Keeping Faith

93% of Indians believe in God…

Or so said a report in the Hindustan Times long, long ago. Somehow, this little figure, this absurdly accurate figure, so full that self-congratulatory statistical pomposity, has remained stuck in the forefront of my otherwise cluttered mind. I mean, kuch aur nahin to 93%, nothing more, nothing less…

And whenever I think of this that inevitable query crops up- what then of the remaining 7%?

Indeed, what then of the remaining 7% of Indians who, according to the HT, do not believe in God?

*

I ‘became’ an atheist quite early in life. Somewhere in eight standard. My dear elder brother had renounced religion sometime before that and I, the obedient younger sibling, decided to follow suit by killing God.

But that was more of a statement than an actuality. A fashion statement of sorts. To be an atheist, to pretend to have stripped yourself of the over-whelming baggage of religion, of your ingrained cultural consciousness, was-and still to a large extent is-to be modern. Many who claim to be atheists do so without really believing in disbelief, to rather project their so-called modern, rational credentials than actually arrive to the conclusion after in-depth philosophical engagement and interrogation. A considerable amount of these 7% would be of this type, people who’ve given up on God just for the heck of it, only to enhance their coolness quotient.

Certainly, for me, it wasn’t as if I stopped believing the day I ‘gave up’ religion. Diwali Pooja continued unabated, as did the faith in an over-arching moral framework guided by supernatural powers. As a child of the 90’s I had grown up watching Ramayana, Shri Krishna and Mahabharata on Doordarshan and the indelible marks which they have left upon my subconscious were well nigh impossible to erase…

Indeed, at that stage I did not even feel compelled to do so. I had moved above my Gods, but they continued living right there in my heart: an interesting symbiosis which ensured that I lived undisturbed, at peace with my affected atheism and inherent faith.

It was only later on, in class eleventh or twelfth, that I really started questioning my faith. Was there really a supreme power, or a trinity of supreme powers, which rewarded virtue and punished vice? Did good always-ever-triumph over evil? The evidence of the material world suggested otherwise. All around an uncaring, corrupt society which committed crimes under holy disguises. The fatalist logic of the yuga theory lost ground: why did Narayan preordain decadence and annihilation for his own world? Which creator would want his own stuff to be destroyed, and by his own hands too? Certainly not a caring, empathetic one! Wasn’t the idea of caring divinity a big fat lie then? A hoax perpetuated to conceal the real tyranny and sadism of a being for whom we were all playthings? God was a despot, undoubtedly so, and to put life in the hands of such a dictator was intolerable.

I did the only thing I could think of to hurt him: refusing to acknowledge his suzerainty, I shut myself against him in the firm resolve to be my own master. Of course, this little personal rebellion happened in full knowledge of the irritatingly smug claim to sovereignty which religion maintains for itself: we don’t care if you don’t believe in us, for try as much you can never get out of the system. The system in eternal, inviolate, and there is always a place for disbelieving buggers like you- hell!

“So be it! Damn you and your bloody system! Hell better than this!” In retrospect, it was the typical late 70’s angry-young-Bachchan relation with God- waise to bhagwan ko nakarte rahe, aur jab sar par mushkil aan pari tab to toofani raat me mandir jaakar use larkara, aur chila chila ke kaha ki aaj tak tujhse kuch nahi manga, aaj tak sar nahi jhukaya, par aaj aaya hun ek cheez mangane…Can’t live with him, can’t live without him!

I tried hard though. I became a nature-worshiper of sorts. One fine day I told my best friend Rajat that I had given up on God and religion as we know it, and that from now on nature alone would be my dharma. “I will plant a sapling every festival as a mark of respect for Mother Nature”, I said, “So that by the time I grow up I will have enough plants to generate oxygen for me!” The idea, nobly novel though it was, didn’t go on for long and the afforestation zeal fizzled out in half a year or so. In any case, investing nature with divinity was indirectly conforming with one of the traditional strains of religious belief. Something more was need.

