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A Curious Life - Jigyaasa mein Jeevan || Varun Grover || Lecture (with English subs)
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which is better suited to an activist or a journalist.
Unfortunately, these days, journalists are busy doing comedy on TV.
That's why, comedians like me are forced to come here
and do their job.
So, I am not at fault there.
The first thing I'd like to say is that
if you have been named Narendra at birth,
be like Narendra Dabholkar.
Any other kind of Narendra will not let you reach similar heights.
The second thing I'd like to point out is that
we all have gathered here
for Dr Dabholkar Annual Memorial Lecture.
Dr Dabholkar was known for his ideas,
his sensitivity towards society's need for reform,
his rational thinking and scientific temper.
And he was murdered for the same.
The people who murdered him
were very upset due to his ideas.
They were distressed because he always propounded
that science is greater than blind faith.
This is not a very radical idea for any society.
It is not an alarmingly revolutionary idea
that science is more important than faith...
Or should I say, blind faith.
The ones who killed him believed that faith is above science.
According to them, science is trivial, whereas faith is great.
And in order to prove their point,
they came with their guns.
Gunpowder was invented in the 9th century by scientists in China.
The gun was invented in China in the 12th century
by other scientists.
For 300 years, they had gun powder, but no guns.
I don't know what they did with all that gun powder for so long.
Someone must have come along and pointed out
that they had the powder but the gun was missing from the 'gun powder'.
Then, someone must have realised that they needed to invent guns.
So, finally, in the 12th century someone made a gun.
And they started using guns.
In the 16th century,
a few Mongols brought the first gun to India.
When one fires a gun,
many scientific principles are at play.
One needs to understand projectile motion.
One needs to know about kinetics.
It also involves an understanding of thermodynamics,
mining engineering as well as foundry.
And ultimately...
One also needs to understand
the science behind how rage can create a chemical imbalance
in the human brain that can lead a person
to kill a non-violent scientist,
who is also a visionary.
So, the perpetrators of this crime took the help of so much science
to prove their point
that science is pointless.
So, in a way,
by giving up his life Dr Dabholkar proved
that science is above all.
For that,
I think we should always
live by his teachings...
One more thing. Those who kill never understand this simple thing.
No murderer who has killed another person for his ideas
has fathomed this simple fact.
They don't understand that a bullet
can't kill an idea. On the contrary,
it reinforces that idea and that thought process.
In fact, people read up
more on that idea and it inspires them to follow that idea
with a stronger conviction.
So, if they consider a gun as an eraser, they're mistaken.
In truth, a gun plays the role
of a permanent marker.
Those killers didn't know that.
There has always been a clash between faith and science.
How did this clash emerge?
Why did it arise in the first place?
I will discuss that at length.
But the basic difference between the two is...
This is my opinion.
Faith has always been...
Or I should say, the commercial version of faith,
which is known as religion...
It is the very first Amway Scheme of this world.
The first ever pyramid scheme.
The more people you recruit, the more powerful you become.
The higher you are on the pyramid, the more powerful you are.
The ones at the base of the pyramid are not that powerful.
Your job is to recruit more and more people.
You are supposed to find potential recruits
and tell them, 'This is a great scheme, buddy.'
'It's going to fetch you a lot of money.'
'How do you get rich with this scheme, you ask?'
'Find four more recruits and you'll make money.'
So, faith is the very first pyramid scheme of this world.
And what is science?
Science is like your local grocery shop.
You are free to buy whatever you want from that shop.
If you don't like something, you leave it.
You can ask questions there.
For example... 'Why do I see so many bugs in the rice?'
The shop owner will assure you. 'I'll get better quality next time.'
You are free to criticise the quality of anything you buy from that shop.
You have the right to even appreciate
and recommend a product at the local grocery.
The bottom line is that you are allowed to ask questions
and that makes your relationship stronger.
But in a pyramid scheme,
if you ask questions, that relationship becomes weaker.
And why does faith become so important
in a society like ours?
Because we all have been taught this one thing since childhood.
Don't ask questions.
You've been told
that the grown-ups are always right.
If your elders hit you, it's for your own good.
If they lock you up in the bathroom, it's for your sake.
If they refuse to give you something,
it is for your own good.
Your elders will tell you what to study as your major in college.
They will tell you when you'll have sex for the first time in your life
after your marriage has been arranged.
They will tell you when to have your first child,
when you're supposed to have your second child
and when you're supposed to get a vasectomy.
They will tell you everything.
So, this conformism has been ingrained in us since childhood.
Once you have two kids, they will ask you to stop.
All these things are planned for you by someone else.
In a way, conformism is...
It is very hard to alter a gene. It takes aeons for that to happen.
