ABSURD TALE OF FLYING CARPET

                           Only Absurd Is Meaningful

I do not know what went wrong. It has stopped flying. It was made to fly. I had few wonderful journeys on it. I do not know anyone who can make it fly again.

This is no ordinary flying carpet. Half of it is woven with the thread of idealism and rest half has threads of realism. Though both the sides have many patterns. Like realism has patterns of Socialist Realism, Naturalism and American Realism. The other half, which is made of idealism threads has many intrinsic and complicated patterns, some of which though look beautiful are difficult to understand.

These patterns are called Classical Idealism, Subjective Idealism, Transcendental Idealism, Objective Idealism and Actual Idealism. Each pattern has the name of craft man on the corner of design some of which are very famous like Kant and Hegel.

The World is Conical and horizontally divided into two unequal halves, but my carpet is equally divided in two. But apparently one side is far more superior in look, texture, colors, aesthetics and designs.

It has a wonderful mechanism. When I want to fly to my native country Utopia I had to sit on the Idealism side of the carpet. When I want to fly to Dystopia I had to sit on Realism side.

I do not why both the patterns together were called Absurdism by people.

The flying carpet was very shy of others. No one else could fly on it except me. I could carry only that single female with me who loved me unconditionally. Consequently, I found no partner to fly with.

Once Ayn Rand wanted to fly with me. When she took her famous oath of Selfishness, the carpet agreed to fly. This is the first time I saw him breaking the rules. His realism side became active and a flower pattern which was marked as Existentialism and petals were made of Kierkegaard, Kafka, Sartre and Albert Camus had one more flower of Objectivism. That time Realism had more glamour than Idealism.

The flying carpet was really impressed that I was not ready to sacrifice my Individualism and due to my faith in Utilitarianism I gave preference to quality of pleasure.

The carpet was quite an amoralist. He never passed judgments about something being morally right or wrong. In a way he was Shakespearian "Nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so".

Though sometimes he would tell sarcastic jokes, but he was never sarcastic about Black, Jews, Polacks, Blondes or Sardars. He was far above petty human weakness of Egoism.

I think that was his basic quality which enabled him to fly.

Once I heard about a strange country. It was known as Conscience. That was a beautiful island inhabited by a single individual who was a true replica of me. It sent me a message by telepathy that my carpet was infected with the  virus of Ego. I was shocked. I did not know how to cure it. Conscience told it had permanent remedy. He also told me how I can do some First-Aid to make it fly. Moreover the Flying Carpet did not know the location of Conscience. The Flying Carpet was thrilled that I would cure him. He was always afraid of ennui. He always loved new designs and patterns carved on it. Sometimes he allowed something new just because it was New, even if it did not have any relevance.

Flying Carpet would have looked more beautiful without any of pattern and weaved by single colored thread of Humanism. May be the source of that thread is not normal human intellect.

When I tried to convince him the superiority of quantity over quality and advantages of simplicity he became adamant.  He didactically tried to prove that simplicity is absence of quality, and is not a quality in itself.

Once he proposed me to find a way to increase his size. I told him that his size is just suitable for the purpose he has been made. He is obsessed with the conviction that Size does matter.

He became desolate and introvert after that conversation. Now I can correlate that so many pattern made him egoistic and that is why he wanted to increase his dimensions.

How was our journey to island of Conscience? How did we reach there? Could Conscience cure the virus of Ego? Or virus could infect the Conscience and tried to kill it.

Read more adventures of Flying Carpet in coming issues.

Other related post

Absurd tale of castrated bull

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

Indian Literature in Desi English

                       Indo-Anglian Poetry In Desi English

Sarojini Naidu

Nissim Ezekiel an Indian poet has ridiculed the manner in which English is used by Indians. Almost 10%  Indians know English as a second language. Naseem thinks that  one of the most common errors made by Indians is the use of Present Continuous Tense  instead of Simple present Tense. He thinks all who make mistakes in the use of grammar, syntax and use of idioms are half educated. Nissim had graduated from Bombay University in English Literature, so he had a right to think so. In his poems "Good-bye party to Miss Pushpa T.S". and  "Very Indian Poem in Indian English" explicitly speaks of his anti-Indianness.

