Art of Recycling

‘Recycling’ is not a new concept but rather a practice for most Indian people. Those who live in the close contact with nature – natural environment – do witness the constant recycling that takes place there, though they may not give a discourse on the subject. They too adapt to the process of recycling. Hence community participation is one of the features of their collective living at societal level. Their educational system is intrinsic and a lifelong process for the young as well as the elders.

    The industrial society has discovered ‘recycling of industrial waste’ not out of the love for nature or to conserve the finite resources of the earth. It has been more for the love of wealth, to generate new avenues of income and profit.
 .
    Education, yet another division of labour, overtaken by Industrial Civilization, has been a tool to create the workforce to support the expansion of industrialization rather than transfer of knowledge and benefits to the people thus to make it universal.

(14-11-2003)

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Essays in early Indian architecture (Book Review)

By Remigius de Souza

Essays in early Indian architecture

Author Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Edited by Michael W. Meister  
Publishers: Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, New Delhi, 
and Oxford University press, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras. 1992 
Price: Rs 400/- pp xxviii, 151 | Illustrations: 164.

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“Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8”(A. K. Coomaraswamy, Indian Architectural Terms, P. 97)

THE BEGINNING OF 1993 saw two significant events in Indian architecture.
The INGCA and OUP made available five essays by Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) which were earlier inaccessible to the public.
The other event was the theme chosen by the National Association of Students of Architecture (NASA), India, “Back to the Roots” for their national convention held at Bhubaneshwar, Orissa (now Odisha).


Though it may not be perceptible, very few are aware of the Indian ethos in different areas of creative life and expression. But at the end of 20th century, with the imminent fall of ‘industrial civilization’ (or ‘economic civilization’), the awakening of ethnic identity is a global phenomenon. Parallel to the environmental movement, there is a ‘Anti-celebration to Columbus Day’ all over the world, and a new awareness in different disciplines.


The essays by Coomaraswamy reappear when people of India (not the statisticians) are groping for salvation in an ever-increasing chaos. The much sought-after development aping the west has only worsened the living conditions of the people of mainstream India. While this book may pamper the inflated Indian ego, it may be life-saving plank to multitudes in 20th century modernity called consumer civilization.


The common theme of the essays is to present a picture of secular, domestic, urban, rural architecture of India 2000 years ago, the remains of which do not exist because of impermanent nature of materials used. The book is about how the common man’s architecture, a hut of a villager that became a source – a form-giver – and developed into a unique architectural style, complex structural system and highly developed building vocation – into a tradition that materialised in thousands of and continued during the late medieval period under royal patronage (Chapter IV. Huts and related temple types, P 103).


For instance, “Tree-cult”, tree worship which was adopted by the Buddhists in “Bodhi-gharas” was an animistic practice of the people before Aryans came (Chapter II. BODHI-GHARAS, P 19).

Though Coomaraswamy does not mention so, the “Tree-cult” still exists in India in different forms, for example, “Tulasi-vrindavan”, holy Basil (Ocimum sanctum L.) on a platform or in a pot, is a common feature of the Indian household. The plant is known for its medicinal values and is also an organic insecticide. “Brahman” – a banyan tree with a built platform, is a common feature of villages in Konkan region – a well known monsoon forest region on the West Coast of India. “Devarai”, sacred grove, is a “protected forest” by the people for the Indian villagers and forest dwellers, by unwritten law of ancient tradition, though not recognised by the development projects, or by the British-made “Forest Acts” that still continue in modern India.

Why Tree-cult? Coomaraswamy has not posed this question here. Did some visionary scientists or wise men of the aborigine communities initiate tree-worship as a measure of environmental protection?

A. K. Coomaraswamy opens up the first essay on “Cities and city-gates, etc.” with a statement, “…cities are despised and there are no ceremonies for urban life”(P.3). He quotes “It is impossible for one to obtain salvation, who lives in a town covered with dust” (Baudhayana Dharma Sutra, II, 3, 6, 33).

Elsewhere he says, “…but the village is still typical centre of Aryan life” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, p 15) referring to Maurya period. Indian society has remained agrarian even under the wave of industrialization.

