DYNAMIC WATER

Dynamic Water - Image by Remi de Souza

A drop of water moves in liquid, vapour, solid forms.
In the oceans it moves up and down, in currents – hot and cold. Vaporized it goes to sky. It drops on ground, percolates in the ground, moves in streams – visible or invisible – to ponds and oceans, or in plants, our bodies… in gutters of urban habitats, but there too it moves. It lives in the collectives. Water moves, also, in my body all over constantly: in blood, sweat, vomit, urine, faeces…
Water is dynamic: humans too are dynamic, being waterborne.
Yet I take water for granted; I don’t notice!
Water is an element to meditate upon.
                                                                        ― Remi de Souza (11-11-2013)


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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

TO MAKE A CELL OF GOOD LIVING: All Seasons' Greetings

‘Make a cell of good living in the chaos of our world”, said Eric Gill, as I remember it. I read it in my early twenties, some decades ago. It remained inscribed like an affirmation.

      I had then just finished a course in architecture at a college. Enthusiastically I started to look for an ideal, model cell in places, books and journals, and with the masters of architecture. But soon I realised this cell is beyond floor-wall-roof. Inevitably I turned inside. Consciously I started peeling off a layer after layer. Alas, there was no cell there except my gaseous ego. It brought me to tears like a peeled onion.

      Lo! And here too, within me, I found chaos. My body and mind riddled by some or other ailments and maladies: of ignorance, taboos, models or dogmas, indigestion or malnutrition; of teeth or skin or eyes or nose or stomach or some other limbs; and victim of epidemics such as war frenzy or cricket frenzy or flu, and so on spread by a city –  market – media – mod culture. And over them all there presides my omnipresent ego, whatever, wherever I am.

    I have been moving, almost all my life, to places: cities, villages, forests, coasts, monuments and ruins. I have been moving in the First World, the Third World and the Fourth World in India. I never crossed the borders if India.

      I have been fortunate to share warm hospitality of numerous anonymous people. The affirmation never left me. It would appear any time any place like the pop ups on the Internet. I realise now and then while moving in the real world and virtual world, the affirmation is as valid today, even more than ever before, as maybe it was hundred years ago. On the way slowly emerged a resolve:

‘From Here Now on
Live every Moment
Add every Moment
To the Time Eternal’

 © Remigius de Souza | Mumbai | 25/11/2005  

Note: 1. Quoted poem above is by the author.
          2. About Eric Gill by Fiona MacCarthy, The Guardian, Saturday 22 July 2006
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Formative Age of a Person

Whose responsibility it is anyway?

"A child's feet are seen in the crib" (The feet show child's future) — How the child would lead life in future — a Marathi idiom. It indicates people's belief in fate. Isn't there any responsibility of the parents / guardians, teachers and society to help child's development? To say tradition is always best is merely a dogma.

Image-1

‘The Formative Age’ by Remigius de Souza, Mumbai, 2003

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Sapling in a Tree-pot

 In the tropics, light and moisture are enough for plants to live.

Even plants turn around in search of light for their growth. In crowded plants each finds its way; sometimes they grow straight up and higher, sometimes bend around, in the direction of light. There are no quarrels, fights, arguments! (If there are any, we do not understand their tongue.)

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Plant on a pavement in Mumbai - 1

This tree is on my usual walkway. During monsoon a beautiful creeper grew in the hollow of its trunk. One day found it vanished: Perhaps a dutiful street sweeper had removed it. At the same time new shoots grow from the trunk and roots.

Wherever there is natural thick tree cover, especially in the mountain ranges, there we get to see such a scene, also in a mass plantation. In cities, too, on the street pavements, the transplanted saplings (from nurseries) helped by watering, invariably grow in various directions.

Municipalities probably do not know the right "places and spaces" for the growth of various plants. Oh, those who don't know about the appropriate 'place and space' for the growth of humans, how could they have any concern for the plants?

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Plant on pavement in Mumbai - 2

Plants, too, wish to live despite various adversities, one of them is modern urban aesthetics (and ethics) about Life and Survival.

