"Life really is better when we are together" ❤️

I am because we are! ❤️

#highwayreflections

I happened to notice this lovely quote “Life is better when we are together”, on the tee shirt of a boy riding pillion with his friends, on a solitary highway, today.

The quote in fact captures the very essence of friendship in all its aura. 😊

While discussing Jane Eyre in class, more than two decades ago, I remember giving out the quote -

There are three types of friends. Some come into our lives for a reason, some for a season, and some others for a lifetime!

How true!

This particular scene of friends roaming around in a bike, gave me some lovely nostalgic memories of my own childhood days when I was surrounded by friends 24x7! 😊

Now for the literary takeaways from this blogpost –

When we apply a postcolonial lens to this snapshot, the phrase gets added cultural resonance and significance as well.

Colonial discourse quite often positioned the West as the centre of rationality and individualism, egged on by the Cartesian principle of “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). In this Western framework, the autonomous, self-made individual is touted as the ultimate “ideal” of a well-lived life.

On the other hand, the Eastern perspective seeks to decentre the individual in favour of the collective!

In this regard, the lovely quote “Life is better when we are together” echoes the Southern African philosophy of the Ubuntu – “I am because we are!”, thereby bringing out a lovely indigenous epistemological truth – that, identity in the indigenous subject, is forged in a sense of togetherness, or community, not in isolation!

In this regard, Edward Said’s book titled, Orientalism would serve as a foundational text for understanding how the West constructed the East. Said explains how Western discourse positioned itself as rational, autonomous, and individualistic, while framing the East (the “Orient”) as an undifferentiated collective mass.

Ashis Nandy’s 1983 book titled, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism also explores the Western concept of the hyper-masculine, hyper-rational individual and how it was imposed on the Indian psyche, and how he seeks to highlight traditional Indian concepts of self as much more fluid, relational, and collective!

Dipesh Chakrabarty in his insightful book titled, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, challenges the idea that Western historical development (and its focus on capitalist individualism) is the universal blueprint for humanity. He makes a compelling case for recognising alternative, non-Western ways of being in the world, which supports the idea that “roaming around as friends” is a unique socio-cultural pastime, that is ingrained in the indigenous psyche. Hence, “togetherness” here becomes an act of resistance as well!

I am also reminded of R.K. Narayan’s Swami and Friends - one of my favourite books and one of my favourite characters of all time!

While most of Western literature, especially the traditional coming-of-age story - the Bildungsroman - often features a protagonist who must necessarily separate from their community to forge a highly individualised, independent identity, Swaminathan’s story operates on a completely different standpoint altogether. 

His joys, anxieties, and very sense of self are entirely constructed through his friendship with Mani, Rajam, Somu, and Samuel. 

In short, Swami’s concept of self is plural!

Hence, I personally feel that, much akin to Swami, our truest identity is, and always will be, beautifully plural!

Yes! Beautifully plural!

Lovely, ain’t it? 😊