My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant
By JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS
Published: June 22, 2011
One August morning nearly two decades ago, my mother woke me and put me in a cab. She handed me a jacket. “Baka malamig doon” were among the few words she said. (“It might be cold there.”) When I arrived at the Philippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport with her, my aunt and a family friend, I was introduced to a man I’d never seen. They told me he was my uncle. He held my hand as I boarded an airplane for the first time. It was 1993, and I was 12.
Staying Papers The documentation that Vargas obtained over the years — a fake green card, a fake passport, a driver’s license — allowed him to remain in the U.S. In Oregon, a friend provided a mailing address.
Enlarge This Image
Photograph from Jose Antonio Vargas
Pre-Flight In the Philippines with his mother, who was supposed to follow him to the United States but never did.
Benefactors Vargas with the school officials Rich Fischer and Pat Hyland at his high-school graduation.
After his college graduation with his grandfather, Lolo, who provided most of his resources for his journey to America.
Above A doctored version of this card has helped keep Vargas in the United States. The magazine has blurred his number in the photo.
My mother wanted to give me a better life, so she sent me thousands of miles away to live with her parents in America — my grandfather (Lolo in Tagalog) and grandmother (Lola). After I arrived in Mountain View, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang. One of my early memories is of a freckled kid in middle school asking me, “What’s up?” I replied, “The sky,” and he and a couple of other kids laughed. I won the eighth-grade spelling bee by memorizing words I couldn’t properly pronounce. (The winning word was “indefatigable.”)
One day when I was 16, I rode my bike to the nearby D.M.V. office to get my driver’s permit. Some of my friends already had their licenses, so I figured it was time. But when I handed the clerk my green card as proof of U.S. residency, she flipped it around, examining it. “This is fake,” she whispered. “Don’t come back here again.”
Confused and scared, I pedaled home and confronted Lolo. I remember him sitting in the garage, cutting coupons. I dropped my bike and ran over to him, showing him the green card. “Peke ba ito?” I asked in Tagalog. (“Is this fake?”) My grandparents were naturalized American citizens — he worked as a security guard, she as a food server — and they had begun supporting my mother and me financially when I was 3, after my father’s wandering eye and inability to properly provide for us led to my parents’ separation. Lolo was a proud man, and I saw the shame on his face as he told me he purchased the card, along with other fake documents, for me. “Don’t show it to other people,” he warned.
I decided then that I could never give anyone reason to doubt I was an American. I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship. I felt I could earn it.
I’ve tried. Over the past 14 years, I’ve graduated from high school and college and built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country. On the surface, I’ve created a good life. I’ve lived the American dream.
But I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. It means keeping my family photos in a shoebox rather than displaying them on shelves in my home, so friends don’t ask about them. It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful. And it has meant relying on a sort of 21st-century underground railroad of supporters, people who took an interest in my future and took risks for me.
Last year I read about four students who walked from Miami to Washington to lobby for the Dream Act, a nearly decade-old immigration bill that would provide a path to legal permanent residency for young people who have been educated in this country. At the risk of deportation — the Obama administration has deported almost 800,000 people in the last two years — they are speaking out. Their courage has inspired me.
There are believed to be 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. We’re not always who you think we are. Some pick your strawberries or care for your children. Some are in high school or college. And some, it turns out, write news articles you might read. I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.
My first challenge was the language. Though I learned English in the Philippines, I wanted to lose my accent. During high school, I spent hours at a time watching television (especially “Frasier,” “Home Improvement” and reruns of “The Golden Girls”) and movies (from “Goodfellas” to “Anne of Green Gables”), pausing the VHS to try to copy how various characters enunciated their words. At the local library, I read magazines, books and newspapers — anything to learn how to write better. Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print — writing in English, interviewing Americans — validated my presence here.
The debates over “illegal aliens” intensified my anxieties. In 1994, only a year after my flight from the Philippines, Gov. Pete Wilson was re-elected in part because of his support for Proposition 187, which prohibited undocumented immigrants from attending public school and accessing other services. (A federal court later found the law unconstitutional.) After my encounter at the D.M.V. in 1997, I grew more aware of anti-immigrant sentiments and stereotypes: they don’t want to assimilate, they are a drain on society. They’re not talking about me, I would tell myself. I have something to contribute.
To do that, I had to work — and for that, I needed a Social Security number. Fortunately, my grandfather had already managed to get one for me. Lolo had always taken care of everyone in the family. He and my grandmother emigrated legally in 1984 from Zambales, a province in the Philippines of rice fields and bamboo houses, following Lolo’s sister, who married a Filipino-American serving in the American military. She petitioned for her brother and his wife to join her. When they got here, Lolo petitioned for his two children — my mother and her younger brother — to follow them. But instead of mentioning that my mother was a married woman, he listed her as single. Legal residents can’t petition for their married children. Besides, Lolo didn’t care for my father. He didn’t want him coming here too.
But soon Lolo grew nervous that the immigration authorities reviewing the petition would discover my mother was married, thus derailing not only her chances of coming here but those of my uncle as well. So he withdrew her petition. After my uncle came to America legally in 1991, Lolo tried to get my mother here through a tourist visa, but she wasn’t able to obtain one. That’s when she decided to send me. My mother told me later that she figured she would follow me soon. She never did.
The “uncle” who brought me here turned out to be a coyote, not a relative, my grandfather later explained. Lolo scraped together enough money — I eventually learned it was $4,500, a huge sum for him — to pay him to smuggle me here under a fake name and fake passport. (I never saw the passport again after the flight and have always assumed that the coyote kept it.) After I arrived in America, Lolo obtained a new fake Filipino passport, in my real name this time, adorned with a fake student visa, in addition to the fraudulent green card.
Using the fake passport, we went to the local Social Security Administration office and applied for a Social Security number and card. It was, I remember, a quick visit. When the card came in the mail, it had my full, real name, but it also clearly stated: “Valid for work only with I.N.S. authorization.”
When I began looking for work, a short time after the D.M.V. incident, my grandfather and I took the Social Security card to Kinko’s, where he covered the “I.N.S. authorization” text with a sliver of white tape. We then made photocopies of the card. At a glance, at least, the copies would look like copies of a regular, unrestricted Social Security card.
Lolo always imagined I would work the kind of low-paying jobs that undocumented people often take. (Once I married an American, he said, I would get my real papers, and everything would be fine.) But even menial jobs require documents, so he and I hoped the doctored card would work for now. The more documents I had, he said, the better.
While in high school, I worked part time at Subway, then at the front desk of the local Y.M.C.A., then at a tennis club, until I landed an unpaid internship at The Mountain View Voice, my hometown newspaper. First I brought coffee and helped around the office; eventually I began covering city-hall meetings and other assignments for pay.
For more than a decade of getting part-time and full-time jobs, employers have rarely asked to check my original Social Security card. When they did, I showed the photocopied version, which they accepted. Over time, I also began checking the citizenship box on my federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. (Claiming full citizenship was actually easier than declaring permanent resident “green card” status, which would have required me to provide an alien registration number.)
This deceit never got easier. The more I did it, the more I felt like an impostor, the more guilt I carried — and the more I worried that I would get caught. But I kept doing it. I needed to live and survive on my own, and I decided this was the way.
Mountain View High School became my second home. I was elected to represent my school at school-board meetings, which gave me the chance to meet and befriend Rich Fischer, the superintendent for our school district. I joined the speech and debate team, acted in school plays and eventually became co-editor of The Oracle, the student newspaper. That drew the attention of my principal, Pat Hyland. “You’re at school just as much as I am,” she told me. Pat and Rich would soon become mentors, and over time, almost surrogate parents for me.
After a choir rehearsal during my junior year, Jill Denny, the choir director, told me she was considering a Japan trip for our singing group. I told her I couldn’t afford it, but she said we’d figure out a way. I hesitated, and then decided to tell her the truth. “It’s not really the money,” I remember saying. “I don’t have the right passport.” When she assured me we’d get the proper documents, I finally told her. “I can’t get the right passport,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
She understood. So the choir toured Hawaii instead, with me in tow. (Mrs. Denny and I spoke a couple of months ago, and she told me she hadn’t wanted to leave any student behind.)
Later that school year, my history class watched a documentary on Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco city official who was assassinated. This was 1999, just six months after Matthew Shepard’s body was found tied to a fence in Wyoming. During the discussion, I raised my hand and said something like: “I’m sorry Harvey Milk got killed for being gay. . . . I’ve been meaning to say this. . . . I’m gay.”
I hadn’t planned on coming out that morning, though I had known that I was gay for several years. With that announcement, I became the only openly gay student at school, and it caused turmoil with my grandparents. Lolo kicked me out of the house for a few weeks. Though we eventually reconciled, I had disappointed him on two fronts. First, as a Catholic, he considered homosexuality a sin and was embarrassed about having “ang apo na bakla” (“a grandson who is gay”). Even worse, I was making matters more difficult for myself, he said. I needed to marry an American woman in order to gain a green card.
Tough as it was, coming out about being gay seemed less daunting than coming out about my legal status. I kept my other secret mostly hidden.
While my classmates awaited their college acceptance letters, I hoped to get a full-time job at The Mountain View Voice after graduation. It’s not that I didn’t want to go to college, but I couldn’t apply for state and federal financial aid. Without that, my family couldn’t afford to send me.
But when I finally told Pat and Rich about my immigration “problem” — as we called it from then on — they helped me look for a solution. At first, they even wondered if one of them could adopt me and fix the situation that way, but a lawyer Rich consulted told him it wouldn’t change my legal status because I was too old. Eventually they connected me to a new scholarship fund for high-potential students who were usually the first in their families to attend college. Most important, the fund was not concerned with immigration status. I was among the first recipients, with the scholarship covering tuition, lodging, books and other expenses for my studies at San Francisco State University.
As a college freshman, I found a job working part time at The San Francisco Chronicle, where I sorted mail and wrote some freelance articles. My ambition was to get a reporting job, so I embarked on a series of internships. First I landed at The Philadelphia Daily News, in the summer of 2001, where I covered a drive-by shooting and the wedding of the 76ers star Allen Iverson. Using those articles, I applied to The Seattle Times and got an internship for the following summer.
But then my lack of proper documents became a problem again. The Times’s recruiter, Pat Foote, asked all incoming interns to bring certain paperwork on their first day: a birth certificate, or a passport, or a driver’s license plus an original Social Security card. I panicked, thinking my documents wouldn’t pass muster. So before starting the job, I called Pat and told her about my legal status. After consulting with management, she called me back with the answer I feared: I couldn’t do the internship.
This was devastating. What good was college if I couldn’t then pursue the career I wanted? I decided then that if I was to succeed in a profession that is all about truth-telling, I couldn’t tell the truth about myself.
After this episode, Jim Strand, the venture capitalist who sponsored my scholarship, offered to pay for an immigration lawyer. Rich and I went to meet her in San Francisco’s financial district.
I was hopeful. This was in early 2002, shortly after Senators Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, and Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, introduced the Dream Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. It seemed like the legislative version of what I’d told myself: If I work hard and contribute, things will work out.
But the meeting left me crushed. My only solution, the lawyer said, was to go back to the Philippines and accept a 10-year ban before I could apply to return legally.
If Rich was discouraged, he hid it well. “Put this problem on a shelf,” he told me. “Compartmentalize it. Keep going.”
And I did. For the summer of 2003, I applied for internships across the country. Several newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and The Chicago Tribune, expressed interest. But when The Washington Post offered me a spot, I knew where I would go. And this time, I had no intention of acknowledging my “problem.”
The Post internship posed a tricky obstacle: It required a driver’s license. (After my close call at the California D.M.V., I’d never gotten one.) So I spent an afternoon at The Mountain View Public Library, studying various states’ requirements. Oregon was among the most welcoming — and it was just a few hours’ drive north.
Again, my support network came through. A friend’s father lived in Portland, and he allowed me to use his address as proof of residency. Pat, Rich and Rich’s longtime assistant, Mary Moore, sent letters to me at that address. Rich taught me how to do three-point turns in a parking lot, and a friend accompanied me to Portland.
The license meant everything to me — it would let me drive, fly and work. But my grandparents worried about the Portland trip and the Washington internship. While Lola offered daily prayers so that I would not get caught, Lolo told me that I was dreaming too big, risking too much.
I was determined to pursue my ambitions. I was 22, I told them, responsible for my own actions. But this was different from Lolo’s driving a confused teenager to Kinko’s. I knew what I was doing now, and I knew it wasn’t right. But what was I supposed to do?
I was paying state and federal taxes, but I was using an invalid Social Security card and writing false information on my employment forms. But that seemed better than depending on my grandparents or on Pat, Rich and Jim — or returning to a country I barely remembered. I convinced myself all would be O.K. if I lived up to the qualities of a “citizen”: hard work, self-reliance, love of my country.
At the D.M.V. in Portland, I arrived with my photocopied Social Security card, my college I.D., a pay stub from The San Francisco Chronicle and my proof of state residence — the letters to the Portland address that my support network had sent. It worked. My license, issued in 2003, was set to expire eight years later, on my 30th birthday, on Feb. 3, 2011. I had eight years to succeed professionally, and to hope that some sort of immigration reform would pass in the meantime and allow me to stay.
It seemed like all the time in the world.
My summer in Washington was exhilarating. I was intimidated to be in a major newsroom but was assigned a mentor — Peter Perl, a veteran magazine writer — to help me navigate it. A few weeks into the internship, he printed out one of my articles, about a guy who recovered a long-lost wallet, circled the first two paragraphs and left it on my desk. “Great eye for details — awesome!” he wrote. Though I didn’t know it then, Peter would become one more member of my network.
At the end of the summer, I returned to The San Francisco Chronicle. My plan was to finish school — I was now a senior — while I worked for The Chronicle as a reporter for the city desk. But when The Post beckoned again, offering me a full-time, two-year paid internship that I could start when I graduated in June 2004, it was too tempting to pass up. I moved back to Washington.
About four months into my job as a reporter for The Post, I began feeling increasingly paranoid, as if I had “illegal immigrant” tattooed on my forehead — and in Washington, of all places, where the debates over immigration seemed never-ending. I was so eager to prove myself that I feared I was annoying some colleagues and editors — and worried that any one of these professional journalists could discover my secret. The anxiety was nearly paralyzing. I decided I had to tell one of the higher-ups about my situation. I turned to Peter.
By this time, Peter, who still works at The Post, had become part of management as the paper’s director of newsroom training and professional development. One afternoon in late October, we walked a couple of blocks to Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Over some 20 minutes, sitting on a bench, I told him everything: the Social Security card, the driver’s license, Pat and Rich, my family.
Peter was shocked. “I understand you 100 times better now,” he said. He told me that I had done the right thing by telling him, and that it was now our shared problem. He said he didn’t want to do anything about it just yet. I had just been hired, he said, and I needed to prove myself. “When you’ve done enough,” he said, “we’ll tell Don and Len together.” (Don Graham is the chairman of The Washington Post Company; Leonard Downie Jr. was then the paper’s executive editor.) A month later, I spent my first Thanksgiving in Washington with Peter and his family.
In the five years that followed, I did my best to “do enough.” I was promoted to staff writer, reported on video-game culture, wrote a series on Washington’s H.I.V./AIDS epidemic and covered the role of technology and social media in the 2008 presidential race. I visited the White House, where I interviewed senior aides and covered a state dinner — and gave the Secret Service the Social Security number I obtained with false documents.
I did my best to steer clear of reporting on immigration policy but couldn’t always avoid it. On two occasions, I wrote about Hillary Clinton’s position on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. I also wrote an article about Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, then the chairman of the Republican National Committee, who was defending his party’s stance toward Latinos after only one Republican presidential candidate — John McCain, the co-author of a failed immigration bill — agreed to participate in a debate sponsored by Univision, the Spanish-language network.
It was an odd sort of dance: I was trying to stand out in a highly competitive newsroom, yet I was terrified that if I stood out too much, I’d invite unwanted scrutiny. I tried to compartmentalize my fears, distract myself by reporting on the lives of other people, but there was no escaping the central conflict in my life. Maintaining a deception for so long distorts your sense of self. You start wondering who you’ve become, and why.
In April 2008, I was part of a Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings a year earlier. Lolo died a year earlier, so it was Lola who called me the day of the announcement. The first thing she said was, “Anong mangyayari kung malaman ng mga tao?”
What will happen if people find out?
I couldn’t say anything. After we got off the phone, I rushed to the bathroom on the fourth floor of the newsroom, sat down on the toilet and cried.
In the summer of 2009, without ever having had that follow-up talk with top Post management, I left the paper and moved to New York to join The Huffington Post. I met Arianna Huffington at a Washington Press Club Foundation dinner I was covering for The Post two years earlier, and she later recruited me to join her news site. I wanted to learn more about Web publishing, and I thought the new job would provide a useful education.
Still, I was apprehensive about the move: many companies were already using E-Verify, a program set up by the Department of Homeland Security that checks if prospective employees are eligible to work, and I didn’t know if my new employer was among them. But I’d been able to get jobs in other newsrooms, I figured, so I filled out the paperwork as usual and succeeded in landing on the payroll.
While I worked at The Huffington Post, other opportunities emerged. My H.I.V./AIDS series became a documentary film called “The Other City,” which opened at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and was broadcast on Showtime. I began writing for magazines and landed a dream assignment: profiling Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for The New Yorker.
The more I achieved, the more scared and depressed I became. I was proud of my work, but there was always a cloud hanging over it, over me. My old eight-year deadline — the expiration of my Oregon driver’s license — was approaching.
After slightly less than a year, I decided to leave The Huffington Post. In part, this was because I wanted to promote the documentary and write a book about online culture — or so I told my friends. But the real reason was, after so many years of trying to be a part of the system, of focusing all my energy on my professional life, I learned that no amount of professional success would solve my problem or ease the sense of loss and displacement I felt. I lied to a friend about why I couldn’t take a weekend trip to Mexico. Another time I concocted an excuse for why I couldn’t go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Switzerland. I have been unwilling, for years, to be in a long-term relationship because I never wanted anyone to get too close and ask too many questions. All the while, Lola’s question was stuck in my head: What will happen if people find out?
Early this year, just two weeks before my 30th birthday, I won a small reprieve: I obtained a driver’s license in the state of Washington. The license is valid until 2016. This offered me five more years of acceptable identification — but also five more years of fear, of lying to people I respect and institutions that trusted me, of running away from who I am.
