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SADEHA 32.m4a

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Part 1 · VIDEHA MITHILA MAITHILI DISCUSSION CRITICISM SERIES PART 1

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asr-draft

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No

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small

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en (0.998984)

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37:13

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Open preserved recording

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1. 0:00–0:30पिक्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष
2. 0:30–0:32This language is fighting for its absolute survival.
3. 0:32–0:35It's just a phenomenal image to start off with, honestly.
4. 0:35–0:38Because it captures this desperate kind of innovation.
5. 0:38–0:43What we are looking at today is a situation where the weight of a millennium and a half
6. 0:43–0:47of literary tradition was just deliberately shoved into early HTML.
7. 0:47–0:49Which is wild to think about.
8. 0:49–0:53We are exploring the story of a publication called Vidya.
9. 0:53–0:57It holds this really vital distinction of being the first Mathili-Fortniteley e-journal.
10. 0:57–1:02I want to pause right there just for a second because if you're listening to us in say London
11. 1:02–1:05or New York, the word mathalay might not immediately register.
12. 1:05–1:06Sure.
13. 1:06–1:07Yeah.
14. 1:07–1:12What is the geographical and I guess cultural footprint of this language?
15. 1:12–1:13Where are we talking about?
16. 1:13–1:15That context is totally crucial.
17. 1:15–1:18So Mothili is an Indo-Aryan language.
18. 1:18–1:22It's spoken primarily in the Bihar region of India and also the Eastern Terai region
19. 1:22–1:23of Nepal.
20. 1:23–1:25Okay, got it.
21. 1:25–1:31And for centuries, I mean, this is the language of scholars, poets, philosophers in the ancient
22. 1:31–1:35mytheela region, even has its own distinct script traditionally called Terhuta.
23. 1:35–1:36Oh, really?
24. 1:36–1:37Its own script?
25. 1:37–1:38Yeah, exactly.
26. 1:38–1:42But as we moved into the late 20th century, it faced a lot of pressure.
27. 1:42–1:48Like a lot of regional languages that don't have massive global economic backing, it faced
28. 1:48–1:51the very real threat of marginalization.
29. 1:51–1:54People were probably just abandoning it for better job prospects, right?
30. 1:54–1:58They were moving to Hindi or English for economic opportunities.
31. 1:58–2:03And the traditional publishing infrastructure for Mathili was incredibly localized.
32. 2:03–2:04Meaning what exactly?
33. 2:04–2:07Meaning if a really brilliant story was printed in a village in Bihar, it pretty much stayed
34. 2:07–2:08in that village.
35. 2:08–2:09There was no distribution.
36. 2:09–2:10Wow.
37. 2:10–2:14So geographic isolation was essentially a death sentence for the literature.
38. 2:14–2:16If you didn't live there, you couldn't read it.
39. 2:16–2:17Exactly.
40. 2:17–2:22And the creators of Videa, they completely recognized that.
41. 2:22–2:29Even became a formal e-journal it started as this early web page called the bullsari gah, which translates to what it means
42. 2:30–2:35The tree of bull sorry. Oh, I like that. Yeah, and the move to digitize all this
43. 2:35–2:38It was a deliberate survival tactic. I mean think about the early 2000s
44. 2:39–2:44Getting a regional script like Mathilli onto the internet before Unicode was you know
45. 2:44–2:48Widely standardized that must have been a technical nightmare a massive technical hurdle
46. 2:48–2:53They had to figure out custom fonts, weird coding, digital distribution, all just to ensure
47. 2:53–2:57their heritage didn't completely evaporate in the digital revolution.
48. 2:57–3:01So they basically saw the digital wave coming and decided to build a surfboard instead of
49. 3:01–3:02a wall.
50. 3:02–3:03That's a great way to put it.
51. 3:03–3:07Well, to date, for our deck dive, we are focusing on one very specific issue of this
52. 3:07–3:09digital archive.
53. 3:09–3:14It's Vedea Sadeja 32, edited by Gojendra Thakur.
54. 3:14–3:19And just looking at the digital cover art of this specific issue tells you so much about
55. 3:19–3:21what their mission was.
56. 3:21–3:24It features this striking split background.
57. 3:24–3:25It's really vivid.
58. 3:25–3:26Yeah.
59. 3:26–3:32One side is this vibrant, almost aggressive red, and the other side is a deep cosmic
60. 3:32–3:33blue.
61. 3:33–3:37And superimposed on the red side, there's a traditional drum and a shell.
62. 3:37–3:38Symbols of village life.
63. 3:38–3:40Maybe calls to action even.
64. 3:40–3:41Right.
65. 3:41–3:47blue side there is a bow and this magnificent winged lion which obviously invokes mythology
66. 3:47–3:48and strength.
67. 3:48–3:49Exactly.
68. 3:49–3:53And tying the whole thing together is an intricate circular mandala drawn in white.
69. 3:53–3:55Like what is the message here?
70. 3:55–3:59I mean the visual language there just screams that this is not just some repository for
71. 3:59–4:01text, it is a cultural vessel.
72. 4:01–4:02A cultural vessel.
73. 4:02–4:06And the underlying ethos of Gujindathakur's editorial direction is entirely non-commercial.
74. 4:06–4:12I mean the journal operates strictly for the love and the preservation of the language which is rare on the internet
75. 4:12–4:18Extremely they make it explicitly clear in their mandate to mm-hmm. No royalties are paid to the authors none
76. 4:18–4:20Yeah, it is a pure labor of devotion
77. 4:21–4:26From the writers to their mother tongue and there is a quote actually bore it in the introductory text that really stuck with me
78. 4:26–4:29When we were prepping for this the CETA comparison
79. 4:29–4:36Yes, it compares mathelae to the language of CETA herself the revered central figure of the Ramayana epic right by
80. 4:36–4:41By connecting the everyday spoken word to a figure of such immense spiritual and cultural
81. 4:41–4:44gravity, they are elevating the language, right?
82. 4:44–4:48It goes from mere communication to something profoundly sacred.
83. 4:48–4:49Exactly.
84. 4:49–4:52And establishing the language as sacred raises the stakes for everything published
85. 4:52–4:53within it.
86. 4:53–4:54How so?
87. 4:54–4:59Well, if the vessel is sacred, then the human experiences poured into that vessel carry
88. 4:59–5:00an immense weight.
89. 5:00–5:02The stories are no longer just entertainment.
90. 5:02–5:05They become the vital record of a people.
91. 5:05–5:12our mission today is to crack open that record. We are unearthing four distinct literary pieces
92. 5:12–5:17from this specific issue. And they cover an amazing range of topics. They really do. We are going to
93. 5:17–5:23explore the paralyzing philosophy of high art, the agonizing weight of traditional patriarchy,
94. 5:23–5:29the brutal bloodstained economy of extreme poverty, and finally, to cap it all off,
95. 5:29–5:34an absurd existential comedy set at the closed gates of the afterlife.
96. 5:34–5:40the sheer spectrum of human emotion contained in this single digital issue is just staggering.
97. 5:40–5:45So let's jump right into it. The first story we are examining provides this incredible masterclass
98. 5:45–5:51in psychological tension. It's titled, Matik Basan. Yes, written by Jagdan Anja, who publishes
99. 5:51–5:57under the pen name Manu. Manu, okay. And at its core, this is a narrative about the devastating
100. 5:57–6:01illusion of perfection. Bring us into the world of this story. Where do we actually begin?
101. 6:01–6:07So we began in a very traditional village setting. Yeah. And we're introduced to an aging master potter named Kidar Prasad.
102. 6:07–6:13Okay. Kidar has spent his entire existence with his hands in the mud. He shapes clay into
103. 6:13–6:19Utilitarian items, you know water pitchers cooking pots grain storage the basics of village survival. Exactly
104. 6:20–6:22But the author Manu
105. 6:22–6:28Immediately introduces the pressure of modernization right from the start the village is changing like new technologies coming in
106. 6:28–6:29Yeah
107. 6:29–6:36Cold mass-produced steel and plastic containers are rapidly replacing Ki-R's fragile clay pots in the local kitchens
108. 6:36–6:37No, man
109. 6:37–6:39So his livelihood is just evaporating right in front of him
110. 6:39–6:41It is the classic struggle, right?
111. 6:41–6:45The artisanal craftsman being suffocated by the industrial age. It happens everywhere.
112. 6:45–6:46Absolutely everywhere.
113. 6:46–6:47Okay
114. 6:47–6:49But Ki-R isn't alone in this. He has an apprentice.
115. 6:49–6:51His son, right. Vipu.
116. 6:51–6:52Yes, his son Vipu.
117. 6:52–6:57So Vipu learns the tactile secrets of the clay from his father.
118. 6:57–6:59But Vihu is a lot more pragmatic.
119. 6:59–7:00He sees the writing on the wall.
120. 7:00–7:01He does.
121. 7:01–7:06He sees the poverty his father lives in and realizes there's just no economic future
122. 7:06–7:08in making basic water pots anymore.
123. 7:08–7:09So Vibhu pivots.
124. 7:09–7:11He pivots how?
125. 7:11–7:16He takes the exact same mud, the exact same foundational skills he learned from his dad,
126. 7:16–7:19but shifts his focus from function to high art.
127. 7:19–7:20Oh interesting.
128. 7:20–7:21Yeah.
129. 7:21–7:25He begins sculpting these intricate, breathtaking idols of Hindu deities.
130. 7:25–7:30specifically the goddess of learning, Saraswati, and Lord Krishna.
131. 7:30–7:34So he makes this massive leap from everyday craftsmen to a fine artist.
132. 7:34–7:38And from what I gather reading the text, this isn't just like a minor hobby for him.
133. 7:38–7:41Vivu achieves massive success, doesn't he?
134. 7:41–7:46Oh, phenomenal success. While Kedar is still struggling to sell functional pots for pennies,
135. 7:46–7:51Vivu's spiritual and aesthetic sculptures are selling for thousands of rupees.
136. 7:51–7:52Wow, thousands!
137. 7:52–7:57Yeah. His reputation spirals outward from the village to the district, and eventually he
138. 7:57–7:59receives the ultimate validation.