Among several features of city, Coomaraswamy describes city-gates: toranas and gopuras, which were used for protection and security or for honorific and ornamental purposes. In contemporary times, Mr Shankar N. Kanade, architect, has used city-gates in “Jala Vayu Vihar” township at Bangalore (now Bengaluru), enhanced by adding elevated water storage tank. In present day context, more than being ornamental it gives identity to a place in urban chaos; it is a symbol of celebration, besides utility. Isn't it embedded mimetic memory in Indian mind!


Indian Architectural Terms (P. 71 – 99) is a critical essay on two books written by Prof. P. K. Acharya, “Indian Architecture According to the Manasara-silpasatra” and “A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture”. It is a combative but constructive criticism. This essay helps to learn ‘how to criticise and how to take it, and gives access to ‘meanings’ of the terms.

Take the term much in currency these days, Vastu, for example: “Vastu, add the meaning, “real estate” (Meyer, “Liegenschaft”): “Vastu includes houses, fields, groves, bridges (or ghats, setu-bandha), ponds and reservoirs,” Arthasastra, III, 8” (P. 97).

He has presented over 100 sculptured relief works in photographs and drawings – some of them restored in exquisite drawings by him, as visual evidence, from monuments built in or carved out of rocks centuries ago. The author referred to textual evidences from Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali law books, epics and Kavya literature. These reliefs were executed by sculptors, guilds of master craftsmen who documented epics of Indian civilization on stone surface. It is worth noting that the sacred texts were handed over by mnemonic method, though writing was known, for reasons of accuracy, which is still being observed. In the relief sculptures there is no scope for errors or adulteration or manipulations.

The population of India around 1st A.D. was perhaps 30 million or so, with growth rate of probably less than 0.01 percent per annum. As the feudal power over people increased, which is now growing to a global scale through its invisible tentacles, the epic writer in stone is now visibly disintegrated.

What happened to the guilds as the population grew? For instance, the communities of stone-cutters called “Wadar” and “Beldar” living in the slums of cities and towns not far from the famous monuments of Karla, Bhaja, Elephanta, Kanheri etc. and several forts in Maharashtra. Are these the descendants of the guilds of the ancient times? Just as the Brahmin descendants of the sages – Vashishta, Agasti, Vyas, Bhrugu, Vaishampayana etc. whose pedigree has been maintained by the high caste?



What Michael W Meister probably missed in the conversation with Joseph Rykwert is to give 20th century parallel in modern architecture to A K Coomaraswamy’s thesis of “primordial hut as a form-giver” to historical Indian Architecture (Afterword: Adam’s house and hermits’ hut: A conversation, P. 125) . In the twentieth century modern (western) world architecture there are only “master form-givers”, whose works go down as second hand and third hand imitations to the masses: Indeed a true expression of economics of Industrial Civilization that give the fruits of its development and progress, prosperity and powers to the society by the “trickle down formula”. This formula is also applied to the education system to support industrial civilization.

In today’s context, awareness of environment, ecology and energy which are being destroyed at unprecedented rate, Coomaraswamy’s work of timeless quality is all the more relevant, a ground prepared for ‘further work’.

It is a book for all: scholars and architects, planners and politicians, pundits and leaders alike: a collector’s copy. It may also help a new vocabulary – a new form of expression to emerge – a departure from twentieth century architecture and other disciplines (born and developed in the West); a restoration of dignity of labour; a change in planning parameters; a right to manage their own affairs to the local communities. What John Papworth calls, “Democracy after all does not mean government for the people; it means government by the people. We hope, in Coomaraswamy’s words, “…mark a final victory of the conquered over the conquerors” (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, P. 5).

(NOTE: This is an edited version of book review, published in INDIAN ARCHITECT & BUILDER, Mumbai, May 1993, P. 85-86)

Image: Portrait of Ananda Coomaraswamy by Arnold Ronnebeck, 1929. This bust represents Coomaraswamy at about the same he was working on "Early Indian Architecture" and other wor
ks in transition (P. 103).


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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

My Home My Heart (painted poem)

With money you can buy houses, but money cannot by for you a home. 

House is where the Home is;
Home is where the Heart is.

