‘A Real Feast of Ideas this Evening’ ❤️

A Life Uprooted | Panel Discussion 

Sunday, 30th July 2023 | 8 – 9.30 pm

A Report ❤️

When eminent bilingual writer and critic Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi, [Principal, Alipore College, Kolkatta], requested if I could be part of a Panel Discussion to speak on the legendary Jatin Bala’s book titled, A Life Uprooted: A Bengali Dalit Refugee Remembers, translated into English by Dr. Mandakini Bhattacherya and Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi, I delightfully agreed.

Indeed, it was a very rewarding evening with such eminent scholars, discussing various facets of the book.

‘A real feast of ideas this evening’, as Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi said about the Panel Discussion, towards the end of the event. 

Dr. Sarangi also added to say –

‘You can’t contain the tears from your eyes, when you read the original. And as some of you had said, if the translation feels like reading the original, we feel so blessed and thankful’.

‘Translation is the heart of India. Translation from one vernacular to another, is the mosaic of India, through which India is nourished and becomes more glorious’, 

he signed off!

‘If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday’, says Pearl S. Buck.

This book offers the reader one such opportunity to ‘search’ our yesterday, from the lens of subjugation.

In short, the book is ‘an adolescent’s journey seeking education, dignity and self-hood’ all which are denied because of the stigma of being ‘low born.’

Apart from the scholarly Introduction to the book which is a real treat - something that could be discussed in an exclusive event in itself, the translation deserves special accolades and appreciation for its charm!

What myriad figures of speech, and what a refined choice of words – poignant words - that can tug at your heartstrings quite spontaneously at that!

Sample this synesthetic image –

Suddenly Mother stretches out her emaciated hand and calls out to me weakly and pitifully, “Come, my darling, come close to me, you have grown up so tall — Come, my darling, come, come, come…..”

I am drinking in my mother’s words with my eyes.

I try to suppress my pain and discomfort, but cannot.

It keeps crushing my soul.

Humiliation, hatred and contempt rose from inside like bile and filled my mouth with a bitter taste, while I could see the wounds of my motherland like a flash of lightning.

The scene stabbed and stayed in my heart forever like the blade of a sharp knife.

Such tragic incidents kept getting stored in my memory throughout the journey.

Everybody was rushing to save their lives and honour, with no time to linger back for those who fell and died or got lost by the wayside. So did I walk on with a wounded consciousness…

Well, this is just a sample for all ye readers.

Do grab a copy of the book that’s available for sale on e-stores, HERE.

Dr. Smita A. Nayak, from R. S. N College, Goa,

Dr. Manojit Mandal, from Kolkatta,

Dr. D. E. Benet from National College, Trichy, etc.,

were my fellow panelists who gave such profound and insightful observations on the book.

This was followed by select readings from the book by students and research scholars, drawn from various parts of India.

Again, a special word of appreciation to the translators Dr. Mandakini Bhattacherya and Dr. Jaydeep Sarangi for doing a highly commendable translation of the original, and making the legendary writer available to the non-Bengali literary community - for readers from across the world.

I was also delighted to know that, Sahitya Akademi has published the book in English.

Dr. Dhrubajyoti Banerjee gave the inaugural address. Dr. Mandakini gave a beautiful summing up of the event, and Dr. Basudhara Roy did a meticulous compering of the programme.

Governor of Tamil Nadu Honours Madras Christian College for its Remarkable Achievement! ❤️

Conclave of Excellence | 

@ Raj Bhavan

Special Felicitations for MCC Principal

by the Governor of Tamil Nadu Shri R. N. Ravi

26 July 2023 ❤️

It’s indeed a really proud and historic moment for Madras Christian College, when the Principal of Madras Christian College Dr. P. Wilson was personally invited by the Governor of Tamil Nadu Shri R. N. Ravi to honour Madras Christian College for its remarkable achievement – for ranking among the top 20 institutions in India, in all categories based on NIRF.

The occasion saw the gathering of eminent academicians from all Higher Educational Institutions across Tamil Nadu which have been ranked among the top 20 in the NIRF Rankings 2023.

The Top Notchers were then invited to share their experience of excellence with the State Universities, in order to enhance the Higher Education Education ecosystem in the State.

On this occasion, Dr. P. Wilson, Principal & Secretary of MCC, delivered a presentation on ‘National Institutional Ranking Framework – Analysis and Strengthening of Quality Parameters’, at Raj Bhavan, Chennai, at 10.30 am.

Most of the premier, top-ranking Institutions from Tamil Nadu including the IIT Madras, NIT Tiruchi, and some of the top ranked autonomous colleges including Madras Christian College, were present at the felicitation ceremony.