And so, as usual, I turned to science. I adopted the clichéd, conventional rational attitude in dismissing much of my heritage as childish bosh. Mythology and the great epics were rejected as fanciful exaggerations; organised religion demonised as a ruthless institution of appropriation and power. I suppose it really was providential, getting Hawking’s Brief History of Time as an award for “excellent academic performance in tenth”. The Big Bang and related theories accounted for everything- the formation of the universe, the laws of physics, the evolution of man, everything could be understood as a rationally irrational, inherently chaotic sequence of chance events.

Everything, yes, but not quite. The primeval atom burst, yes, but why? What cataclysm made it erupt? Science can offer no possible answer to that- no trajectory can be traced beyond to before that primordial explosion; the inviolate, insurmountable break in the space-time graph will not allow it. How then do we explain things?

God.

Something, or someone, did cause that big big bang. That, and that alone is God- the reason behind the Big Bang, and so the reason behind us all. But God now was a curiously impotent figure- he just caused the crucial event to happen and after that they took their own random, unguided course to reach to this stage. God’s role ended with the explosion, with kick-starting the game: chance was the new god.

The idea, of course, is disturbing. To think everything, not just the existence of this planet but your life as well is just a simple matter of a few odds is not a comforting idea…for one, there are umpteen what ifs. What if that meteor hadn’t wiped out the dinosaurs? What if a meteor were to wipe us out tomorrow? It was a difficult choice, between the vagaries of a tyrant and the vagaries of a meteor.

I chose the meteor.

*

Narayan, Nature, Science, we humans always need something to believe in. What we do as atheists is to just replace one faith with another, God with Science. The trick, I think, is to believe in both, to lug around the baggage of God with the rationality of Science, to see them as not distinct but overlapping and drawing a lot from each other. In any case, God or no God, it really is no use outright rejecting all one’s heritage for an idea- I love it too much, more indeed than any idea to let it go. I love mythology too much to let it go for an obscure bang…

It has helped, really. I believe in disbelief, in the rationality of science but still let it not affect my engagement with mythology and organised religion. I have once again attained that peace by balancing rationalism with religion, by blending them both to form my own eclectic potpourri of a factual faith…

*

Yes, I chose the meteor, but-and I’ve never confessed it-I have always wanted to choose the tyrant. The tyrant in all his/her/its glory, all the undying, eternal glory and omniscience…after saying all this, I finally come down to where I started- atheism is perhaps only a mask to hide one’s doubts. One word, one conviction, and we’ll change over. Of course, it may never come and many of us die without it coming, but then, I believe that is what it is all about. Of waiting, patiently waiting deep down within for that ultimate conviction, that leap of faith to the hereafter.

Of keeping faith.

Metro Trouble

I believe that a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) like the Delhi Metro is not a feasible, long-term intra-city transport option.

Here’s why.

As an entirely electricity dependent MRTS, the Delhi Metro naturally consumes a considerable amount of electricity. Nonetheless, there seems to be no general consensus regarding its exact consumption- a paper on the Institution of Railway Electrical Engineers website claims it’s the largest power consumer in Delhi, a May 9, 2006 report on the Tribune website puts the same to 45MW, or 1.15%, of the average demand of 3,200MW and a write-up on the Metro’s website fixes total consumption to 75+45=120MW or 3.75% of the average demand of 3,200MW. Now, as anybody who’s spent this summer in Delhi knows, this last figure cannot possibly be accurate, for, first, as the channels and papers have been publicising, the total demand at the peak of summer in June was a staggering 1000MW more at around 4,400MW and second, since this figure is so patently obsolete and the Metro’s network has increased considerably since then, its net consumption of too must’ve gone up. There is, unfortunately, no clear figure for that.