139. 7:59–8:00What happens?
140. 8:00–8:04The state government formally invites Vibhu to showcase his sculptures at a prestigious
141. 8:04–8:10All India exhibition. And crucially, this invitation comes with a huge cash prize. 1
142. 8:10–8:11lakh rupees.
143. 8:11–8:16Okay. For someone listening who might not grasp the economic scale of an Indian village
144. 8:16–8:21in the early 2000s, 1 lakh rupees, which is 100,000 rupees, is not just a nice little
145. 8:21–8:22bonus.
146. 8:22–8:23at all.
147. 8:23–8:26That is generation altering wealth in that context.
148. 8:26–8:30It's the kind of money that buys land, builds a concrete house, and permanently elevates
149. 8:30–8:32a family's social standing.
150. 8:32–8:34It is absolute validation of his pivot.
151. 8:34–8:35Exactly.
152. 8:35–8:40The external world has literally crowned Vibhu a master.
153. 8:40–8:44But Manu introduces a deeply painful internal conflict here.
154. 8:44–8:45Father.
155. 8:45–8:46Yes, the father.
156. 8:46–8:51Despite this undeniable financial and social triumph, Kidor, the old man who still makes
157. 8:51–8:54obsolete pots refuses to be impressed.
158. 8:54–8:56Really? Why? Is he jealous?
159. 8:56–8:59You might think that, but no, it's deeper.
160. 8:59–9:03Every single time Veebu completes a new, highly praised masterpiece,
161. 9:03–9:05Kedar slowly inspects it.
162. 9:05–9:05Oh boy.
163. 9:05–9:09He walks around it, studies the lines, and inevitably he finds a flaw.
164. 9:09–9:10Every single time.
165. 9:10–9:11Every time.
166. 9:11–9:13He points out a tiny imperfection of the curve of a finger,
167. 9:13–9:16or maybe the drape of the sculpted cloth.
168. 9:16–9:18He's just relentlessly critical.
169. 9:18–9:20I can feel the pressure cooker building just hearing that.
170. 9:20–9:24I mean, you have a son who has essentially saved the family from financial ruin, right?
171. 9:25–9:27He's being celebrated by the entire country.
172. 9:27–9:32And the one person whose approval he probably craves more than anyone else, his father,
173. 9:33–9:35just keeps pointing out tiny mistakes.
174. 9:35–9:39It is inevitable that this dynamic is going to explode.
175. 9:39–9:41And the explosion is very visceral.
176. 9:41–9:44Vibhu finally reaches his breaking point.
177. 9:44–9:46He lashes out at his father.
178. 9:46–9:48His frustration just entirely boiling over.
179. 9:48–9:49What does he say?
180. 9:49–9:53The essence of his argument is basically, look around.
181. 9:53–9:57You make cheap basic pots that no one even wants to buy anymore.
182. 9:57–9:58You are a financial failure.
183. 9:58–9:59Ouch.
184. 9:59–10:00That's harsh.
185. 10:00–10:01It is.
186. 10:01–10:04He says, how do you have the audacity to critique my art?
187. 10:04–10:07Which the government itself has declared a masterpiece worth a lack of rupees.
188. 10:07–10:12Man, how does the father even absorb that kind of deeply personal attack?
189. 10:12–10:15Because that cuts right to the core of Khedar's own failure.
190. 10:15–10:16That's a thing.
191. 10:16–10:21Kedar doesn't get angry, he gets overwhelmingly sad, and his response is essentially the philosophical
192. 10:21–10:23anchor of the entire story.
193. 10:23–10:24What does he tell him?
194. 10:24–10:29He looks at his furious son and says, once a person feels they have achieved perfection,
195. 10:29–10:30their growth stops.
196. 10:30–10:33The illusion of perfection paralyzes the mind.
197. 10:33–10:34Yeah.
198. 10:34–10:37And then Kedar just turns and walks away mourning the death of his ultimate dream.
199. 10:37–10:38Wait, hold on.
200. 10:38–10:40What was his dream?
201. 10:40–10:43Because clearly it wasn't just the money or the government award.
202. 10:43–10:48Kedar's dream was for his son to become the absolute greatest sculptor to ever live.
203. 10:48–10:53But in that moment, Kedar realizes the dream is completely dead.
204. 10:53–10:55Because V.Poo thinks he's already made it.
205. 10:55–10:56Precisely.
206. 10:56–11:01It is dead because V.Hoo has started believing his own hype.
207. 11:01–11:05V.Poo believes the government certificate and the money objectively prove that his
208. 11:05–11:06work is flawless.
209. 11:06–11:11Kedar knows that the very moment an artist believes they are flawless they will never
210. 11:11–11:12improve again.
211. 11:12–11:14The hunger just dies.
212. 11:14–11:16That concept translates so perfectly
213. 11:16–11:17beyond the Village Potters wheel.
214. 11:17–11:19I mean, think about the tech industry today.
215. 11:19–11:20Oh, absolutely.
216. 11:20–11:21Imagine a brilliant software developer
217. 11:21–11:23who builds an incredible application.
218. 11:23–11:25The user base explodes,
219. 11:25–11:27the reviews are universally five stars,
220. 11:27–11:28and the developer looks at the code
221. 11:28–11:30and thinks this is a masterpiece.
222. 11:30–11:33Version 1.0 is utterly flawless.
223. 11:33–11:34And what happens next?
224. 11:34–11:35Because they believe it is perfect,
225. 11:35–11:37they stop pushing updates,
226. 11:37–11:39they stop hunting for vulnerabilities,
227. 11:39–11:40they stop innovating entirely.
228. 11:40–11:41They just sit back.
229. 11:41–11:46Yeah, and then six months later, a hungry competitor releases something slightly faster, slightly
230. 11:46–11:48more intuitive.
231. 11:48–11:53Suddenly, that so-called flawless version 1.0 is a dinosaur.
232. 11:53–11:58The very moment you declare your own perfection, you are actively engineering your own obsolescence.
233. 11:58–12:03That analogy holds up beautifully because it isolates the core mechanism of mastery.
234. 12:03–12:04Right.
235. 12:04–12:08Whether you are coding an app, making a clay pitcher for a thirsty traveler or sculpting
236. 12:08–12:14a deity, the prerequisite for true mastery is an agonizing awareness of your own shortcomings.
237. 12:14–12:18You have to know you can be better. Exactly. Kedar, the old man covered in
238. 12:18–12:23cheap mud, possesses a resilient, infinite mindset. He understands that the pursuit of art
239. 12:23–12:29has no finish line. And Vipu lost that. He did. The tragedy Manu writes is that Vipu trades his
240. 12:29–12:34infinite potential for finite, immediate validation. He lets the applause of the crowd
241. 12:34–12:36become a paralyzing poison.
242. 12:36–12:42It is a devastating realization and honestly the thematic transition from this story to
243. 12:42–12:44the next piece in the journal is shockingly seamless.
244. 12:44–12:45It really is.
245. 12:45–12:50We move from the clay of the potter's wheel to another object traditionally constructed
246. 12:50–12:54from mud in the village, the domestic hearth, the coolly.
247. 12:54–12:55Yes.
248. 12:55–13:00But here the clay ceases to be a medium for high art and becomes a really suffocating
249. 13:00–13:02metaphor for gender roles.
250. 13:02–13:06The essay is titled, Coolie, written by Bal Chandra Chah.
251. 13:06–13:08And to fully graph the weight of this piece,
252. 13:08–13:11we have to understand what a traditional coolie actually is.
253. 13:11–13:13Right, because this isn't a modern gas stove
254. 13:13–13:14we're talking about here.
255. 13:14–13:15Not at all.
256. 13:15–13:18It is a U-shaped structure built directly on the floor.
257. 13:18–13:21It's molded from mud, clay, and sometimes cow dung.
258. 13:21–13:22OK.
259. 13:22–13:24And using it requires a woman to sit on the floor,
260. 13:24–13:27feeding it raw fuel, constantly blowing into the flange.
261. 13:27–13:30Her face just wrapped in thick stinging smoke.
262. 13:30–13:32So it's incredibly labor-intensive.
263. 13:32–13:37It's physically grueling work that literally anchors a woman to the kitchen floor for hours
264. 13:37–13:38every day.
265. 13:38–13:42Val Chandra Ha introduces us to a narrator named Saïsoum Barry, right?
266. 13:42–13:46But she reveals early on that nobody actually calls her by her given name.
267. 13:46–13:48The village calls her Kulia.
268. 13:48–13:49Which translates to what?
269. 13:49–13:50Like, girl of the hearth?
270. 13:50–13:52Basically, yeah.
271. 13:52–13:55She explains that she earned this nickname because she was born on a violently cold
272. 13:55–13:56winter night.
273. 13:56–14:00And to keep the fragile newborn alive, her family placed her right next to the
274. 14:00–14:03radiating heat of the clay hearth.
275. 14:03–14:04Such a striking image.
276. 14:04–14:10The author establishes this inescapable psychological and physical bond from her very first breath.
277. 14:10–14:12She owes her life to it.
278. 14:12–14:13Right.
279. 14:13–14:16Cia Sundari's identity is inextricably fused with the mud oven.
280. 14:16–14:21But as she grows up, she begins to observe the dark reality of what the hearth actually
281. 14:21–14:22represents for the women around her.
282. 14:22–14:26The central metaphor she constructs is horrifying in its accuracy.
283. 14:26–14:30She looks at the life cycle of the Cooley, and then she looks at the life cycle of
284. 14:30–14:35village woman and she realizes they share the exact same fate. How so? She states
285. 14:35–14:40that both exist in the society for one singular brutal purpose to slowly burn
286. 14:40–14:45themselves into ash in order to sustain the lives of others. That is heavy. The
287. 14:45–14:49utility of both the object and the human is entirely predicated on self
288. 14:49–14:54destruction. Exactly. The hearth provides cooked food and warmth but only by
289. 14:54–14:58consuming the fuel placed inside it and enduring the searing heat. And the
290. 14:58–15:03The woman provides a family, nourishment and care, but only by consuming her own youth,
291. 15:03–15:05her energy, and her individual identity.
