Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Why I am just trying to be a Zero and not a Writer or Author or Researcher?

The number zero is very interesting. It is a sense of completion, a feeling of timelessness, and fallibility of being incomplete with mistakes. Every time, Lucy, Shapno, Aman, Hema and others are born zero becomes important. It is also a circle of life and completion at the same time. It is this circular journey but not an economy which tells me that I am just striving to be a zero but not a researcher, writer or author.

This feeling of zero and not a writer or author comes up when I realise everytime that texts are nothing but an amalgamation of several indiscernible voices. A space called literature is nothing but to invent these voices and hence the space is neuter. A similar notion is also associated with zero. Zero is always a neuter full of discernible voices to be heard and then sung in their own harmonies. It is a neuter, as it is a space where every subject and predicate, identities of a text escapes and gets lost. In that zone of neuter, the body which creates the text is also even lost in eternity. The tissues of the body are created and cremated at the same time in that space.

Everytime, this loss of text happens, there is a fall of a writer or author or researcher followed by the rise of a zero. The feeling of this rise of zero in the gender of text which is neuter can be traced back historically. In primitive societies, narrative and text were never undertaken by a person but by a performing speaker. At the end of the middle ages, with the advent of French rationalism, English empiricism, personal faith of reformation, suddenly it was one human being who became more important than the zero or the neuter. As a result of that advent of reformation, author and writer suddenly became important in literary history, biographies of writers, magazine interviews, private journals. Literature and text transformed from a neuter to a world centering around the writer and author. So therefore, explanation of the work started relying on the writer and the author who produced it and delivered confidence about it.

Hence, the empire of author and writer started growing. However, people like Mallarme (in France), Proust consistently tried to blur the lines and relationships between the author, writer and the texts, imageries of the work. Proust reversed this by making his life into a work of novel rather than  a novel of work into life. In doing that, language as a system also needed to be broken to create the neuter zero and imageries. Hence, abrupt violation of expected meanings of texts started happening. Linguistic importance of the texts of author, writer needed to be broken to create this surrealism in the neuter dimension of texts for imageries. Hence, the role of language is to just often create a subject and as the subject ends, the language should end and visual imageries and zero should begin. Hence, to strive to write a modern text is to push one self in a journey to completely isolate the work from the act of writing to a visual imagery deposited in the collective account of the readers. The readers can use the account in their own ways and can also interpret the account as per their own perspectives and needs.

Thus if a zero can finally happen with someone, then every work becomes a past of the present and just like a relationship of antecedence which a father or mother maintains with his or her child. So writing is just a one time act and the writer is just a one time actor. An author or writer is a subject for one time whose act ends with every work and then creates a predicate in the next work to be left in the custody of readers. With every such act, there is a shift in the power from the writer or author to the reader through a set of visual imageries creating a space of many dimensions. If this happens, then the journey of zero and completion, circle of life completes. Otherwise, everytime, a writer is combining all forms of genre, writing, countering and not countering oppositions, criticisms and not sustaining oneself with just one of such writings. So, does the act of becoming a zero means - "A release of humors, sentiments, naiveties, passions, impressions and an enormous sun from where all the energy comes out but the release has no halt or end to it?"

Zero and the neuter is therefore supreme and a book can only imitate that zero in an infinite loop of an energy coming from the sun within. Once, therefore a zero is established, a writer and author collapses like a star, the need to claim and decipher a text becomes useless. Such deciphering exercise actually stops the text and imagery then in the minds of the reader. Let the critic and reader conquer those imageries, texts and the zero and if after everything if required the author can be discovered. It is more important to traverse the space of such imageries, neuter zero rather than penetrating it. If such an act can happen, then only literature can liberate an activity and a secret by refusing any meaning to zero. It is almost like refusing the existence of god, reason, science and law with a continuous existential crisis. The true locus of this entire journey is therefore reading and zero and not the existence of the author or writer.

