Today, I encountered the evil of the dopamine convenience of the human mind. After ages, I entered a library situated in Bharat Kala Bhavan where I realized how abstemious and shallow I was, in drinking the wine of literature. Unlike the pragmatic school of thought promulgated by John Dewey and William Jones; deeming it unnecessary to deliberate on theories of truth, I believe in rationalizing it rather than changing it because any change to be brought about will be a derivative of the existing definitions of truth. While entering the library, the librarian scornfully scanned me from top to bottom as Hamlet had scanned the murderous Claudius.
To ensure that I had arrived with the intention to indulge myself in sanctimonious research, he lowered his spectacles ,heightened his stature and asked me in a grave tone, ”What do you need?”. I requested then, for Robert Graves’ and Omar Ali Shah’s critical commentary on Edward Fitzgerald ‘s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
The librarian unplastered and opened up the almirah which he called the “dusty literature” section that was sealed like Tutankhamen’s tomb containing treasures that are invaluable yet not cursed.This almirah was indeed in possession of the jewels of literature of all kinds -like the anthology of Persian poetry making my intellectually nascent mind be a victim to Arnold’s historical estimate.
I was handed the book I had originally asked for, took a seat and started taking notes in my diary. Exactly when I proceeded from page 2 onwards ,I had my Eureka moment. I realized exactly then that in this superficial, fast paced, factory based, mechanical process of manufacturing and ingraining knowledge into our minds ,we have done away with the necessity of self reflection and critical discourse.
Post the covid lockdown I have been a real addict to the instant delight of social media and today like a post modern cyborgian mendicant I sadly cannot spend a day without it. As students of literature it is our duty to question what we read and continually reinforce that our probability of being ignorant is much higher than us being enlightened.
I was amused and intellectually battered on the knowledge that my reading provided me -that just like Ramayana and Mahabharata, Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat had multiple versions spanning from 12th to 15th century ,a fact that was so distant and alien to me that anything otherwise would make me grimace. In reality it was the 15th century version that was translated by Fitzgerald while the 13th century version was translated by Professor Arbury which is not in popular regard.It is also to be duly noted that Edward Correll ,a name long lost in the sands of time was a Persian literary scholar and a friend of Fitzgerald,who had never received the due credit for his instrumental role in inspiring Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Such are the vast sands of time
What is reality?Perceived mime.
I was always taught by my parents that “true education will always always force you to ask uncomfortable questions to yourself and separate the right from the wrong”. On that note, I feel that humans have degenerated education only to amass material wealth and bask in indulgence. This world of Instagram reels is slowly engineering our neurons to be the slaves of this dopaminal convenience, shackling and limiting our knowledge to the material realm.
Why do we not know that it was not Fitzgerald’s novel idea to translate the Rubaiyyat ? Why do we not know John Arbury and Edward Correll? Why do we hail Saintsbury who in his criticism of the translation clearly ignored Fitzgerald’s immaturity in handling and tempering verses? How
can his translations be a candid rendition of Omar Khayyam’s spirit then?If Fitzgerald is hailed as a beacon in translation studies, why was Omar Khayyam’s views on life mocked and looked down upon in the West as hedonistic? Why do we not know that wine was never haram in Islam whereas it was only date liquor which was banned by Prophet Muhammad due to gruesome violence in Arabia in 7th century?
The answer to all of these questions are all the same.We the conceited individuals of the postmodern world drink daily the delirium of the amnesiac synthetic tonic that has choked the contemporary art tethering it by the manacles of our 60 second delight jerk response. We have indulged ourselves so neck deep into the straitjacketed curriculum that we should be convicted of treason to our literary conscience.Let alone- Aristotle,Plato,Aeschylus,Diogenes,Sophocles, Longinus as Eliot would refer to as the ancient giants. Can any of you name 4 contemporary poets of English Literature in India within 30 seconds? We write what we don’t want for people who don’t read to be recognised by the glitz that we pay for.
After this contemplation which was disturbing me to simultaneously take down notes ,I stopped today at page 13. While taking my departure, I then realized as to why the librarian was so scornful in assessing me. I was feeling unusually thirsty, strained and my head started paining repulsively as if Mr Staphylococcus was sulking because I repressed my untimely hunger pang of having my favourite noodles at Hyderabad Gate. Maybe it was because of this occasional submission of my wobbly yet youthful literary mind to his temptations which made the librarian scan me or maybe he was just frustrated with the library being empty, books collecting dust, almirahs catching rust, his only companion being Mahamana Ji’s bust….who knows?
The librarian said to me on seeing me depart,” Books feel lonely and so do I when no one visits the library! Thank you for showing up and making me use that blunt knife for the first time. Mahadev Child!”
