Free Thinking

So, here’s me, a member in moderator-approved standing, of an internet association of free thinkers, yclept Bengaluru FreeThinkers, thinking, in a reasonably orderly fashion, about that name. And that’s when I start to get confused.

I should probably explain.

See, the word free, and its various avatars, has for me anyway, implications of anarchic, chaotic carelessness; the antithesis of rationality which, much like this sentence, requires a degree of control and containment.

Now, the Bengaluru FreeThinkers, (BFTs), as educated, sophisticated, and articulate, as rational a group as one could hope for, has, quite rightly, taken up the matter of the spate of ideologically motivated crimes and misdemeanors targeting comment and critique of cultural sentiments in India. Any attempts to stifle contrary opinions are given a respectful hearing and refutation, if called for, is stated in measured, quite often grammatically comprehensible terms; all in all, a rational group. I am but a foot soldier in that army. However, and in the time, and battle, honored tradition of the soldier, the grunt, I have a cavil. No, it’s actually more of a bitch, bordering on a moan.

And it is this.

The folks using sharp objects and projectile weapons to object to the opinions of other folks, are doing so because their sentiments, and I’m quoting here, have been hurt. Put another way they are reacting to an external stimulus with snake-brain logic, choosing fight rather than flight to a perceived threat. The actions and methodologies of that reaction are not, or at least seem not be, susceptible to any sort of higher order thinking. Higher order thinking, the kind that imposes reason and regulation on the process, would show that the control of sentiment and its sensitivities is necessary in any social structure with pretensions of equity and fairness in its governance. In short, the snake brain is being given the freedom of its simplistic, no grey scale differentiations, choices. Thinking, such as it might be, is predicated on that heady, adrenaline pumping impulse to fight. Free at last, great god a’mighty, free at last. Bunches and bunches of free thinking happening. Rationality and its needs are given short shrift. Blood is spilled. Free thinking.

See where I’m going with this?

question Quora.com - Do we Indians take offence too easily?

Arwn - "Hmm let's see now...how do I answer this without giving offense?"
Interlocutor - "Isn't that, in itself an answer?"
A - "You know, I'm slightly offended that you can be so easily satisfied with that facile a response to that large an issue, an issue that is getting in the way of consensus which is..."
I - "Okay, alright, what's the long, (I'm probably going to regret that word), version."
A - "Well, since you asked, First..."
I - "Merciful Heavens."
A - "Complex questions require..."
I - "I give."
A - "First. We have to deal with the issue of the rather judgemental 'too easily'. It would be fair to ask, how much is just enough offense? And who decides the limits? And can we be sure that the limits mandated are not crossing anyone's differently defined limits? As you can see, not one of those lends itself to facility of response. Embedded in them is a workable definition of 'offense'. One man, woman's offense may well be another's ritual. For example, there are folks, to include myself, who find the sound of electronically enhanced, megawatt speakered, protestations of piety, as is practiced by more than one religion, to be intrusive and not a little offensive. However to say so would instantly hurt the feelings of the speakers and listeners of those modes of faith. And hurt feelings seem to be justification enough for violence and hurt bodies. Then there's...
I - "Okay, point made, but, even long answers have conclusions. Could we skip to that now? I've got a bus to catch."
A - "What all of that suggests to me is that the question is not one of graduated hurt feelings as much as it is about what one does about those feelings. It seems to me that hate speech ought to be as protected as its corollary the sermonized moralities that pass for religious instruction, with, the important codicil that the speaker is then responsible for the actions and attitudes that are a result 0f that speech. Liability laws come to mind. It should be noted the issue is not limited to India. It seems that anywhere, and any when, religion enters into the social milieu, feelings get pinned to shirt sleeves and thus are susceptible to the rough and tumble jostle of the crowded path ways of Belief and Faith, (n.b. please, upper case).
I - "Check please."

