Paimana #1

I will not let America steal my sense of joy or whimsy

Paimana: A measure (for dry or wet goods); measure (of length or capacity); a plane-scale (in land measurement and mapping; a cup, bowl, goblet.
Paimana e barish; a rain gauge
Paimana umar ka bharna; to fill up the measure (of one’s) life, to kill; the measure of one’s days to be full, to die
Paimana kash; A measurer, weigher, weigh-man
Definition: Rekhta.org

“Aaj Itni Bhi Mayassar Nahi Maikhane Mein,Jitni Hum Chhod Diya Karte Thhe Paimaane Mein”-Amitabh Bachchan in Sharabi

This is Paimana, the measure of my life in the fragments of everything I read, watch, and think about every few weeks (no definitive time period because everything is so arbitrary, life cannot exist in these bounds of 7). I intend to fill this life with everything I have, so when the time comes for it all to be measured I am never found lacking.

I’ve had a lot on my mind these past few weeks but I think first and foremost is the liberation of Syria, or rather the Syrian people. I don’t think it’s possible for liberation within the confines of national states but that’s a topic for another time. This week, opposition groups consisting of various militias overthrew the 54-year-long rule of Bashar al-Assad, the former President of Syria. Sednaya prison, a notorious prison and torture chamber (where the US also sent Afghani and Iraqi prisoners) has been broken and liberated. Prisoners who have not left the confines of the building in years have been reunited with their families. Thousands of Syrian refugees have been streaming into the country from Lebanon and Turkiye. Despite the future being uncertain this is undeniably a good thing. You cannot look at this moment of unabashed liberation and not think that it is good for the people to not live under a tyrant any longer, that it is good for this notorious prison to not exist anymore. The future threats, the future dangers being promised, are once again inventions of the West, for example; Israel is taking advantage of this unrest, so the focus should be on Israel to stop, not on Syrians to plead for Assad’s return. The promise of future danger just cannot take away from the brief moment of jubilation. Ask any Indian or Pakistani on the eves of 14th and 15th August. We did not know what terrors were in store for us (and things were truly awful during the partition) but for a brief moment, there was joy. This is joy.

My first thought when I saw the news was unabashed joy, I wanted to run, dance, scream from the rooftops, wave a flag (but not a country flag you know), and sing about freedom. Seeing liberation in real-time is stupendous, astounding, amazing. May we see every country, especially Palestine, Kashmir, Tibet, and Sudan liberated from the bonds of tyranny within our lifetime.

After that first reaction based on an Al Jazeera article, I went to Instagram and that’s when things went downhill (this is what usually happens). I began seeing posts and think pieces and geopolitical analyses from American leftists about how stupid we all are for deriving any kind of joy from this moment; because the militias are all funded by somebody and have nefarious and undefinable goals, etc etc and maybe it’ll all be worse and maybe the US, Russia, Turkiye, whoever will all be involved.

Look, I don’t confess to being some political scientist nerd who can read, analyze, and understand trends and world events at the drop of a hat. I know who I am, I know everyday I learn something new about the world and the state of affairs and relationships between nation-states that makes me question the opinions that I hold so dear, and everyday I realize how little I know. I’m aware of all these things. I’m also aware that I have a terrible memory, information about something will enter my brain and immediately leave, but that’s okay because if it’s worth remembering I’m sure it’ll come to me. Either way, I’m not an expert and I would never pretend to be one.

All that being said what I do know is joy and liberation. I know what it feels like to hold a fragile thing like freedom in your hands, and I know how awful it is when it is taken away. It feels like most Americans don’t, which is odd because this isn’t a country filled with freedom, liberation, and happiness either (shocking, I know). You’d think any moment of joy, any moment of salvation, would be looked upon favourably, even by these jaded and cynical American leftists. But the truth is, American leftism lacks joy and soul. There are pockets of it, in organizations that are run by immigrants and comrades who understand the role of happiness in our movement, but overall there is something so lacking about American leftism.

Americans somehow always think they can rise above geopolitics and yet always have thoughts and comments on every geopolitical situation in every part of the world. As if they can wrap themselves in clouds of white and float above the rest of us stuck in our quagmire. As if it isn’t their shit we’re swimming in, as if they are outside above, separated. Yes, they have nothing to do with Iran and Iraq hating each other and India and Pakistan, but they have everything to do with the weapons of blood and poison we use to destroy each other. This shit the Americans have left us with. They watch us from above, and create more shit. But still they act like we are the ones who are so stuck in our problems, mired in them. We cannot choose to rise above, we are stuck in the American soil, this cesspool of shit, waste, excess. And yet they remain outside it, separate, lacking the ability to imagine how they walk on concrete covered in shit (literally true in some cities).

Again, this is a sweeping generalization, something I’m very fond of doing. In fact, generally assume that most of my statements have not been researched and have no backing whatsoever except a gut feeling that I’m right. But I really think this American leftist movement (if it can even be called one here) operates fundamentally on lack rather than excess. Here we are consumed by everything we do not have and can never really imagine the possibility of lives filled with excess; excess joy, excess sadness, feelings that spill over and cannot possibly be contained.

I find this American lack is what makes leftists so cynical, there is an unwillingness to see the merit in small victories, in deriving pleasure from the simple act of sunlight on cold cold skin. I feel like I’ve become guilty of it too lately. I spend so much careful time reflecting on what I am not doing, what I am not contributing to the world (in both positive and negative ways; I am so pleased with the careful way I try not to add to casteism, racism, transphobia, islamophobia in the world but that is once again a lack, not an addition).

