Diogenes, the Cynic & Alexander of Macedon

 

Diogenes was a Greek philosopher, a Cynic, notorious for his very conspicuous philosophical stunt of carrying a lamp in the marketplace during the day, claiming to look for an honest man.

A delicately concealed way of saying, ‘sab chootiye hain’ (everyone’s a dud).

*

Some anecdotes,

On a voyage to Aegina, Diogenes was captured by pirates and taken to the slave-market in Crete to be sold. A Corinthian named Xeniades approached.

X: What is your trade slave? What can you do?

D: I know no trade but to govern men. I would be of most value to a man in need of a master.

(He was hired to tutor Xeniades’ two boys)

**

Diogenes’ only material possession was a wooden bowl to consume soup and water from. One day he saw a village boy drink from the hollow of his hands.

Discarding the bowl he exclaimed, ‘What a fool I have been to carry superfluous baggage all this while.’

**

When Diogenes left home, his servant Manes was ordered to accompany him. A month later, finances dwindling, he eloped.

Diogenes’ acquaintances suggested a legal recourse.

He reasoned. ‘When Manes is on his own without a worry should Diogenes be running from pillar to post? Who is the master and who is the slave? If Manes can live without Diogenes, Diogenes must flourish without Manes as well.’

And so it was from that day forward.

**

One nippy winter morning, Diogenes was soaking up the warm sun when Alexander arrived with his entourage. (He had just returned from the successful conquest of Persia.)

A (thrilled to meet the famous philosopher): I am Alexander the Great of Macedon. I have heard many a tale about you Diogenes. I would be pleased to bring you a favor.

D: Do I look like I am missing something?

A: Well Sir, I am the King of the largest empire in the history of man. Sparkling jewels, glorious horses, prolific lands, tasteful women, I can grant anything you fancy.

D: Grant me my beautiful sunshine Alexander. Please step aside.

(Alexander’s guards tensed up, reaching for their weapons but he ordered them at ease.)

At this moment, Diogenes rolled over and peered intently at a pile of bones lying beside.

A: What’s caught your fancy with the bones?

D: I was looking for your fathers’ but cannot tell them apart from those of his slave.

**

A report that Philip II of Macedon (Alexander’s father) was marching on Corinth, threw the town into a bustle of activity. Blacksmiths casting arms, masons patching the main-wall and strengthening battlements, others, wheeling stones up the bastions to be used as projectiles. Everyone made themselves useful, one way or another.

Diogenes had nothing to do. No one thought of giving him a job. But boy, was he moved by the sight! He ditched his coat and began rolling his tub animatedly up and down the street.

(Diogenes lived in an old discarded wine tub in the town-center.)

To a curious crowd he posited, ‘I do not want to be the only idler in such a busy multitude. I am rolling my tub to be like the rest.’

**

Diogenes rejected even normal ideas of human decency.

He ate in the marketplace (then regarded bad manners), urinated on some people who insulted him, defecated in the theatre and masturbated in public, about which he said, ‘If only it was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing my belly.’

**

Diogenes was invited to the magnificent house of the most prosperous grain-trader of Crete (a veritable Ambani of his time).

On being introduced to the host, he cleared his throat and spat at his face. ‘I could not find a meaner receptacle’, he said.

**

Lao Tzu And The west-Delhi Punjaabi

Lao Tzu walked with his long-time friend each morning. He spoke sparingly, close to nothing. The friend follows suit.

One day the friend has a visitor. He brings him along for the stroll. Lao welcomes him and they set-off. As always, neither Lao nor the friend utter a word. The silence is unsettling.

The visitor, a west-Delhi Punjaabi, had only ever combined his morning yap-yap with a ghost of a walk. Nothing more, his triglyceride-laden heart would permit. This, to the tune of loud methane-emissions, embarrassing Pammi auntie.

Twenty minutes in, he’s ready to blow his lid off.

‘What a peaceful, sublime morning’. He looks at Lao. He looks at his host. The host looks at Lao. Not a word is spoken, not a step missed; as if nothing happened.

Fighting feelings of being snubbed, he resorts to mentally planning his day, rehearsing his negotiation strategy, his arguments and retorts. He’s due to meet local manufacturers of cheap electronics later.

