Send revival.... Start with me...

For my fifteenth birthday which was six years back (there I've revealed my age), I was gifted a book. It was the autobiography of Selwyn Hughes, author of the popular devotional, Every Day with Jesus. Hughes always longed and prayed for a revival in his land. Ever since reading the book, I got this desire to pray for a revival in my own land. In my involvement with Bangalore Evangelical Union, I longed for a revival in Bangalore, and subsequently in the whole country. The band Petra had a song titled, 'send revival, start with me.' The song became a sort of prayer in my life for many years. But I never paid much attention to the rest of the lyrics I guess.

Recently I have been listening to some messages by Nate Bramsen, who was a speaker at the Church camp of Calvary Bible Fellowship, Bangalore. He frequently asks the question, "Is prayer a part of my life or is it the very vehicle driving my life?" The question really convicted me and continues to convict me. Another of his statements that really convicts me is, "Don't pray till you're done. Pray till God is done with you."

As I was typing out this blog post, I played Petra's song, send revival, and was struck by the first few lines of the song: 

"We're looking to your promise of old

That if we pray and humble ourselves

You will come and heal our land..."

I want to try this out. I want to pray till God is done with me. And I am becoming convinced that the revival can only be seen on our knees.

How often have I stayed up all night reading a story book, or reading manga online, or binge watching TV shows? I've had all night movie marathons with my friends and so on. And I know some of my friends have gaming sleepovers. Why then can't we stay up a night praying?

So I invite my dear young brethren in Christ (young only in heart is also fine). Let's pray together till God is done with us. Let's do it at my place? I'm thinking either 29th night into 30th morning. Or 30th night into 31st morning. Or 31st night (after most of us get done with the watch night service. Wouldn't it be the ideal way to start a new year? Let me know if you're interested and which day works for you. Reach me at 8105684558 (I'm not on whatsapp by the way).

Edit: We're doing this on 30th night into 31st morning. The venue might change slightly, but it will be around Kothanur. Will keep you posted.

Edit #2: The venue is not around Kothanur. We are having it in Kanakapura road. Do contact me for further details.

Fitting in as a Third Culture Kid (or a Missionary Kid)

This post is aimed at the Third Culture Kids out there. And possibly, even the diasporic ones. But anyone can read it. To start off, let me tell you a little bit about myself. My parents are basically Tamil, but I grew up in a small town called Bacheli, in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. I grew up speaking Tamil at home, Hindi outside with my friends, and English at school. At least we were supposed to speak in English, though we mostly didn't follow that rule.

Having studied in a boarding school for the first five months of my school life, I picked up some good English. Further, due to my parents being fluent in English, fluency in English came easy for me, unlike many of my classmates. Over time, I began reading story books. Most of these story books were set in the West (like most English books are). I also read quite a few biographies of missionaries, who were mostly Western.

The reason for my growing up in Chhattisgarh was that my parents are missionaries. And so growing up, I realized that I was different from the rest of my classmates. My religion was different than most, my parents' work was different, and our language was different. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I found the characters in my books more relate able than my own classmates. Just before my tenth grade, we moved to Bangalore, and I made better friends, mostly during College. But the idea of me not fitting in with my peers always remained. Another factor that played into me not fitting in at Bangalore was that my parents were highly educated and yet we were sort of not in the upper middle class category. So culturally I related to the upper middle class folks but I couldn't relate to them financially (hanging out where they do and so on).

All this isn't to say that I had a horrible childhood. I always realized my parents had a special call and that required sacrifice. I was proud of them and related with them. It was after the move to Bangalore that the dissonance became pronounced. And since then I dreamed of going to the US (or something like that) cos I might relate better to the people there, or that I might fit in better there.

Moreover, the idea of not fitting in created this mad desire in me to try really hard to get an identity. I tried hard to become a really good guitarist. I tried playing football. And I tried reading a lot and becoming extremely intelligent. Or at least pretending to be. But none of it really worked. There was always someone better. I realized that I did not particularly play the guitar or football or read purely because I loved it. And that was sort of the difference between the ones who were really good at it and myself. Yes, I did grow to love it, but it was a mild love, not a wild passion. And that made a big difference.

Eventually, this desire for acceptance went too far. Do people find me funny? Do they think I'm smart enough? Do they think I try too hard? Do they genuinely enjoy my company? Would they miss me if I'm not there? And I started becoming jealous of the guys who seemed to get all the attention. Not to say I did not get my fair deal of attention. But it was never enough. All because I felt I did not fit in.

Back to some information about myself. I identify as a Christian. Not because 'Caleb' is a name found in the Bible. But because I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross to redeem me and make me right with God. And because I chose to follow him as his disciple. Now, my faith was a constant struggle in itself. Even the practice of my faith (or the living out of it) often became more about the performance, about how people would view me. Would they think I loved God? Would they think I was a self sacrificing Christian? This caused me further distress because in addition to being a desperate attention seeker I realized I was also a hypocrite.

During my College years I got a few friends who I shared many similarities with. Christians struggling with identity. That helped. Having friends in difficult places is comforting (as sad as that sounds). But in the past few months, I believe I am seeing some improvement in my struggle with identity. And I want to share with you some things that have helped, hoping it might help ya'll too.

