Nostalgia is something that can engulf even the strongest willed person and consequently I can't be expected to be an exception either. There are certain compartments in every person’s coffer of memories which he/she protects from all kinds of infringements and interference. It is indeed a matter of profound irony as to how past draws us in its seemingly cozy arm lock. To be precise, this phenomenon can't be actually branded. It is an ethereal experience which is far beyond the worldly confines of noble and ignoble. I remember that my maternal grandfather categorically tried to sum it up for me ages ago when as an individual I hardly had the capacity to visualize life with its overtly beautiful yet horrific intricacies. But now I realize that the above might be one of the reasons as to why I am a bit more matured in worldly parlance then what my age prescribes.
Anyway that is not what I want to convey here. Born at a time, when slowly but surely, the X-generation culture was wallowing its way to the fore, I had the fortune to have a completely different upbringing. I specifically remember that during my childhood days, my maternal grandfather always used to lay more emphasis in bringing about a revolution in the way we think rather than aping the western culture without comprehending its widespread repercussions. He believed in intrinsic changes by virtue of modernizing our thought process and not by randomly overturning our hitherto accepted ways of life. I also remember considering him as my only friend, philosopher and guide. I used to call him Dadun. It is a stark reality of life that our mind gets conditioned to a certain school of thought and thus we interpret everything around us according to that belief system. But Dadun always used to advice me on not closing my mind and be receptive to everything which seemed beneficial and good. Being a victim of partition, he was a hardcore follower of communist ideologies. But he never coaxed me to join the bandwagon. Rather he believed in Socrates’ ideology of shaping our opinions on the basis of independent reasoning and not on the basis of deep influences exerted by someone else whom we adored and respected. But with the gradual passage of time and the accompanying gaining of maturity, I realized that even without my knowledge, I had started believing in communism myself and had actually become a typical communist not believing in anything that is not backed by concrete scientific evidences.
Here we need to distinguish between communists who become so for the heck of it and communists who become so because of ideological sidings. I can confidingly suggest that I belonged to the second category. With the works of Bengali literary stalwarts like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (of Devdas and Parineeta fame), Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (of Vande Mataram fame) and later Samaresh Basu and Sunil Gangopadhyay inspiring me to the hilt, I got inspired by the 'Reformation Theory'. But the person who inspired all these ideals in me passed away in 1999 when I was in Class VIII. I still remember that dark day. Not delving deep into what happened that day, let me get back to what I was talking about.
With ideologies and a vision of a just society dominating my self identity, I was always treading on a different dimension altogether. In fact, I wanted to take up science in my Plus 2 despite being the best in English in my class not for the lure of getting into the more lucrative professional courses and be a part of the popular culture. The decision was largely inspired by a longing for a deeper insight into the intricacies of our material world. I remember, after reading the Tagore classic Chaturanga, I became so upbeat about the non-existence of God and my atheistic concept that I was virtually searching for people to convince them that God is a mythical concept and the religions are creations of men to actually sustain the deep divide amongst societies. I used to proclaim with pride that I believe in the religion of humanity and my god is self-conscience. But after going through Einstein’s ‘General theory of Relativity’ in my Physics (Honours) classes, I got a severe shock. I actually linked it to our everyday life and understood that the perspective changes the moment the ‘Frame of Reference’ is changed. So, nothing is absolute and everyone is right in their own specific ways.
To be Continued...
Anyway that is not what I want to convey here. Born at a time, when slowly but surely, the X-generation culture was wallowing its way to the fore, I had the fortune to have a completely different upbringing. I specifically remember that during my childhood days, my maternal grandfather always used to lay more emphasis in bringing about a revolution in the way we think rather than aping the western culture without comprehending its widespread repercussions. He believed in intrinsic changes by virtue of modernizing our thought process and not by randomly overturning our hitherto accepted ways of life. I also remember considering him as my only friend, philosopher and guide. I used to call him Dadun. It is a stark reality of life that our mind gets conditioned to a certain school of thought and thus we interpret everything around us according to that belief system. But Dadun always used to advice me on not closing my mind and be receptive to everything which seemed beneficial and good. Being a victim of partition, he was a hardcore follower of communist ideologies. But he never coaxed me to join the bandwagon. Rather he believed in Socrates’ ideology of shaping our opinions on the basis of independent reasoning and not on the basis of deep influences exerted by someone else whom we adored and respected. But with the gradual passage of time and the accompanying gaining of maturity, I realized that even without my knowledge, I had started believing in communism myself and had actually become a typical communist not believing in anything that is not backed by concrete scientific evidences.
Here we need to distinguish between communists who become so for the heck of it and communists who become so because of ideological sidings. I can confidingly suggest that I belonged to the second category. With the works of Bengali literary stalwarts like Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (of Devdas and Parineeta fame), Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (of Vande Mataram fame) and later Samaresh Basu and Sunil Gangopadhyay inspiring me to the hilt, I got inspired by the 'Reformation Theory'. But the person who inspired all these ideals in me passed away in 1999 when I was in Class VIII. I still remember that dark day. Not delving deep into what happened that day, let me get back to what I was talking about.
With ideologies and a vision of a just society dominating my self identity, I was always treading on a different dimension altogether. In fact, I wanted to take up science in my Plus 2 despite being the best in English in my class not for the lure of getting into the more lucrative professional courses and be a part of the popular culture. The decision was largely inspired by a longing for a deeper insight into the intricacies of our material world. I remember, after reading the Tagore classic Chaturanga, I became so upbeat about the non-existence of God and my atheistic concept that I was virtually searching for people to convince them that God is a mythical concept and the religions are creations of men to actually sustain the deep divide amongst societies. I used to proclaim with pride that I believe in the religion of humanity and my god is self-conscience. But after going through Einstein’s ‘General theory of Relativity’ in my Physics (Honours) classes, I got a severe shock. I actually linked it to our everyday life and understood that the perspective changes the moment the ‘Frame of Reference’ is changed. So, nothing is absolute and everyone is right in their own specific ways.
To be Continued...
4 comments:
hmmmm... nice
How you process all this information is a surprise to me. Anyways Utopian man, best of luck in achieving it.
Hey...
This is one article which I consider to be one of your best write- ups that I saw till date.
First time, you are not playing with unnecessary words.
Very precise writing as far as my understanding goes.
Just a simple suggestion, I know you do not like it, but when you are writing these sort of blogs, write as if you are witnessing the ground realities and that make the writing engrossing.
Anyways, I liked it.
Thanks everyone for the comments. I hope I would only improve myself with time.
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