Monday Musings 243– Bad is dramatically eventful

Monday Musings  243– Bad is dramatically eventful

“Badi bahut dilchasp hai, hangama-khez hai; Neki kathin hai, lohe ke chane chabane ki tarah’’ (bad is interesting,  dramatically eventful; good is difficult, like chewing iron) -

from Massoma, Ismat Chugtai (1962)

 ‘’Dharma is sukhsm – subtle. Its difficult to be good’’ – from the Difficulty of being good (2012)

Separated by language, temperament and background and over 50 years in time, I noticed two authors asking the same question. I was intrigued to find the same thing written in two very different books. Ismat Chugtai was a firebrand author who shook the social establishment when she wrote what she wrote 60 plus years ago. I am told that she was charged for vulgarity in writing and there was a case against her then, a charge that another of my favourite authors Sadat Manto had to fight around the same time.  65 years later both are revered as cult writers and anyone who is a reader of Hindi/Urdu writing and has not read them must do so right away.  Gurcharan Das belongs to the corporate world and studied Mahabharat to find answers about the many layered nature of the good and bad and the above quote is from the book he wrote based on that study.

I am fascinated by Chugtai’s take on what is considered as bad and unacceptable. She finds it ‘interesting dramatic and eventful’.  No wonder vice is a magnet that pulls us and sucks us into it. I am not sure what is the exact word for ‘hangama khez’ in English – the word I have used ‘dramatically eventful’ does not really capture the depth and imagery of the original urdu word.  Bad has the power to disrupt, to create ripples, to create flutter and a drama which has its own life. It has momentum and exhilaration, an ability to make things happen like nothing else. It engenders action which is also immediate and urgent. It’s difficult to resist it. It has a sway over us. Good rarely has that power. It’s boring, drab and a drag. It might have many other virtues but good is rarely exciting. No wonder there are not many takers for it.

I find the polarity of good and bad extremely unnerving and sometimes meaningless too. There are but only a few universal goods i.e. looked at from any angle it is the right thing to do. These are few and far in between. Most of the usual things that get wrecked by this polarity of good and bad in the day to day life – in thoughts, behaviour, conduct etc carry this meaningless burden to falling in any of the two extremes. History they say is written by the victor – the vanquished do not get that opportunity and a few hundred years later no one asks who was right. The powerful dictate the notion of right and wrong – earlier it was the Gods, then it was emperors, then there are elites, parents, teachers and senior leaders in the corporate world. It was Voltaire if guess who said, ‘’morality is the recourse of the weak’. The influential often get away with anything.

I am becoming more and more acutely aware that the right and the wrong change colours over time, sometimes they even change places. It confuses me. Perhaps this is what Das means when he says that dharma is subtle, it is not easy to be good – assuming one knows for sure what is good today and will remain so forever. 

So the two questions if ask myself as if read Chugtai are – Do I need dilchasp/hangamkhez or do I need a life that is drag – at 60 what will I rue more? Second what will it take to liberate myself from the polarity of right and wrong – it’s very draining.

 

Guru