On Timepass and Tutankhamun's Transcendent Tunes (Ch. 11)

Dearest connoisseurs of curiosity,

It is with immense pleasure and a healthy dose of procrastination that I present to you April’s instalment of Ink-uilab, just three days into May. I must confess - there's a valid reason for the delay - I had to wait for certain parts of this edition to be submitted elsewhere before hitting the "send" button. [If my mom is reading this: ‘Mom, I wrote most of this before the start of the exam period.’]

But then again, how serendipitous it is that this month’s ‘timepass’ newsletter; finds itself sauntering in on Indian Standard Time, particularly given the ‘timepass’ content within. Join me this month to unravel the ever-enigmatic mysteries of ‘timepass’, the formalism of the English Ghazal, and the cyclical canon of Philip Glass.

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On Timepass:

• As part of the Yale College Henry James TenEyck Prize Competition, gave a speech on timepass. Here it is, in its entirety, for your reading pleasure:

  Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you today, a humble ambassador of India, to extol the virtues of a uniquely Indian phenomenon that has woven itself deep into the very fabric of our culture. Allow me to introduce you to a new lexicon, a new way of life, this elusive doctrine of timepass.

  As I take the podium, I implore you to transport your thoughts to my beloved hometown, the thriving metropolis of Bombay, the pulsating heart of India. I was our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who once declared, "At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake." Indeed, we are awake, laboriously typing away at our office desks, navigating the city on crowded buses, and scouring the streets for a midnight snack. We pride ourselves on our industriousness. Here, work is worship, and time and money are the only currencies of value.

  And yet, another India coexists with the first, where friends unwind under shady trees, sharing chai and banter on warm afternoons. Weary students escape to cinemas, and office-goers recharge with post-lunch siestas. This second India presents a captivating dance between the realms of work and relaxation, where the dialectics of hardwork and timepass are entwined like siblings bound by fate. The mantra of work hard, play hard reverberates through the streets, as people grant themselves the luxury of timepass, knowing full well that their labour will be doubly diligent during the hours spent toiling. Here, the distinction between work and leisure is blurred – we do not simply work to live or live to work; instead, we work and live in a seamless continuum.

  The first vision of India may be familiar to you, as productive actors and diligent students on a university campus. However, it is my hope that you leave today with an appreciation for the second India.

  What, you may wonder, exactly is timepass? Is it not just another word for procrastination? Or merely another term for a work break? No! Timepass is so much more. It is a captivating choreography that is quintessentially subcontinental, both a verb and an adjective, an activity and a review of an activity.

  Deeply rooted in the Indian psyche, timepass embraces the beauty of idleness and the joy of being unproductive. It is the essence of bindaas, a carefree attitude that invites us to embrace life with unabashed abandon. It can be discovered in the lingering conversations at the bus stand or in the laughter-filled company during a daily commute. It can be planned or spontaneous and savoured as an individual experience that differs from person to person. The beauty lies in its subjectivity, for it represents any act of guilt-free, non-productive relaxation that serves as an essential counterbalance to the demands of work and the pressures of modern living.

  When asking someone about their weekend plans, you might hear, "Nothing much, just doing timepass." What exactly does this entail? Perhaps it could involve a leisurely meandering through a park, the completion of a crossword, or catching up on a cricket game. As for the age-old conundrum of the chicken crossing the road? Alas, I cannot say for certain, but it may well have been engaging in its own version of timepass!

  So, I implore you, as you sit here on this Monday afternoon, captivated by the orations of eager undergraduates, consider whether you, too, are indulging in the delightful art of timepass.

  And yet there remains another dimension to this enigmatic term – a word that, as an adjective, captures so much more than its humble eight letters would suggest. Imagine, if you will, the following exchange: you ask me, "Bilal, how was the show last night?" My response? "It was timepass." This does not imply that the show was lacking in merit; on the contrary, it signifies the show's ability to facilitate the passage of time. In a world where the cult of productivity holds sway and boredom is deemed the ultimate transgression, the mere capacity of an endeavor to occupy our attention is a triumph in and of itself.

