Conflicts of an Aryan

I feel good about posting again. There are two things that are necessary to have a blog. The ability to start making one and the ability to continue maintaining it by posting in it. Through my first post, I came to know that I have the first ability. By posting today, I make a beginning in the second. Hope this continues. Which brings into picture the third raw material. That which comes from inside. The ability to motivate oneself.

Ok. That’s it on writing a blog. Now let me come to what I wanted to write. Today I finished reading a tamil novel. Not a large novel running into thousands of pages. But a few hundred pages. 324 to be precise. But it could have been much smaller had the printers confined themselves to normal line spacing. But I should accept that the font size was smaller than the usual size for tamil books.

This is a book titles Villodu vaa nilave (Come with a bow, ye moon). Written by Vairamuthu (Diamond Pearl :-P). This is the first book I am reading of him and my first impression about him is that his language is superb. He seems to excel in the art of making prose sound like poetry. Every sentence of the novel has a simile or a metaphor. He might be probably the best writer of our times in tamil. I should confess however, that I do not have the right to pass such a judgement because, I haven’t read any other author. Those that know tamil should surely try reading this work if possible, if not for the content, atleast for its richness of metaphor. The story is also a decent one, where a chera prince goes against the rules in vogue to marry a commoner and abdicates his throne for that.

Having said this, I should also say that the story can be a real propaganda movie for proponents of the Aryan-dravidian idea and tamil nationalism. The poet repeatedly takes up this idea of the chera kings having conquered Aryan kings. Yes, it might be true that the cheras had gone till the Himalayas (The title “Imayavaramban” of the chera king neducheralaadan, the man who had sired the protagonist of this story is probably a proof for that. Imayavaramban means “He who has the Himalayas as his boundary”), it is unfair on our generation to paint these wars as Aryan-Dravidian wars, whatever that means. I do not think such a divide existed before. There could have been a separation. But it is my strong opinion that this separation of identities is a later day phenomenon, something that has started pretty recently. Not only this, The main theme of the story is about how the chera abdicates his throne as a protest against the prevailing varna order, by which he is not allowed to marry a commoner (The lady is by no means common. She is painted as a superb poet. She belongs to the caste of blacksmiths). The main villains are the royal aacharya (called aasaan in tamil) and the royal astrologer (nimiththigan). They go to the extent of plotting to kill the chera for committing the crime of marrying outside of the royal families. It is time for us to realize that such a rule existed in almost every society. It is not a characteristic of Hindu society alone.

Vairamuthu in his foreword, rightly points out that people should inculcate in them a thirst for history. But sadly, I find him painting his ideology into the story. Ideology is like the cut that we make along the stomach of a frog in the biology lab. It is necessary to study the anatomy of the frog, but should not be allowed to distort the findings. The cut should not be taken as part of the frog. It is our making.

Having said this, this should also be understood. What is the need for history? Why should we study history? Just to know what happened? To narrate to our children, dead stories of the past? Is a subjective view of times gone by ever possible. I really wish it was that way, but unfortunately it does not seem to be. Every historian either writes history to prove or disprove his own assumptions, taking the incidents of the past as mere demonstrations of an idea. There is one another kind of history writers, who are better called as chroniclers, who just mark happenings, without reading ideas into them.

For a common man reading history is probably the toughest task. History is a highly sensitive subject. People read different meanings into one and the same texts. A history that is written with Hindu Muslim rivalry as the theme would sound very different for a Hindu and a Muslim. For a Hindu, the Muslim rulers would look plain evil. For Muslims, they would be just caliphs. That is the travesty of time. The travesty of identities.

Created beings live in a perpetual state of conflict of ideas. While there is a strong sense to group, there is also a strong sense to distinguish oneself, as part of a similar kind people, as against a dissimilar kind of people. To paint this as the making of human beings is one of the saddest traits of historians. The custodians of such “evil” rules are themselves part of the cosmic design of the almighty and cannot be held responsible the same way as a judge cannot be held responsible for upholding the rule of law, however unjust its rules are.

Every society will have its rules, written or unwritten. Some rules are easier to change while others are hard to change. This is intuitively obvious I guess. But, the easier-to-change and hard-to-change rules should be that way. Rules that can be allowed to change easily should not be made hard. And rules that should be hard should not be made soft. I am of the opinion that written rules tend to be stronger than unwritten rules. This will always create problems in the case of rules that should be soft. So, it is ideal to have the soft rules unwritten to give them leeway to change. The hard rules alone should be codified. Ideas like marriages within a caste, making love before marriage, same gender marriage etc should fall in this realm. They should be unwritten. As the societies sensibilities change, these rules will mould as they have to. Codifying them would defeat the very purpose of having rules. The rules should neither prescribe nor proscribe these. They should be left to the sensibilities of the society.

Similarly, differences among beings are as natural as blood and bones. And differences are also naturally dynamic. So, they are best left unwritten. North Indians and south Indians might be “racially” different, whatever that means. Caucasians and Africans might be “racially” different. Tamils and andhras might be linguistically different, iyers and chettiars might be dialectically different, and Hindus and Muslims could constitute different communal entities. But to acknowledge these differences and to articulate them is a wholly different thing. I believe these should come in the realm of unwritten codes. The dynamics that can exist between communities, the dynamics that helps the society maintain peace, should not be stopped by codifying differences. Overt recognition of differences should be at best avoided. Their natural expression should neither be curbed nor encouraged by rule. Let them exist and mutate the way they want to.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I shall post again.