An amazing achievement of sorts for Madras Christian College!

God bless MCC!

“Do you want to know what my secret is?” ❤️

On a Philosophical High | from Huxley ❤️

#onhisbirthdaytoday

Well, whenever students ask us, ‘Why do you think we should read the great philosophers of the past?’,

we gently tell them –

Well, that’s because, the great sages and philosophers of the past, help us obtain for ourselves a better life, a better approach to people, and a better engagement with society!

Most of us simply go through our everyday routine in sync with Nietzsche’s Idea of Eternal Recurrence, 

“to crave nothing more fervently than the infinite repetition, without alteration, of each and every moment!”

Indeed, what else can we do, when, ‘time’s winged chariot’ is catching up on us with such fervour and zeal? 😊

One reason, why it’s become difficult for us to ‘step aside’, and to indulge ourselves in bracketing!

Again, bracketing (or epoche) is Husserl’s term for ‘stepping aside’ from the everyday, commonplace way of seeing things!

In fact, most people live through their sweet lives without questioning what they believe.

That’s where Philosophy steps in, and says,

‘Hey, you there... could you just stop for a moment, and take a closer look at your life and worldviews?’

One such philosopher who makes us ‘pause’ on our routine pathways, and make us take a closer look at our life and worldviews, is Aldous Huxley.

“Aldous Huxley, novelist, essayist, mystic, wrote with the force of a Swift and the bite of a Voltaire”, says the blurb to his book titled, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, published in 1952.

Any faint echoes of the Bard, here? 😊

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)

Interestingly, the book Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was published in England as Adonis and the Alphabet.

By the way, Huxley and J. Krishnamurti, had a great mutual admiration for each other, ever since they first met in California in early 1938! So yes, reading both these great minds simultaneously is a treat in itself.

So here we go - 😊

In fact, reading through Huxley’s foreword to J. Krishnamurti’s book titled, The First and Last Freedom, leads one to a lot of wonderful, philosophical speculations and literary ruminations as well!

How much the humanist in Huxley anticipates the postmodernists, is anybody’s guess!

A cursory reading through his amazing foreword to J.K’s book, is ample validation to this credo.

‘A lie can be extended, propounded and repeated, but not truth; and when you repeat truth, it ceases to be truth,’

says Huxley in his Foreword to Krishnamurti’s book!

How much we are here, reminded of Adolf Hitler’s controversial maxim where he says,

‘Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it’!

True lies!

All Organized Beliefs are based on Separation!

“Belief inevitably separates. If you have a belief, or when you seek security in your particular belief, you become separated from those who seek security in some other form of belief. All organized beliefs are based on separation, though they may preach brotherhood,” 

he adds.

We Approach the Crisis of our times with ‘formulas’!

We approach the crisis of our times, not with love and insight, but “with formulas, with systems” - and pretty poor formulas and systems at that. But men of good will should not have formulas; for formulas lead, inevitably, only to ‘blind thinking’.

Symbols should never be raised to the rank of dogmas!

We are brought up as believing and practising members of some organization - the Communist or the Christian, the Moslem, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Freudian.

Consequently you respond to the challenge, which is always new, according to an old pattern; and therefore your response has no corresponding validity, newness, freshness.

If you respond as a Catholic or a Communist, you are responding - are you not? - according to a patterned thought.

Therefore your response has no significance.

Therefore what ‘one has to do, in order to meet the new challenge, is to strip oneself completely, denude oneself entirely of the background and meet the challenge anew’.

Where there is Judgement, Openness of mind is absent!

‘Judge not that ye be not judged.’

The gospel precept applies to our dealings with ourselves no less than to our dealings with others.

Where there is judgement, where there is comparison and condemnation, openness of mind is absent; there can be no freedom from the tyranny of symbols and systems, no escape from the past and the environment.

There is a transcendent spontaneity of life, a ‘creative Reality’, as Krishnamurti calls it, which reveals itself as immanent only when the perceiver’s mind is in a state of ‘alert passivity’, of ‘choiceless awareness’.

And that’s one reason why Jidduji, during one of his discourses, suddenly, stops midway through his talk, and asks this question,

“Do you want to know what my secret is?”

Jim Dreaver, who was part of the audience, says, Krishnamurti rarely ever talked about himself or his own process, and now he was about to give us his secret! There was a silence.

Then he said in a soft, almost shy voice,

“You see, I don’t mind what happens.”

The secret to true happiness, ain’t it?

Coming back to Huxley -

Huxley’s opening lines in the foreword are a treat to those of us who dabble in theory!

Here goes –

Without Symbol-systems we should be Animals!