I’m done running. I’m exhausted. I don’t want that life anymore.
So I’ve decided to come forward, own up to what I’ve done, and tell my story to the best of my recollection. I’ve reached out to former bosses and employers and apologized for misleading them — a mix of humiliation and liberation coming with each disclosure. All the people mentioned in this article gave me permission to use their names. I’ve also talked to family and friends about my situation and am working with legal counsel to review my options. I don’t know what the consequences will be of telling my story.
I do know that I am grateful to my grandparents, my Lolo and Lola, for giving me the chance for a better life. I’m also grateful to my other family — the support network I found here in America — for encouraging me to pursue my dreams.
It’s been almost 18 years since I’ve seen my mother. Early on, I was mad at her for putting me in this position, and then mad at myself for being angry and ungrateful. By the time I got to college, we rarely spoke by phone. It became too painful; after a while it was easier to just send money to help support her and my two half-siblings. My sister, almost 2 years old when I left, is almost 20 now. I’ve never met my 14-year-old brother. I would love to see them.
Not long ago, I called my mother. I wanted to fill the gaps in my memory about that August morning so many years ago. We had never discussed it. Part of me wanted to shove the memory aside, but to write this article and face the facts of my life, I needed more details. Did I cry? Did she? Did we kiss goodbye?
My mother told me I was excited about meeting a stewardess, about getting on a plane. She also reminded me of the one piece of advice she gave me for blending in: If anyone asked why I was coming to America, I should say I was going to Disneyland.
Jose Antonio Vargas is a former reporter for The Washington Post and shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings. He founded Define American, which seeks to change the conversation on immigration reform. Editor: Chris Suellentrop (C.Suellentrop-MagGroup@nytimes.com)
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
മാധവിക്കുട്ടിയുടെ രചനകളില് നിന്ന്
എന്റെ മുത്തശ്ശിയുടെ വീട്ടില്
പണ്ട് ചുവരില് ഫ്രെയിം തൂക്കിയ
തവിട്ട് നിറമുള്ള
കുറച്ച് ഫോട്ടോകളുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.
എപ്പോഴെങ്കിലും അതിലൊരെണ്ണം
ഞാനൊന്ന് പൊക്കി നോക്കി
അപ്പോള് ഒരു തേള് മയക്കമുണര്ന്ന്
വാലുയര്ത്തും,കുത്തിക്കെട്ടിയാല്
നന്നായി വേദനിക്കും കേട്ടോ.
മുത്തശ്ശി വിളിച്ചു പറഞ്ഞു
അവറ്റയുടെ ഉള്ളില് വിഷമാണേയ്
വെറുതെ വിടുമ്പോഴാണ്
ഭൂതകാലത്തിന് ഭംഗി'
( ഉറങ്ങുന്ന തേളുകള് )
ഞാന് ചാവേര്പ്പടയില് ചേര്ന്നത്
ആത്മബലിക്ക് തയ്യാറായിട്ടാണ്
പ്രേമം ആത്മബലിയല്ലെമ്കില്
മറ്റെന്താണ് അതിന്റെ പൊരുള്?
"At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left…
That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?"
ഞാന് പാപിയാണ്
വിശുദ്ധയാണ്
വഞ്ചിക്കപ്പെട്ടവളാണ്
നിങ്ങളുടേതല്ലാത്ത ആഹ്ലാദങ്ങള്
എനിക്കില്ല
നിങ്ങളുടേതല്ലാത്ത വേദനകളുമില്ല
ഞാന്പോലും എന്നെ 'ഞാന്' എന്നു വിളിക്കുന്നു.
അവിടെയല്ലാത്ത
ഇവിടെയുള്ള
ഒരു മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം
കൊടുങ്കാറ്റിലെ മരങ്ങളുടേയോ
കാലവര്ഷ മേഘങ്ങളുടേയോ
മഴയുടേയോ
അന്ധവും ബധിരവുമായ സംസാരമല്ല
അല്ലെങ്കില്
ചിതയില് ജ്വലിക്കുന്ന അഗ്നിയുടെ
അസംബന്ധമായ പിറുപിറുക്കലുമല്ല.
ഒരിക്കലും അതിവൈകാരികമാകരുത്
അതിവൈകാരികത മാത്രമാണ്
ആഹ്ലാദത്തിന്റെ യഥാര്ത്ഥ ശത്രു.
ഞാന് വഴി തെറ്റിപ്പോയവള്
സ്നേഹം ലഭിക്കുവാന്
അപരിചിതരുടെ വാതിലുകളില്
യാചിക്കുന്നു.
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ ഇടം?
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ മാപ്പ്?
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ ആവശ്യം?
എന്നെ സംബന്ധിച്ചിടത്തോളം
പ്രശ്നമാകുന്ന ഏക സത്യം
മറ്റുള്ളവര്ക്ക് നല്കാനുള്ള
എന്റെ സ്നേഹം മാത്രമാണ്.
അപ്പോള് പ്രണയം
ഒരു പ്രഭാകേന്ദ്രം
നിമിഷത്തെ പ്രഭാമയമാക്കുന്നു
എന്നോട് ചോദിക്കൂ
ജീവിതം ഹ്രസ്വവും
പ്രണയം അതിനേക്കാള് ഹ്രസ്വവുമായിരിക്കുന്നതെന്താണ്?
ഓരോ സത്യവും
അങ്ങനെ ഓരോ ചോദ്യത്തോടെ
അവസാനിക്കുന്നു.
ഇത്തരത്തില് രൂപകല്പന ചെയ്ത ബാധിര്യമാണ്
നശ്വരമായതിനെ അനശ്വരമാക്കുന്നത്.
നിയതമായതിനെ അനിയതമാക്കുന്നത്
ചോദ്യങ്ങള് ചോദിച്ച്
ഉത്തരങ്ങള് വരുന്നതിന് മുമ്പെ
നീങ്ങിപ്പോകുന്നവര് ഭാഗ്യവാന്മാരാണ്
സന്ദേഹങ്ങളാല് മാന്തിക്കീറലുകളേല്ക്കാതെ
നീലനിശ്ശബ്ദതയില് വസിക്കുന്ന സമര്ഥന്മാര്
ഞാന് മരിക്കുമ്പോള്
എന്റെ മാംസവും അസ്ഥികളും
ദൂരെയെറിഞ്ഞു കളയരുത്
അവ കൂനകൂട്ടി വയ്ക്കുക.
അവ അവയുടെ ഗന്ധത്താല് പറയട്ടെ
ജീവിതത്തിനെന്തു മേന്മയുണ്ടായിരുന്നെന്ന്,
അവസാനത്തില്
സ്നേഹത്തിന്റെ മാഹാത്മ്യമെന്തായിരുന്നെന്ന്.
ആരും കുരിശില്നിന്നിറങ്ങി വരില്ല.
അല്ലെങ്കില്,
നമ്മെ അവന്റെ മുറിവുകള് കാണിച്ചു തരില്ല.
നിശ്ശബ്ദതയില് നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടുപോയ
ഒരു ദൈവവും
നമ്മോട് സംസാരിക്കുകയില്ല.
ഒരു നഷ്ടപ്രണയവും
നമ്മോട് അവകാശവാദമുന്നയിക്കുകയില്ല.
ഇല്ല, ഒരിക്കലും നാം വീണ്ടെടുക്കപ്പെടുകയില്ല.
അല്ലെങ്കില് നവീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയുമില്ല
ഇന്ന് ഞാനെന്റെ കണ്ണട
ഉപേക്ഷിച്ചു പോന്നു
ഇതൊരു അന്ധമായ നടത്തമായിത്തീരാന്
ഈ നടത്തം എന്റെ ജീവിതത്തെ
പ്രതീകവത്കരിക്കുവാന്!
ഞാനൊരു മനുഷ്യസ്ത്രീയായിരിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ
അത് മാനുഷികമാണ്,
മനസ്സിലാകുന്നില്ലേ?
അതെന്റെ ആഹ്ലാദങ്ങള്ക്കും അഭിലാഷങ്ങള്ക്കും
പ്രതീക്ഷകള്ക്കും ശബ്ദം നല്കുന്നു,
കാക്കകള്ക്ക് കരച്ചില്പോലെ
അല്ലെങ്കില്
സിംഹങ്ങള്ക്ക് ഗര്ജ്ജനംപോലെ
അതെന്നെ സഹായിക്കുന്നു,
അത് മനുഷ്യശബ്ദമാണ്.
അവിടെയല്ലാത്ത, ഇവിടെയുള്ള
മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം.
കാണുകയും കേള്ക്കുകയും
ഗ്രഹിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്ന
ഒരു മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം.
പണ്ട് ചുവരില് ഫ്രെയിം തൂക്കിയ
തവിട്ട് നിറമുള്ള
കുറച്ച് ഫോട്ടോകളുണ്ടായിരുന്നു.
എപ്പോഴെങ്കിലും അതിലൊരെണ്ണം
ഞാനൊന്ന് പൊക്കി നോക്കി
അപ്പോള് ഒരു തേള് മയക്കമുണര്ന്ന്
വാലുയര്ത്തും,കുത്തിക്കെട്ടിയാല്
നന്നായി വേദനിക്കും കേട്ടോ.
മുത്തശ്ശി വിളിച്ചു പറഞ്ഞു
അവറ്റയുടെ ഉള്ളില് വിഷമാണേയ്
വെറുതെ വിടുമ്പോഴാണ്
ഭൂതകാലത്തിന് ഭംഗി'
( ഉറങ്ങുന്ന തേളുകള് )
ഞാന് ചാവേര്പ്പടയില് ചേര്ന്നത്
ആത്മബലിക്ക് തയ്യാറായിട്ടാണ്
പ്രേമം ആത്മബലിയല്ലെമ്കില്
മറ്റെന്താണ് അതിന്റെ പൊരുള്?
"At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left…
That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?"
ഞാന് പാപിയാണ്
വിശുദ്ധയാണ്
വഞ്ചിക്കപ്പെട്ടവളാണ്
നിങ്ങളുടേതല്ലാത്ത ആഹ്ലാദങ്ങള്
എനിക്കില്ല
നിങ്ങളുടേതല്ലാത്ത വേദനകളുമില്ല
ഞാന്പോലും എന്നെ 'ഞാന്' എന്നു വിളിക്കുന്നു.
അവിടെയല്ലാത്ത
ഇവിടെയുള്ള
ഒരു മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം
കൊടുങ്കാറ്റിലെ മരങ്ങളുടേയോ
കാലവര്ഷ മേഘങ്ങളുടേയോ
മഴയുടേയോ
അന്ധവും ബധിരവുമായ സംസാരമല്ല
അല്ലെങ്കില്
ചിതയില് ജ്വലിക്കുന്ന അഗ്നിയുടെ
അസംബന്ധമായ പിറുപിറുക്കലുമല്ല.
ഒരിക്കലും അതിവൈകാരികമാകരുത്
അതിവൈകാരികത മാത്രമാണ്
ആഹ്ലാദത്തിന്റെ യഥാര്ത്ഥ ശത്രു.
ഞാന് വഴി തെറ്റിപ്പോയവള്
സ്നേഹം ലഭിക്കുവാന്
അപരിചിതരുടെ വാതിലുകളില്
യാചിക്കുന്നു.
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ ഇടം?
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ മാപ്പ്?
പ്രേമത്തിന് എവിടെ ആവശ്യം?
എന്നെ സംബന്ധിച്ചിടത്തോളം
പ്രശ്നമാകുന്ന ഏക സത്യം
മറ്റുള്ളവര്ക്ക് നല്കാനുള്ള
എന്റെ സ്നേഹം മാത്രമാണ്.
അപ്പോള് പ്രണയം
ഒരു പ്രഭാകേന്ദ്രം
നിമിഷത്തെ പ്രഭാമയമാക്കുന്നു
എന്നോട് ചോദിക്കൂ
ജീവിതം ഹ്രസ്വവും
പ്രണയം അതിനേക്കാള് ഹ്രസ്വവുമായിരിക്കുന്നതെന്താണ്?
ഓരോ സത്യവും
അങ്ങനെ ഓരോ ചോദ്യത്തോടെ
അവസാനിക്കുന്നു.
ഇത്തരത്തില് രൂപകല്പന ചെയ്ത ബാധിര്യമാണ്
നശ്വരമായതിനെ അനശ്വരമാക്കുന്നത്.
നിയതമായതിനെ അനിയതമാക്കുന്നത്
ചോദ്യങ്ങള് ചോദിച്ച്
ഉത്തരങ്ങള് വരുന്നതിന് മുമ്പെ
നീങ്ങിപ്പോകുന്നവര് ഭാഗ്യവാന്മാരാണ്
സന്ദേഹങ്ങളാല് മാന്തിക്കീറലുകളേല്ക്കാതെ
നീലനിശ്ശബ്ദതയില് വസിക്കുന്ന സമര്ഥന്മാര്
ഞാന് മരിക്കുമ്പോള്
എന്റെ മാംസവും അസ്ഥികളും
ദൂരെയെറിഞ്ഞു കളയരുത്
അവ കൂനകൂട്ടി വയ്ക്കുക.
അവ അവയുടെ ഗന്ധത്താല് പറയട്ടെ
ജീവിതത്തിനെന്തു മേന്മയുണ്ടായിരുന്നെന്ന്,
അവസാനത്തില്
സ്നേഹത്തിന്റെ മാഹാത്മ്യമെന്തായിരുന്നെന്ന്.
ആരും കുരിശില്നിന്നിറങ്ങി വരില്ല.
അല്ലെങ്കില്,
നമ്മെ അവന്റെ മുറിവുകള് കാണിച്ചു തരില്ല.
നിശ്ശബ്ദതയില് നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടുപോയ
ഒരു ദൈവവും
നമ്മോട് സംസാരിക്കുകയില്ല.
ഒരു നഷ്ടപ്രണയവും
നമ്മോട് അവകാശവാദമുന്നയിക്കുകയില്ല.
ഇല്ല, ഒരിക്കലും നാം വീണ്ടെടുക്കപ്പെടുകയില്ല.
അല്ലെങ്കില് നവീകരിക്കപ്പെടുകയുമില്ല
ഇന്ന് ഞാനെന്റെ കണ്ണട
ഉപേക്ഷിച്ചു പോന്നു
ഇതൊരു അന്ധമായ നടത്തമായിത്തീരാന്
ഈ നടത്തം എന്റെ ജീവിതത്തെ
പ്രതീകവത്കരിക്കുവാന്!
ഞാനൊരു മനുഷ്യസ്ത്രീയായിരിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ
അത് മാനുഷികമാണ്,
മനസ്സിലാകുന്നില്ലേ?
അതെന്റെ ആഹ്ലാദങ്ങള്ക്കും അഭിലാഷങ്ങള്ക്കും
പ്രതീക്ഷകള്ക്കും ശബ്ദം നല്കുന്നു,
കാക്കകള്ക്ക് കരച്ചില്പോലെ
അല്ലെങ്കില്
സിംഹങ്ങള്ക്ക് ഗര്ജ്ജനംപോലെ
അതെന്നെ സഹായിക്കുന്നു,
അത് മനുഷ്യശബ്ദമാണ്.
അവിടെയല്ലാത്ത, ഇവിടെയുള്ള
മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം.
കാണുകയും കേള്ക്കുകയും
ഗ്രഹിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്ന
ഒരു മനസ്സിന്റെ ഭാഷണം.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Moonwalking with Einstein : the art and science of remembering everything / Joshua Foer.
Moonwalking with Einstein : the art and science of remembering everything / Joshua Foer. 
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Rhetorica ad Herennium
Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.16-24
English translation by Harry Caplan (Loeb, 1954)
(16) Nunc ad thesaurum inventorum atque ad omnium partium rhetoricae custodem, memoriam, transeamus.
Now let me turn to the treasure-house of the ideas supplied by Invention, to the guardian of all the parts of rhetoric, the Memory.
memoria utrum habeat quiddam artificiosi, an omnis ab natura proficiscatur, aliud dicendi tempus idoneum dabitur. Nunc proinde atque constet in hac re multum valere artem et praeceptionem, ita de ea re loquemur. Placet enim nobis esse artificium memoriae; quare placeat, alias ostendemus; in praesentia, cuiusmodi sit ea, aperiemus.
The question whether memory has some artificial quality, or comes entirely from nature, we shall have another, more favourable, opportunity to discuss. At present I shall accept as proved that in this matter art and method are of great importance, and shall treat the subject accordingly. For my part, I am satisfied that there is an art of memory — the grounds of my belief I shall explain elsewhere. For the present I shall disclose what sort of thing memory is.
Sunt igitur duae memoriae: una naturalis, altera artificiosa. Naturalis est ea, quae nostris animis insita est et simul cum cogitatione nata; artificiosa est ea, quam confirmat inductio quaedam et ratio praeceptionis. Sed qua via in ceteris rebus ingenii bonitas imitatur saepe doctrinam, ars porro naturae commoda confirmat et auget, item fit in hac re, ut nonnumquam naturalis memoria, si cui data est egregia, similis sit huic artificiosae, porro haec artificiosa naturae commoda retineat et amplificet ratione doctrinae; quapropter naturalis memoria praeceptione confirmanda est, ut sit egregia, et haec, quae doctrina datur, indiget ingenii. Nec hoc magis aut minus in hac re, quam in ceteris artibus fit, ut ingenio doctrina, praeceptione natura nitescat. Quare et illis, qui natura memores sunt, utilis haec erit institutio, quod tute paulo post poteris intellegere: et si illei, freti ingenio, nostri non indigerent, tamen iusta causa daretur, quare iis, qui minus ingenii habent, adiumento velimus esse. Nunc de artificiosa memoria loquemur. There are, then, two kinds of memory: one natural, and the other the product of art. The natural memory is that memory which is imbedded in our minds, born simultaneously with thought. The artificial memory is that memory which is strengthened by a kind of training and system of discipline. But just as in everything else the merit of natural excellence often rivals acquired learning, and art, in its turn, reinforces and develops the natural advantages, so does it happen in this instance. The natural memory, if a person is endowed with an exceptional one, is often like this artificial memory, and this artificial memory, in its turn, retains and develops the natural advantages by a method of discipline. Thus the natural memory must be strengthened by discipline so as to become exceptional, and, on the other hand, this memory provided by discipline requires natural ability. It is neither more nor less true in this instance than in the other arts that science strives by the aid of innate ability, and nature by the aid of the rules of art. The training here offered will therefore also be useful to those who by nature have a good memory, as you will yourself soon come to understand. But even if these, relying on their natural talent, did not need our help, we should still be justified in wishing to aid the less well-endowed. Now I shall discuss the artificial memory.
