Absurdity of life

Its 5 o’clock in the morning. It’s been a couple of contemplating hours since I completed reading ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus. It contains a strong notion of Camus’s philosophical notion of absurdity. Just before ‘The Stranger’ I had finished ‘English August’. That too again advocated the meaninglessness of existence, through its protagonist Agastya Sen, an I.A.S. trainee having extreme lack of interest in his life as a civil servant, on a year long philosophical itinerary to discover himself, while detached from the worldly affairs around. Similarly the plot of ‘The Stranger’ swirls around Meursault, a man who is psychologically disconnected from the world around him. May be because I have read too much about absurdism these days or/and may be because semester exams are nearing and may be because I have little reasons to believe life holds something meaningful for me, the cynic in me is intensely engrossed.

Coming back to Meursault, Events like parent’s death, marriage proposal and death sentence which could be very crucial for others, do not matter to him on sentimental level. He is honest by not hiding his lack of emotional indifference. He implicitly challenges societies accepted moral standard which earns him a reputation of being an immoral character, a threat to society. In reality Meursault is neither moral nor immoral- he is just amoral. He is an atheist who simply does not makes the distinction between good and bad. Aside from his atheism he makes little assumption about the character of world. However when he is sentenced to death after a murder trial ( His emotional indifference to moral standards works against his case and he is sentenced to death for a murder done in self defense) his thinking began to broaden, in due course of events he concludes that the universe is just like him totally indifferent to human life. He decides that people's lives have no grand meaning or importance, and that their actions, their comings and goings, have no effect on the world. This realization is the culmination of all the events of the novel.

Few of the lines from the Novel reflecting the underline idea are-

1. “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.”

---Spoken by Meursault, these are the opening lines of the novel. They introduce his emotional indifference, one his most important character traits. He does not express any remorse upon learning of his mother's death; he merely reports the fact in a straightforward manner. He implies that it does not matter that his mother died at all. Here Camus introduces the idea of the meaninglessness of human existence, a theme that resounds throughout the novel.

2. “When she laughed I wanted her again. A moment later she asked me if I loved her. I said that sort of question had no meaning, really; but I supposed I didn’t.”

---With characteristic emotional indifference, Meursault answers Marie's question completely and honestly. Always blunt, he never alters what he says to be tactful or to conform to societal expectations. Meursault's assertion that love “didn't mean anything,” asserts his belief in the meaninglessness of human life.

3. “It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”

---These are the last lines of the novel. After being insisted to turn to God in the wake of his death sentence puts Meursault into a blind rage, he fully accepts the absurdist idea that the universe is indifferent to human affairs and that life lacks rational order and meaning. He realizes that the universe's indifference to human affairs echoes his own personal indifference to human affairs, and the similarity evokes a feeling of companionship in him that leads him to label the world “so brotherly.” He does not mind being a loathed criminal. He only wishes for companionship, “to feel less lonely.

Due to the effect of this feeling of absurdity, in which right now I am deeply convolved in, even a dazzling sunrise witnessed after months seems so forlorn. It is giving me the identical mournful solace which is a part of my daily evening’s schedule. I wonder how to spend the day, I know the gripped cynic in me is going to make this whole day miserable. I can figure out approximately how long this day is going to be, and unlike Meursault I have no silent companion to share my calm desolation and make me feel less lonely. I only wish this feeling will evaporate with the heat of the day as most of the optimist resolutions made in night for the next day are gone with the morning blues.

Small town boy

Today I read an awful chauvinism titled ‘’Small-town Boy” in editorial column of TOI by some bigot Ramakrishnan Sundaram. It proclaimed itself to be a discourse on rustic wisdom but happened to be a ‘prejudiced’ discourse on rustic wisdom. It started with a deliberate exaggerated perversion of a simple remark of Mahindra Singh Dhoni, accusing him to be an arrogant skipper fecklessly biased to his small town teammates and having a supercilious and scornful attitude for players displaying metro mores. Mr. Ramakrishnan considered it heavily disdainful of a small town chap trying to stay in touch with his small town roots by accessing news on it via electronic media. Mr. Ramakrishnan crosses the limits with the lines “Don’t be confused by the accent; thanks to his town’s engineering college, he was writing codes at back room in the bay area before the dot com bubble burst and he was benched again”. The writer feels compassion for those working in organization headed by a small Towner cause he believes the intelligent metro cultured worker their have to play a mediocre and have to abandon there dazzling ideas (ditched by the chief) and follow the mundane stratagem of the small town wits.

The article, altogether, is just another indifferent opinion of a snob for small town people. Or it may be the frustration of Mr. Ramakrishnan after some mere embarrassing incident with some particular guy from a small town but that does not entitle him to form a droopy outlook for all the small town guys based on few minor incidents. And what is more appalling is how an article in such a dire flavor was allowed by the editor to materialize in a newspaper of nationwide (including small towns) circulation and paramount influence. TOI is not like “Samana”, a space to scribe personal hatred of a chauvinist targeting a particular group. A newspaper like it cannot afford to reduce itself to be a channel for the flow of parochialisms.

And regarding you Mr. Ramakrishnan let me toss some light on your so called ‘wisdom’. Firstly you have no constitutional rights to tamper with the statements of celebrated personalities to serve your individual goals. Dhoni’s statement meant to provide prodding for new comers from small town facing the frenzy fan following and inevitable attention of global media. It was never like contrasting Sachin with Raina on the basis of their background.

Secondly, how can staying in touch with your roots be something one should be embarrassed about? It’s only cause of pig-headed persons like you that an average Indian feels no sense of National pride.

Thirdly, with regard to your haughty view on software professionals from small town let me tell you these are the people who have created a brand value of Indian professionals abroad. Mr. Ramakrishnan just find some time and visit few premier institutes of engineering like IITs and NITs and you will come to know the origin of the guys who are driving the cradle of technological leadership. And to add to your information database, Reliance one of India’s largest business organizations was founded by a small town boy from chorwad, Gujarat. And one of the leading business consultants, the mystic man, Ramcharan was once a small town lad. They are shinning example of small town boys making it big globally and more importantly they are not the few lonely examples but there is a whole legion of such Dheerubhais and Ramcharans.

And lastly Mr. Ramakrishnan I request you to ask your parents in which city were Ram and Krishna born. Or in case you are a non-believer (as you find it embarrassing to stick to one’s root) than at least search where were these religious characters emanated.

Hope you got it.