  

(Image: Shelter for the bus passengers / Shelter for the Displaced in Mumbai: Contradiction in Mumbai's Urban Design. 

Both togather symbolise India's Development Planning, and exposes her hypocrisy.)

Whenever I walk down-to-earth in Mumbai I notice 55 million people live in the slums and squatters, struggle for their daily bread.

It is their Daily Prayer in Action to Life. They aren't activist like the elite; they are actionist without duplicity, and without words.

It seems their number is daily rising defying the official statistics:

just like the rising national GDP of India;
just like rising Stock Exchange indexes in the money market;
just like rising numbers of skyscrapers rising higher and higher on Mumbai's skyline;
just like rising number of vacant blocks of houses awaiting higher returns of their investments.
It seems all these have lost their heart and home, both, in the money market, though the squaters on the street-side!

The reason to notice them is simple: Once I practiced as architect-planner; once I was a teacher; once I was landless teen age farm labourer; once I too was a displaced person. Only I had opportunity for formal education in time.

All these people have come from many regions of India. They come from the places wherever Mumbai has left its footprint. The rulers of India must not ignore this fact. The capitalist – Indian and foreigners – who have settled in Mumbai are capable enough to buy over all of them, but where they can get educated slaves why should they care?


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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Son of Soil

There is nothing like

to be in communion 

with soil, Bliss eternal like 

a savage – an aborigine, 

the son of soil. 

Alas! The son of man, 

not by will, astray gone 

belonging to civilization. 

My last wish, action out and in, 

O, Soil, is to love you forever.

(This post is revised as some errors occurred inadvertently.)

Remigius de Souza

(Mumbai | 28-12-1999)
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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Anahad Naad is Primal Sound or Supreme Silence

 (This is a revised article; I have deleted the previous post.)



“Anahad Naad” (in Indic languages),as far as I know and understand, means “Primal Sound” or “Supreme Silence” that is contained in “Srishti” – Nature. I suppose, all living beings are capable of hearing / listening the Primal sound. It seems to me that the potted plants on my terrace do hear / feel my compassionate or hostile thoughts.

One, however, particularly in modern urban habitat, may not hear the Primal Sound by the sense organs of ears. Even skins can feel the vibrations of sound. (I have tried to explore some of it “Senses and SenseAbility 5: Hearing” in my series of articles on Senses on this blog.)

I once read information about science that it has discovered ‘music in sand dunes’.
I am also informed that (traditional) Indian farmers say, "Water goes to sleep, and Water wakes up". Just information, such as this, does not help to listen or perceive "word" by land and water without being in tune with nature, though.

Artists, folk and classical artists, particularly musicians – vocalist and instrumentalists – who follow “Naad-Yoga” by riyaz – regular, rigorous practice – may have ability to listen / perceive Supreme Silence. And of course, the aborigine tribal, too, who live in the close proximity with the elements. The aborigine tribes (and animals) of Andaman Islands ran to safer higher grounds before the last tsunami reached the land; it is already a known “story”.
 

 Hearing by ears 

In today’s context: We, who are accustomed to hear by ears but sometimes fail to listen, become aware of Supreme Silence when volcanoes erupt and the earth tremors, by thunder storms and lightning, hurricanes and tsunami, when mountains rise and land is submerged. 
We become aware only when the weak, meek and silent people’s uprising in revolt causes mighty civilizations and powers vanish. Silence does not mean weakness.
I have heard that the complex letter or word “OM” has power of “Big Bang”, whoever may have had real experience; we don't question.

God may be a concept for some. However, Srisihti - Nature - is not a concept. All that one need to perceive Srishti - Nature is to follow “Srishtiyoga – Way of Nature” or the Communion with Nature.  

The photograph shows a Warli tribal sings while playing his string instrument. All tribal – men and women – dance and sing collectively and individually.

QUOTES:

I add following quotes from “KATHA UPANISAD with Commentary of Sankaracarya”, Translated by Swami Gambhiranand (Publishers: Advaita Ashram, Mayavati, Himalayas).

Note 1: The word or letter or symbol - "OM"

“This letter (Om), indeed, is (the inferior) Brahman (Hiranyagarbha). And this … letter is (Om) the supreme Brahman. Anybody, who, (while) meditating on this letter, wants any of the two, to him comes that.” — Sloka: I.ii.16, p. 53. 