The wives of India sit apart

They do not drink,

they do not talk,

of course,they do not kiss. (In India)

Kamla Das

Kamala Das another famous English poet of India has narrated her frustration in love and sexual relationship through her semi-autobiographical poems viz."In Love" and "An Introduction".

She was discarded by many critics for use of English Language. Her frustration is reflected in her following 
poem:

I am an Indian, very brown, born in

Malabar, I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one. Don't write in English, They said,

English is not your tongue..... ("An Introduction")

Despite felicity of diction she has been accused of wrong and confused syntax due to perverse omission of the use of commas and inverted commas. A critic, though full of appreciation for my book Maya suggested that the book should have been written in Hindi. In words of Kamala Das:

Why not leave

me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousines,

Everyone of you ? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like?.....("An Introduction")

 R. N. Tagore  was awarded Noble Prize in Literature (1913) for his collection of poems "Gitanjali" . He composed his poems in his native language, Bengala and later translated them in English. He is primarily considered as a Bengali writer rather than an Indian English Writer.

Sarojini Naidu, who is popularly known as "Nightingale of India" was said to lack quality (intellectualism) in her poems.

'Two souls with but a single thought,

Two hearts that beat as one"  .... ("Humayun to Zobeida")

According to Nissim Ezekeil "Sarojini knew nothing of the of the literary revolution taking place in English Poetry in the twenties and the earlier".

Taru Dutt who died at the tender age of 21 is said to be a poetic genius and is known as "The Keats of India". She spent many years in France and wrote poems and novels in French language also. Her poems viz. Savitri  and Lakshman are based on mythological stories of ancient India and sometimes lack universal human predicament.

In Post-Independence poets Jayant Mahapatra has used landscapes of  his native state of Orissa in his poems. He is Physicist turned into celebrated poet, confesses "You can see, I haven't read much poetry in my life. As a matter of fact, I haven't read any poetry until I started writing myself".

Sri Aurobindo is not only an eminent Indian English Poet but also a famous Guru and Yogi. In his poem "Life and Death" he says:

Life, death, - death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised, -
Life a short death until by Life we are surprised.

Unfortunately, he too has been accused to use the English Language not as creators but as manipulator.

T. S. Eliot believed that the impersonality of poetry has its roots in value of traditions. I. A. Richards employed unique methods for textual and verbal analysis in his Practical Criticism  and The meaning of Meaning.

We can use their work to evaluate Indian English Poetry. However best thing would be to avoid any comparison and have more faith in desi English.

Soon we will cast a glance on the  prose written in Desi English.

Meanwhile, read two related posts

1.The future of English fiction writers in India Part I

2. The future of English fiction writers in India Part II

© Vipin Behari Goyal

(Poetry Blog "This is about if")
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

Marital Rape

                            The art of wooing is never rusty

Those who are in habit to take their wives as granted are offended when they have to cajole and woo them like an infatuated school boy by flowers, cards, dinners and sweet talk to obtain something which once they thought was rightfully theirs.

Look at the whole Animal Kingdom. Do you find any other animal doing heinous crime of rape except man? Every time, every male has to woo the female to obtain a favor.

Marriage is one of the most important institutions created by society which is eroded day by day as human intellect and wisdom is evolving. We are able to perceive and changed the law accordingly. How far we can go socially and legally to control a relationship  between two grown up individuals which begins and ends on the same bed every night.

Marriage is for woman the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution. ~Bertrand  Russell, Marriage and Morals.

Any act that affects two individuals physically, mentally or socially and is nonconsensual is an offense.

Colonial countries were governed by laws enacted by their master countries. They framed different laws for each colony depending upon their backwardness. Unfortunately, those  countries are still unable to revise their laws in parity with advance countries. The politicians are publicly giving statements, "It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context."

Now is the time when human civilization must consider to make uniform laws applicable all over the world, irrespective of geographical boundaries, cultural heritage, religion and dogmas.

Any crime is a crime against humanity and human values are same all over the world.

In the US some states have separate and lesser punishment for marital rapes (though thankfully all states have accepted it as a crime), are also examples of  social hypocrisy. If at all different, marital rape is more severe crime than other rapes since it is also breach of trust between two individuals.