Be that as it may, one thing is totally unambiguous: an over-whelming percentage of the Metro’s electricity comes from either non-renewable fossil fuels like coal and natural gas or from ecologically unsound hydroelectric power plants in the lower and middle Himalayas. This crucial fact has till now been consistently ignored by media and civil society alike, for even as we rightfully applaud the DMRC for installing a solar power plant on the Connaught Place station and justifiably take pride in it been awarded carbon credit validation by the German TUVNORD for the use of the innovative regenerative breaking technology, we simultaneously forget that at its core the Metro still functions on hazardous, toxic and ecologically unsafe technologies. Like a majority of successful corporate establishments, all the DMRC does is to stay on the right side of public conscience by adopting small, piece-meal green methods with great fanfare without changing it’s core base of unsound energy generation technologies.

What is urgently required, therefore, is a holistic scientific analysis by an independent, unbiased agency on the overall environmental impact of the Metro’s creation and its unfettered expansion.

First of all, it must be found out to what extent electricity generation in thermal power plants offsets the Metro’s commendable achievement of preventing emission of around 2,275 tonnes of vehicular carbon-dioxide. Indeed, even as we in Delhi celebrate the supposedly modernising influence of the Metro and felicitate it for it’s role in the reduction of vehicular pollution, we overlook the fact that the DMRC characteristically follows conventional Western wisdom of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ by increasingly buying power from a NPTC plant in far-off Orissa. All this happening in the National Capital acquires another, ironical dimension when we consider how the Indian Government cries itself hoarse in every international climate change forum about developed Western nations relocating all their dirty work to developing countries and so making them victims to their insatiable hunger for resources.

Similarly, a detailed study on the multi-nuanced ecological impact of the construction of the Metro too is in order. The DMRC claims to be “one of the most eco-friendly projects in Delhi” so it will be worthwhile to find out whether or not it sources construction material like bricks, cement, concrete, girders etc from clean, green and ethical firms instead of the popular run of the mill profit-maximising, unsound businesses. The affects of exposure-whether adverse or not and if so, how much-to fine concrete dust to construction workers and those living near construction sites too must be conclusively established.

Moving on, one must also consider the costs involved in maintaining the DMRC’s entire network. Whether or not the Metro makes profits, maintenance costs are bound to go up each year as its assets age. Gradually, in about a decade or so, it’ll be bound to phase out a majority of its existing rolling stock if it still wants to maintain its current high standards and afterwards major changes and upkeep would be required in all the stations as well. It is not wholly inconceivable that as time passes maintenance costs would slowly become a considerable amount of its expenditure so that the DMRC’s huge infrastructure and unmovable assets might just end up as an encumbering public liability. Once again, an unprejudiced investigation is in order to determine whether or not these will eventually become equal to or override the net income.

On the whole, I think the DMRC can really not be fully blamed for not being far-sighted enough to anticipate these issues: it is, after all, just a modern replica of a century old transport model carried out under the guidance of a smart and efficient yet aging man. What is surprising, however, is that nobody in Delhi seems to have realised that the Metro, in its current avatar, is only repeating old mistakes and so seems to be going well down the way of becoming an embarrassing liability for the city. Indeed, had even a fraction of the will and money spent in erecting the humongous Metro network been spent on refurbishing roads and revamping the bus system the need for the Metro would never have arisen and the transport problem solved without so much exertion. The very induction of air-conditioned buses in the DTC’s fleet, which will make available to the common citizen a facility till now the Metro’s complete monopoly, coupled with the increase in road space and, so, vehicular traffic raises serious question marks over the very existence of the project as some of its basic objectives get gradually defeated.

All of this is not to say that I am against the Metro. No, like all Delhities, I too have more or less enjoyed the Metro experience and do sincerely believe that by setting enviable professional standards it has brought about a sea change in and contributed immensely to the evolution of public attitudes and consciousness, creating, in fact, a whole new ‘Metro culture’ of discipline, responsibility and patience. Nevertheless the Metro is no holy cow and, more now than ever before, we need to evaluate the whole project in a radical, all-encompassing manner and ascertain its viability for the moderately long-term. That alone will be beneficial for the city.

Death of a Phone

The moral of this story is crystal clear: jhagralu women are injurious to cellular health.

