Expressions drowned in themes

Joker's bright white mask and shrieking red smile, yellow vests worn by protesters in Europe, democratic congresswomen adorned in white to the State of the Union address in Washington, protesters in Hong Kong using black are all examples where colour is used to signal a message. Can be a threat or call for peaceful collaboration. Governments go to the extent of banning them for anarchy. But what is difficult is recognizing a symbol used intentionally to ignite riots. For example, France was Europe's first government in 2010, to prohibit the full Islamic veil in public spaces. France also had judicial battles in public spaces over religious icons, such as in 2016 when judges forced to remove a sculpture of the Virgin Mary from a public space. These are instances that question the secular vision France follow. But again, the word ‘secular’ has a different meaning in France from that of India.

When such icons are sacred for one community, some rioters go to the extent of misusing them to instigate chaos in society. Thus, the line between the symbols that evoke love and hate or fear and power is narrow. For instance, the master mind and tyrant behind the Nazis, Adolf Hitler, had one philosophy which rationalized the killing of all those victimized folks: the development of a perfect (Aryan) race. One of the Nazi-Germans' most iconic cultural icons is the Swastika carried on a badge on the Nazi uniform. Meanwhile, it essentially means goodness in Hinduism and is seen as a symbol of good fortune and wealth. Hence the symbol Swastika confuses between goodness and genocide, due to paradoxes occurred in history.

The term symbol derives from the Greek word symbolon, which means a form of marking bond, token, logo etc. In general, associates, attendees, hosts of a certain team or party or group may recognize one another with the aid of symbol pieces. Meanwhile, religious icons are used to express ideas dealing with mankind's connection to the divine or sacred (e.g., the cross in Christianity) as well as to his public and societal nature (e.g., the dharmachakra, or wheel of the law, in Buddhism). Religious icons are a way of uniting practitioners of a shared heritage of religion and of signalling to others the religious culture they represent. The value of visual language and the pictorial depiction of religious thoughts and concepts has been reiterated, broadened and intensified through the local cultures and faiths. In turn, the symbol is the mediator, identity, and true (or intelligible) image of the paragon of virtue in certain traditional and simplified ways.

Historically, when political propaganda were not enough to carve separate nations out of the existing ones, religious icons were intentionally used in their propaganda. By entangling religion with politics, a group of people would be felt belongingness to the religion they follow. Thus, a new nation based on a religion becomes a possibility, even though it is done out of vested-interests. Self-interests remain veiled due to the feeling of oneness brought in by symbols of religion.

A bunch of different wars happening at the same time but for the same reason, God. Religious influences are embedded in all aspects of human experience. The ultimate gesture they expect from others is respect. Respect for the faith and the icons they follow. Sometimes the respect grows into greed for superiority over other religions. India is no different. For political expediency and not out of any instinctive religious affection, leaders of any faith can politicize religious icons because there is gradual embedding of political discourse within culture and religion in some nations. This gained them traction and organizational strength as a religiously separate group. Hence, trying to distinguish real (non-extreme) religious actors from economic or political opportunists is often not simple. Majority of the world's religious practitioners peacefully co-exist. This is the reason why religious violence occurs in one locality while the practitioners of the same religion coexist in a multi-religious environment in some other place.

Once a symbol associated to a religion or culture is embedded in a follower’s mind, it starts to create symbolic and social boundaries. In reality, symbols empower and encourage religious philosophies to redefine what it means to be an integral member of a fundamental community. During multicultural riots, the religious icons relied on in building up conflict are the same in which a society makes view of the environment and its position within. Religions also struggle to distinguish who defines, forms and legitimizes the symbols or guidelines perceived by the members of a religious group. This is because all the major religions have more than a thousand years of history. And the religion-associated language and culture are subject to evolution. And so, it's hard to determine how diverse icons have been linked with religions.

As a part of inflicting pain in rival religions, key symbols like mosque, church or temple is selected to commit violent acts against them. Such iconoclasm include mass expulsion of icons connected to a particular group. While populist leaders (of religion) are effective agents to fan ethnic conflict, they will focus on icons that are already ingrained in the consciousness of a group to encourage desired negative responses. It is mostly through the integration of historically rooted religious symbols that the motives of rioters are legitimized.

Though the Indian constitution has the clause that no discrimination should be made on the basis of colour, ironically riots can be enthralled and spirit of vengeance can be injected into people’s mind through the hoisting of a particular colour flag or wearing bands of a specific colour or walking with some pattern of clothes on or even shouting a slogan to keep people reminded of their blind vision to thrash the other community. On the other side the same kind of unity born out of hashtags and symbols unite people, but for a good reason, to protest against inequality and corruption. So the psychology of uniting people using icons and symbols can also bring fruitful results, if not misused.

