If someone says that everlasting darkness has descended on the planet after a sunset or a historic ageless reign of light has started after a sunrise, it would border on the insane or termed the ranting of a person who has no knowledge of how the wheels of time turn, bringing sunrises and sunsets in a seemingly unending succession. I say seemingly because we know now that this succession will not be unending and terminate when our solar system ends in a black hole. The scientific verdict is still pending on what black holes turn into but the way birth and death follow each other, black holes too are likely to be found to die and turn into something else.
A verse from the Gita has lord Krishna talking about change in terms of the birth, death and rebirth of human beings. He says: “Jatasya hi dhruvo mrityur dhruvam janm mritasya cha ...” or death is certain for the living and birth is destined for the dead. It is perhaps a trick of the illusion or maya cast over the intellect of human beings that we assume that anything can be permanent in the universe.
It appears this maya curtails our judgement of various things around us. This misjudgement often accompanies the way media gives news to us. I have singled out the media’s folly to the seclusion of other channels of viewing developments because the worldwide web of media dominates by a huge margin in being our eyes and ears for knowing our world. A mature perspective practised by the media in terms of the nature of reality will help all of us understand and digest the unfolding of events much better. Take something as ordinary as the commentating sporting events. An old example shows how the media can make us all believers in permanence when everything around us keeps telling that there is no finality in the universe. A development that happened on March 15 took me to this old example of media’s distorted vision. The day marked the 140thanniversary of the first day of the first cricket Test match, played between Australia and England in 1877. The two-match series was drawn 1-1. The rivalry between the first two sides to play Test cricket endures to this day, with the term “the Ashes” lending intensity to the fight. The use of the term started with Australia’s stunning victory in the lone Test match of its tour of England in 1882. Played at The Oval, it was Australia’s first Test win on English soil. After the match, a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, published a satirical obituary, which said that English cricket had died, and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. In the three-match 1882-83 series that followed in Australia, England won 2-1. The English media had declared that the tour was a quest to recover the Ashes after English captain Ivo Bligh vowed to regain them.
The Ashes have proved from the time of their origin that nothing ends in ashes and that vitality follows the perceived death of the cricketing life of nations and that victory and defeat keep following each other like head and tail in coin tosses. The Ashes had a light-hearted birth and perhaps should not be seen as anything more. Even if the Ashes origin is discounted, we have numerous examples on an everyday basis of the aberrant tendency of the media to cling to permanence while reporting events.
The study of history appears to be a futile exercise to many people who say what is gone is gone and there is no use in probing the past. But a little bit of history can make us more centred in the present moment lodged between a sure past and an unsure future. History gives us mesmerizing tales of how geographical boundaries, civilisations, dynasties have come and gone. How emperors who appeared infallible have fallen, how age-old laws, practices and rituals have come to life and died. The buried past makes us judge and view the living present and the unborn future better. It shows how the birth of one thing follows the death of another, whether it is the writ of a human being or a nation.
The political history of India tells us very broadly what the fate of the current BJP regime at the Centre will be. It shows how massive verdicts granting unshakeable might become small sentences at best in history books. A look at the life of invincible heads of state shows Narendra Modi, for instance, in realistic light. We come to know how rulers who cast long shadows cannot even find places as commas and full stops when history tells its tales. A study of geographical boundaries shows the fate of the dividing line between India and Pakistan and all the killing and bruising it is causing.
The Puranas of Hindu history and mythology give kingdoms and emperors no place to hide. Perhaps it is the current fixation to live in the unreal and not acknowledge the real that have made it necessary for us to shun these tomes that reflect reality even in myths. Perhaps it is this insistence to turn away from the truth that makes crazed political workers shout after the death of a dear leader, “Jab tak sooraj-chand rahega, dash-dash tera naam rahega.” (O leader, your name shall shine till the sun and the moon live.) For whither sun ‘n’ moonIJ And quo vadis dash ‘n’ dashIJ
The Puranas are full of the names of kings and kingdoms that thrived so long ago that it suffices in terms of their existence to just mention their names. But who is interested today in these namesIJ What difference does it make whether the name is Narendra Modi or Faluda KulcheyIJ It is gone and gone and gone. That suffices. And just see with how much ardour the names of today occupy our consciousness. Is it justifiedIJ Perhaps it has been like this all the time, with the veil of maya being universal and timeless. But we need to take things in their proportion if human judgement is not to remain sullied forever. At best we can forget the world and wear the specs that show reality to our own little self.
One way to do this would be to stand at the centre of the universe, look up at a pollution-free night sky and try to prevent our world and our life from dissolving in the holy expanse. Another would be to see dust particles dancing in a sunbeam. That takes me to an expression that comes from ancient Greek: “Mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.” Dust particles, anyoneIJ
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