Voltaire’s oft-quoted recommendation, ‘Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats,’ does offer hope for those who find themselves in hopeless situations, for those who have suffered a defeat or a series of setbacks, as individuals or collectives, but there’s something missing in the l
Good advice.
There’s something
missing though. It’s as though it’s all some kind of divine plan, that
god, let’s say, wanted all people, of all places, of all ages to
experience shipwrecks and was and is taking notes: who in the lifeboats
sing and who do not, and to hell with those who drowned.
Maybe
that’s all there is to it, if you are ‘a believer,’ that is. I am not. I
don’t believe in divinity and therefore I don’t believe in divine
plans. Ships get wrecked in storms and ships that are less seaworthy
have less chance of weathering storms. Not everyone gets to escape in
lifeboats and indeed sometimes there are no lifeboats at all. People
drown.
Voltaire came to mind when I was looking for a poem by
Nazim Hikmet and came across the ‘Reflections upon reading a letter from
Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963), which I wrote in July 2012. The following, in
particular:
“Pablo Neruda describes in his ‘Memoirs’ Nazim’s
account of how he was treated after being arrested in 1936. He had just
published ‘The Epic of Sheik Bedreddin’, the last of his books to appear
in Turkey in his lifetime and the Government was perturbed by the fact
that military cadets were reading his poetry, especially ‘The Epic’.
“Neruda
relates: ‘He was stuck into a section of the latrines where the
excrement rose half a meter above the floor. My brother poet felt his
strength failing him. The stench made him reel. He knew then that his
tormentors wanted to see him suffer. So he sang, low at first, then
louder and finally at the top of his lungs, all the songs he remembered,
love songs, his poems, the ballads of peasants, the battle hymns of the
people. And so he vanquished filth and torturer.’
“In 1961,
writing his biography in East Berlin, Nazim wrote: ‘Even if today in
Berlin, I’m croaking with grief, I can say I’ve lived like a human being
and who knows how much longer I’ll live, what else will happen to me?’”
Nazim
spent most of his life in prison or in exile. If his life was a
shipwreck, what he’s described above is just a small element of the
tragedy. It’s as though his life was one shipwreck after another, an
angry ‘god’ punishing him over and over again for the sin of singing in
the lifeboats he made for himself from wreckage he painstakingly mined.
Yes,
he is not alone. Throughout history, there have been shipwrecks and
shipwrecks, lifeboats and lifeboats, life-savers and self-liberators,
people who were subjected to ‘trails’ similar to those Nazim faced. Or
worse. Voltaire was speaking in a different context of course, but not
everyone who quotes Voltaire thinks of asking, ‘who made those damn
ships so they cannot withstand a storm?’ They don’t ask, ‘who sent that
storm our way, what kind of god does that?’ They don’t seem to be
perplexed by the fact that ships get wrecked in calm waters that roll
gently pushed by balmy breezes under cloudless skies.
Voltaire
prescribes singing but not songs. What are the songs that the
shipwrecked sing or should sing? Should they sing the praises of gods in
hope of divine intervention of a kinder, gentler kind? Could they, god
forbid, sing about shipwrecks and ship-wreckers. Should the lyrics
include a resolution to build better ships, so that people won’t have to
sing consolation-songs in lifeboats but can sing upon the decks
themselves?
Nazim sang. This is why we know of singing and
shipwrecks of a different order, and why in East Berlin, even as he was
choking with grief he was convinced that he had lived as a human being.
And among his songs, there was one written in 1949 titled ‘Keep your
heart’ [with a subtext I read as follows: keep your heart at all cost,
in whichever prison you happen to be].
‘Read and write without rest,
and I also advise weaving
and making mirrors.
I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass
ten or fifteen years inside
and more –
you can,
as long as the jewel
on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its lustre!’
Voltaire
meant well. We must not forget to sing in the lifeboats if, indeed, we
find ourselves shipwrecked. What’s important is what we choose to sing,
what we choose to sing about and what we do while singing. And making
sure that the jewel on the left side of our chests do not lose their
lustre.
['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a
column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day,
Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]
Other articles in this series:
Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna
Awaiting arrivals unlike any other
Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles
Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth
The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara
Some play music, others listen
Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn
I am at Jaga Food, where are you?
On separating the missing from the disappeared
And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)
The circuitous logic of Tony Muller
Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'
Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist
Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses
Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced
Some stories are written on the covers themselves
A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature
Landcapes of gone-time and going-time
The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie
So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?
There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords
A song of terraced paddy fields
Of ants, bridges and possibilities
From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva
Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse
Who did not listen, who's not listening still?
If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain
The world is made for re-colouring
No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5
Visual cartographers and cartography
Ithaca from a long ago and right now
Lessons written in invisible ink
The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'
The interchangeability of light and darkness
Sisterhood: moments, just moments
Chess is my life and perhaps your too
Reflections on ownership and belonging
The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha
Signatures in the seasons of love
To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows
Fragrances that will not be bottled
Colours and textures of living heritage
Countries of the past, present and future
Books launched and not-yet-launched
The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains
Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace
The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville
Live and tell the tale as you will
Between struggle and cooperation
Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions
Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers
Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills
Serendipitous amber rules the world
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