The walk consummated, Lao quietly whispers into his friend’s ear. ‘Avoid him tomorrow. He’s but a gossip-monger.’ They bid good-byes.

*

That evening, the friend pays Lao Tzu an unscheduled visit.

Friend: I was quite troubled by your manner this morning. He only once complimented nature’s beauty. It hardly fits your description of him.

LT (after a pregnant pause): My dear Sir, I must talk about beauty. What is beauty?

Is it out there in what you see? In the mountains, the sunrise, the pines, the birds, in the grandeur of the Gompa?

Or is it in the eye of the beholder as they say? In the eye that is trained to appreciate proportion, depth, shadows. And dismiss that which has not all of the above.

Or is it in neither? What is beauty?

*

Beauty Sir, I submit to you, is when 'you' are not. Beauty is when the mind, which is thought, is knocked-out and hence time, being a creation of the mind, ceases to be. It may never be expressed but that’s an entirely trivial matter.

*

It is only when the mind snaps back, comparative studies are made, commentaries written and universities teach art-appreciation.

These are ancillary matters; matters of a restless mind seeking titillation, increasingly matters of commerce too; art consultants advise investment in high-art. But beauty is long gone by then.

Your guest’s words only revealed that he was untouched by the spirit of the morning, for the faintest glimpse of it nudges even a chattering mind into the timeless.

Deeply pensive, the friend walked back.

**

It’s A Rape-Fest and Everybody’s Doing It!!

Get on with it mate! Stick it out and shove it in at the next unlit street-corner, abandoned paper-mill, behind the tall grass or in a moving vehicle. Have a good one!

The PMO and the Antilla are opportune settings too though it’s the big boys arena. This where they rape communities, ecosystems and if you’re at the top of your game, entire civilizations. The whole world’s your playground! 

Let’s talk about rapes and while there, I invite you to widen your imagination. Let’s not limit ourselves to just non-consensual penetration. What is that; a little bit of in-out, in-out? Like some trivial game. Let’s broaden the canvas, shall we?

Fundamentally, rape is about power and its unchecked use. The most personal and private choice being violated by the rapist. I wonder if it’s rude to suggest that the right to wholesome food and clean water is a more fundamental and inalienable right. I wonder if it’s a travesty that it has come down to this but there certainly is a hierarchy to it. Without food or water, the right to choice of a partner would very soon be compromised.

So how well have we done here?

**

The state of Maharashtra is in a severe hydrological crisis. On the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, deeply psychotic developers are constructing 5-star hotels, golf-courses and super-luxury condominiums that boast of a swimming pool on each floor!

The construction laborers are mostly ex-agricultural workers; small and marginal farmers from drought-affected regions of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and as far as Tamil Nadu. Entire communities driven out, families broken up for want of water.

*

With all energy devoted to loot and accumulation, the psychos have little left for drinking-in the som of life; the pearls of the deep, the juice of the marrow. At the hotel, they hang life-size Renaissance art in the lobby, fakes of course. Blissfully unaware that any Renaissance man worth half his salt would bring a bloody flame-thrower to their establishment.

While the proletariat scrambles their young ones for ‘Operation Seek and Secure’ to bring a pail-full, the hotel's restrooms are fitted with large WC tanks, 25-liters. The Minister’s mistress mounts a hydro-war against every last rebel turd. She likes it squeaky clean!

**

Advised by a PR department that’s more influential than Operations, they name their learning centers Heritage or Sanskriti, calling them Global or World schools.

Without a prayer of a connection with the human spirit, ravaged by a wretched poverty of imagination, they seek an escape from routine by chomping on international cuisines. Moroccan lamb testicles, Icelandic caribou roast, Scandinavian smoked salmon and Prussian shrimp salad. They post photos of it on social fora and specify spices and herbs for preparation and garnishing. Whoever gives a bleeding rat’s ass.?!?

It’s an extended bout of self-deception I say, a bubble. It’s bound to burst and when it does, some would end up blowing their fucking brains out. Which, had they considered earlier, would have saved the world so much trouble. I can hear the shrimps and caribou cheering and the lambs, the loudest!

