Return to Marmalade

K Subramanian

This is one of the articles written by my son over 15 years ago when he moved to USA for higher studies. It was published in the e.magazine Sulekha.com. I am reproducing it here as the topic is equally relevant today being a good analysis of generation divide. Comments are welcome.

- Kanakasabapathi

Some people like symbolisms. Some people hate them. Some others just cannot understand them. Of course, there are good ones and there are bad ones. There are easy ones and there are difficult ones. There are also new entries, rare appearances or downright clichéd members of this unique clan of phrases that have made their existence felt in almost every form of expression.

Sometimes time plays its part in blurring the line dividing bad and clichéd. One might recollect, with very little effort I might say, an instance of the thunder and lightning in the emotionally charged scene, when nature plays its character in the script with perfection arising from practice, to show supreme sympathy with the prevalent mood. How many of us can still relate that to the anger in the thunder and the sorrow in the weeping skies? Now, I would call that a classic case of one symbolism that is so used and so worn that it is practically archaic and unrecognizable.

Nevertheless, with all the beating this clan has taken, there is this sub-sect that is simultaneously and subjectively good, rare and neither too simple to be overlooked nor too deep to be missed. The few of these that do exist help in very effectively driving the nail into the head. The symbolic and perhaps clichéd nail, that is!

Yet another theatrical gem. I was watching Hey! Ram the other day. Calcutta is torn apart with riots on the 'Direct Action' day before partition. There is violence on the streets. The entire situation is compressed beautifully into this one shot, that of an elephant with broken chains and a dead mahout. The elephant shows the power of the mob. The mob is out of control, as shown by the broken chains, and completely lacks direction, as shown by the dead mahout. A very profound and simple embellishment and yet sadly overlooked by many.

The age of innocence spawns two very contradictory feelings. The child sometimes gets all that it asks for and at other times faces an impenetrable and undecipherable obstinacy from the parent. The resulting confusion in the young mind is the seed for learning. If not by comprehensive reasoning, then learning by acceptance, at least. The rationale that accepting a higher authority gives the least trouble sets in very early in the child's life. Like most other kids, I used to be very obedient. The parent's word was final. Any discrepancy that existed between personal reasoning and the higher authority was understood by acceptance, however paradoxical that may seem at this point.

There was a certain time in the morning everyone had to wake up. After the physical cleansing, there was a compulsory session to elevate the spirit before the array of beautifully arranged and spotlessly clean idols. At school, obedient kids who put their fingers on their lips were treated well. Apart from the rigorous schedule of mainstream subjects, we had to do other activities like moral science and Vedic chanting. There were extra sports classes and meditation classes for the physically or spiritually inclined. Rather, for the children of the physically or spiritually inclined parents, I must say. Evenings were usually filled with homework, a quick game with the neighborhood gang, followed possibly by a class in the fine arts. There was a local temple to be visited once a week, with a grand and elaborate pilgrimage once a year. I used to hate every temple that I was dragged into -- I never saw the point of it all.

In those days, doctors would advise a very strict diet even for mild fevers. The argument was that the digestive system should not be loaded unnecessarily at such times. The simplest diet, they would say, is bread and jam with no butter and lots of fluids. My whole family loved marmalade and the refrigerator was always stocked with a new bottle. I used to hate it, especially without the butter, and even more so when people around me would have relative delicacies on the table. In the ensuing battle between orange marmalade and mixed fruit jam, the marmalade always won. Won by default as there was no battle really. Well, the upside was that life was taken care of as long as all the rules were obeyed, definitely a very happy period.Then came adolescence when the cost of accepting an authority is subconsciously evaluated. Those rules that are considered inconvenient are rebelled against, mildly at first and on a large scale at later stages. Simply put, this is a period when the sweet taste of taking one's own decisions goes to one's head. I too rebelled and fought, mostly in vain, but sometimes with a lot of success. These fights weren't always logical. The higher authorities were still there, albeit in different forms. The result was that the rebellion took the form of passive resistance most of the time. All said and done, the biggest fight of it all was within myself, child vs. adult. All temples were banned, I wouldn't be the guinea pig for the Vedic chant at the school prayer any more, I would set my own schedules and I wouldn't attend any social function that I didn't care to. And best of all, childhood memories dictated that marmalade shouldn't even be given a chance.

When the internal fighting forces are tired, wishful thinking gives way to cold reason. We call this maturity. Spontaneity takes a subdued form and acceptance gradually turns into understanding. In the process, ideas previously accepted are sometimes ignored or discarded as foolish based often upon ill-understanding arising from the newfound confidence. In the same process, old prejudices are naturally preserved, I must add. Lack of maturity in the new and supposedly mature views, arguably. This phase represents one of the most miserable failures of tradition, when it fails to reinforce itself with reason. I still hated the temples, forgot the chants and disliked elaborate social events. In addition, I found new and very convincing reasons to uphold science, downplay philosophy and a countless other things… convincing reasons to reject the old and embrace the new, in essence.

