Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
3
Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The book starts with an ending; Eddie, the protagonist is going to die and the reader is taken along Eddie’s last hour as he goes on doing what he did for the last significant portion of his life, working maintenance in the Ruby Pier amusement park. It is also his 83rd birthday. Eddie is popular amongst the children, they like his non assuming self, while he evidently dislikes the ones who’d crossed the threshold of teenage, they gave him headaches. It is when a cart comes loose from a ride and is about to crash into a little girl, does Eddie’s end seem immediate. He tries pushing the girl away from the coming end and gets killed himself. And here ends the first chapter.
Eddie, as is evident from the title, goes to heaven and then meets five people, in five very different places, whose lives intersect with his in ways different from eachother. To reveal the persons and the different settings would be taking away of a lot of the joy of reading the book. Now, a lot of people've found happiness in annoying the heaven out of me by planning landmines of spoilers in the past (yes, I meant you. And you. And you.). But I'd be the better man and let it be. The book excels in what it seeks to do, which is tugging at the heart strings and making you cry. It is not of the tribe of Nickolas Sparks but something more bittersweet. Almost makes you wish that heaven were real, along with Santa Claus and angels and God... I digress.
What I loved the most was the part non-linear narrative. The independent accounts of his other, significant birthdays from the past and the memories awakened by the different people he meets in heaven. To sum up the book in two words, the book was 'heartfelt-ly pleasant'. It's a book which one could finish in one sitting, thanks to its size and content, but still would go back every now and then for some, let me say it, corny sweetness. My copy was bought from a second hand bookshop and it's previous owner left a lot of scribbling and underlining in the book. Now, I'm not the one for abuse to books, but it's always nice to find some humanising relics of previous owners in a thrifted book. The book's filled with thoughts inspired by the book. I don't get why someone'd sell a book so personal, but I'm happy he did (yes, I'm sure it was a he). The author employs no over dramatication, which'd've been very easy to fall into. The book tells you how everything is related and how all the different stories in the world're really just one long story. How one affects the other. I always wanted to read 'Tuesdays With Morrie', the writer's other book, and now I want to read it even more.
Maybe someday I'd find it in another secondhand bookshop with similar notes in the same handwriting and then, I can pretend to be in a Mitch Albom book myself.
***
I had this saved up for long and thought I'd publish this and get it over with. This is the official end of the 'Books of Exile' series. So many books were not reviewed and only my own lazy-assed-ness is to be blamed. The 'Books of Exile' series was also supposed to record my introduction to two of the greatest writers ever; Albert Camus and George Orwell. But A-L-A-S.
Expect random reviews from time to time though.
Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The book starts with an ending; Eddie, the protagonist is going to die and the reader is taken along Eddie’s last hour as he goes on doing what he did for the last significant portion of his life, working maintenance in the Ruby Pier amusement park. It is also his 83rd birthday. Eddie is popular amongst the children, they like his non assuming self, while he evidently dislikes the ones who’d crossed the threshold of teenage, they gave him headaches. It is when a cart comes loose from a ride and is about to crash into a little girl, does Eddie’s end seem immediate. He tries pushing the girl away from the coming end and gets killed himself. And here ends the first chapter.
Eddie, as is evident from the title, goes to heaven and then meets five people, in five very different places, whose lives intersect with his in ways different from eachother. To reveal the persons and the different settings would be taking away of a lot of the joy of reading the book. Now, a lot of people've found happiness in annoying the heaven out of me by planning landmines of spoilers in the past (yes, I meant you. And you. And you.). But I'd be the better man and let it be. The book excels in what it seeks to do, which is tugging at the heart strings and making you cry. It is not of the tribe of Nickolas Sparks but something more bittersweet. Almost makes you wish that heaven were real, along with Santa Claus and angels and God... I digress.