**

P Sainath, the lone ranger, the shining beacon of Indian journalism, standing tall in the rubble of ‘to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable’. The only man among Ornobs, was on tour when he was approached by a group of social workers, barely 50 km outside Bombay, Mumbai. They wondered if he could pull some strings and have the ‘school mid-day meal’ ration doubled for Mondays.

PS: Doubled for Mondays! Why?

SWs: Sir because Sir, for the most children, it is very hard Sir. They have no food from last Friday. We don’t get anything done till lunch-time Monday Sir.

(Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday; kids as young as 6; 50 km from Mumbai)

**

Rapes don’t follow the laws of classical Newtonian mechanics. Not limited in time and space, they operate with a quantum mechanical mystery and splendor. They occur in Bangalore but also at the same time in New Delhi, Yavatmal, Baghpat, Hissar, Itanagar, Lucknow, Haldia, Badayun, Mumbai, Rajnandgaon, Khairlanji, Imphal, Bilaspur and Dantewada.

They are perpetrated on a girl or two but scar multitudes. And like funky Hindu Gods, they are everywhere at the same time and if you ask the Police, nowhere in particular! Shrouded in a probability cloud of reasonable doubt.

**

I meditated on rape. Not ‘he raped her’ or ‘they raped her’ but rape; that which came from rape and that which would become rape.

**

They wanted to keep the bauxite in the mountains. A porous ore, it absorbs rain, replenishes rivers and supports forests and farms alike. You wanted it for your cars, jets and missiles.

*

They wanted to keep their fields and a semblance of sovereignty and dignity to go along but you wanted your factories, dams, mines and highways.

*

They wanted to save seed for the next crop. But you legislated against it; against a farmer saving his own seed! You said they must buy from us and then jacked up the prices, as much as 7000% (not a typo). Hopelessly indebted, hundreds of thousands killed themselves. The news stories focused on Lakme Fashion Week instead.

*

You seduced them with promises of ‘fruits of urbanization’ but offered slave labor, slave wages, slave rights and heavy metal poisoning, as bonus.

They were smarter, the next time around so you called in the riot-police who did not bother using rubber bullets. Their sheer existence at stake, they refused to capitulate.

So in addition to the Air Force, you recruited the ‘hardened from a lifetime of crime’ news editors, the spin-doctors. 'Let's brand them an ‘internal security threat’; raving lunatics dismembering and gutting our brave soldiers.' The urban middle-class cheered Har har Mahadev and voted likewise.

**

Rape has been institutionalized and structurally built-into the fabric of our society. It’s in our mythology. Duryodhan/ Dushyasan attempted it. If you believe Jung and that ‘we are the stories we hear and the stories we tell’, you know it is in the collective unconscious. Woven into the archetype of power, it lurks deep in the recesses of the psyche.

So are we all potential rapists, unrealized?

Unique beings we are, not one but many; ghastly as beast, divine as Prophet and everything in between. It is upon us to choose not to rape when someone or something that’s not rightfully ours catches our fancy. When we’re powerful to arm-twist, out-negotiate and manage the consequences. And yet we don’t.

Till then, let’s not get too carried away with the candles.

**

Kabhi to insaan zindagi ki karega izzat,

Yeh ek ummeed aaj bhi dil mein pal rahi hai..                                    

                                               

                                                 – Javed Akhtar

**

Mullah Naseeruddin Kicks Ass!!

Net Worth

Mullah was passing by a small lake on the outskirts of a town while travelling cross-country with his dearest donkey. A motley crowd and some ones' cries of distress drew his attention. He rushed to investigate. A man bathing in the lake was in trouble and was shouting for help.

Strangely, the crowd was not only passive but seemed jaded about the whole affair. They looked at the man and at each other and sighed softly. Mullah’s frantic exhortations to help him only deepened their sighs.

It was a puzzling sight, like dumb charade but Mullah postponed the demystifying till after the rescue. He slipped out of his sherwani and dived in. And given his age, quite heroically rescued the drowning man, who was about as old as him.

Back on dry ground, the man approached Mullah and introduced himself as the local baniya (a trader) from a nearby village. He thanked him profusely for saving his life and rather ceremoniously offered him a penny as a mark of his gratitude.

