Why Dunki will stand by the test of time?

 In today's time, there is a normalcy of excess pleasure, desire to consume pleasure again and again. There is a pressure within the society to consume pleasure more and more. Mass scale cinema with spectre, big budget, high promotion, story, characters, plotline often are consciously playing to this psyche of excess consumption. This excess consumption through the aesthetics of cinema often leads to a harassement. In such a harassement process of cinema, the excess and the passion of excess in a cinema hurts the object. Knowingly and unknowingly the cinema watchers can become such an object of a 1000 crore hit or a flop film. So, often a great film can create such a hurtful object of passion or might not. A hit, flop, average, mediocre film can create such hurtful objects unknowingly even through best crafts in a cinema. Hence cinema can create passion which then hurts and leads to harassement even for a fan of a certain cinema or for a one time watcher of the same cinema. Even before the art and craft of cinema comes in, the excess of pleasure, passion can create hurtful harassement. 

The society as it evolves often demands such passion led hurtful objects. In many developed societies, such hurtful excesses are reduced through human right declaration and definition for necrophaliacs. Such right spaces reduces excess of consumption, pleasure, harassment of objectified passion. 

It is over here, even before technical craft of a cinema comes, the characters, stories of characters, plots of a film can win over the excess in a society of excess. Hence characters, story plots of Dunki characters of the latest SRK film does this and wins over Pathan, Jawan and Animal even before the art, craft of cinema sets in. 

Within a society of excess, Dunki regulates our excess through the characters, stories, plots and makes us more human within the passion of an Animal, Jawan, Pathan. Dunki slowly and steadily inspite of its stretched cinematic art, craft, wins our excesses by making us laugh and cry at the same time. In hindsight, the cinema of the camera of Dunki turns out to be the watch tower of a pleasured society and questions its trajectory in the long term. 

A Travelogue of "Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte" - From Shimla to Kolkata via Lacan

 The last two consecutive weeks were quite active and refurbishing in terms of memory revival. As a part of the Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte production shows on two back-to-back Saturdays and Sundays, I was in Shimla and Kolkata. The first show of Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte happened at the famous, historical Gaiety Theatre of Shimla. 

The second show happened at Bharatiya Sanskriti Samsad within the heart of Chowronghee at Kolkata. The team performance evolved, peaked, and attained brilliance in the course of the journey. However, my memories of travel from Shimla to Kolkata only strengthened the belief that truth is always partial. I realized the traumatic truth of unconscious memories of city spaces with which a human being has to live and that is both an absolute and partial truth. This was almost a practical demonstration of Lacan and his psychoanalytical lens where the unconscious is dominated by language and grammar or Hegelian dialectics of recognition. The irrational unconscious has its own grammar and language which is also often Heideggerian, Kantian, and Platonic. If that irrational unconscious has to be unraveled, and deciphered through the metaphors of text, and language then it is often Saussurean as the language of that irrational unconscious space is very linguistic in nature and not defined by psychoanalysis. Within the dying corpse of psychoanalysis, the shows of Yuhi  Sath Sath Chalte opened up more of the irrational unconscious within me. I imagined the triad of Lacan (real, reality, imaginary) not through practice but through a linguistic system of texts coupled with music. 

Lacan when he returned to Freud, reimagined Freud and made him alive by separating him from the dying remnants of Psychoanalysis. Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte script, texts, words, and linguistics made me return to Freud, not through the popular, mainstream space of ego, libidinal suppression, dream, and projections of clinical on the nonclinical realities. It made me see the triad of Lacan of real, reality, and imaginary through the grammar and language of texts and the system of interpreting and reading those texts coupled with music, track, rhythm, travel language and grammar.

The travel of "Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte" made me return to my memories of Shimla, Kolkata through Gaiety Theatre, Mall Road, Chowronghee through a linguistic and textual practice of Lacan. I understood how to read Lacan through "Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte" even though Zizek also had done the same thing. He pushed us to read texts, the system of texts through the lens of Lacan and his works.

The travel of Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte helped me to practice it more and I understood what Lacan made and how he saved Freud through the poststructuralism of 50s when brain science, medicine, pills and hedonism took the space of psychoanalysis.

I am sure, the next shows of Yuhi Sath Sath Chalte will help me understand Lacan a little more. 

Loss of Brazil to Croatia and Loss of India to Australia: The Why Behind The Similar Feeling of Loneliness

 Brazil lost to Croatia during the last Qatar World Cup Knock Out match after getting an edge over Croatia. In a similar way, India lost to Australia in the ICC Cricket World Cup on 19th November, 2023 after taking first three quick wickets while Australia was chasing India's score. 

The Qatar World Cup saw 31 best teams of the World out of the more than 200 football-playing nations which involves 250 million people of the World. ICC World Cup 2023 saw two best teams out of 10 qualifying teams within the 104 member countries of the World and 108 cricket teams. There are 4200 professional cricketers amongst 30 million registered cricket players of the World. The simple numbers show that Football is a more equal, libertarian, humanist sport  in comparison to cricket. The numbers also show that the degree of competition, rivalry, and passion is much greater for Football than for Cricket.

Then, ideally, if assuming hypothetically that my love for both the games and both the teams are equal (the teams being the Brazilian Football Team and the Indian Cricket Team), then from a sheer number or humanism or sports ethics perspective of egalitarianism, my sense of grief from the Brazilian Football Team loss should be higher than the loss of the Indian Cricket Team. 

The loss of Brazil kicked out my favorite football team from a competition that was fought in a more fair, egalitarian way in comparison to the Indian Cricket Team's loss from another knockout match of a Cricket World Cup. However, then to my surprise after Sunday, 19th November, 2023, I felt lonely in a similar way as I felt on 9th December of 2022. In this case, somewhere, the loneliness may be because in spite of my sense of patriotism for the country, I was more outsider to a kind of spirit that makes the sport reductionist in a knockout match while everything else surrounding a knockout match of a cricket world cup stands above the game or the sport itself. 

