Jekyll and Hyde: The Good, The Bad, The Human

The good and bad that coexists within a single human shell is something that philosophy and literature have long been exploring. While it is mostly undisputed that both these elements do exist simultaneously in each being, some schools of thought argue that circumstances sprout evil in people; others claim humans have an innate tendency to be aggressive but are bound by the laws of civilization and society to keep the beast within leashed.

Of the latter, the most influential and interesting in my knowledge has been Freud who claimed that the drive to aggress is deeply rooted in the psyche and thus independent of circumstances. As a result people have an innate desire or need to inflict harm or damage and this desire needs to be fulfilled periodically, in one form or the other. He went as far as to regard self control as a form of aggression, as one deprives oneself of other satisfactions via restraints. Thus, self control was an effective but costly way of inflicting self damage to quench a need which might otherwise translate to harm on another.

Be it films or literature, there are a lot of works existent and upcoming that endeavour to explore this topic. RL Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde (of course of which Hulk was not a total ripoff of ), William Golding's Lord of the flies that tries to understand the conflict between the instinct for savagery and the construct of civilization that aims to the contain the former, Padmarajan's Jayakrishnan of Thoovanathumbikal who leads a dual life reserving carnal pleasures for the city away from his daily societal acquaintances and family in the village, David Fincher's Tyler Durden of the Fight Club, or the very recent and spectacular Jallikkettu from Lijo Jose Pellissery are a few I can recollect from the top of my head.

         

Originally published in 1886, Jekyll and Hyde was a book of such controversial nature that book shop owners outrightedly rejected stocking it. An initial narration by the author to his wife ends with the manuscript burning in the fireplace. This was though Stevenson omits any gory details on the kind of misdeeds committed by Mr. Edward Hyde, the  evil alter ego of the respected Dr. Henry Jekyll, described as someone who could be approached by none "without a visible misgiving of the flesh". This he conjectures is because all human beings are usually made of good and bad, "but Hyde alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil". But to Jekyll, the creator, Hyde was a part of himself and as he looked upon the ugly idol in the glass on which "evil had left an imprint of decay and deformity", he could feel no repugnance, only a leap of welcome.

The novella of hardly a hundred pages, explores the predicament of the doctor at length, torn between being himself in Mr. Hyde and the fear of exposing and endangering himself from the society that tries to cage  the Hydes that exist within and around themselves. 

It must be apparent from all the direct quotes above that I am already a fan of the writing.  While descriptive, it is succint. While verbose, it isn't forced. If you have a day or two to spare and is in search of a good read to get those grey cells exercised, this may just be it.

Ardhra Prakash

(16th October 2019)

Unlearning

Picture Courtesy: Vaibhavi Garge

Air quotes naturally accompany our every utterance of the name Eengapuzha village. 24 square kilometres in area, with a mostly non agrarian populace of over 18,000 people and thus already way outside the scope of the census definition of rural, this not so quaint town was our allotted "village" for Village Field Segment of our curriculum. It stood out starkly from all the other villages we had visited as part of the PGDRM program at IRMA and not without reason. The village had wide, tarred roads, around 4200 households that mostly had multi-storeyed homes, owned at least one car, had access to specialized medical facilities including a dialysis centre, an array of commercial eateries, and even housed a mostly lively, mall.

But the most traumatized by this were my companions, two very enterprising intellectuals who had just hard earned their undergraduation degrees from TISS, after three years of serving the poorest of the poor in West and Central Indian villages, occasionally risking their lives and jumping fences to access the only toilet in the region in order to avoid open defecation.

The first two days of our stay in a mansion like accommodation on-field, only involved us trying to make sense of how we were to design a village development report given the place seemed nothing like a village. Another concern was how no picture clicked in the vicinity would convey rurality, along the lines of what we were taught in college. So, imagine how ecstatic all three of us found ourselves to be when we chanced upon a muddy inroad, with no traces of tarring intact and interspersed with as many potholes as to our heart’s content. Add to this, there were no signs of any wealthy inhabitation or economic development marring the frame. We snapped away to glory until one of us pointed out our behaviour was bizarre to say the least.

This is precisely why this photograph is important to us as a team of prospective rural managers. That when faced with something unlike our typical understanding of the concept, rather than appreciating the welcome deviation from the rule that Indian villages had to be the hubs of poverty and underdevelopment, and analysing the fundamental ways the transformation was achieved, we were in frantic search of any element, however small, how much ever an exception, that would cement our pre existing notion of how things had to be. So, as the sky darkened around us, we revelled at how the potholes in the pictures reflected the pretty dusk clouds and agreed how our sadistic selves should be acknowledging the accomplishments of underdogs more often.

Ardhra Prakash

(9th October,2019)

Take a left where the map says right

Where are we even headed to?

Moving at the speed of light

So numbed down, 

we hardly feel the flight.

Driving around in a maze

Pretending we could trust the map

Handed to us, so we're stuck in this loop, 

wearied out, lobotomized.

Tinted windows never rolled down

Too afraid to let the wind ramble

For it might tell you truths that hurt

Truths you block out, for comfort. 

Never letting the naked eye see

Zombies behind a camera lens

Painting dull frames with pretty hues

Thank God for filters that mask the blues. 

Building walls around you thick and high

Of caste, of colour and injected hate. 

Pointing a gun at the figure ahead

Not knowing it's you on a shadow screen. 

Never the sail fully opened out

Too scared the wind might slow you down

Or take you to waters not marked out

To islands that don't house your tepid towns.

Scared to stop for even just a while

Lest you fall behind on track

What a shame it would be to slack

To not be part of the winning pack. 

But it is a race you can never win

You're always short by a foot, by an inch. 

And if you reach the mountain top

There are higher ones to climb, to scour.

This is a game you can never win

Designed to make you think you can. 

So sit back, relax, 

Roll down that glass

Feel the wind as it knots your hair

Listen to it sing, open your ears. 

Take a left where the map says right

Learn to let go of things you were told to hold tight. 

One day may be you'll reach somewhere

From where you needn't run in despair.

- Ardhra Prakash
 (July, 2019)

Belonging

I don't really understand it when people talk of wanting to belong. 

I like being a tourist

Fleeting past people and places

Backpack on, water bottle on the side, a sling bag with the essentials

All that I need for a few days to come.

I like being a tourist

I like meeting the strangest of people and 

pretending not to understand a word they say to avoid a conversation

I smile and nod and look away

I couldn't do that to my own

I wouldn't have homes to come back to then. 

I like being a tourist

To not be part of anybody's world

But be a visitor

To see you put on your best behavior for me 

Or sometimes even be ignored

With no burden of a meeting ever again

No burden of the need to collect favors for a rainy day.

I like being a tourist

Thinking passively about a home I collect souvenirs for

A home I can't wait to get away from

And a home I can't wait to get back to

Only to want out again.

Am I even a tourist, but? 

What is my destination? 

Does it matter where I am heading?

As long as I have the open road ahead of me 

And quick change to get me by

And a home to head back to

Do I even need to introspect?

It doesn't matter where I go, what I do, 

It's this few hours of detachment that counts.

This freedom and the high it brings. 

The freedom of not having to belong
The freedom of not having to perform

The freedom of not being a guest at your own home

The freedom of being just someone you meet in a bus

Only to forget.

- Ardhra Prakash

  (February, 2019)