292. 15:05–15:10C.S. Andari talks about this twisted reverence given to the hearth too.
293. 15:10–15:12The women in the village constantly maintain it.
294. 15:12–15:17They polish it with a fresh layer of wet clay every single morning.
295. 15:17–15:19They treat it with a strange kind of domestic respect.
296. 15:19–15:20But there's a catch.
297. 15:20–15:22A huge catch.
298. 15:22–15:26The devastating turn in the S.O. is what happens when the hearth breaks.
299. 15:26–15:30The absolute second a crack appears in the clay that cannot be patched, or the moment
300. 15:30–15:35it outlives its structural usefulness, that so-called revered object is unceremoniously
301. 15:35–15:39ripped out of the floor and discarded into a dark corner with the garbage.
302. 15:39–15:42Wow, it is the ultimate expression of transactional care.
303. 15:42–15:43Yes.
304. 15:43–15:46You are worshiped only in direct proportion to your utility.
305. 15:46–15:49When the utility vanishes, so does your humanity.
306. 15:49–15:54And Jha doesn't just leave this as an abstract philosophical observation either.
307. 15:54–15:59The case and area provides deeply traumatic personal anecdotes to really ground the metaphor.
308. 15:59–16:01She talks about her mother, right?
309. 16:01–16:02She does.
310. 16:02–16:06She recounts memories of her own mother, describing her existence in terms that are usually reserved
311. 16:06–16:07for livestock.
312. 16:07–16:11She says her mother's eyes contained only two emotions.
313. 16:11–16:17A deep, paralyzing fear of the patriarchal authority and a bottomless, tragic compassion
314. 16:17–16:18for her children.
315. 16:18–16:19No mention of joy at all.
316. 16:19–16:20Zero.
317. 16:20–16:21There is no mention of joy.
318. 16:21–16:25The culmination of the mother's story is deeply unsettling.
319. 16:25–16:30The text reveals that the mother actually dies in a domestic fire caused by the very hearth
320. 16:30–16:32she spent her entire life tending.
321. 16:32–16:37The way Ja has the narrator frame, the death requires really careful analysis.
322. 16:37–16:40Because she doesn't describe it as just a mere tragic accident.
323. 16:40–16:44See, Sundori elevates the horrific event to the level of myth.
324. 16:44–16:46Yes, she compares it directly to the Romayana.
325. 16:46–16:51Specifically at the climactic moment where Sita, after enduring endless suspicion and
326. 16:51–16:53suffering begs Mother Earth to take her back.
327. 16:53–16:59The ground literally splits open and the earth swallows sea to whole, ending her worldly
328. 16:59–17:01torment and proving her purity.
329. 17:01–17:02C.S.C.
330. 17:02–17:06Andarri looks at her mother burning to death and suggests that the harp finally took pity
331. 17:06–17:07on her.
332. 17:07–17:08Oh, that is chilling.
333. 17:08–17:10She says the fire was an embrace.
334. 17:10–17:15The hearth consumed her rapidly in a blazing inferno to save her from being consumed slowly,
335. 17:15–17:19agonizingly over decades by the men in the household.
336. 17:19–17:22It is a staggering literary device.
337. 17:22–17:26Framing a fatal fire as an act of maternal mercy from the mud hearth really underscores
338. 17:26–17:30the absolute unlivable reality of the mother's daily existence.
339. 17:30–17:31It really does.
340. 17:31–17:36And the overarching question Cha poses to the reader is whether the cycle of self-immolation
341. 17:36–17:37is permanent.
342. 17:37–17:39Like, will C. Sundari inherit this fate?
343. 17:39–17:40Will her children?
344. 17:40–17:44That exact question leads to the most visually striking scene in the essay.
345. 17:44–17:48C. Sundari is sitting in the courtyard watching her own young daughter playing a game of
346. 17:48–17:49house with a friend.
347. 17:49–17:50Right, like kids do.
348. 17:50–17:54We've all seen children do this, imitating adult behaviors, setting up little domestic
349. 17:54–17:59scenes, but the daughter's play takes a really sharp, aggressive turn.
350. 17:59–18:06She violently snaps the tiny toy, Clay Hearth, away from her play area.
351. 18:06–18:09She announces, with complete conviction, that the Hearth is a woman's curse and
352. 18:09–18:11a burden.
353. 18:11–18:14She then looks at the imaginary husband in their game and tells him that if he
354. 18:14–18:20needs a fire built, he shouldn't expect her to sit by the Cooley. She tells him to go find a matchbox.
355. 18:20–18:26The visual of this tiny girl acting at a domestic scene and handing the specter of patriarchal
356. 18:26–18:32authority a matchbox is incredibly potent. Let's debate the intent here though, because this
357. 18:32–18:37can be read in two very different ways. As a reader, I initially found this deeply tragic.
358. 18:37–18:42Tragic how? Is this scene showing us that a child barely old enough to understand the world has
359. 18:42–18:47already internalized the oppressive, crushing fate of women in her society? Has she already
360. 18:47–18:49realized her life is a trap?
361. 18:49–18:50Ah, I see what you mean.
362. 18:50–18:55Right, or is the author demanding we read this as a genuine spark of fiery rebellion?
363. 18:55–19:00Well, the tragedy of the premature realization is undeniably present. I mean, the fact that
364. 19:00–19:05a little girl recognizes the hearth as a weapon of subjugation rather than a tool for cooking
365. 19:05–19:07means the trauma is bleeding into the next generation.
366. 19:07–19:09It's inescapable.
367. 19:09–19:13However, I'd argue Shah's emphasis is fiercely placed on rebellion.
368. 19:13–19:20The act of handing the husband a matchbox is a highly sophisticated explicit rejection
369. 19:20–19:21of the entire patriarchal system.
370. 19:21–19:24Wait, how does the matchbox specifically dismantle the system?
371. 19:24–19:27I get that it's different, but why is it so symbolic?
372. 19:27–19:29Think about the difference in the technology itself.
373. 19:30–19:34A coulee requires constant tending, blowing, and physical presence.
374. 19:34–19:36It literally ties the woman to the floor.
375. 19:36–19:37Right, takes all her time.
376. 19:37–19:41But a matchbox represents instant, self-sufficient, contained fire.
377. 19:41–19:43Anyone can strike a match.
378. 19:43–19:46It requires no slow, agonizing consumption of the user.
379. 19:46–19:47Ah, I see.
380. 19:47–19:49By telling the man to use a matchbox,
381. 19:49–19:52the little girl is refusing the role of the self-consuming object.
382. 19:52–19:54She is demanding battley autonomy.
383. 19:54–19:56She refuses to be the fuel.
384. 19:56–19:57Exactly.
385. 19:57–20:02Furthermore, we must contextualize this within Joe's brawler arguments in the text.
386. 20:02–20:07Julie explicitly attacks the institution of traditional marriage in this region,
387. 20:07–20:11describing the arrangements as nothing more than property transfers.
388. 20:11–20:15Right, where women are treated as souvenirs of a financial transaction.
389. 20:15–20:21Yes, so the little girl rejecting the hearth is, by extension, rejecting her future status as a souvenir.
390. 20:21–20:24It is a domestic revolution happening in miniature.
391. 20:24–20:29It is a phenomenal piece of writing, and it forces us into an incredibly difficult transition,
392. 20:29–20:34transition because Balchandrasa's essay focused on the fire of the domestic hearth.
393. 20:34–20:39Our third piece shifts our focus to the literal physical fuel used to keep those village fires
394. 20:39–20:40burning.
395. 20:40–20:41The cow dung.
396. 20:41–20:42Yes.
397. 20:42–20:47We are moving to Gangesh Gunjan's visceral essay, Gobarak Mulya, which translates to
398. 20:47–20:49the value of dung.
399. 20:49–20:53And this piece drags the reader's street into the brutal, bloodstained economy of
400. 20:53–20:54extreme poverty.
401. 20:54–20:58Gunjan is not interested in providing a comfortable reading experience here.
402. 20:58–21:01He places us immediately on Bouncy Road in Bugleport.
403. 21:01–21:02It's very jarring.
404. 21:02–21:03It is.
405. 21:03–21:05The sensory details he uses are oppressive.
406. 21:05–21:09It is a sweltering, humid, unforgivingly hot day.
407. 21:09–21:11The sun is baking the asphalt.
408. 21:11–21:14The road itself is a chaotic artery of traffic, dirt,
409. 21:14–21:16noise, and exhaust fumes.
410. 21:16–21:18And amidst this massive sensory assault,
411. 21:18–21:21the focus narrows onto two young girls.
412. 21:21–21:22And these aren't children playing house,
413. 21:22–21:23like in the previous story.
414. 21:23–21:24No, they aren't.
415. 21:24–21:28These are child laborers engaged in cow dung collection.
416. 21:28–21:32their daily existence revolves around walking the hot tarmac,
417. 21:32–21:34scraping fresh animal waste off the street,
418. 21:34–21:37drying it into cakes, and selling it as fuel
419. 21:37–21:38for the very hearths we just discussed.
420. 21:38–21:41Gunjan establishes the absolute bottom rung
421. 21:41–21:43of the economic ladder.
422. 21:43–21:46These girls are surviving on the refuse of animals.
423. 21:46–21:49And in this incredibly desperate environment,
424. 21:49–21:51a violent dispute erupts.
425. 21:51–21:54The two young girls get into a vicious physical altercation
426. 21:54–21:57over a tiny, stolen piece of cow dung.
427. 21:57–22:01They are pulling hair, screaming, and shoving each other over a clump of animal waste.
428. 22:01–22:02It's pure survival instinct.
429. 22:02–22:05Yeah, and the chaos escalates rapidly.
430. 22:05–22:10During the struggle, one of the girls angrily shoves the other girl's little brother who is standing nearby.
431. 22:10–22:12A completely blind, frustrated push.
432. 22:12–22:13Exactly.
433. 22:13–22:19Likely not intended to be lethal at all, but they are fighting on the edge of a chaotic highway.
434. 22:19–22:25The young boy stumbles backward, falls onto the road, and is instantly crushed beneath the wheels of a speeding minibus.
