Religion and its ways

No, it was not my hidden intention to "Orhan"ize this space with an overdose but it may seem so after this post as I attempt to make some sense of my own thoughts. So my apology in advance. *Traffic and Religion* is one such essay that stood out in Other Colours: Essays and a Story. It highlighted Pamuk's astute skills at observing environment inside one's mind and surrounding along with understanding and translating that into rationale thereafter. And to quote few passages from the essay:

To obey a NO LEFT TURN sign on a back street when there wasn't another car in sight, waiting for the light to turn green, was to bow down to an authority that made no allowances for the intelligent pragmatist. We had little respect for those who obeyed the letter of the law in those days; people only did that only if they lacked brains, imagination, or character.
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But as I sat on the edge of this square on the outskirts of Tehran, watching the driver waver between obedience and pragmatism, I could tell that this man, whom I knew well enough by then, had not the slightest interest in making a national statement. His problem was much more mundane: Because we were in a hurry it seemed a waste of time to go all the way around the circle, but he was glancing anxiously at all the other roads that led into it, because he knew that if he rushed the decision he might end up crashing into another car.
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When I went to visit Tehran and saw the chaos and destruction these drivers brought upon themselves as they fought the highway code with furious ingenuity for the preservation of their autonomy, it seemed to me that their little bursts of lawless individualism were strangely at odds with the state-imposed religious laws that dictate every other aspect of life in the city.
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Oddly, it's when you're battling your way through the mad traffic, fighting it out with the city's lawless drivers, that you feel the presence of religion most keenly. Here's the state proclaiming that all must bow to the laws laid down in the Holy Book, mercilessly enforcing those laws in the name of national unity and making it clear that to break them is to end up in prison, when meanwhile the city's drivers, knowing the state is watching, flout the highway code and expect everyone else to do likewise; they see the road as a place where they can test the limits of their freedom, their imagination, and their ingenuity. I saw reflections of same contradiction in my meetings with Iranian intellectuals, whose freedoms were so severely restricted by the Sharia laws the state had imposed in the streets, the markets, they city's great avenues, and all other public spaces. With a sincerity I cannot help but admire, they set out to prove they were not living in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union by showing me they could discuss whatever they wanted, wear whatever they liked, and drink as much bootleg alcohol as they pleased in the privacy of their own homes.

***
And this got me thinking about the way various religions organize themselves to offer prayers and wonder if it impacts its people in their thinking and hence their immediate surroundings and community fabric. Consider two examples, Christian and Hindu modes of prayers. They both conjure up very different images in mind. Don't they? One gives a sense of orderliness (in appearance externally at least) while the other chaos. The mode of prayers for Hindus offer freedom of choice and imagination to flourish and hence beliefs in Hindu prayers spill out on the streets, sidewalks, buildings and trees, stones, rocks, rivers and so on. This also baffles me about the existence of innumerable forms of deities and how each region has a slightly varied and modified mode of prayer and offering and related mythological tales associated with God that are shared, each with equal fierceness in beliefs. Can it have to do with the amount of freedom to think one's religion provides? Some Hindus pro-rate their wealth as offerings to God. Bigger the offering, bigger might have been the gains. Other way to look at it is, bigger the offering, bigger his/her expectant share in God's blessings might be.

Coming back to fabric of urbanization, think of ways civic bodies try to control peeing and spitting in the public spaces in Indian cities. One distinct example, is to put posters, tiles or scribblings of God's images on walls, where "Yahan thookna mana hai" (which translates to spitting is not allowed here) warning alone doesn't work. Religious symbols are used to feed fear in followers' mind. Though, this does not explain what excuses us to not provide public restrooms but this combative strategy works rather effectively. No God fearing human being would dare to mess with this system and that explain that how deep that belief (or fear) might be running. If it is blind faith or not, I will skip to say anything on it since I am no expert on this but merely an observer.