Well, investigation of this journey reveals some case studies in my mind based on some of the current readings of last four to six months. Unilateral understanding of characters, imageries instead of language happens a lot in Greek tragedies. In these tragedies, a text is linguistically not perfect but is a set of multiple writings, imageries, collection of a multiplicity of dialogues in the minds of the reader. It also happened in the case of - "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. However, in past one week, as a reader I got it most from a book called - "Man Eater" by Eka Kurniawan. A supernatural tale of murder, desire and crime poignantly creates a Zero even at the end of the reading. After completion of the book, one can easily say, that modern writing is all about establishment of a Zero and only aims at the birth of the reader with a blurring of the author or writer. 

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Marvelling in DC: Celebrating Joker in Diwali



Yes, it is again the same time of annual celebration of light, smoke and pollution. Perpetually, we are celebrating these three facets of an urban Delhi life consistently since last so many years. We have got used to the usual clamour and cacophony from all corners to stop this and come out of this deadlock. 

However this year it got a little different and an irrate, chagrin,  delirious tinge to it for me. While the AQI climbed up from 160 to close to 1000 from the noon to the night of Diwali, my delusion and state of an incoherence increased by almost a similar pattern on the next day. No, it was  not the impact of PM 2.5 on a physiological system. 

But a larger causal effect of this impact came from Todd Philip's Joker. Joachim Phoenix through Arthur Flake established frames which kept on reminding me about a book called - "DC Comics versus Marvel Comics" written by Ron Marz and Peter David between April to May 1996. In the book, batman wins over captain america and in a similar way while I was immersed in the trembling, jarring, coloured, darkish chromes of Joker, it only reminded me of a win of DC over the billion dollar weapons of mass destruction of Marvel.

While the ballet and contemporary body gestures of Joker in the silhouette of changing lights and frames of Modern Times in a luxury theatre of the bourgeois established in the social tensions of Gotham was a straight tight slap on our face, the frames strengthened the impact of cinema on us. 

As an immersive experience of cinema, I could not stop myself from loosing out from being dropped in the vacuum of a rabbit hole. While, the insanity of Arthur through a constant repression of a system on him was rising, the normalcy of conspicuous consumption of Modern Times by consuming Charles Chaplin through their laughter was also going up. 

The rise in the laughter however could not dominate the irate cry of the subalterns in the streets of Gotham as an outcome of the so called civilisational progress. The arrival of insanity through Arthur Flek in the minds of the society was like a definite progression of a meandering path of a basist and a drummer in a rock band. The cinema frames in a truthful, honest way showed this meandering progression of the meandering insanity of modern civilisation through a constant retrospective feeling and aura of 1960s, 70s and 80s. Role of media, politics, class consumption and the innate darkness of it was reflected and also stabbed on us intentionally by Joker. 

Hence, the starking vividity of the rise of such an insanity, incongruous mind state is also celebrated through the rise of Joker on the bonnet of the car bounded by a proletariat, subaltern crowd struggling to create a change to an existing history and story written against them. So, radical maddening eccentricity itself becomes a normalcy to them in such a moment and Joker rises up with a smile and turns back to the crowd in the visual frame. But Joker actually smiled back at the fact that while we are again annually celebrating smoke, light and pollution there are villages where they are not there at the same time due to absence of everything which creates them.

 The smile of Joker was meant to remind us that while we grow, develop, win nobel prizes, climate change continues, species deplete, inequality rises, abuses of all forms continue along with ethical bankrupcies in  varied forms under the garb of normalcy. Therefore, while we strive for peace by celebrating Gandhiji's 150th birthday, America celebrates , announces the abolishment of ISIS in Syria.  

Yes, Joker through delusion, crime, thriller, darkness showed us to smile at each of these facts of life on the planet. And, Marvel didnot Marvel, this battle through a cinema called Joker was again won by DC just like in April - May 1996.

Monday, September 23, 2019

The Puzzles of Energy Trilemma



Views are Personal - Dr. Anandajit Goswami


The Energy Trilemma is a word which includes a dilemma in it. Essentially, the dilemma is to ensure human progress and meet civilizational needs by balancing the needs of energy equity and environmental sustainability.