Sankaracarya comments “...For, of them both this letter (Om) is the symbol...” (p. 54).

Note 2: Five Elements and the Senses

Translator’s Note 1, which elaborates Five Elements, in reference to Sankaracarya’s Commentary, “...How is the thing to be known very subtle? That is being said: Now, then, this earth is gross, developed as it is by (the principle of) sound, touch, colour, taste, and smell; and it is an object of perception to all the senses. So also is the body...” (Sloka: I.iii.14, P.79-80).

“Earth is possessed of five qualities ? smell, taste, colour, touch, and sound; water consists four qualities beginning from taste; fire of the next three; air of the next two; and space of the last one. It is difficult to translate the word akasa. Vedantasutra defines it as the element that provides space and sound as its quality” (Note 1, p.80).

(I am neither a scholar of Sanskrit, nor an authority on Scriptures of any religion including Christianity, nor on Spirituality. My series on “Senses and Sense-Ability” refers to a living on gross level. However, where does the Element "akash" (usually called space) dwell in the body? How do we attend the sense of hearing, besides other senses? How do we hear the so-called "Inner Voice", if we ever hear?)

Please do write if anyone knows or feels otherwise about “Anahad Naad”.

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

The Planet in balance

Isn’t it better while speaking on personal, collective and institutional matters to keep it on objective level instead of getting sentimental? Institutions occupy major part of our personal and collective life in space and time. It is often noticed people bring in personalities in the matters of institutions rather than looking at the issues in the larger context of ground realities of people, land and waters.

This is not healthy either for an individual or the collective for holistic growth; growth on all the planes – "Work, Leisure, Heath, Education and Propagation";  growth in quality not in quantity as is in industrial mass production, whereby to have firm roots in self-sustenance and self-reliance. Institution is a faceless entity, an instrument which needs overhauling, servicing and even replacement.

Look at the family! It is an ancient institution, which is not a faceless entity alike the institutions established by civilised societies. Family, therefore, also community, appears in other species as well as among humans. Family is breaking up in modern times: orphans, the destitute women – widows – the aged, the singles, and the single parents. It is inevitable fallout of industrial society. What is the point in shedding tears on the dead and the dead matter?

If industrial society needs babies science and technology can help. It could go for cloning, while annihilating, through several means and for several reasons, millions of humans and other species. One of the reasons is endless consumption (and waste) for profit and power. Until recent times there have been intellectual clones (or zombies? Or morons?), earning their daily bread by discourses.

Now, physical clones are started, beginning with plants and animals. Clones have neither pedigree nor posterity. If any sense(s) – sensuality – that is characteristic of ‘natural’ beings is still left in them, then any clone could mate with another clone at fancy, like picking up ready-to-eat-food packets at departmental store or supermarket. No side effects, no after-effects! As and when felt the clones will produce more clones also at labs.

They (the clones) also will die faster than ‘natural’ humans like the broilers born in incubator, if not by killing each other, either for ‘fun’ or ‘revenge’;
Come rising temperature, green house effect, depleting ozone, melting glaciers... either by industrial society, or by Acts of gods; 
And even if the intellectual hominid continue to profess the Future, to make their dough for the day; 
Or even if human species vanish like other species in the Past:
The Planet, without remorse, remains in Balance.

Remigius de Souza    
11-03-02(07-10-09)
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 © Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Cow Dung for Sustenance in India

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 Cow Dung for Sustenance in India

The cow dung (organic manure) helped  us to help grow food in farms and kitchen garden, to cook our food (energy), and helped us to protect our mud houses; thus helped us to sustain (ecology). We used cow dung wash on the floors and walls. Even the ashes from “Chulha” – cooking hearth made out of mud and finished with cow dung wash – were used in the farms to rejuvenate the soil.

And finally the used cow dung in all its forms as a waste went back to the earth.
All the actions predominantly used human energy, besides animal energy, which is abundant in the Third World India. The governments, though, may not acknowledge while craving for fossil fuel and atomic energy sources. Indeed it explains how cow has been sacred to Indic People for millennia.