One possible explanation that comes to mind to this staunchness could be the degree of suffering. Despite the attempted hogwash of India's emergence as a superpower, large percentage of its citizens live in dismal condition. In such abject condition and state of helplessness, one may only turn to divine help.

One last thought, does one's religion and religious practices liberate his mind or provide basis for unfounded fears? And does this liberation or captivity, as the case may be, affect the way we organize ourselves in public and private spaces. And how does it impact our community and its development that may follow in hierarchy, structure, zoning, segregation of land, spaces and its organization and lastly of course, how do people with particular religion who inhabit such places behave in them?

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As an aside, I peeked into two new books recently which looked promising. One being Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk and second one which looked mighty intriguing from the few pages that I read was Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World. I have started reading something thick and fat and if I do get to the last page, I will be delighted and also have stronger biceps and triceps (!) and there is one other place that I am spamming these days, twitter.

Pamuk's Other Colours

Orhan Pamuk's Other Colours is a collection of his selected writings which brings out a glimpse of his intimate views on family ties, politics, writing, writers, ethos and it's related pathos. Unlike in work of fiction where author talks to readers through portrayal of characters , this takes a dip into author's own mind, his trepidations, feelings, fears, melancholy, arguments. In this plunge you do not come out empty handed. In fact, you gather those precious things generously with both your hands. Just to give a glimpse of this enriching book, I have reproduced two short write-ups below from the collection:

Dead Tired in the Evening

I come home tired in the evenings. Looking straight ahead, at the roads and pavements. Angry about something, hurt, incensed. Through my imagination is still conjuring up beautiful images, even these pass quickly in the film in my head. Time passes. There's nothing. It's already nighttime. Doom and defeat. What's for supper?

The lamp atop the table is lit; next to it sits a bowl of salad and bread, all in the same basket; the tablecoth is checkered. What else? ...A plate and beans. I imagine the beans, but it's not enough. On the table, the same lamp is still burning. Maybe a bit of yogurt? Maybe a bit of life?

What's on television? No, I'm not watching television; it only makes me angry. I'm very angry. I like meatballs too- so where are the meatballs? All of life is here, around this table.

The angels call me to account.

What did you do today, darling?

All my life...I've worked. In the evenings. I've come home. On television- but I am not watching television. I answered the phone a few times, got angry at a few people; then I worked, wrote....I became a man... and also- yes, much obliged- an animal.

What did you do today, darling?

Can't you see? I've got salad in my mouth. My teeth are crumbling in my jaw. My brain is melting from unhappiness and trickling down my throat. Where's the salt, where's the salt, the salt? We're eating our lives away. And a little yogurt too. The brand called Life.

Then I gently reached out my hand, parted the curtains, and in the darkness outside caught sight of the moon. Other worlds are the best consolations. On the moon they were watching television. I finished off with an orange- it was very sweet- and my spirits lifted.

Then I was master of all worlds. You understand what I mean, don't you? I came home in the evening. I came home from all those wars, good bad, and indifferent; I came home in one piece and walked into a warm house. There was a meal waiting for me, and I filled my stomach; the lights were on; I ate my fruit. I even began to think that everything was going to turn out fine.

Then I pressed the button and watched television. By then, you see, I was feeling just fine.

***

Rüya and Us

1. Every morning we go to school together: one eye on the watch, one eye on the bag, the door, the road. In the car, we always do the things: A) wave at the dogs in the little park; B) knock back and forth as the car accelerates around a corner; C) say, "To the right and down the hill, Mr' Driver!" casting a sidelong glance at each other and laughing; D) laughing when we say, "To the right and down the hill Mr.Driver!" because he knows exactly where we're going, as we always take taxis from the same taxi stand; E) get out of the taxi and walk hand in hand.

2. After I have hung her bag on her shoulder, kissed her, and led her into school, I watch her from behind. I have memorized the way Rüya walks, and I love watching her walk into school. I know she knows I'm watching her. It is as if her knowing I'm watching makes us both feel secure. First, there is a world she enters and explores every day, and then there is the world we two share. When I watch her, and she turns, and she turns around to watch me, we keep our world going. But then she breaks into a run and enters a new life where my eyes cannot go.

