You’re standing beyond the reaches of my song…

That’s what the great maestro ruefully sung. His intense urge to unite with the Infinite has found expression in song after song. The union has sometimes seemed almost complete, sometimes impossible…but the appeal never stopped. Ironically enough, while composing such songs, the poet had ended up creating another order of that Infinite. And today, on his sesquicentennial anniversary, we, the lesser mortals have found for ourselves the definition of that Infinite: it’s the Poet himself! Every composition, how insignificant it may be, aspires to attain to that order of the Soulful Infinite. Tagore, for us, has turned into that Shelleyan skylark, the symbol of uncontaminated joy and unpremeditated art, albeit his sweetest songs tell of our saddest thoughts, they have all reached that unreachable: a perpetually flowing river of happiness, where we all stand, wishing to realize that Infinity in our humble attempts at giving expression to life! The craving to merge with the poet would be and has always been a life-long quest for all of us…a quest which is never-ending, but, certainly, worth pursuing.

From Che to Mickey Mouse: Everyday Signs of American Imperialism

Today while reading a light-hearted article on how Mickey Mouse images abound everywhere, from the walls of parks to advertisement hoardings in Kolkata, I suddenly realised that the same is also true of Che, or Ernest Guevara, who, in the past few years, has become the most favourite T-shirt graphic. These ‘Che’ T-shirts have become somewhat ubiquitous, although teenagers sporting these are seldom aware as to why the man really deserves to be inscribed close to their hearts. Brought into fashion by an American company, these ‘Che’ T-shirts have now flooded the market, having been infinitely reproduced by local companies, and being available at an exceptionally cheap rate. It’s difficult not to spot one ‘Che’ T-shirt on the streets of Kolkata on any given day, as it is difficult not to spot a Mickey Mouse featuring on everyday objects. In fact, both Che T-shirts and the Disney cartoon have become so commonplace that we hardly notice them as staring out of T-shirts or even from bath towels or pillow covers. Yet, if both these figures are remarkably oppositional in the discourses they remind us of.

Although ‘Che’ is more often than not worn for he has a marvellously handsome face which may easily pass as a rock-star’s, his face recalls for many his unyielding struggle against American imperialism in Cuba, Congo or Bolivia, where he died fighting the monster, single-handedly. His very demeanour, the tales surrounding his political career as a revolutionist have gone into the making of a romantic image in the popular imagination, the romantic face of socialist revolution. On the other hand, this apparently innocent Mickey Mouse who enters our classrooms and our moments of fancy has undergone several mutations in its representation, every time cunningly adjusting itself to the changing cultural climates, always keeping intact the supremacy of the United States of America and propagating its invulnerability in the face of the apparently insurmountable economic or political challenges. For instance, the comic strips of the Mickey Mouse and the Three Little Pigs acted as appropriate symbols for the Americans during the Great Depression: these characters epitomized courageous optimism at the time of great crisis. Again, during World War II, particularly during the Holocaust, Mickey Mouse was used to damn Hitler. After the war, the Mouse became the policeman to the world; as a comic he was replaced by Donald Duck who appropriately turned into an apogee of the age of capitalism. The commonest critique of Walt Disney cartoons holds that he promulgates an American way of life as the only possible way of life. Any culturally conscious person should be able to recognize that my interpretation of the Mickey Mouse comic strips is nothing original, but a mere reiteration of what appeared in the hugely famous book How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, two Latin American writers. This book was banned in the United States, for it tellingly deconstructed the cultural function of the Disney comics.

While it’s therefore understandable why Mickey Mouse-s abound everywhere, it may be a little baffling to read the abundance of ‘Che’ T-shirts on the same lines. But it should not be so. For, the most popular face rivalling the neo-imperialist must also be repeated infinitely and anxiously. The neo-imperialist is smart enough to acknowledge his enemies, for in the tales of their defeat are contained stories of his own sustenance. The discourse of imperialism can never be unidirectional: the subject of imperialism is as much responsible in shaping the discourse. Every time, the ‘Che’ image is repeated, the imperialist’s ego is gratified. It also constantly reminds the imperialist that his project is not without contest, and therefore, it needs to be always watchful of threatening elements. May be the ‘Che’ T-shirt on a South Asian teenager who is at the receiving end of American imperialism may still resonate with a different meaning altogether! But, who actually cares?

Culinary Chores

My culinary expertise, I believe, has been transmitted to me through my genes, for my Mom is a great cook and so was my Grand-mom! Now that’s nothing new, for everybody feels that they have behind them an interminably long ancestry of cooking proficiency…specially boys who never really stop comparing their moms’ kitchen skilfulness to their wives’ cookery callousness, and no matter, how well their wives cook, they cannot really extricate themselves from this Oedipal Gustatory Complex! But, the wives never question their husbands’ sloppiness in cooking, and continue to bear the burden of inferiority all through their lives, although with ear-splitting protests. The question, they should ask their husbands at the very outset is that, instead of being so sadly nostalgic about their mom’s culinary potentials, why didn’t they, anticipating such cooking catastrophe, had not already learnt from their mom’s the trade secret? For, culinary expertise is also very well transmitted through genes, and it surely does not have gender bias! So, the mother can very well continue to live on in the son, and the poor wife may be spared of her kitchen duties, and relax!

However, I have no such problems, for I am happily single, till date! Yet, I have of late, began to exercise my cooking skills, much to the surprise of my mom, who is rather disconcerted that her monopoly over the kitchen is being considerably usurped. Every time I decide to cook something, my mother goes out of her way to help me with the paraphernalia of chopping and cutting vegetables, pasting spices and arranging the utensils, everything! Therefore, the credit of cooking a dish does not wholly goes to me! A strange battle is fought on the kitchen table, a battle which my Mom does not realise she is actually fighting. I have never pointed that out to her, and I shall never…for, I completely understand that the only space which she can claim to be her own (like countless other women of her country) is perhaps the kitchen. That does not mean that the other spaces are not available to her; but she is most surely the master of this particular space of the house. Hence her involvement. Of course, she does have other concerns that I might cut myself or burn my fingers…but nonetheless, I can feel her anxiety!

But I am an awfully lazy person! I would have barely braved the kitchen so frequently, had not there been a tech-revolution. My new enthusiasm in cooking solely rests on the Microwave which has invaded and colonized our kitchen a few months back. Although, I boast of carrying forward excellent cookery genes to make my entire maternal ancestry proud (for my paternal grandmother is anything but a cook), it is the Microwave and its several heat-adjusting buttons which really create the magic. A Sanjeev Kapoor recipe book remains open on my table from the very beginning to the end, and I follow each step rather punctiliously. And, what emerges out of the oven is generally edible. This, in fact, has become my favourite pastime of late, for the Microwave never-endingly fascinates me with its computerized culinary adroitness. Yet, at the end of every cooking expedition, I do feel a little morose, although the taste may be quite appealing to the gustatory sensations. The cause is something else: it’s like feeling objectified by the very object I have tried to create. Sounds complex? This is because the Microwave seems to smile back at me almost mockingly after I have finished cooking a dish: What have you done? The credit is mine! You know, it is this Microwave, which practically taught me what Marx meant by ‘alienation’ some one and half centuries ago.