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Dimensions of the Self-Other relationship

by E. Valentine Daniel, Professor of Anthropology and Philosophy, Columbia University

(Continued from August 8)

You can almost hear her moan:
Oh my dear one,
I shall grieve for you
For the rest of my life with
slightly Varying cadence,
oh my dear one.
(From Geoffrey Hill's King Log)

The Second Lady says of her "boy" or helper, "I lost him." Kamalam, in a deeply significant sense did not lose him. On what basis do I make such a claim? I do so on the basis of the wisdom compacted into a single copla written by the English poet. Geoffrey Hill. He wrote:

'One cannot lose what one has not possessed."
So much for that abrasive gem.
I can lose what I want.
I want you.

Even though it may seem counter-intuitive, we cannot lose the ones we truly love, because we can lose only what we possess, and we can never possess someone we truly love. We truly love someone when we love that person for what he or she is, not because that person can be made into me or mine.

The mother who loved her son beyond everything else was able to love him so, and still love him and want him, only because she never possessed him. The wife who loses her husband, whom she loved beyond everything else and still loves him, never possessed him.

The last line in the poem is made up of two brief sentences. The first sentence reads: "I can lose what I want." The tone is petulant. Almost childish. "I can lose what I want!" Lady # 2 can lose the servant that she wants, unwillingly or even wilfully. It is the flip side of "I can have whatever I want." Again, childish, petulant and spoiled.

The sentiment is entitlement, not love. Whether she loses or has what she wants, the relationship will be one in which neither partner is truly free, free of label and role incumbency. This first sentence, then - "I can lose what I want," - is to be read as distinct from the second sentence, even though they both occur in the same line. For the second sentence reads: "I want you." In it you feel the ache of love and longing. Not "I need you," but "I want you". The chasm that separates the first from the second is as wide a canyon.

What is the difference? Our Vellala ladies need their other, their servant. But Kamalam desires her son; and the widow desires her departed husband. Needs indicate a lack or an absence that can be filled. Desire is insatiable. Levinas puts it aphoristically: "Desire is desire for the absolutely Other." (1969:23) One's desire for the Other cannot be satisfied, whereas one's need for the other, can. The Other is desired as Other, desired for his or her Otherness. By contrast, one needs the other, because he or she can be reduced to the Same, to the needs of the self. The Levinasian scholar, Colin Davis, phrases it in the following way: "The loved one is caressed, not possessed."

By capitalizing the "O" in "Other," the Self-Other relationship is made into one of reverence not mere relevance. The Other is neither an object of knowledge nor of experience. Knowledge is my knowledge, experience is my experience. The Other qua Other, exceeds me and mine.

The face, for one who is prepared to look, is uncommon, even uncanny. It could be disturbing and disquieting in its uniqueness. Bernard Waldenfels describes the human face as "the foyer of such bewilderments, lurking at the borderlines that separate the normal from the anomalous (2002:63). I have used the example of Kamalam's son's face as that which triggers her desire for her son whom she wishes not to possess but to caress, as an illustration of an Otherness that lurks at the border of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the known and the unknown.

Neither you nor I would recognize Kamalam's son's face, nor would we able to recognize the face of the infant described to me by Shoba. In order to bring it closer to home, I would like to leave you with the lesson of the face by summoning before your eyes the face of a man whom all of us, even those who have seen him but once, would instantly recognize. I speak of the face of the unforgettable Neelan Tiruchelvam. I hope you will pardon me if I make this personal. I remember the first time I saw Neelan's face.

I also remember the second, third and the nth time I saw, and recognized his face, probably recognizing his face differently on each subsequent occasion. Yet there remained an Otherness in him that defied my need to subject this man to my definition of who he was. What was the source of this Otherness that I failed to comprehend? In order to answer this question as accurately as I can, I need to adhere to the facts as they unfolded. Strictly speaking, it began the other way around.

Neelan was the first to see my face. Or rather, I felt that Neelan saw my face first. And I use "face" in the extended sense that I have developed thus far. He saw in me something that transcended the familiar, something that exceeded all that he knew about me from my writing, from other's accounts about me and even my own accounts of myself.

In fact, he was not that interested in the facts of my persona and my life that were readily available and easily drawn from the totality of his world. What I strongly felt in our encounter was his dethronement of all prejudgments; the "is" of his knowledge gave way to the "ought" in his wisdom. His interest in me was extra-ordinary, uncommon. Not only did he dethrone his prejudgments but he also made me the sovereign of the moment and himself my diligent and discerning servant, concerned of my needs. This great man seemed to see in me virtues that eluded my own awareness.

He made himself responsible for me and responsive to me. He had summoned the fundamental asymmetry into the relationship that obtained between self and Other, not the illusory asymmetry that inheres in the relationship between the Lord and bondsman. As I said, what began in one direction, reversed itself in short order. Here was a man before me in whose face I could see that he was so much more than he appeared to be. Here was a man who was quick to dispense with familiar formalities and formal familiarities.

And yet, he was capable of exalting me, not by flattery but by the sincerest reverence for the incomprehensible in me, the Other in myself. Before me sat a man who I knew would be willing to dedicate his life to, and if need be lay down his life for, his fellow-man. Conversely, if he but fleetingly expected another's sacrifice in return, would have considered himself a murderer.

Here was a face or a parvai that served as the foyer in which so much that was unique and incomprehensible was assembled. Given the times of our meetings - they were dangerous ones - he never tired of making himself responsible for my safety, my well-being, my life. I am sure that I am not the only one who has had this experience with Neelan. Others have spoken of him likewise.

As far as Neelan was concerned, the very existence of another, made him responsible for that Other. His passion was disinterested; he never calculated the cost. His parvai was an enigma, an invisible revelation, and an epiphany. Above all, his parvai was unfailingly ethical. If terror is to be hunted down, it must be banished from cliche. We need to rely not on the told, but in the telling. We have heard it told and told ourselves of acts of terror in ways that incite rage and revenge, hate and pride, pity and compassion, action and stunned repose. But we need to find new ways of speaking of terror so as to hold terror itself at bay, to check its advance into the general and the commonplace, to restrict it to the particular.

If terror is not to become cliche, it must be remembered in the details of its manifestations, the details of face. I hope that some day, the Indian soldier who shot the mother who was holding her baby will come to know terror, know it as it was in that mother's face; or come to know all that is unnamable - which, for want of another word, could only be called "divine" - as it was in the baby's face that he never looked at before shooting it in the back of its head. In Neelan's face, I never saw fear, let alone terror, but what I did see was faith, hope and love.

If there were only three antidotes to terror that one could choose, one couldn't do better than ask for faith, hope and love. If, however, faith, hope and love themselves were not to become cliches, they must be remembered in and learned from the details of face. For me at least, such details appear and reappear in the memory of Neelan Tiruchelvam's face.

These thoughts are my humble offering on this day, the twentieth anniversary of July 28th 1983, to you Sithi, Nirgunan and Mitran, to all of you in this hall this evening who are fortunate to be numbered among the unfallen, to the memory of the slain, and most of all to the memory of our dear friend, Neelan Tiruchelvam. Thank you for coming, thank you for listening, and thank you for your time and your patience.

(Concluded)

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