The "superfluous man" travels ... Indeed!

The evening prior to flying out to Costa Rica, I was at an event where I met a guy who had done quite some traveling himself.  We talked, among other things, about VS Naipaul and Paul Theroux.   Not unusual at all for people with wanderlust to have read Naipaul and Theroux.

We wondered who, between the two of them, would be a more pleasant person to chat with one evening.  From what I have read about Naipaul, having tea with him is not how I would prefer to spend my time.

It seems like accomplished writers are not necessarily the most pleasant people around.  Snarky, backbiting, egomaniacs they often tend to become.  But, boy do they have insights on life!

So, I set aside the messenger and focus on the message, of which there is plenty.  Even in this short interview with Theroux.

Consider this take, for instance, on traveling itself:

When I’m traveling, I feel small. You see how big the world is, how small you are, how you don’t really matter, how you can’t effect much change, you can’t bring something back.

Exactly!  If ever students ask me what I gain from travel to places that are very different from what I am used to, I tell them it is one humbling experience.  As Theroux himself said in a different context, which I noted in a post a few months ago:

A traveler may have no power, no influence, no known identity. That is why a traveler needs optimism and heart, because without confidence travel is misery. Generally, the traveler is anonymous, ignorant, easy to deceive, at the mercy of the people he or she travels among. The traveler might be known as “the American” or “the Foreigner,” and there is no power in that.

Traveling is one heck of an educational experience about life; it certainly gives us that perspective which might be hard to gain when we stay put in our own respective villages where we have the identity, the influence, the power.

Travel is a phenomenal way to understand how much we don't really matter in this cosmos.  I mean, if I go to Costa Rica and feel that way, then imagine how we humans ought to feel about living on this planet, which is, as Carl Sagan so poetically put it, "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Theroux notes:

At least I can say “I put in an effort and I tried to see it.” To see things as they are makes you free—to see things as they are, not nostalgically, not as you wish they were. Just to see them.

So, why the " "superfluous man" in the title?  Over to Theroux, again:

There’s also a Russian expression that my son passed on to me, the idea of being superfluous. Not temporary, but the “superfluous man.” It’s a 19th-century concept that you don’t really matter. You’re just drifting, like a ghost figure....
If I don’t have something that I’m writing, something to think about, something to direct my attention, then, yeah, I feel temporary and superfluous.

Aren't we all temporary and superfluous drifting along on the grand cosmic stage!

A cosmic dance gave birth to Sanskrit. But, we have no sense, anymore!

One day, perhaps I should ask my father point-blank on whether he has ever paused to think about how much I am able to engage him in conversations about Hindu philosophy and mythology, even though I am a confirmed atheist.

Maybe he has, and he is practicing the old Hindu (Asian?) virtue of not praising the child (yes, I am a child!)

In my recent conversation with him, father noted that a traditional brahminical ritual would be observed on Tuesday.  (Be warned that this post might be too much of an inside-baseball for those not interested in such matters!)

He agreed with my comments that most people--even back then, and I bet more so now--simply go through the motions of the rituals without understanding what they mean.

"I always recall the sastrigal emphasizing that the day was to begin learning the sacred vedas .... "वेदाराम्बम  करिष्ये" " I told him.  (am hoping I haven't forgotten the Sanskrit script!)

"Yes, you are right" father replied.  "One is supposed to begin to learn the vedas, or re-read them all over again.  But, people simply rush through the ritual and go home to eat payasam"

There was nothing to disagree with there.

Even as a kid, I was usually pissed off at those putting on a show and behaving in ways that were contradictory to what they mouth off.  Actions, to me, have always spoken way, way louder than words.  And, unfortunately, whether it is in such rituals, or in professional lives, or every day living, it is awfully annoying, to the point of puking, when there is that Grand Canyon-like divide between the talk and the deed.

"And I remember that it was also the initiation to Sanskrit and its grammar ... the sounds 'a i un rlk e on ai auc  ..." I said.

"Yes, the sounds from the cosmic dance, which formed the basis for the sounds for the language of Sanskrit" father added.

Meanwhile, I was thinking to myself, "gimme some credit, man."  Hey, I am a mere mortal, who loves to hear compliments from teachers and parents :)

Image from Wikipedia

Sanskrit, which is a mother to so many languages, even has a story of how it was born.  How many languages can claim to have a birth story, right?  The Lord of all Dance, Nataraja, the mythology goes, danced holding a small drum in his hand, which produced those sounds 'a i un rlk e on ai auc  ...'  Those sounds became the basis for the vowels and consonants and, much later, the grammarian, Panini (not to be confused with the Italian sandwich!) worked out the complex syntax for the language. So goes the story.