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Detail, Plant on pavement in Mumbai - 3

 On pavements of Mumbai/ two generations of the displaced and marginalized are born and grew up. Who knows where did they reach? How could the impotent know?

There is an idiom, 'under a great tree other plants don't grow'. However, it is applicable to plantation by humans. Actually, it refers to great persons, or humans, certainly not great trees.

In a natural forest, a great tree supports many a animal and plant species.
Cut down a great tree and see what happens. It not only destroys Life of so many species, but also, affects environmental balance, reduces ground water, causes desert to expand, droughts and famines begin...
But what is it to the egocentric, greedy power-mongers? No regrets or shame! If poor ryot starve, it is not a spicy news story!

Mother Nature, 'Srishti', provides resources (and autonomous functions) for the sustenance and protection to all the species — their body and mind — in their schema, may they be bacteria or human species. Her management is not at all like that of selfish, power-greedy civilized societies. Not even their gods (of human species) can interfere in Mother Nature's affairs.

Nature, here, isn't romantic greenery in poetry / fiction. Just as Mother Nature occupies all the known-unknown universes, so also is within us.
She does, so do we, want us to grow in body and mind, which requires appropriate 'place and space'. 

Here, 'place' is not area, i.e. sq ft/sq m area by government rule book. And 'space' is not 3D box/block in geometry.

 

 Two extreme examples

First example is of the collective, and second is of an individual. These are two far ends of recent examples from civilized society.

1st. In Vietnam a generation was born on the war field, grew up with gun and fought war with the US. The US lost the war.

2nd: Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of former Baroda State. His relations with British Raj are well known. His comprehensive development work for People is more eye-catching than his worldly wealth.
Who was Sayajirao? A boy, from a humble family, adopted in the royal family to be a king!
What is the use of mere wealth of a rich person without right formation? Truly he was 'Rajarshi', Sage-King or Sage-Statesman.

Between the two ends in the above two examples, it may be worth to examine a million cases. But the advance societies/experts stop short at sample surveys. In their tongue there is no idiom, 'as many persons that many characters'.
Otherwise they often publish reports, about Internet, TV, cell phone users etc.

There is a third example, outside civilized society. Here it is mentioned only for record though most important. Most people are not familiar about them. They are the aborigines, 'adivasi', communities in India and the world. Their communities and culture have beginning in the remote ancient times.
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Notes:
1.The poster was written while I was writing a number articles on education during past three decades.
2. This post is translated from the original post published on my Marathi blog: REMICHI MARATHI BOLI.
3.  I have written few notes about the aborigines in India. Some are published in print and on this blog.

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

A STORY OF BIRTHDAY BASH

A Story of Birthday Bash (Meta-fiction)

By Remigius de Souza

THERE IS AN INCREASING TREND of celebrating birthdays of children at junior schools and at homes, particularly in cities. This, of course, is presently prevalent among the elite class and English-medium convents/missionary and other schools. It is almost an unavoidable ritual.

It was perhaps started at missionary schools imported from abroad or perhaps from Hollywood-Bollywood-Tellywood. It is now customary. Even it is followed for the grownups.

My parents and we the children, coming from peasant families, were spared from this custom. We never celebrated anyone’s birthday then, or none in our native village. None suffered Identity Crisis. Now it is initiated at age one year. I fail to understand its logic.

Identity Crisis

Perhaps it helps to build-up one’s image, individuality, personality, identity or ego? It may be one of the instruments to prepare a child for the forthcoming judgements and comparison in her/his every walk of life.

Perhaps it gives an opportunity for the elders for celebration in otherwise fragmented / mass society; a sense of identity. Children are fully involved in learning — reading books and writing copybooks: talk-talk, read-talk, write-talk, copy-talk, and perhaps once in while think-talk.

They are hardly exposed to learn any other life-supporting skills for self-sustenance until they are adults, or even middle aged. That’s in the elite class.

Particularly in the recent times, the birthday bash must have come handy to bribe the generation of the unwanted, those born after the world-wide family planning campaign. It perhaps also helps to cover up the guilt of adding to the world population. Is it a consolation?

