Truth is the highest virtue, higher still is true living.
—Guru Nanak

In man’s struggle to achieve any desired end, there is no necessity for him to turn to external forces. He contains within himself vast resources of inherent power lying untapped or only partially used.
—Swami Visnu-Devananda

To be charitable in public is good, but to give alms to poor in private is better and will atone for some of your sins. God has knowledge of all your actions. Fight for the sake of God those that fight against you, but do not attack them first. God does not love the aggressors.
—The Koran

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When the sun is shining bright,
Leaves are all green,
Flowers are in full bloom,
Birds are busy collecting,
And things are in full swing
I think of you…

When the sun is about to set,
Leaves are closing,
Flowers are retracting too,
Birds are flying back,
And things are slowing down
I think of you…

When the sun has set long back,
Leaves have forgotten their hue,
Blossoms have fallen,
Birds have settled and flown to the unknown,
And things are dead already
I still think of you…

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2. Betide
a) Befall, to come to
b) Of tide
c) Related to ocean
d) Related to underwater vegetation

3. Cadaver
a) A sample
b) A dead body
c) A ghost
d) Related to human anatomy

4. Depredate
a) To barter
b) To destroy
c) To save
d) To plunder

5. Exonerate
a) Accuse
b) Rob
c) To clear of an accusation
d) Pardon

6. Foxed
a) Deceived
b) Persuaded
c) Dissuaded
d) Liberated

7. Hiss
a) A soft sound
b) A sound similar to made by a snake
c) A light scratch
d) Rustling leaves in breeze

8. Newsy
a) News writers
b) A yellow journalist
c) Full of news
d) None of the above

9. Rabble
a) A tool
b) Orderly crowd
c) A big chunk of land
d) A disorderly crowd or mob

10. Xeric
a) Copy
b) Adapted to dry environment
c) Related to ancient hieroglyphs
d) Royal decree

..................................................................................
Answers:

1. (d) 2. (a) 3. (b) 4. (d) 5 (c) 6 (a) 7 (b) 8 (c) 9. (d) 10 (b)

Your Score:

8-10 Excellent
5-7 Good
1-4 Need improvement

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A recent discussion of nativism condenses many current reproofs of cultural nationalism for its complicity with the terms of colonial discourse, citing its claims to ancestral purity and inscriptions of monolithic notions of identity as evidence of the failure to divest itself of the specific institutional determinations of the west. Although, allowing the profound political significance of the writings of the decolonized themselves, as subjects of a literature of their own, Anthony Appiah’s critique, which is principally directed against its current forms, extends to older articulations. In exposing the operation of a “nativist topology”—inside/ outside, indigene/ alien, western/ traditional—it installs a topology of its own, where the colonizer is the dynamic donor and the colonized is a docile recipient, where the west initiates and the native imitates. Thus, while the reciprocity of the colonial relationship is stressed, all power remains with western discourse. For example, “the over determined course of cultural nationalism . . . has been to make real the imaginary identities to which Europe has subjected us” (qtd. in Parry, “Resistance Theory” 177).

The rhetoric of “intact indigenous traditions” and the very concept of a colonial personality and a colonial past, thus, are European inventions; the colonized intellectual is Europhone, immersed in the language and literature of the colonized countries. These statements could be modulated without underplaying or obscuring a necessary registration of western discursive power. Europe’s fabrications of colonial countries were deflected and subverted by the colonized discourses in a way; any colonial country’s identity is the product of refusing Europe’s gaze and returning its own colonial look; Europhone colonials transgress their immersion in European languages and literatures, seizing and diverting vocabularies, metaphors and literary traditions.

