The Vision of Drythelm
Jacques Le Goff [Jacques Le Goff, the medieval historian and editor-in-chief of the journal Annales died last Tuesday, April 1, 2014. Here is a section from his ground-breaking work The Birth of Purgatory.] —————————————————————- The vision of Drythelm, which constitutes the twelfth chapter of Book Five of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, is important for our purposes. The hero of the story, Drythelm, is a pious laymen, the father of a family, who lives in the region of Cunningham, near the Scottish border. One night he becomes gravely ill and dies. At dawn, however, he revives, causing those watching over his body to flee in terror, except for his wife, who, though terrified, is happy. Drythelm then divides his property into three portions, one for his wife, one for his children and one for the poor, and withdraws to a hermitage attached to the isolated monastery of Melrose, located at a bend in River Tweed. There he lives a life of repentance and, when the opportunity presents itself, tells of his adventure. A person dressed in shining white leads him eastward through a very wide, deep and infinitely long valley, flanked on the left by terrifying flames and on the right by horrible storms of hail and snow. Both slopes of the valley are filled with human souls, constantly tossed back and forth by the winds. Drythelm thinks that he must be in Hell. But his companion reads his mind and tells him that “this is not Hell as you imagine.” As they continue it becomes increasingly dark and Drythelm can see nothing but the bright shape of his guide. Suddenly, masses of “dusky flame” shoot up out of a great pit and fall back into it. Drythlem finds himself alone. Human souls rise and fall like sparks in the midst of this flame. This spectacle is accompanied by inhuman cries and laughter, and the stench is terrible. Drythlem pays particular attention to the inflicted on five souls, including a clergyman, recognizable by his tonsure, a layman and a woman, (we are in world of binary oppositions: clerk/layman, man/woman—these figures represent all of human society, and the two others remain in a mysterious penumbra.) Devils surround him and threaten him to grab him with glowing tongs, and Drythelm thinks he is lost, but all at once a light appears, like a brilliant star, that grows in size and sends the devils fleeing. His companion has returned and he now leads Drythelm off in another direction, toward the light. They come to a wall so high and long that his eye cannot take it in and in some incomprehensible way they pass through it and Drythelm finds itself in vast, green meadow, full of flowers, fragrant and bathed in a brilliant light. Men in white are gathered there in happy groups. Drythelm thinks that he has arrived in the Kingdom of Heaven but again his companion reads his mind and tells him, “No this is not the Kingdom of heaven as you imagine.” As Drythelm makes his way across this meadow, he sees an even more brilliant light ahead and hears the sweet sound of people singing; the fragrance he now smells makes the sweetness of the meadow that pleased him earlier seem a trifle. He is hoping to enter the marvellous place he has glimpsed when his guide forces him to turn back. When they reach the place where the white-clad souls were gathered, his companion asks him, “Do you know what all these things are that you have seen?” The answer is no. His companion then continues: “The valley that you saw, with its horrible burning flames and icy cold is the place, is the place where souls are tried and punished who have delayed to confess and amend their wicked ways [scelera], and who at last had recourse to penitence at the hour of death and so depart this life. Because they confessed and were penitent, although only at death, they will all be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven on the Day of Judgment. But many are helped by the prayers, alms, and by the fasting of the living, and especially by the offering of Masses, and are therefore set free in the Day of Judgement. The fiery noisome pit that you saw is the mouth of Hell and whosoever falls into it will never be delivered throughout eternity. The flowery place, where you see these fair young people so happy and resplendent, is where souls are received who die having done good but are not so perfect as to merit immediate entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. But at the Day of Judgement, they shall all see Christ and shall enter upon the joys of His heavenly Kingdom. And whoever are perfect in word, deed and thought, enter the Kingdom of heaven as soon as they leave the body. The Kingdom is situated near the place where you heard the sound of sweet singing, with the sweet fragrance and glorious light. You must now return to your body and live among men once more; but if you will weigh your actions with greater care and study to keep your words and ways virtuous and simple, then when you die you too will win a home among these happy spirits that you see. For, when I left you for a while. I did so in order to discover what your future would be.” These words feel Drythelm with sadness at the thought of having to return to his body, and he eagerly contemplates the beauty and charm of the place he is in and the rest of the company their with him. But while he is wondering how he must ask his guide a question, a before he dares to do so, he finds himself back among the living. …The text, an important milestone on the Road to Purgatory, does contain the idea of a place set aside for purgation. The nature of the place, moreover, is
Vernaculars Underground: Histories, Politics, Aesthetics–ABSTRACTS AND BIONOTES
