A SHORT MASK-"Ed" STORY

 When in the education sector someone today gets a degree of "B.Ed" or "M.ED", it is supposed to signify or mean - "Bachelors or Masters"  in Education. On the same light, the title of this short story will mean that MASK - "Ed" means - Mask or Masters of Education. 

However, this short story began on a Wintry morning. The morning had a storm. But it was not a natural storm induced by climate change. However, the epiphany was about climate change on a platform called - "Twitter" creating a storm. Action to save humanity through Twitter via a storm was launched with all its facets. While the storm was going on, some new conspiracies to plant a new bomb or a digital or a civil war was going on all across the world. The TV set was showcasing all these images and collage of news in different channels of a little shanty space of a JJ colony in New Delhi. A middle aged husband was scrolling through the news channels by lying down on the bed in a drunken state. At the same time, a girl of age 16 was sitting on the ground with her knitting, weaving weapons.

A little girl had not gone to school on that day as there was a Twitter storm and it was raining outside. The school was closed that day. The little girl had pledged that on the day of the Twitter storm, she would not go to school; but would rather knit a hand woven mask. She was weaving the mask for her mother. The mother of the child was staying on the same shanty and was working as a daily maid or "Chutti Bai" in the various quarters near the JJ colony. Many of the houses were skeptical of the maid as she could not buy a good properly protected N 95 or medically prescriptive mask as it was still costly since it was the early days of Covid 19 in India. 

The cost of the masks were gradually going down due to bulk production but the cost was still not enough low for the mother to buy the mask. Due to the absence of the mask, the mother was fast loosing jobs from the nearby houses of middle class households who were telling her not to come in their house to work. The daughter could not bear this pain of the mother. Therefore, on the day of the Twitter storm outside, inside and everywhere, the daughter decided that the entire day she would not go to school but from the morning to evening she would only create one mask as a gift for her mother through her own hand. A mask which would protect her mom from COVID and from job loss. The Twitter storm deepened, violence erupted, peace was sought for everywhere within and outside the minds of people but nothing could stop the daughter from weaving the mask. The mask was being made out of a wool which she had silently got through some of the money she had saved earlier. The mother after the day's work returned back at the shanty of the JJ colony of New Delhi. The mother was getting ready to be beaten up by the husband who had given up job sometime back as he lost his job of driving auto-rickshaw which got closed due to lockdown. The husband's only job now was to beat up the wife after being drunk all through out the day once the mother or his wife returned back to the little space after a daylong work. 

On the day of the Twitter storm, the mother entered the house, but before the husband could greet her with violence, the daughter welcomed the mother with this Mask she had woven the entire day by knitting and by not going to school. The mother accepted the MASK from the daughter and kept it close to her heart and smiled with tears of joy. The daughter smiled back. The mother said - "This is my true MASK of EDUCATION - which can mean both MASK - ED or M- ED". 

January 19, 2021 - Historic Gabba Win and The Harmony, Music of Twitterati

 The day of January 19, 2021 is just not getting passed into my unconscious and subconscious thinking. Well, how can it go! This is because this 19th January of 2021 has created an unending, as well as brazen memories and flashes. I have scratched out some of them onto the scrap-house of my Facebook Account Profile Page in the following order - 

"1991 - November 29, Gabba, Flashbacks - A 10 wicket victory for Australia (Javagal Srinath's Debut, Paul Reiffeil's Debut)

Overall series achievement for India - 4 - 0 loss to Australia, nasty subjects of sledging from the Aussie crowd, 114 by Sachin at Perth, 400 wickets of Kapil

Reflection on own life - A 11 year old ardent sports follower who started training at Milan Samiti of Deshapriya Park and follow up trainings at Vivekananda Park had a major break up with cricket and decided to just not imagine about cricket as a career for a lad from not financially well to do background

2003 - Gabba, The revival time for the dream and follow up time along with rejoining back to cricket.

Personal Reflections - Even a not well to do lad of India can do it under the new leadership

2021 - Gabba, History is rewritten with no cultural supremacy and complete levelling by the game.

Personal Reflections - The 11 year old boy from any background working hard by getting up at 4.30 am everyday at the age of 11 doesnot need to leave cricket but can just look at siraj, saini, natrajan, shardul, washington sundar, rahane, rohit and the list is unending as the history of the page has just started. "

The above scratchy notes to myself were immediately also countered by some other scratches in the Twitter world which threw open certain facts - "A quote by Kunal Kamra - Congratulations Byjus on Winning Border Gavaskar Trophy". The quote was followed by the glorified statistics of the Twitter world highlighting - 2.6k comments, 3.4k retweets, 49.9K likes. 