The occasion for Appiah’s case against nativism is for countries which have been colonies and which invite censure for taking an unqualified position on cultural autonomy—but its object is a critique of cultural nationalism’s entrapment in a reverse discourse: “Railing against the cultural hegemony of the West, the nativists are of its party without knowing it. Indeed the very arguments, the rhetoric of defiance that our nationalists muster are . . . canonical, time tested . . . . In their ideological inscription, the cultural nationalists remain in a position of counter identification . . . which is to continue to participate in an institutional configuration—to be subjected to cultural identities they ostensibly decry . . . . Time and time again, cultural nationalism has followed the route of alternate genealogizing. We end up always in the same place; the achievement is to have invented a different past of it.” (qtd. in Parry, “Resistance Theory” 178)

The effect of this argument is to homogenize the varieties of nationalisms and to deny both originality and effectivity to its reverse discourses. Such a contention is disputed by Partha Chatterjee’s study which is appropriate enough. It encourages selective citation in the interest of relegating nationalist thought as mimetic and while recognizing the inherent contradiction of its reasoning within a framework of knowledge, serving a structure of power, it seeks to repudiate and is concerned to establish its difference; “ ‘Its’ politics impel it to open up that framework of knowledge that presumes to dominate it [the colonizer’s nationalism], to displace that framework, to subvert its authority, to challenge its morality” (qtd. in Parry, “Resistance Theory” 178). And all colonial literature is voicing precisely this viewpoint of Chatterjee. Fanon too believes that writings or “literature of combat” as he calls them, are important for they, take up arms on the side of the people (the colonized) and only such writings mould the national consciousness “giving it form and contours and flinging open before it new and boundless horizons” (The Wretched of the Earth 193).

But then, there are the issues of virulent nationalisms which have been wakened from their long slumber giving rise to an orgy of multi-cultural, ethno-entropic, postcolonialist politics of “identity”. The word “nation” presumably carries within it the idea of birth from a single source, implying the reproduction and proliferation of a people from a mythical, single source, a “father” and/ or “mother”. Thus, nationality connotes, if it is not identical with, ethnicity. An ethnic population presumably shares “blood”, or “genes”, which reinforces that elusive concept of “self” or “identity”, almost in the sense of being a part of a hive. That is to say, it is implied that an ethnicity contains some unique set of genes which, although mixed with other genes, imparts recognizable characteristics such as skin color, “Jewish” noses or “Germanic-Aryan” blond hair. But, since it has always been possible for people to mate and reproduce across “blood” or “genetic” lines and even travel across boundaries—this unity of “shared blood” or “genes” is problematic. It is very much possible that the any nationalism that we boast of could have been tainted long back. What are we left with then? Shared customs, language, ideas, beliefs—hypothetical, identical genes. This too is usually, but not always, tied to a specific sacred land—Israel for the Jews, Japan for the Japanese, Ireland for the Irish. It is here that certain citizens of nation-states can also be seen to be “citizens” of the Metastate—or the new multi-cultural state as Sol Yurick observes (“The Emerging Metastate” 216). What is the discourse, then, demanded of those like expatriate writers who permanently inhabit the Metastate?

It is required that one speak in the ultimate representational language, a discourse whose texts have been assigned magical, indeed alchemical power, a discourse which is given the power to reconvert not only the earth, but the entire cosmos, into an empyrean inhabited by all powerful angels who strive to live in relative immortality—pure capital?

What is still to be asked then is, what are the mentalities and imaginations, the day to day practices, the language, the logic of those who inhabit the Metastate, in contradistinction to those who—living in the “infernal realms”—stupidly insist on affirming their anti-progressive, contra-universal “identities”, their “differences”, their “cultures”? Are they purely a class, or do they have a culture, which is to say, a way of life, a language assumed to have sacred properties, a set of ritualized, day-to-day practices, which sets them apart? Are they within their own sacralized, underlying essentialist, religiously based mystique of identity, those who are “culture-bound”, counter-“Western”, counter-capitalist people? But let us remember that when gain is calculated, the same mathematics is used regardless of cultural differences.