But I feel our entire genetic structure has been changed
in the name of conformism.
So, all of us are conformists.
When Mukta approached me to come here and give a lecture,
I found out that even
Mr Javed Akhtar has given a lecture here.
So, I watched the video of the lecture
given by Mr Javed Akhtar.
How many of you have attended that lecture?
Did you hear it live?
Or did you watch a video of it?
If you heard it live, you must have forgotten it.
So, I'm going to take the liberty of stealing a few of his thoughts.
I'm just laying my cards on the table.
I was so impressed by his lecture that I'm sure
a few of his ideas might find their way inadvertently into my lecture.
Well, it could be deliberate too.
And a couple of his ideas might connect to my thoughts as well.
I'll let you know if that's the case.
What Mr Akhtar said was wonderful and that helped me...
Initially, I couldn't figure out
what to say on this subject.
I want to thank Mukta for inviting me here.
I'd also like to thank the Committee of Eradication of Blind Faith
for inviting me here.
So, this lecture is divided in three parts.
The first part is
my personal journey that started in childhood.
My own little quest towards becoming a sceptic.
How it all started?
How did I reach a point where I began to question
what faith exactly means?
And what science means...
So, in the first part, I will talk about my personal journey.
The second thing I'll talk about
is the clash between faith and science.
Are they really in conflict with each other
or do they complement each other?
If they do, how do they complement each other?
And in the third part,
which is the last part of this lecture, I will talk about
the responsibility of an artist in this society.
How can an artist
support rational thinking
and promote it in a society like ours?
How can an artist popularise it through his art?
So, that is the third part of the lecture.
Let's start with the first part.
Childhood.
Well...
Like most other Indians, even I was born in
an ordinary believer family.
A typical household with idols and pictures of deities.
The kind of family where they'd deter a child from doing something wrong
by instilling the fear of god.
So the idea of god is very perceptible in such families.
We felt as if god was present around us.
When we go to a temple,
we all feel a particular feeling
which we've been programmed to feel since childhood.
When you go to a temple, you might feel pure and pious.
You might feel at peace.
Since childhood,
in most Indian families,
an ambience is created in which
belief in god becomes a very natural instinct.
Faith becomes a natural thing.
God becomes a very prevalent entity in your life.
Whenever you do anything wrong they tell you, 'God is watching'.
It is used to discourage you from doing anything wrong.
Whenever you do something right, they tell you that god is happy.
Either your parents or teachers would tell you
that god appreciates you.
That was the case in my family too.
And also, I was always fond of stories.
So, I loved to read mythology.
I really enjoyed reading mythological tales.
Every time I read them, they created vivid images in my mind.
I used to imagine what god looked like.
Until I was about six or seven years old,
I used to read mythological tales
published in magazines like Chandamama where the stories
were accompanied by illustrations.
I had never seen an actual photo of god.
All I had were photos of my relatives.
The relatives who were no longer alive.
I was just a little boy.
One day, someone showed me a picture of Mahatma Gandhi
and told me that he was god.
I accepted it without question.
He certainly didn't look anything like the god I had imagined,
or the illustrations I had seen in Chandamama.
But I thought maybe that's what god looked like.
Then, someone told me
he used to live in Satyuga (The mythological age of truth).
They told me when he was alive it was the age of truth in India.
After a few years, I realised that he was alive
forty years before I was born.
I was really bummed to have missed
the age of truth by just forty years!
So, I believed that Gandhi was god for quite some time
because god is associated with positive things.
People associated positive things with Gandhi. So for me, he was god.
How did I get disillusioned?
First of all...
Since I liked reading books,
I began to read genres other than mythology.
Children often like reading books of mystery.
Conspiracy theories.
So, I read about the Bermuda Triangle.
I learnt that air planes disappear when they fly over it.
Then I read something about pyramids being built by aliens.
After that I read
about the mummies kept inside pyramids
that can curse people.
So, I read about a few mysterious things.
So, then, I realised that there is a world beyond gods.
There are aliens in this world who are not gods.
They're similar to us,
probably belonging to the middle class like us,
but from another planet.
So, I thought there were other beings that had shaped this world.
So, I realised there were other beings
apart from humans and gods in this world.
That's how I learnt about aliens.
Slowly and gradually, when I read further, I realised that
science has solved many mysteries of this world.
I realised that pyramids weren't as big a mystery
as they were made out to be.
People have come up with
many theories as to how they were built.
I realised that these mysteries had happened right in front of us.
The kind of mysteries in which humans took part.
These were the mysteries
in which humans had a role to play
and we were supposed to solve them on our own.
So, that got my mind to work in another direction.