  Be warned! Timepass must not be mistaken for the aimless dalliance of procrastination or the vortex of social media scrolling; rather, it is a deliberate and conscious decision to immerse oneself in pursuits that evoke joy and contentment, liberated from the shackles of productivity or the compulsion to achieve a predetermined objective. Timepass transcends the mere act of whiling away time; it is a sublime art form, a celebration of life's unassuming pleasures. 

  Allow me to further illuminate the essence and the ontology with a contrast: of an afternoon at a Bombay tea stall versus a New Haven coffee shop.

  Picture yourself stepping out of the whirlwind of work and pausing at the tea stall near the train station. Your purpose? Timepass, pure and simple. As the crowds ebb and flow around you, you engage in spirited small talk, discussing the latest cricket match with a stranger or sharing a humorous anecdote about your boss. With each sip of your cutting chai, each puff of your cigarette, and each flavorful chew of your paan leaf, you grant your mind the freedom to meander through the boundless tapestry of life's delights. And in the span of 10-15 minutes, this sublime interlude of timepass bestows upon you a rejuvenation of spirit, a renewed vigour with which to tackle the relentless demands of your schedule and the manifold needs of your family.

  Now, let us turn to the coffee shop that permeates this campus, this country, and indeed, this culture. Here, we meticulously plan our visits to the coffee shop, shooting off text messages, marking calendars, and allotting ourselves a rigid 45-minute window. Within this self-imposed constraint, we hurriedly sip coffee as we anxiously watch the clock, or worse yet, hunch over our laptops, transforming a window seat into yet another sterile workstation.

  I implore you, my friends, to reflect upon this question: When was the last time you struck up a conversation with a stranger? When did you last allow yourself the simple pleasure of unproductive relaxation? Have we not, in our relentless pursuit of productivity, forsaken the art of timepass?

  In those precious moments spent at the tea stall, there is no guilt, no self-reproach. Amidst this shared sanctuary, every stranger becomes a brother, united by the common purpose of seeking respite from life's trials and tribulations. In this hallowed space, a warm camaraderie flourishes, for they all understand, without a word being spoken, the raison d'être for your presence: to partake in the sacred ritual of timepass.

  In the West, we grudgingly allocate the remnants of our schedules, the residue of minutes, the sediment of seconds, for unproductive relaxation. Timepass on the other hand, is neither stressful nor stress-free; It is neither unproductive nor guilt-ridden; all is either timepass or not timepass.

  But why now, you ask? Why is timepass relevant today?

  As students and scholars, we face a daunting challenge, a crisis of civilization. Our minds have been poisoned by an insatiable hunger for productivity, leading us towards a future of socialized tyranny. The spirit of alienation looms large, as we are chastised by the relentless ticking of the capitalistic work-clock. We risk becoming mere cogs in the machine, cookie-cutter consultants and code monkeys devoid of individuality and well-deserved sleep.

  We must confront this reality and ask ourselves: have we truly achieved mastery over the clock? In this epoch, why must we ever walk, talk, or read? Rather, screens transport us to the farthest reaches of the globe, we sup on upon the drip-feed of algorithms for our daily news, and a computer can now complete our very sentences.

  Our days are dictated by Google calendars, cluttered with a ceaseless procession of appointments and meetings. Our veins course with caffeine as we labor to finish one more assignment before the relentless onslaught of deadlines. Our lives are ensnared and besieged by the inexorable march of time.

  Today, we witness the perils of the rat race, the perpetually spinning hamster wheel, and the never-ending workday.

  We are not rats.

  We are not hamsters.

  We are human beings, capable of far more than mere productivity.

  We must liberate ourselves from the tyrannical shackles of the deadline. We must herald the end of hyper-productivity. We must wholeheartedly embrace the liberating notion that sometimes, the most precious gift we can bestow upon ourselves is the permission to simply be.

  Friends, do not merely sprint across the sands of time, leaving fleeting footprints in your haste to conquer the clock—instead, lay down a blanket and revel in a leisurely picnic. 