Constat igitur artificiosa memoria locis et imaginibus. Locos appellamus eos, qui breviter, perfecte, insignite aut natura aut manu sunt absoluti, ut eos facile naturali memoria conprehendere et amplecti queamus: aedes, intercolumnium, angulum, fornicem et alia, quae his similia sunt. Imagines sunt formae quaedam et notae et simulacra eius rei, quam meminisse volumus: quod genus equi, leones, aquilae; [memoriam] si volemus habere imagines eorum, locis certis conlocare oportebit. Nunc, cuiusmodi locos invenire et quo pacto reperire et in locis imagines constituere oporteat, ostendemus. The artificial memory includes backgrounds and images. By backgrounds I mean such scenes as are naturally or artificially set off on a small scale, complete and conspicuous, so that we can grasp and embrace them easily by the natural memory — for example, a house, an intercolumnar space, a recess, an arch, or the like. An image is, as it were, a figure, mark, or portrait of the object we wish to remember; for example, if we wish to recall a horse, a lion, or an eagle, we must place its image in a definite background. Now I shall show what kind of backgrounds we should invent and how we should discover the images and set them therein.
(17) Quemadmodum igitur qui litteras sciunt, possunt id, quod dictatur, eis scribere et recitare quod scripserunt, item qui nemonica didicerunt, possunt, quod audierunt, in locis conlocare ex his memoriter pronuntiare. Nam loci cerae aut cartae simillimi sunt, imagines litteris, dispositio et conlocatio imaginum scripturae, pronuntiatio lectioni. Oportet igitur, si volumus multa meminisse, multos nobis locos conparare, uti multis locis multas imagines conlocare possimus. Item putamus oportere ne quando perturbatione ordinis inpediamur, quo setius, quoto quoquo loco libebit, vel ab superiore vel ab inferiore parte imagines sequi et ea, quae mandata locis erunt, edere possimus. Those who know the letters of the alphabet can thereby write out what is dictated to them and read aloud what they have written. Likewise, those who have learned mnemonics can set in backgrounds what they have heard, and from these backgrounds deliver it by memory. For the backgrounds are very much like wax tablet or papyrus, the images like letters, the arrangement and disposition of the images like the script, and the delivery is like the reading. We should therefore, if we desire to memorize a large number of items, equip ourselves with a large number of backgrounds, so that in these we may set a large number of images. I likewise think it obligatory to have these backgrounds in a series, so that we never by confusion in their order be prevented from following the images — proceeding from any background we wish, whatsoever its place in the series, and whether we go forwards or backwards — nor from delivering orally what has been committed to the backgrounds.
(18) nam ut, si in ordine stantes notos quomplures viderimus, nihil nostra intersit, utrum ab summo an ab imo an ab medio nomina eorum dicere incipiamus, item in locis ex ordine conlocatis eveniet, ut in quamlibebit partem quoque loco lubebit imaginibus commoniti dicere possimus id, quod locis mandaverimus. quare placet et ex ordine locos conparare.
For example, if we should see a great number of our acquaintances standing in a certain order, it would not make any difference to us whether we should tell their names beginning with the person standing at the head of the line or at the foot or in the middle. So with respect to the backgrounds. If these have been arranged in order, the result will be that, reminded by the images, we can repeat orally what we committed to the backgrounds, proceeding in either direction from any background we please. That is why it also seems best to arrange the backgrounds in a series.
Locos, quos sumpserimus, egregie commeditari oportebit, ut perpetuo nobis haerere possint: nam imagines, sicuti litterae delentur, ubi nihil utimur; loci, tamquam cera, remanere debent. Et, ne forte in numero locorum falli possimus, quintum quemque placet notari: quod genus, si in quinto loco manum auream conlocemus, in decumo aliquem notum, cui praenomen sit Decumo; deinde facile erit inceps similis notas quinto quoquo loco conlocare.
We shall need to study with special care the backgrounds we have adopted so that they may cling lastingly in our memory, for the images, like letters, are effaced when we make no use of them, but the backgrounds, like wax tablets, should abide. And that we may by no chance err in the number of backgrounds, each fifth background should be marked. For example, if in the fifth we should set a golden hand, and in the tenth some acquaintance whose first name is Decimus, it will then be easy to station like marks in each successive fifth background.
(19) Item commodius est in derelicta, quam in celebri regione locos conparare, propterea quod frequentia et obambulatio hominum conturbat et infirmat imaginum notas, solitudo conservat integras simulacrorum figuras. Praeterea dissimilis forma atque natura loci conparandi sunt, ut distincti interlucere possint: nam si qui multa intercolumnia sumpserit, conturbabitur similitudine, ut ignoret, quid in quoquo loco conlocarit. Et magnitudine modica et mediocris locos habere oportet: nam et praeter modum ampli vagas imagines reddunt et nimis angusti saepe non videntur posse capere imaginum conlocationem. tum nec nimis inlustris nec vehementer obscuros locos habere oportet, ne aut obcaecentur tenebris imagines aut splendore praefulgeant. Intervalla locorum mediocria placet esse, fere paulo plus aut minus pedum tricenum: nam ut aspectus item cogitatio minus valet, sive nimis procul removeris sive vehementer prope admoveris id, quod oportet videri.
Again, it will be more advantageous to obtain backgrounds in a deserted than in a populous region, because the crowding and passing to and fro of people confuse and weaken the impress of the images, while solitude keeps their outlines sharp. Further, backgrounds differing in form and nature must be secured, so that, thus distinguished, they may be clearly visible; for if a person has adopted many intercolumnar spaces, their resemblance to one another will so confuse him that he will no longer know what he has set in each background. And these backgrounds ought to be of moderate size and medium extent, for when excessively large they render the images vague, and when too small often seem incapable of receiving an arrangement of images. Then the backgrounds ought to be neither too bright nor too dim, so that the shadows may not obscure the images nor the lustre make them glitter. I believe that the intervals between backgrounds should be of moderate extent, approximately thirty feet; for, like the external eye, so the inner eye of thought is less powerful when you have moved the object of sight too near or too far away.
Sed quamquam facile est ei, qui paulo plura noverit, quamvis multos et idoneos locos conparare, tamen si qui satis idoneos invenire se non putabit, ipse sibi constituat quam volet multos licebit. Cogitatio enim quamvis regionem potest amplecti et in ea situm loci cuiusdam ad suum arbitrium fabricari et architectari. Quare licebit, si hac prompta copia contenti non erimus, nosmet ipsos nobis cogitatione nostra regionem constituere et idoneorum locorum commodissimam distinctionem conparare. De locis satis dictum est; nunc ad imaginum rationem transeamus. Although it is easy for a person with a relatively large experience to equip himself with as many and as suitable backgrounds as he may desire, even a person who believes that he finds no store of backgrounds that are good enough, may succeeded in fashioning as many such as he wishes. For the imagination can embrace any region whatsoever and it at will fashion and construct the setting of some background. Hence, if we are not content with our ready-made supply of backgrounds, we may in our imagination create a region for ourselves and obtain a most serviceable distribution of appropriate backgrounds. On the subject of backgrounds enough has been said; let me now turn to the theory of images.
(20) Quoniam ergo rerum similes imagines esse oportet, ex omnibus rebus nosmet nobis similitudines eligere debemus. Duplices igitur similitudines esse debent, unae rerum, alterae verborum. Rerum similitudines exprimuntur, cum summatim ipsorum negotiorum imagines conparamus; verborum similitudines constituuntur, cum unius cuiusque nominis et vocabuli memoria imagine notatur. Rei totius memoriam saepe una nota et imagine simplici conprehendimus.
Since, then, images must resemble objects, we ought ourselves to choose from all objects likenesses for our use. Hence likenesses are bound to be of two kinds, one of subject-matter the other of words. Likenesses of matter are formed when we enlist images that present a general view of the matter with which we are dealing; likenesses of words are established when the record of each single noun or appellative is kept by an image. Often we encompass the record of an entire matter by one notation, a single image.
hoc modo, ut si accusator dixerit ab reo hominem veneno necatum, et hereditatis causa factum arguerit, et eius rei multos dixerit testes et conscios esse: si hoc primum, ut ad defendendum nobis expeditum meminisse volemus, in primo loco rei totius imaginem conformabimus: aegrotum in lecto cubantem faciemus ipsum illum, de quo agetur, si formam eius detinebimus; si eum non, at aliquem aegrotum de minimo loco sumemus, ut cito in mentem venire possit. Et reum ad lectum eius adstituemus, dextera poculum, sinistra tabulas, medico testiculos arietinos tenentem: hoc modo et testium et hereditatis et veneno necati memoriam habere poterimus. Item deinceps cetera crimina ex ordine in locis ponemus; et, quotienscumque rem meminisse volemus, si formarum dispositione et imaginum diligenti notatione utemur, facile ea, quae volemus, memoria consequemur. For example, the prosecutor has said that the defendant killed a man by poison, has charged that the motive for the crime was an inheritance, and declared that there are many witnesses and accessories to this act. If in order to facilitate our defence we wish to remember this first point, we shall in our first background form an image of the whole matter. We shall picture the man in question as lying ill in bed, if we know his person. If we do not know him, we shall yet take some one to be our invalid, but a man of the lowest class, so that he may come to mind at once. And we shall place the defendant at the bedside, holding in his right hand a cup, and in his left tablets, and on the fourth finger ram's testicles. In this way we can record the man who was poisoned, the inheritance, and the witnesses. In like fashion we shall set the other counts of the charge in backgrounds successively, following their order, and whenever we wish to remember a point, by properly arranging the patterns of the backgrounds and carefully imprinting the images, we shall easily succeed in calling back to mind what we wish.
(21) Cum verborum similitudines imaginibus exprimere volemus, plus negotii suscipiemus et magis ingenium nostrum exercebimus. Id nos hoc modo facere oportebit: Iam domum itionem reges Atridae arant.
When we wish to represent by images the likenesses of words, we shall be undertaking a greater task and exercising our ingenuity the more. This we ought to effect in the following way: Iam domum itionem reges Atridae arant. "And now their home-coming the kings, the sons of Atreus, are making ready."
in loco constituere manus ad caelum tollentem Domitium, cum a Regibus Marciis loris caedatur: hoc erit "Iam domum itionem reges"; in altero loco Aesopum et Cimbrum subornari, ut ad Ephigeniam, in Agamemnonem et Menelaum: hoc erit "Atridae parant." Hoc modo omnia verba erunt expressa. Sed haec imaginum conformatio tum valet, si naturalem memoriam exsuscitaverimus hac notatione, ut versu posito ipsi nobiscum primum transeamus bis aut ter eum versum, deinde tum imaginibus verba exprimamus. Hoc modo naturae subpeditabitur doctrina. Nam utraque altera separata minus erit firma, ita tamen, ut multo plus in doctrina atque arte praesidii sit. If we wish to remember this verse, in our first background we should put Domitius, raising hands to heaven while he is lashed by the Marcii Reges — that will represent "Iam domum itionem reges" ("And now their home-coming the kings,"); in the second background, Aesopus and Cimber being dressed as for the rôles of Agamemnon and Menelaüs in Iphigenia — that will represent "Atridae parant" ("the sons of Atreus, making ready"). By this method all the words will be represented. But such an arrangement of images succeeds only if we use our notation to stimulate the natural memory, so that we first go over a given verse twice or three times to ourselves and then represent the words by means of images. In this way art will supplement nature. For neither by itself will be strong enough, though we must note that theory and technique are much the more reliable. I should not hesitate to demonstrate this in detail, did I not fear that, once having departed from my plan, I should not so well preserve the clear conciseness of my instruction.
Nunc, quoniam solet accidere, ut imagines partim firmae et acres et ad monendum idoneae sint, partim inbecillae et infirmae, quae vix memoriam possint excitare, qua de causa utrumque fiat, considerandum est, ut cognita causa, quas vitemus et quas sequamur imagines, scire possimus. Now, since in normal cases some images are strong and sharp and suitable for awakening recollection, and others so weak and feeble as hardly to succeed in stimulating memory, we must therefore consider the cause of these differences, so that, by knowing the cause, we may know which images to avoid and which to seek.
(22) Docet igitur nos ipsa natura, quid oporteat fieri. Nam si quas res in vita videmus parvas, usitatas, cottidianas, meminisse non solemus propterea quod nulla nova nec admirabili re commovetur animus: at si quid videmus aut audimus egregie turpe aut honestum, inusitatum, magnum, incredibile, ridiculum, id diu meminisse consuevimus. aut audimus, obliviscimur plerumque; quae acciderunt in pueritia, meminimus optime saepe; nec hoc alia de causa potest accidere, nisi quod usitatae res facile e memoria elabuntur, insignes et novae diutius exortus, cursus, occasus nemo admiratur, propterea quia cottidie fiunt; at eclipsis solis mirantur, quia raro accidunt, et solis eclipsis magis mirantur quam lunae, propterea quod hae crebriores sunt. Docet ergo se natura vulgari et usitata re non exsuscitari, novitate et insigni quodam negotio commoveri. Imitetur ars igitur naturam et, quod ea desiderat, id inveniat, quod ostendit, sequatur. Nihil est enim, quod aut natura extremum invenerit aut doctrina primum; sed rerum principia ab ingenio profecta sunt, exitus disciplina conparantur.
Now nature herself teaches us what we should do. When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, extraordinary, great, unbelievable, or laughable, that we are likely to remember a long time. Accordingly, things immediate to our eye or ear we commonly forget; incidents of our childhood we often remember best. Nor could this be so for any other reason than that ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and novel stay longer in mind. A sunrise, the sun's course, a sunset, are marvellous to no one because they occur daily. But solar eclipses are a source of wonder because they occur seldom, and indeed are more marvellous than lunar eclipses, because these are more frequent. Thus nature shows that she is not aroused by the common, ordinary event, but is moved by a new or striking occurrence. Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invention nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent, and the ends are reached by discipline.
Imagines igitur nos in eo genere constituere oportebit, quod genus in memoria diutissime potest haerere. Id accidet, si quam maxime notatas similitudines constituemus; si non multas nec vagas, sed aliquid agentes imagines ponemus; si egregiam pulcritudinem aut unicam turpitudinem eis adtribuemus; si aliquas exornabimus, ut si coronis aut veste purpurea, quo nobis notatior sit similitudo; aut si qua re deformabimus, ut si cruentam aut caeno oblitam aut rubrica delibutam inducamus, quo magis insignita sit forma, aut ridiculas res aliquas imaginibus adtribuamus: nam ea res quoque faciet, ut facilius meminisse valeamus. Nam, quas res facile meminerimus, easdem fictas et diligenter notatas meminisse non difficile est. Sed illud facere oportebit, ut identidem primos quosque locos imaginum renovandarum causa celeriter animo pervagemus. We ought, then, to set up images of a kind that can adhere longest in the memory. And we shall do so if we establish likenesses as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague, but doing something; if we assign to them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we dress some of them with crowns or purple cloaks, for example, so that the likeness may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or soiled with mud or smeared with red paint, so that its form is more striking, or by assigning certain comic effects to our images, for that, too, will ensure our remembering them more readily. The things we easily remember when they are real we likewise remember without difficulty when they are figments, if they have been carefully delineated. But this will be essential — again and again to run over rapidly in the mind all the original backgrounds in order to refresh the images.
(23) Scio plerosque Graecos, qui de memoria sripserunt, fecisse, ut multorum verborum imagines conscriberent, uti, qui ediscere vellent, paratas haberent, ne quid in quaerendo consumerent operae. Quorum rationem aliquot de causis inprobamus: primum, quod in verborum innumerabili multitudine ridiculumst mille verborum imagines conparare. Quantulum enim poterunt haec valere, cum ex infinita verborum copia modo aliud modo aliud nos verbum meminisse oportebit? Deinde cur volumus ab industria quemquam removere, ut ne quid ipse quaerat, nos illi omnia parata quaesita tradamus? Praeterea similitudine alia alius magis commovetur. Nam ut saepe, formam si quam similem cuipiam dixerimus esse, non omnes habemus adsensores, quod alii videtur aliud, item fit imaginibus, ut, quae nobis diligenter notata sit, ea parum videatur insignis aliis. Quare sibi quemque suo commodo convenit imagines conparare. Postremo praeceptoris est docere, quemadmodum quaeri quidque conveniat, et unum aliquod aut alterum, non omnia, quae eius generis erunt, exempli causa subicere, quo res possit esse dilucidior: quom de prohemiis quaerendis disputamus, rationem damus quaerendi, non mille prohemiorum de imaginibus fieri convenire.
I know that most of the Greeks who have written on the memory have taken the course of listing images that correspond to a great many words, so that persons who wished to learn these images by heart would have them ready without expending effort on a search for them. I disapprove of their method on several grounds. First, among the innumerable multitude of words it is ridiculous to collect images for a thousand. How meagre is the value these can have, when out of the infinite store of words we shall need to remember now one, and now another? Secondly, why do we wish to rob anybody of his initiative, so that, to save him from making any search himself, we deliver to him everything searched out and ready? Then again, one person is more struck by one likeness, and another more by another. Often in fact when we declare that some one form resembles another, we fail to receive universal assent, because things seem different to different persons. The same is true with respect to images: one that is well-defined to us appears relatively inconspicuous to others. Everybody, therefore, should in equipping himself with images suit his own convenience. Finally, it is the instructor's duty to teach the proper method of search in each case, and, for the sake of greater clarity, to add in illustration some one or two examples of its kind, but not all. For instance, when I discuss the search for Introductions, I give a method of search and do not draught a thousand kinds of Introductions. The same procedure I believes be followed with respect to images.
