Pornography is the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction. What would be the reaction to the pornographic reality of the world? Does it turn me on? Or does it make me disgusted/guilty? Why has art been created? To stimulate imagination, to transform everyday human intervention, or to reflect the ordinary human experience or maybe related to it. Over the past three days, I have been indulgent in the pornographic reality of the world. And I am disturbed, shocked, helpless and maybe now even more aware of the finite condition of the human body and the infinite suffering of the human experience.
What is suffering? The first noble truth according to Buddha, Dukkha. Thus, translated would mean; to live is to suffer. I hope we all are on the same understanding as to how it is far more of a magnanimous concept compared to pain. During our lives, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees and variations of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, but nevertheless life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. But the question is why am I writing all this, is it just one of those nihilist outbursts in one’s life or did someone mug me or did my girlfriend leave me or am I broke. I guess these reasons would be too trivial for me to write on Suffering, which you and I have been inflicted from, the time we were inducted in the human species.
My work in the slums and the municipality education system had been exhilarating but at the same time has been an exposure to certain emotions that existed but I was indifferent to and one of them being the permanent existence of suffering. These past few days have been strange of sorts for me, ironic to the fact that it was the first time we had an extended weekend vacation, which innumerably meant some time to reflect, read and watch. However, at the end of these days, I feel sad, disturbed and helpless, and the 64th Republic Day has particularly been not so joyous for me. The reason being “Suffering”.
A philosophical novel of about 100 odd pages by a Nobel Prize Winner, a story about a young man’s quest and pursuit of enlightenment. I flowed with the story as if flowing with a peaceful river. As a man of this ‘Sansara’, perfectly stuck in its vagaries and uncertainties...Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha is an interesting and enlightening text in one’s fantasy, search and quest for bliss, enlightenment and nirvana. And accepting or at least being aware of the inevitability of SUFFERING.
Amour is an extraordinary movie, it is not at all enjoyable nor is it entertaining. Though after the two hours of torment, you would have never regretted watching something like this. Michael Haneke famous for raping the audience, in the literal sense of the word, hits the bull’s eye actually, with this immensely sad, depressing, melancholic tale of death and suffering. Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Anne becomes ill, and the two hours is a meditation of this blissful couple’s embracing of separation, old age, death, sickness, pain and SUFFERING. The film is not for the faint hearted nor is for the strong hearted, because the voyeuristic peep into the old couple’s tragedy, consumes you, torments you; and makes you feel guilty and hopeless of the finite inevitability of life. All of us have this really lofty romantic idea, of being with someone and growing old and dying together. This is your fantasy in the most visceral and profound ways ever portrayed on cinema. It will reassure you on the idea and importance of love and life, but more importantly will make you scared of the horrific fact of life, that one day all of us will have to die and our bodies will decompose, whether you die of an accident or starvation or in a bomb blast. I would certainly say old age isn't easy, or indeed it is a joke on our mortal creation. This is what Ebert had to say about the film, “This is now. We are filled with optimism and expectation. Why would we want to see such a film, however brilliantly it has been made? I think it's because a film like "Amour" has a lesson for us that only the cinema can teach: the cinema, with its heedless ability to leap across time and transcend lives and dramatize what it means to be a member of humankind's eternal audience.”
Khuki wants to live, wants to go to the hills, wants to get married, wants to play with children...but she cannot. She cannot because she has to look after her family. She is Durga, her father loves Yeats and Wordsworth...and Khuki lives in this planet of ours, where dreams and aspirations fall secondary to survival. But we are not alone...lonesome souls floating in the universe of existence, we are interconnected to the agencies and environment around us, and are in a symbiotic relationship. What if this symbiotic relationship is parasitic, the host destroyed by the virus. One of the most profoundly made Indian films, called Meghe Dhaka Tara by the master Ritwik Ghatak...shows a hauntingly musical portrait of a seamless endless universe, and a claustrophobic human existence. Meghe Dhaka Tara translated as The Cloud Capped Star is arguably Ghatak’s (a confirmed alcoholic) finest films,The Cloud-Capped Star is a dark melodrama set in late Fifties Calcutta about a refugee family and the struggle of Nita, the oldest daughter, to keep them afloat and together. It is a bitter critique of the family as institution and also of the harsh social and economic conditions arising from Partition - the trauma that defined Ghatak as an artist. With its sparse script, audacious expressionist soundtrack and a startling cinematic elegance, The Cloud-Capped Star is undoubtedly a modern masterpiece - infinitely compassionate and humane while remaining resolutely unsentimental. It is that cry of Khuki in the hills, “I want to live” which echoed in my mind for quite some time after being witness to such a film. Death and suffering are inevitable, I hope or assume that concept is crystal clear.
Back to Buddha, I came across this wonderfully created manga on Buddha by the Japanese artist Osamu Tezuka. Go to your nearest bookstore, and you can see the beautiful and peculiar interpretation of Buddha by Tezuka. I am not much of a graphic novel person but intend to read some in the future. However, an anime was made based on Tezuka’s creation called Buddha: The Grand Departure. What fascinated me was the gritty humane treatment of Buddha. The animation feature covers the early phase of Buddha’s life, from his birth to his onset of the journey of enlightenment. The questions which grappled Buddha in his early years, are indeed profound but also timeless. The question of Suffering, Life and Death. What is remarkable about Tezuka’s manga is the imaginative retelling of Buddha’s life, where one does not only explore Buddha but also many other fictional creations and characters who are bound by the futility of birth, destiny, fate, death and the futility of violence. It is deeply moral but never ventures out to be moralistic. It is serious but playfully serious, Tezuka adopts the middle path.
What we may need maybe some divine help, some benediction.
She is benediction
She is addicted to thee
She is the root connection
She is connecting with he
(oh God I fell for you ...)
The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face
The mystery of childbirth, of childhood itself
Grave visitations
What is it that calls to us?
Why must we pray screaming?
Why must not death be redefined?
We shut our eyes we stretch out our arms
And whirl on a pane of glass
An afixiation a fix on anything the line of life the limb of a tree
The hands of he and the promise that s/he is blessed among women.
(oh God I fell for you ...)
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