Paper Boats

                                                                                                                                                                   

Childhood is a very precious period in one’s life. Learning and unlearning begin from this phase. Identifying and experiencing different things with different colors, smells, Sounds, tastes and touches as a process of learning continues. With this process of acquiring knowledge, human beings travel from childhood to adulthood, and to old age. By observing with our senses organs, Perceptions are formed and through that, we gain knowledge of the external world to some extent.

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                                                                In this process of acquiring knowledge, we initiate children to view and perceive things. With this initiation, children try to identify shapes, forms, colors, and textures of the objects in association with time and space. Space gives us the sense of near and far, left and right and so on. Time shows how things exist and change their shapes, sizes, textures and colors in its relationship. Making small houses with cardboards, papers boats and aeroplanes with newspapers and other materials, we teach our children how things are made and how they exist and work under different times and at different spaces. With lots interest, parents too indulge with their children in making these things, which are very much associated with our life. The sight of paper boats is quite common in the rainy season. Children enjoy making paper boats and play with them in small rainwater streams. Paper boats made with the newspapers and other colored papers swim and drift in the rainy water. Sometime, due to the wind or water pressure, the boats lean either side.  A fleet of boats made of varieties of papers, drifting in the water, look like a piece of a collage artwork. Light in weight, the paper boats flow with water and go a long way or sometimes stand still when obstructed by heavy objects. Every child lets his or her boat swim in the rainy water and want to see that it reaches a safe destiny. If by chance, a boat sinks, the boy who owns it feels like crying. However, it is a game for children, but the paper boat stands as a metaphor for our life journey too.

Life is like a boat!  Like a paper boat, it is perishable at any moment. Our body like a paper boat carries us through time and space. Cloaked in skin papers, in varieties of colors, we drift along the river of destiny.Time and space enable and enlighten us with knowledge. Space and time are not things perceived, but modes of perception. Space and time are organs of perception.

We all grow observing and perceiving various living and non- living things. The five organs namely eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin- all enable us to gather knowledge from our surroundings.

One must know to differentiate between sensations and perceptions. We get varied sensations through varied channels of senses. Senses are just a stimulus. Various sensations group around an object in time and space relationship. An object has shape, size, color, odor, taste and weight about it. Related to all these, a child gets sensations of an object and the same procedure continues with other objects.   Next is Perception, which organizes the sensations in a systematic way and that becomes knowledge. Each one’s manner of perceiving differs from the other. Immanuel Kant says  sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life. Each is a greater degree of order, sequence and unity. Acknowledging sensations and absorbing, we mature with new perceptions as time rolls on. Time not only matures our body but also our mind. Different periods provide us different connotations of the same objects, because new perceptions generate after a gap. A gap is nothing but time. We human beings have a capacity to rationalize; therefore, we need to blend perceptions with reasoning, which helps us to gain pure knowledge. Life is nothing but time. Time passes. One remains unaware of it as one is growing and busy with worldly affairs. Life moves on. A chain of events, a blend of good and bad taken place in time and space relation, moulds our life and channels it. Time and space influence one’s perceptions, behavioral aspects, judgments and relationships. Past, present, and future are the features of time. Within this passage of time, some boats drift successfully; some boats sink half way, feeling miserable and sad. Each moment is precious; because once the moment passes, it cannot be reversed.  We perceive all objects in relation with time and space.  According to Vaisesika philosophy, time is an eternal substance and the basis of all and our experiences are cast in the form of time. Space deals with coexistence and time with successions. Space deals with visible things, while time deals with things produced and destroyed. Things move with the virtue of time and things hold together with the virtue of space.

 With experiences molded in time and space, the skin boats travel distances and reach their destiny. Time writes its anthology on skin boats; space holds that anthology as its trophy. Maturity reflects with the passage of time, so a body ripens, withers and dries out. Within this passage of time and space, we interact with the universe and try to enlighten and evolve ourselves as better human beings.

Gayatri Desai

  

References:

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY volume2 by S.Radhakrishnan                                                                                                                                                           .       The storyof Philosophy by Will Durant
 

From My Nostalgia Diary

                      Our College Elections

                                         When I was studying for my graduation at Karnataka College in the early 70’s, the college elections were quite famous. The whole college used to enjoy that process. It was an occasion for the boys and girls to develop friendship with one another by introducing and canvassing for themselves or about their friends. The Candidates standing for the election used to spend huge amount of money on canvassing. Unmindful of studies, the friends of the contestants used to canvass actively for nearly one month. Whether win or not, the contestants definitely used to get famous and popular. Competition, jealousy, hat redness – also prevailed under the cover of election. Day and night, students schemed to win their respective candidates by hook or crook.  During the classes, candidates standing for the election would come with a huge group of fans and supporters to canvass in the classrooms, getting the permission of lecturers. During that time, we were getting heaps and heaps of leaflets, of which we made aeroplanes and arrows and flew them in the classrooms once the canvassing group stepped out. Sometimes the arrows followed them to them to the door. It used to be like a festival for us. Some contestants used to bring motorbikes and cars for campaigning, but a contestant had brought even an elephant for the canvassing. Sitting on the elephant, the contestant took huge round in the college premises, shocking and delighting everyone at the same time. We all friends still remember that Jumbo campaign. From this, one can imagine the magnitude of the college election. On the final day, means the voting day, the huge ground in front of the college  carpeted with colorful leaflets used to look like a piece of earth art. Now, sitting quietly, I think how those boys managed to get and spend such a huge sum of money for the elections. Most of the Candidates who won the election as general secretaries always entered in to active politics later in life. The elected candidates used to arrange programs actively from their respective departments. With their efforts, the annual sports and the annual gatherings became memorable for us. Now it is a history.