The Indian Law is still struggling to define the extent of assault & parts of anatomy of the female organ, while whole civilization has taken a leap and is unanimous about it.

Literature has repeatedly pointed out that marital rape is done by husbands who suffer from some type of deficiency, inferiority or complex that they want to compensate.

Here is famous paragraph:

“He swung her off her feet into his arms and started up the stairs. Her head was crushed against his chest and she heard the hard hammering of his heart beneath her ears. He hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened. Up the stairs he went in the utter darkness, up, up, and she was wild with fear. He was a mad stranger and this was a black darkness she did not know, darker than death. He was like death, carrying her away in arms that hurt. She screamed, stifled against him and he stopped suddenly on the landing and, turning her swiftly in his arms, bent over and kissed her with a savagery and a completeness that wiped out everything from her mind but the dark into which she was sinking and the lips on hers. He was shaking, as though he stood in a strong wind, and his lips, traveling from her mouth downward to where the wrapper had fallen from her body, fell on her soft flesh….She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again. When she awoke the next morning, he was gone.…The man who had carried her up the dark stairs was a stranger of whose existence she had not dreamed. He had humbled her, hurt her, used her brutally through a wild mad night and she had gloried in it…. Rhett loved her! At least, he said he loved her and how could she doubt it now?”

— Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind(New York: Scribner, 2011): 871.

Ponder over it, till next time you read about "Ten ways to avoid marital rape." Suggestions are welcome !

Read more at Author's Diction

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

Games Spouse Play

                  Ten things to do when you feel ignored

In ‘Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf’’ By Edward Albee, the author has shown the hollowness of the society. Two couples play many different games in one night. That is one of the best American dramas. In actual life this drama is always going on. The games are different for each couple.

In ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ By D. H. Lawrence, Constance and her crippled husband Clifford Chatterley play games with each other. The emotional neglect by husband inflames physical desires of Connie and she is hurt because her husband is more aristocrat than her.

The Judiciary is unanimous that 'emotional neglect' of a wife or husband is a sort of mental cruelty. Some examples can be quoted,

1. If the wife does not serve food on dinner table, she is considered to be neglecting domestic duties

2. If the husband while going to office does not bid farewell (no hug, no kiss not even smile) to his wife, he is guilty of emotional neglect.

What is there between husband and wife, which cannot be classified as mental cruelty, if seen from a certain angle.

Look at Anna Karenina in the great novel by Leo Tolstoy. She could neither ignore the cold behaviour of her husband nor the advances made by flamboyant Count Vronsky. The main plot and sub plot of the novel are an excellent example of the games spouse play.

Whether it is ‘no-fault’ divorce law of US or section 13 (B) of Hindu Marriage Act that permits divorce by mutual consent, the society is unable to sustain the institution of marriage and has made it convenient for couples to walk out of wedlock even without any paltry ground.

Just because they did not learn the tact to ignore the things without tentamounting to emotional neglect.

It is best to ignore the trifle, but it is not good to emotionally neglect the spouse. They have a moral obligation to pamper the Ego of each other once a while.

Ten things to do when you feel ignored:

1. Go by Old Testament law of ‘Tooth for Tooth’. Ignore 'being ignored'.

2.  Act normal, even if your mind is storming. After all world is stage and we all are actors (William Shakespeare).

3. Be more aggressive while talking on the phone or with vendors. Rebuke anyone on a fake call. It is not only catharsis for your own self, but also puts your spouse under psychological pressure.

4. Wear your best dresses or change your wardrobe (ignore your credit crunch). A well dressed woman has more self confidence, more self-esteem and makes spouse jealous of her. Love me or hate me, but you can’t ignore me. Right?

5.  Be extra cordial to the friends of your spouse.

6. Pretend to pray even if you don’t believe in God, like in Tall man Small Shadow. It puts off even hard nuts and they crack.

7. Bed is the best place for reconciliation.

8. Only insecure persons emotionally neglect. Search for the cause of that insecurity and mend it.

9. Do not involve your friends in the game you are playing with your spouse. You will only worsen the situation.

10. Some mental cruelty may strengthen the nuptial bond when reconciled.

Finally, remember ‘Gone With the Wind’. How tactfully Rhett Butler ignored Scarlet by mocking her and eventually  tries to win her by indifference and cruelty. Scarlet obsessed by Ashley scorns the men and wins them.