How to be Indian

I’ve been doing the BJP, the Sangh Parivar, The RSS, and the VHP, the entire saffron hued crew, an injustice. I mean, there I was thinking that Conservative India, ConIndia, (for brevity), (I swear), didn’t care about the likes of me and my fellow travelers, oh, call us Modern India, (Mo’India), ( ‘cuz... you know).

Turns out They, ConIndia, care so much about me, and mine, that they have gone to the trouble of codifying the3 millennia of human experience and curiosity that is the heritage of this sub-continent into sound-bite capsules of the rules of How To Be Indian; a soon-to-be Constitutional Amendment. Wasn’t that thought...consid... nice, there, that’s the ticket, wasn’t that nice of them? I mean, that’s a whole lot of pondering and cogitating, a whole lot of mustache sucking, logic bending, and thought mastication. Okay, not much ratiocinating, but hey, who needs logic when near divinity is sufficient to recognize the truth that is so evident.   Although, and I have this on good authority, (it came in a Saffron envelope and on trident water marked stationary, snail mail, of course), that the near divinity business is being re-assessed at the highest level and in close consultation with the Divine (in camera, no minutes). We can, I’m informed, expect a pronouncement on a cabinet re-shuffle that may reassign hitherto Divine capabilities, any day now.  I am further informed that although the Rules suggest near divinity to all life forms, it has been Decided that Some are more near than others, and that they, ConIndia, number among themselves Very High Persons who can be presumed to be adjacent to the Divine Spirit (DS) and hence unquestionable. The Official Notification ends with the, I’m assuming rhetorical, question, asking if we, Mo’India, cannot trust said VHPs, well then what would be the point?

I’m assuming the question is rhetorical because ConIndia is on record as not liking it, at all, when their, I beg pardon, Their, pronouncements are, um, wondered about. They get quite miffed and start breathing heavily; hot air emanates from Their Olympian, just-across-the-street-from-The-Divine-Abode nostrils and is a major contributing factor to global warming.  Hence my assumption – a small, one might even say servile, attempt to reduce my carbon foot print; and not, in any way, an attempt to criticize the VHP or Their raison d’être.

I mean, look what happened when Ms. De, a columnist and commentator, used her allotment of 140 characters to question the validity of a ConIndia propagated ordinance in the State of Maharashtra. This ConIndia ruled state does so in partnership with the Shiv Sena, Cultural Guardians and particularly close neighbors to the Divine Abode, who took umbrage at an electronic remark made by the unabashedly opinionated Ms. De’s that could, if one were terminally Sensitive, construed to be an insult. Said umbrage led to heavy breathing in front of Ms. De’s thankfully fortified abode, (n.b. lc). The resultant localized rise in atmospheric pressure(s) led to documented and Officially Noted unseasonable, crop damaging, rains and hail in parts of India that thought the Shiv Sena were being a little silly. If that wasn’t a Divine warning, what was it? Needless to say any caviling about ConIndia interpretations of how to be Indian have ceased and any laws and regulations promulgated on those interpretations stand and no back talk.

Just sayin’.

Amaryllis, My Jeans

ed a pair of jeans the other day. It was a melancholy day. Those jeans had been with me for a long while; old friends, us, the jeans and me. We had built up a relationship with each other, over the years. The inside of those jeans had intimate, – not excluding body fluids and ejections – caring, acquaintance, of the outside of me, from waist to ankle. I shall miss my Amaryllis, my jeans.

But, I am not here to bury Amaryllis, but to praise her.

And yes, it has to be ‘her’, she, decidedly, emphatically, almost but not quite, homophobic-ly, female. I mean, given the amount of in ‘n’ out we have indulged in over the years it couldn’t be otherwise; not to mention the aforementioned body fluids. I mean, I’d feel silly saying things like – ‘Just a minute. Lemme just climb into Albert or Bob, or Charlie’. Although, that last, that, could come in handy if the jeans serve best by remaining in the closet. Climbing into Amaryllis however, increases my street cred.

