Bottoms Up: Inverting the Liquor Logic.

"XYZ is badly hung over. Again."
All male friends click "Like"
Girlfriend adds a comment: "Dislike!!!!!"
Non-drinking classmate (me) *Nods head in disapproval and hides your news feed*

Liquor brings a rainbow reaction from all of us. Some of us go red, some green, and some go blue. Booze is an important component in a lot of our lives. That's how we make new friends in Raju's birthday party, mourn over our ex and bring in the new year. To a lot of other people, it is a vice- something that gets you into AA before you know it; and up until recently, I was with the latter. No, no- I'm not going to finally drink my first beer or anything, now. Not a chance. But I don't see liquor as a threat anymore. Sure, there are some of you air-heads who let it go out of hand and end up in AA, or in the arms of another woman's man- but that's YOUR problem.

Why did I develop this new opinion? Well, it all started when I was paying rapt attention during Am Lit. Shobana ma'am was saying something about the Native Americans sharing stories while passing tobacco  around. Perhaps they didn't know it could give them lung cancer and we can't really say they were smoking exactly the same thing that goes into a Marlboro Light. Was it some other kind of drug? We'll find out when they invent time machines.

Also, Shobana ma'am was talking to me about how some of the Greek temples are found to be built on a geographical fault line, resulting in the sanctum sanctorum being located directly above some sort of a volcano. The fumes that come out of it have effects similar to narcotics. So, when these priestesses got in and got out, they'd be 'high' and make all kinds of fantastic sounding prophecies. People eventually ended up thinking that they had attained divine heights.

Lots of liquor lovers claim that their God is in that bottle. Maybe. Maybe that's true. It takes them to a dimension that sobriety does not offer. The Native Americans and even us Indians worshiped nature. The sun, sky, water, air, fire... Everything that came from nature was God. And when you think of it, where did their alcohol come from? Not United Breweries, I'm certain! Yes, the tobacco, volcanic fumes and the Soma came from nature, and it gave them a God-like experience.

The diamonds that glitter on our fingers, the waves that kiss our feet on the beach side, freshly extracted honey, the aroma of coffee beans, the rich kick of cocoa in dark chocolate- we love these so much! Don't we all want to worship nature for having given us all of it? So what made us have such a varied opinion about liquor. Simple: We used to consume it as a part of custom, on certain days of the year, for an experience that was appreciated. People bonded over a pipe, they nurtured their culture in the process.

What do we do now? We drink to get drunk, we get thrown out by the bouncer for making a pass at the next woman, we get addicted and wasted, we get our childless uncles to sign over their property to us when they're high. Way to go, present day janata! No wonder we hate it now! Just because something is beautiful, it won't be appreciated by over-dosing on it. Not liquor, not your new/latest wife, not getting sea soaked wrinkles on your toes!

Maybe we should sit in a circle, discuss Am Lit, explore a different dimension of it, pass around a bottle of wine. That could be fun.

Otherwise...

Check out this link: Drunkard's Suprabhata: Full Kick to those of you who understand Kannada

God bless y'all!

White Men Burdened?

Think of remote Africa. You see people dressed in leaves and bark, faces painted, huge earrings and nose rings, dancing around a big fire under a million stars. Where do you see yourself in that picture? Well, as a tourist (assuming the tribe isn't hostile to you), you're sitting with stars in your eyes, watching utterly fascinated, clicking away random pics on your high resolution Nikon cam. Do you want to run screaming into their midst and teach them how to be "civilized"? Nope. Do you want to go back home and brag about your latest holiday on Facebook? VERY MUCH.

To think of it, yes, it's weird that there are people on this planet who have no idea what electricity is, don't speak English and will most definitely grunt and shoo you away if you talk to them about religion. That doesn't mean you need to scare them at gun-point and get them to become like you. They do have a life, thank you very much. They've been fending for themselves quite well for many centuries now, without your help. They have a way of living, which, whether you want to acknowledge or not, is called a "Civilization" (Yup, that's a capital C)!

What you should do as someone who has been taught the bill of Human Rights in high school is- Admire their culture, respect their diversity, and mind your own business. Unless you want to take the Mother Teresa route, believe me, I have every intention of accusing you of being a greedy pig.

So, is that what a white man was? A greedy little pig? Hard to say, actually. There is this whole notion of "the white man's burden" to consider. Whether they were genuinely concerned about the less advanced way of life that other people led, or whether they just used it as an excuse to fire-brand yet another country on the world map is extremely arguable. But what I will do now, is dissect this slippery frog and try to see it for real.

You get hung up on the idea of finding gold and you sail in all sorts of unknown seas. You finally hit land and you find people who think you have come from heaven (Lucky man, Chris Columbus!). You take advantage of them because they have absolutely no clue what you are up to. Then, you write to your beloved King saying "Oooh! These people are God-less! Let's give them ours!". Grrr! Hang on, boy, I thought you got there to TRADE. What is with this compulsion to turn everyone like you??

Shobana ma'am had a brilliant explanation for that. Even in college, you are expected to be a particular kind of person to be in the "in gang". Ultimately, the tallest, longest legged, flamboyant chick becomes your walking bible. So true! But there are still those of us who like to be ourselves, Jimmy Choos be damned! There is a beauty in being your own, unique self; and we'll all be really great together with our many different talents making our space colourful... In theory. Try saying that when you're doing your CIA 3? CHAOS. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" "My method is clearly the best, you moron!"
You'll never hear the end of it.

