Derrida and I

Jacques Derrida—I like this man. He says something like this: there is nothing meaningful as such. There is no logos, no center, no origin, no presence, no absence, no beginning, no end—and so on. Things exist in a buoyant state. The word "love" is not loved. It doesn't signify anything. It can mean hate, kill, dark, murder, etc. And the word "hate" could mean love—just as Gandhiji treated hate as love. There is no meaning as such. Everyone can deconstruct it. Free play is what I like. This inquisitive Derrida says, "The center is not the center." Then where is the center? It is beyond—what he terms the "transcendental signified." Who knows if nothing lies beyond the hills? But something does lie there. This seemingly crazy French man was asked in one of his philosophical discourses, "Where does the authority lie?" and the answer he gave was a toddler's answer: "The authority always lies." Any talking baby could have answered it that way. It's like asking him, "Where do the baggy testicles lie?" and you wouldn't be surprised to get the answer, "They always lie there." Not on your head, not on your cheeks—and you wouldn't like it if they lay there. So they always lie there. Warm and fit.

But Derrida's metaphysical philosophy of absence and presence is not originally his own. Funnily enough, he accepts that it was created by himself. Yet it is there, and it is not there. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything. I bluntly argue with Derrida and say that he has taken it from my father. My father's philosophy of no logos, no eminent presence, is the same. The concept of no meaning, the transcendental, etc., was already there. My father's religious canons taught me, and my father got it from his father, my grandfather, and my grandfather got it from my great-grandparents, and so it goes back to time immemorial—no one knows exactly. If one has to know, then one must go back to the origin of the world. There is no question of going backward now when we are living forward. I will pass the same information—"the center is not the center"—without understanding much, to my son, and he will do the same to his son.

I like Derrida's free play, and I like free playing with words. Last time, I played with a girl after reading Derrida's "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." "Big boobs," is what I said when she was crouching under a chair. She free-played the meaning and didn't talk to me for two days—just because of those two words. That almost killed me. Women always perform chemical analysis on what they hear. If you say "beautiful" to them, they think about "ugly." If you say "my god," they think they are goats. They are stupidly sensitive. They are the real Derridas. That is why I talk very little with women. They misunderstand and disrupt every golden droplet of a word and treat it as ironic.  

Derrida's deconstructions have led me into many problems. A few days ago, I told an auto driver that the right is left and the left is right. "So where shall we go? To the center?" the driver said. "No, there is no center. There is no right, no left, man," I joked with him. The auto driver curiously said, "Are you kind of out of your senses?" "No, I'm saying, if there is no right, there is no left." That auto driver was blunt-headed; he shook his head, quite puzzled. "Even I am puzzled," I said to him at last. "Let's live simply. Let's say it is right, and there is left. Why break your head over something without meaning?" the good driver said. "If you find the meaning, there is no meaning in it," I said. The good driver laughed and said, "What's that again? I think you need some medication very soon."  Hearing his remarks, a sort of chilled feeling ran inside my heart. I lowered my head and ran toward my room, cursing Derrida. I was in a kind of aporia—unable to decide whether I was really mad or sane. I realized after two days of thinking that there was no reality in anything; it was all just construction. That auto driver would never be able to say whether I was sane or insane, because of the free play of meaning that I had taught him during our brief encounter.

What Is This Life With(out) Wife?

This is my slogan: Don’t beat your gf ‘hard’ please.

 “You are the ugliest creature I have ever seen,” she shouted.

“You look like the ugliest witch I have ever seen,” he shouted.

“Go, I don’t want to see your face,” she shouted again.

“Die you, I got fed up with your face,” he shouted.

And blah…blah…s

These are some words of husband and wife while quarreling

Wait…just wait for a night. The next morning, everything turns out opposite:

 “You are the best creature I have ever seen,” she hummed.

“You look like a princess to me,” he hummed.

“Stay, I want to see your face every day,” she hummed again.

“Live with me, I wish to see your face,” he hummed.

And hum…hum…s

When you are young, you fight hard; both physically and verbally. But when you travel further and further, your quarrel also moves farther (I have not experienced that further or farther or both, but I have seen many in my walk). You turn back your life with your wife and get a kind of hunchback. There is something right in what you have done. I mean hard fighting.

But now, there is no hatred, and there is no love either. It becomes a kind of overused battery; you have to put that battery in the hot sun for a while if you want to use it for a while. There is little or no energy to pull the loose trigger of the gun also. Old wine is what you become. And then…there is life, more than what your wife and you had; children. They are very deep photocopies of father and mother. The parents become madder than they ever were before. It’s the time to sit at the corner, pull rosaries, and listen to bad remarks from those bad children.

Let me leave with a light note, my old guns. A man was saying to his new girlfriend, "Am I the first man you have ever loved?"
"Of course," she answered,"Why do men always ask the same question?"

So you are not the only victims of women, women too are victims of men. Everyone knows some men like extra things to shine their guns.

Classmates: Who is? Who is Not?

From Right: Omar Esmail, Azad, Rizgar, Me, Deepan, Sabin, Kamal, Omar, Senior(Elizabeth), Bejeta, Madam Mamta, Madam Chitra

(The article below is the views and personal expressions of the author, and it may not be always true. They are very far observation and don’t intend to hurt anyone explicitly or implicitly, especially some of our best friends).