No, I’m not a misogynist. Neither am I one of those people who blame others without rhyme or reason, just because it happens to be convenient to pass the buck. No, I’m a reasonable, rational, sensible man who comes to an opinion after carefully weighing all possible circumstantial evidence. I have the authority of experience backing me, so I say: women are injurious to mobile phones.

First it was Cynthia. Now, it really was Cynthia who initiated me into text messaging; infact forced me into it by messaging at all sorts of inconvenient hours. I had this idea that if somebody’s taking the trouble to call or message you it’s basic human courtesy to reply.

And so I replied. Replied and replied and replied till I finally got the hang of typing a full message and successfully sending it within a minute. My speed, as she complemented me one day, was now tolerably decent.

It was, of course, this very messaging and the misunderstandings it created that led to a nice big jhagra.

So far so good. Dear beloved phone still alright. It was after reconciliation came about that weird things started happening. For about a week or so, the messages she would send would arrive dot on time but those sent by others would take hours upon hours to reach me. I consulted experts-my technologically minded brother and Mos-but to no avail. To this day I call it the B- effect.

A dark omen of things to come.

Next was a little tiff-it cannot qualify as a full blown jhagra-with the Stage Queen. Within a span of about 5 minutes I received some 10 frightening messages. Now, my phone is a simple, sasta-sundar-tikau Classic model with a set of inexorable limitations. If you’re typing a message and another one comes, you have to be extremely careful in patiently guiding the highlight to “Ignore” and pressing “Ok”. A chance mistake and all your carefully typed reply disappears. Often, even if you take all the precautions, your reply will vanish nonetheless and you’ll be left staring blankly at the black-bubble colour display. Just like me, my phone has a mind of its own that rebels at the very thought of external control and supervision.

Anyway, as I would type a reply and be about to take the highlight to send another message would come. As luck would have it, the phone was not in a mood to cooperate and so in spite of all possible precautions I was reduced to typing the same message for about 5 times. As I typed the sixth, the last nail in the coffin was hammered- I didn’t think you’d ignore me.

I was paying more attention than I have to any set of messages in my entire life.

Finally, the next morning, I got back to replying. Having learnt my lesson from last night’s disaster, I now wisely saved messages before sending them so that in case the phone became Satanic and exercised too much free will or the network played truant, I wouldn’t have to type the entire saga again.

Very wise. But phones will be phones and women will be women. Unknown to me, all the harm had already been done. The matter got resolved, but the phone took it all to heart and decided to not let go of the messages saved in its Outbox. Those 7 or 8 messages are still there, defying all efforts to open, leave aside delete, them. This was the P- effect.

‘Never mind’, I reassured myself, ‘What if the Outbox’s not functioning? Heaven help me, I can still send and receive messages!’

Sometimes, even heaven conspires for your downfall…

I must’ve been under a bad shadow, my stars under some evil influence, for how else can I explain my own Guardian Angel making a Faust of me? Alas, be it me, be it the loo, ‘twas to be, ‘twas to be! A jhagra, dramatic on a totally different plane, and my poor phone left bristling with indignation. Just as I messaged “I want you to be happy!” the K- effect went came into being: the phone decided that it had had enough of all the drama and the cheesy cheeky messages and B-grade shayari it had been exposed to throughout its career. Renouncing the world of text messaging, it relapsed into a mode of defiant sanyasa, meditating, perhaps, on the great ills of teenaged existence…

So, here I stand. This is me, this is you: there is somewhere else I’d rather be. I’d rather have my phone returned to its primal innocence, the spic and span way it was before all these falls. I’d rather have it working, cooperating with me than sulking away in silent defiance like this…

All my pleas, however, have been put on hold. The Phone Devta heeds not my calls and even as I type it networks the remaining signal of my phone’s battery to its own anant connection…

Ah well, such is life, such are phones, such are women…if anything, remember, as my mother said, this: never have a jhagra with a woman on your phone!

