“Argumentum Orinthologicum”: Birds at IIHMR University

Grey Hornbill

“Argumentum Orinthologicum”[1]

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[1] The title is inspired from a short tale by Jorge Luis Borges “Argumentum Orinthologicum”. https://www.christopherculver.com/translations/ornithologicum.html. The narrative plot of the short piece takes its cues and draws on select passages from the great Sufi treatise- The Conference of the Birds (Manteq at-Tair) the best-known work of Farid ud-Din Attar, a Persian poet who was born at some time during the twelfth century in Neishapour (where Omar Khayyam had also been born), in north-east Iran, and died in the same city early in the thirteenth century. His name, Attar, is a form of the word from which we get the ‘attar’ of ‘attar of roses’ and it indicates a perfume seller or druggist. Attar wrote that he composed his poems in his daru-khané, a word which in modern Persian means a chemist’s shop or drug-store. http://www.sufism.ir/books/download/english/attar-en/bird-parliament-en.pdf

 

 

Winters are here! Slowly slinking in, the flower laden gracious cluster of  kachnar trees, the link between the steadfast earth and the rolling skies, welcomes you daily with a fresh carpeting of their fallen flowers, tender light green sepals and shining luminous petals that have so many hues of pink. This is an important ‘hotspot’ for the angelic winged boarders and us lesser mortals. One of the sought after perches, this gently sloping bridge over the culvert is a site of reveries, daydreaming, prognostications and musings. This cluster is the oldest among kachnar plantations, so told Ram Karan, whose team had maintained for years, these sloping courtyards of green lawns with their rows of kachnar and neem tress.

Just the other day upon my return from the morning walk took a detour to reach the place. I was greeted by the soft chirping of sunbirds and the promising company of a group of yellow legged green pigeons perched at the top waiting for the first beams of sunlight.

 Whether they are the deep inverted meaning of a zen koan or an ingenious Persian pun, or even a soul stirring sufi melody, these mystical traditions gently coax you to a way of understanding moving reality, complex and elusive. They open a pathway that has at its core, diffractive logics, non- linearity and intrinsic indeterminacy of phenomenon.

Once upon a time

“THE BIRDS, of all Note, Plumage, and Degree,

Birds of all Natures, known or not to Man,

Flock'd from all Quarters into full Divan,

On no less solemn business than to find

Or choose, a Sultan Khalif of their kind,”

(Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of Birds)

One of the pressing reasons why these birds assemble is because they feel every other creature worth the name has their leader, king, chief, and what have you. The leader is presented as an essential prerequisite to a worthy and fulfilled life.  And soon there flowed a plethora of argumenta ranging from “…ad antiquitatem (the argument to legacy or tradition), plenty of ad hominem (argument directed at the preferred person), ad populum (argument or appeal to the public)…” and much like the human world, the avian world too had its share of “…ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance).”[2]

[2] http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/logical%20fallacies.htm

The avian diversity of the micro ecosystem of the IIHMR University becomes its vivacious best as the winters set in. Wagtails, silverbills and redstarts, join the resident rufous tree pies, magpies, shikras and the squads of partridges, lapwings and pigeons.

Their ballistics and deft movements, be it the proud strutting of partridges or bold yet watchful steps of lapwings or catwalks of flamboyant parrots showing off their splendid plumage, this intense avian traffic embeds its imprints on terra firma of  IIHMR.  The rustlings of metallic flute like interludes of rufous tree pies that punctuate the silence or the melodious liquid notes of an orator magpie, nasal cheers of tiny arboreal passerine sun birds and oriental white eyes, shrill shrieking calls of young shikras, the clucking of pompous partridges and many other sounds not easily heard by us mortal men imbue the built environment of the IIHMR University with their aromatic and harmonious sonic ecology.

morning droppings from the
kachnar tree, IIHMR jaipur

This fragrance that induces its intoxicating trance engulfs you to create a very effective ‘bracketing’, in the phenomenological sense that allows us to suspend our judgment of the natural world,  of our Cartesian cogito apparatuses that are so busy processing the usual cacophony of meanings, of perceptions and proclaimed ‘truths’.   The cerebral certitudes dissolve to give way to a serene feeling of stillness that so evocatively demonstrates the ontological inseparability of intra-acting agencies. That any materialization of specific phenomenon only resolves this indeterminacy partially is a realization that lies at the core of quantum physics. As Karen Barad, biographer of Niels Bohr and professor of philosophy, feminist studies and history of consciousness argues, “…nothingness is not absence, but the infinite plentitude of openness.”