Azad has an A-plus height

And if he ever happened to be in the army

He would be the first one to die

Because an enemy would see him gangling from afar

(Sorry Azad, you are the best guy):

Except for attending class often is an admitting Achilles heel.

Bejeta is a backdrop of topical blazon

Catty is the way she barks

She can be sometimes haughty

There is something she believes it not,

Not even to good boys, I don’t know why

If you ask me.

C, there is no ‘C’ name in the class

So, I have a good chance to write;

Write about the common things about the class

But there is no common thing as such in the class

All things are uncommon

And you cannot describe as such.

Deepa is a difficult girl to deal with

I often see her serious

Minding her business

A kind of deliriously dolorous

Look at her eyes

You will know she is burning her midnight oil.

Here comes deadly huge Dildar

I’m always scared of him;

That one day he would box me

And I wonder, if Mr. Doc could fix my bones

But Dildar wouldn’t do such things

He is the most delightful and dependable person

He wouldn’t tell a lie, if everyone does to me.

E, there is no ‘E’ name I ever heard from the class

I don’t want to show my ego

By writing that everyone doesn’t like

But the fact is; there is someone with ego amongst us.

And here comes ‘F,’ the failure

The thought of it shakes with fright

To fight with failure is to study only

There are some who fight tough

But still flunk.

G, when I think of ‘G,’ only one thing comes to my mind

The great shakers of boys

The girls, of course

There are four girls in the class

I think some love lady Gaga too much

Or some the latest Gangnam style.

H, is a humbling class

But sometimes it becomes a horrible humdrum

Because of some students picking holes in uselessly

I think some of us badly need hemlock.

I have no say, everyone has hundred % rights.

And here comes ‘I,’ everyone is ‘I,’ an individual

I is ill-fated students taught by ill-equipped lecturers

And I can imagine a kind of ill-assorted future for all of us.

J, what a jerk?

Keep eyes on some jabbering jerks

They believe, they are jack of all trades

But, when it comes to doing something

They are empty jars. Move on…

To ‘K.’

Kamal's presence is very much necessary in the kangaroo court

The class would go wild with him

The lecturers would give half of the class

And another half would be his

And Dildar would close his eyes and ears tight.

Such a loquacious man

Who loves a killer looks?

And I personally is interested to add something to this K

There are some students as small as kids

And they do everything;

Killjoys; kickers, kissers,

And kudos, I am not that good at either of these things.

L, I will be very laconic here;

As some people only think of love

And have lachrymal in their eyes

I doubt someone is a ladyboy from the class.

M, yes, Mohamein is a small mombati in the class

He would attend a week less class in a semester

And he would easily pass

I ‘m a fan of him

I 'll try to follow his absenteeism from next semester.

N is for Najiba, a nice woman

Needless to say, she would do her needful

Who would have forgotten to nag,

and drag the whole-class like some.

Believe me; she is unbelievably logical and true.

Oh, here is O…Omar, a tough guy to take into consideration

The future onus of PM of the country falls to him

When he hasn’t had an even-odd job now

Some day, someone will write an ode about him, I guess

But for now he treats class like an open market

And moves off and on, out.

You know, we have two Omars, making Omar square

And this one is Omar esmail, whose action speaks louder than words

He would throw his hands hard like playing coins

And he opines and oscillates on his opinions

He would say, “Hi Sabin” many times till Sabin would be fully tired replying

Then he would sit

And poke his opinions and move out, outside.

P, here I got to play with some words again

P is Penjor, one of my colleague teachers in Bhutan

He pokes his nose everywhere;

In the playground, in clubs, in dancing, with ladies, with boys, in meetings, in eating,

Everywhere, he seems really versatile, but not so as you have thought

He blacks his face everywhere, so he would be in everyone’s black books

You know what everyone silently called him;

 “Phallus Penjor,” is what they shout from behind the mountain.

Q, let me not quack here more

And move quickly to R

And this R is quite an interesting to read.

Rizgar is a rabble-rouser

Who seems to run the race faster than others?

What a rack? He thinks he knows everything

And comes to the class without anything, not even a pen.

God forbids, alas! He flunks acheo!

I like your funny rags.

Saacha is me, a sophisticated guy

I sometimes cannot understand myself.

I wonder sometimes whether I am on Mars or Earth

And the worse, I have four balls

And this is why I believed that I am an alien.

Here is another S, not me, it’s Sabin

Sabin is always on travel, with her sachet

Ready to move, move from the tedious class

I think Saturday is her best day.

She maybe physically little sore

But I think her heart is as white as Maida flour

She has been looking for a boyfriend

Just like me looking for a girlfriend!

And here is another S.

The greatest news for letter S is that

Is that…the highest number of names begins with S in the world.

So is it, who cares?

Srinath presence doesn’t make much hues or cries

He is a dead log

He comes and goes like a wounded dog

He tries out hesitatingly to poked out

But lecturers hectoring would trim him nowhere. Pity na.

T, now it’s time to say Tata.

No.  Where are U, V, W, X, Y, Z?

They are in the above line

No need to talk about Umbrella, Virgin, Xanadu,

 because after Y, there comes Z, Zamindar, who would come and collect all money for reading this Zany article.