At the heart of the Metastate lies a hidden theory of sacrifices, of eating, not of flesh and blood, but of life transmuted into energy (Yurick, “Metastate Versus the Politics of Identity” 216-217). The verso of these epiphanies to a future transcending ethnicity and nationalism is a measured demystification of Europe’s spiritual adventure undertaken at the expense of the rest of the world, as well as a call that the oppressed should slough off enslavement to its values by recognizing the failure of its claims. As Fanon suggests, “Let us try to create the whole man, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to triumphant birth” (The Wretched of the Earth 253).

In turning away from Europe as a source and model of meanings and aspirations, Fanon’s last writings look not to the fulfillment of the Enlightenment’s ideals within the existing order, but to decolonization as the agency of a transfigured social condition; hence, holding instead, that vision of the anti-colonial struggle as a global emancipatory project and projecting the radical hope of oppositional humanism. What is less certain is whether the time for transnational politics had come when Fanon was writing, whether it has now, and whether the prospect of his post-nativist whole man is one that wholly delights (Parry 193).

A colonial and post colonial writer has established his own domain, revivified the language and brought much needed luster to a position known for its undistinguished occupants. He is the one forging ahead on the frontier of writing, less as the conscience of his race, than as the new voice of a decentered and disseminated culture. However, it must be confessed that he does also represent his race as the voice of the “native” land that had formerly been repressed even in that country’s renowned literature. He has learnt all his lessons, colonial and post colonial, but the question that one would be tempted to ask now is—has the colonizer realized his duties?

References
Appiah, Kwame A. In My Father’s House. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Books, 1963.
Parry, Benita. “Resistance Theory/ Theorising Resistance or Two Cheers for Nativism.” Colonial Discourse/ Postcolonial Theory. Eds. Francis Barker, Peter Hulme and Margaret Iversen. Manchester University Press, 1994.
Yurick, Sol. “The Emerging Metastate Versus the Politics of Ethno-Nationalist Identity.” The Decolonization of Imagination: Culture, Knowledge and Power. Eds. Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Bhikhu Parekh. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995. 204-224.

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The best lessons are always learnt by and from Nature. “Night” takes the baton from “Day”; Winter takes it from Autumn who takes it from Summer who takes it from Spring; so things run slickly, uninterrupted. Planets move in their own orbits, not interfering with the others’, just respecting their own position revolving around the glorious Sun, the seemly master. No false egos coming in the way.

Ever wondered what a chaos it would be if just one unit refused to do the work assigned to it? If the Earth said it was tired of carrying the entire load on its back, if it refused to revolve around the Sun, if the villain in a play wanted to be the hero, the clown wanted to be the protagonist or a child the head of the family? What if the foot of the body wanted to be the brain and refused to walk? Things would not only fall apart, they would stop functioning and come to a standstill.

Generally we confuse the concept of “power”. We understand it as the ability to control and wield it on subordinates, thereby feeling superior or in command of a position. On the contrary it is only an “ability” to do a certain task. Not to undermine or overestimate one’s limitations but exacting them. It is when we reach that exactness that we reach the ultimate. Even the Sun is doing a job assigned to it. It constantly needs the planets to work the Solar system.

We all need each other. It is important to spot one’s abilities and impart it to the world around. At the same time be a recipient of others’ good service. To dissolve one’s entity as a facilitator in the larger scheme of things. To be able to think along these lines brings us close to ourselves and becomes a humbling experience.

Let us bend to be in accord.
With Love,
Manjit

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Sent to: A foster home from the CAS where molested by his brother (by law) while he was between four to six years of age. Eventually adopted by the Newsomes.
Experience with the Newsomes as an adopted child: Financially there was no problem in the family but emotionally the family was never able to give that sense of security and the feeling of being “wanted”. Was terribly mistaken as a brat, which he was not. Two memories that qualify the misunderstanding are:

1. In school some classmate wanted to fight for a wrong reason. He ignored but the guy brought his crowd when he came out of the school and initiated a fight. Initially he only resisted and defended himself but eventually he lost control when someone punched him on the mouth and he broke his teeth (that cost his parents 3000 bucks). Now when he was punching, that is when the teachers of the school came out and the whole blame came on him. His parents always held him responsible for this fight.

