BIG BROTHER

BIG BROTHER


“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.”
I wonder how these words affect you at the first encounter. Honestly speaking, for me, it meant something divine, combined with the beauty of nature. Now I know how ironical it would appear to them who have read George Orwell’s 1984. but the time when I came across Big Brother for the first time, I was not acquainted with such things. Nor I was so much accustomed to an aloof or objective thinking about the darker side of life.
Actually I was just out of Orwell’s “Animal Farm” when it happened. I was sitting in a P.C.O. when a three rupee photo encountered my eyes. Four white horses standing in a lush green field, looking at something and a black line reading- BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. All the phones were busy and I was sitting ideal. Thinking something. Probably something that I wanted to do. When this happened, I am not so sure. My rational mind was grappling with the question of big brother. “what this big brother can mean?” horses don’t have big brother. They are animals and not intelligent or wise enough to maintain such relations. Second, all four can not have the same big brother. Third, the parents and children relation also ends among them after a long separation.. my applied wisdom gave me a quick and appealing solution-GOD. now it was – BIG BRITHER(GOD) IS WTCHING YOU. I felt satisfied. I took a phone set and dialed to my father. “all the lines to this route are busy. Please try after some time.” a sweet, computerized female sound failed all my attempts. I found the booth operator a bit irritated. I thought it better to try after some time. I was feeling a bit irritated, as I had not talked to my father for a long time. I was again looking at those horses. A felt a crack appearing in my divine and beautiful solution. God has a father’s image. Then how he could be a brother! It locked a plausible question.
Man is instinctively curious and restless(second quality is comparatively less universal and neither is really universal). Probably, restless because he is curious. It was this curiosity that put the enormous weight of this sky on the shoulders of Atlas or the Hood of some snake or something else. And, later on, disburdened them in a course of many centuries when Einstein was able to hold everything on his single theory. I went back to the photo again. The watching “BIG BROTHER” was nowhere in it. Did the person adding this line know this thing? A “may be” could have solved my problem. But I knew it was not such. I had to go on with my reasoning to find that big brother.
I have a great faith in the dynamic nature of this world. From our Upanishad age to the modern times, it is stated and echoed everywhere. Don’t you remember Nehru’s ideal society that keeps changing and improving with the course of time? I know that many of us are thinking about Gandhi’s Ram Rajya, the final culmination of an ideal state. But I believe that we can improve upon that. That was the best or ideal for that time. But in the changed and rapidly changing scenario the ideal must be rethought and redrawn.
How “BIG BROTHER” fits in this dynamic course. Let me attempt. First there was an imaginary sketch of the big brother. They had some very different language and therefore their BIG BROTHER was also different. They feasted, they reveled, they enjoyed around him. Humankind’s first consciousness might have come with its self-conscious differentiation from the animals. Therefore, it had an innate tendency of developing itself different from the animals. A laboured move towards the cultivation of sophistication. BIG BROTHER could not be left behind. Sketching was quite simple and everyone was capable of doing this. Second, from distance all the sketches looked alike- having similar features. In a more sophisticated world some proposed the idea of painting big brother. A nicely drawn image. Painted with charming colours and all the bodily features portrayed with precise accuracy. Not everyone was capable of doing this. A selected few took the charge. But this change was not so smooth or simple. The idea of sketching was still alive and some people often resorted to that. It caused some conflict and some quite new phenomena. One of them was the popularity competition. Person whose BIG BROTHER was liked the most was given the sole charge or authority of sketching or painting. Usually one from the sophisticated painters rose to this position. Time was moving and some of the painters were trying hard to bring some innovation. A two-dimensional portrayal was not giving enough space for showing their art. Further they wanted to adorn BIG BROTHER with all the possible positive attributes. While the expertise for this artisanship was limited to very few, it required much bigger amount of labour. The painters without this expertise were opposing the very idea of statue making. The experts found a solution. the other painters were given the office of selecting and hiring labourers for the statue making. They built bigger and bigger statues. One was so big that people almost fell down when trying to see its face while standing at its feet. one day some fingers in its feet were missing. The fear of sketch lovers returned. Very next day a large number of people was hired to protect the statues. Painters in the office were also getting a big portion of total work. Now, the cost involved in all these could not be ignored for a long time. It was found difficult to pay for all these without getting some new resources. Painters painted some cheaper “BIG BROTHER” – bringing honour to everyone, caring and loving everyone, sustaining everyone. Even the starving beggars felt thrilled. And they found what they wanted-“ human resource”. But this was not that enough. BIG BROTHER needed to do something more. And suddenly his statues started disappearing. statue makers said that ‘big brother’ had become invisible and now he was everywhere, every time. He was in the books, he was in the labs. From theatre to bedroom, big brother was everywhere. Some drunk people blabbered that they didn’t believed in big brother. Next day alcohol disappeared from the market and the drunkards also started believing in big brother. Alcohol. Returned gradually but always with a symbol of BIG BROTHER.
Now , in all this about BIG BROTHER I totally forgot about a quality what I said to be innate in the mankind- a self conscious cultivation of sophistication. While BIG BOSS was going through all the transformations, this innate quality also faced a big change. By the time painting gained upper hand, it was extracted from the individual consciousness and placed at some secret , official space. This was to save it from any corruption. Whenever any new sophistication developed, some painter copied it and displayed in the public. This display came be centered around the center. It had a limited viewership and, hence, limited imitation. Those working in the fields or mines had no time to see these, nor any money to afford. Rich and poor were there and sophistication remained with its rightful clients.
BIG BROTHER had come everywhere. Some people challenged his authenticity and authority. They said that all this was a big drama, played by the selected few. Mental asylums and hospitals took care of them. Mentally retarded, those people, understood the power of BIG BROTHER with every shock.
Freed from the three dimensional existence, BIG BROTHER achieved an even higher existence. He moved into a four dimensional existence- sort of time space. Everything else was inside him and he was inside every thing. Only thing differentiating from god was tat he was not other- worldly. His blessings came in the form of good governance, security against all the threats from within or outside, promise for a better life if the present was not so good, consolation that the bad was not really so bad and much better than the worst. Persecution, exclusion and marginalization, elimination- these were the results of big brother’s wrath.
“Every person should know the law of his land.”
Everyone knew “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.”
I was quite satisfied with my theoretical odyssey when something struck me. Animals did not have the same journey of consciousness. I had left them with nature- still naked and still in contact. And it was the solution. Those horses were watched by nature while they were watching and enjoying its beauty and graces. I felt jealous. I watched a romantic-comedy film with my girl friend, ate in a restaurant, and went to disco. I did everything possible to fill a vacuum growing inside me.
I was understanding BIG BROTHER now.