In Camera

Years ago, in post-World War II France, existentialist playwright Jean Paul Sartre shook the intellectual world with his play called "Huis clos". About a decade ago, I was given the daunting task of teaching this masterpiece to a mini group of very intellectually alert students of 'Diplôme Supérieur' - a course that I was then teaching at the Alliance Française de Kolkata. I did teach the course to the best of my ability after painstakingly researching everything there was to research about it and its author.But I continued to be intrigued by the fact that the title of the book somehow became "In Camera" (a legal term, meaning a discussion behind closed doors) in its American version, I could never figure out why this name haunted me and disturbed me profoundly . In the over-anxious effort of doing my 'job' well (and this continues to be an ongoing obsession) I missed out one vital thing : I did not relate it to life and therefore did not quite understand then, the implications of the  American name "In Camera".

The plot of the play , in brief, is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters, Garcin, Inès and Estelle,  are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity. These three damned souls are thrown together in a supposed 'hell' and each is in denial of ever having committed a crime. They had all expected medieval torture devices to punish them for eternity, but instead find a plain room furnished in Second French Empire style. None of them will admit the reason for their damnation: Garcin says that he was executed for being a pacifist, while Estelle insists that a mistake has been made. Inès, however, demands that they all stop lying to themselves and confess to their crimes. She refuses to believe that they all ended up in the room by accident and soon realizes that they have been placed together to make each other miserable. [Plot synopsis: courtesy Wikipedia]

Then Life happened to me as it does to some people. I say some people, and not everybody, for a reason. In my view most people go through life as if on a journey, collecting tags on the suitcase [name, education, profession, marital status, accomplishment and so on] on the way. Very few, the 'some people' I referred to, are the chosen few who look behind the curtains into the dark room to come face to face with the horrors that you do not want to acknowledge even exist. The agony of looking deep into the abyss happens due to what I now call perspective, for want of a more appropriate word. This agony, as I now figure, was the central theme of Sartre's play "In Camera" that deluded me in my youth.

Perspective is defined as a mental view or outlook. Your perspective is influenced by so much and luckily is not set in stone. Your life experiences, your learning journey, the people you meet, culture, geographic location and the language you speak contribute to your current perspective. It's like looking through a lens, that of a camera, the one that is in your hands as a composite factor of all of these experiences that have shaped your perspective.

My own perspective  was predetermined by world history as well as my family’s personal history. It has been molded since then by living amongst different communities,  speaking four languages and by traveling to the extent that I did. As you go through life, you begin to have a worldview. You mistake your version of reality for THE version of reality. Each of us has a biased worldview because we are all limited to a single camera perspective. That is we can only see what comes before us, we can only hear what is around us, and we can only read that which is in front of us. No one has the definitive version of reality. The clash of perspectives happens when there are "others" participating in the same situations that you are a part of.

I look at people and am reminded of the metaphor of an iceberg in relationship to culture. Only 10% of their cultural being is visible to me above the water surface. The way they dress, the way they speak, their food they eat, games they play, their literature, traditions and celebrations. 90% of who they are is below the surface: the concept of time, their relationship to death, their rules of conduct, personal space, tolerance of physical pain, roles in relationship to age, class, sex and kinship. People and cultures that are so different from my own have taught me, if anything, to know that nothing is set in stone. Any “truth” you hold dear, opinion, conviction which is shared with everyone around you in your geographic location can make you an instant outsider when in another place or simply among a different group of people. 

                                                                 


If, on the other hand, you put culture aside, and think only in terms of the 'being', even then every other 'being' is an outsider looking at you through the lens of her/his camera and therefore silently judging you or compelling you to judge yourself. This silent game of guilt, judgement, punishment and retribution goes on relentlessly. As humans we are social beings, but as Sartre showed more than half a century ago, as long as we remain "In Camera" there is no need to be banished to a geography called 'hell', we are carrying our 'hell' around us, right in the here and now. Incidentally the other versions of Sartre's masterpiece have also been called No Exit  and Dead End.