Is there An Indian Way Of Thinking by A K Ramanujan - Part 4 - Summary and Analysis

 In the fourth part of the essay, Ramanujan continues his argument regarding the issue of context sensitivity. He examines how context sensitivity is an important part of Indian culture. He gives the examples of two Indian epics, “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” and tells that the stories in India get their context with reference to the original story which cannot be separated from the other. The stories and literature are so entwined and interconnected in each other that it is impossible for a foreigner to understand the literary tradition of India without studying the mythological influences that shape our literature and stories. He further adds that each story is a part of a meta-story, a larger narrative that combines all these stories, a source story and there are many source stories which are again part of some other larger framework.

                     So, Aristotle’s theory of the unity of time, place, and action cannot be applied to our (Indian) narratives. Ramanujan says that Aristotle’s theories regarding the unity of time, place, and action are useless and cannot be applied to Indian narratives which break these rules.

 

                    Ramanujan also talks about the way we (Indians) divide time which is quite different from the way it is done in the rest of the world. He comments on the beliefs of Indians regarding the different kinds of times we have. He says that Indians have auspicious and inauspicious times (Rahu kala) and how the past and the present merge into one another with the concept of Karma where a person’s past and present deeds affect his future. He sarcastically says that even the houses have moods in India which is popularly known as Vastu Shastra.

                  Ramanujan says that it is fair that the Indians should be blamed for their wrong-doings and such blind belief. But he also adds that it is impossible to remove this context-sensitivity from us. He says it has become an indivisible part of our society.

 

                 Ramanujan adds that with the advent of modernity, we, the Indians are widening our context in the way we want but we are not ready to do away with all the traditional practices. We keep on modifying our traditional practices according to our needs and because of that, the original context gets lost. Let us understand this phenomenon with an example. Let us say, in a community, it is a ritual to chant Hanuman Chalisa every morning. But with modernisation the children in the community study in English medium schools and eventually after a generation or two the young people in the community cannot pronounce the Hindi and Sanskrit words in Hanuman Chalisa. In this situation, the ideal thing to do would be to do away with the ritual of chanting Hanuman Chalisa. But instead of doing so, they will use modern means (technology) and will play Hanuman Chalisa on their smartphones to continue the ritual without truly knowing the original reason why should they chant Hanuman Chalisa in the first place. This is how the original context gets lost. It is possible that the people who started this tradition had a valid and justified reason to chant Hanuman Chalisa, maybe to start their day with positive energy. But the ritual is being continued without really knowing the reason behind performing the ritual in the first place is a clear indication that the original context is being lost.