Firstly, I realized that it is alright to feel that I don't fit in. Because I wasn't meant to. As a Christian, the Bible says I am an alien and a stranger. And often times, my feelings don't align with my thought convictions. But I need to first know the truths and then keep reminding myself of it, so that eventually I start feeling feelings appropriate to the truths I believe in. I need to know and then remind myself that I don't belong here in this world. And I will never fit in. And that's okay. Because Christianity has this great hope that eventually I will be home. And there I will fit in.

Secondly, I realized that I am already loved and adored more than most people in this world. If I'm accused of pride or a superiority complex for this belief, so be it. It is not that I deserved this love. On the contrary, I completely do not deserve it. However, Christ loved me so much that he died for me. So I don't need to feel threatened about my performance. That I need to keep up my performance or I'll lose this love.

Thirdly, I realized that as a Christian I belong to a family. The family of God as the Bible puts it. And this family consists of all genuine Christians in the world. And if a particular Christian I come across has the right understanding of the Scriptures, the person already loves me not for what I do or for how impressive my performance is but because of what Christ has done for the both of us.

These three points helped me gradually develop an identity in Christ. The ramifications of being a Christian are far and deep. I still often crave the attention of people around me. And that's why it requires a constant reminding of who I am in Christ. And trust me, it is really liberating to find my identity in Christ rather than in what I do. Cos I can enjoy the company of people just for the joy and fun we have without worrying constantly about what they think of me. I can enjoy playing music without worrying about how my music skills would be rated by another person. And so on and so forth. And that is my encouragement to all people who feel they can relate with my struggles. Remind yourself of these truths and believe it. It just might help.

For those who don't believe in Jesus Christ, but have read this blog post till here, here are some lines written by C S Lewis in 'Mere Christianity.' Maybe it might serve as some food for thought.

"The Christian says, Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing."

I want to meet Jordan Taylor...

I think it was a couple of years ago that I started watching Blimey cow videos on youtube regularly. I became a fan. I also started following Jordan Taylor on his personal channel. Over the course of these two years, my interest in watching his videos have only increased. I know his wedding anniversary (because its a day after my birthday), where he lives, and so on and so forth.

Ever since Youtube vlogging became big, a lot of Youtube celebrities share life with an online community. Often this community spills over into the offline world. The Green brothers conceived the idea of Vidcon, which is now a huge phenomenon in the US. Borrowing the idea, Blimey Cow hosts Blimeycon every year, where patrons (fans who pay) get to meet Jordan and Josh and hang out with them, and have a lot of fun.

I really want to attend Blimey con, and I really want to meet Jordan Taylor.

And that got me thinking.

I have never spoken to this dude. He doesn't know I exist. He probably wouldn't know if I stopped watching his videos. And yet, I want to meet him real bad. And that just from me watching his videos. From listening to him sharing his thoughts on various stuff.

There is however a person who always listens to me when I talk to him. He has revealed his heart to me in a big book, through which he continues to communicate, and in fact he loves me so much that he gave his life for me. Shouldn't I be dying to meet him?

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Do I want to meet Christ as badly as I want to meet certain celebrities? If not, perhaps I need to start hanging out with Christ a little more than I currently do.

Please.... Pray for me... Pray for us!

Listen, Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength. [Deut 6: 4,5; NET]

My dear dear friends! This is a very personal blog post. I will not name the people I am writing to, because I want it to apply to every believer in Christ Jesus.

Growing up, I did not have a lot of close friends. It had always been my prayer that I have good close friends. God, in His abundant mercy, gave me such friends. Friends, for whose company I literally cried when I had to part with them. Many such groups of friends. Friends who love the Lord just like I do. But, I wonder do we, truly love the Lord with all our being? Like truly truly love the Lord with all our whole being?

I currently live in a town in Chhattisgarh. I am part of a Church where the majority of the members are first generation believers from other faith backgrounds. They truly love the Lord. The Church is also connected to various other Churches in this State, where the work of the Lord is really growing and thriving. This is amazing, right? Like, I could claim this is in some ways, a mini revival of sorts. God is moving, and its thrilling to watch!

But here's the catch. This movement, can, in a large way be traced back to one group of friends around a couple of decades ago, who decided to take a stand for God. Trust me, the story is that simple! One generation of friends, who loved the Lord, decided to obey Him! And the way the Lord is using them is simply thrilling to watch.

What does it mean to love the Lord? What does it mean to truly love Him with all my being? Like, love Him so much that I count everything else as rubbish (Phil 3: 8)? Is it just feeding my ego by watching videos of atheists getting owned in arguments? Is it to praise God through music surrounded by people who will all say Amen? Is it to get together in cozy little Bible study groups which are really fun? Is it barbecue nights and going to inspiring camps?

I am seriously doubting whether I love my Lord! You see, I talk. And I love my comforts. If I truly believed the Word of God, I'd be seriously living for Him. Offering myself as a living sacrifice. Does anyone of us really understand the implication of that word? Like, it's not sacrificing phone or internet or something silly like that. It is sacrificing the authority over my own life, where my dreams, my interests, my attachments to this world all are considered as hatred compared to my love for God. Where my feelings towards poetry, or music, or puns, or reading, all are like hatred compared to my love for God! For all my talk, I seriously doubt my devotion to God!