March 7th and 8th, NMML, New Delhi I Speakers Anil Yadav, Sinews of the Political in the Hindi Underground The world of blogs is a mystery. It comes in small doses, and the way it connects with life and politics is through generations of rocks, friction, temperature, sound, and the impossible measure of their various facets. We know no one’s email id, telephone number, relationships, or any particular habit – all these are little doses of mystery. If we had unearthed the mystery, perhaps life would have been more satisfactory, but the pull towards the politics of the unknown is the hidden accelerator in life. Modernity seeps into the crevices of our galis and quasbahs in such doses. It creates a palimpsest. We tend to die, little by little, without this pull. This cosmos is our kabaadkhana—the dumpster’s nightmare, spreading to the farthest corners through the twisted varicose veins of our existence. * Currently based in Lucknow, Anil Yadav is a journalist with The Pioneer. He is the author of the remarkable travelogue ‘Yeh Bhi Koi Des Hai Maharaj’ and has just published a scathing collection of short stories titled ‘Nagarbadhuye Akhbarein Nahin Padhti’. His fiction and travel writings are featured on several websites including iharmonium, pratilipi, and kabaadkhanna. ————————————————————- Ashok Pande, Simple Joys of Rag-picking As a fantastic gift, life offers us a world filled with an amazing diversity. It is a wondrous act of nature that god, in the words of famous poet Viren Dangwal, has given man a brain “that soaks in everything” and which “travels beyond the universe in a moment/ and just sleeps when it retires/ in muck like a frog throughout winters”. To gratify all borders of intellectual hunger, man created most serious forms of art, and parodied these very forms for momentary drolleries. Therefore if there is a place for Meer Taqi Meer, ‘Danish” Taandwi (immortalized in Shrilal Shukla’s novel ‘Raag Darbari’) too is accommodated. If most intricate moves of chess are there, the ‘Shit-coat’ of a typical Pahari card-game Dahal Pakad too finds a place. The Chutney music of West Indies survives alongside Ustad Amir Khan’s Raag Bahar. Even if one endeavors to, it would be impossible to finish a complete list – such an immensely vast cornucopia of joy this world is. I began my blog ‘Kabaadkhaana’ in 2007 with the sole purpose of trying to share these wonderful things with others. एक शानदार तोहफे की शक्ल में जीवन हमें अजब-अद्भुत विविधताओं से भरी एक दुनिया नवाज़ता है. यह प्रकृति का करतब है कि आदमी को बकौल वीरेन डंगवाल भगवान ने “हर चीज़ को आत्मसात करने वाला” ऐसा दिमाग़ दिया जो “पल-भर में ब्रह्माण्ड के आर-पार/ और सोया तो बस सोया/ सर्दी भर कीचड़ में मेढक सा”. हमारी बौद्धिक भूख की हर सीमा को तृप्त करने के लिए कला के गंभीर से गंभीर रूप आदमी ने बनाए, और पल भर की ठिठोली-मौज के वास्ते इन्हीं रूपों की पैरोडियाँ भी बनाईं. इसी लिए अगर मीर तकी मीर का वुजूद है तो ‘राग दरबारी’ से अमर बन गए दानिश टांडवी का भी. शतरंज की जटिलतम चालें हैं तो दहलपकड़ जैसे ठेठ पहाडी ताश के खेल का गूकोट भी. उस्ताद अमीर खान साहेब का राग बहार है तो वेस्ट इंडीज़ का चटनी संगीत भी. लिखने बैठूं तो इस सूची का अंत नहीं हो सकेगा – ऐसा ज़खीरा मौज का है यह दुनिया. इन्हीं अजब-ग़ज़ब चीज़ों को दूसरों के साथ बांटने का काम मैंने अपने ब्लॉग ‘कबाड़खाना’ के माध्यम से २००७ में शुरू किया था. * Ashok Pande is a poet, painter and translator. His collection of poetry Dekhta Hoon Sapne was published in 1992 and he has translated Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate into Hindi. Pande has written books on Yehuda Amichai and Fernando Pessoa, and many of his travel-pieces and translations from world-poetry have appeared in Pahal. His translations of Shamsher Bahadur Singh’s poems was published in 2002 as Broken and Scattered, and Viren Dangwal’s poems, It’s Been Long Since I Found Anything, in 2004. Other translations include: the novel Lust for Life, Dharati Jaanti Hai (Yehuda Amichai’s poems), Ekaakipan ke Bees Arab Prakashvarsh (Shuntaro Tanikawa’s poems) and selected poems and prose by Fernando Pessoa. He runs the cult Hindi blog kabaadkhaana. ———————————————————————- Amit Sengupta, Parallel Cinema of the Media Industry: The difficult and stimulating narrative of small is beautiful Like independent and dogged documentary filmmakers who remain outside the comfort zones, mappings and trappings of the commercial structures of big finance and market sustainability, or like the ‘other’ meaningful cinema versus the box office formula film industry, this is a repetitive narrative which is deeply self conscious and critically involved with the idea of the political unconscious. Many of these filmmakers hate to be dubbed within the restricted and cliched paradigms of ‘art’ or ‘alternative’ or parallel cinema. In that sense, the discourse within the ‘little magazine’ or ‘small media’ too would resist being branded and condemned as small or marginal or alternative. That is, the debate between what is mainstream and what is alternative itself becomes a twilight zone where the lines become blurred and the kaleidoscope of the cracked mirror moves away from one-dimensional explanations into a more layered, evolving and complex realism. In the context of the new corporate media culture dominating the Indian information and mass communication scenario, and the tyranny of mediocrity, it becomes all the more crucial to unravel this twilight zone and rediscover a lucid, critical and enlightening realm of possibilities. Hence, we must walk again through this zigzag bylane of the difficult and stimulating journey of the small is beautiful. * Amit Sengupta is currently Associate Professor of English Journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. New Delhi. Till recently, was Executive Editor, Hardnews magazine, Delhi, the South Asian partner of Le Monde diplomatique, Paris; www.hardnewsmedia.com. Has been Editor, Tehelka, News Editor, Outlook and Senior Assistant Editor, Hindustan Times, among other assignments in leading Indian newspapers and magazines. ——————————————————————- Shawon Akand, Beyond the Colonial Hangover: Alternative
A MargHumanities-NMML Conference – Vernaculars Underground: Histories, Politics, Aesthetics
