SPURRING A FIGHT

I remember an incident from my school days. My brother and I were going to a place in the morning hours. The lanes were quite empty. At one corner area, one boy was walking towards our direction. Suddenly another boy came on a cycle. The walking boy must have walked to the front of the cycle. For the cyclist stopped and said something sharp. My brother and I stood as sole witnesses to the scene. The walking boy retorted. The cyclist boy said something more sharper. It wouldn’t have mattered for both of them. However there were us as witnesses. The cyclist got down. We hinged closer to the verbal fight. One of them challenged the other. The other took up the challenge. Within seconds both had sprung on each other and were rolling on the ground. It was a tough fight and quite enduring. No one was speaking, as if to conserve energy for the fight. After around one minute we had to move, for we had no more time to spare.

As we departed, the two were alone with no spectators to satiate or to evaluate or to make a judgement. Without such a thing, the endeavour looked quite silly. For, from the very beginning it was quite clear to us that it was us that was the pivot on which the scene was rapidly deteriorating. If we hadn’t been there, they wouldn’t have started the fight in the first place. Our presence was not a mere presence of a detecting device or a camera, but of people who spoke in a feudal language. All fights and competitions are spurred by the presence of evaluators. However, if the evaluators are from a feudal language nativity, the spurring value rises exponentially. For, there is the thing called indicant words, which are not there in English.

Now, I am not saying that all fights do need a spectator. However, the presence of a spectator does influence the mood to fight. Beyond that in a feudal language environment, the social level of the spectators does affect the mood to fight. Persons who are generally from the lower class are very anxious to gather a fight with the higher class if they can do it. For, it more or less improves their social levels. In the virtual code arena, a very obvious value improvement would be detected.

Connecting to equality

However, in feudal language situations, the higher class of people generally refrain from going for direct fights with the lower classes. For, they very well know that it would only improve the other side. If they win, it does not prove much. If they lose, then it is a terrible failure. A failure to a lower guy.

There is a story in Mahabharata, the epic story in Sanskrit about the happenings in a place which is currently around Delhi in present day India. The Pandava and Kaurava princesses are displaying their might and expertise in martial arts. Their teacher or guru is Dhronocharya. Arjuna, the Pandava prince, is the greatest exponent in archery. There is no one in the world to defeat him. He can literally display magic and supernatural capacities in archery. Dhronacharya declares that there is no one in the world who can defeat Arjuna. He also makes a challenge which he knows will not be taken up by anyone. He says, ‘If there is anyone in the world who can defeat Arjuna, let him come forward’.

Everyone is silent. However in the quietude, a young man steps forward. He is actually Karna, a step-brother of Arjuna, brought up by foster parents. He had been abandoned by his mother, when she conceived him before her marriage. His foster parents are low caste charioteers. However, he had been trained in martial arts by Parashurama, who is actually a manifestation of God Vishnu, one component of the Trinity.

Karna says that he is willing to challenge Arjuna. He displays his capacities and calibre. It is obvious that he can defeat Arjuna. However, who is he? Dhronacharya then asks of him, ‘Oh, young man, who you are? What is your caste? Which is your clan? Without a comparative social standing, you cannot compete with the royal prince’.

Well, that is a truth. For, if he loses, and Arjuna wins, nothing is proved. For, Arjuna just won over an ordinary guy. However, if he defeats Arjuna, his triumph would be hundred times better. He has defeated the royal prince. It would be a fanatic glory in his social standings.

There is a Malayalam movie in which the protagonist is an exponent in Kalari, the martial arts of Malabar. He is seen wailing over the fact that he is the son of a person who had been defeated in a martial arts competition by a Malayan (a lower caste) martial arts exponent. This fact endures as a negative adjective to his name and credentials. However, if his father had defeated the Malayan, it wouldn’t have been a noticeable event, or notable.  

Thinking on these lines, a defeat by India on England is a terrible disaster for England. A winning by England over India is not much of an event. That is the fact. However, these facts are not discussed in England, for they have been retrained to understand that they are equal to other human beings. The foolishness of this idea lies in the fact that in other languages and nations, everyone is not equal to every other person. The insisting of equality by the English folks is foolish in that they are not quite sure as to where in the various levels of the feudal languages social systems, they are being equated. Their endeavour to teach their own kids that they are equals to all other human beings is a terrible mistake. For, it is based on insufficient information. As to where they are forcing themselves to be equated, they have no clear idea.

