Whether History Makes any Sense?

History is a favorite subject of many students including me. What history signifies if I wonder? It is not more than memory or time whose reality is fathomed through imaginative zeal. Many social scientists love archeology to excavate the truth in its marginal existence without relating it to the grandiosity of teleological imagination. And most of the historians chose few key words and exclude many others to create a thread of narratives which become a part of curriculum for the younger minds so that they may feel connected to its past, whether glorious or a matter of shame. In the end, to say, that history is not found or discovered but created is not an untrue statement. History is discursive like many of our sciences are, as hegemonic as medical science in form of Allopathy, which doesn't allow the marginal voices of medicine, in fact, most of them are silenced through myticalization as if one form of science has all the rights to subjugate others through otherization.

Past centuries have been the age of history. I mean, look at the historians across all the genres; be it sciences, social sciences, economics, or philosophy, history dominated the discourse of 18th and 19th century of Europe. To start with Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, Foucault to the historian of science like Thomas Kuhn, each of them loved history, though named it differently like archeology, genealogy and what not.

History is used as a technique to build the narratives of civilization. Many people prefer history as a teacher, which demonstrates the mistakes we committed in past so as to learn the lessons not to repeat it. Many like history to repair the state of helplessness exists in contemporary moments. History gives a sigh of relief that one was so glorious and wonderful once upon a time, and it awakens the possibility of future as glorious as past. But this sense of nostalgia robs the ecstasy of the moments happening now. Patanjali once wrote that to increase the mindfulness one needs to focus one work at a time. In our age, we want to be robotic but in fact lags behind machines in its efficiency. We all love wandering in past and future but do not like the present and its momentariness. In reality, past is dead and restored in memory. Future is all about imagination. It simply doesn't exist. And what exits is less cared for!

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Meeting Justice Rohinton Nariman in a Sunday Morning

Aristotle once wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are four significant virtues for human beings, namely Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. There are a few judges who have courage and sense of justice, both. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rohinton Nariman has been truly an exemplar judge and erudite historian, theologian and philologist, a great scholar of music as well as a courageous and meticulous jurist of our country. He did his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1980-81 and taught by one of the finest jurists of the last century, Roberto Unger. He became Senior Advocate in 1993 in the age of 37 and also served as Solicitor General of India in 2011 before he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2014. He delivered many landmark judgments, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. There are a few people with whom time moves too fast, but to count that experience takes ages. Justice Rohinton Nariman is one of those great jurists with whom a meet...

Feminine Mystery

Portrait Courtesy: Shraddha One day when 'I' die All would born as free life The long struggle to be Would turn out to be a mirage Whose mystery is long known But forgotten Every concern or engagement Is an escape to forget The first germ of life; its completeness Shackles are nowhere But imagined as real One day that image would disappear And a blank sheet would represent The Being and Nothingness My mother my light Has merged into the shadow To witness the geist Glittering in every particle All around ether One day when I laugh On the seriousness of playfulness And let the things flow Without any expectation or resistance The day would be a new dawn To the spirit of wholeness And unity of phenomenon Fragmented in an age of reason And anarchus egoism of individuals One day the expression of collective Would loose its relevance When man would realise The silent spirit And its feminine mys...

पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का

पढ़ता हूँ हर एक दिन एक ही पन्ना, हर दिन हज़ार ये मालूम पड़ते हैं। जबसे होश संभाला है एक ही पन्ना सवांरते आया हूँ, लोग इसे ज़िन्दगी कहते हैं। इसपे लिखे हर एक लब्ज़ जो मेरे मालूम पड़ते हैं, ना जाने कितने जुबां पे चढ़े होंगे। आज हम भी कुछ पल के लिए ही सही इसके सारथी हैं, जाने से पहले कुछ रंग मेरा भी इसपे चढ़ जाए, बस इसीलिए एक ही पन्ना बार बार पलटता रहता हूँ। हर कोई अनजाने किताब की तलाश में बाहर निकलता है, जिसका हर एक पन्ना वो ख़ुद है। जब ख़ुद के रंग को समझ ही ना पाया, तो भला इंद्रधनुषी किताब के क्या मायने हैं? अस्तित्व में ना जाने कितने पन्ने बिखरे पड़े हैं, बस एक से ही अवगत हो जाऊँ, उसके हर एक शब्द को चुनता जाऊँ, कुछ पल के लिये सही, पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का।

BEING AND BECOMING

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