From the dreamer's dairy..

Picture credit: actsofpaint.com

"A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."

- George Moore

      It was a long long wait indeed. I had waited every night for the past nine years in the hope that he would come to me and complete the narration of his unfinished story. But there was no trace of him coming back and I decided to embark on exploring why he had not returned all these years. It was my first journey to the world of which I knew naught. The far off land from which he would come visiting is the one I had to sail towards. Something in me was telling this would be the journey - the journey which would take me to a destiny awaiting to be fulfilled for years. The optimist in me hoped it would be the journey of the lifetime but the pessimist cautioned not to jump to conclusions and keep expectations limited. 

      He would come to me in the deep hours of the peaceful childhood slumbers. We do not dream by our choice. This guy was no exception. He frequented into my dreams, always by his own choice and would narrate parts of his life story. A very eccentric guy, I had thought during the initial nights. But as nights passed by, I took a liking to him. He narrated various episodes of his life - childhood, love, pain, ecstasy, success, failure. Not much of it would make sense to me back then, but now his stories do appeal to me. He told me how his passion for cycling had shaped his life. In the tribe he was born, cycling was considered a taboo and his early confrontations with the orthodoxy earned him the tag of a 'rebel'. Fed up being treated an outcast, he chose to cycle his way to the new lands where cycling was a privilege.
      Rag-picking his way to being a professional cyclist, his first major heartbreak came when his lady love could not stand the obsession of his passion. Later at the peak of his career, when he felt the burden of competition deprived him of the pleasure of cycling, he had decided to call it off. He had chosen to live, instead of carving a career. The move was one of its kind and had catapulted him into celebrity stardom. He had been elevated to the status of a prophet; adored as the hero of the generation, visionary of the nation and had been hailed as the proponent of the religion of 'cycling for the sake of cycling'. Statues of his were erected in the land and he was called their biggest cultural hero. Living in stardom, as he aged, he had felt the need of an objective listener. No man could be absolutely objective unless in a deep slumber. That was when he wandered into my dreams. For a couple of years he kept coming in my dreams and narrating this story of his, in vivid detail.
      I waited eagerly for his arrival. The story of his had an aura, built by his inimitable style of narration. In the penultimate dream he appeared, I had asked him, in childish innocence if he still enjoyed cycling as he did before? He quit the dream without an answer. I was afraid if I had angered him. I was worried if he would ever come back again. He did appear for a very brief span of time, and shared his most cherished wish - "to cycle back home, unfettered". Before I could realize, he walked out of my dream. But I failed to note he was walking out for the last time.  I had been waiting for him to appear again, so that I hoped to get a complete picture of his life. But all my hopes went in vain. He had given me only the palate, I was waiting to make sense of the art on the huge canvas. The gentleman never strode into my dreams again.
        The journey to his land was a battle on my thought process. How could I meet a huge celebrity of that land? Would he still be interested to share his story with me? Was he dead? I desperately wanted to believe he had not. I don't know how, but I was convinced I could meet him. May be it was just a gut feeling but it was a very strong emotion. As I ventured into his country, it was not anything like what he had described to me.  Either I had imagined things in wrong light or the land had undergone a sea of changes. On inquiring, I was told the cyclist prophet could not stand the adulation he received and had abandoned the stardom and cycled back home.  They had brought down his statues and rebuilt the land, reinventing themselves after the craze of cycling philosophy had died down.
       Not letting the fading hope disappear, I went to his native only to discover he was denied entry there on the ground that he had very long ago dishonored their tradition. He had appealed the rulers of his tribe to reconsider his situation, begged to be pardoned and until a few months back fought for the legitimacy of his entry. When he was about to be pardoned, I was told, he declined the offer and said he had found his true home. A very feeble old man then, the cyclist proclaimed he was fulfilling his most cherished wish and had cycled into the unknown wilderness. None knew where he intended to go and no one had ever seen him again.
        All my hopes were lost, dreams shattered. I felt as if destiny had just betrayed me. No one knew where he was. A journey which I hoped would be the finest of all expeditions turned out to be a tragedy? Was I over reacting? None had assured me my goal would be fulfilled. I had not lost anything, but had got to see different lands. Yet I succumbed to the pain and grief of not getting what I had wished for. I realized it was easy to preach equanimity but very hard to live up to it. Disheartened, I returned home.
         On seeing me back home, the cyclist said "Here cometh my death to fulfill my destiny."
         I cried, "You can't die without completing the story."
         "Your arrival completes it."
         He collapsed.
         I stumbled in the attempt to hold his falling body.
    The fall woke me up.

The suicide note.

            Their power, their voice.
            My death, my only choice.

ಬೇಸಾಯ: ನೀ ಸಾಯ?