After that, on 21 September 1995,
an interesting thing happened in India.
News spread like wildfire all throughout the country.
Idols of Lord Ganesha were found to be drinking milk.
It was a miracle. It was as if god had descended on earth.
It was as if god was telling us that he existed
and the entire nation believed it.
So, I went to see it too. I must have been
fifteen years old at the time. A friend accompanied me.
It was crowded everywhere.
Every temple was crowded.
Somehow, we fought our way into one of the temples.
And when we reached there,
I offered milk to the idol of god.
But god didn't drink it.
So my friend told me that I had malice in my heart.
So, I asked him
to give it a shot.
He tried and god didn't accept milk from him either.
I asked him if even he had malice in his heart.
He said it was because there was urea in his milk.
So, I told him that
if he is aware that urea could be present in milk,
then he should also know about the phenomenon of capillary action.
He knew half the science which reinforced his faith in god.
But he was not ready to accept that explanation of science
which threw light on the truth.
And...
By evening, on Doordarshan... At least, during that time,
our national television was liberal enough
to invite four scientists on the news panel.
They were invited for the news show at 9 pm.
And they explained the science behind the milk drinking miracle
through the phenomena of capillary action and surface tension of milk.
What appeared to be a miracle
wasn't really a miracle
but simple tenth-grade science.
So, at that time, Doordarshan used to do that.
Had this happened today, imagine what our news channels would do.
For about six days,
our news channels would be showing
milk boiling over on their green screens.
And one of their anchors would be deep diving into the milk
while holding on to his mic
and exalting the milk miracle and claiming
that the age of immortality is here!
Right?
So, that is the scenario today.
That brings another question to our mind.
Are we moving forward or backwards?
And if we're going backwards, by how much?
But this was the point
where I came to a realisation.
Science can solve many mysteries. It's a miracle in itself.
But behind that miracle
there is always a very simple and straightforward rationale.
Questions can take you far.
Moving on to the second part of this lecture.
Faith versus science.
Where did it start?
Is it really faith versus science or faith with science?
Where did it all start?
Here, I'd like to borrow a few of Mr Javed Akhtar's ideas.
It all started
about a hundred thousand years ago.
A time when none of us were present here.
When the human species didn't exist in this world.
Chimpanzees existed, which are our nearest ancestors.
Chimpanzees, gorillas... Basically apes.
Scientifically, they are known as the simian species, I think.
There was an error in the gene copying process.
When genes are transferred
from a parent to an offspring,
the genes are replicated.
Our genes contain all the information and that gets copied.
But there was an error in that process.
The most important thing to understand is that
we weren't supposed to be here.
We are an anomaly of nature.
We are a deviation.
But it happened and we came into existence.
That anomaly began to evolve.
Because of that anomaly,
which happened due to the error in the replication of genes,
we became different. How did we become different?
Our hands were shaped differently. We had a different kind of grip.
Our brain became bigger
compared to the rest of our body.
Humans have the biggest brain in proportion to their body weight.
Humans have the richest brain amongst all species.
We have the highest number of synapses in our brain.
All that happened due to the gene copying error.
After that, slowly and gradually,
we built a society. We made civilisations.
We learnt by observing animals, such as wolves,
that living in packs makes you more powerful
and increases your chances of survival.
We even...
We learnt from trees
that if we strive to live in harmony with nature,
we will grow and develop better.
We drew examples from animals around us.
And eventually, we began to live in communities.
We learnt how to farm and cultivate crops.
We realised we didn't need to hunt for sustenance.
We didn't need to lead a nomadic lifestyle.
Humans learnt to settle down.
With trial and error,
we learnt how to cultivate the crop which is the predecessor
of the wheat that we eat today.
That helped us comprehend that we could stay in one place
and lead a civilised and domestic life.
Then, we began to observe nature.
All animals did it.
But no other animal ever wondered
as to what caused the lightning to flash.
No other animal ever wondered why we died.
Even animals mourn the loss of their fellow species.
They show obvious signs of anger.
Many animal species have death rituals.
Crows have death rituals.
Many species of the simian race have death rituals.
Many species show signs of grief when they lose a member of their group.
However, they don't ask questions like...
What is life?
What is death? What causes it?
But humans asked such questions
because our brains had become bigger.
The connections in our brains made it easy for us to learn new things.
Our brains could pass down information.
The kind of information that...
Other species also pass on information to their progeny.
But they do it only for one generation.
Even they've been surviving for many generations,
but the information they pass down is very basic.
In humans, each generation began to pass on
the information they learnt to the next one.
And that information also involved many conscious questions.
These questions had begun to bother us.
are the first thing to which we connected faith.
We had too many questions but very few answers.