What I loved the most was the part non-linear narrative. The independent accounts of his other, significant birthdays from the past and the memories awakened by the different people he meets in heaven. To sum up the book in two words, the book was 'heartfelt-ly pleasant'. It's a book which one could finish in one sitting, thanks to its size and content, but still would go back every now and then for some, let me say it, corny sweetness. My copy was bought from a second hand bookshop and it's previous owner left a lot of scribbling and underlining in the book. Now, I'm not the one for abuse to books, but it's always nice to find some humanising relics of previous owners in a thrifted book. The book's filled with thoughts inspired by the book. I don't get why someone'd sell a book so personal, but I'm happy he did (yes, I'm sure it was a he). The author employs no over dramatication, which'd've been very easy to fall into. The book tells you how everything is related and how all the different stories in the world're really just one long story. How one affects the other. I always wanted to read 'Tuesdays With Morrie', the writer's other book, and now I want to read it even more.
Maybe someday I'd find it in another secondhand bookshop with similar notes in the same handwriting and then, I can pretend to be in a Mitch Albom book myself.
***
I had this saved up for long and thought I'd publish this and get it over with. This is the official end of the 'Books of Exile' series. So many books were not reviewed and only my own lazy-assed-ness is to be blamed. The 'Books of Exile' series was also supposed to record my introduction to two of the greatest writers ever; Albert Camus and George Orwell. But A-L-A-S.
Expect random reviews from time to time though.
3
I, Romantic – Rajeev Jhaveri
Now, this is not a book I’d suggest anyone
to read. Not that it is bad in a bad
way. It does not figure in the Chetan Bhagat category, much less in the Durjoy
Dutta one, but let’s put it in this way, for the 225/- that you’d spend on it,
you could find far better books instead. And as to why I bought it, the reason
is as simple as I didn’t know better and got carried away by all those one line reviews it had printed on its cover. They even got an US Army Iraq war
veteran to say “A timeless, beautifully written tale... Read this novel, be
changed...” How could I not fall for that, coupled with its promise of a doomed
love story laden with enough references to “Hayden’s symphonies, Yehoshua’s
poems and Einstein’s prose”. I’m so easily manipulated by book covers and
things written on them. K
‘I,
Romantic’ was supposed to be, in my head, a coming of age story about doomed
love and big literary references. What it turned out to be is a wannabe coming of age story about filmy doomed love and forced big literary references. Along with
a very disturbing explanation for Punjab being the bread basket of India (involves
sexually frustrated army men and porn and self gratification and the remains making
the Punjabi soil fertile. If you can't piece it together, good for you really). Also a
rape of a mute village woman in which the narrator, being a young sexually
frustrated army man himself, participates in wholeheartedly and the whole one
second it takes for the listener, supposedly a ‘liberated’, aaj ki Bharatiya
nari to forgive him.
The love track is so clichéd that the
million 90s Bollywood movies that came before it running on the same plotline
appear originals. Also the young stud suddenly finding his true calling while
wallowing in his depression and Bunuel’s movies and Begum Akhtar’s voice and
Hayden’s music and refusing to take part in the Kargil war and ‘standing up for
his ideas’ in front of his seniors appeared so filmsy, it gives one the idea
that Mr. Jhaveri wrote the book after getting inspired by back to back viewing
of 'Rang De Basanti', 'Lakhshya' and 'Wake Up Sid' (all very good films, no doubt) and
going on Wikipedia and searching all that he could of cultural big names. Because what’s better than a coming of age story? A coming of age story with generous mentions of European filmmakers and
random pseudo-intellectual blabbering by the ‘intellectual’ female lead.
‘I, Romantic’ could’ve been a better book,
with a better title. But it is not. It’s going to be a ‘major motion picture’
soon too, as the cover'll tell you. A book which appears suspiciously semi-autobiographical should’ve
been more honest and less soap opera-ish. I just hope the author gets to write
better books in the future. This one actually shows promise.
2
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
This is actually a rehashed version of the book review I'd written for the magazine, Renaissance 21. So most of it'd sound familiar to ones who'd read the review back then. (And if you've not checked out the magazine, then do, now! It took many back-breaking hours before the computer and days of frantic phone calls, text messages and emails to bring it out.)
