Circa 1985. a wet pre-monsoon evening at a detribalized settlement of engineers near Jamshedpur. Pre-television days in the deep south of Bihar. BBC Radio's Hindi Service blaring: Onkarnath Sriastava already declaring the inevitability of the Cold War's death. Rajiv Gandhi's dream for a youth's India in hopeful circulation. Challenger is happening at NASA (waiting to explode when fired). Gorby is trying to happen. Yet another Harjinder Singh `Jinda' is caught. Longowal and Mahanta are heroes. Hate is passe; peace is fashionable, all of a sudden.

Not the right time for a philosopher to surface. But Bush House thinks otherwise, because Oxford University has finally decided to end a four-century-old war of philosophies between the British Isles and the Continent. A Frenchman who has elevated the study of words to the level of proper epistemology is going to be awarded an honorary Ph.D. Jacques Derrida is in London. David Hume's children are all clamour and fume. And BBC is reporting it all.

I have heard of Derrida for the first time. I am destined to see him, listen to him, feel sorry for him. But that will come later. In the meantime, I will grow up knowing a whole lot of things about philosophy. Desi names like Mohandas Ganghi and Rabindranath Tagore will cease to be philosophers.

Bertrand Russell will soon appear a big sham and Francis Bacon a mere essayist. I will be happy to see Hume's theory of knowledge being overturned by a provincial teacher named Emmanuel Kant. Barely out of college, I will dream of visiting Frankfurt and Paris, as if Satre is sold in cans. The temptation to drop as arcane a word as `discourse' while reporting on an ailing hospital will sweep me.

Sooner than hoped, an ailment more malignant than philosophy grips me. It's JNU. I am a student of modern history now, a member of that occult club called CHS. History is philosophy and historians no poor chroniclers. A set of one big hexagonal room and a couple of tiny rooms house raging academic ambitions. Teachers are too erudite, too foreign. And I, consequently, a misfit. But I am trying. Trying is imitating. I am learning to imitate. One man, Majid, however, thinks I should learn, just learn. Majid is so great. He will be disappointed. Derrida is coming.

Circa 1997. Finally, Derrida is here. A packed auditorium, hexagonal again. The podium turns into a galaxy of academician stars lords of imported knowledge in kurta-pajamas, in Wranglers, in suits. The lesser ones sitting opposite are bursting at the seams. Lots of loose paper, notepads, teenaged nibs. Sure, there are mortals around who have waited for this moment much longer than my humble 12 years. The air is thick with anticipatory enlightenment.

Derrida looks rather forlorn and tells us that he would speak on Algeria. The gathering is slightly discouraged, but warms up soon. It's Algeria only, just below the Mediterranean. Claude Levi-Strauss went all the way to the Amazon morass and made it relevant. So, Derrida is speaking. Like most Frenchmen's, his English accent is rather pregnant, but his delivery remarkably smooth. The ambient air has turned thinner: expressions now more on the side of yawning resignation. But why? We will know when the questions come up.

In fact, I don't understand the questions as I have not understood much of Derrida's lecture. But as counter-speeches (queries!) are made I am convinced there was never a premium on comprehension. The gathering won't admit that, however. It has been a grand display of furtive comprehension. Mr Kurta-Pajama-Shawl interprets the lecture de novo. Mr Marquez-Moustache overrules. The minions gawk, mutter, subside. Majid, our Majid, spurns it all. Derrida, an atom spent, looks on. I do the same. For a moment the huge gap between intellectual abilities is blurred.

When knowledge becomes a rivalry, fools (and geniuses) relapse in bliss.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.