[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]
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 |
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 |
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]
[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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