A Wild Sheep Chase was the first of Murakami that I read. And the reason I read it was because you couldn't move an inch in any direction without a dozen people waxing lyrical about Murakami and his writing, the cherry on the icing being a friend, VK, whose taste I can vouch for. And I'm only too happy that for a change I listened to people and picked the book up. The novel, set in Japan of the early 80s, does take its time to gain speed. The protagonist, an anonymous Japanese man, is tricked into a hunt for a particular and particularly mythical sheep, aided only by an old black and white photograph and an array of unusual characters; from his girlfriend with her magically seductive ears to a man dressed in a sheep costume. What comes off is a wonderful amalgamation of urban legends and more traditional myths.
Surely, this novel, like all other books of the magic realism genre, isn't for everyone. From elements of Shintoism to a post modern climax, this is a champion of its genre (I can talk like a real book reviewer! :'D). Translated from the original Japanese, 'A Wild Sheep Chase' is the second book of the 'Trilogy of The Rat' series. But it can be treated as a stand alone book too, which only made me want to read the other books in the series even more.
From the Japanese countryside in Hokkaido to the towering highrises of Tokyo, Murakami excells in his descriptions. Murakami writes lucid prose with the mark of an established writer who can afford to take his time building up the story. All thanks to translator Alfred Birnbaum for making the book read like English was the original language of the novel. Lauds to Murakami for making the storyline, otherwise seemingly outlandish in a three line synopsis, read like a masterpiece in the novel-form. Going with the flow of the words, even the climax seems possible in the world of the un-named narrator.
Despite its slow start, 'A Wild Sheep Chase' is a gripping read, staying true to its title to the last word. While the climax may leave some wondering about what just happened, it is not a disappointing read by any say. Read this one with no expectation of either the ordinary or the extraordinary. A tale of searching of more than one type, it's the perfect companion for a cold evening under the blankets.
A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
 |
| Isn't the photo giving an optical illusion or're my eyes finally going blind? |
This is actually a rehashed version of the book review I'd written for the magazine, Renaissance 21. So most of it'd sound familiar to ones who'd read the review back then. (And if you've not checked out the magazine, then do, now! It took many back-breaking hours before the computer and days of frantic phone calls, text messages and emails to bring it out.)
A Wild Sheep Chase was the first of Murakami that I read. And the reason I read it was because you couldn't move an inch in any direction without a dozen people waxing lyrical about Murakami and his writing, the cherry on the icing being a friend, VK, whose taste I can vouch for. And I'm only too happy that for a change I listened to people and picked the book up. The novel, set in Japan of the early 80s, does take its time to gain speed. The protagonist, an anonymous Japanese man, is tricked into a hunt for a particular and particularly mythical sheep, aided only by an old black and white photograph and an array of unusual characters; from his girlfriend with her magically seductive ears to a man dressed in a sheep costume. What comes off is a wonderful amalgamation of urban legends and more traditional myths.
From the Japanese countryside in Hokkaido to the towering highrises of Tokyo, Murakami excells in his descriptions. Murakami writes lucid prose with the mark of an established writer who can afford to take his time building up the story. All thanks to translator Alfred Birnbaum for making the book read like English was the original language of the novel. Lauds to Murakami for making the storyline, otherwise seemingly outlandish in a three line synopsis, read like a masterpiece in the novel-form. Going with the flow of the words, even the climax seems possible in the world of the un-named narrator.
Despite its slow start, 'A Wild Sheep Chase' is a gripping read, staying true to its title to the last word. While the climax may leave some wondering about what just happened, it is not a disappointing read by any say. Read this one with no expectation of either the ordinary or the extraordinary. A tale of searching of more than one type, it's the perfect companion for a cold evening under the blankets.
