Outsider and other random thoughts
It’s remarkable that I turned out to be an optimist in my later life. To help you understand how early the cynic in me had taken roots let me take you back almost twenty years. The daily routine at my school required one of the students to read out a five minute capsule of news at the school assembly in the morning. This meant that the hapless student had to badger his parents to sit down and record the DD TV news the previous evening and then write down a two page summary. No wonder our heroes those days were Tejeshwar Singh, Sunit Tandon and Ramu Damodaran. Anyway, coming back to the story. It was my turn to read the news one fine Monday morning. It was chore that I loved. I was bit of precocious child when it came to keeping up with the current affairs. I loved news, newspapers and magazines. For reasons unknown, I decided I will forego the recording of late evening DD news and reading that news back to the school. Instead, I thought it would be way cooler to wake up early and catch up with the AIR news at 6 AM and summarize a more current news for my waiting audience. So, I thought and went to sleep. I woke up at 7.30 AM with exactly an hour to go before the school assembly. I was left with Hobson’s choice. I had to write the news purely based on what I thought were the news of the times. And I wrote with a fervid imagination. I wrote about fresh terrorist killings at Gurdaspur in Punjab, I wrote about ULFA strike in Assam, about JVP avenging the LTTE in Sri Lanka, about intifada in Jabalia, about Subash Ghisingh reiterating the need for an independent Gorkhaland and possibly about a few college strikes on account of Mandal. I think I threw in a bit of Sandinista versus Contra rebels in Nicaragua and a bit of Africa National Congress agitations to round up my worldview.
So, what’s the point, you ask? Well, a few. Namely, I think the world was a far worse place to live in the 80s. Secondly, instead of turning more cynical later on, I was rescued by good literature and cinema which restored my faith on human condition and future. Thirdly, like everything else, I built a theory. I will tackle all three of them in this post.
To start off, I think we are possibly living in the most peaceful times of human history. I have enough facts to support this view in terms of number of wars and skirmishes over the last ten years, lives lost etc. What has worsened is the stronger belief within humanity that they can improve their own lot. We think we are more in control of our destiny than ever and when events prove otherwise, we’re distraught. The 24-hour news channels ensure that we face these failures and rue the disastrous course things have taken. The fact remains they have not. Humanity has lived through more violent times in history, through tougher times of political and economic mess and through worse forms of religious intolerance. As long as we reconcile with the facts that nature abhors fairness and equity, that no serious difference of opinion has ever been resolved through debate and consensus, we will get on with making our lives better than making it either just or fair.
Is this a cynical view? Not really. That’s where good literature and cinema come to rescue. A recurring theme of literature and cinema of last century has been of an ‘outsider’ wanting to get ‘in’, being rejected and then evolving his own way of getting back at the world. From classics like Crime and Punishment, to manufactured cults like The Catcher in the Rye, the Rabbit series of Updike or the modern day White Tiger. Or, to cite from cinema, from the French New Wave to Taxi Driver to Fight Club. The themes are the same – universe’s indifference to mankind. The outsider either gets subsumed or is eventually eliminated by the conforming world.
That brings me to the unifying theory. From the Naxalite laying a landmine to Sri Ram Sene activists donning the moral police garb to the dry fruit laden mujahedeen out to blow the Lankan cricket team bus, the underlying motivation remains the same. The anger at being left ‘out’, to be able to peer inside but not allowed to be a part of it. That individual hardly stands a chance so, often, they band together and the world fears them.
But the conformity of the world absorbs them all, eventually – like Camus’ ultimate ‘Outsider’, Meursault, at the end of the novel, opens himself to the gentle indifference of the world and finds the world ‘so like a brother’.
So will these fanatics find the world. One day.
We have seen worse. As King Solomon realized centuries ago – Gam zeh ya’avor. This too shall pass.
Tags: Alienation, Camus, Outsider
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A very timely piece, Subrat! Over the last few years, I’ve come to realise things will always stay the same in terms of the balances of nature and the universe. We’ve cleaned up smallpox but we now have AIDS. We have anesthesia but we also have nukes etc etc.
“The universe tends to unfold as it should.” I’ve been finding this to be oddly true most of the time. This is from a movie. Surprisingly, from Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle!