  The solution to our quandary, the cure, the panacea, my friends, rests securely in the nurturing embrace of guilt-free, non-productive relaxation. How, you ask, might we embark upon this transformative journey? We must emulate the likes of Balzac, who is said to have indulged in "orgies of work punctuated by orgies of relaxation and pleasure.” Pencil in moments for unstructured leisure, let spontaneity be your guide, converse with the stranger at the tea stall, and above all, absolve yourself of guilt for moments of unproductivity.

  We have the power to defy the forces that seek to homogenize our existence. We have the power to hush the incessant ticking of the clock. We have the power to resist subjugation by the very creations we have wrought. Let us use that power. Let us heed the wise words of Nietzsche: "Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?" Indeed, life is too short to squander, we must do more timepass!

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On Philip Glass’ Akhnaten:

• This winter, Sachien and I, had an opportunity to watch Philip Glass’ Akhnaten at the English National Opera. Having watched the hilarious Book of Mormon the night before, stepping into the ethereal realm of Philip Glass' Akhnaten was quite the contrast for us.

  

• An operatic experience that transcends time and space, Akhnaten is part of Glass' acclaimed Portrait trilogy, nestling perfectly between Satyagraha, inspired by Gandhi, and Einstein on the Beach, a tribute to the namesake physicist. Akhnaten is an opera in three acts, based on the life and religious convictions of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV. The opera has been described as the most ritualistic and mystical of Glass' many operas, with an undulating opening that sets the stage for the mystical journey to come. Unpacking themes ranging from the foundation of monotheism to the power of the military, Akhnaten is a tribute to the captivating power of ideas, and alteast in my view, a component of Glass’ broader conception of the ‘Great Man Theory’. The Opera, and its staging, was a captivating journey that weaves together history, art, and music in a way that only Glass can achieve.

• Who is the protagonist? Pharaoh Akhenaten (AKA Akhenaton, Akhnaton, or Ikhnaton), was a truly remarkable figure in ancient Egyptian history. Born as Amenhotep IV, he reluctantly ascended to the throne in the mid-14th century BCE and soon introduced a radical shift in religious practices. Upon Akhenaten's death, his young son, Tutankhamun, ascended the throne at just nine years old. Yes, the famed King Tut’s (likely) father was a pharaonic revolutionary (or heretic, depending on which Priest you ask).

  • Akhenaten defied centuries of traditional worship of the Egyptian pantheon and established a new cult dedicated to the sun's disk, the Aton and declaring that the Aton was the one and only god to be worshipped, effectively introducing monotheism to ancient Egypt.

  • Interestingly, the image of the Aten as an all-powerful, all-loving deity, supreme creator, and sustainer of the universe, marked a significant departure from the polytheistic worship of the Egyptian pantheon. He changed his name to Akhenaten (‘beneficial to Aton’) and moved the capital from Thebes to a new city called Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna) where he commissioned radical and unorthodox temples that featured innovative and naturalistic artistic styles. Some scholars argue that Akhenaten's religiopolitical reform was a result of his personal convictions, while others believe it may have been a strategic move to consolidate power by eliminating competing religious factions. Regardless of his motivations, this radical shift in the religio-political structure of Egypt has led many to consider Akhnathen to be the first to espouse organized Monotheism.

    

  • How true is that? Was Akhnaten the first monotheist? We can’t be sure. Akhenaten's monotheistic religion, Atenism, was largely forgotten after his death and the return to Egypt's polytheistic traditions, it was rediscovered in the late 18th century and subsequently integrated into the histories of the three Abrahamic religions by 19th and 20th-century religious philosophers. The internet is rife with comparisons between classical texts of Hebrew and the ancient Egyptian sources of Atenism - is this just the willful optimism of pattern-seeking classicists, or an example of the historical materialism of Abrahamic theology? Who is to say?

• At the heart of Glass' enchanting compositions lie his signature repetitive arpeggios, which create a spellbinding atmosphere when arranged for an orchestra.