2
This was the first book on psychology that I ever read and I remember it was in November 2011 when I picked it up from a second-hand bookshop in Pan Bazaar – my most favourite area in any city, i.e. after Police Bazaar in Shillong and M. G. Road in Bangalore. The book belonged to a H. Das/Dass/Dhas of Dibrugarh who had bought the book for Rs. 3.00 (good old cheap days, I bought the same copy almost 40 years after for Rs. 30). There’s also a seal of the Dibrugarh Library, so it came into the library’s possession too some time before coming to the second hand bookshop’s in Guwahati. The amount of history one second-hand book can’ve! Also, this book had been one of those few Out-Of-My-Comfort-Zone books for me. Definitely Out-Of-My-Comfort-Zone.
The Three Faces of Eve is the real life story of Chris Costner Sizemore, a woman from 50s South Carolina, USA, who was diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, sometime now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (hail Wikipedia). Her real identity was kept a secret from the public eye, from the book’s first publication in 1957 till 1975 and since my copy of the book is from ’61 (vintage!), she’s referred to as Eve White here, while the two other inhabitants of her mind and body’re called Eve Black and Jane. Eve White is a timid, hard working woman whose most defining role in her life is that of being a mother to her daughter, Bonnie. Her marriage is on the rocks and she worries for her daughter. After complaining of severe headaches and blackouts, she visits a psychiatrist, before whom Eve Black emerges and for the first time let’s her existence known, even though she claims to be existing alongside Eve White since childhood, without ever coming under anyone’s notice. Eve Black is the very anti-thesis of Eve White, a woman in sharp contrast to the later in her confident, flirtatious and frivolous nature. The psychiatrists believe her to be the manifestations of Eve White’s repressed feelings. Both the personalities’re thought to be imbalanced in their own ways, one overtly serious and maternal with her feelings, with no real love left for her husband and the other too frivolous than necessary, one who flirts with unknown and potentially dangerous men with subtle hints of ‘something more’, only to turn them down at the end. While Eve White has no recollection of what Eve Black does when she comes into dominance, she has to clear the many tight situations her twin leaves her in. Eve Black does not think of Eve White’s husband and daughter as her own and hates the restriction Eve White’s conventional life puts on her. After a few months, up to when Eve White has separated from her husband and is working and living independently, the third personality appears. She is Jane, the most well rounded personality of the three. Unlike the other two, she’s ‘born’ just when she appears before the psychiatrist for the first time. While Eve White can’t read Eve Black’s thoughts and access her memories, in turn Eve Black can’t do the same in Jane’s case, while Jane gets to know what the other two’re thinking. What later follows is how the three very different personalities cope with their very unique situation and ultimately who rises triumphant over the complete control of the mind and the body.
This is the first review of the Books of Exile series, books I read during my mini-make-belief exile in Guwahati. The reviews're in no particular order and I hope the publishers/authors of the books notice my reviews and send me gifts for pimping their books for free.
The Three Faces of Eve - Corbett H. Thigpen
and Hervey M. Cleckley
 |
| Didn't he've a fine handwriting? Was definitely NOT a doctor. |
This was the first book on psychology that I ever read and I remember it was in November 2011 when I picked it up from a second-hand bookshop in Pan Bazaar – my most favourite area in any city, i.e. after Police Bazaar in Shillong and M. G. Road in Bangalore. The book belonged to a H. Das/Dass/Dhas of Dibrugarh who had bought the book for Rs. 3.00 (good old cheap days, I bought the same copy almost 40 years after for Rs. 30). There’s also a seal of the Dibrugarh Library, so it came into the library’s possession too some time before coming to the second hand bookshop’s in Guwahati. The amount of history one second-hand book can’ve! Also, this book had been one of those few Out-Of-My-Comfort-Zone books for me. Definitely Out-Of-My-Comfort-Zone.
