The Lapwing: Who Does What To Whom
In the dead of night sometimes hear the lapwing calling, "Did he do it? Did he do it?" The plaintive cry often grows hysterical, ending in a series of shrill questions: "Did he? Did he? Did he?" Sometimes i feel like asking the bird, "Who did what to whom?" But that would only frighten away the little thing, which sports a black bib and a white waistcoat, and struts about on stilted togs too big, under a gibbous moon. Such questions are better aimed at this newspaper, which arrives every morning under my door with an inviting swish. Then i can indulge my insatiable urge to find out all about who did what to whom, when and where and how. But would that resolve the enigma of the lapwing? Why does it cry at that unearthly hour?If you asked my mother, she would refer you to the Panchatantra. "Once upon a time, the lapwings laid their eggs in a hollow by the sea, which promptly washed them away during high tide. When their cries, 'Did he do it?' brought no response from the sea-which only shivered like a sheet of silver scales under a brooding sky-the birds grew enraged and vowed to empty the ocean in a series of sips. They've been trying ever since and they cry because they have still to succeed." Poor little lapwing! Medieval Indian tradition uses its allegory to caution against futility. Emptying the ocean with a series of bird-sips belongs to that category of unwise enterprise that includes catching your own shadow. Although such tasks seem destined for failure, they also seem to be imbued with a hopelessly romantic, Promethean spirit. Which explains why in mythic imagination mere mortals are able to not only drink up the sea but pee it out too: Sage Agastya swallows the originally sweet ocean in one enormous gulp and lets it out as brine. Agastya is also credited with having grounded the mountains by clipping their wings. In humankind's dreamtime, mountains used to fly around at will like airborne fortresses from Star Wars. Then came the sage with his knowledge systems and grammar and the rest became history, literally. The story however takes a sly swipe at conventional knowledge, under whose auspices mountains are ground to dust, and our originally wayward and whimsical natures are made to fit the Procrustean bed of social order and convention. Which is when you need a subversive sage like Bernard Shaw who says, "You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?'i dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?"" Does that smack of Shavian pamphleteering and demagoguery? Not when freedorexpression, the right to ask 'imp or disallowed questions and free existence itself, are at stake. Thagreat papers and grand paupersLao-Tzu would defend to death: 1condemnation of conventional csuperficial cleverness does notsfrom an attempt to reduce the humind to a conformist vacuity; raoriginates from an impulse to unour innate and spontaneous intelligence, to enable the swalloof the universe itself in a series scoops or takes, day after radiating such a scheme, thelapwinis simply a cri de cœur. It throbsinstinctive spontaneity, callingperhaps for a midnight tryst in tmoonlight. I like to think of it asechoingwhat a southern sage orsaid: "When you're up to your w alligators, it's difficult to remingyourself that your initial objectto drain the swamp (or the sea)
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Vithal C Nadkarni kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy : Vithal C Nadkarni Speaking Tree,Times of India
The Lapwing: Who Does What To Whom
In the dead of night sometimes hear the lapwing calling, "Did he do it? Did he do it?" The plaintive cry often grows hysterical, ending in a series of shrill questions: "Did he? Did he? Did he?" Sometimes i feel like asking the bird, "Who did what to whom?" But that would only frighten away the little thing, which sports a black bib and a white waistcoat, and struts about on stilted togs too big, under a gibbous moon. Such questions are better aimed at this newspaper, which arrives every morning under my door with an inviting swish. Then i can indulge my insatiable urge to find out all about who did what to whom, when and where and how. But would that resolve the enigma of the lapwing? Why does it cry at that unearthly hour?If you asked my mother, she would refer you to the Panchatantra. "Once upon a time, the lapwings laid their eggs in a hollow by the sea, which promptly washed them away during high tide. When their cries, 'Did he do it?' brought no response from the sea-which only shivered like a sheet of silver scales under a brooding sky-the birds grew enraged and vowed to empty the ocean in a series of sips. They've been trying ever since and they cry because they have still to succeed." Poor little lapwing! Medieval Indian tradition uses its allegory to caution against futility. Emptying the ocean with a series of bird-sips belongs to that category of unwise enterprise that includes catching your own shadow. Although such tasks seem destined for failure, they also seem to be imbued with a hopelessly romantic, Promethean spirit. Which explains why in mythic imagination mere mortals are able to not only drink up the sea but pee it out too: Sage Agastya swallows the originally sweet ocean in one enormous gulp and lets it out as brine. Agastya is also credited with having grounded the mountains by clipping their wings. In humankind's dreamtime, mountains used to fly around at will like airborne fortresses from Star Wars. Then came the sage with his knowledge systems and grammar and the rest became history, literally. The story however takes a sly swipe at conventional knowledge, under whose auspices mountains are ground to dust, and our originally wayward and whimsical natures are made to fit the Procrustean bed of social order and convention. Which is when you need a subversive sage like Bernard Shaw who says, "You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?'i dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?"" Does that smack of Shavian pamphleteering and demagoguery? Not when freedorexpression, the right to ask 'imp or disallowed questions and free existence itself, are at stake. Thagreat papers and grand paupersLao-Tzu would defend to death: 1condemnation of conventional csuperficial cleverness does notsfrom an attempt to reduce the humind to a conformist vacuity; raoriginates from an impulse to unour innate and spontaneous intelligence, to enable the swalloof the universe itself in a series scoops or takes, day after radiating such a scheme, thelapwinis simply a cri de cœur. It throbsinstinctive spontaneity, callingperhaps for a midnight tryst in tmoonlight. I like to think of it asechoingwhat a southern sage orsaid: "When you're up to your w alligators, it's difficult to remingyourself that your initial objectto drain the swamp (or the sea)
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed in the Article above are Vithal C Nadkarni kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it.
Courtesy : Vithal C Nadkarni Speaking Tree,Times of India