In his 1962 book The Middle
Passage, V S Naipaul described his native West Indian people as “half-made
societies that seemed doomed to remain half-made”. His argument was that the
people lacked self-knowledge or the will to reinvent themselves. I don’t know
how far West Indies changed after that damning judgment of god-like Naipaul who
made similar statements about India too in a later book of his.
Naipaul was a ruthless writer with an ego that would give Narendra Modi’s
ego a good run for all his (country’s) money. He had the messianic instincts
without the necessary humility. Just like Modi, again. Just the antithesis of
the Buddha, Jesus and the Mahatma. But Naipaul had brains of a different calibre
in contradistinction to our own egotist par excellence. So he excelled in
writing.
Naipaul was a great writer. What is a writer without his ego? Without
the conflicts within his soul? Without the struggles with his own inner hells?
Naipaul won the Nobel Prize not for nothing.
Why am I bringing his ghost here now? Arvind
Passey raised a very interesting question at a Blogger Community which I am
endeavouring to answer here. The question is:
We have come a long way from Naipaul to Modi. In Naipaul’s time people
converted their inner struggles into art like literature or music or painting. And
they were sincere about doing that job. Hence we got good literature, good
music, good painting. Now, in Modi’s time people make money out of anything,
even their inner struggles. Look at how religions are minting money nowadays,
if you don’t believe me. And they are not even spiritual!
Without subtlety, dear Passey saab, let me answer you: don’t expect
anything good in today’s India unless money is involved. There is no money in
Indispire. There is money in the competitions.
I would like to differ on the money angle. I mean the money given in the contest is not in the nature of trillions that alone succeeds in luring more entries. I think that the recognition that one gets through the badges of ‘Indiblogger.in’(or other blogging platforms for that matter) is the main factor as regards the contests… otherwise how many days a 40,000 or 50,000 rupees of a gift voucher can be stretched on a spending spree. The recognition in the shape of badges outlive the buying age of the gift vouchers. So, I don’t think that money is the (only) cardinal motivator behind the contest entries. As writing for indispire doesn’t give any kind of recognition (in terms of badges) and furthermore since indispire topics are upshot of individual cogitations, which might or might not have the appeal to engage more brains…for everyone can’t be made to like to write about somebody’s understanding of the life and its situations, therefore it attracts less brains.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is also not that if people are not writing for the Indispire topics,they are not writing for their own blogsite or their own genre and waiting only for the announcements of the contests.
Furthermore, if a writer is made to write on an outside prompt the chances are that the instinctive writing excitement might suffer a dent. Though I am not saying that outside prompts are an out and out redundant thing…some might benefit from outside prompts as well, as it gives a challenge to mind in the case of those writers who lack to generate it on their own. Yes, contests are also outside prompts but as I said the recognition factor is the main lure.
Coming back on the point of recognition seeking, if seeking recognition is considered a sin by the doyens of the writing (blogging) field, then why people are at indiblogger(or at any other blogging platform)? Such self-effacing souls should shut down their blogging accounts (or stop any kind of writing that is in the public view) and restrict their scribbles only to the physical diary. Do we have any of such valiant souls?
And as to ‘Bloggers are not even writers!’…I think that it depends on how you perceive somebody’s writing. Somebody’s garbage could be considered a masterpiece or somebody’s masterpiece could be considered a heap of garbage depending on the perception of the reader. And to my mind someone is first a writer and later a blogger…unless you have a writing brain you can’t be a blogger… but it is again my individual opinion and open to be contested.
That's quite something, dear Neeraj. I love this response. Give me a little time to respond. I love this.
DeleteSure sir... I know you will have a meaty and mighty response. I would love to have your side of views on this.
ReplyDeleteNeeraj has blogged a response. Reminds me of the saying that the honest, teetotaller and vegetarians are vain while the dishonest, drunkard, smoker and non veg (largely) respect the other's view. Similarly the legendary Khushwant Singh went a step ahead to place his views on vanity on public domain. Food for thought Sir
ReplyDeleteThe sinners are always better than the saints.
DeleteLinking blogging to politics was brave because money and ruling party anyway go together... and there is hardly any scope for art in it. Will it be ok to suggest that indispire too must have monetary incentives linked to it?
ReplyDelete