When we couldn't find answers, we encountered two kinds of people.
One kind started making efforts
to find the answers to those questions.
And the other kind were the ones who pretended...
Saying that they pretended would be unfair.
It is hard for us to determine their motives.
If I say that they were pretending to find answers,
it might paint them as cunning, which might not be true.
But these people certainly began to answer these questions.
They told everyone that they could communicate with beings that
belonged to the supernatural world.
They told everyone
that they were communicating with different kinds of gods.
And these gods either punish us or reward us.
So, faith is something that unified people.
That is because during that time people had many questions.
When you have too many questions,
you would accept any answer as long as it is a definitive answer.
If someone tells you what is right and what is wrong
and spares you the trouble of thinking for yourself,
it gives you the time to think about other things.
You're supposed to cultivate wheat, protect yourself from predators,
you have to ensure that your child
doesn't die of malnutrition.
So, they had many questions.
So, this has gone on since times immemorial.
Even in civilisations that existed five thousand years ago,
the position of a shaman,
or a priest
or the clergy was considered very high in the society.
In ancient Egyptian civilisation,
the priests came second only to the pharaohs.
That is because they were believed to communicate with the gods.
They began to give answers.
Along with that, it is also true, that it was the clergy...
Up until around 400 years ago,
it was these holy institutions, be it the Church, temples and mosques,
that funded scientific research.
It is true for every civilisation.
Aryabhata did it.
Take Al-Khwarizmi, for example,
who discovered algebra.
Take Michelangelo,
who painted the fresco of the Sistine Chapel.
Be it Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo or Copernicus,
they were all associated with
the religious institutions of that time.
They were funded by their religious institutions.
So, there was a time,
when faith had answers,
but maybe, it knew there were better answers out there.
Or that it could, at least, corroborate its answers
with the testimony of experts.
For example, a long time ago, it was believed
that the world was flat.
So, people tried to prove that theory.
Some tried to prove that theory, and others tried to disprove it.
Only one could be true.
The ones who believed that the earth was not round,
and that it was flat, and that there was an end to it...
When they left their homes to prove it,
they said their final goodbyes thinking they'd never return.
They thought they'd fall off the edge of the earth
while trying to prove the theory.
They probably hoped the world would be named after them.
If for instance, that person's name was Columbus,
he probably expected the earth to be named Columbus Flat Earth
if he fell off the edge.
They dreamt of such glory.
But with the course of time, science continued to advance.
Science was a child that was raised by faith.
But now, that child had grown up to be almost as tall as faith.
And that's how it began to clash with faith.
That's when faith realised that science was overstepping its bounds.
Many people were forced to eat their own words.
Many held on to their beliefs, despite being disproved.
And many suffered a lot of pain
in their quest to prove their theories.
Many were even executed.
But things changed in the past 300-400 years.
In the past 300-400 years, a few things happened
for which faith was not prepared.
Antibiotics, surgery,
the industrial revolution and apart from that, what we see today...
Advancements in the world of communication,
air planes and modes of transport...
These inventions made science great.
So, right now, the clash that you see,
doesn't exist only in our country.
It is a clash of huge proportions.
Many people call it the clash of civilisations,
but according to me,
it is a clash of two basic beliefs,
which are inherent in us.
And that conflict doesn't exist only in the outer world.
It's not as if two institutions are fighting with each other.
It is an internal conflict.
This clash is between two innate sensibilities
that have existed within us for years.
Some thirty or fifty thousand years ago, when the Neanderthal man,
or the first homo sapien came into being,
this potential conflict was already present within him.
And it has finally found an outlet.
That conflict was lying dormant all these years.
That is because we were busy with other things until now.
After all these years,
science and faith, both are proclaiming
that humans owe their lives to them alone.
So, that is where we are at loggerheads.
Moreover...
Along with that...
Here is where I'd like to add my personal views regarding faith.
Especially, regarding organised religion.
There are many paradoxes related to that.
The first one is something that even Mr Akhtar mentioned.
Higher energy.
You will find many people who say
that they don't believe in god but in a higher form of energy.
Many people say that. Many scientists, doctors,
especially, the ones who are educated, feel ashamed to say
that they believe in god.
They have come up
with this euphemism called higher energy.
They believe there is a power that makes the world go round.
The power that created this world.
I have a few questions for them.
How high is this higher energy?
And which are the things that it controls?
Is it controlling the whole world?
All the crime that is happening in this world,
and all the bad things that you see in the world.
Are they happening at its behest?
Or is the higher energy in charge of only good things in this world?
So, let's take this instance, for example.
Imagine a person who steals bread from a poor person
and gives the same bread to another poor person in the evening.