Yes, I stood up to sang the National Anthem (which I do for every Indian Match in any sports platform wherever India is performing) but after the match, I felt lonely but happy for the Indian Cricket Team which showed consistency, true sports art and craft. I felt the tears of Rohit in a similar way as I felt the tears of Neymar on 9th December, 2022. 

The last Sunday match definitely made me lonely but not lonelier. I realized it is a satisfactory feeling to be lonely with your thoughts of being an outsider to a spirit around a game which reduces the skill, art, and craft of the game in front of all other subsuming spirits of business, profit, brand, nation (not as a nation soul of Rishi Aurobindo but as a nation-state of Rishi Aurobindo), imageries, dreams, celebration, loudness. I realised actually by being an outsider to these spirits, I had become more of an insider now to the eternal core of the game itself. 

At that very moment of loneliness, I sensed a sheer epiphany of chill with a transcendence of my feelings of a void which were similar to Neymar and every Brazilian or anyone around the World on 9th December of 2022 who were and are equal insiders of the game. They are the insiders to the sports and its beauty of humanistic bonding threads beyond borders connecting sportsperson : the tears of every sports person who looses out in a knockout match even after their best submission, self dedication to the sports and the turf ground itself. 

I became lonely by being an insider but I realised how Neymar, Rohit were and are worshipped and remembered equally by many insiders like me who are patriots but also can understand the nation soul of Rishi Aurobindo. They are equal insiders to the game of sport by playing, worshipping, reading, researching and understanding it across and over the years.

Yes, therefore, I realized, being lonely and an insider to the sport and game, is never good or bad in its entirety. It is in this moment of realization, that I could sense the following. The understanding was that the loneliness of an insider to the game of Football or Cricket who gets to a conversation with their therapist - "Football" or "Cricket" is actually not pathologically a loner in the society or within the game. Rather, this loneliness is a cure to the ever widening outsider world of the game of "Football" or "Cricket". 

This battle between the Insider and Outsider will continue to stay for ever and hence I realized that it is never as good as it gets to be very good or as bad as it gets to be very bad while being or staying lonely. Indeed, such an insider existence can be healing even while feeling the tears of Neymar, Rohit at the same time!

Social Tipping Dynamics: An Imperative for Mission LIFE

 

The clarion call of Mission Life by the Honorable Prime Minister of India imbibes Social Tipping Dynamics within the multicultural context of India. This is because Mission LIFE focuses on a social movement to – save energy, save water, adopt sustainable food systems, reduce waste, adopt healthy lifestyles, and reduce e-waste. The core principle of Mission LIFE is to create a mass movement to reduce mindless, destructive material, resource, and energy consumption to make people more pro-planet against the backdrop of ongoing human-induced climate change. This is more pertinent as climate change is already leading to disasters like floods, drought, and heatwaves posing humanity towards a journey of mass extinction along with the species on the Earth. 

Societies for the cause of the conservation of the planet for the future can only be mobilized through a sense of reflection within human beings by being role models and examples by themselves. When there is a change in the inner consciousness of humans across the world, it is expected that societies will also change accordingly. Such a change will thereafter be useful in impacting the behavior of people towards saving energy, and water and will facilitate to protection of the planet for the future.

Hence, this change in the behavior of the people will gradually lead to a tipping in society, leading to a mass movement for saving energy and the planet for the future. Therefore, if Mission LIFE of India has to be successful and contribute to a net zero economy goal by 2070, social tipping has to set in. Only when the social tipping will set in, people through a mass mobilization movement will start saving energy, and water. As the social tipping sets in people will start enhancing renewable energy usage and reducing energy demand through demand management measures using behavioral changes and action. This growth in the usage of renewables through social tipping has already been observed in various other countries in the recent past.

Global literature shows that the fast growth in renewables has led to an economic tipping point for adopting renewables. However, a corresponding reduction in fossil fuel demand and a system-wide energy transition have not happened. This is because social tipping dynamics have still not set in to move away an energy system completely from fossil fuel-based energy systems to renewable energy-based systems at a global, national, and regional level.

Various actors, tactics by different actors, and a range of conflicts have acted as a hindering factor in enabling this shift from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy-based systems of the future.  Tactics are often being applied by international, national, regional, and local pressure, and interest groups to hinder such shifts. However, no clear relationship exists between the tactics of pressure and interest groups and the actual shifts, and transitions. In carbon-intensive regions of Europe, it is observed that the role of national institutions, and responses to global and international pressure groups have determined the shifts from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy ones. Often, the shifts in the systems following social tipping dynamics work like a chaotic pattern of a natural ecosystem with multiple forces being at play to determine a shift or transition catalyzed by social tipping dynamics. Just like an Ecological System, in such a situation, small changes finally create big impacts in society when it comes to shifts from fossil fuel to renewable energy systems.

If Mission Life has to contribute to the net zero goal of the future, it has to be cognizant of these small nudges within society. These nudges are also going to be impacted by Public Policy leading to changes in people’s choices, behavior, and actions. Evidence of this lies in the fact that in Germany, as strong public policy and industry support got aligned with a decrease in the support of nuclear energy, the nudge worked, and solar energy sector started to grow with a shift in choices of people to solar energy taking them away from nuclear sources of energy. Gradually, when the demand picks up through these nudges, the costs of clean energy transition will also go down in the long run by reducing the upfront costs of solar installations.