 |
| How did it travel all the way from Dibrugarh Library to a Guwahati second-hand bookshop? |
The Three Faces of Eve is the real life story of Chris Costner Sizemore, a woman from 50s South Carolina, USA, who was diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, sometime now known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (hail Wikipedia). Her real identity was kept a secret from the public eye, from the book’s first publication in 1957 till 1975 and since my copy of the book is from ’61 (vintage!), she’s referred to as Eve White here, while the two other inhabitants of her mind and body’re called Eve Black and Jane. Eve White is a timid, hard working woman whose most defining role in her life is that of being a mother to her daughter, Bonnie. Her marriage is on the rocks and she worries for her daughter. After complaining of severe headaches and blackouts, she visits a psychiatrist, before whom Eve Black emerges and for the first time let’s her existence known, even though she claims to be existing alongside Eve White since childhood, without ever coming under anyone’s notice. Eve Black is the very anti-thesis of Eve White, a woman in sharp contrast to the later in her confident, flirtatious and frivolous nature. The psychiatrists believe her to be the manifestations of Eve White’s repressed feelings. Both the personalities’re thought to be imbalanced in their own ways, one overtly serious and maternal with her feelings, with no real love left for her husband and the other too frivolous than necessary, one who flirts with unknown and potentially dangerous men with subtle hints of ‘something more’, only to turn them down at the end. While Eve White has no recollection of what Eve Black does when she comes into dominance, she has to clear the many tight situations her twin leaves her in. Eve Black does not think of Eve White’s husband and daughter as her own and hates the restriction Eve White’s conventional life puts on her. After a few months, up to when Eve White has separated from her husband and is working and living independently, the third personality appears. She is Jane, the most well rounded personality of the three. Unlike the other two, she’s ‘born’ just when she appears before the psychiatrist for the first time. While Eve White can’t read Eve Black’s thoughts and access her memories, in turn Eve Black can’t do the same in Jane’s case, while Jane gets to know what the other two’re thinking. What later follows is how the three very different personalities cope with their very unique situation and ultimately who rises triumphant over the complete control of the mind and the body.
Sometimes, facts’re indeed scarier than
fiction and this true story is one such example. The book reads like a
technical psychological manual at times, but it’s the personal story of the
protagonists which keeps the interest going for the layman. Joanne Woodward won
her first Oscar for portraying the role of the Eves and Jane in the film adaption of the book, the first for an actress playing three roles in one
movie. What was absolutely funny in the book though was how the authors, who
were renowned psychiatrists themselves, sarcastically write off Freud and his
interpretation of Dreams, vis-a-vis the dreams Jane used to’ve. Among the gems
that Freud’s school of thinking gave birth to is the belief that every little
girl of under 5 thinks of herself as a castrated boy who’s forever thinking of sexual intercourse with
her father and how snakes in one’s dreams represent male genitals (that kind
of reduces the creepiness of a few of the creepy nightmares yours truly had to dreams
of pure comedy) and father issues, all of which the book prawns at the end. Not
a light read at all and DON’T READ THIS IF YOU’RE UNDER STRESS AND LOOKING FOR
A BOOK TO LIFT YOUR SPIRITS TO MULTICOLOURED RAINBOWS. It just won’t happen.
Other than that, a good introduction to psycho-talk literature.
4
The move to Guwahati had been good for many things (bad for some), the best being the literary part. The months offered ample time to turn some pages and haunt many bookshops. I think I'd be starting a series of book reviews - Books of Exile - of books read when I was in, pretty much an exile. Also some movie reviews. I don't think I ever contributed so much ticket-money to the great Indian film theatre industry ever before than when I was faced with months of zero access to any TV or my computer. A few reviews from there. The laptop of one of my co-exilites conferred some great movie viewing moments too (merci bien J, you know who you're). And coupled with the many incomplete movie reviews drafts, I may well guess it'd be a reviewing overload. Ciao!
I'm obsessed with this song, Bang Bang by Italian origin, Egyptian born, French singer from the 70s, Dalida since I saw Les Amours Imaginaires a few days back. The sequence is from the same film, and all the slow motion is pretty sexy to my eyes. A review of the film'll be appearing soon.