What action was the higher energy responsible for?
Only the second one?
What made the person commit the first deed?
Either that person did that action of his own accord,
or maybe there's a negative aspect to this higher energy
that made him do the wrong thing.
That means there are two kinds of higher energy.
So, its stature can't be that high.
That energy doesn't seem to have a lot of control.
Fine. If you say there are two kinds of energy, I'll accept it.
In that case, imagine a person who is doing
a neutral action, which is neither good nor bad.
Imagine that a person is sleeping.
What kind of energy is working on it? Is it a lazy higher energy?
The kind of energy that controls sleep.
Good actions are controlled by one kind of energy,
bad deeds are controlled by another kind.
At that rate,
we'll have at least a hundred higher energies.
It almost seems as if there's
an entire cabinet of higher energies up there.
And if there is indeed a cabinet for ever little errand that we run...
Considering the number of people on this earth right now...
I stopped counting ever since we touched a billion.
These words have lost their meaning now.
So many higher energies are controlling each second of your day.
Don't they have anything better to do?
These energies must be spending such boring lives.
Their job is literally to direct a human being to drink water.
'Your throat is parched. Drink water.'
So...
What kind of higher energy is it? That is the first question.
Secondly, it brings us to a central paradox.
It applies to every religion.
There is a central paradox
that applies to every organised religion.
And no one has been able to answer this question.
I've asked this question to many people.
Especially the ones who are not violent.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
So, I usually do my research before asking this question.
I test the person before asking such questions.
So...
I won't reveal the test to you.
So...
The central paradox
which applies to every organised religion is this.
Every religion says that their god made this world.
Their god made every leaf in this world.
Not just on this planet,
but in the entire universe, on every planet,
on every star,
everything that is tangible or intangible,
whether it is air, water or land...
Everything is created by their god.
Then how can you hate another person on the premise
that he follows another religion?
How does that make sense?
Even that other person is made by your god.
That...
Or are you telling me that your god made only those people
who follow your religion?
If that's the case, then we can conclude
that there are other gods who have created other people.
So, apparently, different gods have taken charge
of different geographical regions.
And not just on the basis of a country or a city,
or even a neighbourhood or market.
So, what exactly is going on?
If you believe that...
And I respect your belief
that your god made every human being on this earth.
I just want you to accept that your god also made all those people
who follow another religion.
It's just that they're using another method to worship god.
So, why do you hate them?
Why do you try to convert them to your faith or...
Why do you readily believe anything that paints the other person
in a bad light, even if it's fake news?
What instigates you to hurt them?
Why is it happening?
And it is happening with every religion.
Every religion seems to say
that they are better than other religions.
It was their god who made everyone.
But some people weren't made right,
and they think it's their job to fix them.
So, this paradox makes an important revelation.
People say
that god has created us
God has made us in his or her image.
But what we just talked about has made it clear
that in truth,
We have created god
and that's why our gods
are sometimes as angry,
or as generous,
or as clueless as us.
Sometimes.
That's why when one tries to propagate one's religion,
they're not trying to increase the stature of their god.
All they're trying to do is increase their own power.
Because they know they're as powerful
as the number of their followers.
And that is the central paradox,
which is something I have asked many people about
but have never got a satisfactory answer.
No one has explained as to why this happens
and how they are okay with it.
The next thing I'd like to discuss regarding science and religion is...
For quite a long time, faith and science
continued to walk hand in hand.
Faith tried to unify people.
But when it started lagging behind science,
especially in the last 300 years,
a frustration began to build amongst the proponents of organised faith.
I am specifically referring to supporters of blind faith.
They began to feel frustrated and angry.
What happened at that time is something that happens
in any kind of autocracy.
The moment it finds itself
getting weaker, it starts getting outraged.
And that's when they start spewing nonsense.
So...
That is what started to happen with faith and because of that,
it became even weaker than before.
Because the advocates of faith began to stress on purity.
That led to caste-based segregation,
religious segregation,
gender segregation
which gave rise to a lot of mistrust amongst people.
And that is how faith began to dig its own grave.
That is because science has a principle,
which is a principle of life.
And that is, we have reached at this point due to evolution.
And the fundamental rule of evolution is natural selection.
What is natural selection?
Any living being
will befriend, procreate and reproduce with another living being
which it finds to be the most powerful or attractive.
Basically, their most compatible counterpart.
It could be any of these qualities.
Every species does that. That is the law of nature.
If you go against nature...
If a person is forced to marry according to the laws made by man;
if one is forced to marry within one's religion, one's caste,
within one's country or race...
All these restrictions are anti-evolution.
It is making the humankind weaker.
Our race is getting weaker. And moreover,
even religion is getting weaker as an institution.