There is much interest in “cow dung” worldwide, which is welcome sign in view of “carbon tax”. However, the western attitude to recycling cow dung is to use mega industry, mass scale production, centralization... that are basically harmful to very concept of sustainability. (Deceases due to nuclear-electromagnetic radiation,  mad cow disease, Bird flu, Swine-flu etc. HIV-Aids, apart: Some of them travel by airplane.) On the contrary, the “processing” cow dung in India is decentralized at a household level. This, of course, is a matter of lifestyle! How helpless!!

Inevitably the industrial society goes for mass production, be it cattle, pork, meat or poultry for food, or education, or leisure... that leads to centralisation of power. To save environment – energy – ecology the invent machinery that destroys the very purpose of such intention.

Could modern science and technology replicate this cyclic process, by learning from the people and exploiting the Nature, even after so much of their so-called advancement? Could, at least, any economist verify the cost, price, value and benefit of cow dung in terms of Energy-Ecology-Environment at micro-meso-macro levels?   At least I am not aware of any, neither at home or abroad.

Read more on cow dung and its relevance to Life and living:       
1. Clay–Cow dung Grain Silos of Saurashtra, Gujarat
2. Cow dung, Rice and Amartya Sen (a critique): Challenges of 21st Century
3. Collecting cow dung for Energy 3
4. Collecting cow dung for energy 2
5. Collecting cow dung for energy


Remigius d Souza
(18 June 2007)
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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Mission Impossible!!

Remigius de Souza writes:

Things don’t happen by their own accord.
However we often tend to make this statement: “It happened.”
By our apathy or empathy, we too are the part to make the things, which we presume “they happen”.
But logic – rationale is a double edged weapon. Hence we don’t use it till it reaches its inevitable end. We leave it on its way once we reach a conclusion which seems convenient for us: “Things happen”, we say.
Because, by and by, the other edge of the weapon starts hurting us too; we give up logic.

I watch a Hollywood / Bollywood movie that shows cheap love in plenty and violence – mass destruction in plenty, either by design or default. It is produced at a heavy monetary cost ? a mass destruction of the Earth’s resources, which are actually the privilege of all the living beings of the Earth. The movies are destroying the resources by burning the currencies available (or borrowed) at hand. There are produced in hundreds for mass consumption to provide cheap and passive entertainment, hardly for any creative ends, except to make profit (losses). I resent it, yet continue to watch them.

I don’t look at my logic squarely, because it is about to show my cheap desire to buy most uneconomical but most degraded form of entertainment, even at personal cost of my physical, mental and economic resources. It’s only because I have currency (hard-earned or borrowed) at my hand. I don’t want to look for other creative options of healthy leisure! Mission Impossible!!
- - - - -

Remigius de Souza
Mumbai
(17-08-2009)




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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Dimensions of Sound at Kanheri Caves, Mumbai

Architecture of Sound- 2

 About 2000 years old rock-cut Buddhist Caves at Kanheri are now within the Metropolis of Mumbai. The Buddhist campus is located in the hills. This area is notified as National Park, a place of heritage of Forest and the caves too. I am ignorant of what it looked like then, two thousand years ago. But our experience there has been unique.

    There are many visitors, particularly at weekends and holidays: Tourists, families, students, singles and couples. Sometimes some of the visitors have their fun of hearing the noise they make by shouting all together in the Chaitya. They perhaps learn something here? They experience reverberations. But the learning, unfortunately, does not go

further than the noise of which they are used to in their urban life. Mass-mania! They perhaps also do not take notice of the notice put up there by the Archaeological Survey of India, not to make noise.

    In the empty (of other visitors) hall we, my student Nadakumar Jethe and me, spoke to each other. We stood some 15 meters apart. We began our conversation by a whisper, in low decibel. We raised our voice slowly until it was heard clearly by both of us.
    There were no reverberations.
    The sound level was lower than two persons talking to each other, sitting at one-meter distance in a crowded restaurant at a busy street-side in the city of Mumbai. How many monks did gather here for discourses, debates, and prayers etc? There are about hundred caves on the Campus.
  