Miracles of emotional neglect are yet to be explored.

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

Philosophy is Dead, Long live the Science

Future of Science without Philosophy

 Around 460 B.C.,a Greek philosopher, Democritus, develop the idea of atoms. Scientist slept over it for almost 2000 years. Then Dalton (1800), Thompson (1897), Marx Plank (1900) and Albert Einstein(1921), in a span of almost last 100 years advanced the theory.

Take any other invention, Kekule discovered the structure of Benzene said that he had discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after day-dream of a snake seizing its own tail which is a common symbol in many ancient cultures known as the Ouroboros.

Isaac Newton was Physicist who was popularly called 'Natural Philosopher'. After making great contribution in classic mechanics, optics and planetary motion when he grew mature as scientist he wrote essays on literary and symbolic interpretation of Bible.

It needs more mature mind than Scientist to be a Philosopher.

Philosophy has History of few thousand years, while Science has of few hundred years. Moreover major work in science has come from Philosophers.

All philosophy is based on syllogism where conclusions are arrived by logical arguments.

Science day by day became confined to laboratory and depended on perception which could be deceptive. ‘Theory of M’ is ‘Theory of Maybe’ propounded by Buddha. Scientist like infants are still awed by magic.Since childhood we are taught how Archimedes, James Watt and Newton got their ideas, not in laboratory of course. The Scientists have forgotten to spend time with nature and get tuned with it.

We are doing a folly by comparing incomparable. This is generation gap. 

Karl Marx (1883) to Jean Paul Sartre(1980) a couple of dozen Philosophers have influenced the thinking of the world in recent past.

Philosophy is the beginning and end of Science.

If Philosophy is dead Science has no future.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  'World is Conical' 

Carl Jung's Theory and Literature

                                                 Wizards of Collective Unconsciousness

All fiction is but a dream, all dreams are but a reality. No other stream has contributed towards enrichment of Literature as compared to Psychology. They are inseparable in a way, and one was always confused for another. Sigmund Freud was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature for his psychoanalysis.

Jung is lesser known than Freud. The magnitude of his work is still unexplored. Due to Eastern influence on his work of Collective Unconscious, he was not well appreciated by his contemporaries. West had a tendency to evaluate anything related to East as inferior. Only Arthur Schopenhauer could draw the attention of West towards rich philosophy of Buddhism. Siddhartha  by Hermann Hesse  also contributed in exploring rich Buddhist Philosophy. Romain Rolland  a Nobel Laureate in Literature was inspired by Sigmund Freud. Rolland studied Eastern Philosophy which is labeled as Eastern Mysticism  since it is not easily comprehensible. He had an "oceanic feeling" which prompted Freud to raise this issue in his further work. Mysticism does not aim at 'human transformation' but its object is self-actualisation. It is the transformation of human concepts from the Unreal to Real.

It requires a great deal of courage to admit that 'primitiveness' of eastern tribes is a sort of 'advancement' since it uses collective unconsciousness which is deeper, stronger and unique. Modern man has become so isolated that he finds it impossible to connect his personal unconsciousness with any other individual, so the wonders of collective unconsciousness are a distant dream for him.

Haggard in "She" and "King Solomon's Mines" and Mary Shelley in "Frankenstein" have made use of Jung's wonderful concept of three layered selfhood of personality -present consciousness, past and prehistoric or racial. All mythology  is also work of collective unconsciousness. Recently, some authors temper with mythology in order to create sensation. They are  playing with negative energies of the cosmos which always try to conquer positive energy.  Proceeding in one direction would create equal and opposite force and both would survive together.

The archetypes discovered by Jung have opened a treasure box for historians, anthropologist, scientist and authors to discover and base their work on different models of archetypes and their social and Psychological significance.