It comes as an easy package to assure the children, who have lost social contact in the stress and strain of urban life. Besides they are also spared from all other possible manual work and skills as a promise of better life by their ambitious parents.

The children, as they grow up, would capitalise on their talk-talk skills acquired at the successive classrooms. More the talk-talk skills acquired at successive stages — school/college/university — better is the income? No wonder the planning, expertise and equity at social levels are in shambles, not only in India but all over the world.

We have heard, the wealthy sometimes celebrated their birthday at sixty by ‘Tula” —  weighing gold or silver or eatables such as ‘Laddus’ equal of their body weight and distribute it among the well-wishers and their subjects.

Proverbially, the age sixty also marks a beginning of second childhood, or the beginning of fading ‘Buddhi’ – intellect/intelligence, or the drooping learning curve.

For centuries we have been celebrating Krishnashtami, Buddha Jayanti, Mahavir Jayanti, Isu Jayanti (Christmas) and others, Jayanti means victory day. They are the great souls. Their “Think-Act-Talk” is synchronised.

Then recently came state-sponsored birthdays: Gandhi Jayanti, Children’s Day, Teachers’ Day, and Ambedkar Jayanti etc. usually in the form of public holidays.

The role of the Government and/or Market

In our Nation, the Agency started campaigns, such as 'HUM DO, HAMARE DO' – We two, ours two. Thanks to the Managers of people's welfare could not reach the masses – royt – in our magnificent cultural diversity, as usual. The slogan failed, like our Public Distribution System (PDS) of Essential Commodities.

Omnipotent Omnipresent Market now supplies Event Managers for every occasion from birth to the final destination (undertaker!). Of course if you are ready to splurge!

Recently I saw Bollywood’s Big B's Birthday Bash on the KBC episode on a TV channel! Very sexy! Amazing feat! A trendsetter!

Who am I?

For me the birthday is very important date. Over the years I have been filling-up hundreds of form, which are mandatory, issued by several establishments.

Sometimes I have to prove even ‘who I am’ by showing an identity card with my photograph issued by another establishment. That’s in real life.
“Who am I?” has been the eternal question before man; but that’s for the philosophers to bother.

A child feels elated – a king for the day. We continue to blow up the candles ten, twenty sixty… times to be forgotten. It is a make-believe world.

Remigius de Souza
04-11-2002 (updated: 01-11-2012)
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Catch ’em young

Creative Imagination of the Market

by Remigius de Souza

Cars and Guns: Catch them young

Cars and Guns – toys at Rs 10/- to Rs 2000/- from roadside stalls to malls!
Cars and Guns – games at cyber cafes / at home PCs at nominal cost!
Create needs wants; Create supplies: These are Market strategies. Take it or leave it.

CREATIVE IMAGINATION of the Indian ad-world now indeed is flourishing with the advent of TV, and more TV channels on the air. But what is food for one may be poison for the other. Now the children are progressively subjected to abuse by making them ad-models, and subjecting them as viewers to induce consumerism, which, of course, is far from right education, if not to pester their pampering parents.

Sophisticated Child labour

After subjecting women to abuse, for example, “Made for each other” (comparing women companions to cigarettes/stubs/butts), now they have targeted the children. A new class of sophisticated child labour is emerging. Recently this trend has gone far beyond, the not-so-famous ad “Mummy, sach kya hota hai?” (Mummy, what is truth?), though it was banned (on protest!).

Even in the First World countries, where the TV was started, there are strict laws against targeting and using the children through advertisements. However this may not be true of First World India [FWI], in the waves of globalisation, market economy, freedom of expression etcetera. There is no sensor board here to nab the TV ads. Our governments and ministries are busy handling internal – external –natural – man-made calamities. But where are the cultural police gone? Who is supposed to intervene on behalf of the children: the parents, families, teachers, or NGOs?