"ಯಾರೂ ಅರಿಯದ ನೇಗಿಲ ಯೋಗಿಯೆ ಲೋಕಕೆ ಅನ್ನವನೀಯುವನೋ

  ಹೆಸರನು ಬಯಸದೆ, ಅತಿ ಸುಖಕೆಳಸದೆ, ದುಡಿವನು ಗೌರವಕಾಶಿಸದೆ.

  ನೇಗಿಲ ಕುಲದೊಳಡಗಿದೆ ಕರ್ಮ, ನೇಗಿಲ ಮೇಲೆಯೇ ನಿಂತಿದೆ ಧರ್ಮ."

                                                           - ಕುವೆಂಪು 

         ವ್ಯವಸಾಯದ ಕುರಿತಾಗಿ ಹತ್ತು ಹಲವು ಆಲೋಚನೆಗಳು ತಲೆ ಹೊಕ್ಕಿ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದವು. ಪಿ.ಸಾಯಿನಾಥರವರ 'Everybody loves a good drought' ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಹಾಗು "Nero's Guests" ಸಾಕ್ಷ್ಯಚಿತ್ರ ಇಂದಿನ ಜಾಗತಿಕ ಮಾರುಕಟ್ಟೆ ಮತ್ತು ರಾಜಕೀಯ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆ ಕೃಷಿಯನ್ನು ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ತಂದು ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿವೆ ಎಂಬ ಹಸಿ ಸತ್ಯಗಳನ್ನು ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮವಾಗಿ ಕಟ್ಟಿ ಕೊಡುತ್ತವೆ ಎಂಬ ನನ್ನ ಅಬಿಪ್ರಾಯವನ್ನು ಗೆಳೆಯನೋರ್ವ ಅಲ್ಲಗಳೆದು ಇವು ತೀರ ಏಕಪಕ್ಷೀಯ ವಾದಗಳೆಂದು ತನ್ನ ಅಬಿಪ್ರಾಯ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಂಡ.  ಹೀಗೆ ಹೊರಟ ನಮ್ಮ ವಿತ್ತಂಡವಾದವನ್ನು  ಕೊನೆಗೊಳಿಸಿದ್ದು 'ಕೆ ವಿ ಅಕ್ಷರ'ರವರ "ವ್ಯವಸಾಯದ ಅವಸಾನ" ಎಂಬ ಲೇಖನ. ಅದರ ಕೊನೆಯ ಕೆಲವು ಸಾಲುಗಳನ್ನು ಓದಿ ನಾವಿಬ್ಬರು ನಿರುತ್ತರರಾದೆವು. ಆ ಸಾಲುಗಳನ್ನು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಉಲ್ಲೇಖಿಸಿದ್ದೇನೆ - 

  

        ವ್ಯವಸಾಯದ ಅವಸಾನ ಕುರಿತು ನನ್ನ ಚಿಂತಾಲಹರಿಯನ್ನು ಕೆಲವು ದಿನಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ನಮ್ಮೂರಿನ ಕೃಷಿಕರೊಬ್ಬರ ಮುಂದೆ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿದೆ. ತುಂಬಾ ಅನುರಕ್ತಿಯಿಂದ ಕೃಷಿ ಕೆಲಸಗಳನ್ನು ಮಾಡುವ ಅವರು ಒಂದೇ ಮಾತಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನನ್ನ ತೀರ್ಮಾನಗಳನೆಲ್ಲಾ ಬುಡಮೇಲು ಮಾಡಿದರು - 'ನಿನ್ನ ವಾದದಲ್ಲೇ ಒಂದು ತೊಂದರೆಯಿದೆ. ಎಲ್ಲ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳಿಗೂ ಸರ್ಕಾರವೋ ಅಥವಾ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಯೂ ಕಾರಣವೆಂದು ನೀನು ತಿಳಿದಿದ್ದಿಯ. ಆದರೆ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಇರುವುದು  ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬ ಕೃಷಿಕನ ಮನಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲೇ ಹೊರತು ಕೃಷಿಯಲಲ್ಲ . ಕೇವಲ ಲಾಭಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ನಾನು ಕೃಷಿ ಮಾಡುವುದಿಲ್ಲ, ಅದು ನನ್ನ ಬದುಕು ಎಂದು ಯಾರಾದರೊಬ್ಬ ಕೃಷಿಕ ನಿಜವಾಗಿಯೂ ತಿಳಿದಿದ್ದರೆ, ಅಂಥವನು ತನ್ನ ಕೃಷಿ ವಿಧಾನವನ್ನಾದರೂ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು ಈ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಹರಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಆದರೆ, ಇವತ್ತಿನ ಕಾಲದ ವ್ಯಾಪಾರ ವಹಿವಾಟಿನಂತೆಯೀ  ಕೃಷಿಯು  ರಾಶಿ ರಾಶಿ ಹಣ ತರಬೇಕು ಎಂದು ಭಾವಿಸುವ 'ಮಾನಸಿಕ ಅನಿವಾಸಿ'ಗಳಿಗೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ಇದು ಪರಿಹರಿಸಲಾಗದ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ!'