NB : I would like to post a link that came up recently on how some symbols can keep on sending hostile messages to a group of people even after decades and how supporters of those symbols take disagreeable pride on it.

https://youtu.be/J5b_-TZwQ0I

Clean India : A reality?

‘Cleanliness is next to God’ is India’s age-old chanting. But unfortunately, one of the essences of Indian culture, ‘Cleanliness’ has become a chanting nailed to the walls of government offices and hospitals. Apart from cleanliness being a concept important in modern lifestyle, fearing the rising pollution level, it was once the most imperative part of Indian habit. One of the inspirational habits of Indians was that cleanliness was synonymous to the identity “Indianess”

Still, most Indians love to believe so and cling on to the praiseworthy cultural history of India. But times have changed. We are living in the present where cleanliness in buildings, streets and even in households has become the very necessity to mould a well decorated ground to welcome the world to India. India will be able to completely open the doors to development, only if it meets the need for a Clean India. Clean India is no more a dream rather it has become the immediate necessity.

"Most homes will be reasonably neat and tidy, perhaps obsessively tidy. But behind this “godliness” lies another story- what you don’t want in your own home is nonchalantly flung out of the window into the neighbour’s compound." These are lines from Shobhaa De’s ‘Superstar India’. These lines explicitly show the selfish character that lies embedded in individuals. This issue arises when we think about ourselves as individuals rather than as a nation. India’s mistake is not with its policies taken. Flaws occurred when these policies trickled down to the grass-root level. On one side, it trembled when it came to the case of executing the policies. On the other side, people irrespective of educational qualifications and income, are not made aware of a clean surrounding. The profound significance of hygiene and personal care are imbibed by children at their lower grades, itself. But there is inequality propagated by letting them keep only their households and themselves clean. This indeed results in inculcating a selfish character in those children. And by inequality, the selfish character of an individual is reflected.

Cleanliness has been widely exhibited inequality in our mega polis. Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, and why not the real villain Mumbai, have become hubs of ‘Clean India’ issue. All of them have the developed India on one side and straight across the city, where your eyes can clearly see from the balconies of those sky scrappers, residents of the slums locate themselves very carefully in fields and chat companionably as they perform their morning ablutions. No self consciousness. No Shame. Only men. When and where do women go? Again inequality.

Let’s revise. Clean India is a matter we need to keep in mind while we look at ourselves, our house, our neighbourhood, our roads, our streets, our government offices, our trains, our bus and railway stations, our trains and buses, our public toilets. And let me give you a piece of information. This “public” doesn’t mean government, it means we people. All these “public” items run on our money i.e. tax. So, it really has value in all terms i.e. economic, social and moral. Actually, our moral policing should be channelized to this side of our society. Keeping a check whether we people are giving good care to public properties and in our case keeping all public places clean. Indeed, Clean India is a collective responsibility of Indians everywhere every time. And soon, Clean India should become a habit. Not a policy. Not a responsibility anymore. But a habit.

Unable to meet his inspirational hero Beethoven, he stays around his sculpture.

The movie makes serious interventions to depict that some relationships do not work where policies, jobs and time exist. They are so divine that they are reluctant to help themselves inside “policies and system.” Human relationships of friends or family are very delicate and pure in its own form. World’s laws, rules and system have corrupted it with artificial bonding and unreal intimacy.

The movie ‘The Soloist’ directed by Joe Wright based on the book by Steve Lopez entrenched my heart in troubling thoughts for several days. I prefer to write down some of the aspects of the story that had thrown light on certain unnoticed matters. I would like to make comments only on the anecdote rather than the movie’s technical sides.

The opening of the movie is very specific in reflecting the busy nature of a city. How less often does a city care about a homeless person lying on the street. How deeply “office people” are drowned in their job. People who have a future to purse is mindless of the little humans around them. Meanwhile the protagonist Steve Lopez is always in a hunt for stories. Even though, no other columnists in his newspaper company have followers and admirers like him, the ‘’ no messages” in his voice mail box pointed out that he led a very lonely personal life. It is as simple as that there is none to visit him in the hospital when he met with an accident. Yet, he doesn’t seem to be bothered by his lonely life. His passion for his profession keeps him engaged. As in every newspaper man’s life he is accompanied by a voice recorder documenting his thoughts and plans about his prospective columns.

