Editorial Roundups

Bedraggled sheaf of newspaper welcomed me. Right under the frond, the unkempt pages were floating on the little puddle made by the morning rain. It indeed was exasperating to know that despite my several earnest pleading the delivery boy recidivated to his ineluctable wont and threw the newspaper with total disregard of where it might land. Just like the Mars Polar Lander my newspaper was also air borne without any proper telemetric guidance and ended with inevitable splash. Comparing the morning paper with Mars Lander may be too farfetched, but the consolation is at least I knew it isn’t lost.

Stooping down, I put the morning groceries into the side and proceeded to salvage the copy. The front page was lying prone to the surface which itself was reflecting the soothing sunlight in the form of variegated spectrum. I remembered the wave-optics lecture of the high-school where we were told Interference due to Reflection was cause for this. In simpler words wavelength emanating from one point source is nullified by another coherent point source with 180 degree phase shift in effect accentuating one of the seven colors that falls under visible spectrum. Tilting my head side by side the color itself came to life showing disparity among their distribution, reinforcing the idea of the ubiquity of transience. Under their motley spell perceptibility of my cones on the retina too fluctuated. And this discrepant information channeled through my optic nerve, stimulated the cerebral cortex in producing sense of vertigo. Gentle sway of the wind brought me back and assuaged my irritation.

Torpidly I picked up the paper. The front page was completely wallowed in the mud. Like thick glue the pages were sticking together. Carefully I tried to purge the silt way. Despite my scrupulous endeavor I could not help but watch it abrade. Like cookie that crumbles because of moisture, it also made a rent and finally yielded into plethora of parings. The front page and few following pages with daily tidings were lost. There was no way to dovetail them back it was a foregone conclusion. Any attempt to do so would violate second law of thermodynamics.

Grabbing the dross of editorial page I headed to my room. Nobody was up yet. I reclined on the couch and triggered the clicker. The TV screen, because of the latency required for the instigation of Thermionic emission inside the picture tube, remained blank for few seconds. Apparently violating the notion light travels fastest, the sound came first followed by vision. The sound was very incoherent and slowly the blurring screen explained the reason behind it. The ESPN after broadcasting Masters was now playing the clips of Extreme Sports. One guy on rollerblade was trying to mimic Evil Knievel and was performing katabatic leap from sloping inclined planes. The shear thrill of adventure flashed on his face. Without caring whether he made perfect 10 or splash like my newspaper did, I flicked the channel.

The screen then beamed with gorgeous, blue eyed blonde Daria Werbowi. With her sultry looks she was strutting around the ramp of some designer along with passel of super models. As old Seinfeld joke goes, thanks to FTV even fashion unconscious person like me have become able appreciate the talent of conjuring up all these beautiful girls in one single place. Many have certain misgivings regarding the broadcasting of this particular channel. They say it is too scurrilous for our tradition. They say it is destroying the very foundation of our culture. Like termites it is eating away every thing that we hold dear. Watching it amounts to reprobation of highest degree. But in today’s postmodernist world who can resist the temptation of deconstructing the moral premises in the name of progress. This is the debate with no clear winner and my own personal attempt to syncretize both views have fallen hard and fallen flat. I personally think that like every thing nothing is immutable. We have to adapt with changing times and if we don’t the stream of river that we called time may dump us to some unmarked shore and we may be lost too oblivion. So there is no room for intransigence, somehow our culture and tradition has to be resilient enough to subsume modern progress and the excess baggage that comes along. “Reconciliation is the key”. The idea came as epiphany to my head.

My eyes shifted from TV to the vestige of pages that were once part of great morning paper. Involuntarily my fingers kept pressing on the remote and thus bringing wide array of sound bites and flickers on the screen. The sound bites varied from usual kitsch of Hindi movie songs, screeches of Meerkats, solemnity of Yoga, Led Zepplines lead guitar, Anderson Cooper’s reporting, Indian Cricket team’s analysis, Pedantic news from Nepal TV and of course Teletubbies saying oh-oh. Everything together brought forth the amalgam of pastiche and cultivated into intermittent “Boum” like sound something like which had echoed inside Mrs. Moores head in Passage to India. Well sounds bites were trying to reconcile but before they could I turn down the volume.

Cursory glance on the editorial page skimmed through articles pertaining the politics and economic upheaval of Nepal. There were few articles on Nepali tinsel town and Friday night parties in the capital. Disinterestedly, I descried the article by new and upcoming Nepali novelist Snajeeb Uprety. His new novel “Ghanchakar” is in vogue right now though I haven’t read it yet. He was continuing his series of articles on “Post-Modernism” and its impact on Nepal. Postmodernism has recently been buzz word among erudite in Kathmandu. In every few days there are essays and testimonials propping up in every newspapers and magazines regarding the subject. Scholars are arguing whether we should embrace Postmodernism or not. For me this discussion seems extremely irrelevant, as in 21st century we are still arguing on some ridiculous topic. We human beings have fascination of categorizing every thing and this penchant is the cause for dividing human epoch into various parts. Post-modernism means anything goes isn’t it so why do we have to categorize? Can’t we let things as they are and appreciate the beauty of it? But this assertion of nonchalance towards categorization is of course Ipse Dixitism. It cannot be achieved.

Personally, having been living in the country with resources of pre-modern world and ideology of post modern world I myself have been vacillating to reconcile where I stand. From dawn to dusk I am being bombarded with images of outside world from MTV to Aljazeera , Facebook to Instant Messaging and hapless condition of my own country, like long queues for fuel, street protest and portending unrest. I feel like the modern day Theseus in Vector Pelvin’s Helmet of Horror, lost in labyrinth of modern preoccupation, trying to figure out where Minotaur dwells, slay him and make out some meaning. Alas it seems I am turning into the ‘victimary thinking’ of Post Modernism and no meaning but nihilism appears in sight. Only if there is God to guide my way. But what if God is dead like spoken by Zarathustra. But my own spiritual healing contradicts that. What if god is not dead what if he doesn’t want to be discovered? Another bolt of epiphany and reconciliation again appeared in the offing. Realizing something cannot be answered makes you humble and essence beauty lies within it. Again isn’t that called Performatism which is progeny of post-modernism itself? I have had it with these new schools of thoughts. Without prolonging further disquisitions on my mind I threw the paper away didn’t even bothered to read the whole article.

I leapt up from couch and repaired to window, the sun was shinning, it was around 8:30 in the morning. The water droplets were disappearing by attaining enough enthalpy for vaporization. And line from Pippa Passes came to me -“God’s in his heaven, All’s right with the world”. This positive line was really reconciliatory.