And that begs the question. Do I really know the Gospel? And that is my prayer. That I truly know the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Because if I truly knew the gospel, things would be truly different. And if all of us truly believed in the words of God - nay, if even a few of us believed in the word of God, and took him at his word - I shudder to think what God would do through us. Because now I am seeing first hand what he is doing because a few people took God at his Word twenty years ago.

My brothers and sisters, please pray that I truly know God! And I will pray that you know Him. When I see 95% of believers going into high paying corporate jobs without a 'special call' for it, but ask for a special call when asked to consider missions, I doubt we take God at his Word. When I see that we are comfortable within our Churches, where everyone agrees with us, and don't go to public secular platforms, where we will be called bigots, outdated, and various other names, where we will be the minority, I doubt we truly seek to be His disciple. When we read Jesus telling the rich young man to sell everything and give the money to the poor, and I say it's easy to say that but in the real world you need money, I doubt I trust the Lord. Do I trust Him when He says seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you [Mathew 6:33]? I long for revival and I know I am severely severely lacking in my love for Christ! I hardly make time to pray, to read His Word, and to serve Him wholeheartedly. And so I request you to pray that there will be revival in my life, and in this country of ours!

I know this is not my best blog post. The writing is all over the place, and I apologize for it. But I am speaking from the bottom of my heart, and I will not apologize for that.

I wish that we - a few of us at least - might turly truly decide to love the Lord with our whole being, gladly paying the cost, even if it is our lives that is asked of us! Soli Deo Gloria!

On hearing John Keats

I hear the ode to a nightingale on a quiet winter night.
The video recommendations talk about how one destroys a political viewpoint;
Or the way to trap an argument.
I talk about the death of argument,
Of liberty and free speech.
I think about the polarization of the world;
How anger feeds the internet;
How the internet feeds anger.

I hear the ode to a nightingale.
I do not hear the nightingale.
I am left with an imagined sound
And a faint nostalgia

For an imagined bird.

Contemporary Christian Music (?)

Hello people!

Hope you are doing great. Because I'm not (not to be taken too seriously, I'm actually doing pretty good). And here's why. I'm a little disappointed with not being able to find too many good Christian music artists.

Now I do know the old argument that we shouldn't make a sacred-secular divide, and that there is no such thing as Christian music, blah blah blah... And I kinda agree with that too. But recently I've been granted extra grace by God, which has enabled me to really enjoy spending time with Him. And so I was in the mood to listen to some music which talk about God, and His wondrous works.

But the sad thing is that I couldn't find a lot of music that talk about God in the right way (right as in according to the Scripture) and are also good musically. There are the hymns of course, which I just love. Those old songs that are sung in the traditional Churches, you know? Like, "A Mighty Fortress is our God," "Just As I am," "Be Thou my vision," and so on. But if I want something newer, I don't know.

There is a lot of debate surrounding Contemporary Christian Music. There are a fair number of critics, and quite a few who defend it. The former say that it is vain repetition or that it is not Scripturally solid. There are a number of arguments used by the latter, but I'm going to focus on one in particular. "Why should the devil have all the good music?" That's a famous quote, by (I don't know who). And I guess it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that it is used to defend music that is not actually all that good. Like, what happened to good song writing.

I know being Scripturally correct is the most important thing. I totally agree. But there are enough people talking about it. So let's talk about song-writing. Like, why don't we get Simon and Garfunkel quality songwriting both lyrically and musically. Or Bob Dylan quality lyrically. I don't want to come across as an elitist. But let's face it. The song writing in CCM gets tedious pretty soon. Which is why CCM songs don't last long. They come in waves. Whereas 'Sound of Silence'. That lasts. Or 'Blowing in the Wind'. Tremendous lyrics. No wonder he won the Nobel (though I know there's a fair bit of controversy with that and I don't want to go there.) And that's part of the reason why the great hymns have lasted too. I'm sure there were a number of Scripturally good hymns that are sort of forgotten today because of poor songwriting. And what about plagiarism in CCM. Let's be honest here. There's way too much plagiarism which is just annoying.

Petra is one good band that had great songwriting, and amazing music. And were Scripturally very good. I'm not saying there aren't any more examples. In fact, there are a lot. Southern Gospel music is really good. I grew up with the Gaither Homecoming CDs and I think they are great. I do sort of like Tenth Avenue North too. And I've heard there are some great rap artists in the Christian community. I've also heard there are some good heavy rock / metal bands that write music with Christian lyrics.

This blog post is somewhere between a rant and a plea for song / artist suggestions. I'm guessing there is a lot of good Christian music out there, and I don't know about it. So, if you guys know of any such artists, do let me know. I don't want artists in the rap, heavy rock / heavy metal, country, or CCM genres. I'm looking at more along the genres of classic rock, soft rock, alternative, Indie, jazz/blues, or some sort of fusion. Or even Celtic I guess. In fact if it's really good country music I don't mind. And what genre does Enya's music come under? Even that kind would be great. And I'm looking for good songwriting. Also, if you know of any good Indian music with Christian lyrics. In Hindi or Tamil, let me know. Like Keerthana songs are old Tamil songs written with Tamil tunes. Is there any such contemporary music?