 If human civilization is endless and there is no imminent catastrophe, after a few centuries, today's man will be called primitive and would be despised for its greed by future generations. The word desire for Fire in the poem by Robert Frost is a soft version of greed.The fuss of Dream Analysis would never be over. Work of Freud and Jung would always be a landmark, but many new theories and interpretations are needed to understand the symbolism and  enrich the theme. A combined group of Social Scientist, Psychiatrist, Psychologist and Philosopher tuned with collective unconsciousness  can do miracle.

There is no Tabula rasa in the realm of collective unconsciousness. 

In“Emperor Jones” a modern play by Eugene O’Neill the personal and collective unconscious of Brutus Jones is revealed when his ‘conscious ego’ breaks gradually. He is trapped in the dark forest which is symbol of his psyche where the sound effect, hallucination and illusions have been used by O’Neill to depict the transformation of Jones. Mary T. David says “The gradual disintegration of his conscious ego,the revelation of his personal and collective unconsciousness and his flight from himself (the fundamental self from which the blind pride and its self image have so long separated him and which inevitably comes into its own) constitutes the dramatic movement.”Brutus Jones’s mind contain ideas of human race in general  and inherited traits peculiar to his own race, tribe and family.Theses all archetypal symbols and patterns are thus collective unconscious which remain latent in a man. It is projected in Jones when he hallucinates the racial memory of being sold as slave and faces Congo witch doctor.The collective unconscious is projected under the influence of fear.

Readers are requested to post comments.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate,Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

A Tale of Castrated Bull

                        Existentialism, Feminism, Marxism, Post-Colonialism and Psychoanalysis of Bull

He starts from point A every morning and by the time of evening when his eyes are uncovered, he finds himself again at point A. But he has a sort of satisfaction that he had a long journey that day, maybe he missed the scenery on the way, but the satisfaction and smile on the face of his master tells that he has really performed well. This had been his routine for many years and he has walked thousands of miles, and if his blindfolds were not removed every night, he would have thought himself to be on the other end of the Earth. Thankfully, his master took great care of him after his work was done, massaged him, gave fodder, gave him a bath if required, and saw that he was comfortably settled in the stable. At his Bovine family, he was looked upon as someone drafted for good and not only his mature counterparts of the opposite sex, but even the heifers could know that he was good for nothing and turned their faces away, when he grazed with them in the pastures. He cannot forgive the one who had one fine morning removed his vital part to convert him into that which changed his destiny. And he could do nothing about it. God was great, but man was mischievous.

Now nothing matters. All beautiful heifers have no meaning for him. Even his nose is permanently obliterated to identify estrus. May be his long walk would lead him to land where he would regain his lost bullhood.

How strange it is that his female counterparts never claimed that equality with them that his master's wife always demanded with her husband. His counterpart females were contended with milking, propagation and ultimately being served as beef. Not that he finds any difference in the life of his female counterparts and that of his master's wife. The comparison is endless and he was astounded with parities. The only thing he doesn't know is that his master's wife would be chopped when she goes sterile or they would wait even longer, when she is finally of no use. If this disease of equality spreads in his bovine family, he is sure it is going to create a havoc. His cousin and even his real younger brother were spared by his master, who only gelded him of his vitality. His neutrality of gender had made him stoically neutral towards all issues pertaining to life- or even death for that purpose.

His endless walk is very purposeful. He knows by the smell of sesame, groundnut and mustard. Many times master or his little son has exclaimed with happiness. Once master told his son  the story of Sisyphus. He was a king who could even cheat the God of death. He was ultimately condemned to drag the boulder uphill and let it roll down and then drag it up again till eternity. The child had innocently asked "Is our Joe (well, that's his name) also Sisyphus"? He was very intent to know what his master thinks about him. But like all masters he too laughed it off. No good master should reveal his true opinion about his servants. A confused servant serves a better purpose than an opined servant.

