Brief History of Spitting: An Indian Account
Arijeet Mandal The first reaction after receiving a small cut or bruise in humans is to put it inside the mouth. If the bruise is in some other part of the body that we cannot readily lick; we often apply spit. Children do it too, often learning from other children or from the oral fixation triggered after the hurt. This is a trait we share with almost all the other mammals that we share our Earth with at the present moment. This is not mere mimicking of other mammals (though predators often mimic the calls or behaviours of their prey). The spit is, as if, an inherent biological trait. Children and adults alike do it almost automatically, as if with a gene-deep certainty. We apply spit to what was hurt, or in other words, what hurts us. At first it appears to us that the answer to the question “What is spit?” is easy. Spit is saliva thrown (spat) out of the mouth. Saliva itself is a reflex function that comes from salivary glands upon expectations of external factors like tasting or eating. Saliva contains around 99% of water, along with several other inorganic and organic compounds which help in several processes of the mouth and digestion. Not only it helps in fighting tooth decay, pose as a bulwark against harmful bacteria but also produces mucin, which in turn “acts as a lubricant during mastication, swallowing and speech”[i].In other words, not only does saliva help in tasting, chewing and digesting, but also effectively is a catalyst in one of the fundamental aspects of human nature—speech. During old age, one of the problems in speech and overall oral health is caused by the erratic nature of salivary glands (ibid.). Saliva itself has been used differently throughout history, perhaps requiring separate book on it, if not volumes on the subject. We know for sure that the salivation of certain birds in the form of their nests are consumed as human food. The industry that runs on the (wrongly named) Indian Swiftlets’ bird’s nest has gained such popularity that it has been named “caviar of the east”[ii]. We know of ceremonial uses of spitting across cultures, or the fact that there were cultures of ceremonial spitting[iii]. The spit was also believed to be a good fermenting agent and was used to ferment different elements like the ceremonial Japanese sake and various other edibles throughout history (ibid.). We also know of other medicinal uses of saliva, and the medicinal concern of the same. For the longest time people held the belief that spit after fasting has healing properties. Jesus used the ‘spittle cure’ by smearing saliva thrice in The Bible, in the passages of Mark 8:22-26, Mark 7:31-37 and John 9:6. Jesus, in The Bible at least, had healed two blind men, and one “deaf and dumb” person using his spit[iv]. Theology aside, a rational look then would suggest a major cultural belief of the healing properties of spit, especially by Monarchs and healers. Spitting, however, also had another concern for the medical world. The British Medical Journal made a report as far back as in 1900 about the ‘spitting nuisance’ that has been causing the rampant spread of tuberculosis in the urban areas[v].The Americans too were not falling short on taking measures against spitting in public spaces. Once again, this was due to the rising crisis of the spread of tuberculosis. Just on the basis of its economic loss, America had lost almost $33,000,000 by the 1900s to tuberculosis, or as it was known, the “White Plague”[vi]. While the ground problems of rapid industrialization and lack of healthcare was the primary problem, unfortunately, it was not the primary concern for the growing bourgeoisie owners. ‘Not spitting’ was supposed to be one of the primary targets in spreading public health awareness. However, as the author puts it, “The rise of anti-spitting legislation was on one level a practical response to a legitimate medical concern, but it frequently over lapped with wider issues concerning the consolidation of the middle class and the social control of the working classes (ibid.)” Just as the author notes, the class question about certain diseases and their spreading has seldom been studied. Historically, we can see that diseases and their class relations have often been ignored. However, spitting takes a special position in a class based society. Since the early times of Western society (except for Pliny’s account on spittle cures) spitting has been in general associated with rudeness, uncivil behaviour or an act of humiliation. In India too, at least in Natyashastra, the act was related to similar feelings, so much so that even aesthetically ‘vamati’ or ‘sthiv’ are under the Bibhatsya (odious) Rasã, and are not to be associated with the ‘high-borns’ or upper-castes. In essence, it appears that the ruling classes had generally posited spitting against civil behaviour, a savage instinctual nature versus culture. It is as if the good classes of history do not spit, unless met by lack of order. Spitting, or expectoration, for most of history has been an act of ridicule and humiliation. In all of recorded human history, we find but a few dots to map out some divine or superstitious reverence for spitting. For the most part, we have hated spitting, and we had spit on those we hated or held in contempt; whether they were powerful individual or empires, powerless peasants or rude rebels, or perhaps some image of God itself—some human at some point had spit on them. The real question not asked is this: What does spitting really mean? The Ontic Problem Up until now, whatever was discussed was either a scientific or a historical fact. Therefore, it is ontic in nature. By ontic, I mean a fact or information which proves to be a useful tool in unravelling an idea, but lacks the quality to clarify what it really means. An example would be this: we know for a fact that we have but
The Accelerated Grimace and the Ground for our Beseeching