Alright. That's it, I guess. Thanks in advance! :D Here's a meme I found on the internet to end it on a lighter note (did you note the pun I squeezed in there? Did it hit a chord with you? Okay I'm going to give it a rest...)

Can you guess the answer? I lost to ....

Recently, there have been a lot of whatsapp stories going around with some sort of riddle. I'll give two examples I came across.

1. Can you tell me, what comes once in a year, twice in a week and never in a day? I lost to (some random person).
2. Someone's mom has four sons, North, East, and West. What is the name of the fourth son. Can you guess the name of the fourth son? I lost to (some random name).

There were a lot of these stories around. If you give the answer and it turns out wrong, you are supposed to put up the story saying who you lost to, and you get the answer.

Initially I found these stories extremely annoying. But then I found them fascinating. How is it that so many people who are more or less fluent with English, could get these simple answers wrong? Or if they are riddles to do with logic, certainly people can figure it out? The explanation for the phenomenon though is extremely fascinating. It is due to the difference between the semantic meaning of a sentence and its pragmatic meaning.

Semantic meaning refers to the technical grammatical meaning. More specifically speaking, lexical semantics has everything to do with sign systems and how meaning is conveyed. For instance, lexical semantics is interested in the relationship between letters in the alphabet, words and phrases, and sentences. And if you delve deeper into the subject, you will study the relation between sounds and meaning.

Pragmatic meaning on the other hand, refers to meaning in a more practical sense. Or in other words, meaning that is usually intended for practical purposes. This is opposed to the rather theoretical interest of semantics.

In some cases, semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. For instance, if I ask the question, "what is your name?" the semantic and pragmatic meaning are the same. They both are requesting for your name. On the other hand, if I instead ask "may I know your name?" the semantic meaning is whether or not the person would be okay with me knowing their name. But the pragmatic meaning, as most people would agree, is that I am asking the person's name.

In our day to day usage of language, we often ignore semantics for pragmatics. This is where the old banter about the words 'can' and 'may' come in. I ask my friend, "Can I borrow a pencil?" And he replies, "I don't know. Can you?" Pragmatically speaking, I wouldn't ask if I couldn't. And yet, semantically my question begs the reply given by my friend.

The whatsapp stories I started this post off with earlier are playing on this disparity between semantic and pragmatic meanings. For instance, the answer to the first question given by me was "the letter 'e'". And yet I was wrong according to the person who posted the story. The intended correct answer was "I can" or "I can't." The question was asking whether I could, not the answer to the riddle itself. Similarly, the answer to the second question is 'what'. The reasoning is that there is no question mark, and hence it is not a question in the first place. It is merely a statement, "what is the name of the fourth son."

I find human language extremely fascinating. My friends know that I love puns and word play. I guess this is another play on language, and to be honest I am enjoying it. I just don't like putting up whatsapp stories of this nature, and saying I lost to people. I guess that's just my pride though. But let's end this blog post with a joke I found on the internet not too long ago. I don't remember where I saw it, and hence this is my paraphrased version of it.

Interviewer: "What would you describe as your biggest skill?"
Candidate: "Noticing the semantic details, and failing to see the pragmatics."
Interviewer: "Can you give an example?"
Candidate: "Yes, I can."

Thoughts I had while attending Open Sky Slam - Part II

First of all, Part I of this two part series has become my most read blog post. It is my first blog post to reach 200 page views. So, yaay! And thank you. And finally, here is the second line of thought I had while sitting there at Open Sky Slam.

Art has always had an interesting relationship with political engagement. There are artists who believe that it is the responsibility of every artist to have political opinions and to be opinion leaders. Then there are artists who believe that an artist is not obligated to anyone, except to her/his own art. I personally believe that people as individuals need to be socially and politically aware, especially in a democracy. Whether their art engages such issues or not is secondary, and it is the personal choice of every artist on whether to do so or not. However, irrespective of whether a person is an artist or not, I believe people in a democracy should be aware and active in issues that their community faces.

The urban Indian educated in English medium institutions sometimes tends to be isolated from social and political happenings around him/her. This often comes due to a privilege enjoyed by the middle and upper middle class educated Indian, which ensures that local political events and decisions do not inconvenience the said person in a big manner. This is especially so in Bengaluru, which has a culture of political indifference. One indicator of this indifference is that voter turnout in Bengaluru for elections is dismally low when compared to the rest of the state. (I also am culprit to this as I will not be voting in the upcoming Assembly elections, having missed the January 22 deadline to apply for an ID card. As you can imagine, I am very ashamed of this.)

In this context, Open Sky Slam, and similar art platforms are playing a very important role, although maybe unknowingly. These platforms are creating a community that is beginning to engage with political and social realities around it. In the many performances I witnessed on 24th, I saw various issues being spoken about, such as the controversial statement by Goa CM, Manohar Parikkar about girls drinking, the stigma around mental health, the complexities of the narrative around prostitution, and other such issues. There was one performance where a rape victim brought out her narrative, and in doing so, subverted the power structure. There was another performance by Aditya Kedia, where he spoke on the promises of politicians, and the subsequent failures to live up to the promises.