This will therefore enhance the clean energy transition through a social tipping with a spiralling effect within the society in the future. Once, such a transition takes off, people’s conviction and belief in the clean energy systems go up further strengthening their future action for clean energy choices and adoption. This phenomenon has been observed in the case of the transition to electric vehicles, and electrification of heating and cooling systems in residential areas of developed societies. However, it needs to be tested for developing societies with multiple cultural layers like India.  This is because, in a developing country like India, subsidies for fossil fuels, energy infrastructure subsidies, the higher gestation period of fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure, and multiple social lock-in effects can delay the effects of social tipping nudges and can hinder the transition to clean energy choices by people.  The behavior can also be impacted by International Crises like War which can impact people’s future preferences for energy choices and adoption. For example, in the winter of 2022-23, energy demand in Europe went down expecting future high prices due to the escalating war between Russia and Ukraine. Similarly, the energy demand of people across Europe and the World reduced during Covid 19 but again it rebounded back in 2021 at a level which was similar to the energy demand levels of 2019. Hence, the impact of social tipping dynamics as a nudge and its impact on energy choices, actions, and behavior of people are often impacted by a global, international crisis like a War, Terrorism, Public Health Crisis, or Natural Disasters. The role of MISSION LIFE as a contributory nudge to attain a net zero economy by 2070 through social tipping dynamics will therefore also be dependent on these extraneous shocks and crisis events whenever they happen.

For a multicultural, federal, country with a wide variety of political economies between the center and states in India such nudges can get more and more complicated in the national and state contexts of India. It will therefore need a transdisciplinary lens of Social Tipping Dynamics to understand where MISSION LIFE of India can or might reach in the future in terms of its contribution towards the net zero goal of 2070 of the Indian Economy without compromising India’s developmental, quality of life goals and aspirations for the future with a sense of equity and justice for all sections of the society.

 

 

What is A People-Centric (/Just) Energy Transition? Framework Summary of Thinking of Last 20 years (2003 - 23)

 What is a People - Centric Energy Transition?  For, the last one year, this question intrigued me when I joined the academic administration space for a full-time position in 2019. Even in the academic administration space, the core demand to understand rural energy transition has never gone away since 2003. In 2003, when I started my journey in the Energy Transition space at the Public Policy Research Unit Laboratory of Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi Campus, with the guidance of Late Prof. Sanghamitra Das, transition to me appeared to be just a set of numbers in DOS coded STATA and in MS Access of 2003.

By analyzing the number patterns as a project research intern and by not going for an ICICI/CITI Bank Econometric Modelling Job or Internship, I was trying to understand the probability of chance of switching from firewood to other cooking options in rural households across villages of Uttarakhand (Uttaranchal at that point of time). 

Even after twenty years, the basic tenets of the story-plot have not changed. In the course of this journey, my Ph.D in between the journey also tried to prove a hypothesis that rural energy transition in the cooking paradigm of rural households of Bihar in a larger sense was or has the predictable chance of being nonlinear. 

By nonlinear, I meant that if income or expenditure rises by a certain amount within a certain rural household in Bihar, it does not necessarily mean that the same household will switch to LPG or clean cookstoves completely and stop using firewood. The thesis dealt with how households behave and how they decide about the switch. It analysed the contexts in which people of rural households in Bihar choose a clean cookstove or LPG and switch from firewood. The contexts proved that the switch to LPG or clean cookstoves from firewood are often spatially chaotic or follows a diffusion pattern of information within a social structure which is chaotic in nature. Here, by chaotic, I also mean that their diffusion patterns are nonlinearly dynamic over time across the different household spaces. 

So was my PhD thesis a take on - "People Centric Energy Transition?" 

"Did I work on "People Centric Energy Transition" during my research internship? Any work that I have been doing within the domain of rural energy transition or energy transition has been touching upon people, households, and society. Hence, can they be termed as - "People-Centric"? As always, I stay confused within the dialectics of thoughts that at what entry and exit points of research can a work be called -"People Centric"?

Is there any definition for these entry and exit points?

 A thorough search of literature and reading shows to me that there are no well-defined entry and exit points. Then the question is and was - "Why in 2003, no one was coining any research project on rural energy transition of people as - People-Centric Energy Transition?"

Questions do not end over here as the next one comes up as - "Why therefore in 2023 People Centric Energy Transition metaphor has come up for similar story plots within the space of rural energy transition?"

To move further, why did IEA at a certain point in time come out with the term - "Just Energy Transition"? What knowledge entry and exit points of research make this terminology - "Just Energy Transition"? I stay only bewildered and perplexed with no definite answers. Hence, my search for a cyclicality in terms of defining entry and exit points and understanding frameworks started to begin sometime in 2019 on the various metaphors of the same content that defines rural energy transition. Are these metaphors of - People, Just coming with a substitutive or complementary effect to the definition or they are mutually exclusive or substitutable?

The journey continued from 2019 till 2023 and then again I decided to do some more exploratory research on - "People Centric Energy Transition" to understand the evolutionary metaphors of rural energy transition more transparently.

Hence, I could see a sense, trend, and pattern of cyclicality in terms of defining certain preexisting core ideas over time and space within the domain of Energy Transition. Thus, is it so, that terms and ideas are finding out the space metaphors of rural energy transition or the space metaphors are defining the terms within the domain of Energy Transition. 

Hence to cure all my confusion, I finally came up with the below-mentioned framework of - "People Centric Energy Transition" -

The framework largely arises from Lacanian thinking which has three subdomains - a) The Real or Normative, b) The Symbolic, and c) The Imaginary. Often the Justice domains of Energy Transition are visualized through a Real and Normative lens. Within this domain, the policy perspectives are largely addressing questions of fairness, value systems, capabilities, and the tensions between them. In this framework, the role of individuals, agencies, policy agents, and societal fairness is also talked of through different metaphors of policy languages and paradigms. 

The Symbolic subdomain of People-Centric Energy Transition largely takes the narrational lens through the economy, ecology, and societal transitions. Owing to that, this subdomain largely has been following analytical paradigms of logic, order, and linear transition structures in explaining what is people-centric energy transition. While taking this approach, policymakers, agencies, decision-makers, and agents working in this subdomain are often moving towards an ordered energy transition paradigm. Such a paradigm is often a traumatic impossibility leading to the imaginary subdomain which is a world of scenarios and fantasies, fiction which can become real too in the long run.

