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Recently, a difference of opinion with a friend who possesses a great understanding of religion and politics, left me in fury. It wasn’t the difference in opinion, as much as his vehement laughter at my ignorance of culture that angered me. Why would he not educate me about the differences, and instead laugh at the gaps in my knowledge? Does he derive pleasure from my ignorance? More importantly, will I be able to bridge the differences better, if gaps in my own knowledge were filled? And, will his vehemence and laughter fade out with the fading out of my ignorance?
With these thoughts, I withdrew into introspection within the pale white walls of my room. My mind was again fixated on the deposits of dust that are strangely more visual, and distinct than the white I autonomously chose for my walls. Somehow, I always see and fixate upon them, but I never attempt to understand them. They’ve always been perversions on the white I chose for myself. In retrospect, I recognise that I’ve chosen the black spots, as much as the white. They speak of my lived history and preferences, just as much as the white. For instance, the one spot right above my mattress has been created by my preference for mattress over beds with frames, and my habit to use more pillows than would be required by a whole family. Over the years, the pillows that created those spots, were used to hide those spots. Another one, right next to my door, is a remnant of the all the lemongrass incense sticks I’ve used over the years. My friends preferred the warm scent of vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg that came from the flames of the candles I’d light occasionally. Those created blackspots too, however much fainter than those created by incense sticks for I preferred the zesty coolness of lemongrass over the warmth and softness of vanilla. The black spots then, speak of me as much as my white walls do. They wouldn’t be if I wasn’t. They blend with the white – and reflect the parts of my personality that I’d otherwise be incognisant of.
Limitations and the consequent differences are, at first, hard to understand, and easy to fixate upon. They bring you to fury and anger for they challenge you, and question the limited reality that you live in, and subscribe to. You instinctively act defensive because of the threat that they pose to the unity you’ve constructed in your vision over the years; the unity that emerged from the concealment of limitations and differences. However, to deny or defy your own limitations and differences is an act of folly. It stops you not only from working on yourself, and finding new ways of seeing the reality – but also from constructing creative spaces for unthreatening interdependence and mutuality.
Next time, when I engage with a friend who doesn’t believe in the politics and ethics that I abide by, maybe, I will allow my ego to recede, give them a space to be heard, and myself the space to learn. What if it sparks a dialogue, a dialectical understanding by the end of which we laugh at each other’s narrow understanding of the world? And there begins, a change – yes, through our ability to make ordinary unthreatening conversations, we might create an eventful safe space within the nation.
Part of the reason why the masters of Hindutva win today is because we try to dismantle their houses through the wrong keys. We either shut our eyes and ears to their narrative thereby, negating it or we absolve it of the strength that it carries. They laugh in vehemence because of the gaps and silences that were created by us for the ends of unification. Even now, as they continue to use the live wire of religion to deepen divisions, we’re wary of addressing differences. We swear by our romantic illusions of a unified past and construct a future based on it, forgetting that for unification to be, differences are to accepted and acknowledged. A nation is not a pre-destined unified entity, it is in making, in creating spaces of mutuality and interdependence alongside the recognition of differences.
Having said that, I understand the limitations of human behaviour, and honestly, might still shriek at anyone who tells me that I am not aware of my own culture. However, that momentary shrieking and the spectre of my own limitations, turns unthreatening as soon as I acknowledge that my ignorance and defence only perpetuates the threat.
My walls are still pale and white, and have spots of black dust still but somehow the spots don’t provoke me vehemently anymore. I am glad I can see them for what they’re –blind spots in my own view of reality.
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