Though, some of the performances were intentionally dealing with political and social issues, such as the commentary on the statement of the Goa CM, and the one by Aditya Kedia, most performances did not do so. However, they are still largely significant. Building a collective of individual narratives builds a collective narrative. And many of the performances that did not deal directly with issues also did so in their personalized narratives. For instance, the poem of the rape victim was highly personalized, and yet offers a strong commentary on the prevailing rape culture of our society. Similarly the poem dealing with prostitution was also a very personal narrative. One of my personal favourites among the performances was the one by Cipun Mishra. I mentioned his piece in my previous post dealing with poetic techniques. However, I also love his piece for how intensely personal it is, and yet offers an incredible layered commentary on the socio-economic context in which he grew up. Having to sell the house to afford education for the children, foregoing lunch and saving ten rupees thereby are images that haunt the listener by opening a window into the lifestyle of middle and lower middle class Indians, and also at the same time offer a commentary on accessibility of higher education in India. Poetry in its most melancholic beauty!

Democracy is governance by the people. It happens when people engage with issues in public spaces. OSS and other such art platforms are creating public spaces where such narratives are being dealt with. They also bring people from different contexts together. I witnessed performances in English, Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani, Tamil, and even French. Each of these people are from different contexts. Bringing together different contexts enables narratives and discussions to be more nuanced, than if all the people were from the same context. That is not all. The public space, in this case, is merged with the historic role of the storyteller bringing about an interesting dynamic. In European history, we see that the court jester (the fool in Shakespearan plays for instance) offered political commentary, even often mocking the King and his subjects. Poets in India often offered social critique. These roles have been brought together in these art spaces and merged with the public space where opinions and ideas are discussed.

This is why I think such art platforms are important. Because they offer a means for political and social engagement for people who might not otherwise engage with such issues. Though there needs to be more of an intentional effort by individuals towards awareness and subsequently towards engagement, this is a start. And for now, I am satisfied with baby steps.

Thoughts I had while attending Open Sky Slam - Part I

First off, Open Sky is amazing, and all you wonderful readers should do yourself a favour and go for their slams. For a year and a half, I'd been wanting to attend one of these slams, and I finally made it. And let me tell you that I regret not having attended sooner. While I was sitting there, various thoughts came into my mind, and having found them interesting, I would like to share them with you. I found that my thoughts followed two distinct trails. And as such, I am organizing them into two posts, of which this is the first.

Spoken word poetry is appreciated often for a number of things. For the issues it brings to light, for the conversations it creates, for the wonderful communities it builds around the art form, for the validation and solidarity offered by the community to each of its members, and so on and so forth. However, I have very rarely found much appreciation for the form and techniques employed by the artist. I do not want to be misunderstood here. I do appreciate it for the other reasons I have mentioned and for many more. However, as I was sitting there at Open Sky Slam, the various techniques employed by many poets made the whole experience a treat. I'm sure all of you know these techniques and have seen them often. But allow me to talk about a few of the poets who really stood out personally to me in terms of technique alone. This does not mean that they were better than others who I've left out. I'm looking at them purely on technique.

The thought first hit me while watching Meghna Prakash perform. Her performance had a musical cadence. And as she performed, she was gently swaying to her own words. Performance poetry is primarily an auditory experience, with a tinge of visual. And the way she used both the auditory as well as visual elements was masterful. Cadence refers to the modulation of the voice that renders a musicality to it. It is linked to rhythm, and many traditional written poets have used it masterfully (e.g. "Once upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered weak and weary....). However, the technique finds its ultimate use when combined with good performance.

Though performance poetry has been present in different forms among various different cultures, its modern avatar as spoken word poetry is still quite young. The lack of established traditions and genres allow artists to experiment heavily. One of the possible ways of experimenting is through borrowing elements from other art forms. Angshuman Sharma did a brilliant job by borrowing a number of elements from stand up comedy. He not only borrowed the performance elements, but his content (or lyrics) was prepared in a way that the entire performance can pass as a decent stand up piece, without losing the quality of spoken word poetry.

Imagery is an all time favourite among poets of all traditions, be it written or spoken word. Imagery engages the senses and thereby makes poetry a wholesome experience. Three performers who used it really well today were Akshay Balan, Cipun Mishra, and Simran Narwani. Akshay used olfactory imagery to great effect with his poem on smell itself. "Burn smell - black herbal coconut oil - old books - coffee breath and smoke": such words and phrases leave a distinct odour among the audience. Cipun Mishra used striking visual imagery which made the experience not unlike watching a video montage or a photo album. The image of the shopping complex where once a house stood is something that will be stuck with me for a long time to come. Simran employed tactile imagery in a simple and powerful manner. We all know how a hug feels, and therein lies the effectiveness of her imagery. We could feel each line as it was performed. While I felt my hands enveloping a friend, Simran asks whether the hand really belonged to me. Brilliant!

