6. DREAMS OF GOLDEN TIMES !
IN mythology and history we talk of golden ages. Our present age is called "kali" ie dark or iron. And this very name implies that there had been brighter ages in the past. In our tradition, this is the fourth or the last age in a cycle, and after this, the golden age will begin again!
Golden ages and golden eras!
This age cycle business is not a peculiar Indian belief. In the old world, before the rise of Christianity, all people believed in a succession of 5 ages: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron. This word "golden" here has no reference to just riches or power, but a state of idyllic happiness where people lived naturally in small societies, which did not need much of organization or elaborate administration.
In history people talk of the golden age of the Guptas or some other kings.For that matter, they even speak of the golden era of Hindi/Hollywood cinema and its music!
It is remarkable how we all look to the past for the golden age in all spheres of human endeavour, in spite of all the progress we are supposed to have made!
Golden simplicity!
It is almost impossible for today's youngsters to even imagine a state where people may live spontaneously in small communities, in ideal circumstances. But just over 60 years ago, we could still see such settlements. Jim Corbett records some such places in his book 'My India '. Many of us actually lived in them: houses with mud or brick walls,thatched or tiled roof; no electricity for lighting or anything; no running water . but water drawn from a well or lake or pond. Money did matter, but what little we had had value and went far. People, though very poor still felt very blessed, as Goldsmith would say. Our needs were limited, and the consumer culture had not yet dawned.
Poet Shailendra once wrote about how we develop vain desires and accumulate needless things, only to leave them behind:
अलबेले अरमानों के तूफ़ान लेकर आए
नादन सौ बरस के सामान लेकर आए
और धूल उड़ाता चला जाए
एक आए, एक जाए मुसाफ़िर, दुनिया एक सराए रे
एक आए, एक जाए मुसाफ़िर
Albele armaanon ke toofaan lekar aaye
Naadan sau baras ke saamaan lekar aaye
Aur dhool udaatha chala jaaye.....
Ek aaye ek jaaye musafir duniya ek saraye re
Ek aaye ek jaaye musafir
This applied mainly to the city dwellers. But then the economists and politicians came and disturbed things everywhere. They made big plans, made tall promises but they have remained just dreams! Today the TV channels and the commercial advertisements therein make people everywhere dream even bigger, especially those in the country side, who cannot see clearly how much of all this is stupid commercial shit.
Coming home!
Those of us who went to the metros for employment always looked to the annual vacation when we would 'come home' ie to our native places, usually villages or small towns. The contrast used to be striking. Travel involved train journey of more than 24 hours, in hot weather, in crowded non-AC coaches and we had to travel through the heart of North India! But the company used to be lively, water was freely available at the stations, we could get seasonal fruits and local delicacies on the train, could get good food in the railway canteens (run on contract) which had distinctly local flavour. Food at Guntakal and Cuddappa stations was delicious!
But once we reached 'our' place, the feeling and atmosphere were entirely different. It felt as if the clock became irrelevant or the day had more than 24 hours- things were so leisurely! We did not have to wait for water to come in the tap, but could go to the well and draw it! We did not have to run to catch the 8.11 local or run the risk of reaching office late! We had enough time to read the newspaper, while it still had its fresh sheen and smell of ink on it,. or listen to the favourite morning programmes on Radio Ceylon. We could rise to the crowing of cocks, and enjoy walks with school friends on the village roads nearby, as the sun set, cows came home! It was as if we had come to a different planet! Or were living in different times! We could surely sing with Shakespeare:
Lord, who would have turmoiled in the court,
And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ?
This small inheritance my father left me
Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.
[ Henry VI, part 2 ]
But one did not have to travel that long to experience the difference. Just a few miles away from most cities and towns, we had such rural pockets.
Negotium and Otium!
But things have drastically changed in the last 60 years.The difference cannot be understood unless experienced. Roman Poet Horace used to differentiate between two places- actually two states of mind. Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate writes:
The classical poet Horace made a distinction between NEGOTIUM (social, mercantile, legal and political transactions, the pursuit of wealth and power), always associated with the great city of Rome and OTIUM (peace, pastoral idleness), found on his country farm.
[The Soul of The Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare. Penguin, 2009. page 13.]
Horace wrote 2000 years ago! But how true it is of our metros today in regard to Negotium, but Negotium has also invaded or pervaded our small towns and villages. There are no more places of pastoral idleness or blessedness in India. The TV, Computer and the cell phone and Aadhar card have reduced every place to a state of Negotium, different perhaps only in degree! All the old landmarks in the villages/small towns have disappeared or been disfigured beyond recognition.