I fear I am living a life defined by lack. A lack of bad opinions, a lack of problematic pursuits, a lack of consumption. A lot of this is my own fault, but I think a lot of it has to do with how I have become consumed by the American way of viewing the world. When instead I should aim to live a life consumed by its excess. Excess of love, excess of liberation, excess of everything that is good that we should aspire towards. It’s good to live carefully and exactly, it’s good to not participate in rituals and traditions that are backward and oppressive. It’s good it’s good it’s good. But I suppose my issue is that I am afraid to pursue greatness. It would be great to live with joy, to consume and want and need with so much earnestness that there is nothing left but the excess pouring out of my veins like the rush of a waterfall on the side of the road in the Sahyadris. The kind we all stop at, just for a moment, before continuing on our journeys.

Here’s the thing, do you really think prisoners who are seeing bright sunlight for the first time in years, families who are returning to their homes, and mothers finally reunited with their sons are thinking about whether the militias that were involved in their liberation are “good” or “bad”? These binary ways of thinking have never served us, and they never will. This is the same conversation that has been ongoing with Hamas as well, are they “good” or are they “bad”? Again, every militia is made up of human beings. Some of them are nice, some of them have a funny laugh, some of them like to watch the birds with their family, some of them are patriarchal assholes, some of them won’t allow the neighbourhood children to pluck figs off their trees. But they are human beings. So what is the point of spending hours and hours debating whether they will be “good” or “bad” when these groups are ultimately made up of human beings who suffer, who laugh and cry and are cruel, just like anyone else.

Yes, we have to keep an eye on the geopolitical situation, yes every moment of liberation is followed by years and years of turmoil, I think most of us in commonwealth countries can attest to that. But there is no reason to criticize the joy of human beings, especially human beings who love their land and country and just want to live in peace. I find it so troubling that people can see a dictator being toppled and immediately start talking about how what is to come will be “even worse”. Who are you to tell the Syrian people what is “good” and “bad”? These are binaries that most of us in the world cannot engage in, and cannot even imagine engaging in. Perhaps binary thinking too is a uniquely American luxury.

Perhaps it is the sadness that is American. I worry that people in this country do not have the ability to experience the highest highs and the lowest lows because we are constantly worried about what’s next, and how one thing will affect the other. Maybe knowledge is a curse. I’m not sure.

Ultimately I am happy about the fall of Assad, I’m not sure what comes next, but here’s the thing, I doubt the “Political Pundits” (a term I hate by the way, mostly for its links to casteism but also because it sounds fucking stupid) know either. It might be chaotic, it might be messy, it might be an aggravatingly slow process toward some semblance of stability, but it will not be good or bad. It will be.

In somewhat lighter but related news, I’ve been thinking about All We Imagine As Light and Martyr! I consumed them both in the past few weeks and I think it’s fascinating how they have allowed me to grapple with these ideas of excess and desire. Both projects are about people being consumed by their circumstances but also about the ability to surpass them in perfectly ordinary, maudlin ways. They are also about allowing people to Be.

All We Imagine as Light, directed by Payal Kapadia is a lot of things, but to me it’s a film about the little deaths we die everyday but how still, the world continues on despite it all. The sun rises and sets, the clouds fill with rain, the sky bursts open, despite how much we wish it wouldn’t.

Martyr!, written by Kaveh Akbar, is about the larger deaths, the Death with a capital D of it all. The final resting place and who gets to decide how we get there. It’s also a book about life, and what one sacrifices when they embrace that final Death (if it even is final).

I don’t think I realized how connected these two pieces of art were till I spoke to SK, a friend of mine who read Martyr! For the same book club and who happened to have watched AWIAL recently. We were both struck by the poetry present in the book and the movie, as though both of them were attempting to transcend their art forms and create something wholly and entirely different.

Both of them are also extremely fragmented, one could even call them vignettes if one spoke French or if one was being particularly annoying (as I am wont to be). But it’s precisely in these snippets, in these moments in between moments that I see the excess come out in these projects. They seem to define life itself as the excess of something, as an overflowing that must be contained or allowed to burst into the world through light and movement. I think both of them are successful because they are projects that prioritize feelings over linear narration in a way (at least the way I saw it). The first time I watched AWIAL I teared up a little but the second time I bawled through some of the most seemingly maudlin moments, as if the mere fact of life was too much for me. Maybe it was, poor little immigrant away from home, but I also think I’m not alone in being struck by the excess that exists in the little facts of life; in a cat that will give birth soon, in a couple kissing in the Mumbai rain, in the slow beat of the local train.

Martyr! ends with a moment of such lavish excess it almost exceeds the pages of the book, it feels like something that cannot quite be held by the boundaries of language. I also think the book makes it a point to convey to us how woeful English is sometimes in conveying emotions and feelings. This is especially true when you compare it to Persian, the ‘mother tongue’, or should I say ‘father tongue’ of the narrator. I think one of the reasons I found the book so beautiful is precisely because it transcends the bounds of English and allows the words and sentences to take shape in a way that is entirely un-English, while still using the language to convey its meaning.

Ultimately it is the excess of feeling, of love, of friendship that defines these pieces of art, and it is precisely this un-American excess, this un-American desire to communicate beyond words, this un-American need to connect to something larger than yourself that I am going to try and replicate. That I must replicate if I intend to survive, if I intend to make it through without losing my sense of joy and whimsy (something I hold very dear to my heart). I hope those of you who care enough to will also do the same.

Finally, fuck Daniel Penny for lynching Jordan Neely in broad daylight and getting away with it, fuck the American justice system that allowed this to happen.

Power to the people, glory to the resistance, and the Palestinian people. We cannot allow this suffering to continue. The world is too bright and beautiful and filled with wonder to allow the monsters to run it. Apna Time Aayega.