(24) Nunc, ne forte verborum memoriam aut nimis difficilem aut parum utilem arbitrere, rerum ipsarum memoria contentus sis, quod et utilior sit et plus habeat facultatis, admonendus es, quare verborum memoriam inprobemus. Nam putamus oportere eos, qui velint res faciliores sine labore et molestia facere, in rebus difficilioribus esse ante exercitatos. Nec nos hanc verborum memoriam inducimus, sed ut hac exercitatione illa rerum memoria, quae pertinet ad utilitatem, confirmetur, ut ab hac difficili consuetudine sine labore ad illam facultatem transire possimus. Sed cum in omni disciplina infirma est artis praeceptio sine summa adsiduitate exercitationis, tum vero in nemonicis minimum valet doctrina, nisi industria, studio labore, diligentia conprobatur. Quam plurimos locos ut habeas et quam maxime ad praecepta adcommodatos curare poteris; in imaginibus conlocandis exerceri cotidie convenit. Non enim, sicut a ceteris studiis abducimur nonnumquam occupatione, item ab hac re nos potest causa deducere aliqua. Numquam est enim, quin aliquid memoriae tradere velimus et tum maxime, cum aliquo maiore negotio detinemur. Quare, cum sit utile facile meminisse, non te fallit, quod tantopere utile sit, quanto labore sit adpetendum: poteris existimare utilitate cognita. Pluribus verbis ad eam te hortari non est sententia, ne aut tuo studio diffisi aut minus, quam res postulat, dixisse videamur. De quinta parte rhetoricae deinceps dicemus: tu primas quasque partes in animo frequenta et, quod maxime necesse est, exercitatione confirma. Now, lest you should perchance regard the memorizing of words either as too difficult or as of too little use, and so rest content with the memorizing of matter, as being easier and more useful, I must advise you why I do not disapprove of memorizing words. I believe that they who wish to do easy things without trouble and toil must previously have been trained in more difficult things. Nor have I included memorization of words to enable us to get verse by rote, but rather as an exercise whereby to strengthen that other kind of memory, the memory of matter, which is of practical use. Thus we may without effort pass from this difficult training to ease in that other memory. In every discipline artistic theory is of little avail without unremitting exercise, but especially in mnemonics theory is almost valueless unless made good by industry, devotion, toil, and care. You can make sure that you have as many backgrounds as possible and that these conform as much as possible to the rules; in placing the images you should exercise every day. While an engrossing preoccupation may often distract us from our other pursuits, from this activity nothing whatever can divert us. Indeed there is never a moment when we do not wish to commit something to memory, and we wish it most of all when our attention is held by business of special importance. So, since a ready memory is a useful thing, you see clearly with what great pains we must strive to acquire so useful a faculty. Once you know its uses you will be ab le to appreciate this advice. To exhort you further in the matter of memory is not my intention, for I should appear either to have lacked confidence in your zeal or to have discussed the subject less fully than it demands.
[DRB 11.17.2009]
English translation by Harry Caplan (Loeb, 1954)
(16) Nunc ad thesaurum inventorum atque ad omnium partium rhetoricae custodem, memoriam, transeamus.
Now let me turn to the treasure-house of the ideas supplied by Invention, to the guardian of all the parts of rhetoric, the Memory.
memoria utrum habeat quiddam artificiosi, an omnis ab natura proficiscatur, aliud dicendi tempus
The question whether memory has some artificial quality, or comes entirely from nature, we shall have another, more favourable, opportunity to discuss. At present I shall accept as proved that in this matter art and method are of great importance, and shall treat the subject accordingly. For my part, I am satisfied that there is an art of memory — the grounds of my belief I shall explain elsewhere. For the present I shall disclose what sort of thing memory is.
Sunt igitur duae memoriae: una naturalis, altera artificiosa. Naturalis est ea, quae nostris animis insita est et simul cum cogitatione nata; artificiosa est ea, quam confirmat inductio quaedam et ratio praeceptionis. Sed qua via in ceteris rebus ingenii bonitas imitatur saepe doctrinam, ars porro naturae commoda confirmat et auget, item fit in hac re, ut nonnumquam naturalis memoria, si cui data est egregia, similis sit huic artificiosae, porro haec artificiosa naturae commoda retineat et amplificet ratione doctrinae; quapropter
Constat igitur artificiosa memoria locis et imaginibus. Locos appellamus eos, qui breviter, perfecte, insignite aut natura aut manu sunt absoluti, ut eos facile naturali memoria conprehendere et amplecti queamus:
(17) Quemadmodum igitur qui litteras sciunt, possunt id, quod dictatur, eis scribere et recitare quod scripserunt, item qui nemonica didicerunt, possunt, quod audierunt, in locis conlocare
(18) nam ut, si in ordine stantes notos quomplures viderimus, nihil nostra intersit, utrum ab summo an ab imo an ab medio nomina eorum dicere incipiamus, item in locis ex ordine conlocatis eveniet, ut in quamlibebit partem quoque loco lubebit imaginibus commoniti dicere possimus id, quod locis mandaverimus. quare placet et ex ordine locos conparare.
For example, if we should see a great number of our acquaintances standing in a certain order, it would not make any difference to us whether we should tell their names beginning with the person standing at the head of the line or at the foot or in the middle. So with respect to the backgrounds. If these have been arranged in order, the result will be that, reminded by the images, we can repeat orally what we committed to the backgrounds, proceeding in either direction from any background we please. That is why it also seems best to arrange the backgrounds in a series.
Locos, quos sumpserimus, egregie commeditari oportebit, ut perpetuo nobis haerere possint: nam imagines, sicuti litterae delentur, ubi nihil utimur; loci, tamquam cera, remanere debent. Et, ne forte in numero locorum falli possimus, quintum quemque placet notari: quod genus, si in quinto loco manum auream conlocemus,
We shall need to study with special care the backgrounds we have adopted so that they may cling lastingly in our memory, for the images, like letters, are effaced when we make no use of them, but the backgrounds, like wax tablets, should abide. And that we may by no chance err in the number of backgrounds, each fifth background should be marked. For example, if in the fifth we should set a golden hand, and in the tenth some acquaintance whose first name is Decimus, it will then be easy to station like marks in each successive fifth background.
(19) Item commodius est in derelicta, quam in celebri regione locos conparare, propterea quod frequentia et obambulatio hominum conturbat et infirmat imaginum notas, solitudo conservat integras simulacrorum figuras. Praeterea dissimilis forma atque natura loci conparandi sunt, ut distincti interlucere possint: nam si qui multa intercolumnia sumpserit, conturbabitur similitudine, ut ignoret, quid in quoquo loco conlocarit. Et magnitudine modica et mediocris locos habere oportet: nam et praeter modum ampli vagas imagines reddunt et nimis angusti saepe non videntur posse capere imaginum conlocationem. tum nec nimis inlustris nec vehementer obscuros locos habere oportet, ne aut obcaecentur tenebris imagines aut splendore praefulgeant. Intervalla locorum mediocria placet esse, fere paulo plus aut minus pedum tricenum: nam ut aspectus item cogitatio minus valet, sive nimis procul removeris sive vehementer prope admoveris id, quod oportet videri.
Again, it will be more advantageous to obtain backgrounds in a deserted than in a populous region, because the crowding and passing to and fro of people confuse and weaken the impress of the images, while solitude keeps their outlines sharp. Further, backgrounds differing in form and nature must be secured, so that, thus distinguished, they may be clearly visible; for if a person has adopted many intercolumnar spaces, their resemblance to one another will so confuse him that he will no longer know what he has set in each background. And these backgrounds ought to be of moderate size and medium extent, for when excessively large they render the images vague, and when too small often seem incapable of receiving an arrangement of images. Then the backgrounds ought to be neither too bright nor too dim, so that the shadows may not obscure the images nor the lustre make them glitter. I believe that the intervals between backgrounds should be of moderate extent, approximately thirty feet; for, like the external eye, so the inner eye of thought is less powerful when you have moved the object of sight too near or too far away.
Sed quamquam facile est ei, qui paulo plura noverit, quamvis multos et idoneos locos conparare, tamen si qui satis idoneos invenire se non putabit, ipse sibi constituat quam volet multos licebit. Cogitatio enim quamvis regionem potest amplecti et in ea situm loci cuiusdam ad suum arbitrium fabricari et architectari. Quare licebit, si hac prompta copia contenti non erimus, nosmet ipsos nobis cogitatione nostra regionem constituere et idoneorum locorum commodissimam distinctionem conparare. De locis satis dictum est; nunc ad imaginum rationem transeamus. Although it is easy for a person with a relatively large experience to equip himself with as many and as suitable backgrounds as he may desire, even a person who believes that he finds no store of backgrounds that are good enough, may succeeded in fashioning as many such as he wishes. For the imagination can embrace any region whatsoever and it at will fashion and construct the setting of some background. Hence, if we are not content with our ready-made supply of backgrounds, we may in our imagination create a region for ourselves and obtain a most serviceable distribution of appropriate backgrounds. On the subject of backgrounds enough has been said; let me now turn to the theory of images.
(20) Quoniam ergo rerum similes imagines esse oportet, ex omnibus rebus nosmet nobis similitudines eligere debemus. Duplices igitur similitudines esse debent, unae rerum, alterae verborum. Rerum similitudines exprimuntur, cum summatim ipsorum negotiorum imagines conparamus; verborum similitudines constituuntur, cum unius cuiusque nominis et vocabuli memoria imagine notatur. Rei totius memoriam saepe una nota et imagine simplici conprehendimus.
Since, then, images must resemble objects, we ought ourselves to choose from all objects likenesses for our use. Hence likenesses are bound to be of two kinds, one of subject-matter the other of words. Likenesses of matter are formed when we enlist images that present a general view of the matter with which we are dealing; likenesses of words are established when the record of each single noun or appellative is kept by an image. Often we encompass the record of an entire matter by one notation, a single image.
hoc modo, ut si accusator dixerit ab reo hominem veneno necatum, et hereditatis causa factum arguerit, et eius rei multos dixerit testes et conscios esse: si hoc primum, ut ad defendendum nobis expeditum
(21) Cum verborum similitudines imaginibus exprimere volemus, plus negotii suscipiemus et magis ingenium nostrum exercebimus. Id nos hoc modo facere oportebit: Iam domum itionem reges Atridae arant.
When we wish to represent by images the likenesses of words, we shall be undertaking a greater task and exercising our ingenuity the more. This we ought to effect in the following way: Iam domum itionem reges Atridae arant. "And now their home-coming the kings, the sons of Atreus, are making ready."
in loco constituere manus ad caelum tollentem Domitium, cum a Regibus Marciis loris caedatur: hoc erit "Iam domum itionem reges"; in altero loco Aesopum et Cimbrum subornari, ut ad Ephigeniam, in Agamemnonem et Menelaum: hoc erit "Atridae parant." Hoc modo omnia verba erunt expressa. Sed haec imaginum conformatio tum valet, si naturalem memoriam exsuscitaverimus hac notatione, ut versu posito ipsi nobiscum primum transeamus bis aut ter eum versum, deinde tum imaginibus verba exprimamus. Hoc modo naturae subpeditabitur doctrina. Nam utraque altera separata minus erit firma, ita tamen, ut multo plus in doctrina atque arte praesidii sit. If we wish to remember this verse, in our first background we should put Domitius, raising hands to heaven while he is lashed by the Marcii Reges — that will represent "Iam domum itionem reges" ("And now their home-coming the kings,"); in the second background, Aesopus and Cimber being dressed as for the rôles of Agamemnon and Menelaüs in Iphigenia — that will represent "Atridae parant" ("the sons of Atreus, making ready"). By this method all the words will be represented. But such an arrangement of images succeeds only if we use our notation to stimulate the natural memory, so that we first go over a given verse twice or three times to ourselves and then represent the words by means of images. In this way art will supplement nature. For neither by itself will be strong enough, though we must note that theory and technique are much the more reliable. I should not hesitate to demonstrate this in detail, did I not fear that, once having departed from my plan, I should not so well preserve the clear conciseness of my instruction.
Nunc, quoniam solet accidere, ut imagines partim firmae et acres et ad monendum idoneae sint, partim inbecillae et infirmae, quae vix memoriam possint excitare, qua de causa utrumque fiat, considerandum est, ut cognita causa, quas vitemus et quas sequamur imagines, scire possimus. Now, since in normal cases some images are strong and sharp and suitable for awakening recollection, and others so weak and feeble as hardly to succeed in stimulating memory, we must therefore consider the cause of these differences, so that, by knowing the cause, we may know which images to avoid and which to seek.
(22) Docet igitur nos ipsa natura, quid oporteat fieri. Nam si quas res in vita videmus parvas, usitatas, cottidianas, meminisse non solemus propterea quod nulla nova nec admirabili re commovetur animus: at si quid videmus aut audimus egregie turpe aut honestum, inusitatum, magnum, incredibile, ridiculum, id diu meminisse consuevimus.
Now nature herself teaches us what we should do. When we see in everyday life things that are petty, ordinary, and banal, we generally fail to remember them, because the mind is not being stirred by anything novel or marvellous. But if we see or hear something exceptionally base, dishonourable, extraordinary, great, unbelievable, or laughable, that we are likely to remember a long time. Accordingly, things immediate to our eye or ear we commonly forget; incidents of our childhood we often remember best. Nor could this be so for any other reason than that ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and novel stay longer in mind. A sunrise, the sun's course, a sunset, are marvellous to no one because they occur daily. But solar eclipses are a source of wonder because they occur seldom, and indeed are more marvellous than lunar eclipses, because these are more frequent. Thus nature shows that she is not aroused by the common, ordinary event, but is moved by a new or striking occurrence. Let art, then, imitate nature, find what she desires, and follow as she directs. For in invention nature is never last, education never first; rather the beginnings of things arise from natural talent, and the ends are reached by discipline.
Imagines igitur nos in eo genere constituere oportebit, quod genus in memoria diutissime potest haerere. Id accidet, si quam maxime notatas similitudines constituemus; si non multas nec vagas, sed aliquid agentes imagines ponemus; si egregiam pulcritudinem aut unicam turpitudinem eis adtribuemus; si aliquas exornabimus, ut si coronis aut veste purpurea, quo nobis notatior sit similitudo; aut si qua re deformabimus, ut si cruentam aut caeno oblitam aut rubrica delibutam inducamus, quo magis insignita sit forma, aut ridiculas res aliquas imaginibus adtribuamus: nam ea res quoque faciet, ut facilius meminisse valeamus. Nam, quas res
(23) Scio plerosque Graecos, qui de memoria sripserunt, fecisse, ut multorum verborum imagines conscriberent, uti, qui ediscere vellent, paratas haberent, ne quid in quaerendo consumerent operae. Quorum rationem aliquot de causis inprobamus: primum, quod in verborum innumerabili multitudine ridiculumst mille verborum imagines conparare. Quantulum enim poterunt haec valere, cum ex infinita verborum copia modo aliud modo aliud nos verbum meminisse oportebit? Deinde cur volumus ab industria quemquam removere, ut ne quid ipse quaerat, nos illi omnia parata quaesita tradamus? Praeterea similitudine alia alius magis commovetur. Nam ut saepe, formam si quam similem cuipiam dixerimus esse, non omnes habemus adsensores, quod alii videtur aliud, item fit
I know that most of the Greeks who have written on the memory have taken the course of listing images that correspond to a great many words, so that persons who wished to learn these images by heart would have them ready without expending effort on a search for them. I disapprove of their method on several grounds. First, among the innumerable multitude of words it is ridiculous to collect images for a thousand. How meagre is the value these can have, when out of the infinite store of words we shall need to remember now one, and now another? Secondly, why do we wish to rob anybody of his initiative, so that, to save him from making any search himself, we deliver to him everything searched out and ready? Then again, one person is more struck by one likeness, and another more by another. Often in fact when we declare that some one form resembles another, we fail to receive universal assent, because things seem different to different persons. The same is true with respect to images: one that is well-defined to us appears relatively inconspicuous to others. Everybody, therefore, should in equipping himself with images suit his own convenience. Finally, it is the instructor's duty to teach the proper method of search in each case, and, for the sake of greater clarity, to add in illustration some one or two examples of its kind, but not all. For instance, when I discuss the search for Introductions, I give a method of search and do not draught a thousand kinds of Introductions. The same procedure I believes be followed with respect to images.
(24) Nunc, ne forte verborum memoriam aut nimis difficilem aut parum utilem arbitrere, rerum ipsarum memoria contentus sis, quod et utilior sit et plus habeat facultatis, admonendus es, quare verborum memoriam
[DRB 11.17.2009]
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
ഉണരൂ വേഗം നീ സുമറാണീ - S. Janaki
ഉണരൂ വേഗം നീ സുമറാണീ
വന്നു നായകന്
പ്രേമത്തിന് മുരളീഗായകന്
മലരേ...തേന് മലരേ...മലരേ...
വന്നു പൂവണി മാസം... ഓ...
വന്നു പൂവണിമാസം
വന്നു സുരഭില മാസം
തന് തംബുരു മീട്ടി കുരുവി
താളം കൊട്ടീ അരുവി
ആശദളം ചൂടി വരവായി
ശലഭം വന്നുപോയ്
ആനന്ദ ഗീതാ മോഹനന്
മലരേ...തേന് മലരേ...മലരേ
(ഉണരൂ വേഗം)
വന്നു നായകന്
പ്രേമത്തിന് മുരളീഗായകന്
മലരേ...തേന് മലരേ...മലരേ...
വന്നു പൂവണി മാസം... ഓ...
വന്നു പൂവണിമാസം
വന്നു സുരഭില മാസം
തന് തംബുരു മീട്ടി കുരുവി
താളം കൊട്ടീ അരുവി
ആശദളം ചൂടി വരവായി
ശലഭം വന്നുപോയ്
ആനന്ദ ഗീതാ മോഹനന്
മലരേ...തേന് മലരേ...മലരേ
(ഉണരൂ വേഗം)
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
ഓടക്കുഴലേ ഓടക്കുഴലേ
എം ജി രാധാകൃഷ്ണന്/ഓ എന് വി കുറുപ്പ്
ഓടക്കുഴലേ ഓടക്കുഴലേ
ഓമനത്താമരക്കണ്ണന്റെ ചുംബന-
പ്പൂമധു നുകര്ന്നവളെ ...
രാഗിണി നീയനുരാഗിണി മറ്റൊരു
രാധയോ...രുഗ്മിണിയോ...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
എത്ര മധുമയ ചുംബനപുഷ്പങ്ങള്
ചാർത്തിച്ചു നിന്നെ കണ്ണന് ..
എത്ര മധുമയ ചുംബനപുഷ്പങ്ങള്
ചാർത്തിച്ചു നിന്നെ കണ്ണന് ..