It is the law of nature (the second law of thermodynamics, to be precise) that everything in the universe becomes more and more disorderly. Obviously, if you have more number of opinions, more ways of life, there will be more disorder. Diversity may be beautiful, but then again... Uniformity can be very peaceful, too. What would you call a Mahendra Singh Dhoni type of guy marching with the buzz cut army guys on Republic Day? An eye-sore.

Fine. So, let's all be the same. What does that involve? Whose way of life do we follow? Who is right? Which is best? Can we all go back to our respective caves now? Please??

Again, Shobana ma'am has a brilliant explanation. The British were here, right? They brought us the railway, right? When they were gone, we ditched the concept of having a million little kingdoms and wrote ourselves a democratic constitution, right? And we're still wearing our pretty saris and dancing the Bharatanatyam. We'll save the whole how-we-struggled-for-our-independence story for later and just say- we still have us, we also have them. Cool.

Then again, I wonder, just because someone says "Ok, let's try your way", what makes you take advantage of it and rule over them? Fine, let's call it human tendency. But does that mean we'll never get to learn from other people for the fear of being the scorpion under their dirty slipper? Why the hell is this so complicated? What is wrong?

Nothing is wrong. In fact, every little thing that different groups of people do is right. It is HOW you do it, which makes all the difference. No matter how much we try, we will never be the same. We are meant to be diverse. Whether you want to look at the diversity of our flaws or diversity of our strengths is what makes the world an ugly or a beautiful place.

Bartering Systems

Christopher Columbus thought he was such a genius and all. Went and found India, didn't he? He also got little nuggets of gold off people's noses for glass beads. Must've been one helluva bargain, huh?

In our understanding of the world, gold is (at the rate of Rs. 2245/gram as of today) definitely precious. It has more value than any number of glass beads or hawk bells. But "value" here, is a very tricky word. How do you decide the value of a particular object? What makes it more or less precious than something else? Is there an absolute value for a physical material?

If you have given a little thought to these questions, you should know by now that everything works relatively.

The Native Americans attached more value to food and to the land that they lived on. They didn't perceive gold like the Spaniards did. So, they easily gave away what was on their noses as if it was something that came from inside their noses instead. Clever Mr. Columbus gave away his glass beads with just that much sense of loss. It is interesting to see how each party drools over what's on the other side of the grass.
The great, educated Europeans knew gold wasn't as abundant as oxygen. The rarity of the metal made them desperate for it- just like the typical lover who pines for the woman he will never have. We ALL want things we don't already have. Law of nature.
The Native Americans, on the other hand, were probably picking gold out of mud. It's hard to imagine them digging big holes in the earth they love so much, to mine all that gold that they don't love at all. They were so fascinated by the glass beads that they probably forgot to see the "Made in China, Sold in National Market" stamp on it. You get the picture. Anything new is also catchy.
So, it all boils down to- We always treasure things that we have least. Which brings me to this question- If we have a lot of something, is it not worth treasuring?
Is your girlfriend's love not worth treasuring just because you've known her far too long and you've used those three words far too much?
Is your mum's cooking not worth treasuring just because you have it everyday and rarely have to eat out like the other PG people?
Is oxygen not worth treasuring just because we still haven't cut down all the trees that still produce them?
I won't say the same about petrol, though. We are ALL aware that it costs 72 bucks a litre! *OUCH*

So, essentially, if aliens came to us to trade extra-terrestrial knowledge (that we're dying to gain) or some weird coloured stone (that you think might appease your storming girlfriend), in exchange for one cylinder of oxygen per head, we may foolishly give it. And then what? Asphyxiate?
I don't think I'd be right to say that the Native Americans asphyxiated because they gave and took stuff from the Europeans, but they did decline somewhere.

Which brings me to the moral of my story: Treasure EVERYTHING you have. Whether it is the hush-hush set of expensive diamonds your mum bought for "your future" or the plastic pen-cap that you so easily misplace. That definitely helped Clever Columbus. He probably brought his golis to play on the ship... And just because he did that, he got like- a huge chunk of land... And a place in the Am Lit Text book... And a jobless female giving him the "clever" tag. Pah!

Just for Am Lit

Only I know how much I suck at blog maintenance. Which is why I don't bother writing one. But how can I refuse when Shobana ma'am asks me to do one... Just for Am Lit? After all, my first rule of being a student of CEP is "First say yes. Then think of how" and I can't possibly go against it, myself.

All of last year, I never paid attention during Brit Lit, except when we did My Last Duchess. Anyway, I don't regret not paying attention. It saved me a LOT of trouble. This sem, I've been such a good girl and I've been listening in class and everything... And I must say, the way Shobana ma'am teaches has a way of making you think. From one thought comes a question, from that question comes a counter-question, from that comes a possible answer, to which there is an argument- and before you know it, there is utter chaos in your head. Maybe that happens to me because I know so less. But the more I learn, the more chaotic my mind becomes. Maybe blogging is a good idea- hopefully, I'll be able to organize my thoughts.

The whole thing started when I was hyperventilating about Chief Seattle's Speech. Awesome stuff, I must tell you! I had a whole, messy argument for Shobana ma'am when she said that some of the white men 'meant well'. Ok, I'll get to that later. 

Basically, there are a lot of things that pop to my head, take root and shape my future thought processes. They aren't "academic"... Some of them completely move away from Am Lit itself. But all of them arise from whatever we're reading. 

Hoping to make sense,

Abhineeta.