About old men and burning libraries

The legacy of elders and their accumulated wisdom, memories and insights are lost forever when they pass on. Illustration by C Y Gopinath using Midjourney

In your travels through the universe, you will occasionally come across a word, a phrase, or perhaps even a whole sentence that will never leave you. It will find a niche in your head and cosy itself there. Perhaps it captures an essential truth, or rhymes cleverly, or changes the way you see things, or even is just difficult to understand.

A sentence like this stepped into my life last week, stopping me in my tracks: When an old man dies, a library burns down.

How you read that depends a lot on what an old person and a library mean to you. If you are a Gen Z child who estranged their parents and are not sure what a library is, the loss of old men and libraries may just feel like clearing clutter.

If you're literal and a nit-picker, you may argue about the gender inequity of that sentence. What burns when an old woman dies? Does anything happen when a child dies?

The words are attributed to Amadou Hampate Ba, a writer, historian and ethnologist from the African country of Mali. He spoke his famous words in December 1960, as head of the newly independent Mali's delegation to the UNESCO General Conference.

The library he referred to was the legacy of elders and the accumulated wisdom, memories and insights that are lost forever when they pass on. Even in shining India, the elderly are quite rapidly becoming an annoyance to their upwardly mobile Silicon Valley children. What could an old person possibly add when Google and ChatGPT can tell you all you need to know - particularly in a world rocked and battered by climate change, pervasive self-worship and avarice, and the disappearance of truth from public discourse?

I wrote to a clutch of my friends, all aged over 55, many closer to 70, asking if they remembered any nuggets of wisdom from the mouths of the elders in their lives.

I've selected a few - Stthan kaal patro: These three Bengali words translate loosely as location, occasion and character, and used to be baked into every Bengali child's upbringing. They offer a valuable checklist for when to speak, how to speak and who to speak to. Stthan tells you not to discuss poetry while working out in a gym. Kaal suggests that a funeral may not be the best place to ask your boss for a raise. And patro cautions you not to ask the pope the way to the nearest toilet.

In a society where everyone feels empowered to speak their mind, anywhere, anytime, at anyone and in ALL CAPS, these words remind us of a more civilised era.

All relationships are one sentence away from breaking down. This from my friend Gulan Kripalani in Kolkata reminds us to use words with the greatest care in every relationship, no matter how long or how deep. Sometimes it only takes one harsh, thoughtless sentence to bring the whole edifice tumbling irretrievably.

Not everything needs to be discussed. Our parents knew that words sometimes make things worse. They knew that silences heal and that endless questions and answers can create new cracks. In a world where texting and chatting are the two main activities and everyone is in therapy, these words have the weight of gold.

Don't enter the water without knowing its depth. Translated from a Tamil phrase, this gem is a warning that most things in life are deeper and more complicated than they seem to be, including children, cats and marriages. Enter but don't expect an easy ride.

Be yourself. To a generation habituated to photoshopping themselves on Instagram to look like glamour stars, these words are balm. You can never be someone you're not no matter how hard you try, so sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. The log may have spent a lot of time in the water and it may float, but it will never become a crocodile.

At age 85, about six years before his own library burned down, Hampate Ba wrote a letter to young people. In it, he spoke about the lost world he came from, where humans were considered responsible for ensuring the balance of their surrounding natural world. It was a world where cutting a tree or killing an animal without a valid reason was forbidden. Humans did not own the planet, they were merely its custodians.

He invited young people to seriously question the way we are living, destroying both the past and the future, leaving both tradition and our environment in ashes while we inhabit our lonely echo chambers, unwilling and unable to accept any viewpoints or perspectives but the ones we were spoonfed by our Internet.

To a world where truth is indistinguishable from fakery and discourse is dead on arrival, Hampate Ba spoke the following, almost prescient, words:

There is my truth and your truth, but the truth is in the middle. To get close to it, everyone must move slightly out of their truth to take a step towards the other.

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.