A number of poets today performed beautifully in Hindia and Urdu. The advantage of this is that traditionally Hindi, and especially Urdu poetry is meant to be performed. The most popular form of such poetry is the Shayari. Many Hindi and Urdu poets employed this. However, two poets really stood out to me in the way they used this. Aditya Kedia, in a poem where he spoke about colours, juxtaposed Shayari lines within story telling. The strength of the story telling form often lies in imagery, and timely well delivered punch lines (which generate snaps). Aditya did have imagery (a poem on colours will of course have good imagery), but his punch lines were delivered in the form of Sher (couplets) of the Shayari tradition. Similarly, Abhishek (I don't know his full name) juxtaposed dialogue into the Shayari form. Dialogue is a technique primarily of the theatre. And Abhishek's poem consisted of two parts. The first was the poet talking to the shoemaker, and the second was the reply of the shoemaker. Very clever!

To conclude, techniques are like spices. They add flavour, but if not used in the right amount, could make the entire ordeal of sitting through a performance quite painful. The chef is usually precise with his preparation, but the person who eats may not recognize the various spices that make the food delicious. Similarly, precise use of technique may often be unnoticed, but that does not make it unnecessary.

P.S. 1. I'm sorry that the first two techniques I mentioned ended up becoming rather vague. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the techniques as an audience, but explaining turned out quite a hard nut to crack. I know I haven't done justice to it, and I apologize.

P.S. 2. I'm planning to do a series of posts commenting on the various elements of spoken word poetry, such as technique, form, structure, performance, and so on. Do look forward to it.

We were meant to live

On January 1, 2017, I wrote a blog post (Take notes: It's 2017!), which is one of my favourite posts. Part of the reason is that the post went on to become one of my highly read posts till then, but also another reason was that it was my first post about something I was truly passionate about.

Today, an Instagram story of one of my friends made me revisit the post. The story was an appeal to the students of Delhi University to support a strike by the Delhi University Teachers' Association organized against recent policies by the Central Government. I hadn't previously given much thought to the Government's decision to grant autonomy to various Universities in the country, and I hadn't thought about what would be the repercussions of the decision. However, the story went on to list out some of the adverse effects, which prompted me to do some further reading into it.

Here's the gist of what it is. The Government of India has decided that it will be granting full autonomy to 62 higher educational institutes in the country. This means that they get to do whatever they want, provided they don't ask for money from the University Grants Commission. Therefore, for the University to sustain itself financially, it would increase the fees paid by the students and/or get private players to fund courses offered by the University.

While there are indeed people in India who can very well afford to pay higher fees, for the vast chunk of India's population, higher education is still barely affordable. Therefore, further increase of fees is going to put higher education out of the reach of many. This is going to be disastrous for India in the long run. India's population is highly young, and in the coming decades it will be crucial for India to build a qualified workforce. By limiting higher education to one segment of the population, we are not doing that. Secondly, for many families aspiring to rise out of poverty, education used to provide that way out. This will no longer be possible for such families, who are going to be stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Getting private players, which would primarily be industries, to support courses would be counter productive to higher education, especially for the science and humanities streams. This is where my blog post of last year seems almost prophetic. The world is moving towards an obsession of productivity. The industry is only going to support courses that would directly benefit them or their industry in the short term. Hence, STEM courses would easily get funds. However, pure sciences and humanities, which advance the learning of humanity in general, and thereby lead to better understanding of ourselves and better functioning of society, would not be appealing to these private players.

You may well argue that humanities and pure sciences are quite useless because they aren't productive. To respond to that would be another blog post, however, in short, to be 'merely productive' is to the role of machines, but we as humans, are meant to live for so much more. At least I'd like to believe so (and Switchfoot would agree with me ;)

Bigot! No, YOU'RE a bigot!

Is the world becoming increasingly intolerant? In fact, quite ironically it seems that the more we talk about tolerance, the more we seem to notice intolerance everywhere. There may certainly be some truth to the fact there was a lot of intolerance always, but with increasing social awareness on these issues, we are identifying them only now, and that gives the impression that intolerance is increasing. However I am of the opinion that intolerance is in fact increasing, though I do not have any research or evidence to quote here.

The Indian liberal calls the conservative a 'bhakt', while getting called a 'libtard' by the conservative in return. On the global internet stage (which is basically the social media) we have the 'social justice warrior snowflakes' fighting the regressive forces of 'fundamentalists,' 'extremists,' and 'bigots.' A popular youtube essayist, CGP Grey explains this internet phenomenon in the form of thought germs travelling through the internet and affecting people in this video. Now, the phenomenon itself is quite interesting and harmless in itself. But activities on the internet often find ways to materialize even in the offline world. So, once again we ask the question, "is the world becoming increasingly intolerant, and if yes, why?"

One of the possible reasons is the nature of internet itself. Internet offers a level of anonymity and detachment that allows people to say things that cannot be said in the offline world. Anonymity can be seen in sites like reddit and youtube, while facebook though not necessarily anonymous still offers a level of detachment, which means that who you are on facebook need not necessarily be who you are in the offline world. And this allows you to get away with saying things. One example for this is the popular manga/anime series Deathnote, where approval of Kira begins in the internet. People want to maintain a level of decency in the offline everyday society, but online they are hailing Kira as the god of the new age under the guise of anonymity.

Another possible reason is the connectivity of the internet as explained by CGP Grey in the above mentioned video. Because of the connectivity, thought germs are not limited by geography, and can spread far and wide. And like his example of the plant and butterfly shows, when thought germs affect individuals, they will inevitably end up joining one or two sides of the existing debate, and the debate itself keeps growing in that manner.

