Thorns...

... and random musings.

I had a bit of time today morning and was looking for blogs to read. I wanted something that would be an honest take on a subject and yet provide an interesting perspective, perhaps questioning the norm, perhaps with alternative ways of creatively looking at things we consider mundane, perhaps even with a bit of uncanny insight. It appears I was expecting a bit too much. Or I was looking at the wrong place, namely the "Times of India"(the largest selling English daily in the country) blogs.

I came across an ill-informed article on the mythological character, Sita written by a lady who concedes to never having read the Ramayana. Her take on the character was superficial and laced with highly frivolous language. An attempt, perhaps at being cool, trying to write about mythology with an overdose of contemporary jargon and slang. I have to agree that the content was a bit shallow despite certain analogies and even crass to be given sufficient importance. And I have this feeling the author didn't consider this a very serious article either. But what startled me was the comments section, where I found innumerable attacks on the author's apparent impiety and condescension towards religion!

This Saturday, we had taken loads of shots of the Muslim celebrations of Bakri Eid and initially were thinking of sending a collection of shots to Big Picture. As it appears, they already have a brilliant series on the same subject. But I was surprised with some of the comments there too which were rather caustic in nature, despite much moderation, I'm sure.

I was reading another very popular and witty blog by an associate editor of the Times about how we endanger our environment and natural resources, even the Himalayas by dumping plastic everywhere. The mountain he used as reference was Nanda Devi which is deemed sacred. It was a good article that berated our callous attitude towards dumping garbage everywhere. That's all it was about. But here too, was an acerbic comment, very much out of place about apparently insulting the mountain deity!

There are a lot of unwitting comments mostly out of context, all over the internet that show nothing but intolerance and hatred. Given the large numbers and a virtual omnipresence, I wonder if they are to be taken seriously as an indicator of life in our times. Is it just the odd bloke feigning offence? Are these people with far too much free time, who have nothing positive to add to the world? Or are there really so many people who see our differences more than our similarities? Is any of this to be taken seriously at all? Though I appreciate honesty above most things, I find all this a bit too overwhelming and importantly, incredulous. And for this reason alone, I am glad moderation is an important part of blip. It would be very sad if it were to turn into anything close to youtube, as far as comments go!

As an aside, there was an interesting article by Osho where he took the example of Paul Gauguin to demonstrate that most artists in the West suffered, often reaching the brink of insanity and ostracization, which was a consequence of their approach which lacked meditative leanings whereas the ones in the East were revered and held in high esteem since there's didn't! I can't quote all the facts here but I would want to disagree with sweeping generalizations like these. I understand how important being meditative (and consequently intuitive) would be for an artist or anyone else attempting to do something original.

But what I wanted to say, from which I have digressed to the point of almost no return is that if an author thinks he is addressing the whole world and is entitled to the venom everyone might spew, then the need to be politically and religiously(etc, etc) correct is paramount. And when viewers are looking for the slightest pretext to take offence even though none might be intended, an artist is in a precarious position. And the act of making considerations on the basis of this kills intuition and goes against the very premise for happiness.