But, I digress from my avowed purpose, which some of you might find odd. I mean, who does that? Eulogize a pair of jeans?

I do, that’s who.

Amaryllis, my jeans, in all her, de Nime-ness gave the only unconditional love I have ever received. Now, before you jump to unwarranted conclusions, let me set the record straight. I have, and have had, the usual complement of family, lovers, wives, children, pets, friends and enemies in my life. And, they have all loved, (for a given value of love, of one kind or the other), me. But none of that love was unconditional. And, I can prove it. Wipe clean your greasy, dirty, just-wrestled-with-a-rusted-on-bolt hands, on any of the above mentioned. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Didn’t work out all that well, did it? And there you are; conditional love. ‘I love you dear but not if you wipe that filth on me.’ Amaryllis never, ever, said that to me. Not once, and, there have been over the years many occasions when she could have, and she didn’t. Grease, mud, dog snot, infant incontinence, inebriated incontinence, you name it, and none of it mattered to her; I asked, she gave.

To my shame, I didn’t always treat Amaryllis well. I have, regrettably, put her away, hard used, un-brushed, and wet, and not given it another thought and yet, I asked and she gave. I have, unforgivably, lost, misplaced, her. Investigation showed, but could not prove, that others, (significant or otherwise), conspired with minor (but not insignificant – see infant incontinence) others to kidnap, from her usual crumbled abode in the corner of my closet, and banish Amaryllis to durance vile in the attic. The conspirators had assumed that I would...you know, out of sight therefore mind, sort of thing. But, my sin lies in not having noticed her absence for the 6 long months of her incarceration.

 Her acceptance of me; from the first moment her parts opened to receive mine to the subsequent cradling of essential, precious, some might say defining, parts of me, she accepted me. Certainly there was a period of adjustment when she was new, but that is to be expected. Any relationship, in its nascent stages, has to undergo a period, sometimes more than one, of adjustment and accommodation, insult and remedy. That’s called growth. Unlike others I could name – but choose not to, discretion, valor, and all that - Amaryllis grew with due regard for me and my needs. Her knees stretched just enough to make it unnecessary for me to indulge in that utterly self-conscious hitch of the trouser legs prior to sitting.

I could go on.

But,

I must grieve.

Marital Modifications

Okay then, my name is, as you may have guessed, Undertoad, D Undertoad and I’m from San Diego which is in the southwest corner of Southern California, for the geographically challenged among you, just before the geography turns into Mexico. I’m neither tall nor blonde, and, to make matters considerably more confusing, I enunciate my consonants, fer sure, fer sure.

I used to be tall and blond. 6’4” of blond surfer flesh; riding the waves, flipping forelocks and all.

I am not now tall and not blond and not in San Diego

The tale of why I look the way I do and where I am is a sad one.

At least, I think so.

You might not.