The other side of the movie revolves around the life routines of a homeless man, Nathaniel – the soloist. He seems to be affected with schizophrenia. Steve found Nathaniel while playing his violin and finds a story to put in his next column. Interestingly, the movie illustrates how addictive is man to opportunities. The soloist doesn’t seem to believe in ‘opportunity’. He enjoys playing violin and he is fantastically good at it. He has no expectation of a standing ovation or applause from a big crowd. He plays the string to find happiness for himself. So, life is itself an opportunity. You can’t sell your life. Hence, there is no selling or buying of opportunities. The Soloist unveils the hypocrisy in going in search of opportunities.

The soloist kept on talking without pauses and periods the day the protagonist met him. After many days of constant conversations and building a consistent relation with Steve Lopez, he gradually learnt to place pauses and periods at the right places. A homeless who never had anyone to talk with had forgotten to converse with the right flow of emotions. These are desperate times when pauses and periods in sentences go meaningless. Because sentences no more become conversations for the homeless from the day, they are alone.

Further, the anecdote chooses to portray lives of many homeless people like Nathaniel. The choice of words and the style of homeless remains inconceivable for the office people. Their hunger is not only for food but also for happiness – which is something the privileged class never understands. Their sense of happiness is not defined by promotion or recognition. It is purely derived from pursuing their own enjoyment like relishing music or talking to oneself or maybe staying silent in a corner. Often, people with a “condition” talk to each other without words. The ‘’abnormal’’ people seems to have very “normal” life with their alike. Normality is different for each individual.

Sometimes arranging a bed and an apartment does not help them. They don’t want to be normal like the other people. The soloist ran away from his home to sleep on streets. There he found himself away from commitments and burden of recognition. He chose his world. He chose his comfortable zone. Later, he was shown to be very hesitant to accept Steve’s offer – an apartment to live in, for himself. He believed that it was better to live on the open earth, rather than living in concrete boxes. What if my home is not your home?

The most striking portrayal of the movie is the attachment protagonist develops to the soloist. Is it out of sympathy or empathy? It is all up to the audience to decide. Perhaps, a small line between sympathy and empathy. Meanwhile, the anecdote clearly characterizes both of them by reflecting that one reached the peak of his happiness from writing and expressing his observations in a column, the other savored the taste of his happiness by playing strings anywhere he felt comfortable, mostly footpaths and tunnels.

The soloist is guided by the obsession he has to Beethoven whereas the protagonist is driven by his obsession for the soloist. But the obsession is a deep personal attachment. It makes us realize that unknowingly we objectify the people we have personal relationships with. We call it by the nick name possessiveness. The soloist questions this objectification in a very different manner without taking it into a much-complicated level. Two persons in whatsoever relation they might be in - friends, partner or business, one cannot objectify the other for any reason. Two private individuals have their own decision-making capacity to take decisions for themselves. These are revelations that a person with a “condition” had while the columnist who the world expects to know everything under sun never had seen this side of friendship. It was not his fault. It is a flaw with which we are all brought up. It is a misunderstanding many of us forget correct. No legal document or medical prescriptions authorizes a person to take decision for the other person one is related to. The movie makes serious interventions to depict that some relationships do not work where policies, jobs and time exist. They are so divine that they are reluctant to help themselves inside “policies and system.” Human relationships of friends or family are very delicate and pure in its own form. World’s laws, rules and system has corrupted it with artificial bonding and unreal intimacy.

Steve’s marriage life is adorable, though the partners live separately for some reasons hidden. It has a depth unseen. While his wife is troubled by the love, he shows to Nathaniel which she never received from him when they were married. It was after separation they had realized the value of such a relationship. Whichever relationship it might be objectification destroys the natural process of maintaining the same. It is well flavored in the statement from the movie “just be a friend and show up.” Being a friend or husband or wife is an honor. Let it be any position one needs to adorn concerning a relation. Finally, taking the soloist as a lesson, his courage and humility changed the attitude of the protagonist to his friend as well as to his wife. “The dignity of being loyal to something you believe in” is the dialogue the protagonist delivers towards the end of the movie. Those words contain the crux. The way Steve changed calling his friend from the first name Nathaniel to his second name Ayers with a prefix ‘Mr.’ enlightens that freedom to decide things for oneself is paramount in any sort of relationships.

The movie is an eye-opener to the mental conditions of the homeless also counting the “normal” people messing up their relationships. The reality is that whether poverty or homelessness drowns a person, he still has the liberty to make a choice on every small thing concerning him. The privileged is not the custodian of the unprivileged - in the name of charity or sympathy. Giving Respect to the high class while showing Sympathy to the low class are heinous ways of treating human beings. Remaining a friend to a person, indiscriminate to the class he belongs to, is the most dignified act.