Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "multicultural"

When I wanna pen something extremely personal, without actually revealing anything, I just write it in spanish or turkish. If you wanna study the mountain, study the mainstream work – but if you wanna learn about the person, study the turkish and spanish portion of my work.

That’s why most of the titles of my works are in turkish or spanish – because I can’t write a single word unless I feel the title boiling in my blood – and although English is unofficially the first language of earth, because of its savage imperialist history, it is neither the profoundest nor the most beautiful language on earth.

Does that mean, we should wipe out english from the world altogether? Of course not – that would be yet another boneheaded exercise in bigotry and intolerance. Instead, what’s really needed is a genuine humane intention to create a truly magnificent multilingual society – towards a multicultural world. Learn to look beyond the puny confines of one petty language, because the world is too grand to be wasted in the gutter of one language and one culture. Every culture is my culture, every country is mine – defiant descendants of divided ancestors, hand in hand we shall fly.

“World Gospel (The Sonnet)

So long as there is selfishness,
There is no Christmas.
So long as there is occupation,
There is no Hanukkah.
So long as there is cruelty,
There is no Ramadan.
Till we end militant atheism,
There is no Humanism.
Till you conquer superstition,
There is no Diwali.
So long as there is division,
There is no Vaisakhi.
So long as there is inequality,
There is no Fourth of July.
Till we abolish hate from earth,
At half mast all flags must fly.”

“Militant atheism is the antithesis of humanism. Fundamentalism is the antithesis of religion. Nationalism is the antithesis of peace.”

When I crossed the hundred books mark, I genuinely thought, “I’m done”. But something happened! I don’t know why, but my drive towards other languages became stronger than ever. I felt, now is the time to make parts of my legacy more accessible to other languages. I have never relied on anyone in my life for the realization of my legacy, so it was obvious that I was not gonna wait for somebody else to translate my works for me. Besides, when somebody else translates an original literature into another language, it always remains a translation – it can never become an original literature of that language and culture. This I absolutely did not want.

Sure, other than Turkish and Spanish, I have difficulty with other languages – that is, I am not at all fluent in them. But the point is, once I feel the language and culture in my veins, I can deliver my ideas in any language I want. And I’ve been doing exactly that over the years – absorbing as many cultures and languages into my bloodstream as I can that is. If you tear my heart open, you can find every single culture in the world, caringly placed and nurtured. Some call it gift, I call it intention.

I don’t have any one native culture,
for I am native to every culture.
I am a native to the whole world,
I am a native to neighborhood earth.

I can write in any language, because I want to. And no, I don’t use some fancy AI tools. In fact, I have an uncompromising principle against the use of AI in literature. Heck, I opted not to use something so trivial as an image containing yours truly with a mace, as cover image of “Bulletproof Backbone”, because it collided with the book’s anti-weaponry vision – so you can imagine my stance on fraudulent material generated by AI!

What I do use, while writing in other languages, is old-fashioned dictionary – online dictionary that is, to fix things like spelling, missing vocabulary and other broken bits – which makes me a broken polyglot. And believe you me, broken polyglots are potent polyglots. I may not be fluent in a lot of languages, but after I am long gone, each of these languages and cultures will have something distinctly personal left by me to call their own.

For example, I may not speak fluent German, yet if I write even one page in the German language, it’ll forever become an indelible part of the German culture. It’ll not be some off-key German translation of an original Naskar, rather it’ll be a German literature from the vast Naskarean oeuvre.

Sure, I know my limits in each of these languages, that’s why I keep my sentence structure simple, which I am not compelled to do in Turkish and Spanish. But more than my limits, I am aware of my limitlessness. And once the being transcends the limits of language, culture, border and tradition, puny apparatus like intellect is bound to follow.

When I get mad, I revert to English,
because English is my first language.
When I feel romantic, I revert to Turkish,
because Turkish is my love language.

When I feel passionate, I revert to Spanish,
because Spanish is my passion language.
When I feel electric, I revert to Telugu,
because Telugu is my power language.

When nothing works, I revert to Korean,
because Korean is my backup language.
And you wonder why I never run empty,
why the natural spring is ever abundant!

Language is the gateway to culture,
Culture is the gateway to life.
I am no person who speaks many tongues,
I am the proof of plenticultural life.

There’s not one but two Naskars,
one humanitarian, the other sufi –
both rooted in a hatebusting blend
of reason and warmth, humanizing humanity.

The humanitarian sets fire to the blood,
the sufi makes ointment out of wounds.
Though the sufi came after the humanitarian,
it has only magnified the reformer’s boon.

Along the journey of a humanitarian,
the sufi emerges from his soulful sea.
Cutting ties with all cave-age customs,
oneness is actualized in mindful diversity.

Integration 101: I don’t exist,
that’s my law of integration.
Had I not told you my name,
it’d be impossible for you
to know my culture and nation.

Any ape can boast about its culture,
I’ll die roaring for all but my own.
I am local of a borderblind world,
something illegible to the cavegrown.

Borders are glorified apartheid,
Passports are glorified bus pass.
No peace can ever come to light,
from the doings of apartheid heart.

Latinos regard me as latino,
Americans reckon I’m american,
Muslims consider me a muslim,
that’s how I’ve lived as a human.

Born in the land of multiculturalism,
I grew up speaking three languages,
mother tongue, national tongue and English.

Then in my late teens I acquired
my fourth tongue Telugu on a whim,
and later along the years,
I acquired my fifth, Turkish, which
became my dearest, and my sixth,
yet to be perfected, Spanish.

That’s the only conquest I care about,
for language is the highway to culture.
Not real estate, gadgets or cash,
give me languages, give me cultures.

English is my work language,
Turkish is my love language.
Science is my brain language,
Integration, my heart language.

My brain is multilingual,
my heart is multicultural,
my life is multidimensional,
I exist for I dissolve in all.

You barely speak one language,
ramble doctrines from one dead book,
can’t see beyond the customs of your tribe,
yet you say, your truth is the cosmic truth!

Fanaticism is compensation for insecurity,
supremacy is compensation for inferiority.
Over a hundred books, thousands of sonnets,
half a thousand limericks, half a thousand
free verse poems, yet I still say, I’m incomplete.

Nationality and religion are like blood groups,
it has no relation to human capacity and character,
despite the superstitions and conspiracy theories;
morons are found in every corner of the world,
just like mavericks are found in every corner.

The only difference between blood groups
and nationality is that, blood groups are
a fundamental factor of medical treatment,
whereas nationality and religion are
fleeting vestiges of an adolescent species.

I opened my eyes and couldn’t find a single precedent
of post-national, post-religion, post-lingual,
post-cultural existence, so I became the precedent.

My roots go deep down to the core of earth,
spread across the bones and marrow of the human race.