The crowd which till now hung around like a heavy curtain cussed and swore unabashedly. ‘We knew it. We knew it.’ They boomed, ‘This guy is so cheap.’ A middle-aged man among them said, ‘I am not too proud of myself for having reservations about saving a drowning man but he really speaks to the worst in me.’

Pocketing the shiny penny Mullah wondered, ‘Well, who better to estimate his life’s worth, than the man himself?’

With a bemused air, he slipped into his sherwani, hopped-on to his dear donkey and moved on.

**

Give and Take

Mullah was travelling cross-country with his dearest donkey when he passed a small lake on the outskirts of a town. He noticed a man bathing in the lake wave to him rather excitedly.

His frantic pace confused Mullah but thinking it a local custom, he smiled, waved back and kept moving. About a minute later, he felt something was amiss and rushed back. Indeed, the man was in trouble and desperately seeking help.

Holding securely to safety chains at the bank, he lowered himself in the water and held out his hand. Just about an arm’s length away, looking squarely at him, the gentleman would not oblige. ‘What am I not doing right’, wondered Mullah. The man was gasping for air, minutes away from drowning but holding his arms close to his chest.

‘Hey, give me your hand’, barked Mullah only to be greeted by a sheepish grin and a shake of the head. It confounded him no end. 

‘I have stumbled upon a mysterious land’, he was beginning to slip into a reverie when a crisp cry from behind startled him a little, ‘Are Mullah, baniya hai baniya!’ (Hey Mullah, he's a baniya). It was as if a light bulb went off.

Composing himself, he locked eyes with the drowning man and improvised, ‘Hey, take my hand.’ The man lunged as his life indeed depended on it and Mullah pulled him out to safety.

**

Mullah and Kant

Mullah returned home one afternoon and barged in as usual. His son lounged in the living room making love to his new Playstation II; eyes boring into the screen.

He felt slighted. ‘No acknowledgment from my own son.’ A stab of exasperation accompanied an adrenalin spike. ‘You must stand up and greet when I enter, baap hain hum tumhaare’ (I am your Daddy), he blurted out.

The son’s outlook was more progressive however. He had read Renaissance literature in school and browsed through Kant in his father’s library; that no man should be a means to another.

‘It is your house. You’re welcome to walk in-and-out as you please. Ritualized manner serves no end. It is to be discarded.’ unruffled, he replied.

‘My turf, my rules and if you would not stand, I order you to stay sitting’, barked Mullah as he sneaked out relying on his absence to win the argument! J

**

A Dirge From Dublin

It was early last September,

As near as I remember,

I was walking down a street in drunken pride,

When I fell into a gutter, thinking thoughts I dare not utter,

And a pig came up and lay by my side.

As I lay there in the gutter, thinking thoughts I dare not utter,

A fair, young maid came by and she did say..

You can tell a man who boozes, by the company he chooses,

And at that, the pig got up and walked away,

And the pig got up and slowly walked away.

(not my creation)

Pragnya, You Beauty!!

The Vedic rishis called it Pragnya, the Sloan Management Review calls it a ‘Systems-thinking’ approach. Buzz-fucking-words till we distill their essence and live each moment with an extraordinary awareness.

Trust a Zen parable to facilitate a deeper inquiry.

A Master swordsman had grown old. He decided it was time to pass his legacy to the most able of his three sons. He sent out a word that he wanted to see them.

The youngest one was called in first. As he entered through the door, an apple that had been precariously placed atop, fell. In one swift motion he pulled out his sword and slashed the falling fruit in two precise halves. He was asked to wait.

The second son was called. The apple fell as he entered through the door and he conveniently caught it by his side.

It was now the eldest son’s turn. As he entered, he reached for the top of the door, picked the apple and offered it to his father.

The swordsman called all three sons. To the youngest son he said, ‘You move like a butterfly and sting like a bee.  Your technique is flawless. Keep up the good work.’

To his second son he said, ‘You’re almost there. I hope you will continue in the same spirit.’

And to the eldest son, he said, ‘You are now ready to begin’.

**

The Orientals and the Occidentals alike have pondered what it means to be wise. To understand our world in a sense that’s more evolved than raw numbers and analytics that turn its wheels. Also, what are the limits of epistemic access? What can be known? Is wisdom actually capable of prescience as suggested in this story?