ആനന്ദഭൈരവി രാഗനിലാവായ് നിന്
ആത്മാവലിഞ്ഞൊഴുകി...ആത്മാവലിഞ്ഞൊഴുകി...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
കണ്ണന്റെ കൈയിലെ പുല്ലാങ്കുഴലില് നീ
പുണ്യവതിയല്ലോ....
കണ്ണന്റെ കൈയിലെ പുല്ലാങ്കുഴലില് നീ
പുണ്യവതിയല്ലോ....
മോഹനരാഗ സുധാരസത്തിന്നായ് നീ
ദാഹിച്ചു നില്ക്കയല്ലോ....
നീ ദാഹിച്ചുനില്ക്കയല്ലോ
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
പൊന്നംഗുലികളാൽ നിന് കണ്ണുപൊത്തുമ്പോൾ
നിന്നെ തഴുകിടുമ്പോള്
പൊന്നംഗുലികളാൽ നിന് കണ്ണുപൊത്തുമ്പോൾ
നിന്നെ തഴുകിടുമ്പോള്
നീലാംബരീരാഗ നീഹാരശീകര-
മാലകള് നീ അണിവൂ...
മാലകള് നീ അണിവൂ...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
ഓടക്കുഴലേ ഓടക്കുഴലേ
ഓമനത്താമരക്കണ്ണന്റെ ചുംബന-
പ്പൂമധു നുകര്ന്നവളെ ...
രാഗിണി നീയനുരാഗിണി മറ്റൊരു
രാധയോ...രുഗ്മിണിയോ...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
എത്ര മധുമയ ചുംബനപുഷ്പങ്ങള്
ചാർത്തിച്ചു നിന്നെ കണ്ണന് ..
എത്ര മധുമയ ചുംബനപുഷ്പങ്ങള്
ചാർത്തിച്ചു നിന്നെ കണ്ണന് ..
ആനന്ദഭൈരവി രാഗനിലാവായ് നിന്
ആത്മാവലിഞ്ഞൊഴുകി...ആത്മാവലിഞ്ഞൊഴുകി...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
കണ്ണന്റെ കൈയിലെ പുല്ലാങ്കുഴലില് നീ
പുണ്യവതിയല്ലോ....
കണ്ണന്റെ കൈയിലെ പുല്ലാങ്കുഴലില് നീ
പുണ്യവതിയല്ലോ....
മോഹനരാഗ സുധാരസത്തിന്നായ് നീ
ദാഹിച്ചു നില്ക്കയല്ലോ....
നീ ദാഹിച്ചുനില്ക്കയല്ലോ
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
പൊന്നംഗുലികളാൽ നിന് കണ്ണുപൊത്തുമ്പോൾ
നിന്നെ തഴുകിടുമ്പോള്
പൊന്നംഗുലികളാൽ നിന് കണ്ണുപൊത്തുമ്പോൾ
നിന്നെ തഴുകിടുമ്പോള്
നീലാംബരീരാഗ നീഹാരശീകര-
മാലകള് നീ അണിവൂ...
മാലകള് നീ അണിവൂ...
(ഓടക്കുഴലേ...)
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Making of an Expert
New research shows that outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching,
not of any innate talent or skill.
K. Anders Ericsson (ericsson@psy.fsu.edu) is the Conradi Eminent Scholar of Psychology at Florida State
University, in Tallahassee. Michael J. Prietula (prietula@bus.emory.edu) is a professor at the Goizueta Business
School at Emory University, in Atlanta, and visiting research scholar at the Institute for Human and Machine
Cognition, in Pensacola, Florida. Edward T. Cokely (cokely@mpib-berlin.mpg.de) is a postdoctoral research fellow
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, in Berlin.
by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely
Thirty years ago, two Hungarian educators, László and Klara Polgár, decided to challenge the popular assumption that
women don’t succeed in areas requiring spatial thinking, such as chess. They wanted to make a point about the power of
education. The Polgárs homeschooled their three daughters, and as part of their education the girls started playing chess
with their parents at a very young age. Their systematic training and daily practice paid off. By 2000, all three daughters
had been ranked in the top ten female players in the world. The youngest, Judit, had become a grand master at age 15,
breaking the previous record for the youngest person to earn that title, held by Bobby Fischer, by a month. Today Judit is
one of the world’s top players and has defeated almost all the best male players.
It’s not only assumptions about gender differences in expertise that have started to crumble. Back in 1985, Benjamin
Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, published a landmark book, Developing Talent in Young
People, which examined the critical factors that contribute to talent. He took a deep retrospective look at the childhoods of
120 elite performers who had won international competitions or awards in fields ranging from music and the arts to
mathematics and neurology. Surprisingly, Bloom’s work found no early indicators that could have predicted the virtuosos’
success. Subsequent research indicating that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as
chess, music, sports, and medicine has borne out his findings. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant—
and they matter primarily in sports—are height and body size.
So what does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly from Bloom’s work: All the superb performers he
investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by
their families throughout their developing years. Later research building on Bloom’s pioneering study revealed that the
amount and quality of practice were key factors in the level of expertise people achieved. Consistently and
overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born. These conclusions are based on rigorous
research that looked at exceptional performance using scientific methods that are verifiable and reproducible. Most of
these studies were compiled in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, published last year by
Cambridge University Press and edited by K. Anders Ericsson, one of the authors of this article. The 900-page-plus
handbook includes contributions from more than 100 leading scientists who have studied expertise and top performance
in a wide variety of domains: surgery, acting, chess, writing, computer programming, ballet, music, aviation, firefighting,
and many others.
The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine
expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at
least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—
practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort. You will need a well-informed coach
not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself. Above all, if you want to
achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many
people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise. We are here to help you explode those myths.
FEATURE
The Making of an Expert pagina 1 van 6
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?articleID=R0... 6-7-2007
Let’s begin our story with a little wine.
What Is an Expert?
In 1976, a fascinating event referred to as the “Judgment of Paris” took place. An English-owned wineshop in Paris
organized a blind tasting in which nine French wine experts rated French and California wines—ten whites and ten reds.
The results shocked the wine world: California wines received the highest scores from the panel. Even more surprising,
during the tasting the experts often mistook the American wines for French wines and vice versa.
Two assumptions were challenged that day. The first was the hitherto unquestioned superiority of French wines over
American ones. But it was the challenge to the second—the assumption that the judges genuinely possessed elite
knowledge of wine—that was more interesting and revolutionary. The tasting suggested that the alleged wine experts
were no more accurate in distinguishing wines under blind test conditions than regular wine drinkers—a fact later
confirmed by our laboratory tests.
Current research has revealed many other fields where there is no scientific evidence that supposed expertise leads to
superior performance. One study showed that psychotherapists with advanced degrees and decades of experience aren’t
reliably more successful in their treatment of randomly assigned patients than novice therapists with just three months of
training are. There are even examples of expertise seeming to decline with experience. The longer physicians have been
out of training, for example, the less able they are to identify unusual diseases of the lungs or heart. Because they
encounter these illnesses so rarely, doctors quickly forget their characteristic features and have difficulty diagnosing them.
Performance picks up only after the doctors undergo a refresher course.
How, then, can you tell when you’re dealing with a genuine expert? Real expertise must pass three tests. First, it must
lead to performance that is consistently superior to that of the expert’s peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete
results. Brain surgeons, for example, not only must be skillful with their scalpels but also must have successful outcomes
with their patients. A chess player must be able to win matches in tournaments. Finally, true expertise can be replicated
and measured in the lab. As the British scientist Lord Kelvin stated, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”
Things to Look Out for When Judging Expertise (Located at the end of this article)
Skill in some fields, such as sports, is easy to measure. Competitions are standardized so that everyone competes in a
similar environment. All competitors have the same start and finish lines, so that everyone can agree on who came in first.
That standardization permits comparisons among individuals over time, and it’s certainly possible in business as well. In
the early days of Wal-Mart, for instance, Sam Walton arranged competitions among store managers to identify those
whose stores had the highest profitability. Each store in the Nordstrom clothing chain posts rankings of its salespeople,
based on their sales per hour, for each pay period.
Nonetheless, it often can be difficult to measure expert performance—for example, in projects that take months or even
years to complete and to which dozens of individuals may contribute. Expert leadership is similarly difficult to assess. Most
leadership challenges are highly complex and specific to a given company, which makes it hard to compare performance
across companies and situations. That doesn’t mean, though, that scientists should throw up their hands and stop trying to
measure performance. One methodology we use to deal with these challenges is to take a representative situation and
reproduce it in the laboratory. For example, we present emergency room nurses with scenarios that simulate lifethreatening
situations. Afterward, we compare the nurses’ responses in the lab with actual outcomes in the real world. We
have found that performance in simulations in medicine, chess, and sports closely correlates with objective measurements
of expert performance, such as a chess player’s track record in winning matches.
Testing methodologies can be devised for creative professions such as art and writing, too. Researchers have studied
differences among individual visual artists, for instance, by having them produce drawings of the same set of objects. With
the artists’ identities concealed, these drawings were evaluated by art judges, whose ratings clearly agreed on the artists’
proficiency, especially in regard to technical aspects of drawing. Other researchers have designed objective tasks to
measure the superior perceptual skills of artists without the help of judges.
Practice Deliberately
To people who have never reached a national or international level of competition, it may appear that excellence is simply
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the result of practicing daily for years or even decades. However, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. Not all
practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice—deliberate practice—to develop expertise. When most
people practice, they focus on the things they already know how to do. Deliberate practice is different. It entails
considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains
shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become.
To illustrate this point, let’s imagine you are learning to play golf for the first time. In the early phases, you try to
understand the basic strokes and focus on avoiding gross mistakes (like driving the ball into another player). You practice
on the putting green, hit balls at a driving range, and play rounds with others who are most likely novices like you. In a
surprisingly short time (perhaps 50 hours), you will develop better control and your game will improve. From then on, you
will work on your skills by driving and putting more balls and engaging in more games, until your strokes become
automatic: You’ll think less about each shot and play more from intuition. Your golf game now is a social outing, in which
you occasionally concentrate on your shot. From this point on, additional time on the course will not substantially improve
your performance, which may remain at the same level for decades.
Why does this happen? You don’t improve because when you are playing a game, you get only a single chance to make a
shot from any given location. You don’t get to figure out how you can correct mistakes. If you were allowed to take five to
ten shots from the exact same location on the course, you would get more feedback on your technique and start to adjust
your playing style to improve your control. In fact, professionals often take multiple shots from the same location when
they train and when they check out a course before a tournament.
This kind of deliberate practice can be adapted to developing business and leadership expertise. The classic example is
the case method taught by many business schools, which presents students with real-life situations that require action.
Because the eventual outcomes of those situations are known, the students can immediately judge the merits of their
proposed solutions. In this way, they can practice making decisions ten to 20 times a week. War games serve a similar
training function at military academies. Officers can analyze the trainees’ responses in simulated combat and provide an
instant evaluation. Such mock military operations sharpen leadership skills with deliberate practice that lets trainees
explore uncharted areas.
Let’s take a closer look at how deliberate practice might work for leadership. You often hear that a key element of
leadership and management is charisma, which is true. Being a leader frequently requires standing in front of your
employees, your peers, or your board of directors and attempting to convince them of one thing or another, especially in
times of crisis. A surprising number of executives believe that charisma is innate and cannot be learned. Yet if they were
acting in a play with the help of a director and a coach, most of them would be able to come across as considerably more
charismatic, especially over time. In fact, working with a leading drama school, we have developed a set of acting
exercises for managers and leaders that are designed to increase their powers of charm and persuasion. Executives who
do these exercises have shown remarkable improvement. So charisma can be learned through deliberate practice. Bear
in mind that even Winston Churchill, one of the most charismatic figures of the twentieth century, practiced his oratory
style in front of a mirror.
Genuine experts not only practice deliberately but also think deliberately. The golfer Ben Hogan once explained, “While I
am practicing I am also trying to develop my powers of concentration. I never just walk up and hit the ball.” Hogan would
decide in advance where he wanted the ball to go and how to get it there. We actually track this kind of thought process in
our research. We present expert performers with a scenario and ask them to think aloud as they work their way through it.
Chess players, for example, will describe how they spend five to ten minutes exploring all the possibilities for their next
move, thinking through the consequences of each and planning out the sequence of moves that might follow it. We’ve
observed that when a course of action doesn’t work out as expected, the expert players will go back to their prior analysis
to assess where they went wrong and how to avoid future errors. They continually work to eliminate their weaknesses.
Deliberate practice involves two kinds of learning: improving the skills you already have and extending the reach and
range of your skills. The enormous concentration required to undertake these twin tasks limits the amount of time you can
spend doing them. The famous violinist Nathan Milstein wrote: “Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with
concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my mentor]
Professor Auer how many hours I should practice, and he said, ‘It really doesn’t matter how long. If you practice with your
fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.’”
It is interesting to note that across a wide range of experts, including athletes, novelists, and musicians, very few appear to
be able to engage in more than four or five hours of high concentration and deliberate practice at a time. In fact, most
expert teachers and scientists set aside only a couple of hours a day, typically in the morning, for their most demanding
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mental activities, such as writing about new ideas. While this may seem like a relatively small investment, it is two hours a
day more than most executives and managers devote to building their skills, since the majority of their time is consumed
by meetings and day-to-day concerns. This difference adds up to some 700 hours more a year, or about 7,000 hours
more a decade. Think about what you could accomplish if you devoted two hours a day to deliberate practice.
It’s very easy to neglect deliberate practice. Experts who reach a high level of performance often find themselves
responding automatically to specific situations and may come to rely exclusively on their intuition. This leads to difficulties
when they deal with atypical or rare cases, because they’ve lost the ability to analyze a situation and work through the
right response. Experts may not recognize this creeping intuition bias, of course, because there is no penalty until they
encounter a situation in which a habitual response fails and maybe even causes damage. Older professionals with a great
deal of experience are particularly prone to falling into this trap, but it’s certainly not inevitable. Research has shown that
musicians over 60 years old who continue deliberate practice for about ten hours a week can match the speed and
technical skills of 20-year-old expert musicians when tested on their ability to play a piece of unfamiliar music.
Moving outside your traditional comfort zone of achievement requires substantial motivation and sacrifice, but it’s a
necessary discipline. As the golf champion Sam Snead once put it, “It is only human nature to want to practice what you
can already do well, since it’s a hell of a lot less work and a hell of a lot more fun.” Only when you can see that deliberate
practice is the most effective means to the desired end—becoming the best in your field—will you commit to excellence.
Snead, who died in 2002, held the record for winning the most PGA Tour events and was famous for having one of the
most beautiful swings in the sport. Deliberate practice was a key to his success. “Practice puts brains in your muscles,” he
said.
Take the Time You Need
By now it will be clear that it takes time to become an expert. Our research shows that even the most gifted performers
need a minimum of ten years (or 10,000 hours) of intense training before they win international competitions. In some
fields the apprenticeship is longer: It now takes most elite musicians 15 to 25 years of steady practice, on average, before
they succeed at the international level.
Though there are historical examples of people who attained an international level of expertise at an early age, it’s also
true that, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people could reach world-class levels more quickly. In most
fields, the bar of performance has risen steadily since that time. For instance, amateur marathon runners and high school
swimmers today frequently better the times of Olympic gold medalists from the early twentieth century. Increasingly stiff
competition now makes it almost impossible to beat the ten-year rule. One notable exception, Bobby Fischer, did manage
to become a chess grand master in just nine years, but it is likely that he did so by spending more time practicing each
year.
Many people are naive about how long it takes to become an expert. Leo Tolstoy once observed that people often told
him they didn’t know whether or not they could write a novel because they hadn’t tried—as if they only had to make a
single attempt to discover their natural ability to write. Similarly, the authors of many self-help books appear to assume
that their readers are essentially ready for success and simply need to take a few more easy steps to overcome great
hurdles. Popular lore is full of stories about unknown athletes, writers, and artists who become famous overnight,
seemingly because of innate talent—they’re “naturals,” people say. However, when examining the developmental histories
of experts, we unfailingly discover that they spent a lot of time in training and preparation. Sam Snead, who’d been called
“the best natural player ever,” told Golf Digest, “People always said I had a natural swing. They thought I wasn’t a hard
worker. But when I was young, I’d play and practice all day, then practice more at night by my car’s headlights. My hands
bled. Nobody worked harder at golf than I did.”
Not only do you have to be prepared to invest time in becoming an expert, but you have to start early—at least in some
fields. Your ability to attain expert performance is clearly constrained if you have fewer opportunities to engage in
deliberate practice, and this is far from a trivial constraint. Once, after giving a talk, K. Anders Ericsson was asked by a
member of the audience whether he or any other person could win an Olympic medal if he began training at a mature age.
Nowadays, Ericsson replied, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to win an individual medal without a training
history comparable with that of today’s elite performers, nearly all of whom started very early. Many children simply do not
get the opportunity, for whatever reason, to work with the best teachers and to engage in the sort of deliberate practice
that they need to reach the Olympic level in a sport.
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Find Coaches and Mentors
Arguably the most famous violin teacher of all time, Ivan Galamian, made the point that budding maestros do not engage
in deliberate practice spontaneously: “If we analyze the development of the well-known artists, we see that in almost every
case the success of their entire career was dependent on the quality of their practicing. In practically every case, the
practicing was constantly supervised either by the teacher or an assistant to the teacher.”
Research on world-class performers has confirmed Galamian’s observation. It also has shown that future experts need
different kinds of teachers at different stages of their development. In the beginning, most are coached by local teachers,
people who can give generously of their time and praise. Later on, however, it is essential that performers seek out moreadvanced
teachers to keep improving their skills. Eventually, all top performers work closely with teachers who have
themselves reached international levels of achievement.
Having expert coaches makes a difference in a variety of ways. To start with, they can help you accelerate your learning
process. The thirteenth-century philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon argued that it would be impossible to master
mathematics in less than 30 years. And yet today individuals can master frameworks as complex as calculus in their
teens. The difference is that scholars have since organized the material in such a way that it is much more accessible.
Students of mathematics no longer have to climb Everest by themselves; they can follow a guide up a well-trodden path.
The development of expertise requires coaches who are capable of giving constructive, even painful, feedback. Real
experts are extremely motivated students who seek out such feedback. They’re also skilled at understanding when and if
a coach’s advice doesn’t work for them. The elite performers we studied knew what they were doing right and
concentrated on what they were doing wrong. They deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them
and drive them to higher levels of performance. The best coaches also identify aspects of your performance that will need
to be improved at your next level of skill. If a coach pushes you too fast, too hard, you will only be frustrated and may even
be tempted to give up trying to improve at all.
