HOW ALIKE ARE TOWN PLANNING AND COMMUNISM?

A town planner removes slums to create a township. The result is found to be wanting and slums perhaps of a different kind – but slums all the same are allowed to develop to fulfill the needs of the society. In communism, uniformity is sought and finally diversity has to be created to fulfill the needs of the society. One great need is however satisfied in both the cases. It is the need of the man to first commit follies and then to make amends after realizing the effect and understanding the lacunae. Also the need for power and livelihood for the protagonists of the people who commit follies and people who make amends, is also satisfied.

Communism is an ant’s philosophy. The majority are worker ants who plod on, uncomplainingly and in a coordinated manner as decided by the powers that be. Monarchy is a lion’s philosophy. Here, the king does not bother so long as his needs are fulfilled. There is no questioning of the lions’ decision. Democratic socialism is a philosophy of animals in jungle who wish to have some justice while retaining their hierarchical identities. Vegetative philosophy believes in allowing nature to take its own course – a sort of laissez faire policy. In the end, however, all philosophy is foolish. It is the KALAKRAMA – The cyclical nature of nature that brings up one or the other philosophy to the fore so as to suit the requirement of prevailing circumstances. Nature does this to make each soul to realize that each one is right at a particular time in the universal chronology. Each species seeks NIRVANA or salvation through extinction. None achieves it really. It has to come up again and again in another form, another guise. NIRVANA or salvation has been an age old dream of philosophers. It will be achieved when life, that is both energy and matter are completely destroyed and there is no chance for any regeneration. Will this ever happen? I don’t know and as matter of fact I don’t care.

A wise man in an assembly of fools is a fool and a fool in the assembly of wise men is a sage. Actually, neither the wise man is wise nor is the fool, a fool. It is the time, the circumstances and the environment that determine wisdom. In the ultimate, wisdom like all other things is relative. There is no absolute wisdom. Search for it can be abandoned. Instinct alone is wisdom. It leads you into the life. It also leads you to your death. The proper thing to do at any given time is as the hippies would say, “Do your thing man!”