Most communities have their own taboos, not just in terms of topics of conversation but also in terms of behaviour. Accordingly, there is a constant censoring of behaviour and speech by every member of the community. On the internet, however, due to its cosmopolitan nature as well as due to the lack of gatekeeping, there are no clearly defined taboos and subsequently no clearly defined uniform censorship. So, people feel free to speak and behave in manners otherwise unacceptable in their offline communities.

This means, if a particular (offline) community is against the curtailing of the freedom of thought and expression, on the internet, people of the same community will find it easier to express intolerant views, and may find people from across the world who may agree to their intolerant views. This will further validate their own opinions and strengthen their own resolution to their opinion. Moreover, these individuals form their intolerant communities online and may decide to meet offline as well. In this case, we can see how internet in a direct way contributes to increasing intolerance.

However, is this something that can be blamed on the internet? If a person's behaviour is different from due to lack of an anonymity, isn't that behaviour just a performance, akin to wearing a mask? Similarly, isn't who a person is in the lack of censoring and gatekeeping, the person's most honest self? If the answer to these questions is yes, then what does it say about the nature of human beings? Do humanism's ideas of man being inherently good still hold good? These questions need to be discussed.

Do feel free to disagree with me, or even agree with me. In any case, if you wish to discuss these issues, leave a comment. I'd like to know what you guys think. Alright, peace!

The Light Meets the Dark: the gospel in the context of hard questions

Today I had an interesting conversation with a friend. We were talking about the hard questions of life. And I'm guessing that if we are honest, each of us faces moments when we are confronted with hard questions. Questions that makes us uncomfortable. We are confronted with answers that don't feel good. And much too often, the natural tendency is to ignore such questions. Vinoth Ramachandra in his blog post, ""Deconstructing Equality", talks about the question of intrinsic and equal worth of human beings being side stepped or shouted out of view in our contemporary polarized discourse of equality, since it is a hard question.

When I came back home after the conversation, I started listening to an album by Tenth Avenue North, "The Light Meets the Dark." And for the first time, I noticed how the band does not shy away from asking tough questions. I have not been a big fan of contemporary Christian music due to many reasons, out of which one is that CCM often does not deal with hard questions, and just writes feel good inspirational music.

The third song of the album, 'you are more,' is one of the band's highly successful songs both critically as well as on the charts. The song talks about questions of self worth, and in quite unflattering tones claims that self worth cannot be drawn from the choices one has made in life. In a concert, lead singer and frontman, Mike Donehey says about the song, "We preach something like this, 'the choices you make make you who you are.' You know, only proud people say that, only people who've made good choices say that... Well, here's the gospel, you gotta admit you are a bum, and you don't need to prove a thing to anybody because He did it for you."

The first song of the album, 'healing begins,' makes an appeal to let down one's walls. The second verse says, Afraid to let your secrets out / Everything that you hide / Can come crashing through the door now / But too scared to face all your fear / So you hide but you find / That the shame won't disappear. And then the pre-chorus kicks in, So let it fall down / There's freedom waiting in the sound / When you let your walls fall to the ground / We're here now.

The last song of the album, 'Oh my dear', closes out the questions raised by "healing begins," in a very satisfactory manner by telling the story of a person opening up and talking about some of their deepest secrets: You said, 'I just don't think that you'll understand / You'll never look at me that way again / If you knew what I did.' // And so your tears fell and melted the snow / You told me secrets nobody had known / But I never loved you more, even though / Now I knew what you did. // Oh my dear, I'll wait for you / And grace tonight will pull us through / Until the tears have left your eyes / Until the fears can sleep at night / Until the demons that you're scared of disappear inside / Until this guilt begins to crack / And the weight falls from your back / Oh, my dear, I'll keep you in my arms tonight.

Each of the song in the album deals with heavy questions. The band deals with defeat, feelings of inferiority, fear, hurt, and the various challenges one faces while living the Christian faith, in a very succinct manner. And it is only in the context of asking the real tough questions that the hope and appeal of the gospel (the word gospel literally means 'good news') really stands out.

I experienced the album to be quite inspirational. But it does not inspire by ignoring and shying away from the difficult questions, but rather talks about hope in the midst of the ugly reality that we have to live in everyday.

Disclaimer: I am not good at critically analyzing music, and hence this is not so much an album review as much as a closer look at the message of the album from a purely lyrical perspective. I must also admit that I really love Tenth Avenue North and encourage all you readers to check out their music. The Light Meets the Dark is a good place to start, and here's the third song of the album, you are more. Cheers!

Why recent events have got me troubled.

Deathnote is probably one of the most well known manga/anime out there that deals with questions of morality. For those of you who have not read/watched the said comic/show, the story deals with a genius protagonist who is given a book of the shinigami (god of death) by which he can kill people by writing their name on it. Light Yagami, the said protagonist proceeds to cleanse the world, beginning with criminals.

Eventually, the world takes notice that someone is killing criminals and though in public they say he is a criminal (since the Governments have declared him one), on the internet under anonymity many hail him as a god, and call him Kira (Killer). Kira catches the interest of famous investigator L, and what follows is one of the best wars of intellect in modern storytelling.

