Monkeys – Punyakante Wijenaike

More on the writer of this short story, Punyakante Wijenaike. 

(http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/punyakantewijenaike.html)

This short story narrates the life of a young Samanera (Buddhist monk in training) and his love towards the monkeys in the forest nearby which he visits every afternoon. The boy carries a bit of food with him every time he visits the forest. He feeds the monkeys and plays with them. Love, is what he experiences every time he spends time with the monkeys. At the time of departure he hates leaving the monkeys as he has to go back and complete the chores at the hermitage. Waking up early at 4 every morning to meditate and then complete the chores only to leave later on to beg for food and in the end come back to the monkeys. This was the monotonous life he led every day. The thought of being a monkey seemed to please him as the love the moneys shared between themselves is what he longed for.

One night, as he was bating he saw his own reflection in the water to be that of a monkey, only to realize after distorting the still water that it was just a trick of the mind. Later, when the boy was sweeping the compound with a broom, he noticed that the same monkeys had followed him there and were sitting on the treetops.

The same monkeys, in hordes, had followed him to the hermitage and this time they boldly started jumping and running in the hermitage disturbing the priests out of their morning meditation. The monkeys created a havoc by throwing the fruits grown by the chief priest around and ringing the temple bells.

After this incident, the Chief Priest led the young Samanera to an inner room. He made him understand the difference between men and animals. And how the life of a Samanera differed from those of animals and other human beings. At the end of the story he looks back at the rock and the trees for the last time and turns away, as now he must remember that after all he is a man.

The prevalent themes in the poem are that of love and humanity. Throughout the poem love acts as a constant as the young boy craves it but never shows it. The life of a Samanera and the sacrifices involved in leading such a life are ones to be thought of very carefully. Abandoning the essence of human life i.e love, to break the cycle of rebirth seems to be the effective conclusion of the life of a Samanera.

As the boy longed for love, he had to be told in the end that it is not the kind of life he could lead. Having peace within oneself is what is necessary as compared to love and other petty functions of life.

Communalism and Politics in India - Ashis Nandy

The essay starts off with the reallocation and correlation of communalism to the right examples of the related violence and affirmation that the problem is not impossible to solve.

Example 1: No. of people killed in Communal violence < No. of people killed in street crimes of the last 50 years in Detroit alone (Detroit being one of the most crime affected cities in the world).

Example 2: 2 million people killed in Partition Violence (Communal) < 5 million people killed during separatist movements in the country (non-communal)

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With an example of a family which tried to save their friend from communal violence gets to know that the son in the family was one of the soldiers working towards the main perpetration of the plan. The setting of this story is the communal riot(s) of 1992 caused because of demolition of the Babri masjid.

The main point of the essay comes out during this reading. Internal contradiction occurs which leads to a number of different facets telling us that communalism is a complex phenomenon and not so easy to deal with.

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Up until now we understand that Communalism can be extinguished but because of its complexity, each and every element has to be smartly distinguished and analysed to come up with a proper plan to exterminate communalism.

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Propositions of Communalism:-

1.       Communalism is from its roots is an urban phenomenon. Compared to the villagers there are more communal riots in cities and village city borders than in actual villages. This is something the city dwellers should learn from their “rustic, illiterate” counterparts of development.

2.       Secular issues are usually the issues due to which communal riots are caused. Due to this the non-secularism also seeps in (indirectly) giving rise to Religious issues giving rise to communal religious riots.

3.       Political parties, secretly also encourage communalism as it helps in the promotion of the individual parties and helps gain more individualised power to themselves.

4.       Some communal riots are fuelled by the fanaticism of political parties. As followers of a party get into an argument into followers of other party leading to discrimination and loose parallels.

5.       The Indian social system is traditionally community based and not individualised. So people are discriminated according to the community they are from and not their individuality.

6.       Self-hatred among Hindus is dominant and many of us might have seen such examples. Inclination to Islam or Christianity is commonly seen amongst many Hindus.

7.       Communalism fuels material based politics as the society doesn’t clearly understand (vs.) ideology based politics anymore. One must try and understand the ideas and the ideology which is trying to be established by the political party rather than just checking the growth in GDP that could be caused by them coming into power.

8.       The NRIs fuel this material based politics. This is the same situation as the Tamilians in India funding LTTE and American Jews donating Israelis if looked at properly.

9.       Communal politics seems like a way of secularizing politics.

10.   This gives rise to a new kind of political culture of flesh and not of the mind.

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Important Issues:-

·         Change in the hierarchy of castes in terms of wealth caused due to communal riots includes elevation of castes such as Kurmis, Jats, and Reddys.

·         Laws and legal matter are the only ones that can suppress communal riots.

·         Secularisation creates its own insecurities due to internal conflicts.

·         Secularisation gives rise to increased individualisation giving rise to gradual increase in absence of faith in individual communities.

·         Coalition politics or Allied politics is on the rise to secularise the country, but will it turn out to be conservationism? That is the end question.

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