Finally, therefore, arises the imaginary domain which is the gap between the real and symbolic self within the paradigm of People-Centric Energy Transition. The imaginary segment of People-Centric Energy Transition is therefore also a lot about Energy Culture which often throws out paradoxical outcomes with multiple truths and possibilities. Hence, like a Lacanian frame, the Imaginary Subdomain of People-Centric Energy Transition acts as a bridge between the Real and The Symbolic. 

Thus, what emerges finally is that - "People Centric Energy Transition" is like a Parallax and a Split amongst various subdomains. Within such a Parallax, People-Centric Energy Transition domains will continuously evolve with changing politics of space, time, knowledge, and wisdom and the cycle will continue forever in an evolutionary way. 

From "Burima" to "Gaza 2023": A History of Diwali

 Diwali is celebrated in the darkness of Kartik Amavasya through the festival of light to luminate our dark feelings, egos, obsessions, insecurities. 

However the same festival turns out to be an extravaganza of smoke, pollution, sound every year. This year the sounds are amplified with sounds of missiles, human cry to a higher frequency catalysed by few wars. The power of these sounds always dominate the voice of help from animals, people suffering from asthma, sound pollution. Is it this power of sound domination due to which fire crackers, agri residues, houses are burnt in New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia and many more: even though the acts are defined to be criminaĺ by law and norms of Kartik Amabasya.

The field of heuristics in Psychology will say that people cant personalise the distant pains to others from their acts and hence in the society fire crackers, houses, air gets burnt and polluted. Simple answers which can be relatable to me or you will be looked after as an answer to these complex questions of a society. Hence, I will always justify an action through such simple answers and continue to burn. It continues as my action is insignificant when in a society every human being is a criminal of some order, degree as knowingly or unknowingly, we burn something or the other. So my, our act of burning continues. Often it continues because the pleasure, benefits of living on an edge, with a false sense of pleasure power are higher than the costs of consequential impacts of that living on everyone in a society. Hence people continue smoking, drinking, cheating, corruption practices, dropping bombs, invest in high risk assets, engage in extra marritals, serial killers kill, abusers abuse and lovers continue loving.

Today, in 2023, in Diwali, suddenly all these reminded me of Burima Chocolate Bomb, Dodoma, Kalipotka of childhood at Kolkata. The names were all metaphors of my inexplicable escape from reality with a sense of pleasure, power and violence.

 Hence they are metaphors of my memories of childhood pleasure for getting an escape route from the reality of violence, vuĺnerability and power. All this was going fine till 2006, when the scary, anxious eyes of a stray dog at Diwali night made me nude in front of my power, pleasure and vulnerability. 

The darkness of Kartik Amabasya of 2006 therefore made me a jocker in front of the mirror. Since then, firecrackers left me even though it has not left the society. Hence metaphors of burima chocolate bomb memories, sounds and lyrics of war and pollution are still being written in a society - "Where it is normal to be a little bit of Criminal Everyday"!

জোয়ার ভাটা

 জোয়ার বলে ভাটা আসে

দুঃখ ভালোবাসা পাশ বালিসে

চোখ বলে  কান্না ভাসে

হাসি কাকে পায় পাশে

মন্দ নয় ভয় বেশী 

আলতো চুল  এলো কেশি

ভাল আছি আলগা হয়ে 

না পাওয়া রঙ নিয়ে 

গভীর বলে হালকা হয়

তুলোর ওপর পলকা  প্রলয় 

তাই ভাটা বলে জোয়ার এলে

চলে যায় সব সেকেলে। 

Oshtomi (অষ্টমী)

 Shubho Oshtomi

এক অষ্ট ধাতু দিয়ে 

গড়েছিলাম শান্তি সম 

নিশীথ তীব্র তম

লুসি বলেছিল

ট্রেন না ধাতু

কোনটা বেশী ফালতু

আমি বলেছিলাম চামড়াটা

কি শান্ত সেই হাটা

ছুঁয়ে ফেলার পরে ও

কত ঋজু ও যেন

কাল ভৈরবের আদলে

রেকাবি মায়া আসলে 

শুধুই কি মানুষ 

না আমাদের ধনুষ

কাকে তাক করে আছে

যে দুরে সে তো কাছে

এক অনিবার্যতায় কে কাদতো

শান্ত ধাতু আর যে ভাবতো। 

আনন্দজিত

শারদীয়া পরিশ্রম

 এক উৎসব মানে শাখপলা

লাল সিঁদুর খেলা 

ঘরের মাঝে এক যৌথ খামার

অসাম্য শরীর হয় তলোয়ার 

বিনা জল,  বিনা খাবার 

মিডডে মিলে ভাত বাড়াবার

হাতা আর খুনতি খোঁজার

ডাক পড়ে সেই মেয়েটার

যে পুজোর ভোগ রাধে

ইস্কুল দিদিমণির চুল বাধে

সাম্য নিশ্চিত করতে পারি

উমা চলেছে নতুন বাড়ি

আবার হবে দেখা কোনো পুজোর রান্না ঘরে 

বা কোন বিছানার লাল চাদরে 

শুধু অপেক্ষা ‍এক ছুটির ঘন্টার

মিডডে মিলের সকাল হবার

October 2, Public Spiritedness and Mental Health

 The first week of October is a cause of celebration of Bapu across India and the world. However, since almost a decade starting from 2014, it has been continuing to be a loss of celebration and cause of void with repeated cycles. 

Every year the round of destined incidents, tragedies, personal losses revolving around me has continued with deep consistency. The sinusoidal graph of such a consistent rhythm has never let me down and has only allowed me to laugh more on the magic of life with only a way to look up in a self effacing and affable way. 