It is known, at their tender age the children are under the burden of formal schooling and no play. They have hardly seen the ‘real’ world. At this stage if they are pushed into the dragnet of ‘virtual’ world in the ‘real’ time, the results may not be far from predictable; that they may be reduced to be robots at the hands of the vested interests that control the powers. The educated busy parents in the First World India may not be ignorant about this, though they may find some relief from the children being engaged in viewing TV etc.

Or, aren’t the people happy enough by the cinema-sports-world superstars farting in the ad-world? Or, who is ultimately paying in reality, at what price, cost, value and benefit, and for whom? Anyone could see the Geobbels’ policy is followed by the capitalist long-term agenda to catch them young.

Once the pluralistic Indian society is now pushed to polarizations, communities to be communal, and families to be nuclear. In such a situation, holistic thinking and action may prove detrimental to self-interests, or so one may think. Hence the matters of control, conflicts, corrections, cure...or care are taken over by – or given up to – various institutions, and the family, community, the collective takes the back seat. Of course the institutions work in their respective compartments. In the vigilant society it should be the other way: the family – community – the collective should take the reins / steering wheel in its hands, and the institutions (GOs / NGOs) to be used as bullocks / wheels, while navigating through any situation.

Remigius de Souza
(18-10-2006)
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.

Shankar Kanade's Architecture: Lohithashwa's House

Shankar Kanade's Architecture: Lohithashwa's House

Unique Event – Interior in Action

By Remigius de Souza

Architecture is finally completed by the user: Primarily it is for the user.

SN and NN Kanade at Jalavayuvihar township

Shankar and Navanath Kanade, Architects, have their firm under the name and style, "Shilp Sindoor". They are placed in Bangalore. Shankar has been instrumental in starting/ formulating 'courses of architecture' at many colleges. Shankar and Navnath have been teaching architecture for decades.

Shankar Kanade, over the years developed unique/ original construction system, locally known as "Chapadi", using local granite; and his project execution management achieved economy that benefit the home owners.

Lohithashwa

Lohithaswa is a noted Kannada film actor and playwright and a retired English professor. He has acted in more than five hundred Kannada stage plays, and television serials. He is popularly known for his dominating voice in the Kannada film industry.

Lohithashwa had invited some artists to join the art workshop to be held at his house - residence. They were on visit to Bangalore, on the occasion of an arts and crafts exhibition at national level held at Bangalore.

I was fortunate to pick up the unique event of 'art workshop' that shows many dimensions of splendour in this house.

Artist at work - Exterior open space

We speak, here, through photos, a popular medium, and word of mouth. We speak not how the architecture of house looks, but how it works. We don't speak of design aesthetics, but ethics in adapting it to a non-charted use, not prescribed in the architects' 'Brief' (of the proposed house).

Artists take a break

At Indian residences, in urban and rural areas, there are several occasions – birth, marriage, Pooja, festivities, death... harvesting of crops – when relatives, friends, community visit. This is a common feature.

The artists gathered here have come from different parts of India. Perhaps some are meeting each other for the first time, including the host.

Place occupied by an artist

The house has major use of local granite, a living material like clay and wood, favorite of sculptors.
At every step it is overwhelmingly evident that architect and client ware in tune and at same wavelength in the process of designing.
We witness this abode is made in excellent communion of architects, workers and user-the-family.

Artists feel at home

It is said, ‘People get the government they deserve’.Here we may say, ‘People get architect they deserve’!

Navanath, Lohithashwa and artist Patil inconversation

The artists here ware immersed in work, rest and interaction. That shows how everyone was feeling at home - in the 'place', not a 'space'.
We often see photos and thumbnail drawings of architecture in glossy magazines bereft of people, rather 'the user the god in sanctuary'. What do we perceive when we see such presentations of architecture in print media or e-media?

Home is place to work, rest, interact and grow

These photographs are clicked on ordinary camera, in natural light or room lights-on.
While clicking the pictures, there is least thought given to rules of aesthetics or ruling taste. These photographs are Celebration of People, Place, and the Occasion.