Thus, the language was born. And with it, came thinking.  After all, can one think without a language?  Think about it! ;)

"I suppose all those were written for a time period when brahmins lived as brahmins.  Not as engineers and doctors" father--a retired engineer--said, while noting that even his father-in-law (my grandfather) was an engineer son of a a very traditional and orthodox vedas-reciting brahmin.

"But, people do not care to know about those things."   After a momentary pause, he added "maybe ignorance keeps people happy, when they don't have to think about things."

"Yes, ignorance is bliss" I chimed in.

Most of my stress in life comes from my thinking.  If I didn't think for myself, by now I would be a much richer man. A lot more professionally accomplished man.  I think, therefore I screw up!

After the phone call, I returned to my reading and ... thinking!

What a coincidence that a favorite site that I check in with every day had a link to an essay on the Indian-American poet/intellectual AK Ramanujan (not the math Ramanujan) which includes this poem, ‘Prayers to Lord Murugan’, which was, apparently, read out at his funeral:

Lord of the headlines,
help us read
the small print.
Lord of the sixth sense,
give us back
our five senses. 

Yes, please, give back us humans--brahmins and the rest alike--our five senses.
Immediately.
Or else!

Beirut was Paris. Once. Not too long ago!

In what seems like eons ago, I fell in love with a country that I have never been to.  No, not that one, but Lebanon.  Regularly the country pops up in my life, even if only in the form of falafels!

So, there I was finally continuing with that stalled James Bond series with the goal of eventually getting to Skyfall, and watching The man with the golden gun, when Bond's quest takes him first to, yes, Beirut.  Lebanon and Beirut, yet again!

Of course, this was just before the nasty civil war began in Lebanon.  Beirut was one international, cosmopolitan city.  It was the Paris away from Paris.

And then everything changed.

The war. The background tensions between the US and USSR. Then the Shia revolution in Iran and the rise of Hezbollah. Now with the raging violence in Syria that is next door, not to forget the ever present tension with Israel, what a nasty turn of events over the forty years since Bond went there looking for the golden bullet.  (Yes, that is the ornament in the belly-dancer's innie!)

So, can Beirut ever become Paris again?

Restoration has also taken place in downtown Beirut. Most of the area has been rebuilt; stone buildings that delightfully blend Parisian and Ottoman styles have been lovingly restored. But the area feels antiseptic and fake, as though it had been built yesterday as an imitation of Beirut’s past. It wasn’t; the city center simply sustained such heavy damage during the civil war that all the old buildings had to be completely resurfaced. These buildings are so clean that they seem unreal, especially compared with the rest of the city, which is chaotic and wild, like most Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cities. Downtown Beirut seems more pristine than the most pristine parts of Paris; you get the impression of a Levantine Disneyland.

Then there’s a large area, immediately northwest of downtown, that the war razed entirely. It has been rebuilt from scratch as something called the Souks of Beirut—an open-air mall with a hint of traditional style to remind the visitor of Middle Eastern bazaars. The shops, which tend to be too expensive not only for most Lebanese citizens but for middle-class Americans like me, cater to wealthy Gulf Arabs on vacation. The development certainly looks better than the rubble field it replaced, but most Beirutis feel a bit alienated by it. And it sucked half the merchants out of downtown: Beirut’s economy can sustain only so many high-end restaurants and stores. There’s such a thing as rebuilding too quickly.

Seems like a good news/bad news combination.

So, can Beirut become a glorious city once again?  Only if the Assad government falls quickly, the author notes, which resonates well with me too:

Beirut’s economy is in worse shape than I’ve ever seen it. Tourism is one of the city’s primary industries, but tumbleweeds blow through the hotel lobbies. Governments all over the world are issuing terrifying travel warnings about the city. The last two summer tourism seasons were busts; this summer will make three in a row. Restaurants and nightclubs are closing because they don’t have enough foreign customers and the locals don’t have enough money.
Still, the city looks wonderful. The amount of reconstruction is simply astounding. Some of it looks like Miami, true, but it’s all superior to anything built in Beirut between the end of World War II—when an abundance of cheap materials and a cratering of aesthetic standards ruined architecture all over the world—and the end of the civil war. The city made this progress despite Syria’s military occupation, despite Hezbollah’s war against Israel, despite the invasion of Beirut in 2008, despite the global economic downturn that has dragged on for years, and despite the civil war burning next door in Syria.
A city that could come so far while enduring all those trials should do even better with the Syrian boot off its neck. Whenever Assad’s regime is overthrown or reformed—and that seems to happen to all such nasty regimes in due time—Beirut, whether it’s the Paris of the Middle East or not, might once again become a great city.

Maybe, once again James Bond's adventures will take him to Beirut.

And, perhaps, one day I will finally get to Lebanon.