(WRITTEN FOR MY SON WHO IS OVERLY WORRIED ABOUT FUTURE)
It is easier to change your past than your future. In fact, you can only change your past. How can you change something that has not even happened yet ? Napolean changed the past of France but was powerless against its future. Gandhi changed India's past, Lincoln America's, Bismark Germany's and Lenin and a few others Russia's. The past of these countires no longer reads as it had done before these great men ( and women in some other cases) did what they did.
But future? They were all defeated . Bismark's Germany disintergrated and so did Lenin's Soviet Union. Is India today what Gandhi would have been proud of ? Racism is still an issue in Lincoln's America -- despite an Obama who won as much inspite of his being a non-White as because of it.
And Jinnah gave Pakistan a past it never had before him. But the Qaid-e-Azam may be turning in his grave looking at how his state has surrendered to obscurantism. And neither Gandhi nor Jinnah could even influence their personal future. Jinnah -- having started out as a genuine ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity -- ended up being the founder of a theocratic nation. Gandhi insisted on starting his morning discourses with Hindu prayers -- unitelligible to his Muslim admirers -- and yet is called the father of a (secular) nation.
Future is your dicey damsel who, no matter how attractive she be and how profoundly you love her, refuses to surrender to your grasp; your past is like your mother -- always there and always willing to change for your sake. Future is not even there to answer either your prayers or your commands. Past is always hanging there , available for reconstruction, reinterpretation and reinventing. Look what Shiv Batalvi did to Luna, changing her postion in our past . All great men have changed the past of their people, and only this change in the past has in some way been able to win the favours of future, persuading it change itself to fit more naturally into its past. If you succeed in life, you would also change the past of this country -- and may be the future of the planet, hopefully.
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8 comments:
Good piece of writing for our youngster's!Especially the part of the future as the dicey damsel and past as your mother!
....your writings are surely going to change my past..that is if that has not happened already.
I re interpret so much of my life using the simple yet brilliant insights that you share with us on this blog.
please do keep writing.
All the best
dear bains,
how can we change our past , like The Indian Rebellion of 1857, jallianwala bagh masacre,The Partition of India,(one of the 10 greatest tragedies in human history.)While Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League bear heavy responsibility - since they demanded and pressed for Pakistan - the Congress cannot escape blame. Least of all the hypocritical Sangh Parivar. Its chief mentor V.D. Savarkar formulated the two-nation theory in his essay Hindutva, published in 1923, 16 years before Jinnah came up with it,death of Ghandhi, three wars with pak. operation blue star,assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984,The 1984 anti-Sikh riots, also referred to as the Anti-Sikh pogroms or massacres of 1984, refers to a three-day eruption of violence, rioting, and crime against Sikhs , The 2002 Gujarat violence can you change such past events?
you can change past materialistic things by inventions research, reconstruction.
/devkaushal- hoshiarpur
If by changing the past, you think I meant bringing my dead grandfather back to life, then surely you have a point. But does my blog appear to hint that? Or is it speaking about changing the past in a more intrinsic and inherent way -- which is far more important than changing things. No, you can not change events that have already happened, nor can you bring dead back from their graves. What you can do is to change what these meanings and these people meant and stood for in history. Einstein once spoke of a cosmological constant. Good thing was that he himself lived to regret that. And I think you will recall T.S.Eliot talking about each new critic changing the exisitng monument of classics. Get it ?
please read "what you can do is to change what these events and these people meant and sottd for"
good wordplay... but what is someones past is more often than not, others future.
Jinnah not only gave Pakistan a past but also wrote a prequel to a future that will become an involuntary past for generations to come.
you sure can rewrite the past but only for future generations. You unfortunately dont rewrite past of your own.
Given a choice, will you be able to reinvent your past? undo what no longer catches your fancy?
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
Delighted and grateful. But honestly, you cannot change anyone's past if you cannot change your own. I have been doing it all my life, building and rebuilding and rebuilding my past with every new today. My first girl friend, for example, has been changing her visage everytime I have choose to shift my prism.She becomes a Goddess, a beloved, a friend, a sensuous passionate lover, a chaste inviolate lily , a daughter, a sister - in turns. Oh, what sparkling possibilities there are in one's past if only one had the illimitable urge and skill in re-inventing, reconstructing and even reorganising it.
And past can never be changed for furture generations -- Jinnah or no Jinnah -- because they will change it the way they want. you and i can change it only for ourselves and for each other and for each one of us. My past has laready been so completely transformed by this comment --your comment - even while I am not equally sure of how it will affect my future.
And wordplay! Ah, this whole panorama of thought and feeling has only one attire -- words. It does not of course need that attire to survive and enjoy itself, but this is the only only attire that makes the naked but transparent truth visible to your eye and mine. Said THE bard " A poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling , doth glance from earth to heaven ............ and gives to airy nothings? A local habitation and a name." All this word is a play and all its expression a wordplay -- in a certain sense.
And Pleasse tell me how to find you out, except in the way you ahve already been found out? No email or follow up link? Milton -- or one o his characters-- said, " I want audience, fit though few."
But agreed, it is not that simple. And in any case I would any day a fragile poet be rather than an argumentative philosopher. And about your comment and the depth in it, am I not grateful!
bains.bains@gmail.com
harcharan bains said...
CORRECTIONS
Delighted and grateful. But honestly, you cannot change anyone's past if you cannot change your own. I have been doing it all my life, building and rebuilding and rebuilding my past with every new today. My first girl friend, for example, has been changing her visage everytime I have chosen to shift my prism.She becomes a Goddess, a beloved, a friend, a sensuous passionate lover, a chaste inviolate lily , a daughter, a sister - in turns. Oh, what sparkling possibilities there are in one's past if only one had the illimitable imagination, urge and skill in re-inventing, reconstructing and even reorganising it.
And past can never be changed for future generations -- Jinnah or no Jinnah -- because these generations will change it the way they want. You and I can change it only for ourselves and for each other and for each one of us. My past, for example, has laready been so completely transformed by this comment --your comment - even while I am not equally sure of how it will affect my future.
And wordplay! Ah, this whole panorama of thought and feeling has only one attire -- words. It does not of course need that attire to survive and enjoy itself, but this is the only attire that makes the naked but transparent truth visible to your eye and mine. Said THE bard " A poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling / Doth glance from earth to heaven ............ / And gives to airy nothings/ A local habitation and a name." All this world is a play and all its expression a wordplay -- in a certain sense.
And Pleasse tell me how to find you out, except in the way you have already been found out? No email or follow up link? Milton -- or one of his characters-- said, " I want audience, fit though few."
But agreed, it is not that simple. And in any case I would any day a fragile poet be than an argumentative philosopher. And about your comment and the depth in it, am I not grateful!
bains.bains@gmail.com
January 20, 2010 11:00 PM
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