And because of that the next generation of advocates of religion,
is becoming less and less intelligent
with each consecutive generation.
That's why, you will observe,
that even those gurus who promote blind faith,
are getting stupider by the decade.
They no longer possess any sophistication or finesse.
These days, it has become very difficult
to tell a godman or a godwoman from an influencer.
It gets very hard to determine if that person is joking
or whether he or she has something worthwhile to say.
The godmen and godwomen from twenty years ago
were no different. They also had ulterior motives.
But it was hard to tell that they were fooling people.
They had to say something preposterous to break the illusion.
But these days, one look at them, and you know they're con artists.
All this is happening due to their insistence on purity
and the resultant limitations have given rise to a whole generation
that is more idiotic than the previous one.
So, this is how faith has
shot itself in the foot.
I'll give you a few examples.
In our country, there is an abundance of such instances.
COVID happened.
All over the world people were trying to find a vaccine for it.
People were taking action on a community level.
Practices like social distancing and wearing masks were advised.
But in our country, a new remedy was discovered each week.
One such remedy was to stay inside one's home
for twelve hours.
By evening, COVID would be gone. Just twelve hours.
The idea was to ghost COVID.
Don't take its calls.
Fool COVID into thinking that there's no one in this town.
Make COVID look for a different town.
Right?
Another instance was
when a minister advocated eating papad.
And not just any papad,
his advice was to eat the papad of the brand Bhabhiji.
I wouldn't eat the papad of that brand even during normal times.
Okay?
I had never heard of Bhabhiji papad before COVID happened.
Had he asked us to eat Lijjat papad,
I might have eaten it.
Even if it didn't cure COVID, at least, I'd have enjoyed eating it.
He asked us to eat Bhabhiji papad.
Another remedy was to roll oneself in mud.
One even suggested to apply cow dung all over the body.
They asked us to roll in mud
because they think the soil of our nation is so powerful that
it wouldn't let the virus enter our body.
I'll share an amazing story, which is true.
I don't know how many of you know of it. You can Google it.
Every word of what I'm about to tell you is true.
There was this man in Goa.
Right in the middle of the pandemic, when it was at its peak,
this man woke up one morning.
He had a dream about the COVID vaccine.
He dreamt of the vaccine formula.
What would a normal person do in such a scenario?
He would slap himself
and try to forget the dream.
But not this man.
He wrote a letter to the government.
He told them that he had a dream about the vaccine formula.
What should any normal government do in such a case?
They should send someone to slap this man
and ask him to forget about that dream.
Preferably, forbid that man from ever sleeping again.
They should've put those clips on his eyes
that prevent him from closing them or going to sleep ever again.
But what did our government do? Can you guess?
Our government sent a minister to meet that man.
The minister didn't call that man.
He didn't call because he was using the 12-hour ghosting remedy.
If he called, the COVID virus would have known someone was there.
So, he went there. This is a true story.
He went to Goa to meet that man.
He asked him about the formula that man saw in his dream.
That man didn't even have the decency to lie.
He didn't say that he had a research lab
where he came up with this formula.
He told the truth.
And sometimes, the truth is so amazing that
the Indian government decides to send its minister in person.
So, the minister went there and asked the man about the formula.
The man revealed the formula to the minister.
A dash of lemon juice,
a spoonful of ginger juice,
some garlic juice, a pinch of turmeric,
a few sprigs of curry leaves, coriander and mint...
Basically, all the things that are available for free...
He added them to the formula.
He was living in Goa. He just took the rum out of hot toddy.
The minister thought
it was a great formula.
What's the worst that could happen? So, he decided to test it.
This formula was sent to the lab by the government
to be tested.
All of this is a hundred percent true. I'm not making this up.
This happened during the peak of the pandemic.
So, the other countries of this world
defeated COVID with things like vaccine, community action
or practices like social distancing.
There was some kind of rational thinking involved.
We defeated COVID through sheer humiliation!
Every morning, when the COVID virus had its daily Zoom meeting,
this is what their global head would be saying.
'Listen, guys.'
'There's no need to panic.'
'Anything could happen. They could come up with the vaccine.'
'They've been at it for months.'
'A few of you might die because of the vaccine. But...'
'We are supposed to take over the world. Don't be scared.'
'There's no need to panic.' - 'Yes, boss!'
This could be heard from the fifty windows that were open on Zoom.
In the evening, when they again had their Zoom meeting,
all fifty of them could be seen covered in mud.
'Boss, you asked us not to be scared of the vaccine.'
'But this man'
'was rolling in mud and eating papad.'
'That too, uncooked papad.'
'He poured ginger and garlic juice on us.'