Once he met a maverick colleague in the grass field. He was liberated by his master, but he was feeling abandoned.  He felt desolate and rejected due to identity crisis. He always took pride in being owned by his master, though when he was serving, he always cursed his master for being cruel and hard task master. Now when he was independent he remembered all the good qualities of his master. How much care he took of him, kept him warm in chilling winters and fed him good fodder even when he fell sick. Others took pity on him and tried to help him out, but he was also too arrogant to accept the help of others. Everybody thought he had no future, till one winter evening a lady who looked affluent by her carriage and dress, stopped near him. She found he was shivering so she asked his coach to find out that if there is no owner, he should be provided with shelter and fodder. Liberation always leads to some other kind of slavery. Frankly speaking, there is no true liberation. One amazing thing he found was that these affluent people always had a lot of pity for all types of our kind, but little or no mercy for their own kind. After some time he found that his colleague waited anxiously for the lady to take his care. He had gained good health, there was meat on his bones and he looked more well fed than his fellow grazers. What he did not know was that a group of wolves from nearby woods was making a conspiracy to attack on him at night.

Thankfully, he(Joe) had a short memory. Most of the time he lived in present and had no obsession to repeat what has happened in the past or to dream about what may happen in future. He could retrieve a few things from the immediate past, but that was all. He was truly happy with kind of mind set. He disliked his master when he mentioned very old incidents with great fondness or talk about prosperous future which would never come. He saw his short memory as a boon. It not only saved him from the vices of revenge, greed and anger, but also, prevented him from making silly mistakes like his master, who sometimes forgot to cover him with a blanket in the cold winter night and he had to shiver the whole night. May be he wanted to punish him for walking lethargically that day.

{The oxen are still being used in rural India to extract oil from oilseeds, where ox goes around an improvised wooden grinding machine. The oilcakes formed after extraction of oil are consumed by human as well as animals.}

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his unpublished book  'World is Conical'

Other related post

Absurd tale of Flying Carpet

Ultimate Goal of Artist and Writers - Supervoid

                  SUPERVOID

         

Whatever is in the Cosmos is also in our body. Woodroffe says “Man is a microcosm, whatever exists in the outer world exists in him”. The Supervoid is as much part of our existence as it is of our Galaxy. May be we are as ignorant about ourselves as we are about the outer world.

The ‘void’ or ‘emptiness’ is felt by many human beings in the process of their growth. Though all human beings are born with the elements of this void, but only very few who become an artist, writer or scientist are able to fill the vacuum created by the void. The human aspires to be Superhuman, but are devoid of Supervoid. This tends to further the intensity of void which is yet to become dense enough to cause the Supervoid.

One can reach and realize void without shedding ‘ I ‘ but the journey from void to Supervoid is possible only after shedding all kinds of Ego permanently. Unfortunately, it is a Herculean task and no sincere efforts have been made in this direction.

It is not necessary that some super event would lead to the formation of Supervoid. A very small event, a trifle for ordinary man could be of great consequence for a receptive mind. It is not necessary that those who already suffer from the void are eligible for Supervoid. All types of creativity fills up this void to some extent, the perfection in creation makes it more intense, and only a super perfection could then fill thus formed Supervoid.

In the ancient world, it was Plotinus, who reached to that elevated stage and perceived the things which only a seer of Supervoid can perceive. His ‘True Human’ identified himself with that which was best in the universe. His idea of Eudaimonia (real happiness) is attainable only within consciousness. 

Since the World is Conical it is totally devoid of people who aspire for “The Perfect Life” as envisaged by Plotinus. It will not be proper to call his work as Neoplatonic since his theory of ‘One’ was closer to Indian Philosophy of Non-Dualism.

Einstein took one step towards understanding the mysteries of Nature by his unification theory and Stephan Hawkins took next step, but the perfection is still very far. Perfection then would lead us to immortality which would be a great boon to top notch people of conical world, who have cryopreserved their dead bodies in that expectation.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  'World is Conical' 

Other Related Post

Tips for Writers:Little Madness is necessary 
Philosophy in Fiction 
Why an Author is anti-bourgeois 
Art of Story Writing

Is US ready for woman President

                     Fourth Wave Feminism

I sincerely think that we are over with Third Wave of feminism.

Without struggle for what we have achieved so far, we can head for Fourth Wave. 