3. Let me brag a little: My daughter is intelligent and knows what she likes. She insists without a moment's hesitation that I tell the best stories, and on weekend mornings she lies down next to me and demands her due. Because she knows who she is, she knows what she wants. "It should be witch again, she should escape from prison but she shouldn't go blind and she shouldn't grow old, and in the end she shouldn't catch the little child." She doesn't want me skipping the parts she likes. She tells me which parts she doesn't like while I'm still telling the story. This is why telling her a story means both writing it and reading it as the child who wrote it.

4. As with all intimate relationships, ours is a power struggle. Who will decide: A) which channel to watch on television; B) what time is bedtime; C) what game will be played or not played, and how this decision, and many other similar decisions, discussions, disputes, tricks, sweet deceptions, bouts of tears, rebukes, sulks, reconciliations, and acts of contrition will be resolved after long political negotiations. All this effort makes us tired and happy, but in the end it accumulates and becomes the history of the relationship, the friendship. You come to understanding, because you're not going to give up on each other. You think about each other, and when you're parted you remember each other's smell. When she is gone I miss the smell of her hair terribly. When I'm gone, she smells my pajamas.

***

This book is worth glancing and sipping in bits next time you are at the nearest bookstore. For me it had turned into an impulse purchase after twenty minutes. Although, now, after finishing the book, I don't regret it and guilt laden self is riding on a backseat.

Today's Labor Camp

We would like to believe that we made slavery, a thing of past and in this talk below Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity shatters that very myth as he brings out the reality of who pays the actual price of accelerated "development". and not exactly the consumer at the end of the cycle. As poignant as it can get, he brings up something very critical, ethical footprint.



While we are still around UAE and it's recent rapid construction boom, Johann Hari brings out the suffering human element side of it in The Dark Side of Dubai. It's intensely troubling and the gloom and the doom in it are sure to break your heart, if at all. Snippet from the article below:

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.

Sahinal was in a panic. His family back home – his son, daughter, wife and parents – were waiting for money, excited that their boy had finally made it. But he was going to have to work for more than two years just to pay for the cost of getting here – and all to earn less than he did in Bangladesh.

He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp – holes in the ground – are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is "unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night." At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.

The water delivered to the camp in huge white containers isn't properly desalinated: it tastes of salt. "It makes us sick, but we have nothing else to drink," he says.

The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat – it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."

He is currently working on the 67th floor of a shiny new tower, where he builds upwards, into the sky, into the heat. He doesn't know its name. In his four years here, he has never seen the Dubai of tourist-fame, except as he constructs it floor-by-floor.

Is he angry? He is quiet for a long time. "Here, nobody shows their anger. You can't. You get put in jail for a long time, then deported." Last year, some workers went on strike after they were not given their wages for four months. The Dubai police surrounded their camps with razor-wire and water-cannons and blasted them out and back to work.

Three hundred crores

Three hundred crores is plainly a very huge amount to be in question for lunatic ventures of MNS. I can now, conveniently say MNS is more of an eclipse to the city, it's people and most of all to the well-being of people of Maharashtra but who am I to say? Such act of cowardice and dementia cannot be now passed as politically driven, vote bank safety motivations when people are seriously suffering. Suffering for the need of basic needs, clean water & air, shelter, health care and I am not even talking about upgraded amenities of public libraries, public parks, community centers, old-age homes but who am I to say?

I am beginning to abhor my little knowledge of language Marathi which I learned during my schooling years when I chose it over French which was not out of compulsion but by choice.

There comes a time in any tyrannical period when people figure they have suffered enough and said leaders have mooched them off their rights of every kind is that then they bring about a revolution. They take over the reins in their own hands and crush the oppressors to nothingness. Bombay awaits for such a revolution from its people. Yes, as for my meaningless rebel I am not going to use Mumbai for Bombay, anymore.