This year the first two days of October again came out with a tragic loss of a dear friend just like last year and years before that who in a short span of time had touched the deepest core of the dictionary of human empathy. He taught me about that core. 

My friend who was an epitome of deepest empathy for everyone around him was the victim of the destiny of mental health. In the last few years, destiny took away some more fellow empathetic cotravellers. Few succumbed to accidents, Covid,  few nonhumans to weird IVF but all of them had one aspect in common. 

They all showed Public Spiritedness either as a human or as an animal. Hence,  their spirits started where consistent rationality assumptions of economics ended. Therefore, they expressed compassion, emotion, altruism, anger, emotions, kindness, big heartedness, void egoless self with naivety.  They manifested so called examples of  irrationality which in a way were quite binding by cultivating a rules based rationality of practising Public Spiritedness for others including any human being around them. 

During the birth week of Mahatma, keeping aside the political consciousness of practising public spiritedness, these humans and non humans were not bounded by a consistent domain of rationality which defines self-optimising behaviour. They were not self centred, neither self aggrandising but a true practitioner of public spiritedness which a reactionary society of India needs deeply at this juncture.

As Ambedkar had mentioned that if without equality, liberty comes to Indian society there will be power and elite capture: and if equality is there without liberty in Indian society, individual rights will be jeopardized. 

The losses of these public spirited humans  and nonhumans only have left back a lesson to practise more in future. It is a practice of how both liberty and equality can be brought back together to the Indian Society to enthuse, infuse public spiritedness where rationality, bounded rationality ends and rules based rationality starts. 

I just wish,  I could change the sinosoidal graph of consistency and bring all of them back by changing time to practise more of public spiritedness. In a way,  it will cure the destiny and mental health of the society which took them away! It will be a true celebration of 2nd October then in 2023 and in the years to come. 

Is "Oppenheimer" just a Popular Cinema? Disturbing Questions

 The jostle around any Christopher Nolan film in all social circles is not new. As a movie watcher and a follower of Nolan's work since his first film, I was also equally keen to watch and understand the film - "Oppenheimer". 

I watched it and did it very sincerely again and again, frame by frame, text by text before writing this narrative. While watching the film again and again, frame by frame all the instagram announced claims of "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie" as two structural breaks in popular mainstream Hollywood film was also at the back of my mind. 

However, the more I repeatedly watched the frames of Oppenheimer, those social media noises about the technical excellence, cultural and structural breaks brought in by the two films were toned down. I started watching the frames of - "Oppenheimer" largely as a frame without knowing that it was being made by Christopher Nolan. The names which were all in the illustrious credits of the film also went to a backburner. As slowly and steadily with repeated watching of the film, when the names and texts went towards a sober silence, objectivity of watching the frames of "Oppenheimer" arose.

The frames of the film cinematically have been touted as one of the best ever due to the following ten reasons (amongst many more) by critics and they are - a) Stellar Performances (which is true), b) Thought Provoking Plot (which is true), c) Mushroom Cloud Like Drama with a grand scale character study (i have my doubts behind it), d) the tension, aesthetic and intricate, delicate structure, grand scale, remarkable sound design, visually stunning cinematography (which is true), e) a bold attempt to have zero CGI in modern cinema (which is again true), f) Powerful Story Telling and Impactful Emotional Moments (they are marked by conformation bias and cognitive dissonance), g) Stellar Reviews (which is true but partially as reviews are marked by biases which are psychologically natural), h) philosophical themes on the dark side of technology, nature of war and responsibility of science and scientists towards society (cognitive dissonance comes the most over here), i) Shooting through IMAX 70 mm Camera (which is true), j) A Spartan Approach of Film Making (which is true). Out of these ten reasons, the set of disturbing questions arise from the reasons - b), c), f), g) and h).

To me after repeatedly watching the film, the reasons b, c, f, g, h are the areas which raise disturbing questions about the objectivity in the film. They do raise thoughts but as we know thoughts of humans are natural to be fraught by cognitive biases and cognitive dissonance. It is over here, let me explain simplistically what do I mean by cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive bias is a systematic process of human brain when we simplify information through instinctive emotional experience and preferences and the brain prioritizes and processes large amounts of information quickly often resulting in irrational emotional, impulsive, amygdale responses. The filtering process can act like a coping mechanism in us. Conformation Bias can arise due to - a) Limits to Mind's Attention, b) Individual Motivation, c) Mental Shortcuts like Heuristics, d) Social Conditioning and Pressures. Often therefore this conformation bias can lead to a Cognitive Dissonance where an individual behaviour doesnot align with values or beliefs. It is a common psychological phenomenon which happens to all of us and I am sure it has happened with  the lovers, praisers, haters, indifferent, independent viewers of the film - "Oppenheimer". 

But if for a moment, we imagine that the audience who has been mostly human (and not any half human and half robot or an AI or a Machinoid or a Robot with a Human Implanted Memory Chip or the Other Way Round), then naturally the reasons, b,c,f,g,h cannot be ignored. In the next few sections, I will further elaborate on this.

Oppenheimer raises a thought provoking plot but the question is - "It is whose Plot and How the Plot is Potrayed? Isn't the Plot which is written or created by a human being for the movie not full of Conformation Bias and Cognitive Dissonance?" - A thorough look on each frame repeatedly makes it quite clear, that inspite of all the  other reasons of the excellence of this cinema (intentionally used the word cinema and not film), it is finally a story and a plot which is largely told through "Oppenheimer's Eyes" and Nolan had put the text behind those eyes. 

Hence, if it is told through "Oppenheimer's Eyes", then it has to be a subjective interpretation of a larger disturbing thought of the scale of impact the war made, consequences of Oppenheimer's action, his deceit, his love, his cognitive dissonances as a human being across generation and on the world order. Therefore, if it has this limitation of making the story seen through one human being's eye then it cannot be a mushrooming scale drama of the character. The character by itself is self limiting. It is self limiting in the process of story telling as the character's perspective is ruling the frames. In a way therefore, the power of the story and the emotional impact of the story are also self limiting in itself even though it has been touted as the strength of the film. It is because then the power of the story and its emotional impact is a result of  the conformational bias and cognitive dissonance of the character - "Oppenheimer" himself. 