Me and Mine: A Plurality of Forms

To Shefali Bhakuni

*

(Because a fascinating ass would never let me be and a silly ass would never believe me)

*

What is in a name? A name shapes one’s perception of the self, of identity and communal belonging. A name places one in a socio-cultural milieu, defining one’s roots and, more often than not, neatly docketing one in ethic and racial compartments.

There is something rotten about names…

I, like a majority of us, love my name, but even as one thinks of a name (of a person one knows) one conjures certain ideas and images which one’s subconscious consciously associates with him/her. This, of course, is but natural, for it is in us humans an inherent cognitive faculty which links names and faces with certain perceptions and ideas. These perceptions, which may be acquired or inherited, perform this self same task of definition and categorisation.

So far, so good. What irks me is that after forming an opinion, a majority of people restrict themselves to that single image, idea of a person. They allow their perceptions to ossify and think of people as only this or that, as a particular, distinct and more or less unchangeable form or personality. In trying to define and compartmentalise people as neatly and efficiently as possible, they tend to forget, or overlook, the basic mutability of individual human personality.

What we are is what we choose. There is no natural or primal state- except the nothingness of a babe that is. Exploiting the building blocks of examples and precepts made available by society we create ourselves upon the foundation of inherited genetic traits. Of course, these ‘creations’ are always influenced by society in certain more or less predictable forms. There are people who are shaped directly by their surroundings and social group of family, peers and colleagues and there are people who adopt the I-don’t-care attitude and feign independence from societal pressures- for the most these latter are remarkably sensitive and are greatly affected in subtle, often contradictory ways by societal input, doing and becoming the opposite of what others around them want/suggest.

Broadly speaking, childhood, teenage and young adulthood may be considered the most dynamic years of a person’s life, physically, emotionally and intellectually. It is during these impressionable ages that the human animal evolves the most and, under influence, plants various forms and designs into his/her persona till inspired experimentation sediments into the quasi-stasis of middle age. Of course, after settling into a personality form/type a majority of us rigidify to maintain the status quo for considerable stretches of time- often lifetimes. We then experience occasional bouts when the old urge for change materialises in ‘new looks’, those small periods of experimentation which are soon absorbed into the continuum of monolithic monotony.

In face of this near-complete universality exceptions inevitably suffer. Those of us who experiment or change have to face a barrage of unwelcome criticism, most of it odiously unkind. Our inherent subconscious cultural prejudices and suspicions against change lead us to consciously browbeat this difference into submissive absorption, so much so that even those of us relatively more receptive to change often fall into this trap of inflexibility. Doing so, we forget that what we perceive as natural and given in ourselves and others are in fact our own creations and can be altered at will. Indeed, such is the malleability of human nature that it will change marvellously under pressure and though each individual has his/her own breaking point-and the range varies-but each of us does give in at some point or the other.

In light of this, it will be pertinent to consider the common (mis)conception about natural state(s). One often comes across homilies or adjuncts advising us to ‘be ourselves’, to ‘top pretending’ and be our ‘natural selves’. Social networking sites are choking with testimonials and profiles of people who’re either acclaimed by their friends for ‘being themselves’ or who openly display their intense dislike of ‘hypocrites’ who ‘pretend to be something they’re not’. What ‘being oneself’ means is something which never crosses their narrow, blinkered minds.

After all, what one perceives as one’s ‘natural state’ is just one of the infinite possibilities which has been for some time past in favour. This misguided notion leads one and all to confuse it as natural and given and consequently view any change as an unnatural disturbance to be rectified at once. Indeed, we all get so involved in the idea of being ourselves that in the constant endeavour to live up to that image we forget that the self same idol can at any time be altered, or even altogether replaced. Many people suffer under this delusion, that they cannot change themselves for the better, and mistaking the temporality of existence for the permanence of Bhagvad truth fail to try hard enough to improve their lot.