435. 22:25–22:28The climax is horrifyingly abrupt,
436. 22:28–22:30and Gunjan forces the reader to look
437. 22:30–22:33at the immediate aftermath without flinching.
438. 22:33–22:35He paints a stark, unforgettable visual
439. 22:35–22:37that borders on grotesque, honestly.
440. 22:37–22:40The source text describes the young boy's bright red blood
441. 22:40–22:43flowing out onto the black, searing tar of the road,
442. 22:43–22:46mixing directly with the brown cow dung they were fighting
443. 22:46–22:49over and baking together under the hot sun.
444. 22:49–22:51It's a gut-wrenching image.
445. 22:51–22:51It is.
446. 22:51–22:54And I have to push back hard on this piece, to be honest.
447. 22:54–22:57When I read this, I felt a deep sense of revulsion,
448. 22:57–22:58not just at the event,
449. 22:58–23:01but potentially at the author's choice to depict it.
450. 23:01–23:02I can understand that reaction.
451. 23:02–23:04As a reader sitting in a comfortable room,
452. 23:04–23:06it is almost impossible to process a human life,
453. 23:06–23:09a child's life being snuffed out over something
454. 23:09–23:14as universally discarded and worthless as a piece of dung.
455. 23:14–23:17My instinct is to ask, is this just poverty porn?
456. 23:17–23:20Is Gunjin merely exploding the trauma of the underclass
457. 23:20–23:23to shock the educated readers of this e-journal?
458. 23:23–23:25Why make us wade through this horror?
459. 23:25–23:28That reaction is exactly what Gunjan is engineering,
460. 23:28–23:31and we must parse his intent carefully here.
461. 23:31–23:34Your revulsion is the point, but it is not poverty porn.
462. 23:34–23:36What's the difference in this context?
463. 23:36–23:40Poverty porn exists to elicit pity, you know?
464. 23:40–23:42To make the wealthy reader feel a fleeting sadness
465. 23:42–23:44before returning to their comfortable life.
466. 23:44–23:46Gunjan is not asking for your pity.
467. 23:46–23:49He is demanding a violent confrontation
468. 23:49–23:50with your own bourgeois sensitivities.
469. 23:50–23:51Conventation how?
470. 23:51–23:57To you, to me, to the academic reading Videha on their computer, cow dung is literal waste.
471. 23:57–23:59It's entirely worthless.
472. 23:59–24:03But Gunjin forces us to inhabit the reality of those girls on bounty roads.
473. 24:03–24:04To them it's not waste.
474. 24:04–24:06Exactly. To them that dung is not waste.
475. 24:06–24:10It is hard currency. It is the fuel that will cook their meager dinner.
476. 24:10–24:14It is the razor-thin margin between surviving the night and starving.
477. 24:14–24:20Gunjin illustrates that when human beings are pushed to the absolute brink of extreme poverty,
478. 24:20–24:24the value of everything is horrifically warped.
479. 24:24–24:29The tragedy Gunjin is writing about isn't merely the traffic accident itself.
480. 24:29–24:34The tragedy is the invisible systemic poverty that made a piece of animal waste valuable
481. 24:34–24:37enough to fight to the death over in the first place.
482. 24:37–24:38Exactly.
483. 24:38–24:43It is a searing indictment of a society that allows this shadow economy to exist while
484. 24:43–24:49looking the other way. And to truly understand why Gunjan included this in the Vidaya E Journal,
485. 24:49–24:54we have to look at the broader political context of the Maitreya language at that specific time.
486. 24:54–24:57You're talking about the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution.
487. 24:57–25:02Yes, I am. Around this time, Maitreya had finally been included in the eighth schedule.
488. 25:02–25:04This was a monumental constitutional victory.
489. 25:04–25:06Meaning what, practically?
490. 25:06–25:08It meant the language was officially recognized by the government,
491. 25:08–25:14which unlocked massive institutional funding, literary awards, academic positions, and immense
492. 25:14–25:18cultural prestige. Suddenly, Mythili was a pathway to power.
493. 25:18–25:23And Gunjan has a lot of meta commentary in the journal about the people swarming to the language
494. 25:23–25:29after this victory. Oh, he is venomously critical of what he terms the NRI type elites,
495. 25:29–25:34non-resident Indians, or the deeply wealthy, disconnected upper classes.
496. 25:34–25:37The people who ignored it before. Exactly. Before the eighth schedule,
497. 25:37–25:41Many of these elites viewed Maitzley as a backward village dialect.
498. 25:41–25:44The moment it gained official prestige and funding,
499. 25:44–25:48they swooped in to claim the literature as their own,
500. 25:48–25:52organizing fancy conferences and jockeying for government awards.
501. 25:52–25:56So he writes Go Barak Mulya as a deliberate, aggressive slap
502. 25:56–25:58in the face of that specific demographic.
503. 25:58–26:00The juxtaposition is jarring.
504. 26:00–26:01Extremely intentional.
505. 26:01–26:04You have literary elites sitting in air conditioned conference halls
506. 26:04–26:09in Delhi or abroad sipping tea and arguing over who gets a linguistic award.
507. 26:09–26:13And meanwhile, children speaking the exact same language are bleeding to death on the
508. 26:13–26:16hot asphalt in Dagalpur over a piece of dung.
509. 26:16–26:19It is a demand for literary accountability.
510. 26:19–26:24Gunjan is screaming that if Mathili literature becomes merely a tool for elites to gain
511. 26:24–26:29status, and if it turns a blind eye to the starving girls on Bouncy Road, then the
512. 26:29–26:32literature has entirely lost its soul.
513. 26:32–26:36The recognition means nothing if it doesn't serve the most vulnerable speakers of the language.
514. 26:36–26:37Perfectly said.
515. 26:37–26:40The emotional toll of this reading is immense, honestly.
516. 26:40–26:45We have navigated the paralysis of artistic ambition, the patriarchal consumption of a
517. 26:45–26:49woman's life, and a blood-stained commentary on systemic poverty.
518. 26:49–26:51This is a heavy lineup.
519. 26:51–26:52Very heavy.
520. 26:52–26:56And after wading through these inescapable, grinding earthly realities, I found myself
521. 26:56–27:00wondering how the authors in this journal approached the ultimate reality.
522. 27:00–27:03How do they handle the concept of death itself?
523. 27:03–27:06They handle it by completely subverting our expectations.
524. 27:06–27:11The journal takes a brilliant sharp pivot away from grounded tragedy and dives headfirst
525. 27:11–27:13into the theater of the absurd.
526. 27:13–27:16It is a much needed release valve for the reader at this point.
527. 27:16–27:19We are turning our attention to a play titled No Entry, Ma Pravesh.
528. 27:19–27:24Yes, written by Yudei Narayan Singh, who goes by the pen name Na Chiketa.
529. 27:24–27:29And the context behind this specific play is almost as fascinating as the text itself.
530. 27:29–27:34Nachiketa was a known writer who took a massive 25-year hiatus from publishing.
531. 27:34–27:35A quarter of a century.
532. 27:35–27:36Yeah.
533. 27:36–27:39He stepped away for two and a half decades, and when he finally returned to the literary
534. 27:39–27:44scene, he delivered this heavily existential, delightfully bizarre piece.
535. 27:44–27:46The influences are clear, too.
536. 27:46–27:52Nachiketa is drawing heavily from the traditions of existential theater, evoking the atmosphere
537. 27:52–27:57of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit.
538. 27:57–27:59The setting is the ultimate equalizer.
539. 27:59–28:03We find ourselves standing in line before a massive set of closed gates.
540. 28:03–28:07We don't know if they're the gates of heaven, hell, or some bureaucratic purgatory.
541. 28:07–28:08Right, it doesn't really matter.
542. 28:08–28:12It is simply the afterlife waiting room, and the cross-section of humanity standing
543. 28:12–28:15in this line is a hilarious, chaotic mix.
544. 28:15–28:20Nachiketa removes all earthly context by placing vastly different societal figures
545. 28:20–28:21shoulder to shoulder.
546. 28:21–28:28We have a street level thug standing next to a slippery, smooth talking politician.
547. 28:28–28:32We have a young couple who committed a tragic double suicide.
548. 28:32–28:39We have a fiery, sloganeering left-wing youth, a destitute beggar, a theatrical actor, and
549. 28:39–28:41brilliantly a professional pickpocket.
550. 28:41–28:45They're all just tapping their feet, waiting for the metaphysical doors to open.
551. 28:45–28:49And the comedy of this situation is initiated almost immediately by the pickpocket.
552. 28:49–28:51The pickpocket is a fantastic character.
553. 28:51–28:55He simply cannot turn off his earthly muscle memory.
554. 28:55–28:58While everyone else is pondering their eternal soul, he has been busy.
555. 28:58–29:03He gleefully reveals to the group that while they were standing in line, he systematically
556. 29:03–29:04lifted everyone's wallets.
557. 29:04–29:09The concept of the pickpocket operating in purgatory is absurdly funny, but it serves
558. 29:09–29:10a sharp philosophical purpose.
559. 29:10–29:13Naturally, the revelation causes widespread panic.
560. 29:13–29:18The politician and the actor start screaming, demanding their money back, but the pickpocket
561. 29:18–29:19just laughs at them.
562. 29:19–29:20Because it's useless now.
563. 29:20–29:21Exactly.
564. 29:21–29:24It exposes the utter stupidity of their panic.
565. 29:24–29:29He holds up the cash and points out that earthly currency rupees, dollars, gold, has absolutely
566. 29:29–29:32zero purchasing power in the afterlife.
567. 29:32–29:34It is entirely dead weight.
568. 29:34–29:39And to visually demonstrate this point, the characters decide to hold a mock auction.
569. 29:39–29:42They decide to bid on a mythological artifact.
570. 29:42–29:46The Hindu god Indra's Vajra, his divine thunderbolt.
571. 29:46–29:50And you have the beggar in the pickpocket suddenly acting like billionaires.
572. 29:50–29:54The beggar yells, I bid 10 million rupees.
573. 29:54–29:58The pickpocket counters, I bid 50 million.
574. 29:58–30:03The wealthy politician watches in horror as his earthly fortune is treated like monopoly
575. 30:03–30:04money.
