Debatable or Controversial?

Debatable or Controversial ?

“Masjid mein jam peeney dey jahid,
Warna woh jagah bathaa dey jahan Khuda na ho !”
(Allow me to enjoy drinking right inside this mosque or else, show me a place where God is not present!)

Not just this famous quote, its author also too, was considered controversial!

I am not too sure! (I didn’t get a chance to ‘wrestle’ against him!  ) Really speaking, there is no big controversy or even something debatable! It is just about choosing to live ‘in’ the moment or ‘for’ the moment.

This genius took pleasure in confusing people around, like for instance, when he asked “Do the meaning of my Rubaiyat (couplets) undergo any change if written with a sword-point dipped in Blood?”

As a kid, at school, I used to wonder what my elder people mean when they said that something is highly debatable, or refer to a person as ‘non-controversial’! I found my own brain caught in a controversy when we were asked to choose to speak ‘for or against’ a topic to participate in a debating competition. “Science is good or bad for mankind” was a topic often repeated. ‘Watching Movies(good or bad)’ was another. I used to wonder why our teacher could not choose a topic that was more palatable or within our reach. Science was a compulsory subject, and movies were well out of our reach then. The teacher could have asked us to choose “Hostel life better, or life at home with parents” or still more precisely, “Life with parental control or without it”. I was sure, there would have been a long queue to support that “without control!”. I used to create a whole(some) mini-world of entertainment, visualizing such extended ideas and rehearsing its happenings during my day-dreaming-sessions!

Even as adults, we find that we are ‘scared’ of debating about many things, fearing controversy! One excuse we seek is lack of time. We have a fast life, full of tension, BP, stress, strain etc, leaving very less scope to indulge in even a ‘healthy’ debate. Why argue about anything when there is scope to ‘leave’ it to ‘their’ choice? We prefer to settle down to an acceptable repetitive ‘routine’ rather than explore the possibility of ‘colourful’ variations. Even petty things like placing furniture in a drawing room, matching colours of dress, TV channels , etc evoke controversies instead of healthy debates! At workplace, every thing is a potential threat to end up in a controversy, including moving up the table or chair by a few inches!

I do agree, people are at times quite unpredictable and could land us in a great predicament. Like, we try to merely ‘mention’ the weather, to a co-passenger in a train, to pass the time a bit more pleasantly, instead of staring at each other for the whole length of the journey. This, harmless and innocent looking gesture, the ‘mention’ of weather, could turn into a debate and before we realize, end us up into a deep controversy about who caused this ecological imbalance which has resulted into an irregular climatic cycle, affecting our economy when we are ‘already reeling’ under recession! Oh! Now even the carefully packed delicious home food has turned insipid due to ‘bad weather’ right inside the train compartment!
Once it happened to me thus… (the narrative of this instance is a bit long, and I shall cut ‘n’ paste the rest of it at the end, for those who are eager to wind up early).

The culture of teaching “Tarka-Shaastra” as a skill, has faded out. Now the head-hunters find the ‘out-of-box’ thinkers to be ‘out-of-stock’ during campus-recruitment-processes.

No wonder, topics which are very pertinent to handling basic issues of life even, fail to evoke any kind of response, though conveyed through that safe-distanced & convenient e-mails! I really wonder if it is even controversial to try and debate as to how to classify ‘issues’ as debatable or controversial! Perception is the Preceptor to decide whether to precipitate issues or not!