I look the way I do now, because my wife… my ex-wife, had me altered. Tall blondness, she explained, later, after I came out of the anesthesia; she said tall and blond did not match her curtains, her bed spreads, the décor of ‘our’ (hah)  house. Turns out, her plastic surgeon was cheaper than getting the house re-done, or some such. I wasn’t really listening. All I know is that I had fallen asleep on the way to her plastic surgeon’s office – she’d said something about needing her super-structure tweaked and wanted me to accompany her – and dutiful husband that I am …was...  I did. Anyway, I fell asleep in the car. (Now that I think about it, that sandwich had tasted kinda funny.)  and when I woke, there I was, a bespoke, long haired leaping gnome, lean, mean and no-need for sunscreen; albeit quite  a bit shorter than I used to be. It seems She-whose voice-is-all-terrible. all 4’10” of her, had decreed that my 6’4” tallness was playing hob with her neck, all that craning upwards to glare at me was keeping her chiropractor in the high tax brackets. I’m not entirely sure how she convinced the surgeon to breach all medical ethics and…oh, wait… tweaked…superstructure damn, I thought that meant minor surgical procedure… and, as I now recall, the interior decorator had been gay. (Oh man, I wish I’d figured that out earlier, the divorce wouldn’t have been nearly as expensive.) Anyway...I don’t fully understand that neck strain business. I mean, I seem to remember spending most of my married life on my knees, especially when I was with She-who-must-be-obeyed. Oh okay, I kinda liked the dog collar and leather bra/thong outfit that she insisted I wear. but still…   And, I have to admit that the bed spread did look much better with me on it; my naked self, my brown, uptown, rampant self, in stunningly ginormous contrast to the pastels and delicate shapes that are, by state law, part of décor palette of the SoCal suburban housewi…domestic engineer. In Re: ginormous. I’m not entirely sure, my memory is a bit hazy on the issue, but, I think that some of my previous height, and girth, had been used to add some length and substance to parts of me I don’t recall being as fat or as long, or as dark. A pre-operative pink smallness is what I seem to remember. I imagine the present pigmentation was part of the overall process – where was I? Oh yes, naked rampant dark glory, which was in magnificent...that really is the only word... contrast to pastels...delicate SoCal shapes... Although, now that I think on it, I probably shouldn’t have had those photographs taken… turns out, photographs of rampant dark glories, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, can be used as evidence of moral turpitude in divorce proceedings. How was I to know that She, the devil’s advisor, would subpoena Uncle Ed of Uncle Ed’s Exotic Photography and Escort Service, who testified that I had paid the extra charge to have, Trixie, the photographer and her two lighting assistants, Bubbles and Candi, with an ‘I’ to be, um, dishabille, nude, sans clothing, naked.. (reverie) Hey! The guy at Uncle Ed’s assured me that that is how all the great models, the super models, did it, it’s called mood setting, among the pros.. I wanted the photos to be a tribute to what’s-her-name’s artistic eye. I mean, she’s the one who noticed the lean, mean, motoring machine that you see in front of you, under all those layers of tall blond SoCal-ness. I wanted her to know, in unequivocal terms, that she was right, dark chocolate is where it is at, much tastier.

Okay, all right, I’m kidding … there was only one assistant. Candi and she was a specialist lighting tech. For one thing she didn’t have any lights. As it was explained to me, she used the natural lighting to arrange the subject to best affect. She was good at her job too. I mean, when she was adjusting bits and pieces of me...that touch...soft...delicate...educated. Hey, she was just doing her job, ok? And I think it was unfair that stained bedcovers can be used as evidence. Okay, it was a large, one might even say copious, stain, but it would have dried soon enough.

Okay. None of that is true; except for the ginormous part. As we all know, what men are born with is what we have to live, and love, with. This might be a matter of some regret for some of us. Good night and thank you for listening.

The Stench of Saffron

Should I stay or should I go?

The Clash asked that, rhythm and rhyming the approach-avoidance syndrome, backing it with a driving incessant beat, and…leaving the question unanswered, now that I think about it; which doesn’t help me a lot, or any.

See, the thing is, I’ve remained in India for the past decade and half in highly addictive expat comforts. This in spite of the best efforts of the Foreigners Regulation and Registration Office and its bureaucratically brilliant systems for making life just that little bit more pebble-in-the-shoe-ish. I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, you take bureau… I beg your pardon, Bureaucracy, which India has had for a lot longer than most other places, and you clothe it in the Eton-Harrow-OxBridge pomposities that pass for governance and administration, and what you get is the FRRO, and their ability to trigger ‘screw it, what’s the travel agent’s e-address, sorts of thoughts and impulses. But, I digress.

