I will begin with a simple story. On a full moon day we, that is the family and the house-help, were sitting together on the terrace drinking coffee. The house-help was elderly, a granny. In the course of conversation she said, "Back in the village we girls used to sit out like this playing at counting stars. While counting, we would forget which star we had started with. We didn't know where to start and where to end. We would get so confused that we would end up laughing at ourselves."



This is a somewhat representative story. As children we are eager to count the stars in the sky, but no method for doing so is at hand. We want to clean rivers. What is the method? We want to clean the city. What is the method? We want to regulate the traffic. What is the method? We want to root out corruption. What is the method?



The big Indian problem is that we do not look for methods.



Phalke saw a film in Mumbai. He became obsessed, went to England, studied cinematography, came back and made a film. Go to the west – America – learn, come back and do. This has become our method. That is how democracy came to us. Dress and customs came to us. If the west does not give us the know-how, we go to the basic concept and develop it. We call it, "completely Indian-made rocket." Re-search has been the way ever since India became independent. This has happened in literature too. It is re-search all the way from existentialism and absurdism to post-modernism.



Preserving our culture



This gave rise to the question, so what is ours? The answer was, it is alright to import technology and suchlike things, but we must preserve our culture. This gave rise to ideas like there was calculus in the Vedas, there was aeronautics in the Vedas, Ganapati is an example of plastic surgery. So now we have begun re-searching the Vedas and the puranas. Indians have become habituated to "re-search". The habit of "search" has refused to form.



In literature, so far at least, old Indian texts are not being re-searched and held up before us as exemplars; but neither is search going on. Indian literature is thus only a reproduction of reality. Literature is a depiction of what is known. It is not surprising that society does not find such literature interesting. But literature is held up as the sign of an advanced culture. The state has created schemes to encourage literature and help its dissemination. There are awards for literature. Literary conferences are organised at many levels. There are other events like book launches, readings from fiction and poetry and seminars. What is missing from the whole of Maharashtra are up-to-date libraries. No political party has libraries on its agenda; nor do industrialists attach any importance to them.



When society has time, it humbly dips into literature. As long as literature is meek, yes meek, society lets it be. But if it departs from meekness, then certain elements of society rise in anger and set about teaching it a lesson. They say, "We must preserve our culture." The rest of society does not meddle in this. The state does not meddle in this.



What is the rest of society doing? It is worrying about its finances, its physical health, its family, its safety. And what is the State doing? It is looking for a way in which it can take along casteism, religion, economic transactions, the wish to be strong, the desire to lead the world, cleaning rivers, creating smart cities, producing new jobs, going to the moon, industrialisation, agriculture, the share market, the Padma awards and leaders' statues, so that it may retain power while warning opponents against politicising issues. It is looking for a way, not answers. It is necessary to search in order to find answers.



Society and the state secretly believe that literature is not useful in solving society's problems. Openly they say only science can solve social problems. Society and the state use the word science when they actually mean technology. Technology is seen as science. A technologist is called a scientist.



Society's needs



Our society's first need is to solve material problems. Its second need is religion. Society wants religious rituals. It also wants the philosophical principles of religion, that is spirituality. People lose themselves in spirituality. Science and literature are fourth and fifth needs. It is generally accepted that no religious principles can help clean rivers and towns. But this has been accepted secretly.



Let us take the example of greed, one of the six passions that beset human beings. Every religion teaches that greed is wrong. In Indian society, greed has led to the problem of financial corruption. How is greed to be overcome? What is the method for doing that? People do not have the answer. Religion does not help in stopping financial corruption. The non-religious way to overcome it is to search for a governing system that will not allow corruption to take root. Has Indian society managed to find a system that will not allow corruption to operate? The answer has to be no. Indian society is caught in the pathetic condition of not finding religion useful for material problems like cleaning rivers and towns, fighting corruption, and regulating traffic, and not being able to find a non-religious way to do it either.



As a result we are offered symbolic and educational solutions. The culture of searching has simply not taken root in Indian civilisation. Re-search has been its way for years. Progress is what comes with re-searching what is already known in the world, whether it is technology, philosophy or literature.



What is it to search? What does one search for? The answer is easy. You search for what is not known. The unknown is not what one individual does not know. It is what humankind does not know. The search is for what is not known to human kind. It is not a matter of merely searching. The search must lead to discovery. The idea of search into the unknown is a thrilling fantasy. But the unknown is associated with things on the ground, with human beings, the universe, life.