Where is the US heading towards?

Pondering on the future of the US, may be I should put in these words. The US is currently sitting on the very height of the full potential of what a very good standard in English can bring in. A huge number of people all around the world would understand what I am saying. However, the native-English speakers of the US may not understand anything particularly great about English. And this is going to be their undoing.

Where is the US heading on to in this manner? I would like to go into a particular issue. On how the Victorian age moral codes went into disarray and a totally opposite moral position came into installation in the English nations.

There were very good moral standards in pristine England. However, even this high level of moral standard in England, when seen from the colloquial ‘Indian’ standards point of view of those times, was quite outrageous. In that the females could go out on their own, and come out of the house and sit and speak with males. I do not think many ‘Indians’ would even be aware of the fact that Victorian age morality in England is considered to be of quite high standards. No one would have told them about that. In fact, not many persons in India would even know of Victorian age in England.

Where is the US heading on in this manner? I would like to go into a particular issue. On how the Victorian age moral codes went into disarray and a totally opposite moral position came into installation in the English nations.

Now, what went wrong that in the US, female moral standards went awry? Well, it can be connected to a number of issues. One of the main items would be that the females came to the US from many nations, in which their language code did not allow to much personal liberty. Such as addressing a senior-in-age person with a You, and with his name prefixed with a Mr. or not. Such a liberty is not the liberty that is connected to say, freedom of going out or the freedom to work. But actually the freedom to do all these things from a very elevated personal stature. Just to feel the snapping of controlling language codes can be a great feeling. People, who are not used to it, innately can simply start using this freedom as a sort of testing its limits. Well, testing its limits means going beyond the limits, in reality.

The second issue was the forcing of the native-English speakers to acknowledge the other sections as equals. The other sections did not actually have one level of equality, but a series of equalities, of various levels. That also would be a most unsettling effect on the composure of a serene person. For, the moment he acknowledges equality to another person, he is literally made to sway according to the whims and fancies of the other side.

The third terrible issue would be the forcing the native-English children to be on par with descendants of the erstwhile black slaves of the US. It more or less brings them into the evaluation powers of another group of people. Well, that is a terrible event. I have known the issue of living with people of different social standards. When I am with them, I am forced to act and react to their evaluation and words. If I try to stand apart, the accusation of being a loner, of having a superiority complex, and much else is raised by them. However, if I am with them with the credentials of a trainer, they improve in their English and I remain with my own mental disposition. I am not made the butt of their sly techniques of dislodging mental serenity.

It is a choice that anyone can have as a trainer. It is not that I am a greater person, but that when being on close contact with persons of other culture or social standards, this is a very good option to have. This option was statutorily denied to the native-English children. With terrible impact on their total quality.

When speaking about this impact, I would like to go back to the novel which won the British Booker Prize written by a south Indian authoress. In that book, there is an attempt to denigrate the affectionate assessment of the English colonialists in the ‘India’ of those days. The Indian manager of a plantation is a drunkard and a wastrel. He faces the possibility of being dismissed. The English superior tells him frankly that if he is willing to share his beautiful wife with him, he can retain his post. He tries to coax his wife to do this. However, she reacts with unnatural vehemence.

Now, why should the English man stoop to this level? The English are ruling the land. And from the ‘Indian’ perspective, they can do what they want with the natives here. That is only the un-educated patriotic version. The truth is that the very communication in English will not allow many things that are imagined by an average ‘Indian’. For, if it is the ‘Indian’ boss, he will address both the husband as well as his wife with an Inhi/Nee/Thu etc. It can really set the social context for more awkward social claims on the wife. Not only he, but all his companions would use the same deprecatory tone and s******s about the subordinate’s wife. For visualising this, one has only to imagine an Indian feudal lord speaking to and about a subordinate’s wife, sister or daughter. However, this imagination cannot be done by a native-English man. For, even if he sees the scene, he can only hear the English translation of the words. Therein lies his inability to see the brutish world of feudal languages.

However, it is true that there have been many Indian films in which English colonial persons have been shown acting in Indian language postures. A vast majority of ‘Indians’ do not know that English is a totally different world, and many brutalities inherent in ‘Indian’ languages are not there in English. 

ADD PONTHENMADA SCENE

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