It is an unanticipated coincidence that the collected works of Parthapratim Kanjilal, a major poet writing in Bangla for the past half a century, has been published just as George Steiner has breathed his last. There is no connection that I know of between the two, of course, save perhaps an investment in life’s mysteries. And a comprehensive rejection of life’s mystifications. Both Steiner and Kanjilal, in their own ways, have spent their lifetimes with the ineffable and the unspeakable. At bedrock level, the artist is ill at ease with social conventions. Since he is distracted and maintains an ironic or heroic relationship with all that he sees around, what we now call ‘news cycles’ do not disturb him in their everydayness. Doomed to a vision in an alien world, his dedication lies elsewhere. He begins to seek and extract a pattern, rather. It is his distraction that especially readies him bit by every single bit, towards enacting the role of a scapegoat for society. He is not really one of us. To be in the middle of everything (what in Bangla is best expressed in the phrase ছা-পোষা, culturally speaking) means maintaining a divided allegiance to life’s satisfactions and annoyances. If you are annoyed when your scheme about the right kind of society is challenged by other equally vested imaginations, for instance, you develop scruples and begin devising ‘techniques of trouble’ and anger, without having corresponding investments for what you actually vouch for or profess. These add up to what Steiner would call ‘apocalyptic seminars.’ Such seminars and techniques define diurnal bourgeois existence. By contrast, a leap of spirit marks the utterances of Kanjilal, especially radiant in one of his early collections of poems titled Debi. I use the word utterance advisedly, for here is an anthology which directly addresses the turbulent 1970s and yet transfers the experience of that time/space allegorically by invoking the tremendous energy force of a goddess who can renew faith in living only through a cleansing of whatever is vapid, stale and ignoble in this earth. The incantations in Debi are about a conjuncture of history (shondhi-khon), when temporality turns cruel and the antidote—if any—is equally fatal: “অতিসৌম্যা, অতিরৌদ্রা, প্রচন্ড নায়িকা সন্ধিক্ষণে”. The unleashing of energy is at once benevolent, lethal and unwavering. Kanjilal is the worshipper of distilled wrath, away from ressentiment and bad faith—something that eludes our chicken-hearted projects of ethical progressiveness. Steiner has been arguing for such clarity all along in his work: that beyond all institutions there is a mole in the cellar. And so Kanjilal, an avid reader of Dante also says: “দেবী, মুদ্রা ব্যবহারে আজ সকল সম্পর্কগুলি হয়েছে কুটিল/অস্পষ্ট, একদেশদর্শী, বৃদ্ধ. যাকে পিতা বলে জানি/ তিনি অবান্ধব, অবান্তর, যাকে জেনেছি প্রেমিকা, সেও নয়/ হৃদয়জননী, যে বন্ধু, তার ব্যবহারে থেকে যায় অনভিভাবক/ উদাসীন দৃষ্টিপাত. মানুষের মুদ্রা ব্যবহারে, যশ ব্যবহারে/ এ সকল বিপত্তি হয়েছে/ আজ কোন কবিতার স্তব শুদ্ধ ভাবে শুক্লতার সঙ্গে তুলে আনবো/পুনর্বার হিরণ্ময় হবে তোমার রূপের অমলতা.” The degeneration of relationships, the gradual diminishing of the very scope of our roles in life happens when designs take over our inner restless equilibrium. Fathers turn friendless and meaningless; lovers are no longer situated within our innermost sanctums, friends are no more our guardian-angels—they turn indifferent instead. Clarity and relationalities are the first casualties during difficult and uneven times. Hence, a material invocation of the cleansing deity through poetry. It is hard to be outraged these days. A severe domestication happens each moment. We seem to be specialists in accommodating almost everything. And outrage has been flattened to utter meaninglessness. Denis Donaghue had long ago cautioned us with the following insight: “The most telling consequence of the domestication of outrage is that, far from disturbing the security of ordinary things, it confirms it.” The artist too is no longer the maker of his art but an example of a man whose art exemplifies certain rituals of his doings. Kanjilal’s poetry is a direct assault on such domestication, urging us repeatedly to dive beneath all smallness and despair. For in the netherworld there burns a divine torch, untouched yet by guilt and sin: “এদিকে পৃথিবী মশাল নেভায়/ জ্বেলে নেয় ফের নেভা মশাল/ স্পর্শ করো রূপ, রস, বহন করো তারই স্বাদ/গ্লানির বহু নীচে জ্বলছে বৃশ্চিক অপাপবিদ্ধ.” This is a dare, a dare to consistently work towards reaching that underground fountain of the ineffable, especially in times when everything around us seems like a lazy journalist’s descriptive report: the connivance of the media foreshortens our very living. The entirety of Debi is a riddle where poetry, mutiny and incantation find a natural confluence. Rarely has Kanjilal given us any hint as to what the material manifestations of such a apocalyptic charge are: “ছাত্রদল উঠে আসে, জেনেছে ইতিহাস আহুত আত্মার সমতুল/মিতভাষ অর্ধবাক, স্পষ্ট তত নয়/যা হলে জীবনের নির্ভার কেবল জীবিত থাকা. বাঁচতে দেখা শুধু.” The new generations, students who pass through such terrible times, know that conjunctures are like invoked souls: foggy and almost wordless. One gropes. In such times the real mutiny is to stay afloat, to keep oneself away from all fake and domesticated spectacles and arrive at the simplicity of directness, of love. Indeed, the fatal conjuncture of history, if it has to be unshackled from all falsity and bourgeois liberal piety, must be joined in a war that is shorn of all figures of speech: “উপমাবিহীন কালে যুদ্ধ শুরু করো , সকল মুগ্ধতা দূরে যাক.” Foremost, this war must cleanse another lesser battle that rages within us, way before one takes on what we think of as the enemy. The enemy is within: all kinds of factionalism and squeamishness, played out through useless labour, by our trading of mutual humiliation, abuse and envy—every single day, every passing minute. This internal battle attests to the poverty of our souls. Such poverty must be transcended: “ভুলে যাই, আমার রয়েছে এই দারিদ্রস্বভাব…/ আমার চরিত্র থাকে নিষ্ফল শ্রমে. অপমানে-প্রতিঅপমানে/ ভুলে যাই, ঈর্ষা আক্রোশের এই সর্পবাণ তোমার উজ্বল কিরীট বিচ্যুত শুধু করে/তাতে তুমি বিজিত হবে না/…মধুঋতু মধুবায়ু মধুক্ষর পৃথিবীর ধবননে–উৎসবে/ আরো একজন যাবে.” The