I'm obsessed with this song, Bang Bang by Italian origin, Egyptian born, French singer from the 70s, Dalida since I saw Les Amours Imaginaires a few days back. The sequence is from the same film, and all the slow motion is pretty sexy to my eyes. A review of the film'll be appearing soon.
11
This takes Mammoth Amount of Courage and Shameless-ness to confess that it was Only A Month or So Back that I Visited and Used a Public Library for the First Time, or any Library if you don’t count in The Horror of a Library that Our School (the Honourable K.V.) Library was. Coming to think of it, My First School's Library, a Private One, fared so much Better than the Centrally Backed One.
Coming back to The Point, I Never Before had to use any Library. I always Believed that you must Own the Books you Read or which you Thought you Would have Read, which has been The Case for Me Quite a Lot of Times. The Sight of Books does Wonder to My Body that even Mallika Sherawat fails to Do. The Breathing Increases so does The Heart Beat. The Brain Rejects to Process Any Other Stimuli. The Smell, Texture and the Sound of Turning a Page reign Supreme.
The Idea to Join The Library near My Place (Truth be Told, that’s The Only One in This Goddamned Place) occurred when I read that it was being 'Revived' again. Once it was One of The Best District Libraries of The Region, until Governmental Complacency became The Reason it turned into The Perfect Bollywood styled Bhoot Bangla. An Indoor Auditorium just Next to It kept It from being Totally Neglected and It got its Regular Painting Sessions. But it Was Rotting from Inside. Literally.
The Library is within 1 Minutes Distance from where I Haunt, and Since Curiosity had already Killed The Cat, I wasn't Left Out Too. A Short Visit there Insured Me a Form and Within a Week I got My Very Own Green Leather Looking Plastic Covered Tiny Library Card.
As I entered The Library, The Middle Aged Male Librarian looked up from Gossiping with His Female Counterpart.
"Card ase?"
"Hein."
As None of My Non-English Languages Reading Skills(read: Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit and to a little extent, Assamese) are Even Passable, I asked for The English Language Section. Without a Proper Answer or even a Crude Gesture towards the site, he began Inquiring Me of Exactly what Type of Book I wanted.
He Stared Me for A Second, and Then Rushed off Behind Some Shelf. I mentally Wished He Was Suffering from Some Bad Mid-Life Crisis.
"Here."
I followed His Voice, and there He was, Guarding a Whole Lot of Books. English Books.
Old English Books.
"Here."
He pointed towards Them.
For A While, I Dreaded The Thought That He was going to Stay and Ask me now Exactly Which Book I wanted (I even had An Answer Ready; Kama Sutra, just To Piss Him), Hand That To Me and Then Throw Me Out of His Long Forgotten Abode, Whose Tranquine Desertedness I had come to Disturb. But he Left. Thank You Very Much.
The Library allows Its Members to Borrow 2 Books At A Time for 15 Days. It was Build Decades Ago, When India Was Another Western-World-Perceived-About-To-Disintegrate-Huge-Socialist-State. It Reflected The Dead Ordinariness of the 60s and 70s Indian Socialism. Basic Wooden Shelves With Moth Eaten Leather Bound Books. And as Expected, I was The Only One Browsing through Them.
My Spying Skills (the Date Label stuck Inside to be More Precise) told me that Readers were/are Scare for This Library. How To Kill A Mockingbird had it Being Issued Last during The Later 80s. Umrao Jaan Adah in 1992. Wuthering Heights in 1999. And Twilight In Delhi in 2001.
Most to All Readers of This Sleepy Town buy Their Own Books. Or to a Lesser Degree, Borrow from Someone Else. But never from a Library. That The Local Library has Masterpieces Rotting inside Escapes Everyone's Attention. The Fact that Russia was once India’s Big Bro is Quiet Apparent. A Majority of The Books has been Penned by The Russian Masters. Tolstoy, Gogol et al. Second came The Native Indians, The Curry Eating Ones (Khushwant Singh, Mukul Kesavan), then the English (The Bronte Sisters, Austen) and then the rest.
