The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Wednesday 19 February 2014

BROOM: NEW TOOL OF COMMON MAN’S SYMBOLISM

THE NEW TOOLS OF COMMON MAN’S SYMBOLISM IN THE INDIAN DEMOCRACY

Broom, the universal cleansing machine, was universally so understated (until now, at least in India). Even if the changing times brought to its contour the obvious advancements and the technological avatars, the mentality around the broom remained symbolically broom-type only.

The stereotyping can be understood by the fact that Wikipedia gives a well populated list of use of broom in cultural context and supports it with use of broom in witchcraft wizardry.

See, even Harry Potter, the hugely successful, iconic hero, having a global fan-following, creating the richest female author of the world, from scratch, even he could not change the perception. The Harry Potter Broom is listed on eBay and Amazon and returns with a number of links on the magical broomstick/broom used by the wizard boy on hitting it on Google and yet, the mighty broom has remained grossly understated.


The situation had become so hopeless, like the degradation of Indian politics that the broom proponents had abandoned their fight. Now, only a miracle could have revived the hope to start the efforts again, only a radical step could have rekindled the fire.

We cannot comment on the situation globally, in our limited capacity to get clear of the clutter in an age of information chaos, but, sure we can think on what is happening in India.

And that miracle happened in India; that radical step was taken in India.

It began in the name of the Aam Aadmi, the common man of India (if not with him in entirety, but, at least, it looked ‘intended’ to go beyond the mere the symbolism being practiced until now).

It began with a new political entrant in India, assembled mostly from apolitical names, the Aam Aadmi Party and its very special ‘Aam Aadmi’ (‘the’ common man) Arvind Kejriwal who ‘adopted’ broom as his party’s symbol.

He insisted he would get the universally functional broom its rightful due by using it metaphorically to cleanse the Indian politics, to sweep the System, to uproot it, or to remove the weeds.

And the journey on the path to fight for the rightful due has got its fighting verve with AAP emerging as an ‘Aam Aadmi’ metaphor threatening the established political masters.

So we had broom visibility as a protest tool against the System; so, we had some other political claimants claiming their right on ‘broom’ as their political symbol; so we had a major e-commerce site listing broom on its trading platform; so we have discourses on broom as an empowering metaphor of democracy now.

And it has emboldened the Indian Democracy this time to use the broom more effectively to correct its associates (claimed and natural) it seems. Its message to Mr. Kejriwal to use the broom to clean his own house also tells us so.

Now, it is to be seen if Mr. Kejriwal reads the writing on the wall.

The broom is now getting its proper due, thanks to the machinations of the Indian politics that is, thankfully, not self-evolving this time.

Next in the line:
MUFFLER: NEW TOOL OF COMMON MAN’S SYMBOLISM

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/