Place-making in house is dynamic

We don't place any customary mini-maps to guide the reader in the interior.
Kanade brothers could have furnished me with drawings, and other typical professional information to go with this text and photographs. I don't do it deliberately.
With printing technology earlier, then photography, movie, now Internet, we are moving away from Reality to Virtual Reality at every step in our elitist life.

Connecting Persons - Connecting Places

With miniature reproductions of maps and pictures (i.e. Hi-tech photographs) of exterior - interiors, we usually celebrate Architecture - 'the Holy cow, Mother of All Arts'.
Indeed how many, even professionals, can decipher 'anatomy of architecture' and comprehend 'scale and dimensions' of Reality in the illustrations? Of course, it depends on perception level of each one.

For example, 'Barcelona Pavilion' (by Mies) lived for decades, clean and neat, in black and white photographs. When rebuilt as a memorial, in a crowded urban area, how does it look now in real?

Kitchen is Sacred Place in Indian Abode

Kitchen is sacred place in Indian abode. Cooking or rather Preparing vegan food is highest art form, only next to Organic / Natural Farming. Both nourish Body, Mind and Soul (in my opinion). Other forms in these two primal fields are marketable commodity & consumerism.

Culinary Art is Highest Form of Art next to Farming

We, the urbanite Indians, try to adopt imported industrialization; we have not grown up with it as the Western are. Also we perhaps carry mimetic memories (received from our Great... great grand Mother) buried in our deep subconscious. And like molecules of water in ocean they keep coming up: Not everyone may wake up to the inner voice. There lies the answer to many anomalies in the developing India.

Artist's Participation in Cooking

I have heard, architecture, now in the West, is put in the new category named 'Creative Industry'. Why are they apologetic? Why can't they, or don't want to, turn the tide of Climate Chang or of whatever other ills, despite their so-called Progress and Development?

Internal Courtyard is Traditional Feature in Architecture

 I suspect the term, 'Architecture as Creative Industry' has its origin in the 'Hybrid and GM Seeds' in the realms of a basic need 'Food' in Agriculture.
Now the new category of architecture evolved from the primary need, 'Shelter', is to subjugate autonomy the 'User' as 'Producer' at the mercy of 'mass producer and supplier' i.e. Industry and Market.

Artist at work

International Style (of architecture) is misnomer coined by the puppets of powers in Industrial society. 

Courtyard as a work place

Art is not for Art's sake. Any art, artefact or event is an expression of culture.
Culture is a gift of Land and Water – Mother Nature – enriched by biodiversity of the place, from the Poles to Equator. Culture, therefore, is local, never international. Only 'trade' is international.

Culture is in the People

Culture is in the people, not in any artefacts or events. Heritage Conservation, therefore, should be the Conservation of People and Natural Biodiversity.

QUOTES

1. When I had (first) visited Lohithashwa’s house, my spontaneous response was “I am reminded of India’s rock cut architecture”.

2. “At the art workshop other arts also flourished. Several artistes – potters, painters, and sculptors – were passionately working: I feel this may be a best, and the most appropriate tribute to Kanade ever received for his work.” (SHANKAR KANADE, ARCHITECT)

NOTE: 1. The opinions, comments, expressed in this post are mine. They don’t reflect views of Shankar and Navnath Kanade.
2. Shankar Kanade's profile: SHANKAR KANADE, ARCHITECT 

Remigius de Souza | Date: 21-01-2012
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Entertainment Explosion 2

24x7 Entertainment Explosion - 2

by Remigius de Souza 

MOSTPEOPLE* would say, ‘music is their hobby’, which may not mean they play musical instrument or sing. Invariably they hear music on some or other electronic gadget. Forty years ago, there took place a ‘great’ event, but it was not reported in the media, didn’t pull a crowd.

A young music lover Mr. Khadpekar, a student of architecture, invited Pundit Kumar Gandharva to perform solo concert at Ahmadabad. Punditji’s immediate reaction was, ‘No Ahmadabad. The crowd there appreciates music by thunderous clapping during the recital.’ However, after the explanation he readily agreed.

A small group, perhaps less than fifty, some of them from Baroda (now Vadodara), came to attend the concert. The event took place on an open platform at the premises of the Ahmedabad School of Architecture.