Man is an amphibian who lives simultaneously in two worlds - the given and the homemade, the world of matter, life and consciousness and the world of symbols.

In our thinking we make use of a great variety of symbol-systems - linguistic, mathematical, pictorial, musical, ritualistic.

Without such symbol-systems we should have no art, no science, no law, no philosophy, not so much as the rudiments of civilization: in other words, we should be animals.

Well, Huxley’s foreword is not only an eye-opener to all and sundry, but also a sagely advice from Vedantist Huxley who takes his readers into realities that are beyond the generally accepted ‘five senses!’

All captions are this blogger’s!

All textual quotations are from JK’s The First and Last Freedom

Templates design: this blogger’s as well! 😊

Cordially Inviting You...

 

“Is this what I was created for?” ❤️

“Is this what I was created for?” ❤️

Ryan Holiday | Sharing from My Reading 📖

Bought this lovely book at OM Books, VR Mall, Anna Nagar today.

It’s titled Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control.

Started reading it right away! 😊

Found this particular part quite motivating and highly inspiring. Hence thought of sharing it on my blog space here, with fellow readers from across the globe!

We can say that each of us has a higher and lower self, and that these two selves are in a constant battle with each other.

The side that can focus, and the side that is easily distracted.

The side that strives and reaches, the side that stoops and compromises.

The side that seeks balance, the side that loves chaos and excess.

The word for this inner battle to the ancients was akrasia.

Self-discipline is giving everything you have! 

It takes courage to live this way - not just because it’s hard, but because it sets you apart!

In Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, we hear the most powerful man in the world trying to convince himself to get out of bed at dawn when the lower part of himself wants desperately to stay.

“Is this what I was created for?” he asks of his reluctance.

“To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

“Yes, it is nicer under there. But is that what we were born for?”

“To feel nice?”

“That’s how you’re going to spend the gift of life, the gift of this present moment that you will never have again?”

“Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants, and the spiders and the bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?”

he said to himself but also to us.

“And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?”

Yet here we are, thousands of years later, still hitting the snooze button on our alarms.

Here we are, wasting the most productive hours of the day!

When you have trouble waking up, when you find it hard, remind yourself of who you come from, remind yourself of the tradition, remind yourself of what is at stake,

says Ryan.

Quite uplifting and inspiring, ain’t it?

On a similar vein, thought of sharing from a lovely incident that happened yesterday in our Office, during the coffee break!

A student had come to meet with me. 

She said that, she has a great dream and a clear idea about her destination, but that, she has trouble concentrating on her studies!

Empathising with her, I asked, 

‘Are your friends distracting you too much by not allowing you to study?’

She said, ‘No, sir’.

‘Then, what else is the problem? Any financial problems or any emotional problems bothering you?’

‘No, sir’.

‘Then?’

‘A lot of other things, sir’.

Getting a faint clue, I asked,

‘Like your mobile phone… ’ you mean?

‘Yes, sir, kinda’, she admitted, quite candidly.

I appreciated her for her frankness and told her,

‘See, our dear kid, this is quite a natural phenomenon today. People from all walks of life are very much glued to their mobile phones. The only reason is… FOMO’, I said. 😊

‘FOMO’? she asked, with a quizzical look on her.

Then I told her, what it meant!

Yes, it means, Fear Of Missing Out!

It’s that particular feeling or perception that others around you are having more fun, living happier lives, or enjoying better things than you do!

The term was originally coined way back in the year 1996 by Dr. Dan Herman, who, while studying consumers, found out that, many consumers admitted to a fear of missing out on opportunities that could bring them pleasure!

Today, the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ [FOMO] has been accelerated thanks to the alarming pace at which social media has been invading our personal spaces, where we start comparing our lives with that of the ‘virtually-portrayed life’ of others, and we feel that we are not worthy enough or capable enough, when ‘compared to’ them.

All those Social media sites have the power for boasting and for bragging!

They ‘create’ an ‘ambience’ that’s so ‘natural’ and so ‘picture-perfect’ that, it leads us to believe that, we are missing out on all this fun and pleasure, while others seem to be enjoying all the fun!

In fact, the best way to overcome FOMO is JOMO!

Yes! JOMO!

JOMO helped me greatly in redefining my priorities.

So what is JOMO? you seem to ask!

The Joy of Missing Out! 😊

Ryan Holiday’s captivating line had me charmed and charged as well!

When you involve yourself in doing any activity, ask yourself the simple question that Ryan Holiday puts forth in this Chapter –

“Is this what I was created for?”

“Is this how I’m going to spend the gift of life, the gift of this present moment that I’ll never have again?”