  • Fans who enjoy the transcendental nature of Glass's oeuvre (or as he endearingly refers to it, Glassworks) will enjoy my playlist Full Circle - curated to evoke themes of repetition, recursion, and self-similarity:

• The most renowned scene from the Opera is the "Hymn to the Sun," which features the magnetic Anthony Roth Constanzo. Watch it here:

• I was amazed by the remarkable use of ancient languages as the foundation for the operatic text. The opera features Egyptian, Akkadian, and Biblical Hebrew, sourced from Akhenaten's poems, the Book of the Dead, and excerpts from decrees and letters from the Amarna Period (i.e. the seventeen-year period of Akhenaten's rule)

• A description of the creation of the production on the website of the Metropolitan Opera outlines:

  • “Working closely with Shalom Goldman, an expert on ancient religions of the Middle East, Glass set about piecing together a series of vignettes representing what is known of Akhnaten’s life. Some of these scenes were inspired by artifacts from Akhnaten’s reign (for instance, a relief of Akhnaten and Nefertiti sitting with their six daughters), while other scenes were inspired by ancient Egyptian artifacts more generally (such as the Book of the Dead). The libretto, too, was stitched together from fragments of ancient text, including an inscription from a boundary marker found near the ruins of Akhnaten’s city Akhetaten, fragments of the “Amarna letters” (diplomatic correspondence from Akhnaten’s court), and a prayer likely written by Akhnaten himself (the beautiful “hymn to the sun”). The text for the Prelude comes from the Pyramid Texts, the earliest extant funerary literature from ancient Egypt, while the text for Amenhotep III’s funeral comes from the much later Book of the Dead. The love duet between Akhnaten and Nefertiti was taken from a poem found in a sarcophagus at the Valley of the Kings, while another text (from the “Attack and Fall” scene at the end of Act III) was found in the tomb of Akhnaten’s close relative Tutankhamun. Glass and his collaborators also included Psalm 104 from the Hebrew bible (sung by the chorus after Akhnaten’s hymn) and, as a gesture toward the importance of modern archaeology and tourism in bringing ancient Egypt back to light, passages from Frommer’s and Fodor’s guides to Egypt, spoken by the Professor at the end of Act III.”

  • In the prelude, the scribe recites funeral texts from the ‘Pyramid Texts,’ which are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts. You can listen to it here, and read some poetic translations sung here:

    Open are the double doors of the horizon
    Unlocked are its bolts

    Clouds darken the sky
    The stars rain down
    The constellations stagger
    The bones of the hell hounds tremble
    The porters are silent
    When they see this king
    Dawning as a soul

  • During the opera, struck by the sung source texts, I wondered how an Egyptologist would react to the performance.

    • A Danish scholar of Egyptology, Paul John Frandsen, has published an extensive article on the Operatic Akhnaten, that addresses both the historicity and musicality of the production. He critiques, “Glass has chosen to write such an opera with a historical subject and with a number of world-historical individuals as characters, but he does not consciously aim for insight--"truth"--in the form of a dramatic, intellectual construct. Glass's opera has, instead, become a form of "singing archaeology," and, hence, he finds an easy way out. It is, of course, not a question of going straight to the raw material, since the opera has largely been gathered from nonprimary sources. It is, perhaps, a question of construction. On one hand, Glass speaks of "our Egypt," and he makes use of texts out of context. On the other hand, he uses original texts and has them sung in their original language. There is no meaningful reconstruction of a reality, nor has any attempt been made to place the opera in a context that goes beyond "the philosophy of a great spirit," which we referred to earlier. I do not think that Glass and his collaborators had a clear picture.”

    • He does add, however, “The "sound" of the music, its repetitive nature, the fascination with ancient Egypt, etc., do have their attractions, the same attractions that make opera lovers appreciate romantic Italian operas, in spite of their notorious story lines. But maybe, just as Sinuhe has helped popularize ancient Egypt far more than any scholar could, that is not such a bad thing.”