Therefore, the demise of a quasi-permanent natural order of being makes the very idea of duplicity, so heavily demonised in our cultures, patently superfluous, for one’s changed form is not as much of a detachable mask or hat as a whole skin with accompanying blood and bones- a manifestation of our boundless nature and not some extraneous addition. Furthermore, the beliefs which make us punish differences of personality are really culturally imposed barriers which cloud our vision to the unending diversity of our race, the only thing ‘natural’ to the homo sapiens.

The discovery of change-for convenience’s sake ‘form’-is often startling and the resulting recourse to charges of duplicity and perversity understandable and, to an extent, justifiable. This is not a value judgement on the ends to which perceived duplicity, or change of form, is, and may be, put to. Instead, this is an iteration of the belief that we as a species need to wake up to the undeniable reality of our mutability and so move on-rather evolve-to a more advanced state of flexibility, understanding and acceptance.

In Defense of Toilets

It’s the 100th year of the lavatory- or so says the Hindustan Times. I sure am glad that it is, even if it’s really not. My happiness stems from the realisation of the comfort which all our umpteen modern ‘conveniences’ (talk about fitting names!) have brought to our lives. Sadly, we seem to take all of them, including the humble toilet, for granted.

Arguably, the toilet is one of the single most important invention without which the progress of human civilisation would not have been possible. Without toilets life would’ve been miserable, trudging to the bush and back again every second hour. Without toilets we would never have had ample time to devote ourselves purely to work or leisure, for we would still be nicking into the nearest convenient bush to answer nature’s inexorable call. Villages would not have developed into Kingdoms, Kingdoms not into Empires; Empires would not have fallen, Kingdoms again not risen, Monarchies then not evolved into Democracies.

Considering the pivotal role which toilets have played in human history, it is surprising that so little attention has been paid to them in world literature. The near-universal silence of literature on this vital aspect of human life is as shocking as it is suspect…a gigantic consensual conspiracy of silence, transcending all socio-politico-cultural barriers and shadow lines, seems to be underway to edge out the toilet from public consciousness, thus denying it its rightful place in the annals of history as one of the most fundamental building block of human civilisation. Indeed, the degenerative mythification of the toilet as a cultural taboo unworthy of mention is one of the greatest crimes which Literature is yet to be accounted for.

A world without toilets, a world wherein we did not pee or shit is unimaginable. Yet, the evidence afforded by our Literature seems to suggest otherwise. In no work have I come across a passage wherein somebody just breaks off with a “I gotta pee”. The narratives just go on without any regard for realism. This tendency towards deliberate over-simplification and programmatic marginalisation of important life-processes is markedly prominent in ancient and medieval literature.

Consider for example Homer. The great bard versified so much, yet he could not bring himself to make any single one of his characters to relieve themselves when it’s patently obvious that all of them must’ve spent a considerable amount of time and effort doing so. By a rough estimate, there must’ve been more than 90,000 men in the Achaian army. While the high ups like Achilles must’ve had the luxury of deflating themselves in small pots in the comfort of their tents, a majority of the common soldiery would’ve had to go out, either by the sea or under cover of wooded Ida. Imagine first the sight, thousands upon thousands of men groggily tramping out of their miserable camps to ease out last night’s ration. Imagine then the cumulative stench which would have accumulated around the camp in 10 long years of continuous excreta. Imagine now the environmental degradation, the inestimable damage done to the rivers and fields of Troy. All these are important, pertinent issues, but that all too famous poet sheds no light upon them.

The additional burden of structural artificiality of irresolvable, unbelievable imbalances added on to such fantastic works as epics becomes all the more apparent when one tries to imaginatively identify with their characters. Take the Ramayana. Ramanand Sagar’s version; the final fearsome aerial battle betwixt Ram and Ravan. A volley of abuse and deadly arrows flying over to each side. The tacky ‘mahasangram’ tune blaring in the background.