Perhaps we should let emptiness speak for itself. Musing on such questions of infinity, justice and freedom I got off to get back to the D Block quarters to get ready for another day.

Hoopoe

On returning to the housing quarters I encounter a Hoopoe. The same familiar sight with its spectacular crest lowered and forming a spike of

feathers. Its inquisitive glances and leisurely gait wheedle you for delving deeper into the phenomenon of mattering.  

In Attar’s magical tale the Hoopoe finally tells the assembled thirty birds who have undertaken the painful journey in search of the Simurgh, the king of birds, realize finally that they themselves—being si murgh, "thirty birds"—are the Simurgh. This is the most ingenious pun in Persian literature, expressing so marvelously the experience of the identity of the soul with the divine essence, of  self and  leader.

The ‘chronotope’ (intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships) of the robust built environment of the IIHMR University has in its bosom layers of meanings. The original ones, soaked in frugal and rustic life practices, being crafted by the harsh sand strewn and water scarce landscape of Churu and assiduous academic routines followed at no less a place than the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore of the John Hopkins University got bolstered by dexterously produced fortunes of capital far away in Kolkatta. 

This prodigal reservoir of non- human eco system engages with rapid surfeit of logical fallacies of argumentation to unveil the rational ontological categories of time, space, and subjectivity in order to  ascertain the omniscience and moral finitude of the quest for a leader who would propel the humanscape into a higher synchronization.

The calm solicitation to ‘logical reason’ of argumentum orinthologicum is not towards an exterior representational logic, as in varieties of objectivism or constructionism but rather an interiorized sublimation, an inducement to consummation of self. Mysticism and its routines apart, at an everyday level, it propels you towards tempering an academic destiny that could rightfully aspire to a galactic status. The experiential symbol of birds and their flight has long been seen as a pliant and dynamic ascension to a higher order of reality. 

The endeavor of seeking and producing knowledge assumes a human dimension that has a ring of esotericism and is pragmatic in the fullest sense of the term.

Finally it would not be out of place to remember the words of the great Persian sufi master Farid-ud-din Attar that envelope you. 

Purple Sun Bird

“But while you live

You blithely acquiesce in smug comfort

Abandon such self-love

And you will see The Way that leads to Reality”. [3]

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[3] Attar’s travels seem to have been undertaken more in the pursuit of knowledge than patronage; he boasted that he had never sought a king’s favour or stooped to writing a panegyric (this alone would make him worthy of note among Persian poets). Though The Conference of the Birds is about the search for an idea, spiritual king, Attar obviously had a low opinion of most earthly rulers; he usually presents their behaviour as capricious and cruel, and at one point in the poem he specifically says it is best to have nothing to do with them.

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Of enticing overtures and ecstatic renditions: folk musicians communities in Thar, Rajasthan

Ustad Hakam Khan ji, Barmer 

The desert districts of Rajasthan have been well known for their vibrant folk music traditions. Musicians from here were among the first to give scintillating performances in ensembles of national and international cultural festivals organised by the Indian nation state especially after the seventies. Contemporary community traditions popular among folk musicians from the deserts of western Rajasthan  recount with pride names of Allah Jilai Bai, Dodhe Khan, Sadiq Khan, Bhungar Khan, to name a few pioneering artists, around whose performances a distinct identity of ‘Rajasthani folk music’ grew in India and abroad. In the initial heydays of construction of ‘national culture’ by the young Indian state, these musicians from remote rustic interiors of Thar were much sought after ‘culture makers’ of scintillating performances.

Over the last few decades this quaint and rustic representation of ‘Rajasthani folk music’ has transmuted into a veritable trope of brand ‘Rajasthan’ being represented in different forms and patterns by public and private actors. Although only a handful of musicians from these communities are now regulars on national and international festivals, tours and cultural exchange circuits of different genres of ‘world music’, this has contributed to the much hyped visibility of folk musicians. Without doubt singers and musicians like Anwar Khan, Fakira Khan, Mukhtiyar Ali, to name a few prominent ones have really contributed in continuing to make sufi music known world over. In our contemporary times of short lived stardom and a crowding of the sufi genre by performers who are urbanites, these folk sufi performers they have managed to carve out dignified niches of existence.  In public gaze this has fed a misconception about these communities having good fortune in this culture industry that continues to expand and diversify around brand Rajasthan.