The FRRO is not the reason I’ve bookmarked Lonely Planet and know where my passport and traveling pants are. [Aren’t cargos just the absolute tits?]  For the first time in 15 years I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the smell of teen spirit. An appreciable, increasingly aggressive, portion of India’s youth, the generation that Narendra ‘BigMo’ Modi has so assiduously wooed and won, have embraced the concept of Indian National Cultural Values (INCV) (All concepts in India are labeled and acronym-ed. It’s a cultural thing) and are looking to impose the same on the rest of India. As an example let me cite the attempt by some of Young Modern India (YoMo’In) (concept again) to exercise their perfectly reasonable right to show affection, one for the other, in public and with due regard for the decencies necessary. Towards this end a ‘Kiss-in’ was organized and announced. This did not meet with the approval of the Religious Right (RR) (also a concept), who, in short order deployed their youth wing. There are altogether too many upper case concepts of that wing for me to list. Suffice it to say that they are manifold and are, without exception, large, testosterone driven and ready to rumble. Pumped with ideology, righteous anger, and, I suspect but cannot prove, steroids, these myrmidons of INCV were able to intimidate the local police into backing their play in preventing the Kiss-in from happening. The cops must have figured that worst YoMo’In could do was kiss them in protest while the RR youth wing was armed, but I’m guessing.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that things have reached the twin lightning insignia stage but one gets the feeling that saffron shirts and khaki shorts are being bulk ordered and stockpiled. Certainly saffron is starting to replace the admittedly condescending Congress white in the halls and seats of power, bringing with it the stench of faith based governance and reminding me of the reasons I left home, hearth, and health insurance to remain in India. But now…

I wonder if the FRRO in Vietnam has better manners.

Militant Religiosity

I find myself becoming quite religious in my antipathy to reli…no, actually, that should be, Religion. I find myself proselytizing and preaching on the dangers of institutionalized faith. My semi-libation – I’m clumsy and tend to spill things – toasts to polymath Dawkins are starting to take on the aspects of ritual, tending uncomfortably towards dogma and cant. My accountant tells me that she is considering submitting my bar bills as a tithing expense. I find myself surfing anti-Religion web sites for arguments that I then plagiarize and pass off as revelations. Hell, I’ve found myself taking out my articles of faith, polishing them, and presenting them as the only Truth that makes sense, ignoring, as I do so, the obvious holes in my logic, over-riding objections with the power of oratory. In short, I seem to have become Religious.

Oh, I have my justifications and my rationalizations, but, they all boil down to fear. No difference there, then. I mean reli… Religion got started because of fear in the first place. Fear of the night. Fear of the unknown. Fear of thunder, lightning, and the voices of the gods in the howling wind, the naked ape cowering in the sturm and whimpering in the drang . All of which is as close to a selfie as I care to get. Not that I'm scared of thunder and the voices of the gods, you understand. Those have been explained, to my satisfaction, by rationality and science No, my fear is of the rising tides of militant religiosity.

 Saffron the designated color of Hinduism, as opposed to the condiment, seems to be subsuming the philosophical and much heralded Colors of India. That’s colors, plural, as in many and varied; a heady mixture of creative concepts to explain the mysteries of life; each limning, shading, on occasion merging, with the other, to create a reasonably amicable, (for a given value of amity), system of social order that has served the sub-continent well for a few thousand years. The philosophies were not so much competing, as much as finding their place in the pavane of governance and individual rights and responsibilities. At least, that’s the way it used to be. Not so much now.

Now, here, in this land where diversity, and the right to be different, was enshrined in the Constitutional clauses of sovereignty and nationhood, the monoculture rigidity of militant Hinduism, the Religion, is, with increasing frequency, occupying the public spaces of India. Saffron robes have become the official office wear of an increasing number of legislators and law makers, who in their zealotry are passing laws and ordinances that pay little heed to the rights of the Other. Saffron rituals take precedence minority ways, and no back talk. Taking cues from Mosque and Church, Hinduism has embraced apostasy (apostasy – in a philosophy – can you dig it?) as a control mechanism. No more multiple pathways to the god head; one, and only one, saffron hued, officially approved, mandated, road to salvation. A philosophy that accepted, encouraged, questioning, and dialog is being perverted into a religion with all its authoritarian implications.

I have to stop. This is getting depressing.