“The 24-hour news channels ensure that we face these failures and rue the disastrous course things have taken.”
AGREE!!!! AGREE!!! AGREE!!!
Thank you.
I loved the world where there was a soviet union- where science – the pure science as a profession was regarded high, where an Msc Gold medal in chemical technology had a significant value. The geniuses have been dethroned and the world – to borrow a fellow PFCian’s term has embraced ‘mediocrity’ with all the Love. The bearhug of mediocrity and the sacred belief in hypocrisy and delight in silly things has become our national obsession – no wonder world seems to be peaceful to you (relatively). It is not outsider syndrome – It is failure of order that we are staring at. Lankan government thinks that 2 lakhs innocent life at stake need not be a priority in planning a military operation because it is a ‘war on terror’ – hostages have no reason to live and ‘terrorless peace’ is the only priority and the world including secular india will play ball. For the same precedence can be used by any country at some point or the other.
In today’s world we are not citizens if we live in faultlines – be it rwanda, darfur, Afghanisthan or Pakistan – we are collateral damages to governments fighting terror or human shield to the terrorists – Either way we are looking at an ideal ‘Lose Lose situation’. Sorry to prick you optimist bubble and outsider theory.
There are so many things that come to my mind when I read this.
guess it all depends on where you are coming from.
What you call peaceful times my dad calls trough
I read this book on naxalite movement couple of months back where I read this quote attributed to Varavara Rao which I found to be very profound: “inequality is violence”. If you agree with that it would give a whole new picture of how ‘violent’ the world is today.
I do agree ‘Ee have seen worse and this too shall pass’.
Nice read
pockets of sanity remains
“The outsider either gets subsumed or is eventually eliminated by the conforming world.”
True, true – who was it who summed it up as “comedy” being about harmonious integration into society, and “tragedy” being about an individual’s expulsion from society? We’re social animals; being an outsider is hard for a human being.
But I’m not so sure that everyone does get “absorbed” eventually – sometimes the individual can end up changing their society’s attitude (cf Gandhi, MLK). Rare but it does happen!
Kenny – Was that from Harol and Kumar? Good line.
VPJ – What’s with this romantic notion of pure science and Soviet Union? Why is going to space any more relevant than designing the next awesome game console? I will pass by your Lankan example. History has seen worse instances of man’s inhumanity to man. I did some fact check to reach here and the figures don’t lie. There’s more democracy, better human rights and more value to human life than has ever been. The cynic in us refuses to agree though.
Neeraja: Yes, inequality is violence. But as I wrote nature abhors fairness. It’s impossible to achieve an equal world. We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to bring equality than improving lives in general. What’s teh Naxalite book that you read? Red Sun?
Subrat loved it…
YE buddy, you absolutely right, this too shall pass… Amen to that.
hmmmm…..
“To start off, I think we are possibly living in the most peaceful times of human history. ” completely agree with you…i use to say this lines many times to my friends and they also agreed on it.
As always brilliant writeup.
Well written, sorry to pull this on you
Jis kavi ki kalpana mein
Zindagi ho prem geet
Us kavi ko aaj tum nakaar do
‘Gulaal’’s lyrics at work…
@Subrat
Yes, ‘Red Sun’.
I agree that it is impossible to achieve an equal world.
“We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to bring equality than improving lives in general.”
I am not sure I understand that. Is it possible to do one without the other or are you saying that improving lives will automatically help achieving equality to some extent?
@VPJ
Pure science is overrated! :P
Coincidentally I was discussing that we live in a much safer world.Unlike the World Wars and Cold War days.
Constitutions of various countries, old and new, ask for equality of religions, opportunities and civil processes. But as we see, democratic processes entail considerable time in developing the electorate. That lays the seed of opportunism. Nation building takes a back seat. The trouble starts here.
Yes, it has happened during all ages and times..Chandragupta managed to keep the eye on the ball, so did Napolean, also Mahathir Mohammed, Goh Chok Thong, Deng, etc..
But notably many others famous ones have failed..some miserably..
equality is a discipline..to be practised..it will not come otherwise..the nation matters!
Well written post, beat my monday morning blues.
After all the world is not such a bad place to live.