2. At home they had a dog who was once asleep on the stairs. He just gave him a nudge while climbing up and the dog jumped up with a start. His father thought that he had kicked the dog which actually was only a “nudge”.
These kind of small misunderstandings never cleared up between them. The communication gap remains even today. All effort of his trying to explain them the truth stays futile as they do not want to listen up to his side of the story.
Kicked out of the house, finally at the age of 16 and lived on his own and only by the time he was 24 did he start talking to the parents again.

Education: Suffered after being kicked out. A few grade eleven credits are all he had. Slept in dorms. Took small and odd jobs to survive. Even remained on Law fare for quite some time. Unfortunately at work place he met his brother (also an employee) who got into a fight with someone as a result of which he went to jail. His guilt—not being able to stop his brother from fighting. Finally The Adolescent Community Care Program provided help in the form of counseling, in general, organizing his life.

At work, almost on the way to be a trained electrician, few credits away, as luck would have it, he had an accident. He fell from the second floor to the basement on the concrete. Lucky enough to have survived, with the fall, however, he damaged his shoulder and twisted his back. Presently he suffers from a chronic pain in his back. Ironically, however, nothing substantial shows up in the reports, that something “gone wrong” which can be corrected or healed. With this he thought he lost everything all over—not only the person he was going to be, i.e. an electrician, but also the most important thing, his health.

Positive development in Life: His marriage in 2000. Later the birth of his daughter Emma who is presently two and a half year old. They are the source of strength that keeps him going through the chronic pain in his back and shoulder.

Pain management: Method/s of doing everyday work has changed which is slower than it used to be. Does not rely much on medication, which he takes only in small doses. Believes more in stretching and breathing exercises and eating nutritious food that is generally taken care by his wife. Strongly believes in “modifying” life as per requirement.

Things, he thinks should be changed in Society: The system of kids being taken by foster families as he suffered during his stay at such a family. Does not want anyone to undergo such a thing ever.

As a survivor of child abuse and series of setbacks, his message to the readers: “It’s a hard road, but stay positive, look forward and know that you are capable. . .”

Favorite one liner: “I will do (something) because I can, but I can because I will”.

Yes you will Richard!
With all best wishes.

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However, before we get into what lies ahead in brain sciences and its possible trajectory of advancement in the light of sophisticated instruments coming into being, courtesy information age, we need to ask some important questions about how the brain has been responding to this progress. What is the real cost of being in a technically advanced society or how the brain is coping up with high-speed information era? Is TV causing or at least contributing to ADHD? Is the latest gung-ho about the fMRIs and other sophisticated equipments affording peeps into fluid functioning of brain a real deal or is it just a rehash of old phrenology?

Dr. Richard Restak, a neurologist by profession, has put together this highly readable book. He abstains from unneeded jargon and falls back upon latest research to vouch for his understanding of ‘rewired brain’ as a psychiatrist. In the age of high-definition television and iPods, our brain is relentlessly under information overload. And this is driving us nuts, literally and metaphorically. We are expected to multi-task and perform all the tasks with robotic precision. Though we all are equipped to excel in anything we chose to do as “there are no special inherited qualities that distinguishes persons with expert abilities” (p17), yet our “overall performance on each of the tasks is going to be less efficient than if we performed one thing at a time” (p 59).

In spite of our natural limits, we are still expected to excel in the norms set forth by the society or our peers. Failure to reach those fantasticated goals leaves our brain to wrestle with unsavory consequences. Recall that our brain is highly plastic and any experience that courses through its synapses leaves its own imprint in the form of some short or long-term changes. Perhaps that is why despite all the richness in our society, there is a growing meaninglessness in people’s life.