 I ponder in the yonder of my lost childhood in the leftover grasses of Vivekananda Park, Deshapriya Park where I could see the day at the age of 11 when I went for the last time for a cricket training session in Kolkata following India's massive defeat at Gabba in 1991. 

My images are gradually stopped in a time machine by the mind, space and solemnity scavenging statistics of - 2.6K comments, 3.4K retweets, 49.9 K likes. I thought, 2021, January 19 was all about a brave (B), bold (B), bruised (B) Indian team fighting out cultural supremacies levelled by sports. A leveler where the same dressing room of a national cricket team is shared by an auto driver's son in deep agony, pain and loss matching up with the abdominal sprain and pain of another ace pace bowler who hugged the minority boy from the lowest strata of the society at the end of the match singing together in Marathi, Urdu and Hindi. It was all about bashing and thrashing the gender stereotyping of toxicity through the tears of the same minority boy of the auto driver son who could cry publicly when the national anthem was played before the Test Match started.

 I thought this Gabba is a hope for every 11 year old lad who wont have to leave cricket when they will look onto the stories of Washy, Shardul, Rohit, Shiraj who fought the childhood adversities of their social positions and made it to the final stage making the country proud. I thought this victory was all about a cinema and a script and a magical fairytale which can easily be a fiction any time. At the same time, this victory was also about the fact that there is always a truth too within fiction which is far more magically real than the fiction itself. For two days after the victory I was lost in the ocean of this magic realism of this victory which only told me before the celebration of 23rd and 26th January that nothing better than this victory can happen. It showed us the promise of castelessness, equity, new gender norms and every little word that we have written in policy documents, papers, books, preached verbosely in class lectures; and yes, the 19th January result of Gavaskar - Border trophy had all of it. But then the effervescence of this lostness suddenly got halted by the twitter statistics.

I saw that at the same time while I was lost in  my own effervescence of the 19th January victory of India at Gabba, the Twitteratti was also lost in its own effervescence of 49.9K likes of a post by a standup comedian on the same magic realism of the victory. The question which made me come out of my ecstasy was then - "Who are the people in Twitter liking the statistical seducement, seduction in a dark, comical, commodifying, conflictual labelling of the Gavaskar - Border trophy win?" 

The more pertinent question was to think - "Most of these likes are coming from an Indian and then why are they liking it?" 

Does that mean, the fellow country men prioritized the business subjugation of a country's team and certain norm wins over the cinema created by the victory itself on 19th January, 2021. 

The more unnerving question is - "Why the same people from the same land are prioritizing the Twitter quote over the celebration of an auto-driver's son, a poor lad's win from Chennai, a bruised body jaded against the red canon balls from Australian seamers."

Does that mean, it is actually a clash between the dreams of the son of the autodriver, poor lad from Chennai, Mumbai with the 49.9 likes in Twitter and Byjus as a brand is just insinuating this clash between the 49.9 likes and the dreams of the minority boy to a new extent? Does it mean that my ecstacy is actually a naivety?

Because the same cinema for which I was lost for few days also meant a clash between the 49.9 representative likes of an Indian society and the tears of a human being bashing gender stereotpying, cliched irrelevant, old cast and class narratives of the same country. Will it mean that tomorrow again when say another time - Deepa Karmakar wins another Olympic Gold Medal for us supported by Go Sports Foundation, the twitteratti wont celebrate her tears after the win but will celebrate more a similar post on the sponsorship with a stand up comedy pun to it.

Will it mean that, when tomorrow, a cricket coach will try to mentor a young lad about bravery, courage, parenting, motherhood of  protecting a team interest by narrating how - "Cheteshwar Pujara during the Melbourne and Gabba Test of 2021 was taking the ball on the body as the unusual pitch cracks were immaculately used by Pat Cummins to snick the gloves and the body; and to avoid the risk of getting out and exposing the tail; thereby highlighting parenthood, courage, bravery, responsibility, duty, team before an individual ", the young lad will rather not listen to the coach but will open his or her smart phone and retweet a stand up comedy post on the same act. The same Gabba, which brought to me a scrapbook of memories and ecstacy before 23rd January celebration of valour and courage also trembled, unnerved me with some uninvited tremors of sneers, mound of darkness of a societal dream, magic realism and its fragmentation with the inoculation drive of a deep politics of global investments, buying and selling at the backdrop of deep data and technological penetration into our lives. I don't know whether some day if next time when we stop  having tears with a medal win of Deepa Karmakar it will turn out to be the biggest stand up comedy of comedians as ourselves at the cost of a new virus whose vaccine is still not there. Fortunately, the Covid-19 Vaccine has arrived and I will strongly hope for the other vaccine to arrive soon before it is too late for the human society as a whole.