Punditji requested to shut the mike and the (loud) speakers. Seeing the uneasiness among his listeners he assured it was perfectly alright for him, and that they would enjoy it better. They were worried because they knew that one of his lungs was removed, and it would be strenuous for him without the ‘sound’ system.

Now it was direct contact between the singer and the listeners, mouth to ears. It was a unique experience, mostly available to private “baithak” – gatherings.

During his recuperating years he was forbidden even to sing. During that period he moved across Malava, Madhya Pradesh, listening and collecting folk songs. He was touched by the simple folks and their traditional music of Malava. He had turned the disadvantage into an opportunity. And a new Indian classical music emerged.

Punditji was generous, open and accessible, a teacher in true sense who could learn even from the humble folks. Indian classical music too was touched by the inimitable maestro. I personally was touched by him and the event that left a deep lasting impression on me.

FEW DECADES LATER, I was at a party hosted by a friend while in Bangalore. Typically there was music on an electronic gadget. At some point I said it is not music but only its replica that dissipates energy. Shankar Kanade protested. I said, ‘This is only a reproduction, which has lost its original quality, howsoever advance a gadget or technology may be.’

Though I did not remember the above event, I perhaps was prompted to say this by my subconscious. Such reproduction or representation is a virtual reality. It is just as a word ‘tree’ or a picture of a tree is not a reality. It may perhaps help someone to recall, depending on one’s perception of the ‘real’ sound, the ‘real’ event, the ‘real’ environment where it takes place; otherwise it is an object without soul – a mere technology.

In his later years Punditji had taken to teaching ‘Bhajan’ when he was acutely aware that his pupils were not getting to the meaning of the words they sang and thus singing remain as technology – a skill.

Punditji is no more. The cassette tapes of his music attached with copyright as well as the cassette players that played his music have gone to dumping yards. However Punditji’s monumental tribute to Malava’s folk songs continues to reverberate in the ears; it’s universal beyond global.

In the name of music we patronise ‘leisure industry’ (the term is an oxymoron) at a price. For that matter work – any work – comes at a price. If there are no singers, why not listen to the air, water, plants, birds… children, if there is little ‘nature’ still left in our environment? Why not dance to its tunes?

Leisure, opposite to work, is absolutely free, anywhere, to anyone irrespective of one’s status.

The millions of folks – the tribal and peasants – enjoy leisure actively, not by passive activity of watching Virtual Reality on electronic gadgets, all over India. They practice it not only during festivities but also during their daily chores.

On account of leisure the Industrial Civilisation is bankrupt and pauper.

Leisure conserves /restores energy: Leisure arrests entropy.

See previous post:
24x7 Entertainment Explosions

CRICKETFRENZY IN INDIA-- A page from dairy 2003

Note: The word, 'mostpeople', was used by poet E E Comings in Introduction to his collection of poems.
Remigius de Souza | 25-05-2007
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© Remigius de Souza, 2007

LIVING IN FOOL’S PARADISE

LIVING IN FOOL’S PARADISE

Once conditioned by the system
Subjected to a quarter century
Of rigors of the mass schooling
It is not easy going, easy keeping
Aflame awareness
In the cyclonic waves turbulent
By the anarchist housekeeper
One tends to buy time
In the memory (of events, images)
In future (projecting hopes, images).
Transient is but Time;
Remi is racing with Time.

Mumbai
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

WAYS TO WEALTH (POEM)

Ways to Wealth (Indian Budget - Year 2006)

1 
Once a god-adored adorned
many a head of door to an abode.
Now the gods take to the road,
beg for patronage. And the rich
beggars go globetrotting for
finance, know-how and trade.

2 
Once the children of communities
cohesive received learning free
in the life-supporting skills in
branches of wholesome life-tree.

Now in the forward societies
they buy it at the trading malls
turning their clocks fast forward
until late to their adulthood
to earn their dough of uncertain
value to buy the living and life-
supporting services from expertise
at the thriving market place.

