA?  It is in their collective wisdom, lies the preservation of our democracy.

My Dialogue with Time

                                                         My Dialogue with Time

Dennis Miller:

 “What is the biggest complaint? It is ironic that in our culture, everyone’s biggest complaint is about not having enough time, yet nothing terrifies us more than the thought of eternity.”

I came across this quote and sure enough it is a quote for all times. It is true that we all know we are unequal to match the speed of time. Time is nimble footed and flees faster than all of us and we can never catch up with it. All of us often question the wisdom and logic of 24 hours in a day and wish there were 25 if not more to a day. But at no time anyone bestows a thought as to what s/he would do in that extra hour or for that matter whether such a bonus will ever stop us from complaining about time and its ruthless speed that we humans cannot race against. PM seems to echo Time when he says “ na baithunga, na baithne dunga” (Neither will I rest nor will let you). Time does not rest; it is on the move. He has started his race not for 2019 but for beyond 2024 to be the PM till 2029 +++. Even the slow snail paced  Congress gave up the bullock cart and embraced bicycle but failed to catch up with the PM who was, in athletic terms citius, altius, fortius -faster, higher and  stronger (literally standing  atop of the car, higher than the bicycle).  However much we grumble about shortness of time, we make continuous effort to catch up with it, pin it down and triumph over it. But when we pin down time, it is not time that wriggles out, but only we let it go out of sheer inability to cope with timelessness. We rather hang on to time, because time stifled emerges as a Frankenstein’s monster and destroys us with sheer boredom and ennui.  Yet another paradox is the way we celebrate every birthday including that of the puppy and the kitten at home as a sign of forward thrust by a year. We deem it a happy day as though  it marks a year’s progress through life while actually it marks one year less from one’s allotted quota of years. Life’s upward curve in terms of years is simply a downward curve, a regression back into the unfathomable unknown state we had emerged from. Time moves forward and we recede backward. No wonder deep in our mind we are scared of time and its power to throw us into the timeless eternity of birth-death cycle.

Better to move with time than sit and stare at timeless eternity. To hide our inability to match time step by step, we complain that for the work we have to do, we are woefully short on time. Is there anyone who, when asked how do you spend time, will honestly say “I do nothing”.   Whenever I ask my US based relatives what they plan to do on a weekend, they always say:  “Oh! Don’t ask. Weekends are busier than weekdays. We have so much to do that there will be no time even to breathe…cleaning, dusting, washing, washing one’s hair, washing the car(s), cooking meals for a week, refrigerating them, shopping… they reel off without pausing for breath. Those who have not read Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett can glance through the dialogues quoted below to understand how we find it difficult to pass the time and how we concoct new games and devices to while away the time  as we are frightened of doing nothing while time passes by. Vladimir and Estragon are two tramps who like any one of constantly wait expecting something to happen, someone to come, and invent some way to pass the time:

Vladimir: Now what did we do yesterday evening?

ESTRAGON:

Do?

VLADIMIR:

Try and remember.

ESTRAGON:

Do . . . I suppose we blathered.

VLADIMIR:

(controlling himself). About what?

ESTRAGON:

Oh . . . this and that I suppose, nothing in particular. (With assurance.) Yes, now I remember, yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in particular. That's been going on now for half a century

_

(a little later),

Tell me what to do.

VLADIMIR:

There's nothing to do.

VLADIMIR:

Will you not play?    (invent a strategy of play-acting)

ESTRAGON:

Play at what?

VLADIMIR:

We could play at Pozzo and Lucky. ( a cruel master and his dumb slave)

ESTRAGON:

Never heard of it.

VLADIMIR:

I'll do Lucky, you do Pozzo. (He imitates Lucky sagging under the weight of his baggage. Estragon looks at him with stupefaction.) Go on.

ESTRAGON:

What am I to do?

VLADIMIR:

Curse me!

ESTRAGON:

(after reflection). Naughty!

VLADIMIR:

Stronger!

ESTRAGON:

Gonococcus! Spirochete!

Vladimir sways back and forth, doubled in two.

VLADIMIR:

Tell me to think.

ESTRAGON:

What?

VLADIMIR:

Say, Think, pig!

ESTRAGON:

Think, pig!

Silence.

VLADIMIR:

I can't.

ESTRAGON:

That's enough of that.

VLADIMIR:

Tell me to dance.

ESTRAGON:

I'm going.

VLADIMIR:

Dance, hog! (He writhes. Exit Estragon left, precipitately.) I can't! (He looks up, misses Estragon.) Gogo! (He moves wildly about the stage. Enter Estragon left, panting. He hastens towards Vladimir, falls into his arms.) There you are again at last!

ESTRAGON:

I'm accursed!

Vladimir:

             Moron!

ESTRAGON:

That's the idea, let's abuse each other.  ( another way to pastime- to abuse each other)

They turn, move apart, turn again and face each other.

VLADIMIR:

Moron!

ESTRAGON:

Vermin!

VLADIMIR:

Abortion!

ESTRAGON:

Morpion!

VLADIMIR:

Sewer-rat!