576. 30:04–30:05Right.
577. 30:05–30:07It reminds me of a scenario that is a bit more modern, honestly.
578. 30:07–30:08What's that?
579. 30:08–30:12Imagine showing up to a high-end exclusive arcade today, but the only currency you brought
580. 30:12–30:18with you is a trash bag full of defunct crypto tokens from a failed exchange.
581. 30:18–30:21There may be a thousand paper tickets from a Chuck E. Cheese that closed in 1998.
582. 30:21–30:23Oh, that's brilliant.
583. 30:23–30:27You might have been a millionaire in that specific dead ecosystem, but in the new realm,
584. 30:27–30:29you can't even buy a gum ball.
585. 30:29–30:30The realm has shifted.
586. 30:30–30:31Exactly.
587. 30:31–30:32The technology has moved on.
588. 30:32–30:37Your massive accumulation of wealth is nothing but worthless paper and dead code.
589. 30:37–30:40That is what earthly status is at the gates of eternity.
590. 30:40–30:43The analogy highlights the absurdity of hoarding.
591. 30:43–30:49dedicate your entire mortal existence to accumulating this currency, only to discover that the moment
592. 30:49–30:53your heart stops, it holds less value than the lint in your pocket.
593. 30:53–30:58But Nachiketa doesn't stop at dismantling financial wealth. He uses the other characters
594. 30:58–31:03to demonstrate the absolute uselessness of earthly ideologies too.
595. 31:03–31:08The ideological clash in the waiting line is brilliant. You have the politician who
596. 31:08–31:11who is desperately clinging to his earthly persona.
597. 31:11–31:14He is pacing around spewing empty, centrist rhetoric
598. 31:14–31:17about blending the great traditions of the past
599. 31:17–31:19with the unstoppable progress of the future.
600. 31:19–31:21It is meaningless political word salad.
601. 31:21–31:23Complete word salad.
602. 31:23–31:24On the other side, you have a left-wing youth
603. 31:24–31:28who is furiously shouting slogans about global worker unity,
604. 31:28–31:30the revolution of the proletariat
605. 31:30–31:31and bringing down the establishment.
606. 31:31–31:33And neither of them seems to grasp
607. 31:33–31:35that the establishment and the workers
608. 31:35–31:39are both currently dead and standing in the exact same line.
609. 31:39–31:42Right. And I want to be very clear here for the listener.
610. 31:42–31:45As we unpack this play, we are maintaining absolute neutrality
611. 31:45–31:49regarding the real world political ideologies being referenced.
612. 31:49–31:49Of course.
613. 31:49–31:54The play features a left-wing revolutionary and an establishment right-wing politician.
614. 31:54–31:57Nachiketa is not taking a side between them.
615. 31:57–32:02What is fascinating is the literary device he uses to humiliate both of them.
616. 32:02–32:03He uses the common street thief.
617. 32:03–32:04He does.
618. 32:04–32:07The thief becomes the philosophical center of the play.
619. 32:07–32:11He delivers a profound show-stopping monologue
620. 32:11–32:13that is referred to as the Chorporin.
621. 32:13–32:15Which translates roughly to the epic of thieves.
622. 32:15–32:17The thief stands up to the politician,
623. 32:17–32:18the actor and the youth,
624. 32:18–32:21and he completely redefines morality.
625. 32:21–32:24He argues that the guy who literally
626. 32:24–32:25just stole their wallets
627. 32:25–32:28is actually the only honest person in the entire group.
628. 32:28–32:29That's a bold claim.
629. 32:29–32:30It is.
630. 32:30–32:32He points an accusatory finger at the politician
631. 32:32–32:33and the artist and declares,
632. 32:33–32:35You are the true thieves.
633. 32:35–32:38The crux of his argument is a radical deconstruction
634. 32:38–32:40of originality.
635. 32:40–32:43The thief proposes that no human idea is truly original.
636. 32:43–32:47He argues that every politician steals their platform.
637. 32:47–32:49They steal promises of progress.
638. 32:49–32:51They steal fears of the public.
639. 32:51–32:54They repackage old policies and sell them as new visions.
640. 32:54–32:57And then he turns his attention to the artists and writers.
641. 32:57–33:01He explicitly quotes monumental literary figures.
642. 33:01–33:02Who does he quote?
643. 33:02–33:06He cites Vijyapati, the legendary 14th century Messili poet,
644. 33:06–33:10who essentially defined the language's literary tradition
645. 33:10–33:11and Rabindranath Tagore,
646. 33:11–33:15the towering Bengali polymath and Nobel laureate.
647. 33:15–33:16Okay, so these are untouchable figures
648. 33:16–33:18in South Asian literature.
649. 33:18–33:19Completely untouchable.
650. 33:19–33:20And the thief has the audacity to say
651. 33:20–33:22that even they were thieves.
652. 33:22–33:24He argues that every poet steals metaphors
653. 33:24–33:27from the ancients, steals observations from nature,
654. 33:27–33:29and steals the emotional pain of the common people.
655. 33:29–33:33rearranging these stolen fragments into a poem and slapping their name on it.
656. 33:33–33:37Exactly. He makes the case that all of human culture,
657. 33:37–33:40all of our grand political systems and revered art,
658. 33:40–33:46is nothing more than a massive, ongoing, multi-generational act of theft and repackaging.
659. 33:46–33:53By doing this, the thief fundamentally dismantles the idea of intellectual and moral superiority.
660. 33:53–33:57If everyone is stealing ideas, then the politician's rhetoric and the poet's voice
661. 33:57–34:01are no more inherently noble than the pickpocket lifting a wallet.
662. 34:01–34:03They are just different currencies of theft.
663. 34:03–34:08Wow. And the play doesn't end with some grand, divine judgment where the gates open and a
664. 34:08–34:10booming voice declares who is right.
665. 34:10–34:12No, it ends in a joyous, chaotic absurdity.
666. 34:12–34:17The characters all slowly realize the thief is right. They join together in a song and
667. 34:17–34:21dance celebrating the tropeuron, acknowledging their shared derivative nature.
668. 34:21–34:26Nachiketa is using the limbo of the afterlife to force a reckoning of the ego. The
669. 34:26–34:30The play isn't trying to make a theological point about how to achieve salvation.
670. 34:30–34:31It's a psychological mirror.
671. 34:31–34:32Yes.
672. 34:32–34:38It forces these characters who believe they were so vastly important and original on earth
673. 34:38–34:44to realize they are all playing the exact same absurd derivative game.
674. 34:44–34:49Death is the great physical equalizer, but the thief is the great philosophical equalizer.
675. 34:49–34:53Let's pull all of these threads together because the journey, the single issue of
676. 34:53–34:56of a day took us on is genuinely profound.
677. 34:56–34:57It really covers everything.
678. 34:57–34:59We started with the quiet tragedy of Kedar,
679. 34:59–35:02the village potter, who understood that the pursuit
680. 35:02–35:04of perfection is a dangerous illusion
681. 35:04–35:05that paralyzes human growth.
682. 35:05–35:07Right, and from the clay of his wheel,
683. 35:07–35:10we transitioned to the clay of the Kuli, the hearth.
684. 35:10–35:13Where we witnessed a powerful devastating metaphor
685. 35:13–35:15for the patriarchal consumption of women,
686. 35:15–35:17ending with a little girl's rebellious demand
687. 35:17–35:18for a matchbox.
688. 35:18–35:19And from that domestic fire,
689. 35:19–35:21we were dragged onto the sweltering tarmac
690. 35:21–35:22of bouncy road.
691. 35:22–35:26we were forced to confront a brutal invisible economy
692. 35:26–35:28where extreme poverty turns animal dung
693. 35:28–35:30into a currency worth dying for.
694. 35:30–35:32Challenging the very purpose of literature
695. 35:32–35:35in the face of systemic neglect.
696. 35:35–35:38And finally, we left the earth entirely.
697. 35:38–35:40We arrived at the absurd gates of the afterlife
698. 35:40–35:43where a wallet-stealing pickpocket dismantled
699. 35:43–35:47our grand political ideologies and artistic pretensions,
700. 35:47–35:49proving that we are all just anchoring the thoughts
701. 35:49–35:51of those who came before us.
702. 35:51–35:56For anyone listening, the overarching takeaway from this deep dive is a reminder of the raw,
703. 35:56–35:59unfiltered power of regional literature.
704. 35:59–36:00Yes, absolutely.
705. 36:00–36:04Languages like Mathili may not always command the global spotlight or the massive publishing
706. 36:04–36:10budgets of English or Hindi, but they are the vital, beating heart of the human experience.
707. 36:10–36:13Literature in these languages is not merely about preserving beautiful ancient words.
708. 36:13–36:15It is an active, aggressive tool.
709. 36:15–36:16Yes.
710. 36:16–36:19It forces us to look at the dirt on the street, the silent struggles in the
711. 36:19–36:25village kitchen and the terrifying gates of heaven with equal, unflinching, critical scrutiny.
712. 36:25–36:30It demands that we strip away our assumptions and see the world and ourselves with absolute clarity.
713. 36:30–36:35And that concept of seeing ourselves clearly leads me to a final, provocative thought I want to
714. 36:35–36:39leave you with today. I want to build on that brilliant, unsettling monologue delivered
715. 36:39–36:44by the thief at the gates of the afterlife. I want you to genuinely think about your own
716. 36:44–36:48mind for a second. If the thief is right, if every profound thought you have ever had,
717. 36:48–36:50every piece of art you deeply admire,
718. 36:50–36:53every political ideology you fiercely defend,
719. 36:53–36:56is just stolen and rearranged from the thinkers,
720. 36:56–36:59writers and ancestors of the past, what does that make you?
721. 36:59–37:01Are you truly an original creator,
722. 37:01–37:03authoring a completely unique existence?
723. 37:03–37:05Or are you simply a beautiful,
724. 37:05–37:09highly complex collage of other people's stolen ideas?
725. 37:09–37:10It is something to chew on the next time
726. 37:10–37:13you congratulate yourself for having a brand new thought.