3
Now the bureaucrats – the masters
from the branches of expertise,
at their highest level of incompetence
in Peter Principle – take chairs;
replace colours faded of feudal-powers,
at the helm of the people’s affairs.

Now no wonder the prostitution goes
rampant and the pimps thrive on
as they make it quick with smile on
the by-ways and highways to wealth.

4 
Now no wonder all the world children
– you and I, yours and mine –
are the cursed ‘unwanted generation’,
as much said, the ‘growing population’
by the stakeholder – the rational animal – man
as much done: the rape of Mother Earth.

Remigius de Souza | Mumbai | 04-03-2006
(Revised and updated)

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Let A Billion Faiths Bloom

Let A Billion Faiths Bloom
by Remigius de Souza

Could there ever be a billion faiths, not one?
Could there ever be a billion gods, not one?
Could there ever be a billion incarnations?
Could there ever be one in love of Sovran Good?

Rather than in love of gods or ‘no-god’,
Or could I ever be relieved of loads on my head
Of history that grows with Ages with my growing age?
Let the billion faiths bloom in love of Sovran Good.
 
I met several cultures in places and among peoples
Like water that takes on colours of soil and skies
Putting my sole possession – my life at stakes
Beyond barriers of time and space, hell and heavens

Breaking loose, my life ether in flowering and fruition
Be a witness of the billion nameless in turmoil.
Let me be inside outside in love of Sovran Good.
Let the billion faiths bloom in love of Sovran Good.


Remigius de Souza | 27.04.2002 | Mumbai, India
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Seeds of Hybrid-Cultured Mass Society

Seeds of Hybrid-Cultured Mass Society

Hybrid seeds of food-grains came much later. 

By then industrialization had successfully bred the hybrid culture through the assembly lines of mass education to produce mass society in the First World Nations, now named the (virtual) Global Village.

The result: "hybrid culture of mass society" who have no posterity ― no community, like hybrid seeds that have no second/third generation crop. 

Peasants must buy seeds for next crop from the markets. 

The culture of mass society characterizes its loss of autonomy to think and act on their own; now it is decided by the visible/invisible rulers.

No wonder, for the likes of the Gandhi, the Schumacher, the Thoreau… there are no takers on the assembly lines: no germination, no posterity.

They rest in peace in the archives, except for occasional ‘quotes’ in discourses by pundits and politicians.

They are already a part of the past, like socialism, radical humanism, modern, post-modern, Art Nouveau… but no action.

"Hybrid Culture of Mass Society" ia a milestone in the five thousand year old history of Civilized Society!

(04.07.05)

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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

All Fools’ Day

All Fools’ Day 


Whatever may be, it’s my doing,
by choice or by force, that I forget;
my rush ends it in half-hearted doing
and in endless strife I am caught.

In my fear of loosing my doing
no moment spared to stop and look
from all sides around, inside out,
at all levels, in all dimensions:

much of it I am ignorant.
On the fast track of one dimension
never knew when I lost myself;
never realised I am the means;

and I am the end. A product, an idea,
a thought, an act, or a concept
in time is perishable and transient:
no sooner born belongs to the past.

In stagnant water all actions stink.
But waters of life are always flowing,
condensing, evaporating, raining,
reflecting; that’s the nature of water,

of life born in water, but not my doing.
In looking at doing, the doing ceases.
At the core of ocean prevails
Silence pregnant with new life.

* * *
Remigius de Souza | Mumbai | 26 March 2004
NOTE: 1. Image "The Fool" from Tarot pack is occult system, and has no connection to western custom of "April Fools' Day".
2. Image credits- "The Fool" from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck.
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

LUCKY DOG ON VALENTINE DAY

LUCKY DOG ON VALENTINE DAY  

Valentine or Santa, both strangers to me,
in this media-frenzy in this market place,
though I carry European Christian names:
They remain merely non-entities for me.

