Arvind Passey
Editor- Education Post
Let’s look at the clatter first. And the clutter, if someone wishes to include everything. The noxious piles of misinformation, the grotesque views that push only one narrative, the rampaging decibels of intolerance, and the twisted perspectives that strut around with their certificates of wide acceptance cause the clatter, form the clutter, and mercilessly tie the messengers of truth to roll them into a corner. This isn’t just a political commentary of what has been happening in India but a reflection of the way things have gone on in the entire world. The developed, rich, progressive, prosperous, and supposedly surging governments too have an almost equal share of this virus. Or bacteria or chemical transformation or whatever other word you feel uncomfortable with. Truth, as I have already said, is gagged, rolled up, and forgotten by most of us.
With truth inaccessible and unseen, we remain applauding fans of the only sequence being enacted on the stage of governance. However, there is this awkward restlessness that suggests our position as being somewhere between calm and clatter. Neither here nor completely there yet. It is as if we are tirelessly running on some no-man’s land oblivious of the borders on either side. These are dark times, someone might say. No, I’d clarify, we are wearing opaque glasses that are not letting any form of clarity filter in… and we unable to take off these goddamn spooked glasses. They don’t seem stuck to our vision so the probability is that we have forgotten the art of removing our opaque harness.
Possibilities exist on both sides. Running on a no-man’s land is similar to living without wanting the dilemma of remaining with or without technology… or fashion… or marriage… or God… or religion… or caste… or stories… or a past. No, I will not add education to this list. You see, the only thing that removes the cobwebs of obscured imagination or the sticky mist of ignorant arrogance is education. And this past year, real and wholesome education with its dose of inquisitive interjections has been relegated to some inaccessible place. The carriers of clutter and clatter have made sure that everything from powerful twists of trolls on social media to the soporiferous chanting on all other kinds of communication channels keep us all in an indecisive flux. We are neither here nor there. But there is a life here and there is a life there.
All I can say is that we need to tie our laces and keep reading as we run in our no-man’s land. Yes, even between the lines because we are between here and there anyway. By the way, ‘here’ is probably not much better than ‘there’ and ‘there’ even while being vastly different in many ways, cannot completely replace ‘here’ is all I can say. As yet. I’m still educating myself. Meanwhile, I will keep running with you all in the patch between calm and clatter.