      Imagine for a while, the Members of the Parliament of India, representatives of the people in the contemporary times, holding a session here in the Heritage building of Chaitya, on the hot issues of the country! They too, perhaps, may discover the Dimension of Sound (or SILENCE!), and its significance, not only in the Third Ecology – human ecology – but also in the entire ecology of Land (and Waters)! They too, perhaps, may acquire an ability to listen to the other beings, besides human beings, and the other happenings in the world of animals, insects, trees, reptiles, the night, clouds – lightning and thunder and droplets , breeze – storms and gales, water –  waves and floods and rain, the ground – the sprouting of a grain, and earthquake.
  
And also imagine about the teachers in modern education (and architecture) holding their classes here!
  
    We are generally deprived of leisure, an important dimension of life, as much important as Work, Education and Health, in these times of stress and strain, speed and efficiency. In the wave of visual aesthetics of hedonism we are missing, now and then, the other senses of existence. In here, going into the Earth, was like returning to womb ― a tranquil environment ambivalent for meditation – recollection  leisure; the mind and SELF face to face ―  listening to the soundless sound.

"The old pond
A frog jumps in.
Plop!'

         [Basho, Japan, 17th Century.]


Mumbai
17-9-1995

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Architecture of sound

It is the kind of speech

no eye can see.
Kabir says, listen
to the word spoken
in every body.
(Translation by Linda Hess and Sukhdeo Singh)

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."
— New Testament [John 1.1]

IT WAS the middle of monsoon in the world famous monsoon forest of Konkan, West Coast region of India. The hills of Karnala Bird Sanctuary, about 70 km from Bombay (now Mumbai), were lush green with grasses and bushes. Otherwise they radiate heat waves rest of the year.

Four students of architecture and one of their professors from Bombay City were wandering near their project site. They were in the hills about quarter of a kilometer from the Bombay-Goa Highway.

"Do you hear anything?" asked the teacher.
"We hear the sounds of trucks and cars passing on the highway."
"Do you hear anything more than that?"
"No, Sir, nothing else."
"There is too much noise in our heads. Let us stop that noise and then listen."
"Oh! The murmur of a stream! Sir, where is it?" They exclaimed in unison.


With the progress and development of the civilized world, a few, very few, dance and sing and play; and the millions watch them dancing, singing and playing, on the cinema and television screens, and listen them on gramophone, radio, audio-video-players, and on the public address system during public festivals. [Incidentally there are "Adivasi" ― aborigine ― tribes named Katakari and Thakar in and around the hills of Karnala.]

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In the increasing noise of market economy and information technology, transport and communications, media and propaganda… the Self is lost.


Four years after the incidence in the hills of Karnala, which was of course forgotten, the students of architecture had the 1994 Western Zonal Convention of NASA [National Association of Students of Architecture] held at Mumbai (then Bombay). Its theme was "AWAKENING OF SENSES". It is the beginning of a very hard journey in the present urban environment to experience "ANHAD NAAD"? Silence, which is the heart of music, and the primordial sound, intelligible sound ? "Nada", “Nada Brahma".

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In the architecture of sound, the archetypal "Lomas Rishi Cave" [mid third century BC] at Barabar Hill, one could hear the sound within oneself and move towards the quietude.

* * * * *

Illustrations: Top- Facade of Lomas Rishi Cave, Barabar Hills, Bihar. India. Bottom: View of inner chamber, plan and section of the cave. See, also, "Masters of Timeless Architecture".

(19-11-1994 | published in "Soundsnipe" - magazine of acoustics, issue 2, New Delhi, January 1995)

Remigius de Souza


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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

River of no return (Poem)

I am not a parasite on society
Nor on my family, least in any way.
Though longing for community
I shun away from identity.

I am in the river of no return.
There is no time to wait for anyone.
You came; you joined for a while
Looking for landing all the while.

This way is sometimes rough and deep
Some times fall from heights;
If you loose your breath, and weep
None other than river to console and wipe

Your tears other than the river.
Attach no meaning - no purpose to her.
She is in herself, by herself complete.
Breathe her in all fullness in and out.

I am reeling and rolling over and over,
Living this very moment to moment
Reaching out with every drop
To my beloved deep ocean infinite.