Some would pursue this inquiry along the line of statistics, research, projections, boggling computers and haloed experts. I am not convinced. All the above have been marshaled to manufacture the greatest crisis of our times and to support the loudest louts. The problem is much more human; I want to go deep.

A wise man was challenged by a yuppy to tell whether the dove he was hiding in his coat was dead or alive. ‘If he says it’s dead I’ll present the bird as it is. Otherwise, I’ll break its neck and show it dead’, thought the yuppy.

And the wise man said, ‘The dove is dead. Now, please set it free.’

How does one unpack that?

**

Information hierarchy,

Signal -> Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom

Knowledge is more sophisticated than information. It's processed, value-added information. Wisdom is even more special. To be wise is to have an intimate access to knowledge from across arenas of time and space. By intimate I mean actionable. Knowledge that has been customized and integrated so there’s no execution-lag.

Wisdom neatly stitches together relevant knowledge, culled from across time and space into a coherent reality. In total attention, the mind begins to uncover wisdom.

**

Through this rickety lens, I peered at the Madoff scam and the Shakespearean tragedy that ensued.

Bernie Madoff ran the biggest Ponzy scheme in history, swindling investors off $65 billion before his arrest in Dec ’08. He was a Wall Street legend and a pioneer, a one-time non-executive chairman of NASDAQ managing his own hedge-fund.

It was reported that he never lost money when in fact, Bernie had not bought or sold a single dollars' worth of stock with investor’s money. Not one trade had been placed in years. He just used the sum as his personal piggy-bank. Earlier investors were paid-off with new inflows, the classic Ponzi.

**

When it all came down, Bernie was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Counseled by lawyers, his sons severed all connection with him and their mother, refusing to provide a bail-bond for him at one point. The older son, Marc 42, couldn’t bear the accusations of complicity and committed suicide following which Bernie’s devoted wife of almost 5 decades, divorced him. The daughter-in-law squarely blamed him and came out with the dirty linen on national TV. Some part of their wealth was seized.

One of his partners, Jeffery Picower, the largest feeder of money and the biggest beneficiary from the fund was found dead in the pool of his ocean-front mansion.

**

From the prison Bernie said, ‘I feel happier than I have been in years. I lived the last 20 years of my life in fear. Now I am no longer in control of my life, I have no decisions to make and that is a great relief.’

He acknowledges that he should be punished, that he destroyed his family and feels terrible remorse. He’s depressed and has horrible nightmares. He says he contemplated suicide earlier but did not have the courage.

**

Bernie’s daughter-in-law recollects how once in a very fancy store, he matter-of-factly bragged about ‘whatever his wife touches is dutifully delivered to her’.

A wiser Bernie would,

..see that the ‘anything she touches, she gets’ life is being paid for by the Pensioner’s fund. The $700 spent on the useless trinket, set some kid in Texas back on his college tuition by a couple of months.

..see his young son lying in a coffin as he peered into his collection of Rolex watches or Belgian loafers.

..experience jail-time, horrible nightmares and feel the agony of contemplating suicide while partying on the Bull, his luxurious 55-foot vintage yacht.

Wall Street smarts know this better than most but how deep is this knowing? To intimately know so it informs and directs action is pickled in quiet attention. That’s Pragnya!

**

What is time? Is it so far-fetched to see into the future?
A case for prescience.

Let’s throw it wide open. Let’s be brave. Let’s for once walk our talk about stepping out of our comfort zone. Let’s have our imagination grapple with a novel concept. Let’s surf the wave of space-time.

Theoretical physicists acknowledge a great mystery called the ‘mystery of the direction of time’. The idea that, ‘there is a fundamental sense in which the laws of physics don’t make any interesting distinction between past and future’.

It is a puzzle from the standpoint of these laws that we should be able to remember the past and not know the future. It is a puzzle why we should think that by acting now we can affect the future and not the past.

It is so fundamental to the way we experience the world that to not be curious about it is to be three-quarters of the way to being dead.

- David Albert, theoretical physicist on the ‘mystery of the direction of time’

What a gun of an attitude!

**