If we look onto the three planks of the energy trilemma viz. energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability, the puzzle will become clearer. Any country, for the betterment of quality of life will need energy which is clean and secure for a long time in the future.


Hence, for progress, development of human society, energy security is a must. This energy security definitely also imbibes the quality of energy which is being supplied. To give an analogy, India can only grow and develop when all the 10 crore rural households  are provided with a clean energy for cooking like LPG in a sustained way for a long term. However, energy security is not enough.


The sufficiency condition of the energy trilemma comes from the remaining two planks of - energy equity and sustainability. The moment these two planks are introduced into the  energy trilemma definitional frame, the picture becomes a little murky. 


By imposing these two essential planks into the energy trilemma, it is ensured that questions of energy justice and social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability are plugged in within the energy discourse. Energy justice, equity and the social, economic and environmental domains of sustainability are quite complicatedly inter related.


Hence,  for defining human progress, it is essential that any country grows, meets her energy needs by balancing the pressing questions of energy equity and justice and addresses the social, economic and environmental domains of sustainability. Justice is an ideal and abstract term and takes a long time to achieve. 


Moreover, justice and all domains of sustainability are very much perspective dependent. It is being guided by the existing and futuristic policies of different agents in a society and how it shapes up in future.  In an anthropocentric world of today which started with a Descartian thinking, it is essential that the planks of energy trilemma be solved. Some of the principles of solving this can be borrowed from various ecological movements, environmental justice related movements across the world complemented by local solutions.


A country like India, which stands  very low at 109 in World Energy Council’s Energy Trilemma Index has a long way to go to solve the puzzles of Energy Trilemma . It will  go a long way and take some time and tangible actions beyond rhetoric in ensuring that India also stands together with developed countries like Switzerland and much above countries like Gabon, Namibia, South Africa, Thailand, China, Brazil which are all doing much better than India in the context of World Energy Council’s Energy Trilemma Index as of now. A country which created the birth of decentralized Gram Swaraj movement by the Father of the Nation  only has a bright future ahead to solve this puzzle and move upward in this index.





'Sustainability with music: What does Bach’s Musical Offering tell us about Sustainability?'


Disclaimer: Views are personal




One of my favourite historical references to understand sustainability is linked to the story of Bach’s Musical Offering. Bach had once made an impromptu visit to King Frederick, the Great of Prussia. On his visit he was requested to improvise on a theme presented by the King to him. Bach had no clue about the theme. Bach composed a musical offering and made fifteen two part inventions. These two part inventions were later written by Lewis Carroll in 1895. While explaining these inventions Carroll referred to Achilles and Tortoise from Zeno. Here in turn, I am borrowing it from Carroll and Bach. What did these inventions say about sustainability?
The inventions essentially talked about reasoning and then reasoning (about reasoning) and a reasoning about (reasoning about reasoning). The loop of musical reasoning continued this way in Bach’s musical offering to King Frederick.  Lewis Carroll proved that if we use an infinite regress of reasoning then reasoning actually becomes impossible. Today, often the notions of sustainability and the irresponsible actions taken by various sections of the society towards denial of climate, ecologically, culturally, sociologically and politically responsible actions are defended by means of an infinite regress of reasoning which was explained by Bach and later on by Lewis Carroll. A pattern of this infinite regress of reasoning by different groups of countries exists clearly in climate negotiations and sustainability related discourses.
Prof. Albert Einstein said that we cannot have the same way of thinking, reasoning to solve the problems which created them. Similarly, when we are at the brink of an anthropocene driven by human materialism, consumerism and capitalism interfering in the natural processes destroying the mother earth, the importance of breaking the inertia of infinite regress of reasoning has to stop. Sustainability can then only be attained on this planet at the backdrop of an anthropocentric culture of complexity.





Thursday, September 19, 2019

She came like a birthday story!