Relying on a coach has its limits, however. Statistics show that radiologists correctly diagnose breast cancer from X-rays
about 70% of the time. Typically, young radiologists learn the skill of interpreting X-rays by working alongside an “expert.”
So it’s hardly surprising that the success rate has stuck at 70% for a long time. Imagine how much better radiology might
get if radiologists practiced instead by making diagnostic judgments using X-rays in a library of old verified cases, where
they could immediately determine their accuracy. We’re seeing these kinds of techniques used more often in training.
There is an emerging market in elaborate simulations that can give professionals, especially in medicine and aviation, a
safe way to deliberately practice with appropriate feedback.
So what happens when you become an Olympic gold medalist, or an international chess master, or a CEO? Ideally, as
your expertise increased, your coach will have helped you become more and more independent, so that you are able to
set your own development plans. Like good parents who encourage their children to leave the nest, good coaches help
their students learn how to rely on an “inner coach.” Self-coaching can be done in any field. Expert surgeons, for example,
are not concerned with a patient’s postoperative status alone. They will study any unanticipated events that took place
during the surgery, to try to figure out how mistakes or misjudgments can be avoided in the future.
Benjamin Franklin provides one of the best examples of motivated self-coaching. When he wanted to learn to write
eloquently and persuasively, he began to study his favorite articles from a popular British publication, the Spectator. Days
after he’d read an article he particularly enjoyed, he would try to reconstruct it from memory in his own words. Then he
would compare it with the original, so he could discover and correct his faults. He also worked to improve his sense of
language by translating the articles into rhyming verse and then from verse back into prose. Similarly, famous painters
sometimes attempt to reproduce the paintings of other masters.
Anyone can apply these same methods on the job. Say you have someone in your company who is a masterly
communicator, and you learn that he is going to give a talk to a unit that will be laying off workers. Sit down and write your
own speech, and then compare his actual speech with what you wrote. Observe the reactions to his talk and imagine what
the reactions would be to yours. Each time you can generate by yourself decisions, interactions, or speeches that match
those of people who excel, you move one step closer to reaching the level of an expert performer.
• • •
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Before practice, opportunity, and luck can combine to create expertise, the would-be expert needs to demythologize the
achievement of top-level performance, because the notion that genius is born, not made, is deeply ingrained. It’s perhaps
most perfectly exemplified in the person of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is typically presented as a child prodigy with
exceptional innate musical genius. Nobody questions that Mozart’s achievements were extraordinary compared with those
of his contemporaries. What’s often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His
musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music
teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born
an expert—he became one.
Things to Look Out for When Judging Expertise
Individual accounts of expertise are often unreliable.
Anecdotes, selective recall, and one-off events all can present insufficient, often misleading, examples of expertise. There
is a huge body of literature on false memories, self-serving biases, and recollections altered as a result of current beliefs
or the passage of time. Reporting is not the same thing as research.
Many people are wrongly believed to possess expertise.
Bear in mind that true expertise is demonstrated by measurable, consistently superior performance. Some supposed
experts are superior only when it comes to explaining why they made errors. After the 1976 Judgment of Paris, for
example, when California wines bested French wines in a blind tasting, the French wine “experts” argued that the results
were an aberration and that the California reds in particular would never age as well as the famous French reds. (In 2006,
the tasting of the reds was reenacted, and California came out on top again.) Had it not been for the objective results from
the blind tastings, the French wine experts may never have been convinced of the quality of the American wines.
Intuition can lead you down the garden path.
The idea that you can improve your performance by relaxing and “just trusting your gut” is popular. While it may be true
that intuition is valuable in routine or familiar situations, informed intuition is the result of deliberate practice. You cannot
consistently improve your ability to make decisions (or your intuition) without considerable practice, reflection, and
analysis.
You don’t need a different putter.
Many managers hope that they will suddenly improve performance by adopting new and better methods—just as golf
players may think that they can lower their scores with a new and better club. But changing to a different putter may
increase the variability of a golfer’s shot and thus hinder his or her ability to play well. In reality, the key to improving
expertise is consistency and carefully controlled efforts.
Expertise is not captured by knowledge management systems.
Knowledge management systems rarely, if ever, deal with what psychologists call knowledge. They are repositories of
images, documents, and routines: external data that people can view and interpret as they try to solve a problem or make
a decision. There are no shortcuts to gaining true expertise.
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not of any innate talent or skill.
K. Anders Ericsson (ericsson@psy.fsu.edu) is the Conradi Eminent Scholar of Psychology at Florida State
University, in Tallahassee. Michael J. Prietula (prietula@bus.emory.edu) is a professor at the Goizueta Business
School at Emory University, in Atlanta, and visiting research scholar at the Institute for Human and Machine
Cognition, in Pensacola, Florida. Edward T. Cokely (cokely@mpib-berlin.mpg.de) is a postdoctoral research fellow
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, in Berlin.
by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely
Thirty years ago, two Hungarian educators, László and Klara Polgár, decided to challenge the popular assumption that
women don’t succeed in areas requiring spatial thinking, such as chess. They wanted to make a point about the power of
education. The Polgárs homeschooled their three daughters, and as part of their education the girls started playing chess
with their parents at a very young age. Their systematic training and daily practice paid off. By 2000, all three daughters
had been ranked in the top ten female players in the world. The youngest, Judit, had become a grand master at age 15,
breaking the previous record for the youngest person to earn that title, held by Bobby Fischer, by a month. Today Judit is
one of the world’s top players and has defeated almost all the best male players.
It’s not only assumptions about gender differences in expertise that have started to crumble. Back in 1985, Benjamin
Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, published a landmark book, Developing Talent in Young
People, which examined the critical factors that contribute to talent. He took a deep retrospective look at the childhoods of
120 elite performers who had won international competitions or awards in fields ranging from music and the arts to
mathematics and neurology. Surprisingly, Bloom’s work found no early indicators that could have predicted the virtuosos’
success. Subsequent research indicating that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as
chess, music, sports, and medicine has borne out his findings. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant—
and they matter primarily in sports—are height and body size.
So what does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly from Bloom’s work: All the superb performers he
investigated had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by
their families throughout their developing years. Later research building on Bloom’s pioneering study revealed that the
amount and quality of practice were key factors in the level of expertise people achieved. Consistently and
overwhelmingly, the evidence showed that experts are always made, not born. These conclusions are based on rigorous
research that looked at exceptional performance using scientific methods that are verifiable and reproducible. Most of
these studies were compiled in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, published last year by
Cambridge University Press and edited by K. Anders Ericsson, one of the authors of this article. The 900-page-plus
handbook includes contributions from more than 100 leading scientists who have studied expertise and top performance
in a wide variety of domains: surgery, acting, chess, writing, computer programming, ballet, music, aviation, firefighting,
and many others.
The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine
expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at
least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—
practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort. You will need a well-informed coach
not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself. Above all, if you want to
achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many
people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise. We are here to help you explode those myths.
FEATURE
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Let’s begin our story with a little wine.
What Is an Expert?
In 1976, a fascinating event referred to as the “Judgment of Paris” took place. An English-owned wineshop in Paris
organized a blind tasting in which nine French wine experts rated French and California wines—ten whites and ten reds.
The results shocked the wine world: California wines received the highest scores from the panel. Even more surprising,
during the tasting the experts often mistook the American wines for French wines and vice versa.
Two assumptions were challenged that day. The first was the hitherto unquestioned superiority of French wines over
American ones. But it was the challenge to the second—the assumption that the judges genuinely possessed elite
knowledge of wine—that was more interesting and revolutionary. The tasting suggested that the alleged wine experts
were no more accurate in distinguishing wines under blind test conditions than regular wine drinkers—a fact later
confirmed by our laboratory tests.
Current research has revealed many other fields where there is no scientific evidence that supposed expertise leads to
superior performance. One study showed that psychotherapists with advanced degrees and decades of experience aren’t
reliably more successful in their treatment of randomly assigned patients than novice therapists with just three months of
training are. There are even examples of expertise seeming to decline with experience. The longer physicians have been
out of training, for example, the less able they are to identify unusual diseases of the lungs or heart. Because they
encounter these illnesses so rarely, doctors quickly forget their characteristic features and have difficulty diagnosing them.
Performance picks up only after the doctors undergo a refresher course.
How, then, can you tell when you’re dealing with a genuine expert? Real expertise must pass three tests. First, it must
lead to performance that is consistently superior to that of the expert’s peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete
results. Brain surgeons, for example, not only must be skillful with their scalpels but also must have successful outcomes
with their patients. A chess player must be able to win matches in tournaments. Finally, true expertise can be replicated
and measured in the lab. As the British scientist Lord Kelvin stated, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”
Things to Look Out for When Judging Expertise (Located at the end of this article)
Skill in some fields, such as sports, is easy to measure. Competitions are standardized so that everyone competes in a
similar environment. All competitors have the same start and finish lines, so that everyone can agree on who came in first.
That standardization permits comparisons among individuals over time, and it’s certainly possible in business as well. In
the early days of Wal-Mart, for instance, Sam Walton arranged competitions among store managers to identify those
whose stores had the highest profitability. Each store in the Nordstrom clothing chain posts rankings of its salespeople,
based on their sales per hour, for each pay period.
Nonetheless, it often can be difficult to measure expert performance—for example, in projects that take months or even
years to complete and to which dozens of individuals may contribute. Expert leadership is similarly difficult to assess. Most
leadership challenges are highly complex and specific to a given company, which makes it hard to compare performance
across companies and situations. That doesn’t mean, though, that scientists should throw up their hands and stop trying to
measure performance. One methodology we use to deal with these challenges is to take a representative situation and
reproduce it in the laboratory. For example, we present emergency room nurses with scenarios that simulate lifethreatening
situations. Afterward, we compare the nurses’ responses in the lab with actual outcomes in the real world. We
have found that performance in simulations in medicine, chess, and sports closely correlates with objective measurements
of expert performance, such as a chess player’s track record in winning matches.
Testing methodologies can be devised for creative professions such as art and writing, too. Researchers have studied
differences among individual visual artists, for instance, by having them produce drawings of the same set of objects. With
the artists’ identities concealed, these drawings were evaluated by art judges, whose ratings clearly agreed on the artists’
proficiency, especially in regard to technical aspects of drawing. Other researchers have designed objective tasks to
measure the superior perceptual skills of artists without the help of judges.
Practice Deliberately
To people who have never reached a national or international level of competition, it may appear that excellence is simply
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the result of practicing daily for years or even decades. However, living in a cave does not make you a geologist. Not all
practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice—deliberate practice—to develop expertise. When most
people practice, they focus on the things they already know how to do. Deliberate practice is different. It entails
considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains
shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become.
To illustrate this point, let’s imagine you are learning to play golf for the first time. In the early phases, you try to
understand the basic strokes and focus on avoiding gross mistakes (like driving the ball into another player). You practice
on the putting green, hit balls at a driving range, and play rounds with others who are most likely novices like you. In a
surprisingly short time (perhaps 50 hours), you will develop better control and your game will improve. From then on, you
will work on your skills by driving and putting more balls and engaging in more games, until your strokes become
automatic: You’ll think less about each shot and play more from intuition. Your golf game now is a social outing, in which
you occasionally concentrate on your shot. From this point on, additional time on the course will not substantially improve
your performance, which may remain at the same level for decades.
Why does this happen? You don’t improve because when you are playing a game, you get only a single chance to make a
shot from any given location. You don’t get to figure out how you can correct mistakes. If you were allowed to take five to
ten shots from the exact same location on the course, you would get more feedback on your technique and start to adjust
your playing style to improve your control. In fact, professionals often take multiple shots from the same location when
they train and when they check out a course before a tournament.
This kind of deliberate practice can be adapted to developing business and leadership expertise. The classic example is
the case method taught by many business schools, which presents students with real-life situations that require action.
Because the eventual outcomes of those situations are known, the students can immediately judge the merits of their
proposed solutions. In this way, they can practice making decisions ten to 20 times a week. War games serve a similar
training function at military academies. Officers can analyze the trainees’ responses in simulated combat and provide an
instant evaluation. Such mock military operations sharpen leadership skills with deliberate practice that lets trainees
explore uncharted areas.
Let’s take a closer look at how deliberate practice might work for leadership. You often hear that a key element of
leadership and management is charisma, which is true. Being a leader frequently requires standing in front of your
employees, your peers, or your board of directors and attempting to convince them of one thing or another, especially in
times of crisis. A surprising number of executives believe that charisma is innate and cannot be learned. Yet if they were
acting in a play with the help of a director and a coach, most of them would be able to come across as considerably more
charismatic, especially over time. In fact, working with a leading drama school, we have developed a set of acting
exercises for managers and leaders that are designed to increase their powers of charm and persuasion. Executives who
do these exercises have shown remarkable improvement. So charisma can be learned through deliberate practice. Bear
in mind that even Winston Churchill, one of the most charismatic figures of the twentieth century, practiced his oratory
style in front of a mirror.
Genuine experts not only practice deliberately but also think deliberately. The golfer Ben Hogan once explained, “While I
am practicing I am also trying to develop my powers of concentration. I never just walk up and hit the ball.” Hogan would
decide in advance where he wanted the ball to go and how to get it there. We actually track this kind of thought process in
our research. We present expert performers with a scenario and ask them to think aloud as they work their way through it.
Chess players, for example, will describe how they spend five to ten minutes exploring all the possibilities for their next
move, thinking through the consequences of each and planning out the sequence of moves that might follow it. We’ve
observed that when a course of action doesn’t work out as expected, the expert players will go back to their prior analysis
to assess where they went wrong and how to avoid future errors. They continually work to eliminate their weaknesses.
Deliberate practice involves two kinds of learning: improving the skills you already have and extending the reach and
range of your skills. The enormous concentration required to undertake these twin tasks limits the amount of time you can
spend doing them. The famous violinist Nathan Milstein wrote: “Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with
concentration. Once when I became concerned because others around me practiced all day long, I asked [my mentor]
Professor Auer how many hours I should practice, and he said, ‘It really doesn’t matter how long. If you practice with your
fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.’”
It is interesting to note that across a wide range of experts, including athletes, novelists, and musicians, very few appear to
be able to engage in more than four or five hours of high concentration and deliberate practice at a time. In fact, most
expert teachers and scientists set aside only a couple of hours a day, typically in the morning, for their most demanding
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mental activities, such as writing about new ideas. While this may seem like a relatively small investment, it is two hours a
day more than most executives and managers devote to building their skills, since the majority of their time is consumed
by meetings and day-to-day concerns. This difference adds up to some 700 hours more a year, or about 7,000 hours
more a decade. Think about what you could accomplish if you devoted two hours a day to deliberate practice.
It’s very easy to neglect deliberate practice. Experts who reach a high level of performance often find themselves
responding automatically to specific situations and may come to rely exclusively on their intuition. This leads to difficulties
when they deal with atypical or rare cases, because they’ve lost the ability to analyze a situation and work through the
right response. Experts may not recognize this creeping intuition bias, of course, because there is no penalty until they
encounter a situation in which a habitual response fails and maybe even causes damage. Older professionals with a great
deal of experience are particularly prone to falling into this trap, but it’s certainly not inevitable. Research has shown that
musicians over 60 years old who continue deliberate practice for about ten hours a week can match the speed and
technical skills of 20-year-old expert musicians when tested on their ability to play a piece of unfamiliar music.
Moving outside your traditional comfort zone of achievement requires substantial motivation and sacrifice, but it’s a
necessary discipline. As the golf champion Sam Snead once put it, “It is only human nature to want to practice what you
can already do well, since it’s a hell of a lot less work and a hell of a lot more fun.” Only when you can see that deliberate
practice is the most effective means to the desired end—becoming the best in your field—will you commit to excellence.
Snead, who died in 2002, held the record for winning the most PGA Tour events and was famous for having one of the
most beautiful swings in the sport. Deliberate practice was a key to his success. “Practice puts brains in your muscles,” he
said.
Take the Time You Need
By now it will be clear that it takes time to become an expert. Our research shows that even the most gifted performers
need a minimum of ten years (or 10,000 hours) of intense training before they win international competitions. In some
fields the apprenticeship is longer: It now takes most elite musicians 15 to 25 years of steady practice, on average, before
they succeed at the international level.
Though there are historical examples of people who attained an international level of expertise at an early age, it’s also
true that, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people could reach world-class levels more quickly. In most
fields, the bar of performance has risen steadily since that time. For instance, amateur marathon runners and high school
swimmers today frequently better the times of Olympic gold medalists from the early twentieth century. Increasingly stiff
competition now makes it almost impossible to beat the ten-year rule. One notable exception, Bobby Fischer, did manage
to become a chess grand master in just nine years, but it is likely that he did so by spending more time practicing each
year.
Many people are naive about how long it takes to become an expert. Leo Tolstoy once observed that people often told
him they didn’t know whether or not they could write a novel because they hadn’t tried—as if they only had to make a
single attempt to discover their natural ability to write. Similarly, the authors of many self-help books appear to assume
that their readers are essentially ready for success and simply need to take a few more easy steps to overcome great
hurdles. Popular lore is full of stories about unknown athletes, writers, and artists who become famous overnight,
seemingly because of innate talent—they’re “naturals,” people say. However, when examining the developmental histories
of experts, we unfailingly discover that they spent a lot of time in training and preparation. Sam Snead, who’d been called
“the best natural player ever,” told Golf Digest, “People always said I had a natural swing. They thought I wasn’t a hard
worker. But when I was young, I’d play and practice all day, then practice more at night by my car’s headlights. My hands
bled. Nobody worked harder at golf than I did.”
Not only do you have to be prepared to invest time in becoming an expert, but you have to start early—at least in some
fields. Your ability to attain expert performance is clearly constrained if you have fewer opportunities to engage in
deliberate practice, and this is far from a trivial constraint. Once, after giving a talk, K. Anders Ericsson was asked by a
member of the audience whether he or any other person could win an Olympic medal if he began training at a mature age.
Nowadays, Ericsson replied, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to win an individual medal without a training
history comparable with that of today’s elite performers, nearly all of whom started very early. Many children simply do not
get the opportunity, for whatever reason, to work with the best teachers and to engage in the sort of deliberate practice
that they need to reach the Olympic level in a sport.
