My recollections of the Weekend With Wisdom: Meeting Dr. Makarand

On a positive note, he mentioned that he is sympathetic to the general cause and needed the whole Indic system to ‘up’ its game and not get lost in the quicksand of vile and non coherent calumny.

To The Concerned Person For Reflections:

Let noble thoughts come to us from every side

At the outset, I would like to thank Indica for hosting a workshop with the noted, gifted intellectual and writer Dr. Makarand Paranjape.

Reflections on the workshop : Dr Paranjape helped us and me in particular to reflect on the Indic paradigm and the importance of not jumping to conclusions.

In a fast paced world we sometimes operate vide sweeping generalisations and do not have the time to delve deeper and come up with more nuanced arguments and greater subtlety.

The importance of emphasizing one’s argument(vada) after conducting a thorough purvapaksha of the opponent’s hypothesis was emphasised repeatedly.

Gloating over greatness and lack of introspection on shortcomings in the Indic Paradigm or World View was a point well taken. Although, at times I felt that the Professor came across as a tad too cynical on initiatives in the Indic front including the present push on IKS. On a positive note, he added that he is sympathetic to the general cause and needed the whole system to ‘up’ its game and not get lost in the quicksand of vile and non coherent calumny.

I have read a few works of Professor Paranjape over the years and before attending the workshop had the opportunity to sift through a few more on topics as diverse as spirituality, science, aesthetic theory and the fractious existential threat to our nation in the sylvan environs of a central university. His broad sweep of thought, impromptu insights and literary finesse and contrarian viewpoints were refreshing in an age of polarised, extreme discourse from all ends of the intellectual spectrum.

Coming to the sessions themselves: Starting with the introductions and generic conversations, the main ‘power’ sessions in my humble opinion was the meticulous analysis of Smt. Madhavi Kunte’s story on a little girl’s meeting with the great master Adi Shankara. Although we veered towards ‘analysis paralysis’ at times, many insights sprung forth from the line-by-line analysis. The enthusiasm and active participation of nearly all attendees resulted in a creative, infectious vibe.

Mr. Jay Jina’s extensive review of Prof S.N. Balagangadhara’s book ‘What does it mean to be an Indian‘ brought about many remarkable insights into the Professor. It is sadly true that vast resources and superlative research infrastructure exists in the West compared to our relatively decrepit systems but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The erudition of the Professor apart from his rigorous research and scholastic experience also had the positive side-effect of increasing my reading list. As reading is a passion, will locate and go through some of the books mentioned in due course.

His language is mellifluous and I loved the fact that the discussions were free-wheeling and interactive. With a PhD dissertation on ‘Mysticism in Indian English Poetry’ and a few poetry collections under his belt apart from many other works, the professor’s articulate moderation had the aestheticism of ‘rasa’, the dialogic Socratic nature of fostering critical thinking and a punchy persuasive power. Will come to a few lacunae in the shortcomings section.

Modern academia is largely a West constructed framework, Eurocentric to the core. Although objectivity is a best practice even in the ancient Indian context, no individual exists in a societal vacuum and can claim to be truly impartial. In my humble opinion, this is pretentious hypocrisy.

The Indian intelligentsia tends to play both sides for reasons best known to individuals themselves. In an Indic context, from ancient times, we know that thoughts and feelings exist in a continuum.

Although wokeism and cancel culture were rightly critiqued, mere conformance to civil discourse vis a vis vitriolic negativity denotes a lack of ‘kshaatra’ spirit according to me. Never stooping to the levels of the opposition, assertiveness and repeated articulation and vocal promotion of Dharmic narratives is necessary according to me, regardless of the perceived offense.

Most of the criticism of Indic tradition also comes down to the individual characteristics and emotional makeups of the Western Indological scholars as well as the Indians reared in the same inherently rotten and unbalanced way of looking at India with blinkered vision. As a country that operates at multiple levels simultaneously, we are flawed with a long history of mistakes? But, then who isn’t? While we don’t need vacuous self-congratulation, I do not subscribe to self-flaggelation that is both demoralizing and unsubstantiated.

India needs to justifiably keep its head high in international fora and operate with sense of real-politik. Although Indian Knowledge Systems as peddled by the current dispensation can sometimes be half-baked, I believe there is sincerity of intent. As with everything noble proposed these days, implementation and follow-up tends to be very cumbersome and painful.  There should not be any frivolous dismissal here as many of our fellow countrymen including very erudite intellectuals can be unaware of the many facets of the labyrnthine and intricate maze that is Bharat.

This may be simplistic but is true in my perception. When both youth and even many senior citizens who are mostly respected according to our ancient traditions are unaware of our profundity, we need to actively promote and bring more facets forward. I believe Indica and some other organizations are doing a great service to the nation by discussion, debate and promoting the study and research of Dharmic traditions. This is not a cliched platitude, but truly heartfelt respect and gratitude.

Another criticism was that the workshop sometimes went off on tangents and we tended to spend a lot more time than needed without a clear focus and agenda. The story critique and even Mr. Jay Jina’s work were analyzed in depth but in the end tended to ramble on.

The impact of AI on writing via LLMs such as ChatGPT took the discussion in a more technological direction and conjured up interesting scenarios, both utopian and dystopian depending on individual perspectives. It would have been a tad more useful if more examples like George Orwell’s rules for writing were cited and discussed.

Patanjali Pandit’s review of the book ‘Who were the Aryans’ was a very interesting take on the disingenous lengths that the bourgeoisie Marxist set who ostensibly advocate the views of the subaltern , the oppressed and the proletariat tend to adopt to prmote misinformation. As it was taken up on the last day, we managed to finish it on time.

Overall, given the constraints on Mr. Paranjpe’s time, I believe that the sessions were interesting and valuable.

Request to organize something with Mr. Sanjeev Sanyal, Mr. J Sai Deeepak or Mr. Anand Ranganathan. I thoroughly enjoyed and learnt from this ‘Weekend with Wisdom’ and all the participants.