ESTRAGON:

Curate!

VLADIMIR:

Cretin!

ESTRAGON:

(with finality). Crritic!

VLADIMIR:

Oh!

He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.

ESTRAGON:

Now let's make it up.

VLADIMIR:

Gogo!

ESTRAGON:

Didi!

VLADIMIR:

Your hand!

ESTRAGON: They separate. Silence.

VLADIMIR:

How time flies when one has fun!

Silence.

ESTRAGON:

What do we do now?   (then make peace)

VLADIMIR:

While waiting.

ESTRAGON:

While waiting.

Silence.

VLADIMIR:

We could do our exercises.  ( one more idea to while away the time :exercising,or what we call gymming)

ESTRAGON:

Our movements.

VLADIMIR:

Our elevations.

ESTRAGON:

Our relaxations.

VLADIMIR:

Our elongations.

ESTRAGON:

Our relaxations.

VLADIMIR:

To warm us up.

ESTRAGON:

To calm us down.

VLADIMIR:

Off we go.

Vladimir hops from one foot to the other. Estragon imitates him.

ESTRAGON:

(stopping). That's enough. I'm tired.

VLADIMIR:

(stopping). We're not in form. What about a little deep breathing?

ESTRAGON:

I'm tired breathing.

Take it!

VLADIMIR:

Come to my arms!

ESTRAGON:

Yours arms?

VLADIMIR:

My breast!

ESTRAGON:

Off we go!

They embrace.

This is an exhaustive quote only to underline that we invent occupations for ourselves such as gymming, facebooking, twittering, selfie snapping, hanging outside a mall or a café or a club, socializing without involvement – all the trappings of modern  man to pass time. And yet we complain that we do not have enough time – but  to do what is a question we dare not ask ourselves.

Is it a modern phenomenon or has this been the case with men and women since their fall from Paradise? According to the Old Testament, Adam and Eve lived happily in Paradise doing nothing- not even making love. The moment they did so, they fell from Paradise and like the fruit of apple hanging from the paradisiacal bough, time started hanging upon them. That is God’s masterstroke- for disobedience.  He thundered: “ You plucked the forbidden hanging fruit and you are punished. Now you have time hanging on you and you dare not tug at time. You lost eternity in Paradise, you be scared of eternity on earth”.

Thus banished and pushed down, we are now compelled to invent activities to pass time. We do it but what is ironical is we want more time because we do not want time to end. This is a given truth of existence and the question is how to confront the fleeting time that makes a mockery of all our actions? When I retired, my friends told me how they envied me as I would have the luxury of time to do all I could not do during my four long decades in service. They expected me to catch up with my reading,  sit, contemplate Buddha-like, and do whatever I wished to do (they knew and I knew it was all one  big fat lie as none of us ever have a clear idea of what to do other than the routine  humdrum work). But reality sunk in within two days of my sitting idle at home with nothing to do, nothing to be done, nothing to inspire and yet the enormous desire to do something without knowing what that something was. From daybreak to duskbreak, there was nothing that I could do which I had not done all along. It is not easy to write or easy even to read as though like manna falling from heaven, retirement opens up the floodgates of creativity. And then who will be my reader? For whom do I write? What shall be my focus?  Again the question props up - what to read, to what purpose my reading is to be directed, what to do after finishing my reading… It dawned on me sooner than later I would do nothing and like a bad workman complain about bad tools and lament every evening that one more day had been wasted. No, I resolved,  I must seize the opportunity to do something different and the result has been the self indulgence in words. This is the only thing I know – how to spin words -after having been in the teaching profession for almost four and a half decades.  I had used words and words and it is thus easy for me to retreat into words. I must devote at least a couple of hours to enjoy this luxury without the constraint of time to do other things. It is a kind of discipline I have to cultivate as it ensures self discipline that will give me a semblance of doing something. The importance is not so much on what I write, but on the discipline that I have to follow to introduce some degree of order in my   existence, that more often than not is disorderly and unpredictable.

    So now  I write not for others, I write not to be hailed a Nobel laureate, I write not for applause ,I write not to influence people and persuade them to my point of view, but I write for myself, to give myself a sense of being alive, to keep my mind oiled and keep it from becoming rusty and vacant, to guard myself from feeling  a sense of alienation from the rest of the world, to protect myself from self mockery and self inflicted flagellation of wasting my time and above all to give myself the meaning I exist. This is the way for all of us -men and women- to cope with time through self discipline and practice of that which we are good at. We have to accept the relentless march of time and our powerlessness to stop it. We have to be aware that all that we do dies after us and therefore be mindful of what we do in our lifetime- what  Shakespeare said in Julius Ceasar: The evil that men do lives after them;

                                   The good is oft interred with their bones;

   

    This is also a means of passing time but here there is no scope for complaint about not having enough time nor fear of timeless eternity. At best I may be accused of indulging in creative falsehood but that need not be a source of anxiety as its reach is limited and therefore its influence, if any. If time and tide wait for no man, I( representing all of humanity) do not also wait for time and be  threatened with  timelessness.