Here was a frog that dug its own well. Life went on admirably, until a peel of orange found me after a fifteen-year search. It was not by accident but only for the lack of anything better on the table to go with the spiceless slice of bread lying on my plate. Not only did that event find me some new possibilities for breakfast, but the feelings that went through my head at that moment were a kind of realization, to say the least. The realization that whatever ignorance is, it is not bliss. A temporal version of -- when in Rome, never do as Romans do.

This time it was a conscious decision. I went to the bookshelf and pulled out a very dusty book, one that had found its way straight from my father's thoughtful hands to the shelf through the suitcase. I carefully wiped the dust off and scrolled through, getting the feel of new and untouched print. Written probably by another deep and philosophical mind seeking the same answers, the preface was so inspiring that the journey began.

Returning to our initial discussion, I have conspicuously avoided talking about a class of symbolisms that lose their charm when elaborated. Poetry is sometimes most enjoyed when the meaning is only partially and not explicitly and completely understood. I could attempt to justify the sacrilege here. It is but a mildly desperate attempt to tread the line between artful and commercial, between deep and mild, between losing a large portion of the audience and grabbing its attention, by pushing a carefully calculated portion across the dividing line. Even dust can be symbolic, but too much might end up too little. II

The Nature of Love

One year and six months later…

I love orange marmalade now. I also read a lot of philosophy. My collection on the topic has grown from one book to a whole shelf. To be very honest, the initial excitement was two-fold. One was the undeniable pride that I was delving into a topic that few had any knowledge about. This was a mild feeling of intellectual superiority; the fact that I could talk well about topics that were foreign to 'common' people. The other was a feeling of sheer, unadulterated excitement, the feeling of gaining higher knowledge. But this initial enthusiasm came with a price. I soon realized that excitement alone is not always enough to sustain the drive. Both for myself and for the others I would try selling the subject to… I urgently needed to find a clear and logical basis for my pursuit.

Science has, probably unfortunately, taught us to always look for proof. It says that the proof of the pudding is in mathematics and logic, not in acceptance. Philosophy says the proof is in the eating. This is perfectly fine, except when the eating can be an expensive exercise, in which case people require logical proof, however impossible that may seem, that the pudding will indeed be worth the effort. It can be a very difficult or even impossible exercise to determine the existence of this pudding and if it does exist, to determine its nature. Something that might be worth doing, however, is to attempt to look for clues to answer these questions and to validate these clues with our own methods of reasoning. After all, we have only ourselves to satisfy in this pursuit.

In one word, it can be called Veda, translating loosely into knowledge. However, it needs more clarification. Knowledge has to be defined. It seems paradoxical that people who don't know it fully and who clearly don't possess all of it can define this word. Let us make an attempt however, and call it 'all there is to be known'. I would consider this scientifically a very general definition. This division, right here, is where science makes its biggest blunder. Science does not make the most general assumption that both these categories can exist. It assumes that all there is to be known, will be known at some point in time through logical analysis, however complex the problem may be. Coming back to the pudding, very simply put, it lies in the second category. It is some or all of the knowledge that cannot be known. I admit that is quite a bizarre declaration but I'm not really contradicting myself here. Given the limits of our ignorance, it is perfectly reasonable to let our definition of knowledge evolve with the discussion.

Some or all of the knowledge that cannot be known. The sheer audacity of philosophy actually restricts this definition. Vedanta means the 'end of knowledge', and comes from combining the word Veda with the word anth, meaning end. It directly means that there is a self-proclaimed system of philosophy that promises all of the knowledge that cannot be known otherwise. There are clever arguments about this that say that the end might be infinite, but at least for now, these are claims that cannot be proved. Well, at least, they cannot be proved until experienced. But to start with, we are hardly concerned about how much pudding there is, merely whether it is worth taking the first bite. If the first bite is good, it should lead us to the second one, and inductively till the end, unless of course, we get tired of it along the way.

Unseen possibilities unfold.The thought of the pudding makes me ever more hungry. Born into the world of today, faith alone would hardly suffice. I implore evidence to ease that leap of faith for the first And crucial bit.

Unless we get tired of it. Now that's an interesting statement. It could possibly be a paradox and to resolve it would require an understanding of the vague nature of infinity. When we get tired of something, we go on to something else that is more interesting. That is only if that something else exists beyond our current occupation. Generalizing this argument, this could probably mean that something exists that is infinite, that we cannot get tired of, simply because it is infinite and includes everything. If such a thing does exist, how does one describe its character? This now leads us to another term that is anything but vague: Perfection. Perfection is absolute and unchanging. It has to include everything because it is perfect.