'We can't stay in this country. Please get us out of here.'
'We don't mind the vaccine.'
'You can send us to the AstraZeneca lab.'
'We don't mind being deployed inside the vat of that vaccine.'
'But we can't stand being covered in mud.'
That's how we defeated COVID.
Now, for the last part of the lecture.
What is the responsibility of an artist in such a situation?
What can an artist do?
An artist could do a lot. The first thing... Once again,
I'll allude to the origin of humanity.
Humans came into being due to a gene copy error.
What is the job of a gene? What is our purpose?
Why are we here?
We have many purposes.
We have found many purposes like making art...
We are supposed to cultivate crops.
Our purpose is to shut down civilized, sensible and rational narratives.
is to send our ministers to Goa
to enquire about someone's dream.
Martin Luther King Jr said, 'I have a dream'.
And the next person to say it was this guy from Goa.
Two people will be remembered in history for having a dream.
One person's dream changed the world,
and the other person's dream changed the ministry.
So, what's the purpose of a gene?
Gene has only one job.
What is hard-coded in every gene?
Neither faith, nor science is hard-coded in our genes.
There is only one thing hard-coded in every gene.
Survival and multiplication.
The first job is multiplication, survival comes later.
Multiplication... What does a gene want to do?
It wants to multiply.
Scientists still don't know why genes are hardwired to multiply.
But they are searching for answers.
What is the best thing about science?
It is constantly searching.
It is constantly asking questions.
Science...
Faith is a journey that starts with a doubt
and ends when an answer is found.
Faith is a journey from doubt to clarity.
What is science?
It is the journey from a doubt to a bigger doubt.
And from there to an even bigger doubt.
It is a more difficult journey.
That's why it seems harder. Who wants to work so hard?
Why ask so many questions? Faith has already given an answer.
Be satisfied.
God has made everything.
God giveth and god taketh away as well.
End of story.
Why does science do what it does?
Because survival and multiplication are hard-coded in our genes.
What does multiplication depend upon?
It depends on four important things.
The first thing it assesses are any probable threats.
It starts with questions like... Will the lightning hurt me?
If I eat this plant, will I die?
Threat assessment.
That is hard-coded in everything that we do.
It is the instinct of every animal.
The reptilian brain has the fight or flight response coded in it.
Imagine, for instance, this microphone falls
or this podium topples over.
Many of us will be shocked.
Many of us will be scared.
Even if it is far from you and can't hurt you, you'll get scared.
That is because our gene is programmed to assess threats.
Even if something falls far from us, it could be a threat.
So, our gene has the instinct for survival and multiplication.
So, the first thing we need is an answer.
We need answers to feel safe on this planet.
The second thing we need are stories.
Why does a gene need stories?
Because stories taught us how to communicate.
Many theories propound that we became humans because of
our ability to tell stories.
We coded information in our stories.
That is true for many religious books as well.
So much information was coded in our religious and mythological books
and passed down through the written or spoken word.
But in essence, it is information for the next generation.
Stories are very important for survival and gene multiplication.
The third important thing is community building.
One has better chances of survival in a community.
Humans saw how wolves survived
by staying in packs.
They are not even scared of lions when they're together.
A pack of wolves can even drive away a lion.
That is what we learnt from wolves. We learnt
a few good things from wolves and a few bad things too.
We didn't observe that wolves don't ask deer
to become wolves like them.
But when we built communities we tried to homogenise people.
That is an example of human stupidity.
The third thing is community which helps in survival.
The fourth thing
is something that is very strange,
but true.
What we need for survival is a sense of surrender.
What happens when you surrender?
It helps calm our nerves.
We feel reassured.
It helps us remain calm.
A sense of surrender is very important.
That is why we came up with the notion
of god, faith, religion and what not.
But if you observe keenly, you will realise
that even science gives you the ability to surrender.
We just don't consider it surrendering.
If you have a fever,
you will take a tablet of paracetamol.
You will immediately pop an analgesic.
If you are from Goa, you might be squeezing a lemon in your mouth.
Nevertheless...
An attitude of surrender doesn't let fear creep inside you.
The moment your fever touches 101°F,
you will pop a pill knowing you'd be fine by the next morning.
You surrender to its effect.
Many scientific phenomena allow you...
You are sitting on your chair and you know that you won't fall.
That is because the chair has been made through a scientific method.
You are sitting under this roof without any fear.
All that is because of science.
Science has given us so much that we can't begin to fathom it.
We don't even realise it consciously.
So many people... Let's say, for instance...
Until now, there have been... I'm just saying a random number.
Let's say there have been about fifty...
Let's say fifty trillion people have been on this earth,
ever since the Neanderthal man came into being.