      'ಹಾಗಿದ್ದರೆ ಇವತ್ತಿನ ಕೃಷಿ ಬಿಕ್ಕಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಉತ್ತರ ಕೃಷಿಕರಿಂದಲೇ ಬಂದೀತು ಎಂಬುದು ನಿಮ್ಮ ಊಹೆಯೇ?' - ನಾನು ಕೇಳಿದೆ.

      'ಅದು ಬರಿಯ ಊಹೆಯಲ್ಲ. ನನ್ನ ದೃಡವಾದ ನಂಬಿಕೆ.' - ಎಂದು ಅವರು ಮುಗುಳ್ನಕ್ಕರು.

                                                                                                                - ಕೆ ವಿ ಅಕ್ಷರ

        ಇದು ಮಧ್ಯಮ ಅಥವಾ ಮೇಲು ಧರ್ಜೆಯ ಕೃಷಿಕನಿಗೆ ಅನ್ವಯಿಸುತ್ತದೆ ಆದರೆ ಕೆಳಮಟ್ಟದ, ಸಣ್ಣ-ಪುಟ್ಟ ಕೃಷಿಕನಿಗೆ  (ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಹಾಗು ವ್ಯವಹಾರಿಕ ಮಾನದಂಡಗಳಲ್ಲಿ) ರಾಶಿ ರಾಶಿ ಹಣ ತರಬೇಕು ಎಂಬ ಮಾನಸಿಕ ಅನಿವಾಸಿತನಕ್ಕಿಂತಲೂ ಮೊದಲು, ದಿನ ನಿತ್ಯದ ಜೀವನ ಸಾಗಬೇಕು ಎಂಬುದೇ ಮುಖ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಈ ದೃಷ್ಟಿಯಿಂದ "Nero's Guests" ಸಾಕ್ಷ್ಯಚಿತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿನ ಅಳಲು ಹಾಗು ಸಾತ್ವಿಕ ಆಕ್ರೋಶ ಏಕಪಕ್ಷೀಯವಾಗಿರದೆ ಸಮಂಜಸವೂ, ಪ್ರಜ್ಞಾಪೂರ್ವಕವಾಗಿಯೂ ಇದೆ ಎಂಬುದು ನನ್ನ ಅನಿಸಿಕೆ. ಆದರೂ ಅಕ್ಷರರವರ ಕೃಷಿಕ ಮಿತ್ರರ ನಂಬಿಕೆ ನಿಜವಾಗಲಿ ಎಂಬುದೇ ಕೋರಿಕೆ. ಕೃಷಿಯ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಸ್ತರಗಳಿಗೂ ಅನ್ವಯವಾಗುವ ಉತ್ತರವೊಂದು ರೈತ ಬಂಧುವಿನಿಂದಲೇ ಮೂಡಲಿ. ಪ್ರಜಾತಂತ್ರದಲ್ಲೋ, ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಹಸಿರು ಕ್ರಾಂತಿಯಲ್ಲೋ - ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಎಲ್ಲೋ ಅರಳಲಿ. ಮಹಾಪ್ರಳಯದವರೆಗೂ ಕಾದು ಕುಳಿಯುವ ನಮ್ಮ ವ್ಯವಧಾನ ಅಳಿಯಲಿ.

"Only the tillers of the soil live by the right. The rest form their train and eat only the bread of dependence."

                                                        - Thiruvalluvar

No man's company

"Tum mere paas hote ho goya

Jab koi doosra nahi hota"

( "As if you are with me, just when, 

There is no one else around me.") 

- Momin Khan

It doesn't matter what I am called,
Voices fade amidst, ever barred.
Anonymous around is the world -
We fool ourselves in the crowd!

Joy is it when I am actually I,
With the freedom to discover why!
Neither pressurized, nor prejudiced -
But by conscious choice, realized!

Refusing to stay masked or unmasked -
Adieu to the glory in which we basked.
Gods are worshiped or condemned,
I rather choose to keep them abandoned.

Unburdened of all vows and oaths,
I walk all alone on these paths...
Not because I am in no man's company,
But because I love being lonely...

Happiness: Time, Wealth, Success??

Picture credit: http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=194871

          

 "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"

                                                     -  Albert Camus

         As a young boy, my definition of happiness was very simple - either I be allowed to read stories from 'Champak' or be allowed to watch 'Duck Tales' or 'Talespin'!!(the pre-cable network era in rural India. The now extinct 'DD Metro' was a savior back then.) I still enjoy them thoroughly and they do make me a lot happier. Then as I grew up, I was smitten by my first love - 'Poetry', to which I have stayed loyal all these years. And the affair has been getting intense as the days pass. Every time I encounter the lyrical beauty, we fly on a fulfilling journey of poetic ecstasy. From that retreat, I derive immense happiness. So, does this conclude that Happiness is a total personal perspective? Are not there any prerequisites and general prescriptions for Happiness?