"Farm Hall" Aar "Pipilika"

Prothom juddho ta dekhi roshayone

Dyitota hoi podartho bigyane

 Kichu Operation "Farm Hall" aar "Epsilone"

Tritoyota khabore aar jibon o shomaj bigyane

Ditoyo juddhe dekhechilam "kichu opore otha dhowa"

Sheh chilo "gogochumbi" aar "bhore dhoyashay"

Niche prithiber buke manush chilo "pipilika" moy

Aamra thik jebhabe paa diye maariye chole jai pipilikader

Dhoya, roshayon, podartho bigyan mariye jaachilo jader

Aar aaj amader bibeker ronger khelay

Shei Pipilika gulo haray

Juddho ashe aar jay

Pipilikara abar khele beray

"Farm Hall" Aaar "Epsilone"

Kothay tara hariye jaay

Ek khub gorome jokhon pipilika ektu hawa pay

Hothat dekhi gogonchumbi megh shore geche

Ei gorome hothat ektu brishti esheche

Why your protagonist name is - "LUCY"?

 It was a sultry evening of Kolkata when some latent coldness of air from the nearby Hoogly river was circulating around the "Oxford Bookstore" of Park Street. The date was - 14th September, 2016. I was there at that location (Oxford Bookstore) owing to the book launch of my first science fiction book on sustainability - "Lucy and The Train: Tryst with Sustainability" published by TERI Press. During the post launch session, a question which came from the other side to me on that day changed everything within me about seeking truth while writing. Truth was never quite same ever or more so ever after that. 

The question was nothing - but the title of this article piece. A simple question to which I said its not a western cultural domination of my thought, neither I am xenophobic or averse to any culture but LUCY to me was , is and will be - "Love, Understanding, Creativity and Youth" and a symbolism of the earliest origin of humanity on Earth which I saw in a museum in Addis Ababa. So its less of a name and more of an emblem of the corners of truth which I am seeking. This question thereafter has only chased me like the dogs of a police criminal squad or an investigation team of the anti terror squads and hence I was thrown out from the present. I have seen dreams where I am running a sprint or marathon with different characters on my sides with different names and I am trying to touch them. However, they are passing by me in the sprint or in the marathon and I would wake up from my dream in the midnight.

Like a fugitive and a wanderer I landed in the pages of a wide variety of books dealing with critical history of science fiction writing. It happened because I became more and more doubtful of my character name and voice which I wanted to be audible through the protagonist character. Hence, to write the next sequels, those pages  of critical history were extremely important for curing my perennial existential crisis with whatever I do. 

The pages of the history to a wanderer only wondered me. Hence, through those pages of history I discovered the three broad thematic definition of science fictions which later on is creating a derivative towards dystopia definition. I saw through the critical work of Damien Broderick that today's almost Providence type of act of science fiction creation from Hollywood or any part of the world through the cultural prisoner's dilemma game (gain of one culture is the loss of other culture) started strategically in the 18th and 19th century.

 It was deliberately done to reflect on the cultural, scientific and technological upheavals of that time. Once I went back further towards past some startling facts came upon. The summary of the historical search showed to me that science fiction writing  or dystopia was, is and will always be some form of a cultural discourse combining visual, textual, cinematic, tele-visual, comic book or a game playing to create a world view which is different from the world in which a reader lives. SO, the first reaction of the reader can quite naturally be - "It is impractical and doesnot affect me or how does it affect me or how can I relate to it?"

This world in which the reader lives also includes the vast unexplored fields of ideas in the mind of the reader too. So the history is constantly showing us that at every point of time, there is someone who is ruling or steering this gaming of the mind. Sometimes, history showed to me that fantasy, magic, religion, knowledge politics are ruling this game and holding the steering wheel of this gaming exercise. Hence, immediately characters and their names are also changing in the text of the science fiction or a dystopia creation or within the narrative plots. 

