“The history of our times calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it, so that the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air; but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall.”
– Raoul Vaneigem, ‘The Revolution of Everyday Life’
21 July 2007
19 July 2007
Suicide, a mysterious phenomenon
My friend’s daughter, all of 15 years of age, living in Bangalore, seemed to know a great deal about suicide – information on methods which are least painful in taking one’s life. She said she had read up stuff on the Internet. I was aghast.
When I asked her what made her think of collecting this information, she said “just like that” – that, in her peer group, it was fashionable to know about suicide as there was a lot of it around. Especially among school students, in Bangalore and Chennai, who couldn’t handle the pressure of delivering academic results to please their parents.
Another friend narrated the story of a suicide within her friends’ circle – a 15-year-old girl, in Chennai, who jumped from a building a couple of years ago because she couldn’t deal with the shame of not performing in school and not being able to keep up with the same high standards of her older sister, which her parents demanded.
Then I came upon an article, ‘Suicide elusive, but not always unstoppable’, in The Economist which dealt with this very topic. Here’s an excerpt:
“Suicide rates have been rising in India, especially among the young, and over a third of those who kill themselves are under 30 years old.
But suicide is a mysterious phenomenon; it defies generalisations. Emile Durkheim, the father of modern sociology, wrote in 1897 that suicide rates were a key sign of the state of a community. It was commonest, he reckoned, at two extremes—highly controlled societies, or loose, atomised ones. Since then, his successors have filled thousands of books with theories about what makes people take their own lives: the negative factors which remove the desire to live, and the positive ones that can make self-killing an attractive or even “fashionable” option.
In India, the desperation of students has been studied relatively little compared with that of farmers, who have killed themselves in rising numbers in recent years: over 17,000 died by their own hand in 2003. The trend is often ascribed to debt, drought and the ready availability of pesticides that serve as poison.
But in India no less than elsewhere, the inner turmoil that makes people end it all usually has complex causes: social dislocation, family tensions or long-term depression. No group escapes. The country's suicide capital is booming Bengalooru (Bangalore), where most of those who do it are skilled workers; housewives are the next-biggest category. Some reports say suicide became common among Indian farmers only in the late 1990s, after agrarian and trade reforms introduced a few years earlier by a liberalising government. In truth, such deaths were probably going unrecorded for decades before that. Official data tell us as much about social mores (the extent to which self-killing is concealed) as about what really happens.”
[Citation: ‘Suicide elusive, but not always unstoppable’, The Economist, 21 June 2007]
When I asked her what made her think of collecting this information, she said “just like that” – that, in her peer group, it was fashionable to know about suicide as there was a lot of it around. Especially among school students, in Bangalore and Chennai, who couldn’t handle the pressure of delivering academic results to please their parents.
Another friend narrated the story of a suicide within her friends’ circle – a 15-year-old girl, in Chennai, who jumped from a building a couple of years ago because she couldn’t deal with the shame of not performing in school and not being able to keep up with the same high standards of her older sister, which her parents demanded.
Then I came upon an article, ‘Suicide elusive, but not always unstoppable’, in The Economist which dealt with this very topic. Here’s an excerpt:
“Suicide rates have been rising in India, especially among the young, and over a third of those who kill themselves are under 30 years old.
But suicide is a mysterious phenomenon; it defies generalisations. Emile Durkheim, the father of modern sociology, wrote in 1897 that suicide rates were a key sign of the state of a community. It was commonest, he reckoned, at two extremes—highly controlled societies, or loose, atomised ones. Since then, his successors have filled thousands of books with theories about what makes people take their own lives: the negative factors which remove the desire to live, and the positive ones that can make self-killing an attractive or even “fashionable” option.
In India, the desperation of students has been studied relatively little compared with that of farmers, who have killed themselves in rising numbers in recent years: over 17,000 died by their own hand in 2003. The trend is often ascribed to debt, drought and the ready availability of pesticides that serve as poison.
But in India no less than elsewhere, the inner turmoil that makes people end it all usually has complex causes: social dislocation, family tensions or long-term depression. No group escapes. The country's suicide capital is booming Bengalooru (Bangalore), where most of those who do it are skilled workers; housewives are the next-biggest category. Some reports say suicide became common among Indian farmers only in the late 1990s, after agrarian and trade reforms introduced a few years earlier by a liberalising government. In truth, such deaths were probably going unrecorded for decades before that. Official data tell us as much about social mores (the extent to which self-killing is concealed) as about what really happens.”
[Citation: ‘Suicide elusive, but not always unstoppable’, The Economist, 21 June 2007]
17 July 2007
Happiness
A very good feeling. Those were my exact words. But they weren’t enough to satisfy her.
A week ago, an orkut ‘friend’ invited me to a chat (on Gmail). We chatted about happiness, tossing the subject forwards and backwards, citing examples from our lives, trying to figure out if it (i.e. happiness) was an illusion (her view) or it existed (my view).
