Odisha: The Land less Explored

      Following the zeal of unflinching determination and staunch courage of Ryszard Kapuscinski, my heart seduced me (though body was sick) to embark on a two-week tour of Odisha ( a recent rechristening of Orissa) in the first week of this month. Along with ever good companions- Ajit and Pramod, I left Hyderabad and enjoyed the Durga Puja celebration in Bhubaneswar. But a city should be considered  as a veil to the real picture of a country or state. Apparently, the panoramic hinterland of rural Odisha reveals several realities and thus, we headed to Pramod's village. The smell of the reddish ferruginous literate soil of Eastern Ghat near Cuttack in Coastal Odisha  and the aroma of wild shrubs and bushes along the roadsides made my ill-body temporarily cured to enjoy the richer scenery of  leafy green paddy fields till the visible horizon. Ever warm hospitality of Pramod's village people and relatives to a completely different background person like me gave me an understanding that the essence of affection and love is absolutely unchanged irrespective of place, language and culture.

Village children in Western Odisha

           But the hilly landscape of the Western Odisha (the Sambalpur region) makes one feel tranquil, swoon and calm. Clean air and teak-tree lines enrich the beauty of perennially fertile earth and in turn, it nurtures its living children such as human beings, animals, etc. Rich with minerals, this region of Odisha is 'underdeveloped' in socio-economic terms, though the Sambalpuri brand of textile products such as saris, dhotis, etc have established its recognition with the settlement of the Marwari community in the remoter areas influencing local trading culture. But the annexation of industrial houses seldom brings prosperity to its people, despite a chaotic political hubbub of environmental conservation over setting up industries. Everything will remind you a typical Indian rural village. In a sense, Odisha is good at everything minus poverty (unlike our Bihar where corruption, violence and illiteracy rule the roost). But the emotional attachment at Ajit's home with his large family members has left an indelible imprint on my mind.

A village girl

Evolution of the Human Consciousness II

           Prof A V Ashok says, ‘The archaic is a condition, structure of immersion, embeddedness in dumb aduality- state of slumber in subconsciousness and a pre-temporal blank mist without shadows'. In other words, during the archaic era the development of the human being recapitulates the evolution and history of conscious of the human race. But nearly 20,000 years ago, there was a paradigmatic shift from the archaic to the magic. There was a kind of 'pulling away' from the adualism of the archaic towards the dualism of the magic. A fledgeling separation was underway to mark a streak of differentiation between the two non-compartamentalized epochs. Thus, the differentiation seems to be responsible for the chasm that developed with the due course of times between the epochs. And for the first time (as coincided with the disappearance of the Neanderthanls), it was observed that a consciousness of the human being for the body-self emerged slowly. 


The Magic Epoch


            The magic epoch was marked with the consciousness for the body-self, the Narcissistic symptoms, and plastic overlapping. The thanatophobia was soon ushered in in the consciousness of the human being and the two primary processes in the conscious - condensation an displacement marked the arrival of the  magic era. This was an embryonic state where pre-mental intermingling took place without the awareness of the yesterdays or the tomorrows. Only the present existed. Further illustrations can be drawn from the paintings occurred between 16,000 BC to 13,000 BC in the settings of Lascaux in South West Fance and Altamira in North East Spain. These two caves consists paintings of the prehistoric eras. The paintings show mammals, animals and human beings in different gestures- fierce, timid, wounded, sacred, etc. In short, the consciousness became tensed. This epoch was entirely divorced from the rational and mental intervention and in turn, the supremacy of magical omnipotence was persistent.





A painting in the cave of Lascaux, South-West France


The Mythic Era

         This epoch spread between 10,000 BC and 1,500 BC coincided with the discovery and development of the agriculture. Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994), American feminist archaeologist argues that the mythic era with the best epoch as far as the liberation of the women is concerned. Never ever women were so free and liberated than during 7,000 BC to 2,800 BC. She reinforces her argument with further statement that in the mythic consciousness the right part of the human brain was more active than its left counterpart. Because the right brain, argues Princeton University Professor Julian Jaynes (1920-1997) in The Origin of the Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1977), executes function out of holistic experiences. This part of bicameral brain is able to make out perspectives and wields mostly from the interiority and from the undivided subjectivity. On the other hand, the left brain functions from a distance and looks at things objectively and separately. Hence, if Gimabutas is considered to some extent in this context, a great spell of 4,800 years of human history had been non-patriarchal when womenfolk enjoyed maximum liberty. In words, the right brain is matriarchal and mythic consciousness while the left brain is patriarchal and mental consciousness. 


 
This painting depicts the grandeur of a woman  (An Indian beauty).