Two years back like every year
She arrived and the year was quite rare
It was another birthrate
The same fate
As I thought
And lost and caught
In the cobweb of the same date
The same two numbers at the same rate
Yet it was different
A new number date
Started but still yet
She was direct in my cobweb
Took away all the ebb
Swaying and slaying the faith
On the corpse of the day weaning hate
Emotions, did I see you for the first time ever
This way never
Hesitant, diffident, far and straight
Yes it was the story of a date
The same birthday of many stories not to rate

Friday, August 2, 2019

We are living in a fiction?

We always live in a fiction:

Fiction is any literary narrative in the form of prose or verse. Fiction is a process of invention rather than being an explanation of events that actually happened. Fiction denotes an agglomeration of narratives which are written in prose and sometimes used synonymously for novel.

Literary prose narratives are the ones where biographical, historical and contemporary facts are referred and defined as – “fictional biography”, “historical or nonfiction novel”. Literary critics and philosophers have always explored the truth value of a fiction. They have tried to engage themselves in a special world created by an author. The world can be also analogous to the real world but it has its own settings, beings and mode of coherence. Often, fiction is  seen as a form of emotive language.

Fictional sentences are meaningful according to the rules of ordinary, nonfictional discourse: however it follows the conventions mentioned by an author and readers of a work of fiction. Fictions are not necessarily assertions of facts. Hence they need not be subject to the criterion of truth and falsity which applies to sentences in a nonfictional discourse. The speech act theory suggests that a fictional writer only pretends to make assertions about what he or she or anybody asserts to be true. The concept of fictive utterances include genres of literature like – poems, dramas and narratives. A novel is made up of fictional utterances. Modern critics of prose fiction create distinctions between fictional scenes, persons, events and dialogues that any narrator describes about their own assertions of the world. The assertions of the narrator have to be explicit. Assertions and claims by Tolstoy at the end of War and Peace are often implied, inferable from the control of fictional characters and plots of the narrative. These are often assertions of the author and seem to be true about the world and tries to relate to the moral world of actual experience. These assertions can also be linked to the belief systems of the reader. It is also linked to the moral experience, interpretation and acceptability of the reader. Belief systems in fiction can be explored through S.T. Coleridge’s description of reader’s attitude as a – “Willing Suspension of disbelief”.

Review of exploration of theories dealing with the criterion of truth in fiction can be traced back to Monroe C. Beardsley’s work. Jacques Derrida and his followers criticised the notion of truth in a fiction by saying that the binary notion of “truth and false” in a fiction is one of the metaphysical presuppositions of Western Thoughts. Relationship of fiction to the real world is also being explored by Peter Lamarque, Stein Haugom Olsen. Catherine Gallagher explores the concept of fiction in the larger literary history. All of these explorations question the Western binary presuppositions of fiction as true and false and presents a multifarious world within the binaries of true and false.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

বাজেট ২০১৯ : নবায়নযোগ্য অর্থনীতি? ডঃ আনন্দজিৎ গোস্বামী, মতামত ব্যক্তিগত

কিছুদিন আগেই পৃথিবীর সবচেয়ে বড় গণতন্ত্র তার চওড়া বাহুবল নিয়ে ঘোষণা করল ভোটের পরিনাম। তার পরেই এল বাজেট। একটি ছায়াছবির দুটি টানটান দৃশ্য একে ওপরের পর। জনগনের জন্য এই ছবিটির দ্বিতীয় দৃশ্যটি নবায়নযোগ্য উর্যা ও তৎকালীন অর্থনীতির কি কোনো যোগাযোগ স্থাপন  করল? চলুন আমরা চট করে দ্বিতীয় দৃশ্যটি দেখে আসি।