* * *
Remigius de Souza
(02-05-2001)

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Sense and Sense-Ability – 8: Taste

Remigius de Souza writes:





Illustration: Aesthetic Taste

1. Taj Mahal, India: precious/semiprecious stone studded fantasy mausoleum (in feudal era).



2. Bra: diamond studded fantasy (in democratic era).


3. Beijing Olympic Stadium and Inauguration: Technology gimmicks studded fantasy leisure (in autocratic state). Qualitatively their taste ethics and aesthetics don’t differ much from one another.



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We are thinking, here, of taste, a physical sense, the phenomenon that goes long way from mouth to the entire gamut of environment-ecology-energy of Terra Incognita Indica, for that matter, of entire globe. Taste, here, is a business of mouth: To eat, drink and chew – primarily to satisfy the Basic Need, besides to speak, and to sing, and perhaps abuse...


We are not talking about that taste in the abstract realm of fashions and styles, arts and artefacts; they are but transient in time-space and places.


A new born baby sucks nipples of mother’s breasts (or teat of feeding bottle). Thankfully, s/he is not to be or cannot be taught by any high culture / low culture, or by any civilisation, or by any power savvy authority that would at once jump at the first opportunity.


Oh, that cones in other areas. The onslaught on their taste starts from the day one. The new born are generally on the supplementary feeds – drugs, vitamins, vaccines etc. For various reasons prescribed by the specialists (of course, to those who can afford; 90 percent Indians can’t). So, their taste buds now start getting tuned to the modern social and economic development, in other words, they are baptized in the Dharma of Industrialization.


The onslaught also comes from the omnipresent Market, the manufacturers, the show-biz – the pop stars farting on the TV screens every 10-15 minutes intervals, and so on. It comes with ready to serve canned and packed conveniences in attractive wrappings: That includes processed foods and drink – sweet – sour – pungent – salty (bitter and astringent excluded). The shelves are always full at the glitzy mall.


It could be so, because the mothers or parents or families are under constant pressure of time-crunch, that’s for one. Hence, the market is ready to serve. And other is knowledge-crunch. Because in the nuclear family raj, there probably is no grandma’s legacy left. They have spent their formative years (till 20 to 25) learning specialised courses – arts, sciences, commerce, ET-IT, engineering, business management etc at mass schooling. Their data bank is empty in this vital field of health about “when-where-why-who(m)-how” of right food to keep healthy. Well, some information filters through the print media, like guide books of their school days. But what is its reach?


In the cities, however, till now, the grocery shops and (vegetable) markets have number of varieties of great variety of grains, condiments, spices, dry and fresh fruits, tubers, rhizomes, leaves and roots in vegetables: I don’t know even the name of many. I wonder perhaps the medicos may know.

In the villages generally there should belocally grown grains, fruits and vegetables, and supplements from forests, woodlands and wetlands, if any still survive, and if accessible through the clutches of various departmental authorities. However, sooner or later the Market would take over to supply.... But why is there such a great exodus from the village to urban areas?


In the Indic region there has been great natural biodiversity. In the Indic region there has been a great natural biodiversity. It has influenced all the aspects of culture, not only food and clothing, in short, the four aspects of our daily living: Work, Leisure, Education and Health.


Biodiversity in India has resulted in rich medical systems – Ayurveda, Siddhayoga etc. It is there in the occult cults – Tantra, Mantra, magic practices. However much of the knowledge is with the ethnic and tribal communities that remain incognito (perhaps under a cloud of modern day superstitions or prejudices), besides in the treatises. What’s the point in giving official recognition to the systems, but not its bearers, the people, who are treated as second class citizens?


Shamefully, the visible reality down to earth is the country’s most of the green cover, woodlands, forests and wetlands are either get pollute or are disappearing, consequently the loss of wild life, diminishing surface and subsoil water, and comes expanding desert. Another consequence is people’s knowledge and skills, preserved through generations. are vanishing. In the place of biodiversity there comes monoculture of plants and monoculture of mass society is being groomed through mass schooling. All this is for the delight of bureaucrats and the ruling powers for the easy control, and modern development of economic by regimentation.


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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.