The Significance of small Things
There was a month long strike by
waste collectors in London during what came to be known as The Winter of Discontent, 1978–79, when almost every union went
on strike for better pays. I saw the
rubbish bags pile up on the streets till it became difficult for people to go
to their offices.
It made me realize that in any
society, every role is equally important. One can imagine a society like an
intricately patterned carpet where a missing thread renders the carpet
worthless.
19 C Romantic Poetry celebrated the “violet by a mossy stone, half
hidden from the eye”, the village blacksmith, village school master, or
London’s chimney sweeps. In the 20th
C it became Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine, Steptoe and Son, cheerful characters
who found joy in small things
We usually interpret this span from
insignificant to splendid in the context of social injustice, Marxism’s rich poor divide, the monumental and the
ordinary. Rousseau declared ‘Man is born free,
and everywhere he is in chains.’ But perhaps the chains are synapses,
connective tissue of society, the threads that make the perfect pattern.
It has the significance of
dependence and interdependence, which is equally pivotal to a functioning society
as it is in nature. There is nothing extraneous in nature – everything has its role
even if we are not immediately conscious of it.
The Rajas and Maharajahs provided
food and lodging to the weavers in return for an annual supply of woven goods
when the barani crops had come to an end. - a social symbiosis. The Taj Mahal
only came into existence because, while someone had the idea and the funds, there were large teams of nameless craftsmen
who had perfected their skills over generations.
The traditional caste system is
seen as an unjust, excluding hierarchy.
Another way of looking at is through the lens of division of labour,
where roles were assigned for a practical purpose. Its another matter that it
became perverted with the idea of privilege.
In Pakistan, there is a general
consensus that success means becoming a CEO or powerful politician, and
everything less that that is a life of failed aspiration. There is little value
placed on the role of the small person – the watchman, the lift operator, the
teaboy in ensuring the smooth working of a corporate business. This is not a
class commentary, or a political statement of injustice, but an understanding
of the sum of all the parts making the whole.
When studying sculpture, we were
told that what we need to concentrate on was not the larger scale of the work, but
the intersections, the endings, the flow of the eye across the form.
As children we were fascinated by James Weldon Johnson’s spiritual
song “Knee bone connected to the thigh bone, Thigh bone connected to the hip
bone, Hip bone connected to the back bone” and so on, which is a lighthearted way of highlighting the interlinked nature of
life .
A button stitched a few millimeters
out can ruin a shirt. When the Burj ul Arab was being constructed, work was
stopped to find the mistake that was making the tower lean, which turned out to
be a half inch inaccuracy on one of the lower floors. Nature is the best
teacher of this principle: a you tube video is doing the rounds of how the introduction
of wolves into Yosemite Park, USA, revived its complex ecosystem.
The Japanese understand the significance of small things. Possibly
the most technically advanced nation, it is also the most connected to nature
and tradition. This is evidenced not
just through the exquisite gardens for contemplation, or ikebana flower decoration, but also
monozukuri, the art of manufacturing with “extreme attention to the perfection
of every possible detail — no matter the purpose of the product or how small or
easily unnoticed it would be to the consumer ”.
This philosophy translates into everyday attitudes as the case of
the train that stopped in a remote Japanese station, only to pick up just one
child until she graduated from high school .
It is something that was once an integral part of South Asian
crafts, architecture, design and language, but has since, with a few
exceptions, gathered layers of the dust of neglect. Pride in excellence is dependent on patronage
– whether that of a humble villager or the elite of society.
The theory of Complexity suggests that collective properties are
acquired only when all the elements come together, no matter how small. A single molecule of H2O has none of the
properties of water that only emerges when millions of molecules combine.
“Design lies in the detailing”, is a phrase many students will be
familiar with. Behind this lies the implication of a more basic truth: that
every element matters, whether that element is a person, a skill, the details
of a government policy. Neither top down, nor bottom up, but self-organizing
and adaptive responding to the slightest of changes much like a formation of
flying birds.
Durriya Kazi
Karachi, May 2017
Comments
Post a Comment