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Find Coaches and Mentors
Arguably the most famous violin teacher of all time, Ivan Galamian, made the point that budding maestros do not engage
in deliberate practice spontaneously: “If we analyze the development of the well-known artists, we see that in almost every
case the success of their entire career was dependent on the quality of their practicing. In practically every case, the
practicing was constantly supervised either by the teacher or an assistant to the teacher.”
Research on world-class performers has confirmed Galamian’s observation. It also has shown that future experts need
different kinds of teachers at different stages of their development. In the beginning, most are coached by local teachers,
people who can give generously of their time and praise. Later on, however, it is essential that performers seek out moreadvanced
teachers to keep improving their skills. Eventually, all top performers work closely with teachers who have
themselves reached international levels of achievement.
Having expert coaches makes a difference in a variety of ways. To start with, they can help you accelerate your learning
process. The thirteenth-century philosopher and scientist Roger Bacon argued that it would be impossible to master
mathematics in less than 30 years. And yet today individuals can master frameworks as complex as calculus in their
teens. The difference is that scholars have since organized the material in such a way that it is much more accessible.
Students of mathematics no longer have to climb Everest by themselves; they can follow a guide up a well-trodden path.
The development of expertise requires coaches who are capable of giving constructive, even painful, feedback. Real
experts are extremely motivated students who seek out such feedback. They’re also skilled at understanding when and if
a coach’s advice doesn’t work for them. The elite performers we studied knew what they were doing right and
concentrated on what they were doing wrong. They deliberately picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them
and drive them to higher levels of performance. The best coaches also identify aspects of your performance that will need
to be improved at your next level of skill. If a coach pushes you too fast, too hard, you will only be frustrated and may even
be tempted to give up trying to improve at all.
Relying on a coach has its limits, however. Statistics show that radiologists correctly diagnose breast cancer from X-rays
about 70% of the time. Typically, young radiologists learn the skill of interpreting X-rays by working alongside an “expert.”
So it’s hardly surprising that the success rate has stuck at 70% for a long time. Imagine how much better radiology might
get if radiologists practiced instead by making diagnostic judgments using X-rays in a library of old verified cases, where
they could immediately determine their accuracy. We’re seeing these kinds of techniques used more often in training.
There is an emerging market in elaborate simulations that can give professionals, especially in medicine and aviation, a
safe way to deliberately practice with appropriate feedback.
So what happens when you become an Olympic gold medalist, or an international chess master, or a CEO? Ideally, as
your expertise increased, your coach will have helped you become more and more independent, so that you are able to
set your own development plans. Like good parents who encourage their children to leave the nest, good coaches help
their students learn how to rely on an “inner coach.” Self-coaching can be done in any field. Expert surgeons, for example,
are not concerned with a patient’s postoperative status alone. They will study any unanticipated events that took place
during the surgery, to try to figure out how mistakes or misjudgments can be avoided in the future.
Benjamin Franklin provides one of the best examples of motivated self-coaching. When he wanted to learn to write
eloquently and persuasively, he began to study his favorite articles from a popular British publication, the Spectator. Days
after he’d read an article he particularly enjoyed, he would try to reconstruct it from memory in his own words. Then he
would compare it with the original, so he could discover and correct his faults. He also worked to improve his sense of
language by translating the articles into rhyming verse and then from verse back into prose. Similarly, famous painters
sometimes attempt to reproduce the paintings of other masters.
Anyone can apply these same methods on the job. Say you have someone in your company who is a masterly
communicator, and you learn that he is going to give a talk to a unit that will be laying off workers. Sit down and write your
own speech, and then compare his actual speech with what you wrote. Observe the reactions to his talk and imagine what
the reactions would be to yours. Each time you can generate by yourself decisions, interactions, or speeches that match
those of people who excel, you move one step closer to reaching the level of an expert performer.
• • •
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Before practice, opportunity, and luck can combine to create expertise, the would-be expert needs to demythologize the
achievement of top-level performance, because the notion that genius is born, not made, is deeply ingrained. It’s perhaps
most perfectly exemplified in the person of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is typically presented as a child prodigy with
exceptional innate musical genius. Nobody questions that Mozart’s achievements were extraordinary compared with those
of his contemporaries. What’s often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His
musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music
teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born
an expert—he became one.
Things to Look Out for When Judging Expertise
Individual accounts of expertise are often unreliable.
Anecdotes, selective recall, and one-off events all can present insufficient, often misleading, examples of expertise. There
is a huge body of literature on false memories, self-serving biases, and recollections altered as a result of current beliefs
or the passage of time. Reporting is not the same thing as research.
Many people are wrongly believed to possess expertise.
Bear in mind that true expertise is demonstrated by measurable, consistently superior performance. Some supposed
experts are superior only when it comes to explaining why they made errors. After the 1976 Judgment of Paris, for
example, when California wines bested French wines in a blind tasting, the French wine “experts” argued that the results
were an aberration and that the California reds in particular would never age as well as the famous French reds. (In 2006,
the tasting of the reds was reenacted, and California came out on top again.) Had it not been for the objective results from
the blind tastings, the French wine experts may never have been convinced of the quality of the American wines.
Intuition can lead you down the garden path.
The idea that you can improve your performance by relaxing and “just trusting your gut” is popular. While it may be true
that intuition is valuable in routine or familiar situations, informed intuition is the result of deliberate practice. You cannot
consistently improve your ability to make decisions (or your intuition) without considerable practice, reflection, and
analysis.
You don’t need a different putter.
Many managers hope that they will suddenly improve performance by adopting new and better methods—just as golf
players may think that they can lower their scores with a new and better club. But changing to a different putter may
increase the variability of a golfer’s shot and thus hinder his or her ability to play well. In reality, the key to improving
expertise is consistency and carefully controlled efforts.
Expertise is not captured by knowledge management systems.
Knowledge management systems rarely, if ever, deal with what psychologists call knowledge. They are repositories of
images, documents, and routines: external data that people can view and interpret as they try to solve a problem or make
a decision. There are no shortcuts to gaining true expertise.
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Wednesday, March 09, 2011
ആര്ദ്രമീ ധനുമാസ രാവുകളിലൊന്നില്
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 പ്രശസ്ത കവി എന് . എന്. കക്കാടുമായി പ്രശസ്ത നിരൂപകന് എം.എം. ബഷീര് 1986-ല് നടത്തിയ അഭിമുഖത്തിന്റെ പുന:പ്രസിദ്ധീകരണം.ചോദ്യം: മുന്കൂട്ടി തീരുമാനിച്ചുറച്ച ഒരു വിഷയത്തെയോ ഭാവത്തെയോ ആവിഷ്കരിക്കുകയല്ല, കവിക്കുതന്നെ അവ്യക്തവും സങ്കീര്ണ്ണവുമായ ഭാവഗ്രന്ഥികളെ സര്ഗപ്രക്രിയയിലൂടെ കണ്ടെത്തുകയാണെന്നും തന്നോടുതന്നെ നീതി ചെയ്യാത്ത കവിക്ക് സമൂഹത്തോട് നീതി ചെയ്യാന് സാദ്ധ്യമല്ലെന്നും താങ്കള് വിശ്വസിക്കുന്നുണ്ടല്ലോ. ആ വിശ്വാസമാണോ താങ്കളുടെ കവിതയില് സമൂഹത്തിന്റെ പ്രശ്നങ്ങളില്ലാ എന്നു പരാതിപ്പെടാന് അവസരമുണ്ടാക്കുന്നത്? ഉത്തരം: റോബിന്സണ് ക്രൂസോവിന്റെ ദ്വീപ് സാങ്കല്പ്പികം മാത്രമാണ്. സമൂഹമില്ലാതെ ഞാനുണ്ടോ? ജീവശാസ്ത്രപരമായ ചില ചോദനകളും വാസനകളും ഒഴിച്ചാല് എന്നിലുള്ളതൊക്കെ സമൂഹത്തില് നിന്ന് ലഭിച്ചതല്ലേ? സമൂഹത്തിന്റെ പ്രശ്നങ്ങളിന്നിന്നതൊക്കെയാണ്, ഇവയൊക്കെ ഇന്നിന്ന വാക്യങ്ങളില് കവിതയില് വന്നിരിക്കണം എന്നു നേരത്തെക്കൂട്ടി ചിലര് തീരുമാനിച്ചുറപ്പിച്ച മട്ടിലാണ് ഈ വാദം. സമൂഹം എനിക്കു നല്കുന്ന അനുഭവങ്ങളെ എന്റെ അനുഭവങ്ങളും കൂട്ടിച്ചേര്ത്ത് സമൂഹത്തിനു തിരിച്ചു നല്കുകയാണല്ലോ ഞാന്, ആ അര്ത്ഥത്തില് എല്ലാ എഴുത്തുകാരും, ചെയ്യുന്നത്? സമൂഹമെന്നത് പാര്ട്ടികളും പോഷസകസംഘടനകളും ഘോഷയാത്രകളും പൊതുയോഗങ്ങളും ബന്ദുകളും വോട്ടുകളും മാത്രമാണെന്നു കരുതുന്നവരുണ്ട്. തീര്ച്ചയായും അതൊരു പ്രധാന ഭാഗമാണ്. എന്നാല് ഇവയുടെയെല്ലാം അടിത്തട്ടില് സാമൂഹ്യബന്ധങ്ങളില് നിന്നുണ്ടാവുന്ന സാംസ്കാരിക പ്രതിസന്ധികളും അവയ്ക്കിടയില് ജീവിക്കുന്നവരുടെ വികാരമേഖലയിലെ ന്യൂനമര്ദ്ദങ്ങളും സമൂഹത്തിന്റെ ഗുണപരമായ മാറ്റത്തിന്റെ സ്രോതസ്സുകളാണെന്ന് സാമൂഹ്യശാസ്ത്രം മനസ്സിലാക്കിയിട്ടുള്ളവര്ക്കൊക്കെ അറിയാം. ഈ ഭാവമേഖല സമൂഹമാറ്റത്തിന്റെ കരുത്തുറ്റ ബീജങ്ങളാണ്. ഈ ഭാവമേഖല ഇന്നതാണെന്ന് കുറേ കിളവന്മാരും ആത്മാവില് വാര്ദ്ധക്യം ബാധിച്ച കുറേ കുരുടന്മാരും കൂടിയിരുന്ന് നേരത്തെ തീരുമാനിച്ച് 'സ്രഗ്ദ്ധര'യിലോ 'മഞ്ജരി'യിലോ കോരിനിറയ്ക്കലല്ല കവിതയുടെ പ്രശ്നം; അനുഭവങ്ങളെ കടഞ്ഞ് പുറത്തിട്ട് സൃഷ്ടിയിലൂടെ അറിയുകയാണ്, കണ്ടെത്തുകയാണ്. സമൂഹം എന്താണ് എന്നനുഭവിച്ചറിയലാണ് മാറ്റത്തിന്റെ നാന്ദി. കാവ്യഘടകങ്ങളുടെ ടോണില് ഈ ഭാവമേഖല എങ്ങനെ, അവയവാതിരിക്തമായി ലാവണ്യം പ്രകാശിക്കുന്നതുപോലെ, തുടിക്കുന്നു എന്ന കാവ്യപ്രശ്നം ഇവിടെ പ്രവര്ത്തിക്കുന്നു. ഇതില് സ്വാനുഭവത്തില് കള്ളക്കളി അരുത് എന്നാണ് ഈ പറയുന്നതിന്നര്ത്ഥം. ചോദ്യം: പക്ഷേ, താങ്കളുടെ കവിതകളില് തുടിച്ചുനില്ക്കുന്ന അനുഭവതീവ്രത ജീവിതാനുഭവത്തില് നിന്നല്ല, ഭാവനയില് നിന്നാണ് രൂപംകൊണ്ടതെന്ന് വിശ്വസിക്കാനാവുന്നില്ല. ഈ വൈരുദ്ധ്യത്തെ താങ്കള് എങ്ങനെയാണ് നോക്കിക്കാണുന്നത്? ഉത്തരം: