My Father's Son. My Son's Father.

As yet another year of my life draws to a close, it is time for some self-contemplation. It has been a "comme si comme sa" kind of life in terms of fame and fortune. More "si" than "sa", to be honest. But in essence, I feel it had been a good journey thus far. Last evening as I sat ruminating, this side of substance abuse, it occurred to me that the journey has been good because it has been at a gradual reconciliation of my idea of my past and my future. Our concept of our past and our future, I believe, is a product of the culture we live in interacting with our personal growth. A culture's concept of the past and the future has deep, almost atavistic, roots. The Tuvan tribe that inhabits a region in the Siberian steppes at the edges of the Russian Federation have a unique way of looking at the future which is codified in their language. In the Tuvan language the word "songgaar" means both "the future" and "go back" and the word "burungaar" means both "the past" and "go forward". The Tuvans believe that while the past is ahead of them the future lies behind them!Did Spielberg know this when he titled his movie "Back To The Future" or was he just being kind of clever. But seriously the Tuvan's concept of time governs and produces a unique culture and world-view. To read more about it see the July 2012 issue of the National Geographic. So what does my own language and culture say about the past and the future. "Kal" is both the future (tomorrow) and the past (yesterday)! It has been taken me more than five decades to understand, absorb and,over the past couple of years,celebrate this concept of time. In the past Indian culture was signified to me by things outside me. Philosophy, religion, literature, music, dance, dress and so on. Over the past couple of years the true locus of the culture that I live in has shifted inside me. And that is a very happy place to be because it allows me a vantage point that submerges disappointments and triumphs, fears and hopes,into one encompassing sense of being. I can go on but blogs are not the best place for excessive navel gazing, so I will stop here. Perhaps I will indulge myself a a little bit more, same time next year and file a fresh report from the battleground.