Take cars. Has the perfect vehicle been invented? No.
The perfect computer, the perfect malt drink, the perfect suit, the
perfect building? Even if something
seems perfect, is the ‘made to last forever’ quality that would warrant the ‘perfect’
tag always (or ever) satisfied? No. “God!” did someone say? Well, let’s not get into that kind of
discussion, shall we? Let’s just ask “Which god and as described by whom?” and
leave it at that.
However imperfect the perfect-claim may
be, we still have what are called ‘finished products’, which are of course at
best approximations and certainly not the real deal. It’s harmless, really. We like ideal types and like to do something
that makes it possible for us to say ‘There! Don’t it! Finally! Just perfect!’ It’s innocent at some level. So let’s stay with ‘perfect’.
The issue is about what goes on before
we get to ‘perfect’. This is not a new
story, true. Even as the Taj Mahal is
celebrated, there are always those (annoying?) voices that ask uncomfortable
questions.
‘Who really built it? Shah Jahan? Really? He laid the bricks, one
by one, did he? He was mason, laborer,
painter, architect and engineer, was he?’
Annoying as these questions are they are
rarely answered and even if answered the grandness of ‘perfection’ and adulators
of the same ensure that question and answer are footnoted in the narrative or
omitted out altogether. So we have to
say it again and again. From time to
time. We have to say it because not
saying makes us partners in the crime of erasing important contributive
elements of the story.
What’s an automobile built out of? We hear about German cars, Japanese cars and
the odd Made-in-the-USA car too. That’s
about the location of the owner(s), mostly.
Some of them are not even assembled in the particular country. But even if they were, if you think about all
the parts that go into what is finally purchased, it’s not a one-country
story. Phil MacMichael, Professor of
Development Sociology, Cornell University speaks of the global automobile. Take a car apart and trace back each to where
it was made or who made it and you can an international community of workers working
separately and unknown to one another so that someone in some country they
might never know would drive off in a ‘German’ car. Or a Japanese car. Or the odd Made-in-the-USA car.
It’s the same with say the beef patty in
a McDonald’s hamburger. Those who bite
into one of those buns is not going to chew on, say, an All American Cow. Break down the creature into constituent
parts such as feed, vaccinations and pasture and you have what Phil would call
a global steer.
Things have histories. And those histories are pretty dismal. Think of a polished and glittering gem that dazzles
and is priced at several million Yuan. We
admire such things. We wish we could
have them. We talk about them. What is it that we talk about least? We don’t talk about all the hands that made
it what it is.
We can take a walk back and thereby
unravel a fascinating (and sad) story.
Who watches over it as it sits on a beautifully crafted stand in a
well-made showcase? Who made the
showcase? Who cut the glass? Who made the stand? What were those stories, we could
ask ourselves. Who cut it, who turned rough
into precious? Who brought it from mine
to gem-cutting factory? Indeed, who went
into the bowels of the earth to bring up a container full of gravel and mud?
Who did the panning? What kind of eyes detected in what to other eyes may have
looked like another inconspicuous pebble a priceless gem? What were those hands like which drew it up
from the mud? What lives are lived by
the owners of these eyes and hands? Do we ask, ever?
We are surrounded by precious
stones. The head of a top corporate
entity can be described as a precious stone.
An outstanding cricketer, a brilliant chess player, a violinist who can
make the instrument weep and make those listening to it follow suit, a teacher,
an engineer and a bridge, an architect and a mansion, a city planner and a
city, a playwright and a theatre production, a copywriter and an advertisement:
these are all gems. They all have
stories behind them. They are all made
of people. There are eyes and
hands.
We don’t have to dwell on these at every
turn, but it certainly helps put things in perspective and in generating some
humility to do so now and then. Nothing
is perfect but what is called that name are made of many (im)perfections. Precious stones, all of them, even if un-cut
or un-acknowledged.
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer and can be reached at malindasenevi@gmail.com
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