Now let us put this into the context of being exposed to the barrage of high speed images —watching TV. Would that not change our brain? How would it affect an impressionable brain, especially of a tiny-tot glued to cartoons and camouflaged violence? If the brain plasticity is true, we can think of ADHD/ADD as a neural chaos caused by information overload because the “…personal dis-integration (of attention, added)” (p 41) is hastened by constantly shifting images where brain has to capture and process high-speed information in a limited time. This breakdown of attention is what constitutes the ADHD/ADD. Perhaps that is why being mindful can help us cope with attention deficit symptoms, chronic pain and even coming out of our depressive situations.

Pharmacology, nay, Cosmetic Pharmacology for treatment of mood disorders also figures prominently in this book. Though advances in medicine serves important purpose in treating disorders, yet Dr. Restak cautions that it is pertinent to keep in mind when we trespass from being humans to machines as “such advances brings about fundamental changes in our self-conception” (p147). If we allow the current direction of pharmacology proceed unbridled, we will be looking for medication for almost every mood swing and rob the humans from experiencing and handling natural ups and downs of life.

In simple language The New Brain is an excellent expose on what is happening to our brain under the modern pressures, how the latest advances in technology is raising the hopes of fashioning person-specific medication, thereby minimizing the side-effects of generic treatments and how it can heal or regenerate itself if given a chance. If you are looking for a stimulating treatment of these current issues with solid science and therapeutic experience, this book will keep you engaged. It makes an excellent read by providing scintillating synthesis of research in brain sciences and enumerating their possible implications in the coming decades for diagnosis and treatment of various brain disorders.

On a side note, the undertone of the book at some places seems to be tilting toward the opinion that advances in technology will afford us the holy-grail to treat various brain disorders. Though the author blunts this undertone in the end of this book by saying, “the changes in our brains brought about by technology will continue to provide us with the challenge of retaining our freedom and sense of identity while simultaneously utilizing soon-to-be-available techniques to vastly expand our mental horizons” (p 212), yet this divination may or may not come true as scientists are beginning to question the validity of such tests as fMRIs as they may be raising the shadow of old phrenology in the from of new neuroreductionism (Dobbs, D. (2005). Fact or phrenology? Scientific American Mind, 16 (1), 24-31); Uttal, W. R. (2001). The new phrenology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press). And let us not forget that we know very little, say 3-4% about how the brain functions—and any thing is possible when we will charter those uncharted neural terrains.

The New Brain
Richard Restak, M.D
Paperback |240 pages
ISBN: 1-57954-501-7
Rodale Books

About the author: Richard Restak, M.D., clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center is the author of Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot and several companion books to PBS specials on the brain. An authority on brain research, he has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, All Things Considered, and the Discovery Channel.

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The heart of Australia's indigenous people lies in the centuries old art form that is rooted as it is in the land, expressing a harmony of spiritual, moral and physical elements of the world, called the "Dreaming"; it is a collective consciousness(or unconscious) of a past that goes all the way back before the creation of land and its physical features (the Dreamtime), to ancestors who were the creators, and lives on today in a philosophy that sees spiritual, physical and moral ties between all the creations. The Dreaming manifests itself in songs, paintings, ceremonies and the Aboriginal worldview. Each Aboriginal group/clan has their own words for this concept: for example the Pitjantjatjara people use the term Tjukurpa, the Arrernte refer to it as Aldjerinya and the Adnyamathanha use the word Nguthuna.

It is a view in which the Ancestors rose from the earth itself making cave openings or waterholes. As they rose they sang in identification of themselves: I am the Rainbow Serpent, I am the lizard, I am the platypus, I am the Kangaroo. . . . As they traversed the flat and barren land they created trees, mountains, rivers and deserts with their verses, by singing them into existence. Their songs still remain in the layout of the land, and the topography is seen as “song lines”. Good and bad behavior is demonstrated in Dreaming stories as ancestors hunt, marry, care for children and defend themselves from their enemies. At the end of their long journey the ancestors sang themselves into mountains and other various landforms and thus returned to where they came from—the land. The land and all natural things are therefore sacred to the Aboriginal people; as far as they are concerned, these are their spiritual ancestors.