Then, how can the character capture the grand scale of the interplay of the war between ethics, morality and immorality in its full and half circle. Since, the film gets trapped in this character itself, the frames therefore also cannot escape this vicious cycle even though all the excellence of the cinema and the film are equally true. Moreover, the story is not a simple story. It is like an epic of War with deep philosophical and disastrous impact on the wellbeing of generations, nations. Therefore, in such a context if the Character of the film gets trapped in this vicious cycle of Cognitive Biases and Cognitive Dissonances driven by the same two facets of the creators of the film, the impact of it is much more on the society in an insidious way without the society knowing it. This will be more true as all the ten excellence points of the film are equally true and therefore the cinema can very surreptitiously play with the dissonances and cognitive biases of a society which generally stays half moral, half ethical in all contexts. It is natural to stay like that as a society and it is not a disease but a psychological phenomenon of the society.

Therefore, as Brandon Shimoda, a Japanese American Poet, who is a writer and professor of Hiroshima Library has rightly said - "Audience of Oppenheimer belongs to this society and they will have differing perceptions about it based on their identity". Even without reading Brandon Shimoda, but by just reading Narayan Sanyal's "Bishashghatak", one can clearly say that the story of "Oppenheimer" is half spoken like a half circle through a half moral and half ethics. The loop of the circle is not closed. In a sensitive geopolitical situation of today and in the post truth context of narratives this is a little disturbing and dangerous as the impacts of the half morality of a powerful story telling with a brilliance of cinematic pleasure can be damaging for a society in a post humanistic sense when the world can move towards societal apocalypse and dystopias. 

It is over here, going beyond the ten points and reasons of the brilliance of the cinematic excellence of Oppenheimer and a debate of proving one self that - "I am for Oppenheimer Movie or I am not for Oppenheimer Movie" in all social media platforms, it is important to understand why these different perspectives of Us and Them are arising around a movie which has ten reasons of being the best popular cinema ever made. 

Someone, like Late Sunil Gangopadhyay needs to come back and do a thorough travel and interview based book like - "Itihasher Shopnobhongo" in the context of "Oppenheimer Movie". In Itihasher Shopnobhongo, Late Sunil Gangopadhyay extensively travelled across the countries of Europe after the Berlin Wall Destruction and explored why people from different parts of Europe are standing for Socialism to Market Economy to a Democracy from different historical and evolutionary perspectives of their identities. A time has come to carry out a detailed study of interviewing the wider audience of "Oppenheimer" to understand the disturbing thoughts and narratives of - "Why People Are Liking or Disliking or Are Indifferent To The Movie - "Oppenheimer"".

The sooner or later it is done, the better it will be amidst the rising geopolitical tensions and war of post truth narratives between the multipolarities of power centers of the World Order!!

Mu(ffin)rco Polo: A Roff Sketch

 

Mu(ffin)rco Polo: A Roff Sketch

Dedicated to Roff Senior, Muffin, Polo, Roff Junior and Marco-Polo

Lyrics, poetry, music, piano, performance - Anandajit Goswami , Anandajit Goswami , Anandajit Goswami

When the world shines
Through your eyes
A Roff Sketch
Muffed with heart wrench
Goes to the sky
Marco comes by
Polo does the later
Marco completes Polo's Adventure
As the humans go to war
The Roff Sketch is drawn through Park-er
A little hope comes to

Talk too

Marco Polo Roff
Solves the scoff
The end gets over
A new dream much higher

LEVIS Jeans, JNU, JU, Institutions, Swapnodeep 2023 - A Recollection, Reoccurrence of Memories

A frozen heart of 28th November, 2003 was melted by both Levis Jeans and Shahrukh Khan. 

It was a Friday and a big day for many of us residing in Jhelum 2 of JNU. Though the room was meant only for two students - Bikram and Anandajit, it was a hive of at least 8- 10 people at any point of time. The hive unfortunately had no queen bee but was only full of worker bees and the ones who had become the same working class people the moment they entered in the room 2. So, it was almost like a transformational room where any one from any corner of the country or class of the society would walk in and spend quality time over film discussions, debates, fiery arguments over movies, sports, politics, any topic of individual and collective choices and then they would come out as equals in-spite of being a very different worker bee of the same hive with their own unique choice and identity. 

Often the discussions were not of high pedestal too but it still maintained the boundaries of the journey of banter to casual leg pulling to bullying with utmost sensitivities. The room of Jhelum 2 had a magic to heal the frozen hearts of everyone starting from Masters to PhD students. No one was termed as a junior or senior. Each worker bee of the hive had got a nick name of their own. The language of calling everyone by the nick name levelised the first epistomological boundaries of the politics of calling any one as - "Junior" or "Senior". 

No one was Junior or Senior spatially too within the room too. This was due to severe space limitations and hostel room availability crunch. The scarcity of such availability often ensured that the bed for two became the bed of the proletariat of the working bees of the hive. The workers had no queen to instruct but they still had a discipline of maintaining the thin lines between leg pulling, easy banter and traumatic, scaffolding jerks of humiliation for any worker bee. The sounds of the bees were different but yet it was together even though sometimes the chaos of differences, arguments across the worker bees would be like cacophony to the adjoining rooms of just, fair, legitimate capacities of two individuals. 

The bees were students with frozen hearts in different ways and forms with wide range of dreams and aspirations. And therefore, when it came to aspiration, Shahrukh Khan was the one to look upto inspite of his over the tone expressions in any Karan Johar movie. 