In philosophical terms, imperfect is material and perfect is spiritual by definition. With this preliminary understanding I contemplate on finding a clue, a clue that would give me the missing link between material and spiritual. Several things are obvious so far. It is possible that perfection exists. In fact, in the most general sense, even scientifically speaking, we have to allow for its existence. Moreover, nothing in this world seems to be perfect. If we can find imperfections in every single piece of the puzzle, how can the solution be perfect? It has to mean that there are missing pieces… pieces of pudding, we might say. Not only that, if we ourselves are made of imperfect pieces, there has to be this elusive link that makes this pudding accessible. If it is possible for us to cross over, then the two worlds have to either intersect somewhere or they have to be connected by some hidden gate. If we can find this gate and the key that goes with it, can we conclude that our assumptions are true?

Two years later…

Our brains are too strongly conditioned to think freely. To look for a solution, it is wise to look to a child or to a genius. Again, looking at philosophers, the dividing line between genius and deranged is not too clear given the nature of the topic. Waiting in line at the grocery store the other day, I found a child eyeing a bar of chocolate and looking at her mother in succession. When at last the mother noticed and relented, it was a pleasure to see the expression of happiness on the child's face. Genuine happiness, and almost what could be called perfect, except that the feeling was transient, lasting only until the bar did. Thinking back, it is impossible to find any instance of happiness that has been absolutely permanent and hence perfect. Well, the result must have been obvious at first sight. Happiness attached to an imperfect object simply cannot be perfect. After a lot of deliberation, I discard that promising line of thought most unwillingly.

There is another distinct possibility relating to the child, though. The child experienced happiness. Happiness was not an ingredient in that bar. But it still lasted till the bar did. This means that the feeling of happiness was within the child, only unleashed temporarily by external means. What if we can voluntarily control that feeling? If we can decide to feel happy all the time and maintain that state, then we have achieved a kind of perfection. This could be the missing link, but I am still hesitant to declare it so for lack of a working example. I haven't been able to control my feelings to this level, and if I have to believe someone else who did, then I could equally well believe in the pudding directly. And again, happiness cannot exist without its complement. A person who does not know sadness does not know happiness either. It is possible that the state of perfect happiness with simultaneous awareness of sadness exists in the spiritual realm but that is probably not the key because it seems to be as inaccessible as anything else.

What next? At least my ventures so far haven't been total failures. Though the solution surely hasn't been found, there have been partial glimpses on the way that have boosted my confidence. Experience has added in no small measure to maturity and understanding. One of my realizations on this quest has been that it is not always necessary to be completely independent in the search. Other rational minds have most definitely had the same thoughts. With an open mind, I could ask for advice, not only from people I know now, but also from trusted minds that existed since the beginning of time.

I decide to look at rituals and tradition. Most rituals are centered on devotion to a particular God. There is a possibility here. This devotion can conceivably be perfect and unconditional. And since it relates to an abstract entity, there would be no misplaced feelings that can deter it. This sounds good, but is difficult to accept since there is this question of how real the feeling is, given that the entity to which it is directed might not exist. The problem is cyclical in the sense that we can prove the existence of this entity only if we assume that it already exists. This sets me thinking about the nature of unconditional devotion. With careful analysis and a great deal of time, effort and thought, it seems like there is a very strong and implicit relationship between devotion and love. It seems like one cannot exist without the other and that they must be different interpretations of a higher word; in some sense, two material reflections of a single spiritual concept. Does that mean that one can love another person unconditionally and perfectly? Not if that person is himself or herself imperfect. One could still love the goodness in that person, though. That is definitely possible. This translates in philosophical terms as love for the God in other beings. While the chase still goes on, this seems to be the strongest link so far to the elusive key. Training oneself to love everything without any kind of expectation could certainly be something that is perfect. This is difficult but it also seems achievable. In any case, it is reason enough to take the first step and hope that it leads us on to new possibilities.

The pudding is infinite and available to everyone. We don't necessarily have to believe someone else who has tasted it. All the above assumptions and conclusions are unquestionably scientific. It might seem like one is using a set of simple laws to generalize and get to the Absolute. While this may be overly simplistic at first sight, these arguments are surely useful in arriving at a starting point. People are lost without a rational starting point, and if science and logic need to be used to arrive at one, then so be it. If God does exist, then the least He could do is to show us a transient glimpse now and then on where to start, by placing figments called love and happiness from His world into ours. Not to mention the orange marmalade.