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पिक्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष्ष This language is fighting for its absolute survival. It's just a phenomenal image to start off with, honestly. Because it captures this desperate kind of innovation. What we are looking at today is a situation where the weight of a millennium and a half of literary tradition was just deliberately shoved into early HTML. Which is wild to think about. We are exploring the story of a publication called Vidya. It holds this really vital distinction of being the first Mathili-Fortniteley e-journal. I want to pause right there just for a second because if you're listening to us in say London or New York, the word mathalay might not immediately register. Sure. Yeah. What is the geographical and I guess cultural footprint of this language? Where are we talking about? That context is totally crucial. So Mothili is an Indo-Aryan language. It's spoken primarily in the Bihar region of India and also the Eastern Terai region of Nepal. Okay, got it. And for centuries, I mean, this is the language of scholars, poets, philosophers in the ancient mytheela region, even has its own distinct script traditionally called Terhuta. Oh, really? Its own script? Yeah, exactly. But as we moved into the late 20th century, it faced a lot of pressure. Like a lot of regional languages that don't have massive global economic backing, it faced the very real threat of marginalization. People were probably just abandoning it for better job prospects, right? They were moving to Hindi or English for economic opportunities. And the traditional publishing infrastructure for Mathili was incredibly localized. Meaning what exactly? Meaning if a really brilliant story was printed in a village in Bihar, it pretty much stayed in that village. There was no distribution. Wow. So geographic isolation was essentially a death sentence for the literature. If you didn't live there, you couldn't read it. Exactly. And the creators of Videa, they completely recognized that. Even became a formal e-journal it started as this early web page called the bullsari gah, which translates to what it means The tree of bull sorry. Oh, I like that. Yeah, and the move to digitize all this It was a deliberate survival tactic. I mean think about the early 2000s Getting a regional script like Mathilli onto the internet before Unicode was you know Widely standardized that must have been a technical nightmare a massive technical hurdle They had to figure out custom fonts, weird coding, digital distribution, all just to ensure their heritage didn't completely evaporate in the digital revolution. So they basically saw the digital wave coming and decided to build a surfboard instead of a wall. That's a great way to put it. Well, to date, for our deck dive, we are focusing on one very specific issue of this digital archive. It's Vedea Sadeja 32, edited by Gojendra Thakur. And just looking at the digital cover art of this specific issue tells you so much about what their mission was. It features this striking split background. It's really vivid. Yeah. One side is this vibrant, almost aggressive red, and the other side is a deep cosmic blue. And superimposed on the red side, there's a traditional drum and a shell. Symbols of village life. Maybe calls to action even. Right. blue side there is a bow and this magnificent winged lion which obviously invokes mythology and strength. Exactly. And tying the whole thing together is an intricate circular mandala drawn in white. Like what is the message here? I mean the visual language there just screams that this is not just some repository for text, it is a cultural vessel. A cultural vessel. And the underlying ethos of Gujindathakur's editorial direction is entirely non-commercial. I mean the journal operates strictly for the love and the preservation of the language which is rare on the internet Extremely they make it explicitly clear in their mandate to mm-hmm. No royalties are paid to the authors none Yeah, it is a pure labor of devotion From the writers to their mother tongue and there is a quote actually bore it in the introductory text that really stuck with me When we were prepping for this the CETA comparison Yes, it compares mathelae to the language of CETA herself the revered central figure of the Ramayana epic right by By connecting the everyday spoken word to a figure of such immense spiritual and cultural gravity, they are elevating the language, right? It goes from mere communication to something profoundly sacred. Exactly. And establishing the language as sacred raises the stakes for everything published within it. How so? Well, if the vessel is sacred, then the human experiences poured into that vessel carry an immense weight. The stories are no longer just entertainment. They become the vital record of a people. our mission today is to crack open that record. We are unearthing four distinct literary pieces from this specific issue. And they cover an amazing range of topics. They really do. We are going to explore the paralyzing philosophy of high art, the agonizing weight of traditional patriarchy, the brutal bloodstained economy of extreme poverty, and finally, to cap it all off, an absurd existential comedy set at the closed gates of the afterlife. the sheer spectrum of human emotion contained in this single digital issue is just staggering. So let's jump right into it. The first story we are examining provides this incredible masterclass in psychological tension. It's titled, Matik Basan. Yes, written by Jagdan Anja, who publishes under the pen name Manu. Manu, okay. And at its core, this is a narrative about the devastating illusion of perfection. Bring us into the world of this story. Where do we actually begin? So we began in a very traditional village setting. Yeah. And we're introduced to an aging master potter named Kidar Prasad. Okay. Kidar has spent his entire existence with his hands in the mud. He shapes clay into Utilitarian items, you know water pitchers cooking pots grain storage the basics of village survival. Exactly But the author Manu Immediately introduces the pressure of modernization right from the start the village is changing like new technologies coming in Yeah Cold mass-produced steel and plastic containers are rapidly replacing Ki-R's fragile clay pots in the local kitchens No, man So his livelihood is just evaporating right in front of him It is the classic struggle, right? The artisanal craftsman being suffocated by the industrial age. It happens everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. Okay But Ki-R isn't alone in this. He has an apprentice. His son, right. Vipu. Yes, his son Vipu. So Vipu learns the tactile secrets of the clay from his father. But Vihu is a lot more pragmatic. He sees the writing on the wall. He does. He sees the poverty his father lives in and realizes there's just no economic future in making basic water pots anymore. So Vibhu pivots. He pivots how? He takes the exact same mud, the exact same foundational skills he learned from his dad, but shifts his focus from function to high art. Oh interesting. Yeah. He begins sculpting these intricate, breathtaking idols of Hindu deities. specifically the goddess of learning, Saraswati, and Lord Krishna. So he makes this massive leap from everyday craftsmen to a fine artist. And from what I gather reading the text, this isn't just like a minor hobby for him. Vivu achieves massive success, doesn't he? Oh, phenomenal success. While Kedar is still struggling to sell functional pots for pennies, Vivu's spiritual and aesthetic sculptures are selling for thousands of rupees. Wow, thousands! Yeah. His reputation spirals outward from the village to the district, and eventually he receives the ultimate validation. What happens? The state government formally invites Vibhu to showcase his sculptures at a prestigious All India exhibition. And crucially, this invitation comes with a huge cash prize. 1 lakh rupees. Okay. For someone listening who might not grasp the economic scale of an Indian village in the early 2000s, 1 lakh rupees, which is 100,000 rupees, is not just a nice little bonus. at all. That is generation altering wealth in that context. It's the kind of money that buys land, builds a concrete house, and permanently elevates a family's social standing. It is absolute validation of his pivot. Exactly. The external world has literally crowned Vibhu a master. But Manu introduces a deeply painful internal conflict here. Father. Yes, the father. Despite this undeniable financial and social triumph, Kidor, the old man who still makes obsolete pots refuses to be impressed. Really? Why? Is he jealous? You might think that, but no, it's deeper. Every single time Veebu completes a new, highly praised masterpiece, Kedar slowly inspects it. Oh boy. He walks around it, studies the lines, and inevitably he finds a flaw. Every single time. Every time. He points out a tiny imperfection of the curve of a finger, or maybe the drape of the sculpted cloth. He's just relentlessly critical. I can feel the pressure cooker building just hearing that. I mean, you have a son who has essentially saved the family from financial ruin, right? He's being celebrated by the entire country. And the one person whose approval he probably craves more than anyone else, his father, just keeps pointing out tiny mistakes. It is inevitable that this dynamic is going to explode. And the explosion is very visceral. Vibhu finally reaches his breaking point. He lashes out at his father. His frustration just entirely boiling over. What does he say? The essence of his argument is basically, look around. You make cheap basic pots that no one even wants to buy anymore. You are a financial failure. Ouch. That's harsh. It is. He says, how do you have the audacity to critique my art? Which the government itself has declared a masterpiece worth a lack of rupees. Man, how does the father even absorb that kind of deeply personal attack? Because that cuts right to the core of Khedar's own failure. That's a thing. Kedar doesn't get angry, he gets overwhelmingly sad, and his response is essentially the philosophical anchor of the entire story. What does he tell him? He looks at his furious son and says, once a person feels they have achieved perfection, their growth stops. The illusion of perfection paralyzes the mind. Yeah. And then Kedar just turns and walks away mourning the death of his ultimate dream. Wait, hold on. What was his dream? Because clearly it wasn't just the money or the government award. Kedar's dream was for his son to become the absolute greatest sculptor to ever live. But in that moment, Kedar realizes the dream is completely dead. Because V.Poo thinks he's already made it. Precisely. It is dead because V.Hoo has started believing his own hype. V.Poo believes the government certificate and the money objectively prove that his work is flawless. Kedar knows that the very moment an artist believes they are flawless they will never improve again. The hunger just dies. That concept translates so perfectly beyond the Village Potters wheel. I mean, think about the tech industry today. Oh, absolutely. Imagine a brilliant software developer who builds an incredible application. The user base explodes, the reviews are universally five stars, and the developer looks at the code and thinks this is a masterpiece. Version 1.0 is utterly flawless. And what happens next? Because they believe it is perfect, they stop pushing updates, they stop hunting for vulnerabilities, they stop innovating entirely. They just sit back. Yeah, and then six months later, a hungry competitor releases something slightly faster, slightly more intuitive. Suddenly, that so-called flawless version 1.0 is a dinosaur. The very moment you declare your own perfection, you are actively engineering your own obsolescence. That analogy holds up beautifully because it isolates the core mechanism of mastery. Right. Whether you are coding an app, making a clay pitcher for a thirsty traveler or sculpting a deity, the prerequisite for true mastery is an agonizing awareness of your own shortcomings. You have to know you can be better. Exactly. Kedar, the old man covered in cheap mud, possesses a resilient, infinite mindset. He understands that the pursuit of art has no finish line. And Vipu lost that. He did. The tragedy Manu writes is that Vipu trades his infinite potential for finite, immediate validation. He lets the applause of the crowd become a paralyzing poison. It is a devastating realization and honestly the thematic transition from this story to the next piece in the journal is shockingly seamless. It really is. We move from the clay of the potter's wheel to another object traditionally constructed from mud in the