Certainly the seasons, even in this urban jungle
are close to my heart; so also the sun, moon
and stars, sky and clouds, dawn and dusk; a rare
patch of green and a song of bird. They evoke
emotions, memories, longings and aspirations
though I have no knowledge scholarly of them
to make money or name from these real entities.
I am enriched as I meet them in remote holes
in this urban maze like a stray ferrous flake
meets magnet: what a windfall for a lucky dog!

By Remigius de Souza
Mumbai
12-02-2004 
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©Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

Nold Egenter on Twilight Zone (poem)

Comment by Nold Egenter

Nold Egenter, architect anthropologist, posted his comment on my poem, Twilight Zone. on my facebook on 7 August 2010: His contribution enriches my perceptions on culture and civilization. I gratefully acknowledge his sharing by publishing his comment here.

Dear Remigius,
reading your Twilight Zone Poem I get the impression that there is a strange and mysterious affinity among us! Having lived about 10 years in Japan trying to understand its cultural roots I came to feel that there is some sort of basic world view which can be called aesthetic, or what you call twigh-light, "a window of a cell", a journey "on the border of day and night", "in the community of the Earth and stars".

I think it is a full fledge world in which contrasting units are harmoniously perceived, a tree for instance with leaves moving in the wind, its trunk and roots being anchored in the ground. I think it is a world view which sees all things in similar ways as composed of contrasting parts forming a harmonious tension.

I suspect that this was a very primordial "aesthetic" world view, which to some extent could survive in what we call art today or architecture, but, in its essence and its original significance as forming a harmonious world is no more really understood. It seems however, that one can assume that it was something of profound meaning in many cultures of the world, e.g. YinYang and Daoism in China, Om in Ancient India, Ma'at in Ancient Egypt, 'coincidence of opposites' in European Middle Ages, and so on. As an aesthetic world, this world also was of a highly spiritual quality.

But then something happened - which had to do with the formation of civilisation. The harmonious structures developed in the early agrarian sedentary villages were spatially blown up by some peoples who 'smelt' the power which could be made with these provinces of villages by superseding them, using their own str...uctural conditions on a higher level of states with similar centres now as large monumental sanctuaries, palaces, for kings and their social elite.

I am somehow intensely working on this topic at the moment, trying to understand how culture (not cultureS!) really evolved. Am reading books on Mespotamia and Egypt with the hypothesis that culture evolved in Neolithic villages in the sense above and then these harmonious "islands" were overrun by mad power-freaks Alexander "the Great"-style and that this is the history we are still in.... It is a fairly mad world, in fact, if one really starts to understand its "mechanisms".

All the best for today, Cordially,
Nold Egenter

7 August 2010  

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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

LABOUR LOST IN GUTTERS (Poem)

 Goldhunters in Mumbai - 1

Even from the gutters
of this city-life there is some hope
to recover a nugget
but from the morons there is none
– they are shipshape
for they’re hedonist market-delivered –
except for the parroted
responses impulsive, manipulations divisive.

What could one expect
from cultured synthetic show-plants
made at the assembly-plants 
by the culture of contentment and waste?
No flowers. No fruit.
Not a creative deed – no deliverance.
Mumbai [7-8-2002]   

Goldhunters in Mumbai - 2

 Note: Images 1 & 2 are by the author Remijius de Souza  
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© Remigius de Souza, all rights reserved.

TWILIGHT ZONE (Poem)

Twilight Zone 

Twilight (Image source: Internet)

A window of a cell – an eye on the world
moves on and on, on the wings of clouds, 
a journey on the border of day and night
in the community of the Earth and stars. 

Here one can’t even touch nor is there
a room for trivialities of theories 
of trade, politics and philosophies,
and of the earthlings who don’t belong 

to the Earth and the Sun, living on 
self-deception and squabbles blown 
out of proportion, work–work–work,
work to leave glorious ruins behind.

The gods, god persons live on preaching
a hope of salvation, raise monuments
by blood-shed by the earthlings bonded 
perpetually to the chains of chaos. 

Blessed are the earthworms far away
from the public eye; they don’t make
scriptures or monuments out of their
shit to the legacy or lead Life astray.  

Blessed are the earthworms

-- Remigius de Souza

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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.