Though places of rural peace or blessedness no more exist in India- where political currents and calculations have reached every corner, and economic frenzy has altered every nook, their memory lingers in some people who have lived there. For others, the state can only be recalled or imagined through the words of poets or men of letters.
W.B.Yeats writes of this in one of his early poems.
The Song of the Happy Shepherd.
THE woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell.
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be.
Rewording in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.
I must be gone: there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave,
And I would please the hapless faun,
Buried under the sleepy ground,
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
And still I dream he treads the lawn,
Walking ghostly in the dew,
Pierced by my glad singing through,
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
Arcadia !
Yeats mentions Arcadia in the very beginning. It is a place in southern Greece, noted for its association with a golden age, a pastoral paradise. It is the sort of idyllic countryside where one could be in harmony with nature, living a peaceful life naturally, without effort. But under the influence of modern industrial/commercial civilization, where could one find such places? They have all disappeared, along with their old kings.
The shepherd visits the place, knows that it has disappeared. But he remembers it in words- time passes, but words do not disappear.
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
People and old deeds are gone, but words can always recall them ! They can give us a vision (dream). What Yeats means by dream here is not the one we usually associate with sleep or reverie, but a sort of vision which enables us to see the world in a certain light. He cautions us not to seek wisdom from men of learning who are too detached from the world.
Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
The shepherd asks us to go to the seashore and whisper our troubles to the seashells and listen for their echo ! They will be our comforters!
In the end the shepherd says that he has to visit a grave and sing. This is the grave of the god Pan, who was the god of the golden age. He died with the age, and with it the earth is also dead! Whatever is, must exist in us, we must breathe life into it!
Site of ancient Arcadia . Heinz Schmitz Self photographed.CC BY-SA 2.5
This is a difficult poem, though the central message is clear: we have to find peace in ourselves, and use nature for that connection! The external world, the physical world is changing, we lose ourselves in pursuit of useless things but we must find meaning in ourselves. We must have that dream or vision which alone can balance the loss of the golden age- the woods of Arcady!
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
Arcadias of mind!
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
Arcadias of mind!
In short, we have to transcend both the physical world and its scale of time ! This is possible only if we acquire an inner vision which enables us to rise above physicality and the merely material nature of things! This is not to say we merely deny the world around us, but we realise that it is not complete by and in itself!
Friedrich August von Kaulbach's [1850-1920] vision of Arcadia!
Paradise, lost and regained !
Paradise, lost and regained !
The mere change from city/town to countryside was for us a practical physical symbol and reminder of two states of nature, however diluted or distorted, and two states of consciousness. The holiday spent in our small native places was really a time of rejuvenation and recreation of spirit! In the name of modernization, the distinction between town and country is now eroded. And we have to call on our inner resources so that the world about us does not become too much with us! This is achieved not by escapism but by a spiritual transcendence!
There are limits to how much we can take from our man-made environment. Wordsworth simply said: "The world is too much with us" (1807). W.H.Auden called our times "The Age of Anxiety ". Yeats calls us here "sick children of the world".
Cover of the 1948 edition. shown here for educative purpose.
Note:
1.Yeats was said to have become metaphysical in his poetry in later years. This poem was written much before that, in 1885. Here he talks of imagination- vision or dream, not transcendence. But we can see that he is on the road to it!
2. People now crowd the resorts during weekends and other times, and call it holiday! There they willingly submit to discomfort and commercial caprice !
" In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ;
And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy",
wrote Goldsmith!
3.The ideas of Yeats are not so far fetched. They still find an echo in thinking and feeling hearts. The West, in spite of its so called material advance, still cherishes its rural spots and places of natural beauty. People give up their jobs and careers and settle in far off places- without airports, motorable roads, and such symbols of modern industrial tyranny and urban ugliness.It is mainly third world countries like India which destroy their native charms in the name of development. What else can one expect from imitators?
2. People now crowd the resorts during weekends and other times, and call it holiday! There they willingly submit to discomfort and commercial caprice !
" In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ;
And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy",
wrote Goldsmith!
3.The ideas of Yeats are not so far fetched. They still find an echo in thinking and feeling hearts. The West, in spite of its so called material advance, still cherishes its rural spots and places of natural beauty. People give up their jobs and careers and settle in far off places- without airports, motorable roads, and such symbols of modern industrial tyranny and urban ugliness.It is mainly third world countries like India which destroy their native charms in the name of development. What else can one expect from imitators?
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