2005-03-11 - 10:28 p.m.
What I'm listening to: Friday I'm in love-The Cure.
So in a tangental research direction, I just watched a good part of the film "Gandhi" and also surfing around for info on the Amritsar Massacre, when a British Regiment opened fire on a peaceful Indian protest in April 1919, wounding 1200 and killing about 350 people, under orders. The general in charge of the regiment, Dyer, was relieved of his command, but he returned to England as a hero to
many British admirers, who presented him with a collected purse of
thousands of pounds and a jewelled sword inscribed "Saviour of the Punjab."
As I'm writing this paper, thesis related and autobiographical, there are times when I get into times of doubt, that maybe I'm playing up the stories too much, or arguing my point in the paper too strongly, etc. Then I read the stories on the net, and look at images of atrocity, and am reminded of the phrase, by either Barthes or Sontag, indicating photography's evidentiary presence: 'this has been'. These people and places did in fact exist, but the stories remain forever fluid, as narrative goes.
I'm passively watching, admiring, the background images in the movie. I'm admiring the palm trees, the old houses, the street life, the light-a wonderfully warm orange typical of that part of the world. I miss it so so much. I haven't been back since April 2000. I miss the light, I miss my cousins, I miss the food, the congestion, the palm trees, the beach, the sea, the light breeze coming off the ocean, everything. My parents are also there right now. Now that they're both retired, they go there for the winter every few years or so, to see family, to hang out, escape the winter. Whenever I read their emails about the people and places that they are seeing I feel the loss, the desire, of a sense of home as well as a lost sense of glory, occaisionally. Whenever I look at pictures of Mughal art and architecture, my own photographs of these works, or photos on the net, I'm reminded that my people, my ancestors, my bloodline, built these at one point. The gardens, the palaces, the forts, the Taj Mahal.
This longing I akin to having a song stuck in your head, or the entire courtship process in The Graduate. When you've gotten to the point of singing the song out loud while walking down the street, or when Ben is writing Elaine's name over and over again on a pad, that is desire. When you can finally listen to that song whenever you want, or when Elaine and Ben finally get married at the end of the film, what happens? We never know, as the bus drives away from the camera and the credits roll.
So how does the process of desire work then, and why is it so powerful? We want what we can't have and aren't happy when we get it, or rather we are contented. I think this is an innately human characteristic, although not necessarily a good one.
I was thinking the other day about the idea or concept rather of 'heaven'. It seems in line with this idea of desire. Whether it actually exists or not is irrelevant. But the ideal of a 'paradise' that is not tangible, that we can't have, unless we 'earn' it. It seems to be the desire drive that encourages people to strive for this abstract concept, heaven.
In Islamic philosophy, heaven is described as reclining shade, cool water, etc. I've read some secondary and tertiary sources that interpret heaven as a land of sexual paradise, where men have eternal erections, and orgasms last for 50 earth years or something like that.
A very powerful metaphor no doubt, and scarily in line with orientalist thinking, so the 50 year orgasm is debateable. Essentially these passages, right or wrong, are presenting a state of existence that is humanly impossible to comprehend, tangibly, thus producing desire of an ideal. Since it would seem that everything is finite, even the idea of a place to live for 'all of eternity' fuels this desire as well, as it is the antithesis of subjective, tangible time passing through the ages. In an eternal time, ages would not exist, as there would be no way to quantify beginning and end, if such concepts are irrelvant in this next world.
Seeing as the history of Islamic philosophy is rooted in 7th century Arabia, then it would seem proper that an ideal place in the hereafter is filled with cool shade and flowing rivers and gardens, not barren, hot, dry desert (I've been there-the desert, not 7th century Arabia. At least not consciously anyway). Right now, considering that it went down to -30 last week, would the fires of hell really be that bad?
After all, I almost moved into a place with a Jacuzzi. I think that would have been a bad decision, if in a state of curing glaucoma had hallucinations of Yosemite Sam in a red suit with pointy ears, a tail, sporting a pitch fork, starting to put more hot coals underneath the bath to keep me warm.
Back to work. I wonder why Heavenly Hash is called Savourama in French? Back to work.
