On wonders why the civilisation that created highly advanced cities like Harappa, Mohenjo Daro, Lothal, Rakhigarh, Taxila and a score of towns in the ancient world failed to produce some of ordinary things people used daily which were functionally perfect. Or was it post-Harappa era dominated by nomad and pastoral Aryans that was responsible for such a decline? But later they also built wonderfully intricate places of worship and temples but didn’t care to produce much-needed ordinary things. Perhaps this is an inherent malady of human civilisation with a skewed vision manipulated by the powerful to ignore what the masses need.

Poet Bertolt Brecht in one of his poems says clearly about Europe in mid-20th century what is being hinted at here: “What did you see, wanderer? / I saw a pleasant landscape; … A house leaned against the hill like a woman leaning against a man / What did you see, wanderer? / I saw a ridge good to position guns behind/ What did you see, wanderer? /… I saw a rock raising its shoulder from the grassy soil like a giant that refuses to be beaten/And grass standing up stiff and straight, proudly, on parched ground/ And an indifferent sky/ What did you see, wanderer? / I saw a fold in the ground. Thousands of years ago there must have been great upheavals of the earth’s surface. The granite lay exposed / What did you see, wanderer? / No bench to sit on. I was tired.”

The sight tells the story of civilisation; what the nature created and the society built was nothing less than wonderful. All the natural and man-made things that impress the wanderer lack something ordinary that is crucial, a bench which can provide the tired wanderer a moment to overcome his tiredness. Absence of the bench and tiredness of the wanderer are potent metaphors of ever-present human predicament.

Our subcontinental civilisation exactly offers the sight delineated by the poet. With all its splendours it fails to provide the ordinary mortals with ordinary things which work well. It is sizzling summer with temperatures soaring to 50 degree Celsius in the most of Pakistan and North India but there is no proper solar hat/cap available to protect you from the intense sun and heatwave. Some may say; don’t we have turban (pug/ puggri)? One, it’s difficult to support proper turban as it’s not only cumbersome but also expensive to maintain. Two, it’s basically little more than long piece of cloth. And people when forced by nature use an un-stitched or poorly stitched piece of cloth, a poor version of turban. But that’s no proper headgear. The civilisation built stunningly beautiful, viharas, temples and mosques with great artistic care but failed to provide the ordinary worshippers with a hat/ cap that had both functional and aesthetic value. Perhaps the eye of the civilisation cannot see the people weathering the sun bareheaded.

Our great civilisation could not make a proper chair during the last four thousand years of post-Harappa era. One has to squat on the floor/ ground in order to converse, eat or to do leisure activities. The rich would have a carpet/ rug under their bum. Proper chair was introduced by the European colonialists. May be yoga ridden habits deprived us of any sort of initiative regarding furniture.

The situation is even worse when it comes to sleeping. For thousands of years, we have been sleeping on the charpoy/cot, a pathetic product. It exposes our carpentry skills. It traditionally has a wooden frame, now also of steel, having four vertical posts connected by horizontal bars - not all in a straight line - with light ropes of natural fibre or plastic tapes stretched and ties across to sleep on it. Levelling is its biggest problem. Whenever you sit or sleep in it, the middle of it being flexible slopes downwards. So you cannot sit or lie straight. It has been in use since ages but nobody thought of improving its design. No yoga master ever told the carpenter to make the charpoy that supported the healthy postures, sitting or sleeping.

Now let’s look at two other important activities; eating and defecating. These two things indicate the level of development of a society. How we cook and eat food, and how we relieve ourselves shows to what extent we are distinct from the animals. Our traditional kitchen has been/still usually is on the ground level or on a slightly raised platform in the open. Food is eaten while sitting on the floor or at best sitting on low stools or charpoy. What’s good about this food is that it is what we call fresh from the oven. But it absolutely lacks in presentation. After consuming food we cannot keep it in our belly for long. We have to relieve ourselves. And people in South Asia in a large number – our total number is staggeringly large. We are almost beyond number - relieve themselves in the open or behind bushes. No body explains satisfactorily the disappearance of flush toilet which was there in the cities like Harappa and Mohenjo Daro thousands of years ago. What a wonderfully regressive movement!

Indus Basin civilisation, it seems, was free of segregation. Thus we see in its ruins neatly built working class quarters which were different in size but not essentially in design as they were supposed to provide the civic facilities to them as availed by others. But the Vedic and post-Vedic society built on the debris of the Indus society wreaked havoc with the march of civilisation by segregating the people by race and caste which deprived the majority of the people to have a level playing field. It pigeonholed the people. Secondly, rigidity of social division discouraged innovation and creativity as it made the traditions sacred, never to be tampered with. It thus forced the people to live with the leftovers that came from the past. Will the arbiters of our destiny and planners of our future care to install some benches there for the ones who are tired? Remember there are countless who plead tiredness. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2024