The production of culture industry incessantly expands its influence becoming widespread with many Indian and foreign labels fervently producing ‘haunting’, ‘seductive’, ‘melodic’, ‘lilting’, ‘soul stirring’ folk music from the deserts of Thar, Rajasthan.  This is not to mention Bollywood film music that has with uncanny consistency transmogrified this pristine music into mass entertainment. Latest to join the on- going glitter of this culture industry are mega live music events amidst sand dunes, recreating the royal heritage, organised in collusion by media syndicates, local tourism lobby and regional elites. The folk musicians are paraded endlessly to adorn the gatherings of culture elite, fairs and festivals in Rajasthan. Folk music interludes are a quintessential feature in tour and travel packages for foreign and domestic tourists. The enticing overtures and soul stirring renditions of these musicians are ceaselessly marketed globally and locally by music industry- tourism complex.

Underneath this scintillating and loud sonic extravaganza of folk music lies a sordid story of languishing traditions, pathos and destitution that characterises lives of majority of these marginal practitioners of culture. Engulfed by these existential dilemmas regarding dignified continuation of their music traditions, these musician communities find themselves at cross roads. With the waning away of traditional societal contexts of hereditary transmission of these traditions, the twin spectre of crass commercialization leading to dissipation of their musical traditions and dwindling opportunities for sustained livelihood looms large over them.

In the contemporary context where issues of everyday existence, dignified arts practice of these musician communities continue to escape public discourse with unceasing monotony are their strategies and processes possible that contribute to well- being of these musician communities?

Of enticing overtures and ecstatic renditions seeks to draw attention to issues of pathos and destitution that paradoxically engulf the lives of musician communities whose music is the harbinger of peace, serenity and soulful ecstasy.

These musician communities have been subjects of ethnography, tour diaries and memoirs. Ethnomusicologists have engaged with these musicians whose music has been subject of much study, documentation, archiving and survey for the last three decades, if not more. This ‘western quest’ of ethnomusicology originating from universities in UK or USA has contributed a systematic body of ethno-musicological literature / archive. The rich collection / archive of folklore and ethno musicological inquiries have engaged with some of these communities and their selective repertoire over the last few decades. While not discounting the value of the repertoire collected or insights regarding music in society it could be safely said that it has mostly refrained from engaging with challenges of lived everyday context of these makers of the music.

It has been correctly observed that the tourists and visitor are not very different from ethnomusicologists. They both share the fascination for the unique and spectacular elements. This is much to the neglect of the material context of these musicians. The emphasis has been on the music, as it is consumed, not on the musicians. Another emergent trend is the individual ‘creativity unplugged’, ‘soul searching’ kind of creative arts practice that subordinates folk community creativities as subservient to its own exalted aesthetic feats. The climax of this celebration of ‘creativity outside the folk sphere’ is most glaringly seen in Bollywood, the industry processing folk music into mass entertainment.

The irony implicit in these promises of job creation is that these do little to alter basic existential realities of these musicians, that of being integrated largely as casual wage earners at the bottom of the culture industry. With the expansion of techno aesthetics of culture industry networks especially in the last decade, both in density and spread, employment generation based on folk music thrives on casual payment contracts, many times unspecified and assuaged by neo feudal hegemony. In such a context there is little hope to be pinned on culture industry,  in its current dispensation, in liberating these folk musicians from drudgeries of daily survival in an ‘economy of tragic choices’.

Instead of getting mystified by a cultural aesthetic that seeks to assuage the sentimental narrative of bemoaning the loss of traditions or becoming bewitched by glittering gismo of unbridled commercialization making community folk aesthetic completely subservient to the whims of ephemeral modern entertainment, or even the individual quest of soul searching creativity of urban professional artists, it is important to invest in human resources and cultural skills of these unique producers of veritable civilizational intangible heritage.

Mir Abdul Jabbar and Mir Vassu Khan, Bikaner

One possible way is to strengthen the resilience and inventiveness of cultural traditions by taking account of skilful and refined "interweaving, combining and conjoining" that is the continuing hallmarks of these robust ‘traditions under siege’ in the modern world. Traditional cultural traditions need to be recognised as veritable skills having the potential of translating into viable livelihood strategies. The versatile ability displayed by many of these musicians to straddle effortlessly across different repertoires and indeed different performative contexts exemplifies innovation that springs from frugal resources. It is important that this be not recognized as individual ‘talent’ alone, rather seen as embedded in collective core of these traditions. It is this that needs to be nurtured.