We live in weird times when things turn or tend to turn into their opposites. They are what they are not. In other words they are not what they appear to be.

Appearance of things in human context is significant at two levels: material and symbolic. At material level, appearance denotes materiality of what it stands for and at the symbolic level it expresses its perceived connection with human life which may be at times a mere social construct. Sages and mystics much before the emergence of contemporary social scientists discovered this phenomenon experientially in their aphorisms and verses but in our age of unbridled consumerism it’s still wrapped in an attractively deceptive mystique.

Baba Farid, who by no account was fond of lavish food, takes something as ordinary as a vegetable from the kitchen in order to reveal the process of transformation when she says: “Farid, these stalks of mustard in the pan though sugar-coated are poison/some dropped raising the crop while others came in plundering it”.

Why a wholesome vegetable which is a source of nourishment turns into its opposite which is described as poison that takes life? Those who plunder the crop for their food simply because they have the power to do so not only express utter disregard for human labour but also destroy peasants’ meagre means of livelihood. It’s the process of exploitative politico-economic relationship and the nature of appropriation that turn things into what they are not otherwise.

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Guru Nanak, the seer, uses harsher words to paint the similar situation when in one of his verses he declares: “Kings are tigers and officials are dogs… [Rajay Shihin, muqqdam kuttay...] The power kings and officials wield has a modicum of legitimacy as long as it’s used to defend the frontiers and protect the life and property of the people. Kings and officials are of course human but the Guru dubs them as predators because they behave like ones. It’s not simply his personal perception but rather a representation of people’s perception.

That people are attacked and mauled by kings and officials for extracting the maximum surplus is no secret. Their role as ruthless exploiters turns them into dangerous animals that feed on the people’s flesh. Appearance of kings and officials creates a concrete image of their being human but in the imagination of people they appear as negation of their material beings. They are conceived not as what they are but as what they do. And what they do is what animals do: they eat human flesh.

So in human society beings and things are defined not merely by their material existence per se but more so by the nature of the role they play in human affairs. All this is subtly related with the phenomenon of possessiveness, instinctual and socially manufactured. Possession in a hierarchical society has a paradoxical nature: it humanises and dehumanises. It humanises in the sense of making its possessor secure as it can create conditions which make it possible for him/her to live like a human. It dehumanises in a different sense; it tends to render its possessor incapable of sharing it with his/her fellow beings.

The act of possession degenerates into an end rather than becoming a means. And thus more is rendered less. More is significant only in a situation where it is socially shared enriching the collective. Otherwise more only whets one’s appetite to have more. How this creates a sense of impoverishment is expressed by Madho Lal Hussain, the 16th century poet and mystic, in one of his lyrics: “those who have amassed millions and millions pine like paupers for more”.

In the mystic’s view more is less because it is shared less. On the contrary less can be more in its impact if shared. After all if wealth has any meaning, it’s in its social use which is invariably a source of human pleasure, non-exploitative and regenerating. That’s why not long ago wise elders used to tell kids: “food tastes sweat when shared [wanddkha, khanddkha]”. But intellectual drivers of our consumer society insist that pleasure is in individual consumption and exclusive use of what you have separates you from the ordinary which is euphemism for people.