By Paramjit Bakhshi
There is no Indian holiday destination like Goa. There one feels a sense of freedom, which eludes one everywhere else. The principal reason – in Goa one doesn’t have to live up to any image at all. You can wear a ragged pair of shorts, a flimsy tee shirt and a pair of ordinary sandals or slippers and go just about anywhere. Nobody laughs at you, whatever the colour of your skin, or your clothes, and nobody considers you an outsider, no matter which part of the globe, you come from. You are free to drink what you want, for liquor is cheap and varied, and eat what you want; diverse cuisine is on offer and nobody insists, you appreciate only the Goan culinary style. The local culture never imposes itself on you, and it is up to you, to carry your own, or leave it behind. Yet in spite of decades of inter-mingling, the Goan way of life has not suffered more than any other, and thankfully neither has their hospitality.
Maintaining an image, a sense of identity, or importance is a tiring thing to do, and most people do it unconsciously, without realising what a burden they bear. Portraying oneself to be, like this or like that, or as an ideal constituent of a religion, a society, a tribe or an organisation, is a demanding endeavour and leaves very little enthusiasm to enjoy life as it happens. It also makes one an insufferable bore, and people weary of interacting with a personality that is one-dimensional. In contrast what a joy it is, to interact with a person who is spontaneous, open and not concerned about his or her self image.
In the book, “The Art of Dreaming”, Don Juan, the shaman, tells Carlos Castaneda, ‘most of our energy goes in upholding our importance’ adding, “If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur: and two we would provide ourselves with enough energy to…catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.” Yet, a lot of people can walk out of their houses, without clean underwear, but hardly ever without a spotless or a bloated image of who they think they are. Though we might not have the same idea of them, or of their importance, out of politeness we let them keep their illusionary mask, mostly at our peril. For then, we continually suffer them in their self imposed roles. That there is no fixed identity, communal or individual, should be obvious to anybody, who cares to sit and think about it, awhile. We are all evolving, and thank God for that, because without continuous evolution, we could have been stuck as creatures, much lower on the evolutionary scale, than a chimpanzee. On an atomic level we are all made up of energy, dynamically alternating as matter and vice versa. On a molecular level too, all of us are made up essentially of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Nobody is born yet, gold or silver plated. Even biologically we are not too dissimilar, except for minor differences in intelligence, in hair, height, the shape of our nose and the colour of our eyes or our skin. One has yet to come across human beings with tails or claws or snouts. The only major difference lies in our spirit – the degree of our zest and our enthusiasm.
All thoughts of identity are merely mental constructs, designed to give us, a misleading sense of security. Identity is a fictional construct, and the boundaries of such a construct, are drawn depending upon our comfort zone. That zone can be as small as Ri Bhoi or as large as Meghalaya. We resent having to live outside that comfort zone. It takes courage to be global in outlook, and those who envision themselves as such, lead richer and more fulfilling lives, than the mentally timid. Paradoxically what constitutes a comfort zone also doubles up as a prison, since it restricts us from moving beyond a self defined boundary. We end up then bereft of varied experiences and begin judging the world, through myopic glasses. Everything is understood in limited terms as being, ours and theirs, right or wrong, holy or sacrilege, or good or bad, and the individual or a community, with such rigid views, cut(s) himself or themselves off from all experiential learning. A lack of such learning warps understanding and destroys pragmatism. Being too judgemental of, rather than participatory in the miracle of life, also saps energy and is likely to make us mouth “thait” oftener than “shongshit.” This weariness of spirit is much prevalent and dangerous, because, (as Al Pacino points out in “The Scent of a Woman”), there is no prosthetic for an amputated spirit.
One has read recently in this newspaper, umpteen commentaries on identity, and columnists have rued the fact, that Meghalaya seems headed for decline. The point to ponder is, whether this is happening, because of an over preoccupation with identity. Sadly many people even have a preference for leaders, who harp on identity, rather than on progress. Though the state pays for innumerable foreign trips of these leaders, nothing new ever gets implemented here, because the fountainhead of all that is good – in customs, traditions, practise and knowledge is thought to rest already in Meghalaya. There is a stubborn belief that there is nothing new or better to be learnt, even though the fast changing world requires us to acquire, new skills to survive. The material landscape of Meghalaya has altered radically. Villages have changed into towns, country paths to tarmac roads, bullock carts have given way to cars, huts to multi storeyed buildings, oil lamps to electrical lights. Sadly the mental landscape of the leadership does not seem to have altered much, to accommodate these realities, far less address them successfully.
Evolution is an undeniable reality and has just one lesson: survival is dependent on our ability to adapt. It is not the strongest or the rigid (or the self important) who survive but the ones who nimbly adapt to change. Unless this is understood, all attempts to preserve the community can bear no fruit at all. Meghalaya will continue its downhill journey and no amount of clamour for preservation of identity can help. Only dropping the illusionary, but tiresome backpack of fixed identity, can help us run the race with more enthusiasm and energy. It will also make us realise that the world doesn’t begin and end with Meghalaya. If the monsoon comes to bless us from outside our boundaries, so too will challenges that engulf the rest of humanity. These will not fade away merely because our eyes have moved from the future to the past.
To be successful we need more of faith and less of belief. Though these two terms might seem identical there is a vast difference between them, and I shall take the easy way out and quote someone worthy to illustrate the difference. Writing in the “The Wisdom of Insecurity “, Alan Watts makes the distinction very clear: “ Belief…..is the insistence that the truth is what one would’ lief’ it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings but faith lets go………. Most of us believe in order to feel secure, in order to make our individual lives seem valuable and meaningful. Belief has thus become an attempt to hang on to life, to grasp and keep it for one’s own. But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and you will always be disappointed, for the water in the bucket does not run. To ‘have’ running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life….”
Think about it; it could be our weighty beliefs about culture which bear us down and prevent us from enthusiastically participating in the dance of life and what we truly need is faith to meet the future as it unfolds. Down the years this participation should mould a more confident and vibrant identity than the one sought to be preserved now. And at that point one might again choose to shrug off that identity to build an even better future. On a personal level one would like to see Meghalaya become the land that celebrates adventure instead of timidity, the land that exhilarates rather than restricts the place that instead stunting us with illusionary security gives us that air of freedom one enjoys on a holiday in Goa.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]