She questioned if happiness could be defined and, apart from suggesting ‘a very good feeling’, I really couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say. We agreed that happiness was most likely a ‘temporary’ feeling, something ‘momentary’, and decided to leave it at that.
I sulked over this for a week and decided to write this post.
I thought about what the great philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had to say about happiness. I remembered that they had tried to explain happiness as something independent of health or wealth. They believed happiness was a whole-life concept, not something that depended on the ups and downs of everyday life. They believed that happiness was not episodic.
If this is true, then can happiness be temporary or momentary as we believe? And, if this is true, then can happiness really be illusive to some of us?
A week ago, an orkut ‘friend’ invited me to a chat (on Gmail). We chatted about happiness, tossing the subject forwards and backwards, citing examples from our lives, trying to figure out if it (i.e. happiness) was an illusion (her view) or it existed (my view).
She questioned if happiness could be defined and, apart from suggesting ‘a very good feeling’, I really couldn’t think of anything more intelligent to say. We agreed that happiness was most likely a ‘temporary’ feeling, something ‘momentary’, and decided to leave it at that.
I sulked over this for a week and decided to write this post.
I thought about what the great philosophers like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle had to say about happiness. I remembered that they had tried to explain happiness as something independent of health or wealth. They believed happiness was a whole-life concept, not something that depended on the ups and downs of everyday life. They believed that happiness was not episodic.
If this is true, then can happiness be temporary or momentary as we believe? And, if this is true, then can happiness really be illusive to some of us?
16 July 2007
The Civilizing Process
“In his classic work, ‘The Civilizing Process’, Norbert Elias suggests that the harbinger of the modern state was the process of self-discipline, first adopted by European elites in an effort to distance themselves from the lower ranks of society. This discipline focused on control over arbitrary, impulsive, or instinctive behavior, and included such behavior as the cultivation of table manners and the suppression of violent activities, including sports.”
– Laura Cruz, ‘Making Sense Of: Dying and Death’
– Laura Cruz, ‘Making Sense Of: Dying and Death’
10 July 2007
Wake up, start dreaming
“In this world it makes me shimmer and this world it makes me scream
With all the hope we have inside us, still life is but a dream, but a dream.”
- Opening lines from ‘Photograph’, a song by Liz Larin, from her album ‘Wake Up, Start Dreaming’
05 July 2007
Impoverished state
What keeps a region like Darfur, a country like Sudan, or an entire continent like Africa, in an impoverished state of intolerance, bloodshed, poverty, disease, death and hopelessness? Is it because their government chooses to keep them in a state of misery for a collective gain? Or, is their government so hopeless precisely because their country is so impoverished?
02 July 2007
Counterculture
Forty years ago, when I was growing up in Calcutta in the late sixties, the youth in India, particularly in West Bengal, rose to challenge the social and political forces of the country. Frustrated with economic and political totalitarianism, capitalist exploitation and social inequality, they became restless and anti-establishment, and resisted institutional governance. Students, workers and farmers united to revolt against government strictures and corruption.
In India, it was a time of ideology and youthful optimism. It was a time of re-living the fight for freedom that gave us Independence twenty years before that.
The Indian movement was an echo of what was happening around the world – the birth of a counterculture represented by student and civil rights uprisings, music, literature, film and fashion. That was the time when the terms ‘hippy’ and ‘hippies’ resonated on everyone’s lips around the world, although not so in India. But, the highlight of the period was the student-worker strike in France in May 1968 against General de Gaulle’s government.
Today, as we approach our sixty years of Independence, I look around and see Indian youths embracing capitalism with as much single-mindedness as my generation had resisted it. I see Indian youths chasing money and material possessions with as much vigour as my generation had denounced it. I see Indian youths forfeiting ideology for fame and fortune. I see Indian youths re-defining freedom as the power of money to buy oneself pleasure in a self-centred hedonistic manner, contrary to my generation’s fight for equality and peace.
In India, it was a time of ideology and youthful optimism. It was a time of re-living the fight for freedom that gave us Independence twenty years before that.
The Indian movement was an echo of what was happening around the world – the birth of a counterculture represented by student and civil rights uprisings, music, literature, film and fashion. That was the time when the terms ‘hippy’ and ‘hippies’ resonated on everyone’s lips around the world, although not so in India. But, the highlight of the period was the student-worker strike in France in May 1968 against General de Gaulle’s government.
Today, as we approach our sixty years of Independence, I look around and see Indian youths embracing capitalism with as much single-mindedness as my generation had resisted it. I see Indian youths chasing money and material possessions with as much vigour as my generation had denounced it. I see Indian youths forfeiting ideology for fame and fortune. I see Indian youths re-defining freedom as the power of money to buy oneself pleasure in a self-centred hedonistic manner, contrary to my generation’s fight for equality and peace.
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