village, the domestic hearth, the coolly. Yes. But here the clay ceases to be a medium for high art and becomes a really suffocating metaphor for gender roles. The essay is titled, Coolie, written by Bal Chandra Chah. And to fully graph the weight of this piece, we have to understand what a traditional coolie actually is. Right, because this isn't a modern gas stove we're talking about here. Not at all. It is a U-shaped structure built directly on the floor. It's molded from mud, clay, and sometimes cow dung. OK. And using it requires a woman to sit on the floor, feeding it raw fuel, constantly blowing into the flange. Her face just wrapped in thick stinging smoke. So it's incredibly labor-intensive. It's physically grueling work that literally anchors a woman to the kitchen floor for hours every day. Val Chandra Ha introduces us to a narrator named Saïsoum Barry, right? But she reveals early on that nobody actually calls her by her given name. The village calls her Kulia. Which translates to what? Like, girl of the hearth? Basically, yeah. She explains that she earned this nickname because she was born on a violently cold winter night. And to keep the fragile newborn alive, her family placed her right next to the radiating heat of the clay hearth. Such a striking image. The author establishes this inescapable psychological and physical bond from her very first breath. She owes her life to it. Right. Cia Sundari's identity is inextricably fused with the mud oven. But as she grows up, she begins to observe the dark reality of what the hearth actually represents for the women around her. The central metaphor she constructs is horrifying in its accuracy. She looks at the life cycle of the Cooley, and then she looks at the life cycle of village woman and she realizes they share the exact same fate. How so? She states that both exist in the society for one singular brutal purpose to slowly burn themselves into ash in order to sustain the lives of others. That is heavy. The utility of both the object and the human is entirely predicated on self destruction. Exactly. The hearth provides cooked food and warmth but only by consuming the fuel placed inside it and enduring the searing heat. And the The woman provides a family, nourishment and care, but only by consuming her own youth, her energy, and her individual identity. C.S. Andari talks about this twisted reverence given to the hearth too. The women in the village constantly maintain it. They polish it with a fresh layer of wet clay every single morning. They treat it with a strange kind of domestic respect. But there's a catch. A huge catch. The devastating turn in the S.O. is what happens when the hearth breaks. The absolute second a crack appears in the clay that cannot be patched, or the moment it outlives its structural usefulness, that so-called revered object is unceremoniously ripped out of the floor and discarded into a dark corner with the garbage. Wow, it is the ultimate expression of transactional care. Yes. You are worshiped only in direct proportion to your utility. When the utility vanishes, so does your humanity. And Jha doesn't just leave this as an abstract philosophical observation either. The case and area provides deeply traumatic personal anecdotes to really ground the metaphor. She talks about her mother, right? She does. She recounts memories of her own mother, describing her existence in terms that are usually reserved for livestock. She says her mother's eyes contained only two emotions. A deep, paralyzing fear of the patriarchal authority and a bottomless, tragic compassion for her children. No mention of joy at all. Zero. There is no mention of joy. The culmination of the mother's story is deeply unsettling. The text reveals that the mother actually dies in a domestic fire caused by the very hearth she spent her entire life tending. The way Ja has the narrator frame, the death requires really careful analysis. Because she doesn't describe it as just a mere tragic accident. See, Sundori elevates the horrific event to the level of myth. Yes, she compares it directly to the Romayana. Specifically at the climactic moment where Sita, after enduring endless suspicion and suffering begs Mother Earth to take her back. The ground literally splits open and the earth swallows sea to whole, ending her worldly torment and proving her purity. C.S.C. Andarri looks at her mother burning to death and suggests that the harp finally took pity on her. Oh, that is chilling. She says the fire was an embrace. The hearth consumed her rapidly in a blazing inferno to save her from being consumed slowly, agonizingly over decades by the men in the household. It is a staggering literary device. Framing a fatal fire as an act of maternal mercy from the mud hearth really underscores the absolute unlivable reality of the mother's daily existence. It really does. And the overarching question Cha poses to the reader is whether the cycle of self-immolation is permanent. Like, will C. Sundari inherit this fate? Will her children? That exact question leads to the most visually striking scene in the essay. C. Sundari is sitting in the courtyard watching her own young daughter playing a game of house with a friend. Right, like kids do. We've all seen children do this, imitating adult behaviors, setting up little domestic scenes, but the daughter's play takes a really sharp, aggressive turn. She violently snaps the tiny toy, Clay Hearth, away from her play area. She announces, with complete conviction, that the Hearth is a woman's curse and a burden. She then looks at the imaginary husband in their game and tells him that if he needs a fire built, he shouldn't expect her to sit by the Cooley. She tells him to go find a matchbox. The visual of this tiny girl acting at a domestic scene and handing the specter of patriarchal authority a matchbox is incredibly potent. Let's debate the intent here though, because this can be read in two very different ways. As a reader, I initially found this deeply tragic. Tragic how? Is this scene showing us that a child barely old enough to understand the world has already internalized the oppressive, crushing fate of women in her society? Has she already realized her life is a trap? Ah, I see what you mean. Right, or is the author demanding we read this as a genuine spark of fiery rebellion? Well, the tragedy of the premature realization is undeniably present. I mean, the fact that a little girl recognizes the hearth as a weapon of subjugation rather than a tool for cooking means the trauma is bleeding into the next generation. It's inescapable. However, I'd argue Shah's emphasis is fiercely placed on rebellion. The act of handing the husband a matchbox is a highly sophisticated explicit rejection of the entire patriarchal system. Wait, how does the matchbox specifically dismantle the system? I get that it's different, but why is it so symbolic? Think about the difference in the technology itself. A coulee requires constant tending, blowing, and physical presence. It literally ties the woman to the floor. Right, takes all her time. But a matchbox represents instant, self-sufficient, contained fire. Anyone can strike a match. It requires no slow, agonizing consumption of the user. Ah, I see. By telling the man to use a matchbox, the little girl is refusing the role of the self-consuming object. She is demanding battley autonomy. She refuses to be the fuel. Exactly. Furthermore, we must contextualize this within Joe's brawler arguments in the text. Julie explicitly attacks the institution of traditional marriage in this region, describing the arrangements as nothing more than property transfers. Right, where women are treated as souvenirs of a financial transaction. Yes, so the little girl rejecting the hearth is, by extension, rejecting her future status as a souvenir. It is a domestic revolution happening in miniature. It is a phenomenal piece of writing, and it forces us into an incredibly difficult transition, transition because Balchandrasa's essay focused on the fire of the domestic hearth. Our third piece shifts our focus to the literal physical fuel used to keep those village fires burning. The cow dung. Yes. We are moving to Gangesh Gunjan's visceral essay, Gobarak Mulya, which translates to the value of dung. And this piece drags the reader's street into the brutal, bloodstained economy of extreme poverty. Gunjan is not interested in providing a comfortable reading experience here. He places us immediately on Bouncy Road in Bugleport. It's very jarring. It is. The sensory details he uses are oppressive. It is a sweltering, humid, unforgivingly hot day. The sun is baking the asphalt. The road itself is a chaotic artery of traffic, dirt, noise, and exhaust fumes. And amidst this massive sensory assault, the focus narrows onto two young girls. And these aren't children playing house, like in the previous story. No, they aren't. These are child laborers engaged in cow dung collection. their daily existence revolves around walking the hot tarmac, scraping fresh animal waste off the street, drying it into cakes, and selling it as fuel for the very hearths we just discussed. Gunjan establishes the absolute bottom rung of the economic ladder. These girls are surviving on the refuse of animals. And in this incredibly desperate environment, a violent dispute erupts. The two young girls get into a vicious physical altercation over a tiny, stolen piece of cow dung. They are pulling hair, screaming, and shoving each other over a clump of animal waste. It's pure survival instinct. Yeah, and the chaos escalates rapidly. During the struggle, one of the girls angrily shoves the other girl's little brother who is standing nearby. A completely blind, frustrated push. Exactly. Likely not intended to be lethal at all, but they are fighting on the edge of a chaotic highway. The young boy stumbles backward, falls onto the road, and is instantly crushed beneath the wheels of a speeding minibus. The climax is horrifyingly abrupt, and Gunjan forces the reader to look at the immediate aftermath without flinching. He paints a stark, unforgettable visual that borders on grotesque, honestly. The source text describes the young boy's bright red blood flowing out onto the black, searing tar of the road, mixing directly with the brown cow dung they were fighting over and baking together under the hot sun. It's a gut-wrenching image. It is. And I have to push back hard on this piece, to be honest. When I read this, I felt a deep sense of revulsion, not just at the event, but potentially at the author's choice to depict it. I can understand that reaction. As a reader sitting in a comfortable room, it is almost impossible to process a human life, a child's life being snuffed out over something as universally discarded and worthless as a piece of dung. My instinct is to ask, is this just poverty porn? Is Gunjin merely exploding the trauma of the underclass to shock the educated readers of this e-journal? Why make us wade through this horror? That reaction is exactly what Gunjan is engineering, and we must parse his intent carefully here. Your revulsion is the point, but it is not poverty porn. What's the difference in this context? Poverty porn exists to elicit pity, you know? To make the wealthy reader feel a fleeting sadness before returning to their comfortable life. Gunjan is not asking for your pity. He is demanding a violent confrontation with your own bourgeois sensitivities. Conventation how? To you, to me, to the academic reading Videha on their computer, cow dung is literal waste. It's entirely worthless. But Gunjin forces us to inhabit the reality of those girls on bounty roads. To them it's not waste. Exactly. To them that dung is not waste. It is hard currency. It is the fuel that will cook their meager dinner. It is the razor-thin margin between surviving the night and starving. Gunjin illustrates that when human beings are pushed to the absolute brink of extreme poverty, the value of everything is horrifically warped. The tragedy Gunjin is writing about isn't merely the traffic accident itself. The tragedy is the invisible systemic poverty that made a piece of animal waste valuable enough to fight to the death over in the first place. Exactly. It is a searing indictment of a society that allows this shadow economy to exist while looking the other way. And to truly understand why Gunjan included this in the Vidaya E Journal, we have to look at the broader political context of the Maitreya language at that specific time. You're talking about the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution. Yes, I am. Around this time, Maitreya had finally been included in the eighth schedule. This was a monumental constitutional victory. Meaning what, practically? It meant the language was