To illustrate, the pages of the history showed to me that the literary establishments in America and Europe for a long time were dismissing science fiction texts by showing deliberately literary fiction above science fiction. I explored and discovered  from the pages of critical history that protestant reformation, post-Copernican science and Catholic theology, mysticism and magic were constantly in a dialectics for a long time. The result of this dialectics was creation of different world famous science fiction and dystopian characters and their names. We often worshiped them which was, is or will not be necessary for any reader in the future. May be, I was a romantic and not a true reader and hence got trapped in the worshiping and that's not being a good, true reader or loving a character. So, I was just a romantic of the history of reading texts and liked the idea of living and idealizing, idolizing the memoir of romanticizing the character but not loving the character in the science fiction or dystopian plots which I read. Therefore, I could not distinguish the fact that when the Catholic was dominating the orientation of the characters in the plots, their names and the plot was turning towards fantasy. While, when the protestant reformation was dominating, it was leading to the formation of hard science fiction characters and texts. 

Historically, this hard science fiction texts also had a root once Descartes settled down in 1629 in Holland while the native Catholics became hostile to him. More shocking is - "between the Greek period and Renaissance", there was a long gap of science fiction texts and characters. Again, from the late 16th and 17th century, with a rise in scientific inquiry in Protestant countries, science fiction characters and texts started to emerge. However, the larger question is that the world before 16th and 17th century and even during the Greek times was rich in scientific advancements and other cultures. Then why those characters, cultures are not there or why we are shy to accept them as the science or fiction of those times as a science fiction. What stops us to accept those texts also as hard science fiction? I still don't know the answer. May be I will find the answer someday when I find the answer to the question of that sultry evening - "Why your protagonist name is - LUCY?" 

If Lord Buddha wrote a dystopian science fiction?

Today, on an auspicious day of Guru Purnima, I am writing a column on dystopia. So, when I started imagining about this piece, I was continuously awe struck by a Deja Vu. The Deja Vu kept on rolling on mind and told me - "The End is Beginning and Beginning is the End". The essence is that time is looped and re-looped through a set of human actions on this little droplet star in the larger scheme of science, nature, universe, galaxy, milky way.

No one yet knows why something begins or something ends, but we know how it begins and how it ends and then again how it begins. So everything is a Deja Vu. Even dystopia which is completely reverse of an  Utopia also follows the same cycle of Deja Vu. It begins and then ends and then it begins again. For dystopia too, "End is the Beginning and Beginning is the End".

On the day of Guru Purnima, my sense of Deja Vu is more intense because today was the day - "When Lord Buddha gave his first sermon to the world by sitting under a tree". The sermon was about realities of life, time, progress, enlightenment, the ultimate conciousness about the forms of life and time.

 Lord Buddha highlighted about how everything is a Deja Vu. The way, life progresses is always in the form of a Deja Vu. In the journey of that Deja Vu, the mortal forms will always go through - "Dukkha (sufferings), Tanha (desire), Nirodha (renouncement), Magga (path to enlightenment)". It is an unending time loop for every life form in the universe. Sage Veda Vyasa also was born on July 5. If we study deeply the work of these two sages and also our Upanishads, Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagvad Gita, Manusmriti, Arthshastra, what we learn is not to dwell on past but to focus on the present, purify the thoughts, believe in faith and truth. This is because sun, moon and truth cannot be hidden and finally, faithfulness and contentment defines a strong society.

If today, Lord  Buddha was supposed to write a sermon again for the new dystopian times, very naturally the same teachings and sermons of July 5 will become very important. Our cultural past has certain things to offer in this Guru Purnima, which again has become important to come out of the new norm and form of dystopia that is looming above our mother Earth.

If Buddha writes a dystopian science fiction today, he will also refer to the literature of Hugo Gernsback's disaster science fictions of a time around 1926 which also ended with certain solutions. But Lord Buddha wont stop at that. He will be critical of the society which has created a peril for herself and mother earth through a technological change driven by a need of a desire. For that, Lord Buddha will also refer to Alvin Toffler's work - "Future Shock"  in 1970. Lord Buddha will not also shy away from quoting Aldous Huxley's work - "Brave New World" of 1932. Brave New World highlighted about the importance of existence of high and low end cultures for a dystopic situation.

However, the larger question is - "Will Lord Buddha in today's sermon focus on a cultural clash as a main determinant for the current or future dystopia"  or "Will Lord Buddha will in his sermon for today suggest that this clash is a deterrent for the humanity to come out of dystopia"?

My own sense is that Lord Buddha will believe in a culture of sustainability and will rather understand a context, challenge and come up with a sermon to follow as a salvation. He wont just stop at reading Eastern, Western, Middle Eastern, Persian, African, Mesopotamian or Oriental Literature. Understanding and action are more important than only reading in the current context of dystopia. Who knows more about it other than our - "Lord Buddha"  of Sarnath and Bodhgaya.

