A naive person gets easily attracted to the ‘black and white’ primarily because it provides simple solutions to all the complexities. The black and white attraction is eternal. A traditional story would begin with a war between god and demon or good and evil to end it with god or godliness winning over demon or evil. Such oppositional categorization of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has continued in the modern states by stereotyping citizenship as national and anti-national. I call this black and white attitude; an easy-opening into the realm of reality. It confines everything into this or that, what is or what is not. With the black and white approach, one is not required to be critical, investigative or argumentative. This approach can be seen in the incessant piling up of nostalgic moments in personal or community life. An authoritative state/non-state power structure would always be seduced by such reductive approach.

Ironically, the breaking of stereotypes is possible only after acknowledging the stereotypes. We could make it possible by typecasting two colours and taking them further by mixing them up for a spectrum. The ‘B/W’ edition gives an opportunity to share the processes of typecasting, mixing, and presenting a spectrum while getting entangled, as Sarita Chouhan suggests in her contribution. The contributing artists, writers, and scholars of the 8th edition of हाकारा । hākārā are happy and open in taking such opportunity. 

A discussion on the black and white would begin with it being an image, a visual of two colours. We experience black and white in our day to day life: in comparison to each other, other colours and in interaction with light. In a beautifully documented personal journey with the black and white, Jigisha Bhattacharya writes, “I had a filmmaker uncle who always used to wear black clothes much to my father’s irritation; my imagination would always struggle to find how he finds the black clothes in the dark corner of his wardrobe, after all? Did he always have to put them in between a red T-shirt and a yellow to find where he had kept them? Did he fix a bulb inside the wardrobe to shower light on the pile of black clothes? Did he take out each one to figure out which one was different how?” Thus our experience of colour and light involves the eyes’ and brain’s response to light, the way we process our visual data while comparing it with memory. Jigisha’s narrative has kindled my interest in knowing how her father, a physicist, might have influenced her understanding of colour and light. 

With different perspective, Naresh Dadhich, a theoretical physicist, introduces readers to the scientific and philosophical nature of colour binaries in the ‘B/W’ edition of हाकारा । hākārā. Indeed, it’s  a pleasure to see the orchestration of different contributions as they speak to each other or take forward each other’s views in their respective contexts.In his brilliant piece titled Why Black and White? Why not brilliant spectrum of Grey?, Dadhich takes us through the binary of black and white by invoking its absolutist nature. While investigating binaries such as black and white through scientific theories, Dadhich proposes ‘something lying between 0 and 1’ following Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty of quantum theory. He challenges the binaries by taking them to appeal the conscience of an enlightened individual and society. He writes:

“Absolute statement is therefore completely unsustainable on two elemental counts: one, of framework dependence that means its validity within a given premise or framework, and the other of the impossibility of measuring things with absolute precision and accuracy. With this being the case, it is up to one’s own sense of truth seeking with adherence to reason and objectivity to make an absolute statement in black and white, 0 or 1.In broader context it is one’s own commitment to honest and truthful living.” Extending his argument further, Dadhich writes: “It is ironically interesting that continuum is made of digits – nothing could exist as perfect continuum. They are dual to each other; one can’t exist without the other. In science, the most profound question is how to understand space-time both as continuum as well as discrete digital at micro structure level.”

This reminds me of Nachiketa’s story that some of us might have read or heard from wise people. In this story from the Katha Upanishad, Nachiketa is bothered by his father’s ‘benevolent’ act of donating only old and disabled cows to achieve success in the ritual of sacrifice. At a point, Nachiketa asks his father, “Who have you decided to give me away?” Father doesn’t take the question seriously. Nachiketa keeps pestering him with the same question. Finally, annoyed by the question, father says, “I shall give you to Yama, the god of death.” Nachiketa takes this seriously and reaches Yama’s abode. He had to wait for three days and three nights to meet Yama as Yama had already left for some work. Impressed by Nachiketa’s persistence and devotion in meeting the god, Yama grants him three boons. After fulfilling two boons, Nachiketa asks Yama to teach him the truth after death, as his third boon. Yama is reluctant as this is the most challenging revelation about the universe. He dissuades him from seeking this boon and instead promises to offer material wealth and glory. But, Nachiketa is firm on this demand of knowing what is beyond birth and death, right and wrong. Secretly pleased with Nachiket’s quest, Yama tells him the nature of true Self that extends far beyond death. The critical realization that follows in the Nachiketa discourse is that the Self is inseparable from Brahman, the supreme spirit. Across different times and civilisations, several other great minds have broken the dichotomy of the Self and the Other through their writings. For instance, Tukaram wrote: He is mine, I am his/Same flow between both. 

With the 8th edition, we attempt to follow Nachiketa’s light. The minimum that we can try is to open discussion for dynamic cultural and artistic forms that are conducive to multiple ways of perceiving diverse realities and truths. Not that we are having or offering total clarity on the black and white-ness. But, we are happy to share a shepherd’s ‘Du(a)l’ dream “in reaping/that is/neither to sow/nor to sell/but the snakes soon unravel.”