The human being is still not fully known. The universe is still not fully known. What is life is still not fully known. What is Man? What is the universe? What is the meaning of life? Much of this is unknown. Unknown to human beings. It is this that must be searched.



The Indian quest



Is the unknown being searched in Indian civilisation? It is not. One reason given for this is the poverty of imagination. When search becomes subservient to everyday life, it is not search at all. It is re-search. Search is search when it becomes a 24-hour preoccupation to which everyday life is subservient. Re-search is a transaction of our external lives. Search is a transaction of the internal mind. The mind senses an aspect of the unknown through intuition. If this aspect is merely disclosed, it becomes a revelation. An intuited hunch must be followed to its logical end and proved as true. You need to use the faculty of reason for this. When intuition and reason work together to search the unknown, they create a discipline of knowledge. Is such a search into the unknown not happening in Indian society? The answer is no. Is it the belief of Indian society that there is nothing like the unknown? People of all religions believe that whatever there is to know has already been discovered by religion.



If an example is to be taken, let us ask what is death. Every religion has an answer to this question. And yet every person encounters half-a-dozen events in her/his life when the question what is death raises its head anew. An individual is looking for a fresh answer. Religion has answers for questions like what is the universe? What is the meaning of life? And yet human beings ask themselves these questions repeatedly. This means that the need for search is alive in them. But if the questions do not enter the inner mind, search is aborted. If passions enter the inner mind, they pervert the human being. If a search for the unknown enters the human mind, it makes a human being creative.



Human beings fear allowing questions to enter their inner minds, because it is very painful to have them there. This pain is more intense than any other pain that we may experience physically or on the surface of the mind. Do Indians wish to avoid this pain?



Some problems



There is another side to this question. Indian civilisation appears to have decided that search is not possible when your financial state is not stable. If you look at the history of discoveries, it is obvious that this theory is patently false. The Indian condition is still not conducive to search. Whoever wants to search must do so under their own steam. Human history, Indian history are replete with examples of this. Even if they are not, there is no reason why such examples should not be created. The search into the unknown is never undertaken by a collective. Society is eager to know the unknown; but the search itself must be conducted by individuals. This is not a question of collectivism versus individualism. It is a question of the work that the collective does and the work that the individual does. The individual searches and hands over the result to society. Culture is born of the search into the unknown. Culture helps develop ways of life, a civilisation, traditions. Traditions are not to be preserved; nor are they to be deliberately broken. They are to be reformed by making the unknown known.



Fiction must seek what is unknown to humkankind. No new religions have been established for centuries. The old religions continue to exist. And yet individuals want to discover who they are, their selfhood. Literature must aid individuals in finding their selfhood. Indeed, one may assert that literature is in fact inspired by the idea that human beings are looking for themselves. It is from this complex situation that the philosophy of literature is born. A forward-looking culture needs a literature that creates philosophy. Everyone should accept this challenge. I do so too.



Finally let me make a wish for all of us, including myself. Forget world writers like Marquez, Pamuk, Saramago and the rest. Forget Marathi writers like Nemade and Shyam Manohar. Forget Tendulkar and Satish Alekar. Forget Arun Kolatkar and Salil Wagh. Forget the novel, the short story, poetry and drama. Use every aspect of human civilisation including language, to discover something that is unknown to mankind. Don't stop at mere search. It is important to go further and discover. Understand that it is your responsibility alone to discover. Put aside spirituality and discover the process by which the ego may be eliminated. And yes. All of this must happen in the inner mind. It is natural for questions to enter the inner mind. If the inner mind is cluttered with inessentials, then the way in is obstructed. Push such clutter to where it belongs – to the outer mind. Allow questions to reside in the inner mind. Endure the pain of it. That is when you begin to sense the creative impulse. Let creativity prove itself. Proof is important. Use reason to get there. Using reason is a mechanical process that is physically stressful.



Literature that is created in this way is original. Musicians will set it to melody; directors will put it on stage and screen; critics will remake literary forms.



Translated from the Marathi by Shanta Gokhale.



Shyam Manohar was awarded a lifetime achievement award for literature by the Maharashtra Foundation earlier this year. This was his acceptance speech.