അനുഭവതീവ്രത തുടിച്ചുനില്ക്കുന്നുണ്ടെങ്കില് സംശയിക്കാനില്ല; അതു ഭാവനയില് നിന്നു മാത്രം രൂപംകൊണ്ടതാവാന് വഴിയില്ല. വൈരുദ്ധ്യമുണ്ടെങ്കില് അതു സൃഷ്ടിച്ചെടുത്ത നിരൂപകന്റെ ഗുണനിര്ദ്ധാരണ ബുദ്ധിയിലാണ്. അവര്തന്നെ അതിനു സമാധാനം കാണണം. അല്ലെങ്കില് ഒരു നല്ല മനോരോഗ ചികിത്സകനെ കാണണം. നിങ്ങള്ക്കൊരു വികാസത്തെ ആക്ഷേപിക്കണമോ? വകുപ്പുണ്ട്; പ്രശംസിക്കണമോ? അതിനും വകുപ്പുണ്ട്. രണ്ടും വ്യക്തിപരമായ താത്പര്യങ്ങളാണ്. തങ്ങള് കുട്ടിക്കാലത്ത് ശീലിച്ചതും ബാല്യകൗതുകത്തെ സന്തര്പ്പണം ചെയ്യുന്നതുമായ ചില പഴയ ഘടകങ്ങള് കവിതകളില് കാണാതെ വരുമ്പോള് ജന്മിത്തവ്യവസ്ഥയില് ആസ്വാദനശേഷി ഉറച്ചുപോയവര്ക്ക് സഹിക്കില്ല. ഓണത്തിനും വിഷുവിനും കാഴ്ചവരവ് ഇല്ലാതായപ്പോള് ഭൂനിയമ പീഡിത സംഘക്കാരനും സഹിച്ചില്ലല്ലോ? ഇവരും അതുപോലൊരു പീഡിതസംഘം തന്നെ. സഹതാപപൂര്വ്വമായ പുനരധിവാസവും പരിചരണവുമാണ് ഇവര്ക്കു വേണ്ടത്. ചോദ്യം: താങ്കളുടെ കവിതയില് ഭാരതീയവും പാശ്ചാത്യവുമായ കാവ്യപാരമ്പര്യങ്ങളുടെ ശക്തമായ സ്വാധീനമുണ്ട്. ആധുനിക വിജ്ഞാനധാരകളെ സമീകരിക്കാനും കവിതയില് സമന്വയിക്കാനും താങ്കള്ക്കു കഴിയുന്നതെങ്ങിനെ? അതിനു പ്രേരപ്പിക്കുന്ന അനുഭവങ്ങള് താങ്കളുടെ ജീവിതത്തില് ഉണ്ടായിട്ടുണ്ടോ? ഉത്തരം: ഞാനൊരു നമ്പൂരിച്ചെക്കനായിട്ടാണ് ബാല്യകൗമാരങ്ങള് കഴിച്ചത്. എന്റെ സമുദായത്തിന്റെയും സംസ്കൃതസാഹിത്യവിജ്ഞാനങ്ങളുടെയും പാരമ്പര്യം എന്നിലുണ്ട്. കേരളത്തിന്റെ, ഭാരതത്തിന്റെ പാരമ്പര്യത്തെ നിഷേധിക്കുന്നതിന്നര്ത്ഥമില്ല. എനിക്കു കിട്ടിയ ഏറ്റവും ചെറിയ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം പോലും ഞാന് ഉപേക്ഷിച്ചിട്ടില്ല. ആ നിലയ്ക്ക് കിട്ടിയ പാശ്ചാത്യ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസവും ഈ പൊതുഭണ്ഡാരത്തില് തന്നെയാണ് ഞാന് സൂക്ഷിച്ചത്. ഇതില് സാമൂഹിക-രാഷ്ട്രീയ പ്രവര്ത്തനങ്ങളുടെ അനുഭവവുമുണ്ട്. തുടക്കം സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യസമരവും ഗാന്ധിസവുമായിരുന്നു. 1948ല് വടക്കേ മലബാറില് ആദ്യത്തെ വെടി പൊട്ടിയപ്പോള്, ഞാനതിനോട് സലാം പറഞ്ഞു പിരിഞ്ഞു. അങ്ങനെയാണ് സാമൂഹ്യ-സാമ്പത്തിക ശാസ്ത്രങ്ങളും ഇടതുപക്ഷ ചിന്തകളുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെട്ടത്. ഈ അറിവുകളും അനുഭവങ്ങളും ഒരു സമതുലിതത്തില് നിര്ത്തുക എന്നത് ഒരു എഴുത്തുകാരന് എന്ന നിലയ്ക്ക് ഞാന് നേടേണ്ട 'എക്വിപ്മെന്റാണ്'. ഇതിനെന്നെ പ്രാപ്തനാക്കിയത് എന്.വി. കൃഷ്ണവാരിയരാണ്. ആ കഥ പറയാം: എനിക്ക് കുട്ടിക്കാലത്ത് മുറിഞ്ഞുമുറിഞ്ഞുള്ള സ്കൂള് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിന്നൊപ്പം പലപ്പോഴും സ്കൂള് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തെ ചവിട്ടിത്താഴ്ത്തിയിട്ടും ലഭിച്ചിരുന്നത് പരമ്പരാഗതമായവിദ്യാഭ്യാസമായിരുന്നു - അല്പ്പം സംസ്കൃത കാവ്യം, ഇത്തിരി ജ്യോതിഷം, സ്വല്പ്പം വൈദിക വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം, കുറെ തന്ത്രദര്ശനം - ഇവയൊക്കെ. മഹാഭാരതവും രാമായണവും ഭാഗവതവും ഉപനിഷത്തുക്കളുമൊക്കെ എന്റെ കൗമാരസുഹൃത്തുക്കളായിരുന്നു. പട്ടിണിയും കഷ്ടപ്പാടുകളും രോഗങ്ങളും നിറഞ്ഞ ആ കുട്ടിക്കാലത്ത് എന്നെ നിലനിര്ത്തിയതും അവയാണെന്നു പറയാം. എന്നാല് ഇവയ്ക്കപ്പുറത്തും ലോകമുണ്ടെന്നും സാഹിത്യകലാഭണ്ഡാരങ്ങളുണ്ടെന്നും എന്റെ കൈ പിടിച്ച് നടത്തി കാട്ടിത്തന്നത് എന്.വി. ആയിരുന്നു. തൃശ്ശൂര് കേരളവര്മ്മ കോളേജിലെ ആ മൂന്നുവര്ഷം എന്റെ ഭാഗ്യമായിരുന്നു. ലോകത്തിന്റെ നാനാഭാഗത്തും വളര്ന്നുവരുന്ന ശാസ്ത്രദര്ശന ശാഖകളുടെ അത്ഭുതലോകങ്ങള് എനിക്കഭിഗമ്യങ്ങളായത് അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ ശിഷ്യത്വംകൊണ്ടാണ്. ഇന്നും പുതിയ മേഖലകള് തേടിപ്പോകാനും അവയോട് സംവദിക്കാനും കുറേയൊക്കെ സ്വായത്തമാക്കാനും കഴിയുന്നത് അന്ന് ലഭിച്ച മാര്ഗ്ഗദര്ശനംകൊണ്ടാണ്. ഇതിനെക്കാളൊക്കെ പ്രധാനമായത് ഇരുപതിനായിരം വര്ഷങ്ങളായി മനുഷ്യന് ഭൂമുഖത്തുണ്ടാക്കിയ നേട്ടങ്ങളുടെ കള്ച്ചറല് പിരമിഡിന്റെ ഉച്ചിയിലാണ് ഞാന് അറിഞ്ഞോ അറിയാതെയോ ഇരിക്കുന്നത് എന്ന കണ്മിഴിപ്പിക്കലായിരുന്നു. ''ഈ സമ്പത്തെല്ലാം കുട്ടീ, നിന്റേതാണ്'' എന്നു പറയുന്നമാതിരി. അതില്ലെങ്കില് ഞാനില്ല. ചോദ്യം: ദയാരഹിതവും ഉദ്ധതവുമായ ആധുനിക നാഗരികതയുടെ പാദാഘാതത്തിനു വിധേയമാകുന്ന ദുര്ബ്ബല മനുഷ്യത്വത്തിന്റെ വിമുക്തി കാണാത്ത ദുഃഖമാണല്ലോ താങ്കളുടെ കവിതകളിലെ പ്രധാന പ്രമേയം. ജീവിതം 'അബ്സേര്ഡ്' എന്ന ചിന്തയാണോ ആ പ്രമേയത്തിനോട് താങ്കള്ക്കുള്ള അഗാധ താല്പ്പര്യത്തിന് നിദാനം? ഉത്തരം: ഞാനൊരസംബന്ധവാദിയല്ല. ആവാനെനിക്ക ്കഴിയുകയുമില്ല. ഇതിന്റെ സാമൂഹ്യ സാംസ്കാരിക പശ്ചാത്തലം തൊട്ടുമുമ്പത്തെ ചോദ്യത്തിന്റെ ഉത്തരത്തില് അടങ്ങിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. പഴമക്കാര് എന്നെ അങ്ങനെ വിവരിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്; പുതുമക്കാര് ചിലര് പഴഞ്ചന് എന്നും. രണ്ടായാലും അസ്തു. ''സോളയമാത്മാ ചതുഷ്പാത്'' (ബ്രഹ്മത്തിനു നാലു പാദങ്ങളുണ്ട്) എന്നു പറയും മാണ്ഡൂക്യോപനിഷത്തില്. സമൂഹത്തിന്റെ വളര്ച്ചയ്ക്കും ഇതുപോലെ നാലു പാദങ്ങളുണ്ട്. അഗാധമായ അനുഭവം, തീക്ഷ്ണമായ അസംതൃപ്തി, ദീപ്തമായ അറിവ്, കഠിനമായ പ്രവൃത്തി. ഇവയില് ആദ്യത്തെ മൂന്നില്ലെങ്കില് നാലാമത്തേതില്ല. മാറ്റവും ഇല്ല. ആദ്യത്തെ മൂന്നും കൂടിയതാണ് അവബോധം. അറിവ്, അറിയുക എന്നത് മാറ്റത്തിന്റെ ആരംഭമാണെന്ന് മാര്ക്സിസ്റ്റ് നിരൂപകന്മാര്ക്കൊഴികെ എല്ലാവര്ക്കുമറിയാം. ചോദ്യം: വിഭ്രാമകമായ രൂപശില്പ്പങ്ങളാണ് താങ്കളുടെ പല കവിതകള്ക്കുമുള്ളത്. ആധുനിക ജീവിതം ചിത്രീകരിക്കാന് കടംകഥകളെന്തിന്? മിത്തുകള്, ചരിത്രകഥകള്, ഐതിഹ്യങ്ങള്, നാടന്പാട്ടുകള്-ഈ പഴംപൊരുളുകളെന്തിന്? പുതിയ ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ പുതിയ മിത്തുകള് ആവിഷ്കരിക്കുകയോ ഉദ്ദേശം? ഉത്തരം: രൂപശില്പ്പങ്ങള് തുടക്കത്തില് വിഭ്രാമകങ്ങളായിരുന്നു എന്നു സമ്മതിക്കാം. അപ്രതീക്ഷിതമായി ഒരു തൂണുപിളര്ന്നു പ്രത്യക്ഷപ്പെടലായിരുന്നുവല്ലോ വായനക്കാരെ സംബന്ധിച്ചിടത്തോളം അത്? എന്നാല് കാല്നൂറ്റാണ്ടിനുശേഷം ഇന്നും അവ വിഭ്രാമകങ്ങളാണോ? പഴയ കടങ്കഥകളും മിത്തുകളും ഐതിഹ്യങ്ങളും ചരിത്രകഥകളുമൊക്കെ എന്തിന്ന് എന്ന ചോദ്യം. ഇവയൊക്കെ കാവ്യഭാഷ-ഇതിന്ന് മലയാള-സംസ്കൃത-ആംഗലേയ ഭേദങ്ങളില്ല-നേടിയ ആവിഷ്കാര സിദ്ധികളാണ്. ഈ സിദ്ധികള് പ്രയോജനപ്പെടുത്തണമോ അതോ ആകെ തിരസ്കരിക്കണമോ എന്നത് ഒരു മൗലിക പ്രശ്നമാണ്. പാരമ്പര്യത്തോടുള്ള നമ്മുടെ സമീപനം എന്തായിരിക്കണം എന്ന ചോദ്യംകൂടി അതിലടങ്ങിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. നമ്മുടെ ഏറ്റവും ശക്തമായ ഇതിഹാസപുരാണകൃതികളുടെ - ഭാരത-ഭാഗവതങ്ങളുടേയും ബൈബിളിന്റേയും ഇലിയഡ്, ഒഡീസി എന്നിവയുടേയും ഒക്കെ - ആവിഷ്കാര സമ്പ്രദായമാണിത്. പുരാണകഥകളും മിത്തുകളും കടങ്കഥകളും കവിതയിലുപയോഗിച്ചതുകൊണ്ട് കവിത മിത്തായിക്കൊള്ളണമെന്നില്ല. അഗാധവും അര്ത്ഥവത്തുമായ ഒരനുഭവ യാഥാര്ത്ഥ്യത്തിലെത്താന് കഴിഞ്ഞാല് ചിലപ്പോള് ഒരു മിത്തുണ്ടായി എന്നുവരാം. മിത്തുണ്ടാക്കാന് വേണ്ടി കവിത എഴുതിയാല് മിത്തുണ്ടാവില്ല; കവിതയുമുണ്ടാവില്ല. ഒരു നഷ്ടക്കച്ചവടം മാത്രമായിത്തീരും. ചോദ്യം: താങ്കളുടെ കവിതകള് പലര്ക്കും ദുര്ഗ്രഹമായി തോന്നാറുണ്ട്. ഉദാഹരണത്തിന് 'വജ്രകുണ്ഡലം' എന്ന കവിതയില് താമസഭാവങ്ങളില് നിന്ന് ഉഴറിയോടുന്ന അശരണമായ മനുഷ്യത്വത്തെ തക്ഷകനില് നിന്ന് വജ്രകുണ്ഡലം രക്ഷിക്കാന് പാടുപെടുന്ന ഉത്തങ്കനിലൂടെ ആവിഷ്കരിക്കുന്നുണ്ടല്ലോ. ധര്മ്മമൂല്യവും ധനലോഭവും തമ്മിലുള്ള സംഘര്ഷം ചിത്രീകരിക്കാന് ഇത്തരമൊരു കാവ്യബിംബം സ്വീകരിച്ചപ്പോള് അടിസ്ഥാനാശയം സങ്കീര്ണ്ണമായിത്തീരുകയല്ലേ ചെയ്യുന്നത്? ഉത്തരം: ധര്മ്മച്യുതി, ധനലോഭം, ഭാവഗ്രന്ഥികള് തുടങ്ങിയവ വളരെ അമൂര്ത്തങ്ങളായ അനുഭവ സാമാന്യങ്ങളാണ്. പ്രിയങ്കരവും അമൂല്യവുമായ ഒന്നിനെ നാശത്തില് നിന്നു രക്ഷിക്കാന് ഭ്രാന്തമായി ഓടിയലയുന്ന ഉത്തങ്കനെ അവതരിപ്പിച്ചപ്പോള് അനുഭവസാമാന്യങ്ങള് കൂടുതല് സ്ഫുടമാവുകയല്ലേ ഉണ്ടായത്? ഉത്തങ്കനു പകരം ഒരു പാപ്പച്ചനെ അവതരിപ്പിച്ചാല് പ്രശ്നം ഒത്തുതീര്പ്പാകുമോ? ദുര്ഗ്രഹതയുടെ പ്രശ്നം അതല്ല. നമുക്ക് ഗ്രീസിലേയും ഇറ്റലിയിലേയും അമേരിക്കയിലേയും ഇംഗ്ലണ്ടിലേയും ചൈനയിലേയും കാര്യങ്ങള് നല്ല നിശ്ചയമാണ്. രാമായണത്തിലേയോ മഹാഭാരതത്തിലേയോ ഭാഗവതത്തിലേയോ ഉപനിഷത്തിലേയോ നമ്മുടെ കൃഷിക്കാര് പാടുന്ന നാടന് പാട്ടിലേയോ ഒരു കഥാംശം അന്യമാണ്, ദുര്ഗ്രഹമാണ്. സിസിഫസ്സിനെ നമുക്കെന്തു പരിചയമാണ്! ആ ചെത്തല്ലൂര്ക്കാരന് നാറാണത്തിനെ നാമൊട്ടറിയുകയുമില്ല. എന്നിട്ടും ചെത്തല്ലൂരിലെ എല്.പി. സ്കൂളില് പോയി, മലയില് കല്ലുരുട്ടിക്കേറ്റിയ സിസിഫസ്സിന്റെ മിത്തിനെക്കുറിച്ച് പ്രസംഗിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യും. ചോദ്യം: താങ്കളുടെ മനസ്സില് ഒരു കവിത വിരിയുന്ന സര്ഗ്ഗപ്രക്രിയയെ ഒന്നു വിശദീകരിക്കാമോ? ഉത്തരം: ഇതു 'വജ്രകുണ്ഡല'ത്തിന്റേയും 'തൊള്ളായിരത്തി അറുപത്തിമൂന്ന്' രണ്ടാം പതിപ്പിന്റേയും ആമുഖത്തില് ആവുംമട്ട് വിശദീകരിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. പതുക്കെപ്പതുക്കെ വളര്ന്നുവരുന്ന, ഇന്നതെന്നറിയാത്ത ഒരസ്വാസ്ഥ്യത്തിന്റെ ഉച്ചാവസ്ഥയും വിസ്മൃതസര്വസ്വമായ ഒരാവിഷ്കരണത്തിന്റെയും കഥയാണത്. എഴുതിക്കഴിയുമ്പോഴാണ് അതെന്തായിരുന്നു എന്നറിയുക. പിന്നെ തിരുത്തലാണ്. ചില കവിതകള് പല ആവൃത്തി തിരുത്തിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. 'പാതാളത്തിന്റെ മുഴക്കം' എന്ന കവിതയ്ക്ക് ഇരുപതിലധികം ഭിന്ന പാഠങ്ങളുണ്ടായിരുന്നു എന്നാണോര്മ്മ. തിരുത്താന് തുടങ്ങുമ്പോള് പദങ്ങള് അര്ത്ഥാനപേക്ഷമായി ഉണര്ത്തുന്ന ശബ്ദശില്പ്പം മുതല് ബിംബങ്ങള് കൂടിച്ചേര്ന്നുണ്ടാകുന്ന സമഗ്രഭാവശില്പ്പത്തിന്റെ വ്യഞ്ജനവരെ എല്ലാം കഠിന ശല്യമാവും. അരുചിയും അതൃപ്തിയുമാണുടനീളം. ഇവിടെ ഭാരതീയ കാവ്യമീമാംസയുടെ സിദ്ധാന്തങ്ങളാണ് രക്ഷയ്ക്കെത്തുക. എല്ലാം കഴിഞ്ഞ് ''ഇനി ഇവന് തനിയെ ജീവിച്ചുകൊള്ളും'' എന്നു തിട്ടം വന്നാലേ തിരുത്തല് നില്ക്കൂ. അതുകൊണ്ടാവാം എണ്ണത്തില് കുറവാകുന്നത്. കവിത്വശക്തിക്കുറവും ആകാം. 'അമ്പട ഞാനേ!' എന്നു പറയുന്നതിനും വലിയ അര്ത്ഥമില്ല. ചോദ്യം: 'സഫലമീയാത്ര' എന്ന കവിതയില് ജീവിത സാഫല്യത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് താങ്കള് പാടുന്നു. ഇരുണ്ട ജീവിതവിഷാദം പരത്തുന്ന താങ്കളുടെ ചില പൂര്വ്വകാല കവിതകളില് നിന്ന് ഭാവത്തില് ഈ കവിതയും ഭിന്നമല്ല. പക്ഷേ, അതുണര്ത്തുന്ന സമാധാനവും സ്വാസ്ഥ്യവും ഏത് സഹൃദയനേയും ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ അര്ത്ഥമില്ലായ്മയിലെ അര്ത്ഥത്തിലേക്കെത്തിക്കും. ഇത് എങ്ങനെ സംഭവിച്ചു? ഉത്തരം: മൂന്നു വര്ഷം മുമ്പ് മാരകമായ ഒരു രോഗത്തിന്റെ പിടിയിലാണ് ഞാന് എന്ന ബോധം കുറച്ചുനേരത്തേക്ക് എന്നെ ആകെ തളര്ത്തിക്കളയുകയുണ്ടായി. മുമ്പില് ഒരു കറുത്ത ശൂന്യത സ്പഷ്ടമായിക്കണ്ടു. നാലടി നടന്നാല് അവിടെ എത്തും എന്നു തോന്നാവുന്നത്ര അടുത്തായിരുന്നു അത്. പിന്നെ പതുക്കെ ആ അസ്വസ്ഥത മാറുകയും സ്വാഭാവികമായ ആ അന്ത്യത്തെ ഭീതിയും ഉല്ക്കണ്ഠയും കൂടാതെ മനസ്സില് കാണാന് കഴിയുകയും ചെയ്തു. ഇതെപ്പോഴും എന്റെ കൂടെ പല രൂപത്തില് ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നതല്ലേ? പതുക്കെ അതൊരു പ്രാപ്യസ്ഥാനമായി അനുഭവപ്പെട്ടു. കൃത്യമായ രോഗനിര്ണ്ണയത്തിന് ഏതാണ്ട് എട്ടു മാസം മുമ്പായിരുന്നു അത്. ഒരു ഭാവഭേദവും കൂടാതെ, ആരെയും അറിയിക്കാതെ, ഇപ്പോള് പരിചിതമായിക്കഴിഞ്ഞ ആ കറുത്ത തിരശ്ശീലയ്ക്കു മുമ്പില് എനിക്കായി നിര്ദ്ദേശിക്കപ്പെട്ട പഴയ വേഷത്തിന്റെ തുടര്ച്ച ആകാമെന്ന സ്ഥൈര്യം മനസ്സിന്നു കിട്ടി. ഒരുതരം നിര്വൃത്യാത്മകമായ ശാന്തി എന്നു പറഞ്ഞാല് അത്യുക്തിയാകുമോ? അപ്പോഴാണ് കഴിഞ്ഞ ജീവിതത്തിലേക്ക് ഒന്നു തിരിഞ്ഞുനോക്കാന്, ഒന്നാകെയിടാന് സമയമായി എന്നു തോന്നിയത്. ആ ദിനങ്ങള് അത്ഭുതകരമായിരിക്കുന്നു - ഉത്ക്കണ്ഠയില്ല, ഭീതിയില്ല, ദുഃഖമില്ല, ആഹഌദമില്ല - അവാച്യമായ ഒരു പ്രശമത്തിന്റെ നാളുകള്. എല്ലാറ്റിനോടും, നിലാവിനോടും മഞ്ഞിനോടുംകൂടി ഒരുതരം വാത്സല്യം തോന്നിയ ദിനങ്ങള്! കാലമിനിയുമുരുളും, വിഷുവരും, വര്ഷം വരും തിരുവോണം വരും, പിന്നെ- യോരോ തളിരിനും പൂവരും,കായ് വരും-അപ്പൊ- ളാരെന്നുമെന്തെന്നുമാര്ക്കറിയാം? നമു- ക്കിപ്പൊഴീയാര്ദ്രയെശ്ശാന്തരായ്, സൗമ്യരായെതിരേല്ക്കാം, വരിക സഖി,യരികത്തു ചേര്ന്നു നില്ക്കൂ: പഴയൊരു മന്ത്രം സ്മരിക്ക, നാമന്യോന്യ- മൂന്നുവടികളായ് നില്ക്കാം; ഹാ! സഫലമീയാത്ര. സഫലമീയാത്ര-കവിതാസമാഹാരം-വാങ്ങാം സഫലമീയാത്ര- കക്കാട് - ഓര്മ്മ |
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Emotional - Leonard Mlodnow
We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that ...
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സ്നേഹിക്കയില്ല ഞാൻ നോവുമാത്മാവിനെ സ്നേഹിച്ചിടാത്തൊരു തത്വ ശാസ്ത്രത്തെയും!!!! ഒന്നാം കൊമ്പത്ത് വന്നിരുന്നന്നൊരു പുന്നാരക്കിളി ചോദിച്...
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"Why Don't We Try to Be India's Most Respected Company?" An Interview with N.R. Narayana Murthy by Anand P. Raman He... -
Father, it's too late for making up with you The time for debates on honour is over now You won, didn't you? You left me witho...