ফ্ল্যাশ ব্যাকে আমরা দেখতে পাচ্ছি একটি কেন্দ্রীয় ঘোষণা, যেখানে বলা হচ্ছে যে ২০২৫ সালের মধ্যে ভারতীয় জিডিপি ৫ ট্রিলীয়ন ডলার মূল্য ছুতে চলেছে। খুব সহজেই দৃশ্যটির এই খাঁচাটি আমাদের মনে একটি মধুর ভবিষ্যতের অবয়ব সৃষ্টি করে। সেটি আরো গভীর হয় যখন আমরা জানতে পারি যে আমাদের মধ্যবিত্ত আশাগুলোকে সরকার সাজিয়ে তুলছে আরো বেশি সহজে নতুন বাড়ি, পথ, বিভিন্ন যোগাযোগ আর যোগান ভিত্তিক প্রকল্পের মাধ্যমে। একটি ধীরে চলা অর্থনীতির, আর্থসামাজিক স্বপ্নকে  বাঁচিয়ে রাখতে গেলে দরকার - যোগান সৃষ্টি করা, প্রকল্প তৈরী করা, ধনীদের থেকে কর নিয়ে নতুন প্রকল্প করা, মধ্যবিত্তদের সহজ সুদে ছাড়মুক্ত ভাবে ঋণ দিয়ে বাড়ি কিনতে বলা। এই বাজেট সেটি করেছে। আমাদের বলা হয়েছে যে এই স্বপ্ন বেচে থাকবে বিদেশ থেকে আরো সহজে ঋণ নিয়ে, ব্যাংক গুলো তে আরো টাকা ঢেলে যাতে তারা ননপারফরমিং এ্যাসেট নামক ব্যধিটির হাত থেকে রেহাই পেতে পারে। টাকার এই সূচি প্রয়োগ রাজশ্ম ঘাটতিকে কখনই গ্রস ডোমেষ্টিক উৎপাদনের  ৩.৩% এর বেশি বাড়তে দেবে না যতই চাহিদা বা উৎপাদন বাড়ুক। এই প্রতিশ্রুতি ও দেওয়া হয়েছে। এতদূর অবধি সবকিছু খুব মধুর। কিন্তু হঠাৎ মনে সংশয় হল? কি সেই সংশয়? এই চাহিদা যত বাড়বে, বিদ্যুতের
 চাহিদা বাড়বে। তার ওপর সরকার বৈদ্যুতিক 
গাড়ির ওপর ও কর কমিয়ে দিয়েছে। সেত আর বাড়িয়ে দেবে বিদ্যুতের চাহিদা। কোথা থেকে আসবে এই নতুন বিদ্যুত
। নবায়নযোগ্য উর্যা থেকে না প্রাকৃতিক গ্যাস থেকে। ২১০০০ মেগাওয়াট উর্যা প্রাকৃতিক গ্যাস থেকে আসার কথা।কিন্ত তার মধ্যে ১৪০০০ মেগাওয়াট তো ননপারফরমিং এ্যাসেট (এনপিএ) হয়ে পড়ে আছে।বাকি উর্যাশক্তি তার সম্পূর্ণ ক্ষমতা নিয়ে চলতে পারছে না। তাই আরো বাড়ছে এনপিএ। এই লোকসান ধরা এবং দেখা দিচ্ছে "গেল" এর মতো সংন্থার মার্কেটিং আর ডিস্রট্রিবুসন মার্জিনে। 

তাহলে এই বিদ্যুত কি সৌরশক্তি থেকে আসবে।সেখানেও তো এক ব্যধি এসে পড়েছে। ১০০ গিগাওয়াট সৌরশক্তি দ্ধারা চাহিদা মেটাবার লক্ষ্ম্যতে ও তো একই ব্যধির ভাটা। ১০০ র মধ্যপথেও আমরা পৌছাতে পারিনি। তার মানে এই বাজেটের সপ্ন পরিপূরণ মানে আরো কয়লা জালানো ২০২৫ অবধি - যখন আমরা ৫ ট্রিলিয়ন ডলারে গিয়ে পৌছব। তার মানে কি আরো দূষণ  আমাদের মাথায়, হ্নদয় আর ঝাপসা নিলয়ে।