What is interesting throughout the story, is the many questions of morality and justice that the story raises. Crime rate drastically reduces as a result of Kira and eventually even Governments develop a neutral attitude towards Kira. But L, and later on Mello and Near continue to fight him, and the audience is left to wonder who is truly justice in the story. The whole philosophy is well captured by Light Yagami, "If we catch Kira, he is evil. If he wins and rules the world, then he is justice." And L himself states, "it's not a sense of justice. Figuring out difficult cases is my hobby."

It is good to ponder on these questions raised by Deathnote. We are so used to the existing ethical and moral values surrounding us that we may not be aware that our society may not always have held the same values. For example, the Western world derives a lot of its thought from the Greek tradition. And ancient Greek thought did not always value pity. E A Judge observes of the ancient time, “Pity was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up. It was an impulsive response based on ignorance. Plato had removed the problem of beggars from his ideal state by dumping them over its borders” [“The Quest for Mercy in Late Antiquity,” 107]. However, we today celebrate celebrities who give for charities and consider empathy to be a very important trait to have to be even considered human.

But if our ethical and moral values are not so constant and universal and must be seen as arising from within a spatial and temporal space, then that puts us in a tricky spot when violations of our values take place. Recently, a community that I have been associated with for a while was shocked at the behaviour of one its most prominent faces. The said prominent face violated one of the most sacred values on which the community was built - that of being against violence against women - by himself having engaged in predatory behaviour against women. The community itself was enraged, and quite rightly so. But without a fixed point of view for our viewing of moral values, we are going to be in a problem like that of Deathnote. On what basis can I blame a person for the transgression of a moral value, which I cannot defend objectively? On what basis do I say, "till here and no more?" On what basis can I draw my lines?

I myself am deeply troubled by the incident, and that is because the worldview I hold on to considers human life to be very valuable and of high worth. My worldview moreover considers love as the highest virtue, and this value has been perverted by the incident. And my worldview has an objective stand because it proceeds from an objective ultimate reality - that of God.

P.S. I don't want people thinking I've actually read EA Judge (though I'd like to be that well read someday). I got the quote from another blog post. And I've borrowed some ideas from him as well. And here's the link:
https://varughesejohnblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/05/a-haunting-ethic-that-refuses-to-go-away/

Is my faith even real if I'm not moved to action?

Hello, all you readers!

I know that I haven't been very active here and I apologize for that. (Please don't read the post-script of my previous post on this blog).

Anyway, on 29th I attended an event commemorating the birthday of Gauri Lankesh, a journalist who was murdered on September 5, 2017. I must admit here that I wasn't aware of her before her death. Eventually I came to know that she was an outspoken critic of right-wing ideology in the country. And in commemoration of her life, young emerging leaders of this country vowed to fight fascist forces in the country.

Here's the deal. I am a Christian, and one of the things that comes with being a Christian is the conviction that the Bible is God's Word and is authoritative for all matters of life and conduct. There are quite a few people in this country who would claim to be the same. But days like today make me skeptical of whether there are as many true followers as they say there are.

The Bible has nearly a third of its contents talking about social justice. The God of the Christians according to the Bible is clearly concerned with social concerns. 

I hate, I despise your religious festivals;

    your assemblies are a stench to me.

22 

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

    I will not accept them.

Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,

    I will have no regard for them.

23 

Away with the noise of your songs!

    I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 

But let justice roll on like a river,

    righteousness like a never-failing stream!

The above lines are from Amos 5, where God is angry at the people of Israel. And why is he angry? The following lines are from the same chapter a little before the previous lines:

you levy a straw tax on the poor

and impose a straw tax on their grain

....

there are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes

and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

Today our society may not be very different from the Israel of Amos' day. The poor are largely ignored; farmers are committing suicide due to rising debt while rich industrialists are getting foreign holidays while defaulting on loans; large segments of the population live in fear every day for what they believe and what they eat; people who stand for the truth are killed, beaten up, or are slapped with sedition charges; history is being rewritten according to the whims and fancies of those in power; and even the people in the judiciary are not clearly impartial.

And if God is angry at these things at Israel, wouldn't he be equally angry at the same things here? And if God is angry, clearly those who claim to worship him must be equally outraged at the injustice? But why are my Christian brothers and sisters largely silent on these issues? Is it the same God that we worship? Is it the same Jesus we claim as our master? Or are there no Christians at all in the Universities of our land?

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian preacher who was outraged at social inequality and injustice. He fought for civil rights for all. He said "we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like a river, and righteousness like a mighty stream." His study of the Bible moved him to fight for social justice. I wish Christian students in the universities of our country would study the Scriptures, and truly be the salt and the light to this society that seems to be decaying and falling into darkness!

I am sad that I was not aware of Gauri Lankesh before her death. And what saddens me more is that there are many of my Christian brothers and sisters especially in our Universities who may not still be aware of her. Further more, many of us Christians in comfortable places may not even be aware of the recent Bhima Koregaon violence, the murder of Junaid Khan under suspicion of carrying beef, and similar such tragedies that have rocked the country in the past two years. In the event I attended on 29th, Kavita Lankesh, sister of the deceased Gauri Lankesh said, "ignorance is bliss, but today we cannot afford to be ignorant." And that is the line I want to leave my Christian brothers and sisters with.