  • I would be remiss if I mentioned songs in Ancient languages and not feature Peter Pringle. A Canadian musician with a dedicated passion for ancient languages and equally-ancient instruments, he brings the ancient world to life through his hauntingly beautiful music. Beyond transporting the audience to civilisations of the yore, his interpretations of ancient tongues allow us to ‘hear’ a language that has not been spoken for many millennia. I am particularly amazed by his depictions of Akkadian (‘Old Babylonian’), particularly in his renditions of "The Epic of Gilgamesh," which conveys the sense of longing and heartache that permeates the ‘world’s oldest story.’ Here’s a taste of Pringle’s magic, his rendition of the lament for Enkidu (Gilgamesh Tablet VIII):

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As always, some verses, in parting:

• Last week I got an opportunity to experience a Lyric Majlis, organized by the Department of Comparative Literature, where scholars and poets from around campus read lyrical verse in both original language and translation. The event was described as a “A festive, quasi-global relay of poems, from South Asia to Andalusia and up through the European middle ages and into modern Europe, East Asia and the US.”

• The Majlis, and its constituent lyrical poems, made me reflect on the work of Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri-American poet, whose lyrical mastery has graced the pages of ink-uilab before. Known for his contributions to the literary movement known as New Formalism, he is best known for the "English ghazal."

• Ali describes the technicalities of this uniquely multicultural formalist style in his introduction to the collection of poems titled Ravishing Disunities:

  • “The ghazal is made up of couplets, each autonomous, thematically and emotionally complete in itself: One couplet may be comic, another tragic, another romantic, another religious, another political. (There is, underlying a ghazal, a profound and complex cultural unity, built on association and memory and expectation, as well as an implicit recognition of the human personality and its infinite variety.)”

  • “A couplet may be quoted by itself without in any way violating a context-there is no context, as such. One should at any time be able to pluck a couplet like a stone from a necklace, and it should continue to shine in that vivid isolation, though it would have a different lustre among and with the other stones.”

  • “Then what saves the ghazal from what might be considered arbitrariness? A technical context, a formal unity based on rhyme and refrain and prosody. All the lines in a ghazal can appear to have because of the quantitative meters of Persian and Urdu-the same number of syllables; to establish this metrical consistency, poets follow an inner ear rather than any clearly established rules, as in English.”

• Here’s a video interview for NPR at Izhar Patkin's NYC studio in July 2001, taken shortly before Ali's death in December of the same year. It is magical to see an animated Ali reflect on his work, the political and personal contexts that shaped his work, and the nature of the ghazal.

• I have often tried to follow Ali’s lead and formalist style in my own work. These experiments with the ghazal, however, seem to me to be paltry pasquinades rather than the homages that they are intended as. Nevertheless, allow me to share an excerpt from one of my poems, titled Ghazal 23 – ‘on the tongue’ which appears in the Vol. X, Issue 11 of The Bangalore Review. You can read it, in its entirety, here:

  She’s evaporated into the eld, a man of the future remains,

  the cacophony of civilization puts a halt on the tongue.

  …

  when she shattered into spring, supernovae showered
  galaxies of pepper-and-salt on the tongue.

  Who are you fooling, Aflatoon? She’s an ash heap of history?
  You’ve done nothing but exalt on the tongue.

• Here’s ‘Agha Shahid Ali’s Even the Rain, a beautiful expression of loss, loneliness, and longing:

  What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain?
  But he has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain.

  “Our glosses / wanting in this world”—“Can you remember?”
  Anyone!—“when we thought / the poets taught” even the rain?

  After we died—That was it!—God left us in the dark.
  And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain.

  Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house.
  For mixers, my love, you’d poured—what?—even the rain.

  Of this pear-shaped orange’s perfumed twist, I will say:
  Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain.

  How did the Enemy love you—with earth? air? and fire?
  He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain.

  This is God’s site for a new house of executions?
  You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain?

  After the bones—those flowers—this was found in the urn:
  The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain.

  What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world?
  A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain.

  How the air raged, desperate, streaming the earth with flames—
  To help burn down my house, Fire sought even the rain.

  He would raze the mountains, he would level the waves;
  he would, to smooth his epic plot, even the rain.

  New York belongs at daybreak to only me, just me—
  To make this claim Memory’s brought even the rain.

  They’ve found the knife that killed you, but whose prints are these?
  No one has such small hands, Shahid, not even the rain.

salud,

BM

(All errors are my own and a by-product of editing this one-too-many days after it was due.)