হঠাৎ করে সপ্নের অবয়ব ভেঙে যায় আর কবির সুমনের গানের কিছু লাইন প্রথম দুটি দৃশ্যের
 জায়গায় ভেসে ওঠে।লাইনগুলি হল - "এই যে দেখছি আবছায়া টাই লাগছে ভালো, ঘরের কোনে একটি মাত্র  মোমের আলো, কার তাতে কি আমরা যদি এই আকালে ও স্বপ্ন দেখি"

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Baari kinte parina

Ekta mukhorochok mukhosh ache
Kotojon koto manusher kaache
Kintu aami kinte parina
Kenar doradori korte chaina
Jaano ki shei mukhosh
Jaar na ache bhalobasha na akrosh
She keu noi shudhu amader rini baari
Na hoi shoth na kore charachari
Tai o amay bhalobasheni
O amay charte chaini
Aami baari kinte parina
Aaj r mukhosh chaina
Mukhosh cherei to pelam shur
Shei torite disha pelam bohudur

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Ochena Raajpoth

Jabo ochenay
Haariye chokher bhashay
Shunno ei rajpothe
Eka hobo ekisathe
Rajpoth e nei signal
Chaaridike shadhinotar aal
Hothat rastay bondhu takay
Nibhrite sritike bhabay
Hatchani dei ek sriti
Eka cholar hok biroti

Hothat rastay bondhu takay
Nibhrite sritike bhabay ......

Uri Balakot

Uri balakot Rashtro
Teente orthobhari Shobdo
Teenjonetei thake epare opare
Kokhono moner bhetore
kokhono shimanar dhare
Shob kichu kei korchi obhinondon
Aamar mogoj r kolome r nei nondon
Karon aami toh shadhin rashtrer nagorik
Shadhinota shob kichur poreo shudhui Aakhorik
Aami r jaante chaina rashtrer dhormo
Tar aache ek odbhut niyom aaj ebong
ajonmo
Jonmo jonmantor ekhon tai
Aami dekhte pai shontransher dokan
Moner konete uki maare tader kolotan
Oder boli kor tora chup shobai
O bole raat bole jai jai
Toke niye jai

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Golir cheler kaaler akar

attirish ta bochor periye hothat janlam
Je kon choyate moner ronggulo ke ami karlam
Baar baar ami harlam
Kintu protyek baar here giyeo bujhlam
Je ori modhey lukiye thaka jiboner poromuthsho
Poromangsho
Oshonkho
dushprapyo kichu aloysho
 r adorsho
 Jara baare baare amake amaderke
 ei shobyotar parabare
Hariye diye hariye niye geche ekadhare
 Kono ek ochena nodir tire
Jei nodite doob diye aami tule aani amar moner lukono pathor
Shei pathor aami dekhte pai shomosto aakhyane jaar naame ei shohor
Shohor r tomar ei ushnotar rong
Dripto, shotej r rong berong
Aami aaki tumi aako ro kotoke
Erokom Boshe boshe aakche
Kaal er aakar tai protidin eibhabei paltacche

Golir cheler kaaler akar

Attirish ta bochor periye hothat janlam
Je kon choyate moner ronggulo ke ami karlam
Baar baar ami harlam
Kintu protyek baar here giyeo bujhlam
Je ori modhey lukiye thaka jiboner poromuthsho
Poromangsho
Oshonkho
dushprapyo kichu aloysho
 R adorsho
 Jara baare baare amake amaderke
 ei shobyotar parabare
Hariye diye hariye niye geche ekadhare
 Kono ek ochena nodir tire
Jei nodite doob diye aami tule aani amar moner lukono pathor
Shei pathor aami dekhte pai shomosto aakhyane jaar naame ei shohor
Shohor r tomar ei ushnotar rong
Dripto, shotej r rong berong
Aami aaki tumi aako ro kotoke
Erokom Boshe boshe aakche
Kaal er aakar tai protidin eibhabei paltacche