Counting all our ancestors
and all the people who have been on earth till now.
Many of them go their entire lives without realising
this simple and basic scientific fact.
Our eyes can't see in three dimensions.
What might appear as three dimensional is not in fact that.
Our eyes can see only in 2D.
They're like two different cameras.
One camera cannot capture three dimensional images.
No matter how advanced the camera is,
one single camera can't capture 3D images.
You have to wear special 3D glasses to build that perception.
The same kind of glasses that you wear in 3D movies.
Those 3D glasses are inbuilt in us.
Of course, they're not glasses,
or some kind of equipment inside us.
That perception is built simply by our brain and two nerves in it.
The two eyes that capture 2D images
are merged by the brain through a phenomenon called
stereoscopic vision.
That is why we believe that we can see everything in 3D.
What a wonderful thing of science that we're naturally equipped with!
Even if we don't know it,
this scientific principle exists within us.
And we have surrendered to this scientific principle completely.
We are not even aware of it.
We automatically believe that we have 3D vision.
Which is not true.
So, four things are necessary.
Answers, stories, community and a sense of surrender.
They are necessary for you to feel normal and safe in life
and by extension, for gene multiplication.
If you observe closely, even faith offers us
the same things as science.
Faith also gives us these four things.
They both employ different methods.
When science gives answers,
it gives tough answers sometimes.
One has to work hard to find these answers.
Faith gives answers that are easy to accept.
Not every person has access to science.
Many people understand such things only through faith.
As artists, it is our duty
to keep interacting with faith.
We have to make it better by instilling rational thinking in it.
We have to tell faith that it is very powerful,
and has many followers.
That is because faith has answers.
People surrender to it.
People come to faith with bowed heads
and a readiness to accept any answer.
People listen to what faith has to say with utmost devotion.
They will accept anything faith says to be true.
So, faith has a huge responsibility on its shoulders.
They can either use this power for good or for bad.
But as artists,
our job is to create a bridge between faith and science.
Science is very busy in its own world.
I believe science has this inherent arrogance.
Science believes it is above everyone,
while everyone is beneath it.
You see its arrogance in its technical terms and language.
Scientists are busy in their own world.
They have not made enough efforts
to make science simpler to understand for the common man.
And now... Not just in our country, but all over the world,
there are establishments that have a lot to gain by not letting
the common people have access to science.
Many scientists...
Many scientific institutions and even artistic institutions
are falling prey to such machinations.
Their voices are stifled
so that people wouldn't hear them.
They are preventing us from bridging the gap
between science and faith.
That is their biggest fear.
So, artists can bridge this gap.
And...
Artists can do one more thing.
And that is to explain to people
that empathy, compassion and love
are as powerful as rational thinking.
If you communicate with love and empathy through your art...
Whether you read Manto, Amrita Pritam or Kafka,
all of whom have a different perspective of this world
and the human condition...
There is a compassion in their writing
and that makes you a better person.
That is the power of art.
Because, in a way, art is impartial.
Science and faith, each has chosen a side.
But art and artists are impartial.
Art has the ability to bring a lot of information
to the common man through storytelling.
It has the ability to be neutral, so that people could be reassured
that it doesn't have an agenda.
Art shouldn't even have an agenda.
It is not supposed to put one thing on a pedestal and topple the other.
An artist's agenda should only be to ensure
that there is humanity.
I will end my talk with one such example.
It is the story of an artist.
There is a very famous novel written by Albert Camus called
The Plague.
In that story, there is a village. An island, in fact.
Plague spreads all over that town.
Many people start dying.
People who could leave the island, do it when they could.
Only a few people are left on that island eventually,
of which there were two people in particular.
One was a priest and the other was a doctor.
Both were helping people in their own way.
The doctor tried saving as many lives as he could.
Both were at the risk of contracting the plague.
It is a very contagious disease.
Both were at the risk of getting infected and dying.
Both had the option of leaving, but they both chose to stay.
Both continued to help people in their own way.
If a person was dying, the priest used to help them
perform the last rites.
He used to tell them what they'd encounter in the afterlife.
He even used to help the doctor carry patients or deliver medicines.
Both were serving people.
One day, the priest asked the doctor.
'I am doing this because it is the work of God.'
'I am doing it because God approves of it.'
'Why are you still here? Why don't you leave?'.
What the doctor says to him
is very important, according to me.
The doctor tells the priest,
'I'm doing this because I am a human.'
'And human beings are decent people.'.
That is his only answer.
We are good people.
We can be better.
We are intelligent beings.
We are sentient.
We have a conscience and the ability to think rationally.
All we need to do is understand it
and bring it forth.
Thank you.
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