March 7th and 8th, 2014, at Teen Murti House, New Delhi Is it possible to create something of a larger platform for humanities studies by stepping outside of academia to think about it more rigorously, clearly, reflexively? Can we think about arts and literature through ways and means that are calm and raw, capricious and angry, and yet deeply analytical and sensual? Can we ponder and underline afresh the visceral and expansive political core that the humanities bequeath us along with an edgy sense of aesthetics, in these times of grandstanding, networking and spinning fashions? Is it at all possible to talk about literary movements in times of globalization, or are people who are passionate about the humanities destined to remain independent, sectarian and fractious? There are remainders and reminders. Around us. We just choose not to see them. Or we may be unaware of them, but certain people do exist in our part of the world—those who have been able to keep out of circuits of power and influence and be invested in local causes and commitments, and given their lives to full blooded love of literature. Not naively, but sometimes with a detached zeal. And sometimes with a sense of immediacy and urgency. On the one hand, they have kept their eyes and minds open so that they do not turn into provincial nativists. On the other, such people – and the movements or platforms that they represent – have also been able to keep their subtle, robust sense of internationalism outside of the cosmopolitan lure. These are expansive souls, who prefer working in little ways. They have paid a price for their convictions. Our academia and our festivals have been successfully able to keep them out of important venues and podiums. Political parties have been wary of their ways and methods. They have been persecuted and ostracised. Often they have lived strange lives—suspended. But indomitable souls that they are, they have been able to channel their endless energy into creative pursuits, in ventures hitherto un-thought of. Their silent commitment to the humanities is easily revealed when they wield pens to create poems touched by magic, when they talk and walk, when they come together to write a collective manifesto. They still believe in humour and tragedy. They meet personal and social conflict and antagonism headlong. They detest civility. They affirm life, above all. Small publications and committed people have their own politics and issues. It is a world of conflict. People who inhabit this world are canny and common, as everywhere. Coteries and groups, strategies and stratagems also mark this world. So, any such meeting about the humanities cannot be under the romantic assumption of a search for the alternative or end up being a misguided venture to seek authenticity of some sort. And that is the strength of the humanities. Literature, unlike the social sciences, takes into account our ‘wrong’ impulses and does not look for mukti or prematurely idealise any one form of representation. That route seems boring and self righteous to those who love literature. For them, it is important to mark out and seek passion, risk, conflict – and it is important to ask the difficult, sometimes incorrect questions. We have a lot to learn from people and groups who have tenaciously and tendentiously been hanging in there! Wryly, with wit, grit and zeal. Therefore we shall shun all forms of goodness. And eschew the podium and arc-light culture on March 7th & 8th at the NMML. We shall expend our energies instead on thrashing out some difficult questions about the world of little magazines, blogs and other minimal literary practices in contemporary South Asia. And drawing upon those debates, try and find entry points into larger questions of and about the humanities. We will have two days of literary and political adda —on the very nature and idea of underground literature in India and its prospects. As hinted above, one way to talk about the issue is to address the relevance and importance of little magazines and blogs that deal in literature and politics. The whole little magazine movement in various parts of the nation had a certain kind of approach: that of literary and political engagement. There were formal experiments in styling too; there is a serious aesthetic component in these ventures. Some print magazines from the 1960s and the ’70s continue to have a powerful impact on our lives. New forums and blogs have developed too with changing times. What has changed since the second half of the last century in small publications? What are the significant political-literary questions of our time for serious non-academic magazines? Often the editors and writers and practitioners of such ventures do not have a forum to reflect upon their craft and approach, at least not at the national level. Often their regional motivations are not discussed with their co-practitioners from other parts of South Asia. We hope to provide a little platform where we can exchange notes and tactics for future directions in the humanities, where we can have a serious give and take about our craft and job, but by looking outside of institutionalized academia for our concerns. We shall de-academize academia as we know it and as most of us practice it. We shall have editors, writers and bloggers from Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Assam, Kerala, Delhi and Bangladesh at Vernaculars Underground: Histories, Politics, Aesthetics organized by MargHumanities in collaboration with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi on March 7 and 8, 2014. Although we believe ideas and issues and fresh contours of literature and politics will emerge and develop over the two days through discussions and talks, MargHumanities hopes that some of the following issues will be addressed in the course of those conversations: How to bring back a sense of stout antagonism and desolation into literature and enthuse a generation. Without sloganeering. Consequently, what are the ways to embark upon and take on