THE AGE OF REASON

When the first human must have felt a sudden rock weight in his stomach, in his belly? I know not fear but what I know is what happens with me when I am in fear. Is there a difference between fear and anxiety? Of course, there is and who better to know than me? Who read it before feeling it.  Three years this building in front of me has been a source of anxiety and fear for me. Fear of failing in what I used to like the most. And anxiety of failing in a secret competition that is prevalent in this campus since the Indus valley civilization. Group meetings, individual meetings and the anxiety of not been able to do much within a week. The urge to prove one's worth in the neo-liberal economy is at its all-time high. Physics, I used to love it. So much so that a hard hit I felt when tauntingly my guide said to one of my colleagues that if you love physics, one should complete his PhD. Oh! yes, I used to love physics. I still do. That love might be philosophic and the fun to imagine ha...

The famous Nirbhaya's rape case and the animalistic assault against her is a time where most people, however naive they are, thought about the sad condition of women in the Indian sub-continent. A country which debates on whether Hindus are seventh grade citizens or Muslims who are genuinely behind economically or not, I believe we suffer from focusing on wrong questions, on wrong sub-divisions of the population. Also, the targeted beneficiaries of welfare schemes have been women but not a major upheaval has been achieved by these schemes. Okay, maybe we jumped the gun from the Nirbhaya case to this one, really quick.  Let us tackle crime against women in sometime. But, before that, why welfare schemes were mostly ineffective in uplifting women from their sad situation in this country, I have some reasons, viz.  1. Indian Women have been denied individuality           And we know it. People who upheld family institution, even if they might critici...

A famous Dalit activist, Bhanwar Raghuvanshi, told this story. He was an RSS Swayamsevak since childhood. He was branded as the new age Dalit Hindutva uprising, resembling tokenism. Once some Brahman fellow comrades (his Swayamsevaks) were invited by him for dinner. They obviously came. They talked about world politics and Indian politics, critiqued congress, the opposition party, critiqued liberals and then with a certain reversal, they said, we will not be able to have dinner here. This was a huge shock to him since he invited them for dinner only. He recalled how he was part of the mob who demolished Babri Mosque and since childhood, he used to come to the daily ritualistic Shakha (daily activity) of RSS and how he one day, became, unknowingly the Swayamsevak.  Once, he expressed his desire to be a Pracharak (Literally, an idea propagator). The senior brahman authorities of the RSS told him that our society is not yet ready for a Dalit pracharak. If he wishes, he can be one, but...

Let us bring down assertions about love, marriage, religiosity and friendships.  About love, it is not not friendship and not not lust. A Hegelian negation of negation. Love, hence, has to always be in sublime state to survive longer. It has always been a doubtful state whether it is different from lust or not, friendship or not. It always has to be in a non-conformist state. Any love which claims to be always secure and conformist, is a life insurance.  Speaking about life insurance, Sex insurance is Marriage. Marriage is the stupidest institution I know.  Religiosity is like love. Any religiosity, theism, which does not doubt itself is bound to be a flawed faith system. Any religion which does not guide his gods and develop new ways to understand the truth, the eternal ( Literally the meaning of Sanatan is always true and new at the same time).  Friendships should always be a fellow-traveler relationship. What is so special about any friendship? Precisely nothing. ...

I have two people at hand who, I think can be the guiding light of revolution in this country. A naive reactionist will say that this is a mere romanticism, no revolution is coming. I do not want to engage in stupid debates like these, "Is there a revolution coming?" or which is better, "Evolution or revolution", precisely because, these are topics in which, if a leftist delves himself in, the very moment he loses the battle. Because reform without changing the socio-economic structure will just reproduce the same modes of production and hence, we will circle back to same set of socio-economic problems that we have right now.  So, the two people I will employ here are Slavoj Zizek and his idea of a new communism, and Ram Manohar Lohia, the Indian socialist and his idea of Sapt-padi Kranti (the seven-step revolution).  Let us start with Lohia. He gave an idea of what task a revolutionary has to undertake in order to bring real concrete changes. He mentions these thin...

Ok, let us set some preliminary guidelines. This analysis, I wish to do in order to put into perspective some observations and not to bring any change or to "destroy" the Indian culture of any sorts. It is also impossible for a single human being to be able to destroy culture as such. Unless you are Karl Marx of course, then you can. But let us not digress here.  So, Sanctioned animalism in any culture is not very new a concept. In fact, a culture which does not provide space to animal instincts of human beings is not actually a culture anymore. A basic premise of any culture is to "rationalize" the animal instincts as something intrinsically human about them. Indian culture too is no exception to this.  Let us Talk about Moharram, so that I get a pass to talk about Holi. In Moharram, animal instinct of masochistic pleasures is rationalized in the name of human sorrow. I mean, ok Husain, great man, died and so on but why this torture? I do not subscribe to this prem...

I try to stay away from writing sentimental writings. What good is that actually? In fact, I believe false relatability of stupid sadness or say feeling of stupid nihilism, however profound philosophically your pain is, it must be kept within you. I believe this for two reasons, namely. 1. The sanctity of your sorrow, don't you think needs to be preserved. There is something transcendentally sublime in a manner a person falls into his lower self, or say, sadness. There is something so precious that may be saying it out loud destroys the whole purity of your sadness. Tolstoy, in his famous book A nna Karenina, has written this wonderful line, paraphrasing I am, "Happiness belongs to the commons, while sadness must be a very personal thing!".  Today's mental health discourse is kept at a much sacrosanct position that anyone saying something counter to it is casually labelled as unaware about mental health. It is becoming progressively difficult to create a better mental...