The Dreaming is also a "personal thing" for every individual who believes in the system. It is the source of the totem of that person. If you hear somebody saying that they have the Water Dreaming or the Kangaroo Dreaming, they're in all probability referring to the landscape that their mother first felt in an intimation of her pregnancy. They might also be referring to the location of their particular belief system within the Dreaming; one can have a combination of Dreaming too.

Whenever a traditional Aboriginal looks at the landscape, he or she always sees much more than just the physical features. There is a deep awareness of the presence of the Dreaming ancestors. All around are signs of their presence, their tracks, places where they had dug out valleys, split rocks or disturbed the ground in their passing. Sometimes even their bodies or those of their enemies are perceived in rocks, boulders and trees. Their actual spirits are also there, not dangerous or unfriendly, just living on in the world they made. It is possible to communicate with ancestor spirits. The bond that this creates is one of enormous strength. Overall, the earth is a “mother” in a real sense.

Dreaming in Paintings—Everyone is an Artist:

The concept of Art in the traditional aboriginal society is very different from the concept of Art in the world elsewhere. Art is one of the ways through which the aboriginals communicate with and maintain oneness with the Dreaming. When people take on the characteristics of the Dreaming ancestors through dance, song and Art and when they maintain sacred sites, the spirits of the creator ancestors are renewed. In traditional Aboriginal societies, activities like dancing, singing, body decorations, sand drawings, making implements or weaving baskets were not considered to be separate activities called Art and design. All of these were a part of the Dreaming and a part of normal daily life. There was no concept of a special type of person called an artist because, in a sense, everyone was an artist. This is changing now as tradition-oriented communities adapt to aspects of western culture; although the number of artists in any Aboriginal group would generally be far greater than the non-Aboriginal communities.

Traditionally the Aboriginals used the materials available to them to symbolize the Dreaming and their world. Symbols like concentric circles or large dots were waterholes, lines between these were paths, wavy patterns referred to running water—rain or a river, U shaped figures were views from the top of a gathering of people and small lines beside them their implements.

Dreaming Art usually depicts many animals; a particularly popular motif is the snake, which after the Rainbow Serpent, is seen as a symbol of fertility. The animals are depicted as though one was looking on from above. And this theme continues in almost all art work—a bird’s eye view of the whole dream which is depicted in the painting. Emu footsteps, kangaroos, bush flora, boomerangs, spears and 'woomera' (a type of spear thrower) are other popular symbols liberally used in the contemporary aboriginal art.

Art forms vary in different parts of Australia. In the central desert, ground drawing was a very important style of art and throughout Australia rock art, land mosaics as well as body painting and decoration were common, although varying in style, method, material and meaning. There is and was a wide range of traditional Aboriginal art forms. Though the Traditional Aboriginal Art represents the Dreaming it is often also a vital part of ceremonies. Communities today throughout central and northern Australia still produce traditional art, which has traditional content and meaning. However, some methods of producing art may be contemporary, for example, the use of acrylic paint on canvas or commercial fixatives on bark.

Paintings from the Dreaming now decorate tee shirts, boomerangs, didgeridoos, calendars, public places, mugs, placemats—you name it and the souvenir producers will ensure that you get your Personal Dreaming on it. Next time you're in an international airport try to spot "Wanula Dreaming", the spectacular Qantas Airlines painted with the Dreaming Theme.

Bhupinder Singh is a graduate of The University of New South Wales, Australia in Master of Computer Sciences. He is a talented painter, computer programmer and a creative web designer. He currently lives in Sydney, Australia

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