Regards,
PSN(21st Feb, 2009)
Post-script: (pre-planned though….. like that ‘wise’ mother who mentioned in her post script quote: “P.S : Beta, I was going to send you some money but by the time I realized, I had already sealed off this letter.” )
It happened to me once in a train. We were returning from Kerala, having attended a marriage function. A group of youngsters who got organized to represent the interests of rubber cultivators, were busy discussing strategy to effectively argue the case at Delhi with the political leaders. The youngsters were followers of communist ideals & principles. The innocent farmers were victims, left in the lurch, when Tyre manufacturers decided to switch over to ‘synthetic’ rubber, relocating their units away from amidst rubber plantations of Kerala. The youngsters were a bit primitive and crude (yet-to-be shaped into full-fledged politicians). They were ill equipped with weak arguments to counter the politicians who were past-masters, and more importantly, were also ‘patronized’ by rubber Barons. A clear fight between capitalism & communism. I was keenly observing the mannerism, strong accent of local language when they were trying to formulate appropriate phrases in English (the only medium available to them to converse with north Indian politicians!). My family saw no harm in ‘allowing’ me to listen to them. The trouble started quite unexpectedly when one of them sought my opinion on the ‘strength’ of their case! I should have confined myself to suggesting cohesiveness in language, phrases, brevity etc, to squeeze the case to comprehensively fit in the brief ‘time’ slot allotted to them while ‘meeting’ the political leaders. My very opening remarks were inadvertently very potential to brew trouble. I suffered a temporary loss of memory of the fact that politically inclined groups were a potential threat to common man anywhere, anytime, in our country!
I said “You farmers fail to learn lessons from the past! Sometime ago, multinationals had set up Cocoa factories in Kerala, and offered very tempting & lucrative amounts to switch over from traditional crops, and convert the cultivated lands into Cocoa plantations. Then, one fine morning, they moved their factories to ‘greener’ pastures. Farmers became penniless overnight. And this time, it is rubber”.
At once, a revolution was seen in the offing, and I became their lonely “Tsar”, remaining to be vanquished! I too felt a slight tremble inside me, like having stirred a hornet’s nest. The women folk of my family quietly stashed away the just-opened-ready-to-eat-snack-pack. Prepared now, for the ‘worst’! The leader turned to me and lashed out “You are quite ignorant of the basic principles of communism, its social benefits, protective outlook towards common man. Maybe you are fortunate to be slightly above poverty line, educated enough to slog under your capitalist bosses for a reasonably handsome assure-monthly-salary! (etc)”
I allowed a pause, to tone down the aggressive tendency and then told them, “Look, communism has failed even in countries which had adopted it, pursued it en-mass. You talk of basics. Yes, basics were adopted & propagated with errors. That is why it perhaps failed to ‘deliver’.”
When I stressed ‘basics’, the youngsters felt a little hesitant and paused. I didn’t wait. I continued—“Do you know where from this communism originated?” ……. “More than thousand years ago…?” I added. Now, they were stupefied. History wasn’t their cup of tea. All I needed to was to substantiate with irrefutable ‘logic’ to substitute a historic ‘evidence’.
“Not by the name ‘communism’. But the ‘basic’ principle, in a very sacred manner & with strict adherence” I said. By now, I had turned them into receptive listeners.
“The basic principle is that decision makers do not hold administrative powers, to avoid vested interests creeping into resultant corruption. That is what a Politburo is all about, isn’t it?”
The idea of ‘Power’ corrupts had an instant appeal. And now the reference to ‘corroborative’ historical evidence. “The ancient Rishis (ascetic spiritual persons engaged in penance) were your ‘Politburo’ members. Very intelligent, away from worldly desires, with meager possessions, and very much concerned about ‘common man’. They periodically visit the king at the latter’s request, counsel him on administrative matters, and leave for the recluse of forest to continue their penance. The King had no trouble implementing the ‘decisions’ by ‘politburo’ Rishis, quoting their wisdom, reassuring the subjects that the King was never an autocrat or dictator, but an obedient public servant, taking instructions from wise, meditative, saintly person whose integrity was proven beyond doubt. No wonder, the system of King as a ruler sustained for many centuries. It failed only when rishis became extinct! In today’s communism, the members of politburo are very much a part of the same society, and hence very much ever vulnerable to normal human weaknesses and temptations!”
We reached the station where I had to alight with my family.
To this day, I am not very sure as to what really helped me in extricating myself from a controversy—
The train reaching my destination or
The time taken by those youngsters to ‘digest’ the new angle of their basic concept or
The very ‘merits’ of the concept I had happened to put forth!
I now had invariably learned a lesson. Not to drift from a discussion into even a debate, for, a controversy is not far behind!