The moment you put your hand to your heart, and ask yourself this question, that very moment you can see the super-human within you, getting all geared up to do wonders!

Exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or imagine!

So yes! As eminent critic Scupin Richard rightly points out, 

Be not overcome of FOMO! But overcome FOMO with JOMO! 😊

"We want you to become boundary spanners" ❤️

Launch of MSc Data Science Programme | Today

Yet Another New and Vibrant PG Programme in MCC! ❤️

The MSc Data Science Programme was officially launched today, at 9 am in the Chemistry Seminar Hall.

Giving his felicitations on the occasion of the launch of the new PG Programme, our Principal Dr. P. Wilson observed –

We are so happy and delighted to start yet another new degree programme, the third of its kind, in the last three years.

Every Degree Programme in MCC has a purpose and a reason. There is a 30% increase in workforce, not only because of demand, but also because of the need.

In ten years’ time, Data Science has the potential to rule the world. This programme has been envisaged, bearing this in mind! As students of Data Science, your responsibilities are immense.

We want you to become boundary spanners – having the ability to think beyond the barriers of disciplines, and be on the cutting edge of all disciplines, to facilitate knowledge exchange, and share values and resources amongst one another,

he observed.

The Principal also thanked all the subject experts from the various Departments, including Dr. Minnie, Dr. Sathya Priya, Dr. Miriam Kalpana, and Dr. Persis for giving a great helping hand in the incubation process.

In the second part of his address, our Principal gave an overview of the three core principles of MCC, namely - academic excellence, spiritual vitality and social relevance. He then gave an insightful introduction to the founders of the College, by tracing the history of the college, and the founding principles of the College.

The Launch was attended by the various officials of the College.

Dr. Jannet Vennila, Vice Principal, SFS, welcomed the gathering, while Rev. Ross, College Chaplain, dedicated the MSc Data Science Programme and Dr. Mahima Jane, Dept of BCA, proposed the Vote of Thanks.

Dr. Huldah, Dean of Women Students, did an excellent compering of the entire ceremony.

"Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged"

Hemingway | On Writing ❤️

& His Iceberg Theory of Writing ✍🏼

#onhisbirthdaytoday

Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway – American short story writer, novelist and journalist - is known the world over for his multifarious avatars – as a hunter, as a war correspondent, as a deep-sea fisherman, and yes... for his adventurous life-style as well! 

But wait! there’s one more feather to his craft (cap) that hasn’t been much discussed!

And that’s his extraordinary commitment to his craft - the art of writing.

Underneath his well-known braggadocio, he remained an artist wholly committed to the craft.

Every other pursuit, however appealing, took second place to his career as a writer.

At some times he showed an almost superstitious reluctance to talk about writing, seeming fearful that saying too much might have an inhibiting effect on his muse, 

says his publisher and good friend, Charles Scriber, who has collated the legend’s precious musings on his craft into a book of about 145 pages.

Some lovely excerpts from Hemingway on his passionate craft - Writing, on his birthday today!

Here goes -

What Writing Is & Does

When you first start writing stories in the first person, if the stories are made so real that people believe them, the people reading them nearly always think the stories really happened to you.

If you do this successfully enough you make the person who is reading them believe that the things happened to him too.

If you can do this you are beginning to get what you are trying for which is to make the story so real beyond any reality that it will become a part of the reader’s experience and a part of his memory.

The Qualities of a Writer

A writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better off editing the year book of a school for exceptional children than writing novels.

Qn: What is the best early training for a writer?

HEMINGWAY: An unhappy childhood.

Qn: Can you recall an exact moment when you decided to become a writer?

HEMINGWAY: No, I always wanted to be a writer.

There’s no rule on how it is to write.

Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly. Sometimes it is like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

What to Write About

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. 

But when you get the damned hurt use it - don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist - but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.

Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.

Advice to Writers

I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things…

… sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made.

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. 

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. 

It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.

Well, most of us, lit-bees (literary beings) woulda sure known a lot about Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory of Writing.

There’s something so unique about an iceberg - to the craft of writing!

There’s always more hidden beneath the surface of the iceberg – what we call in the era of ‘theory’ – as the subtext!

And that’s exactly the principle that Hemingway followed so scrupulously throughout his artsy life!

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the reader will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them, says the legend on his theory!

Hemingway’s career as a journalist has surely helped the legend a great deal in sticking to his minimalist style in his writing, which trueproves the delightful dictum that -  

not including everything actually makes a story stronger!

Lovely, ain’t it?

Acknowledgements

Larry W. Phillips. Ed. Ernest Hemingway on Writing. TOUCHSTONE Rockefeller Center, NY. 1984.

Image of Hemingway: thescriptlabdotcom