Hence, in an unending DejaVu of beginning is the end and end is the beginning, lets wait for our own Lord Buddha of 2020 to come out of dystopia. It will surely happen again as end is always a beginning.

A Failed Attempt To Record A Tagore Song

A celebratory birth day

- Celebrity, lord -

Could be a bridger of today's guantanamo bay

Morning, daily chores of meeting - the lord, bard, poet with his melody

In a juke box of continuity

Rising up and up all around

He had to rise, as everything is locked out

The present, past and future all bombarded him

Their love, gratitude, praise, symbolism

I kept on failing and failing

The bridge notes kept on going and coming

Sometimes it went out in the middle of MS Team

Frequently amidst in my Zoom sessions, watsapp work and capricious day dream

I hoped in the evening the bard and bridge will come

To find me and get a melody or bridge note which will be awesome

Well, the dusk passed

Digital gifts for the doyen rushed

Then came the evening

I strapped out of my work string

Got hold of the piano for the bridge and the bard

I failed and made the task to capture the poet very hard

He slipped by and told me that now its time for him

To go to MS Team

As I wandered, where is my bard and poet on his bird-day

I could finally feel him in my failed attempts to bridge the guantanamo bay

What do we want - A History of Dogmatism or A History of Sustainability (at the backdrop of COVID Outbreak)?

While the world is undergoing through a struggle and fight against a deadly virus COVID, it has to be remembered that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The struggles right now all across the world and in this Anthropocene are far too many - a) Struggle between validation and legitimacy, b) Struggle between winning and understanding, c) Struggle between the periphery of truth and legitimacy of politics, d) Struggle between unmasking of power and the hardship of creating solutions going beyond the rhetoric of proving and disproving everything by a genealogy of hypocrisy, power relations, e) Struggle between class struggle dogmas and enabling a discussion to win over dogmas and create solutions.

Beyond all of this, the humanity has created a struggle for the self existence through a claustrophobia of self destructive, perpetual, multiplicity of truth. Going beyond these possibilities of the struggle of existence, the civilization on the Earth is also facing a struggle between human kind, peace, mutual coexistence with nature, aliens, future machine and humanoid civilization.

Challenges of all the listed struggles are too many. This precisely requires a breaking away from all dogmatic pedagogies from any past, existing scientific disciplines and seek for the new truth. In such truth seeking, the past has to  be remembered. But there also has to be a delicate balance in how much of the past should be remembered and how much should be delved upon and over pondered to create new solutions for a new future. If this is not done, then I wonder whether we will really be able to create a history of sustainability.

It is an imperative at this juncture, therefore to start a truth seeking through validation going beyond too much of the dogmatism of being a critique, an argumentative, a debating and a skeptic being. At the core of all this, what it has done to the humanity and society at large is that - "We have converted ourselves constantly into a race of winning something over the other and that itself to me is being dogmatic". The need of the hour is therefore not to win a debate, an argument, a critique, or be a skeptical and create a new claustrophobia of dogmatism within a world which is already plagued with too many challenges.

The harbinger of peace making process needs to be practiced. It  requires the journey of truth seeking which can then also lead to the self - defeating question of - "What is the truth that we are seeking for?"
These leads to questions of - "What are the truths of the history of human civilization - Is it only a history of oppression, class conflicts, one winning over the other and fighting which has led to this situation or - Is it also a history of mutual coexistence, a fight against dogmatism, peaceful coexistence?" 

So, the prevailing question is which truth is being demanded by the society, institutions and which path do we want to follow?  In the past, too much of critique, debate, dogmatist thinking of class oppression by observing one reality definitely has exposed us to some realities - But the pertinent question is - In that truth seeking have we enabled a culture of winning or of practising peace making?

Isn't it so, that the culture of truth seeking in a way got disrupted, validation ended and then we have knowingly and unknowingly moved towards a culture of legitimizing a dogma, a hypocrisy. Well, it is actually an easy task. This is because, hypocrisy is natural, instinctive and banal at the same time. But a soulful search for truth should also move towards and then beyond such a banality and establish the new norms of validation of truth which are coexisting in a culture of complexity by understanding - "What is the value of such a truth?"

 The world needs it quickly, by going beyond the establishment of any dogma to immediately overcome the struggles mentioned as above. Otherwise, we will only write a history of dogma for the world and mother Earth and not a history of sustainability both for nature, humanity and civilization. The future will answer the course of such a history!