Hence, 28th November, 2003 was special for the bee hive. Kal Ho Na Ho had released in the PVR Priya Complex of Vasant Vihar and the front row tickets of "Just" INR 45 would be for sale from 9.00 am. On a voluntary basis, a consensus emerged within the worker bees on that day. Hence, one Master Student and a PhD student decided to take the task of skipping any other morning task! This was because, the most important task for them was to buy the 9.30 pm show ticket of Kal Ho Na Ho for the second row for all worker bees of the hive. This was because the price was lowest for those seats and when SRK would arrive on the screen the worker bees could become whistling bees together in a low priced seat based on the affordability of worker bees. They might not also risk of getting up together and dancing, as the bees had no fear of stigma of society or taboo. This was because their only identity in the hall would be - "They were worker bees of Jhelum 2 and they would stand for that in front of everyone within the society. No Master's, No PhD Degree, No MPhil Degree, No Other Pedigree or Stratification, Identity, Degree Mattered."

Hence, as planned, 12 tickets were brought mostly by pooling money but the majority of the cost of buying the ticket to get an access to SRK was ensured by the JRF holder PhD student. He took the onus on him that at any cost - SRK should reach the frozen hearts of all worker bees on that day after the drone of bees would reach PVR once their egg curry dinner would be completed by 9.00 pm. Egg Curry on Friday was a delicacy which was far above the Biriyani of Awadh during the hostel days for the worker bees. This was true even though Biriyani was served in the Hostel Nights of JNU. 

As planned, egg curry happened by 9.00 pm. Every one was getting ready to be in their best of the dresses to look fashionable within the crowd of PVR Priya so that before SRK would come onto the screen, the bees could start like semi SRKs with a certain potential energy which would be converted into their kinetic energies of dance and whistle while SRK would arrive on the screen. The tempo was building up. Everyone was well dressed. 

However, one of the bees was struggling as he did not have a good trouser to match up with a basic trouser standard of PVR Priya of a Friday night of 28th November, 2003. However, the worker was fine with it and was ready to go on a T Shirt and a normal trouser. But, the JRF Holder worker bee was stubborn and wanted the young frozen heart one to meet SRK on screen in the best style. The JRF Holder had also borne the majority of the cost of the advance ticket of Kal Ho Na Ho on the same day and had cross-subsidised many worker bees of Jhelum 2. The JRF Holder rushed to his room on the first floor of Jhelum Hostel. He took out his own "Levis Jeans", ironed it for the young worker bee and came down with the ironed "Levis Jeans". He ensured that the young worker bee would wear the "Levis Jeans" and would go out with him for "Kal Ho Na Ho" of SRK. The other ten started early as the JRF Holder PhD Student or the worker bee didnot tell any other ten bee the reason of why he was late and why he was waiting for the young worker bee. 

The other ten worker bee had set out early towards the light and neon of their dreams which were illuminated at the PVR Priya on 28th November, 2003. They wanted to reach their dream - "SRK" as early as possible. The PhD Scholar, JRF Holder worker bee of Jhelum 2 gradually set out together. They were in Levis Jeans together as the PhD Scholar worker bee had another old Levis Jeans which he wore and gave the new one to the young worker bee. The PhD Scholar remarked with his usual quirky, naughty banter by saying - "It is SRK today on a Friday Night at PVR Priya and you ought to be in atleast in Levis". One worker bee wrapped the other worker bee in the same cloth brand to ensure that their collective identity of worker bee from Jhelum 2 would stand out in the social rigmarole of class - dimensions of PVR Priya of a Friday Night Blockbuster of SRK within the dreamy, leafy lands of New York directed by Karan Johar.

A worker ensured that he took care of the other one to make his frozen heart feel special in the eyes of SRK by being in a stylish "Levis". This was JNU, 2003 and the story of the worker bees of Jhelum 2 of JNU. 

Today, when Swapno Deep died in the hostel of Jadavpur University, the story of the bee hive could not escape my mind. Any justification of camaraderie, friendship in any institution or institutional form in exchange of short term bullying favors, tokens of pleasure in subversive forms through scaffolding traumatic memories are unpardonable even often they happen casually, loosely in front of our eyes. The  perpetual passing of this bullying abuse knowingly, unknowingly is passed onto us and they thrive, survive and move forward in the society through institutions, class, caste and all layers of the society. The elites of different liberal institutions starting from school, colleges and any other form also knowingly, unknowingly starts to get into a self defense syndrom of justifying it highlighting that something is wrong but suicide is also not an option. Sheena Iyenger has done decades of research on - "The Art of Choice" in which she also has identified how scaffolding memories often lead to a choice even though it is not an option. So in any discussion of choice, option and justification a little informed debate on human psychological boundaries with certain self reflection and science ought to happen without taking a stand or passing an opinion. This is because when an event happens it is an outburst of a social form and a transformation of a social scaffolding in the gyrus, hippochampus of societal memory. Hence, instead of creating a coping mechanism structure of passing opinions and justifications by any one it is more important to understand between the nuanced differences between option, choice and on why certain choices happen. Opinionated discussions only does a personification of a coping structure of the choice where each one projects his or her individuality coping structure through the event. However, to come out of the scaffolding of the society, instead of a projection, what is important is an understanding of the reflection followed by a determined rigour to act on the reflection. A bee hive worker structure referred here can often do that through easy banters too but with a very well thought off definition of the boundaries between banter, leg pulling, bullying, teasing to gradual unknown trauma generations. As a society, each one of us go through this journey but a constant reflection can only free up the society from the scaffolds of that. The hive of 2002-2004 had that.