        These questions did arise as I read through another of Camus' less appreciated work - 'A happy death'. It was his first novel, but the last to be published. It is said he was twenty when he wrote this. But it was published after a decade of his death, about forty years after being written. The work has been criticized by the learned as being inferior and a mere preparation for his magnum opus - 'The Stranger'. (In a lighter vein, maybe the critics were expecting to find the great 'Noble' philosopher Camus in the 20 year old 'rebel' lad;-)) Though rated inferior literally, to me, it appears philosophically as fascinating as 'The Stranger'.

         Well, leaving the critics, I shall come back to the question of happiness. To get perspectives on track, 'A happy death' tells the story of Patrice Mersault, a working man who fails to be happy while struggling to make ends meet with meaningless work occupying his time. He meets Roland Zagreus, a million dollar cripple who tells Mersault that "....there's a kind of spiritual snobbery in certain "superior beings" who think that money isn't necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly... It takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time...." Mersault later murders Zagreus, and takes all his wealth(a whooping 2 million!!), apparently with Zagreus' consent since his crippled state blocks his own happiness, and the rich Mersault begins his quest of happiness. He tries travel, that fails; he lives with three young women in "the House above the World," but that fails. Everybody is in the pursuit of happiness. Yet Mersault retreats to a solitary life. He marries a pleasant woman he does not love, buys a house in a village by the sea, and moves in. Mersault achieves a degree of happiness but this is short lived since he becomes ill and dies his "happy death."

            Fine, now is the question time. Money and time are prerequisites to achieve happiness? Was this Camus' conclusion? Or does he indicate a different conclusion at the climax? Money is indeed a necessity as long as we are part of the society. Its money that satisfies hunger, sustains life, and gets us a place of dignity. But how much of it will do? We are the wealthiest generation on earth, I suppose, considering our GDPs and the Financial Capital we generate. (Though the socio-economic inequlities are at their Zenith, I am talking in gross terms of the present global generation as a whole.) But are we living through the happiest phase on earth? I find it pertinent to quote Richard Layard, the British Economist, from his book 'Happiness: Lessons from a new Science' - "There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier."

       The next ingredient - 'Time', but who on earth has time these days, except for the lazy loafing souls? Going by Zagreus' assertion, maybe in the fast paced world of ours, if anyone feels deprived of happiness its because they have robbed themselves of time. Again, there are counter arguments to this, as are for everything that exists. But how valid are these remarks? 

          The achievement of things that we value and our noteworthy accomplishments render us a sense of happiness. So another significant dimension of happiness is our perceived notion of success. Stories of success are pouring in every day. The opportunities offered in our globalized society have no parallel. More are our chances of striking gold in the pursuit of whatever we take up. Has all this contributed to achieve a better gross happiness index? Or are we burdened by the guilt of ascending to the throne on corpses of the less advantaged? 

         Looking from another angle, How original is our perception of Success? Prof.John McMurtry in his groundbreaking research work "Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an ethical system" sheds light on how perceptions of success are seldom our own. We are fed a value system which asserts we 'must' compete in the global marketplace and its a closed system of choice. He observes 'All people enact its prescriptions as presupposed norms of what they should do. All assume its value designations and value exclusions as given. They seek only to climb its ladder of available positions to achieve their deserved reward as their due. Lives are valued, or not valued, in terms of the system's differentials and measurements....' Is their space for happiness in this system? Forget it, does a concept called 'happiness' exist here or is it that we are being unconsciously fed notions of happiness too!? I don't know or maybe I don't understand.

         To find solace, I shall return back to Camus' Mersault as he, in the course of the novel, says - "You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters -- all that matter is -- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest women, art, success -- is nothing but excuses…." I put all the mess aside and think its time to heed to Buddha - "To be happy, rest like a tree". Is the tree happy? Ask not me, but the Gutama Buddha my friend. I only find it safe and convenient to assume so. My maxim for happiness is quite simple. I modify the phrase of Leo Tolstoy to describe it - "If you want to be happy, be; and never impede others freedom to be."

         "In a silence violated only by the silky sounds of the sky, the night lay like milk upon the world. Mersault walked along the cliff, sharing the night's deep concentration. Below him the sea whispered gently. It was covered with velvety moonlight, smooth and undulating, like the pelt of some animal. At this hour, Mersault's life seemed so remote to him, he felt so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well, that it seemed to him he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger." 

                                                                 - Albert Camus('A Happy Death')