The Tale of Matryoshka Dolls

As we opened the Matryoshka layer by layer, the question that struck me was playing in the minds of Jayanta and Alice Robert as well:

 ‘How can it be?’

May be at a different time, place and magnitude….it was possible. What I am writing is like a parallel fiction, fact, fantasy or a juxtaposition of all the three…..

Jayanta was the protagonist from an out of the box movie made in the early fifties. Alice is a medical graduate, TV host, anthropologist-cum-writer. As for myself, well, I am yet to find out who I am…

All of us had a different set of Matryoshka dolls, but the question was the same…

For those who will accuse me of esoteric interference, let me tell you that Matryoshka is a Russian doll specially designed in such a way that one doll has a series of its replica underneath it. Just like a cabbage.

Had it been a story, I would have definitely made it a murder mystery because of the amount of hatred of the underlying dolls towards the doll at the surface. The reason for this murderous hatred is eternal - The longing for identity and existentiality. Each doll is unique, beautiful and complete, but the face that is celebrated is of the external doll only. The dolls that remain underneath have no recognition at all.

I was deeply disturbed by this underlying vibe that I had sensed among the Inner Dolls.

Half a century ago, Jayanta tried to bring all the dolls together by inviting the individual pieces of the whole system to bask in the sunshine on a chilly December morning. All of them rushed out into the open field with the collective hope of a place in the sunshine….

Dalimi from the Hills

Rahdoi,Seuti….and all #

And this diversity in the combination shaped the cloth that was weaved out of the various ethnic groups to represent Jayanta’s native place, Assam.    

Jayanta, or the person inside him was a dreamer. Because of some efforts like that of Jayanta, the Matryoshka still bears the same feeling of unity among its natives. But, over the years, the separatist feeling of the underlying dolls and their hatred has increased manifold. Many times, we fear that the Matryoshka model, that we are emotionally attached with, will crack at anytime. That was my initial concern, when I was inspecting the anguish of a radical doll beneath the Matryoshka.

But Alice carried the thought process to a different level. If we belong to the same human race, how can we all look, think and behave so differently? Why were there so many underlying layers in the anthropological Matryoshka she was looking at?

‘How can it be?’, sighed this medical graduate who had shifted her interest from Anatomy to Anthropology. She had explored every nook and corner of the globe in search of the answer and combined her knowledge of medicine and anthropology. With genetic mapping of all the races in the world, including aborigines of faraway places, she proved it beyond doubt, “All of us are descended from the same race that went out of Africa thousands of years ago.”

Then the question was raised as to why we are all so different in appearance. Say for example, ‘Why am I brown, and Nick is darker while Ms Alice is so fair?’

She had a hypothesis for this also: maybe due to the effects of the Ice Age. As for example, in Europe, only few of the races survived the extreme cold by hiding in caves, without sunlight. This probably led to Vitamin D deficiency and this vitamin is vital for melanin synthesis, the pigment responsible for skin colour!

Agreed, but how could one come out of Africa in that prehistoric era? Crossing the Sahara and the mighty ocean is difficult even today. She answered that query too.

From her ground breaking work, we can infer that the entire human race belongs to one small family that started its journey from Africa and swarmed over the entire planet.

Thus, it is not a question of identity that we have to address, but the sense of inequality among us for dealing with this Matryoshka revolt.

 ^{#: lyrics from a popular Assamese song that embark the unity among diverse structural organization of Assam.}

Of Jugads Versus Magic Realism

      

Don’t blame me of absurdity if I intend to compare these two things and come to a conclusion that both are one and the same thing. While magic realism is a highly precise art form, Jugad represents the Indian culture of way of doing things.

For those who are not aware of what Jugad actually means, let me introduce you to this peculiar Queen of the Road prevalent in Eastern UP and a few other places in North India. Poor economic condition, population explosion, poor roads and paucity of public transport are known facts here, may be that is the reason why Jugad has become so popular and ubiquitous here. Necessity being the mother of invention, indigenous automobile engineers (read mechanic in a roadside automobile repair shop) invented their own vehicle – Jugad in order to overcome these problems.  Assembling the available village amenities, like a generator pump for irrigation, the tires of a tractor and the steering wheel of an abandoned ambassador, they produced a Jugad out of these materials.

As the Jugad is not manufactured by a company, there is no need to pay road tax, or for that matter, sales tax as well, you only have to fill the diesel tank and the Queen is ready to take everyone for a ride. Be it a political rally or a marriage ceremony or taking agricultural products to the bazaar or the mill, Jugad is the multipurpose answer to our transportation problem.

It may be a little too dangerous, but that’s the way it is here.

With time, this Jugad has become an allegory of the Indian way of “arrangement” for anything under the sun.

If someone is sick, but there is no money or time for taking him to the hospital, the answer to the problem is Jugad (read Hakims and traditional healers practicing on the roadside)

If there is no electricity in your house, steal it by connecting some Jugad (read  house hold aluminum wire) to the livewire.

The examples are innumerable and in fact, there is a popular joke concerning this idea of Jugad. Once, the President of America visited India and he was really amazed to see the power of Jugad – One solution to all the problems he faced over the period of his visit. Right from starting an engine of a car (spoon), to opening the closed gate of the Qutub Minar, Jugad was a panacea for all dire situations. So while returning, when our prime minister asked him, ‘Do you want anything in particular as a souvenir from India?’, the American president was quick to ask for a Jugad. His response led to pin drop silence in the hall and a few of the bureaucrats managing the event sweated profusely from the tension.