Yes, we will have as many waves as possible to make our point. Since we are done with the issues of suffrage, social equality, sexual and reproductive rights, (pageants are no more cattle parades) and are comfortable with Neo-Marxist-psycho-analytically amalgamated version of eco-feminist Woman who is proud of being tagged as Bitch(a strong, angry, uncompromising woman who is not interested in pleasing a man) or a Slut (fun-loving, rebel, proud of assets). I think these two words should be used for both the genders since they define an attitude which is not gender based and is not uncommon in men also. A man can also be proudly assigned all those tags which he has so far kept reserved for women. I mean, why a man cannot be called a slut, especially if he is behaving like one. (Keeps many sexual partners and is unkempt).

Now when we enter into Fourth Wave we need a paradigm shift. So far women organizations were demanding rights or whatever from male dominated institutions. Suppose the women are Head of all the institutions and everywhere they are on the other side of the table questioning hegemony of patriarchal  rules.  All constitutions, law, rules and regulations are rewritten scraping any trace of bigotry against fair gender. In that case, suppose, rape would be redefined and punished in a way that blood of any male would freeze even with the thought of committing a rape (like public castration).

Nations need to be governed by women. In past Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Suu Kyi, Benazir Bhutto, Sirimavo Bhandarnaike (all Eastern countries' leaders) have done well, but presently except Angela Merkel (Germany) no other major western country is led by a woman leader. Democracy in most of the Western Countries is not mature enough to be led by a woman.

In 2007 when Russian President Vladimir Putin took his giant dog Labrador when he went for a conference with Germany's Angela Merkel. Having attacked by a dog in the year 1995 Merkel was obviously scared by proximity of an offensive looking dog. An apology has come a bit too late. CNN on 12 January 2016 explained that he didn't mean to scare while Merkel said he did this to prove that he is a man. He is afraid of his own weakness. US will have to ensure that their female Head of Nation is not scared of any animal. Thankfully cockroach is not a pet animal.

In the year 2006, during G8 summit Bush had rubbed Merkel up the wrong way(The Guardian). Many countries might be waiting for their chance when a female takes over as President of US.

Irving Wallace should have written 'The Woman' instead of 'The Man'.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  World is Conical' 

Right to Fall from Grace

Right to Fall from Grace

Every person who enjoys a social statue earned by years of labor is always scared of society. He does not want to fall in the eyes of society. The society is conservatives, thrives on tradition and laws of puritans is its backbone. So you can never expect society to be "open minded", pragmatic, revolutionary and ahead of its Time. They do not change their rules easily. So they do not appreciate your falling from grace. Shakespeare in his sonnet 94 says-

"But if that flower with base infection meet

The basest weed outbraves his dignity"

The sin was committed when forbidden fruit was eaten and repercussions are still faced by the innocents for doing what they think is right. Even that society is not in the making which would permit an honest person to fall from grace without feeling guilty, insulted and conscious of it.

It needs braveness on the part of society to society in permitting people to fall from graces with dignity. Unfortunately, society is a bundle of callous, redundant and imbecile minds who collectively form a collective conscience, which is their mirror image, illuminated manifolds.

Those who do not want to follow the dictum of society are labeled as epicureans, and put in a prison of isolation or in the company of the same types like criminals or quarantined to save the honorable members of society from contamination.
Alfred Lord Tennyson was against providing any liberty so far as chastity and purity of home was concerned. Though he expected both husband and wife to follow the ideals. No amount of passions, however true and intense it may be, can excuse in his eyes for violating these ideals. Chastity and purity are not obsolete, and will never be obsolete.
                       "The Woman's cause is Man's;
                         They rise and sink together"
So fall of one is fall of another also.

Right of Dead to decent Burial

On the other hand same society has forgotten the age old Right of dead to decent burial. We are not talking the deads of a commoner, though it is debatable if the dead body of a king is superior to the dead body of a pauper, even many dignities were subjected to disgrace which brings shame to the whole humanity. The dead bodies of Saddam Husain or Osama Bin Laden were subjected to so much harsh treatment that one would wonder how much civilized we are.

In Shakespeare's famous play Julius Caesar, Octavius says

"According to his virtue, let us use him

With all respect and rites of burial"

What made him think like that. He could have easily thrown the dead body of Brutus in the Mediterranean unceremoniously. Can a dead body be an enemy of anybody?

"The leaves of Grass" are being crushed by those who were supposed to protect it. What is their hope after this destruction? 

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  World is Conical'