The hive of 2002-2004 also had banters, leg pulling, constant teasing but not at the cost of a drop of tear. It had light moments, teasing of winners and loosers in a bridge game, cricket or football game but it didnot create a mechanism of an exchange offer where one worker bee is going to give an exchange offer of long term support or friendship at the cost of a short term bullying. The danger lies when the society and even every middle class section start to accept this exchange offer as a norm in every form of institution. Even though many of the worker bees of Jhelum 2 were students of Economics, Physics, they never created any offer curve like that, neither they created quantum models where the sensitive dynamics of bee relations in future would be a function of these offer curves. This bee hive of 2002-2004 was spatially and temporally a trip towards one infinity. The infinity was and is called - "Love" even to ensure that a worker bee would meet SRK with a frozen heart but in a Levis Jeans to feel special on a Friday Night.

I wish - "Shawpno-Deep" would have been fortunate enough to be amongst such a hive which I am sure and will like to believe would exist today and in tomorrow too. Otherwise, Friday Night SRK Blockbusters would only have naked bodies and souls and not a healed, covered waist to legs with the cloth of Levis Jeans!!!

JOURNEY OF AN ECCENTRIC, IMPULSIVE, WEIRD STOIC

 

“Look onto him – He is a weirdo and all the time looking at me with blank, scared eyes as if I am going to eat him!” – This comment was made on a parent – teacher’s meet of my school to my mother during my transition from class II to class III. The comment from the class teacher at the age of six for the first time introduced me to myself and I thought may be its true that a gigantic human being like my late erstwhile class teacher can actually eat a lean, docile, numb school boy like me.  I also thought may be Nature has given her that power to eat me up.

The introduction was in the form of a reflection of another person about me to my parent in front of me. This one statement created a plethora of self doubt about my own identity about myself at a very early age. Later on, when I have thought about it, I have felt privileged to receive such an identity labeler at an early age as it helped me. In a way, that was the starting point of a reflexive, immersive, self centric, narcissistic journey within me to actually start searching myself through words, ideas, creativity, stories and plots. I started to search stories about myself at an early stage because I started to become doubtful about my existence at an early age of six when kids generally enjoy the childhood. The self-absorption had to find out new ways of writing through Bengali texts, alphabets, expressions, drawings, sketches, lyrical rhyming (called Chhoras) and I will use them to self- hum a melody internally. I created a whole new world for myself in my diaries in which I existed along with my own characters in that world of my diary.

That world was preserved in my little diaries (there were many of them) and often I was creating those worlds of mine frequently when I was travelling in Lal Gola Express to Krishnanagar or in Bidhan Express or Black Diamond Express to Durgapur. Krishnanagar and Durgapur used to be my Mashi’s and Pishi’s house. A movement in train to these places meant to me an entry into a whole new world and not always like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I was always in tears when after seven days I had to leave Krishnanagar (my Mashi’s daughter) or had to leave Durgapur (my Pishi’s daughter) after a month. I was too vulnerable in everything and everywhere at the same time. The moment I departed from my world which was created in the train during the journeys’ to Krishnanagar, Durgapur and I came back to Kolkata, I was in pain and more self immersed to write through my diary pages. Often, my mom or whoever will accompany me in the train journey, very un-harmfully wryly comment that – “Look onto our child author with the diary pretending to be a thinker on the window side of LalGola Express”.

But I was not an author or never been an author for that matter. I was in my world of vulnerability shaken with the crisis of existence and trying to find out a meaning of  self – absorptive expressions through my diary pages. Many times, I will write gibberish lines like montage of a sketchy draft for pages with no meaning of a plot or a story. But yes, there was a story in each line of them. That practice still continues and my journey of this crisis of existence still exists and has got more acute over the years. With a larger crisis of existence, more story books of LUCY Trilogy, Hema (The Measure of Central Tendency), Shapno (Pink Gender, Pink Gender Extended) have been born. More characters are coming up every day.  However, I am only running short of time in a span of 24 hours. But the gibberish, chaotic expressions of music, academic papers, journals, books are rising more everyday and more deviation from the central tendencies are happening. But the future looks not to be gentle and will only lead to more such characters even though a time of 24 hours will become short for not an Author but an Expressionist with An Identity Crisis of Vulnerability.

                                                                                       

Disclaimer:  To be published in a magazine soon

Stoicity of A Valentine Day 2023

 Fifteen years back on 14, February, 2008, very pretentiously I had written a song -"Bajar Valentine". The song was written from a monotony of office life of a growing India which only aspired to be what an Indian want to be which it could not be. Today, if the Indian has become what the person 

wanted to be in 2008, can the same song be written or rewritten again?

The stoicity has now actually set in the desire to be more in each Indian -Be it in the market of dates, nightouts, hangouts, night stand outs, desires in every space of an Indian life. 

Desire to be more in a way is so normalised now that its stoic on each and everyday of our lives. The valentines in us have desired so much more that love and empathy have become reclusive in a closed space. Lovers are a subset of dodo species, slowly and steadily getting to a hide out space. Markets of every desire space are more abundant than ever in comparison to last fifteen years trajectory of an Indian life.

A relook to compose a new version of the same song -"Bajar Valentine" on 14th February, 2023, only strengthened the stoic, neurotic, depressive pain with which the song has gone for a hide out in 2023. 

Like the VCRs, CDs, Floppy Discs, the immatured, stoic, valentine song of 2008 has only given birth to the e junk of new desire spaces across the society. However, what remained constant is to relook back to the past and find out the hiding, stoic, seeker. The seeker has got lost out in the cyber junk of desire of 2023, Valentine Day.

The valentines of 2008, are therefore the plastic desires of today and will be the cyborg aspirations of future. It is quite true to the core romantic values of Indian cinema where the characters can do more and more with each passing frame of Indian cinema. They are much more than one single culture, they can act, they can sing, they can romance, they can be the vile and many more. However, they are not dangerously stoic of doing much more than what they are.

But, the song search on February 14, 2023, surprisingly led to stoic results. It could not do more like the Indian Cinema characters. Hence, the "Bajar Valentine" only stayed with no birthday of "Bajar Valentine 2023". However, may be the block will open out to come with versions of future..........