‘Hey man, what’s wrong? Did I say anything inappropriate?’, President Sahib asked once again. The over anxious secretary hesitatingly pointed out, ‘Sir, we can’t provide you a Jugad.’

‘Why?’, asked the President.

After a long pause, the secretary muttered abashedly, ‘Because the whole country and in fact, this ministry also runs on Jugad only…..’

Jokes apart, this is how the country is running by means of the cheap, dangerous, unethical alternative named Jugad.

You might be tempted to ask me, ‘Even if we accept the existence of the concept of Jugad, where does magic realism come into the picture? In what way does it resemble Jugad?’

To make this clear, I want you to just listen to what critics who are not aware of what magic realism is, have to complain against this art form. They accuse magic realism of absurdity or incongruence, such as,  

“How can a tree talk? We want literature, not a fairy tale.”

“How can a boy who serves in a tea shop (Chai wala) win KBC by mere guesswork and also tell his life story while sitting in the hot seat? This is un(su)real.”

“How can a face look like a triangle in a painting?”

My answer is simple: Like life, every art form has its own limitations. While writing, we can explain what we think, we may give a vivid description of the event, but we can never recreate the whole feeling that we have experienced.

While drawing, one can create a visual experience, but he/she cannot draw or let the viewer feel what the other sensations like smell or sound was.

Even the most diverse art form – “The Motion Picture” cannot entirely depict the purpose intended by the creator.

So, in order to communicate his/her idea, the artist/creator takes the help of surreal things, as quoted above, which is nothing but a JUGAD.

It is as cheap an alternative as Jugad, but I find no unethical or dangerous issue in this kind of Jugad, compared to the parallel metaphor prevalent in India.

The Seventh Circle

Scene from 'A Hetadik Kor’ (The Seventh Circle).

Inferno or hell

Its seventh circle is based on the pillar of violence. I knew nothing about all these till I watched a Hungarian movie ‘A Hetadik Kor’ (The Seventh Circle).

Stunned and Saddened by the movie I was sleepless and afraid of going to bed in packed hotel.

It was late November –Goa, 2009.IFFI

Why so much of pain in some creative work? That too using few innocent children as protagonist?

Distressed and restless by all I went to the sea shore and met one person I befriended two days back in the film festival arena.

We started the topic and he took an opposite point of view –‘why not pain? The genesis of these middle European countries is based on pain; look back at the holocaust, the devastation and the national pain arising out of it.’

He said –‘As a result of all this pain has mutated into each and every individuals living in those area. So pain is used catharsis or as prophylaxis so that such kinds of holocaust never resurface.’

He said these countries were destroyed completely by the holocaust but now?’

I  didn’t had the answer  except my little knowledge from art work of my favourite writers and movie maker from those place I had  didn’t had a grip over the middle Europe .

He said ‘Pain serves as a fuel for progressive genesis.’

To check the truth I goggled and tabulated something like this 

	Population	Noble prize	Literacy rate	Maternal Mortality rate	Olympic gold  2012
Poland	38,511,824	12	99.3%	8 per 100,000	10(2 gold)
Hungary	9 946 282	12	99.4%	15 per 100,000	17(gold 8)
Austria	8,419,000	19	99%	5 deaths/100,000	o
Chech	10,562,214	5		9 per 100,000	10( 4 gold)
Germany	81,726,000	102	99.0%	8 per 100,000	44(11 gold)
India	1,210,193,422	7(except Tagore,and Raman all were either  born or worked outside)	74.04%	540 per 100,000	6 (Gold 0)

My new friend question was what have Indian contributed in original after zero.

I was petrified because I also found that Assam is having a population of around three crore, with literacy rate and maternal mortality rate among worst in Indian state and yet to have a Nobel laureate or Olympic winner?

I asked myself –are we lacking in national pain?

I looked back at Assam history –

1769-1783 The Moamoria revolt

Because of internal feuds (among the becurocrtaes, among different sect 600 year old Ahom dynasty whom Mohugal could never invade was destroyed in internal feud due to this Moamoria revolt

Can’t we call it pain?

But the result of all the revolt leads to the Burmese invasion

Burmese invasion 1817-1825 –the worst days of Assam history.

There were death, mass migration, rape, famine; people who survived saw it all. 

Can’t we call it a national pain?

But what was the result? The English invasion (1825-1947) –for the first time there was victory for western invader in Assam.

Wasn’t it a national pain?

English gave us education, progress, mode of communication, oil tea and we continued the way it always has been –indifferent!

Intoxicated with opium induced plethora we continue to fighting for language, infiltrator, so called independence, State and what not? We saw our land divided into many, we saw mistrust among our self. We lost thousands of people for those reason, missed a university calendar.

We stopped discriminating between martyrs as there are so much of them.

Aren’t these our national pain?

That night my new found friend was saying ‘Pain serves as a fuel for progressive genesis.’

The question in my mind was inst so much of pain over three hundred years not enough?

I felt like the child trapped in self indulged   hanging noose in the movie ‘A Hetadik Kor’.

As if we the people of Assam are trapped inside the seventh circle of violence and there is no chance of reversal.