officially recognized by the government, which unlocked massive institutional funding, literary awards, academic positions, and immense cultural prestige. Suddenly, Mythili was a pathway to power. And Gunjan has a lot of meta commentary in the journal about the people swarming to the language after this victory. Oh, he is venomously critical of what he terms the NRI type elites, non-resident Indians, or the deeply wealthy, disconnected upper classes. The people who ignored it before. Exactly. Before the eighth schedule, Many of these elites viewed Maitzley as a backward village dialect. The moment it gained official prestige and funding, they swooped in to claim the literature as their own, organizing fancy conferences and jockeying for government awards. So he writes Go Barak Mulya as a deliberate, aggressive slap in the face of that specific demographic. The juxtaposition is jarring. Extremely intentional. You have literary elites sitting in air conditioned conference halls in Delhi or abroad sipping tea and arguing over who gets a linguistic award. And meanwhile, children speaking the exact same language are bleeding to death on the hot asphalt in Dagalpur over a piece of dung. It is a demand for literary accountability. Gunjan is screaming that if Mathili literature becomes merely a tool for elites to gain status, and if it turns a blind eye to the starving girls on Bouncy Road, then the literature has entirely lost its soul. The recognition means nothing if it doesn't serve the most vulnerable speakers of the language. Perfectly said. The emotional toll of this reading is immense, honestly. We have navigated the paralysis of artistic ambition, the patriarchal consumption of a woman's life, and a blood-stained commentary on systemic poverty. This is a heavy lineup. Very heavy. And after wading through these inescapable, grinding earthly realities, I found myself wondering how the authors in this journal approached the ultimate reality. How do they handle the concept of death itself? They handle it by completely subverting our expectations. The journal takes a brilliant sharp pivot away from grounded tragedy and dives headfirst into the theater of the absurd. It is a much needed release valve for the reader at this point. We are turning our attention to a play titled No Entry, Ma Pravesh. Yes, written by Yudei Narayan Singh, who goes by the pen name Na Chiketa. And the context behind this specific play is almost as fascinating as the text itself. Nachiketa was a known writer who took a massive 25-year hiatus from publishing. A quarter of a century. Yeah. He stepped away for two and a half decades, and when he finally returned to the literary scene, he delivered this heavily existential, delightfully bizarre piece. The influences are clear, too. Nachiketa is drawing heavily from the traditions of existential theater, evoking the atmosphere of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot or Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. The setting is the ultimate equalizer. We find ourselves standing in line before a massive set of closed gates. We don't know if they're the gates of heaven, hell, or some bureaucratic purgatory. Right, it doesn't really matter. It is simply the afterlife waiting room, and the cross-section of humanity standing in this line is a hilarious, chaotic mix. Nachiketa removes all earthly context by placing vastly different societal figures shoulder to shoulder. We have a street level thug standing next to a slippery, smooth talking politician. We have a young couple who committed a tragic double suicide. We have a fiery, sloganeering left-wing youth, a destitute beggar, a theatrical actor, and brilliantly a professional pickpocket. They're all just tapping their feet, waiting for the metaphysical doors to open. And the comedy of this situation is initiated almost immediately by the pickpocket. The pickpocket is a fantastic character. He simply cannot turn off his earthly muscle memory. While everyone else is pondering their eternal soul, he has been busy. He gleefully reveals to the group that while they were standing in line, he systematically lifted everyone's wallets. The concept of the pickpocket operating in purgatory is absurdly funny, but it serves a sharp philosophical purpose. Naturally, the revelation causes widespread panic. The politician and the actor start screaming, demanding their money back, but the pickpocket just laughs at them. Because it's useless now. Exactly. It exposes the utter stupidity of their panic. He holds up the cash and points out that earthly currency rupees, dollars, gold, has absolutely zero purchasing power in the afterlife. It is entirely dead weight. And to visually demonstrate this point, the characters decide to hold a mock auction. They decide to bid on a mythological artifact. The Hindu god Indra's Vajra, his divine thunderbolt. And you have the beggar in the pickpocket suddenly acting like billionaires. The beggar yells, I bid 10 million rupees. The pickpocket counters, I bid 50 million. The wealthy politician watches in horror as his earthly fortune is treated like monopoly money. Right. It reminds me of a scenario that is a bit more modern, honestly. What's that? Imagine showing up to a high-end exclusive arcade today, but the only currency you brought with you is a trash bag full of defunct crypto tokens from a failed exchange. There may be a thousand paper tickets from a Chuck E. Cheese that closed in 1998. Oh, that's brilliant. You might have been a millionaire in that specific dead ecosystem, but in the new realm, you can't even buy a gum ball. The realm has shifted. Exactly. The technology has moved on. Your massive accumulation of wealth is nothing but worthless paper and dead code. That is what earthly status is at the gates of eternity. The analogy highlights the absurdity of hoarding. dedicate your entire mortal existence to accumulating this currency, only to discover that the moment your heart stops, it holds less value than the lint in your pocket. But Nachiketa doesn't stop at dismantling financial wealth. He uses the other characters to demonstrate the absolute uselessness of earthly ideologies too. The ideological clash in the waiting line is brilliant. You have the politician who who is desperately clinging to his earthly persona. He is pacing around spewing empty, centrist rhetoric about blending the great traditions of the past with the unstoppable progress of the future. It is meaningless political word salad. Complete word salad. On the other side, you have a left-wing youth who is furiously shouting slogans about global worker unity, the revolution of the proletariat and bringing down the establishment. And neither of them seems to grasp that the establishment and the workers are both currently dead and standing in the exact same line. Right. And I want to be very clear here for the listener. As we unpack this play, we are maintaining absolute neutrality regarding the real world political ideologies being referenced. Of course. The play features a left-wing revolutionary and an establishment right-wing politician. Nachiketa is not taking a side between them. What is fascinating is the literary device he uses to humiliate both of them. He uses the common street thief. He does. The thief becomes the philosophical center of the play. He delivers a profound show-stopping monologue that is referred to as the Chorporin. Which translates roughly to the epic of thieves. The thief stands up to the politician, the actor and the youth, and he completely redefines morality. He argues that the guy who literally just stole their wallets is actually the only honest person in the entire group. That's a bold claim. It is. He points an accusatory finger at the politician and the artist and declares, You are the true thieves. The crux of his argument is a radical deconstruction of originality. The thief proposes that no human idea is truly original. He argues that every politician steals their platform. They steal promises of progress. They steal fears of the public. They repackage old policies and sell them as new visions. And then he turns his attention to the artists and writers. He explicitly quotes monumental literary figures. Who does he quote? He cites Vijyapati, the legendary 14th century Messili poet, who essentially defined the language's literary tradition and Rabindranath Tagore, the towering Bengali polymath and Nobel laureate. Okay, so these are untouchable figures in South Asian literature. Completely untouchable. And the thief has the audacity to say that even they were thieves. He argues that every poet steals metaphors from the ancients, steals observations from nature, and steals the emotional pain of the common people. rearranging these stolen fragments into a poem and slapping their name on it. Exactly. He makes the case that all of human culture, all of our grand political systems and revered art, is nothing more than a massive, ongoing, multi-generational act of theft and repackaging. By doing this, the thief fundamentally dismantles the idea of intellectual and moral superiority. If everyone is stealing ideas, then the politician's rhetoric and the poet's voice are no more inherently noble than the pickpocket lifting a wallet. They are just different currencies of theft. Wow. And the play doesn't end with some grand, divine judgment where the gates open and a booming voice declares who is right. No, it ends in a joyous, chaotic absurdity. The characters all slowly realize the thief is right. They join together in a song and dance celebrating the tropeuron, acknowledging their shared derivative nature. Nachiketa is using the limbo of the afterlife to force a reckoning of the ego. The The play isn't trying to make a theological point about how to achieve salvation. It's a psychological mirror. Yes. It forces these characters who believe they were so vastly important and original on earth to realize they are all playing the exact same absurd derivative game. Death is the great physical equalizer, but the thief is the great philosophical equalizer. Let's pull all of these threads together because the journey, the single issue of of a day took us on is genuinely profound. It really covers everything. We started with the quiet tragedy of Kedar, the village potter, who understood that the pursuit of perfection is a dangerous illusion that paralyzes human growth. Right, and from the clay of his wheel, we transitioned to the clay of the Kuli, the hearth. Where we witnessed a powerful devastating metaphor for the patriarchal consumption of women, ending with a little girl's rebellious demand for a matchbox. And from that domestic fire, we were dragged onto the sweltering tarmac of bouncy road. we were forced to confront a brutal invisible economy where extreme poverty turns animal dung into a currency worth dying for. Challenging the very purpose of literature in the face of systemic neglect. And finally, we left the earth entirely. We arrived at the absurd gates of the afterlife where a wallet-stealing pickpocket dismantled our grand political ideologies and artistic pretensions, proving that we are all just anchoring the thoughts of those who came before us. For anyone listening, the overarching takeaway from this deep dive is a reminder of the raw, unfiltered power of regional literature. Yes, absolutely. Languages like Mathili may not always command the global spotlight or the massive publishing budgets of English or Hindi, but they are the vital, beating heart of the human experience. Literature in these languages is not merely about preserving beautiful ancient words. It is an active, aggressive tool. Yes. It forces us to look at the dirt on the street, the silent struggles in the village kitchen and the terrifying gates of heaven with equal, unflinching, critical scrutiny. It demands that we strip away our assumptions and see the world and ourselves with absolute clarity. And that concept of seeing ourselves clearly leads me to a final, provocative thought I want to leave you with today. I want to build on that brilliant, unsettling monologue delivered by the thief at the gates of the afterlife. I want you to genuinely think about your own mind for a second. If the thief is right, if every profound thought you have ever had, every piece of art you deeply admire, every political ideology you fiercely defend, is just stolen and rearranged from the thinkers, writers and ancestors of the past, what does that make you? Are you truly an original creator, authoring a completely unique existence? Or are you simply a beautiful, highly complex collage of other people's stolen ideas? It is something to chew on the next time you congratulate yourself for having a brand new thought.

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