SPRING 2022-Editorial
Dear readers,
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Instead of rambling about how collectively surprised we are that 2022 is here, like a neophyte who recently learnt the western concept of linear model of time, and instead of acting dismayed at the fact that the pandemic and war managed to categorically blur all our visions of stunning blue sky flecked with white and left unprecedented loss regardless of our choice of seasons, creating a world where even darkness and ghosts are all seemingly departed in one panoramic sweep; as we stare at cruel fate's act of shameless vandalism and question what exactly has led us here today, consumed in our masks of commonplace, defeated, struggling, sighing, shouting, protesting, losing, accepting, abnegating the basic dignity of human existence – with drooping head on a laptop trying to erase and forget everything in daily business of re-enacting the absurd – it's time to remind ourselves that this life, right now, is cheap and priceless at the same time.
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And it's up to each one of us to decide whether to make that experience zombifying or hypnotic, till we breathe. In “The Grand Design”, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” Time starts when forces (super-gravity) and matter procreate themselves into universe spontaneously and it ends when big crunch occurs and again starts with the big bang spontaneously creating space. If this to be believed, time is cyclic (Kaal chakra) like our ancient sages said.
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Whatever it might be, life has shown us its own big crunch last two years. It's time for our big bang! So explode, emerge, create, love, laugh, cry and be everything that you always wanted to be and always procrastinated with the thought that 'I don't have time for that!' Keep the false mask on, strip the real mask out.
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-Ghosh
Autumn 2021-Editorial
As Hindus across the world is observing Durga Puja or Navratri, and Bengalis started the countdown with Mahalaya, a small group of tribals in Jharkhand will mourn. While most celebrate Goddess Durga slaying the Demon King, the Asur tribe from Jharkhand and West Bengal will observe 'Mahishasur Martyrdom Day' on Mahanavami and remember how an "outsider" used trickery and illusion to kill their ancestor.
They say that the story of the Markandeya Purana, which describes the birth of Durga and her nine-day battle with Mahishasura, is biased. According to them, the birth of Durga from the conjoined powers of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva was a "crooked conspiracy".
As I was listening to Mahalaya for the umpteen number of times, vanquishing asura didn't seem an innocent act. But perhaps it was necessary to adopt such vaguely questionable approach. Our religious mythologies are replete with such instances where Good is not the absolute paragon of virtues and Evil is not that thoroughbred badass. They both come with liberal doses of 'permission to be human'. That's why in epic like 'Meghnad Badh Kabya', the creator heaped unabashed praises on Ravana and Meghnad's valour while denigrating Rama. And that kind of expansiveness ensures the richness of human evolution's history through the course of time.
Sadly, we deviated from that abundance mindset a lot. Or may be that's just the necessary degeneration before Good comes to restore the balance again.
Opposites are necessary elements of omnipotence. Evil is a necessary counterpart of Good. And hence, essentially, no one can completely obliterate the other. What's more interesting, they almost seek acknowledgement and comfort together. They participate as integral elements in the divine dance of creations. And deep down, fundamentally, they are the same forces manifested differently.
So in this autumnal festival, I wish for this world, more so for this country, the love (not just tolerances) for differences, the opposing forces, instead of coercion with unidirectional religious dogma.
The need to strongly hold onto any one belief comes only when you doubt!
-Ghosh
SUMMER 2021- editorial
“Whenever any animal population gets out of control, whether it be an overrun of deer or geese, humans usually step in and make plans to curb it through hunting or damaging nests. It seems cruel, but without natural predators to bring the population down, overpopulation could have devastating effects on the local environment. Yet, humans have shown themselves to be far more destructive than any other animal on this planet, so why don’t we offer ourselves the same consideration? I’m talking about anti-natalism here, the philosophical position that opposes procreation.”- These words of Natalie Shoemaker in a Big Think article published in 2015 called “Do Humans Have a Moral Duty to Stop Procreating?’ set me thinking.
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Five years down the line, I remember that article. Different postulates have done the rounds about the principal cause behind the massive environmental tragedy due to colossal bush-fire in Australia, with climate change being at the forefront. And according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth assessment report, 100% of the global warming observed since 1950 are caused by human activities.
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Philosopher David Benatar, a famous antinatalist, once said, “If that level of destruction were caused by another species we would rapidly recommend that new members of that species not be brought into existence,”. So why not it is applicable for us? I don’t believe people should stop procreating. Nor I’m talking about any moral compunction of being born here. I am not particularly tormented by the cosmic meaninglessness of indifferent universe, even if that’s the way we choose to look at things. My argument revolves around fairness, equanimity and accountability.
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But then, we also don’t get a scot-free treatment by nature. As of January 2021, Novel Coronavirus globally claimed 1.85M lives but vaccination is in sight to stop the count. On another positive note, a class nine student from Burn Hall School in Srinagar, Numair Muzaffar, created a pollution control equipment called Carbonic Smoke Adsorber amidst internet ban! He is the reason why humans shouldn’t stop procreating and sentient life shouldn’t disappear.
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2020 already showed us the absolute need of the hour: to protect and improve our environment, something which I spoke about in the previous Editorial. While summer is still a few months away, Darkroom is getting ready with new content. As of now, you can read about my Kabini wildlife experience in the Photostory section. More fascinating stories are on their way!
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-Ghosh
Winter 2020- editorial
Standing at this doorstep of a new decade while one invariably wonders about the personal journey ahead, a mysterious interstellar visitor with a broad tail, comet Borisov (C/2019 Q4), the first-known comet possibly coming from a 13 lightyears away other-star-system, has made visit to our solar system and questioned our self-preoccupation as it brushed past our home closest on 28th December, 2019. This comet's tail only is 14 times the diameter of earth.
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The universe's greatest riddle still remains one of my favourite thoughts since childhood: are we singular right here on earth, or potentially habitable planets with water vapors and carbon dioxide are actually wrong places to look for life? Only the slimmest fraction of the interstellar material within a galaxy can condense into something so complex and sophisticated as a hydrogen atom: the cosmic seeds of suffering, and suffering is, after all, the only unassailable evidence of life! Rather shouldn't we strive to find a place with little or no suffering, a place beyond Prince Siddhartha's 'Four sights'? Or is this focus on suffering merely a reflection of my earth-bound imagination?
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Which further leads me to wonder that while talking about expanding universes and collapsing galaxies, what we have done to our planet in the last decade? We, creatures with intellectual capacity to discover cosmological genesis; creatures that, before sun's luminosity can destroy the entire carbon cycle, might somehow find another earth-like exoplanet; how we treated what's already ours?
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And then, we do not have a patent on this planet as a species. In this season of inception, I'm excited to announce that Darkroom captures the artistically-built home of Signature Spiders in its first blog post. As I also recount about my unforgettable visit to Diu island, readers can enjoy bird photography in the gallery. And plenty more will come in the future. But our distant descendants may never see many of them outside of photographs.
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What can we do differently in this decade to reverse this outcome? Something we can do with immediate effect is to consciously stop the ubiquitously-harmful plastic usage on our own. What else you think could be easily implementable by you and fellow citizens to help other species around us?
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"God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man." : Arthur Young
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Happy thinking. Happy reading. Happy doing. Happy feeling.
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- Ghosh
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Track Borisov Live