  As someone said, "He be saying the most ideal, yet he be the most cunning and shrewd.". This is what I feel when I am asked to describe Vibhat. His friends either avoid thinking about him because it increases their insecurity, or they talk in terms of complaint against him, either he is too clingy a friend, or he is too rude, he says the meanest things about your family members or your economic status. All of these are just seeing Vibhat Phenomenologically, the insides of it are filled with deep reasons and irrational behavior which he has now accepted as what he calls, " Self-accepted contradictions". Let us begin analyzing this person before we try to critique him. The critique is necessary as a humanitarian act which I am doing so that it gets recorded in History, that someone was aware of the existence of the despotic pol-port of a person, with such mighty caliber but cruel intentions as Vibhat.  Vibhat is born out of a mother who was a suppressed intellectual...

Long ago in the 19th century, on the streets of Germany, came a guy name Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous Philosopher, shouting and announcing, "God is dead and I have killed him!", the reason he did this is the German nation was corrupted by overly religious youth who were too much having faith on God and destiny decided by God. So, the French army marched on the German roads and won over the whole country while no youth of the country batted an eye.  This act of Nietzsche was as a response to this emasculated youth who refused to fight for their future and the future of their nation. Our country suffers from this as well. Except that our country is in garbs of stupid over-caring parents who do not care about the confidence and development of their child, rather just a secure career and that too, not to leave them because, they train him as an old age insurance scheme. Every child becomes an insurance scheme of their parents instead of unleashing the greatness that he could h...

My superego alarm rings in my mind. Since, it is not an ordinary alarm clock, I cannot turn it off. So, I wake up. In fact, my waking up is the only switch that can turn that mind alarm off. I wake up. I go to washroom. I need a pipe to be inserted in my penis to work. In fact, that is my artificial Penis now. I cannot see anyone. Is there no one? Oh! wait, I need to put my eyes on. My specs have replaced my eyes now. I need to put my earbuds on to listen. I put my nose on to breath. I have to insert voice box software to speak. In my headspace, I can click flush, and I achieve instant thoughtlessness. I trigger points inside my brain and my brain can indulge in love with someone. But there is parental lock there in my brain to oxytocin. So, now, I can only love someone who my parents arrange for me. My dopamine levels are controlled by my parents as well. They sometimes give me my buttons on special occasions when I stimulate myself to be happy.  To meditate, there is a SOFTWARE i...

In SrimandBhagwatgeeta, the Orientalist wisdom, God himself suggests two distinct ways of knowing the truth. One is via doing (Karmyog) and one is via Knowing (Samkhyayog). What is here interesting, is that he prescribes both not at once. You can either do or you can know. Not simultaneously.  If we, for a moment, bring that duality of knowing and doing in ordinary day to day life from spirituality, we find this deadlock too. There exists a gap between doing and knowing what is done. What is interesting is Knowing cannot exist without a complete background of doing and doing cannot exist in empty space either, you need a presupposed background of knowledge of what is to be done. In this sense, within the same subject exists a Parallax, a sort of gap in reality itself when we view it from different point of reference.  What else is a parallax if not a gap in the phenomenological reality and the underneath scientific logic that led to its building. Suppose there is a Flower, red...

Manu Joseph, the famous contemporary writer, once said, "Human beings have been unfree the moment freedom was exchanged with liberty". And I think no truer statement was ever made.  There is a fundamental distinction when we talk about freedom of an individual and freedom as a concept for humanity. Liberty as a concept is for the masses. A collective lowest denominator rights that does not harm anyone. On the other hand, Freedom of an Individual becomes a psychoanalytic and a sort of spiritual question. As the rule of thumb goes, more you move to talk about one person or thing, more it is to do with spirituality and psychology and stuff. \ Freedom or the desire to become free of existence itself stems from the Freudian Todestrieb or Death drive. You feel trapped in your body at times. A permanent disconnect is felt within your body and your mind. In this article, let us dwell into the disconnect and why it might happen.  Actually, Modern age is an age of comfort. So, no pain ...

So, it is a short observation really. But really a Lacanian one. So, what differentiates a monetary envelope with an actual object as a gift?  In India, and maybe somewhere else in the world, monetary gifts are given. The hidden thought behind this is it will come handy to the person receiving it. But Most people find it despicable not giving objects as gifts even if the object as gifts cost less than the money as gifts.  Now, why so? Why such an attachment with Object as gifts? Why a book of cost, say 500 rupees serve better a gift than 500 rupees itself? There is psychoanalysis involved here.  We need to define here, what Jacques Lacan, the French Psychoanalyst called, Objet Petit a , or Object cause of desire.  Objet Petit a , or Object cause of desire is the sublime cause why you desire something. And here Lacan is not being spiritual, so the answer is not coordination of senses and mind, but the cause is in the object desire itself. For example: Why do you like ...

Work, in its pre-supposition has duality inscribed in it. First portion has the Action which naively can be ascribed to the doer. Second Portion is the consequence which is the inevitable death that the action must die. Let us dive into a philosophical deconstruction of work. Before that, I must admit a great work can be done on the historicity of nature of work and its effects on humans.   What are our primary motivations to act? Here, my paradigm of asking this question is deliberately naive, and not to follow any already done work on it. We already know Psychoanalytic paradigm where we have sexual instincts, dominating instincts and other types of Instincts. Also, a sociological or may be a spiritual dimension might give us an answer but let us deliberately be stupid here.  Work seems to be coming from two prime motivations in two completely distinct cases: One, the work which brings a subjective consequence , a joy a certain instant gratification the moment its begun. You ...