(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)
Ram (righteous wrath): Neech nishachar! Asahaiye striyon pe veerta dikhane vale kayar! Tu kis baat par apne ko veer kehta hai! Dharm ki maryada bhang karne vale paapi! Teere samast paapon ka dand aaj tyujhe avash milega! (lightning across the blue-red-yellow-green sky; Narad and Devtas nod in approval)
(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)
Ravan (devlish sarcasm): Dand dene ka kaam raja ka hai, bhikari ka nahi! (demonic laugh) Hahaha! (more lightning; Narad and an assortment of devtas look worried)
(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)
Ram (eyeballs popping out in anger; taking up his bow): He paapi, kshatriya prahar karte hain, shastron se, shabdon se nahi! Seh mera var!
(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)
Ravan (casanovic carelessness; taking up his mace): Kaal tumhe pukar raha he Ram!
(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)
Ram (sheepish, but with all the Iskvaku dignity): Ruko Ravan! Ruko! Shan bhar ke liye ruko! Yudh viram karo! Aaj subah se sonch nahi gaya hun: aab sheegra, ati-sheegra jana hoga! Mai abhi aya...(to Matali, the charioteer of his divine raath)…Matali, jaldi jungle chalo!
(Ravan, Lakshman, Hanuman, Sugreev, Jamvant, Narad, Devtas and others aghast)
(Mahasangram! Ek dharm raath par baitha, ek paap rath par baitha, do maha bali, do maha rathi sangram karte hain! Antim charan mai yudh Ravan Ram karte hain! Yudham, yudham, yudham maha-yudham!)

I mean, I can take dragons and walking mummies and gandharvas and fairies and daemons, but I simply cannot believe in a world where nobody never ever needs to shit and pee!

Just how simple and easy it would’ve been for us students and critics of humanities, of history, sociology, religion, politics, psychology and literature, if writers had just mentioned the toilets of the rich and famous they immortalised. Had Plutarch just dropped in a line or two about Caesar’s loo before he fell with ‘Et tu’, we could’ve have saved a whole colosseum full of money spent in archaeological excavations. Had the unknown bard of Beowulf just put in a few verses about his lavatory we would not be scratching our head with regard to early Anglo-Saxon conveniences. Had Shakespeare made Hamlet continue his trauma while letting go of his inner tensions our perception of Elizabethan hygiene would’ve been a lot less murky. Had Eliot given Maggie just a wee more room in a little loo of her own we would’ve better understood not just her but the Mill, and so the Victorian milieu, as a whole…

Had…if…the literary history of the toilet’s representation is a sad invisible chronicle of deliberately squandered opportunities, of blatant sacrifices of realism to arbitrary cultural norms in the name of a mythical purity. Of course, Literature’s reprehensible role in the formation of these norms, as for other norms, cannot be over-emphasised. The loss, however, has also been Literature’s, for the toilet’s comic, tragic and tragi-comic (things…cameras…going down the chute) potential has been largely unrealised.

Fortunately, the democratisation of Literature along with the emergence of literatures has ushered in an open-minded honesty which slightly redeems it of past atrocities. (Post) Modern writers in their depiction of reality-which is no longer thrice removed from anything-do not shy away from toilet scenes, be it escaping the police by jumping down a toilet in the Louvre in Brown’s Da Vinci Code or wild sex in an asylum’s washroom in a Bond thriller. However, what really broke the porcelain ceiling was the entry of cinema and television and its depicting of all sorts of toilet and toilet-related activities: sex, strangulation, drinking, electrocution, smoking, stabbing, graffiti, cat-fights, vandalism and so on. Posterity will be indebted to modern-and post-modern-cinema and television for an open, unbiased and healthy pursuit of lavatoric realism which does away with the restrictions of previous narrow eras...

There comes a time in every society’s history wherein it makes a tryst with destiny. Long ago, with the emergence of modernism, we did that and the time has come to redeem that pledge. At the dawn of history the toilet started its unending quest for glory and the trackless centuries are filled with its unyielding struggles. The toilet’s star has finally risen and Literature now stands at the cusp of a new age, a new dawn of equality and emancipation. Freedom and power have brought us a responsibility to correct the wrongs of the past, and we must all labour hard to give expression to our reality, to write in unison for the formation of a better, shitty world…