The Collection It has is Vast. I didn’t Expect The Latest of The Books, and neither didn it Deserve the Expectation too, though, it did have the odd Jhumpa Lahiri, Aravind Adiga, William Dalrymple and more. Moreover, the Collection in The Reading Room was Much Better. Though it didn’t Allow those Books to be Issued, nevertheless, I found a New Corner to burn My Time going over TheArt of Vogue Covers 1909-1940 or The one on Mughal Architecture. Bliss.
To give The Library and The ‘Reviving Committee’ its due, Yes, Things are Looking Up. Books are Categorised, and Actually kept According to Genre! I wasn't even Allowed to enter the Reading Room when I First visited The Library as it was Experiencing Its First 'Maintenance Works' in Decades. A Trust from Calcutta named after Raja Ram Mohan Roy had Donated Several Books, both New and (mostly) Old Titles, to its Kitty too. The Library was to get A New Website soon too. And Every Thing has been Computerised.
Seeing such Marvels go to Waste, I contemplated to Nick a Few Away. Atleast They would be Read and Valued, kept Properly inside Glass Shelves. As My Immoral Plans were taking Shape, I gave the Female Mid-Aged Librarian My Selected Copy of Twilight In Delhi by Ahmed Ali(sudden remembrance of another Blogger's Blog had made me pick it up).
(since then, The Blogger has Nicked one.)
She took My Card away and gave Me the Ownership of The Book for The Next Half Month. As I left The Library, I opened The Book and The Smell, hinting it being Opened Again in A Long Time, hit My Olfactory Glands. My Eyes fell on A Random Verse in The Book( it's Filled with Them):
I’m the light of no one’s eye,
The rest of no one’s heart am I.
That which can be of use to none
-Just a handful of dust am I.
Bahadur Shah Zafar
The Library Seemed to Say The Same.
***
One of My Wishes listed in My Previously Posted Bucket List came Partially True. The Delhi High Court, after Some Nudges from The Supreme Court, has Finally given Its Verdict that rules Homosexual Acts Between Two Consenting Adults in Private as Being Completely Legal. It’s just Not An Act of Giving A Repressed Minority Community its Basic Human Rights, but It also Denotes That Our Country Is Changing. And This Time for The Better.
It Proves that Our Judiciary is Not a Weak, Corrupted, Outdated Institution. Its One of The Few Times in The Very Recent Times, when I felt Obsessively Proud to be An Indian, and The Only Time when It regarded Withholding Human Rights.
The Claims of The Religious Groups that it is Against God, Nature and 'Indian Culture' are Extremely Funny at Their Best and Extremely Gut Pukingly Disgusting at Their Worst. A Baba Ramdev Admiring Friend of Mine recently Lost Her Admiration after The Baba made His 17thCentury Era Comments on Homosexuality. And No, She was Fully Straight.
How come Sex between Two Consenting Adults Harm God? Hey! If God weren’t So Imaginative in That Department, then Gays wouldn't have Existed in The First Place. They Really didn't Come Along with Jadoo, We All Know That.
And Nature is Still Largely Unexplored that Making Claims like XYZ is Against Nature is Not Only Whole-ly Wrong, but Expresses The Person's Pea-Sized Understanding about The Very Nature They seem To be are Guarding.
And those Godsend Protectors of Indian Culture should First take a Crash Course in Ancient Indian Culture, Starting with a Field Trip to Khajuraho and then a Quick Look through Kama Sutra. When Ancient Temples, Scriptures and Mythology are Filled with LGBT References, then Which 'Indian Culture' are They Defending?
Do We even have a Composite 'Indian Culture' to Begin with? Such Questions Always remain Unanswered by the Moral Police in This Nation, and People Continue to Oppress and Be Oppressed.
-:Finite:-
10
Or if not that, then they have to face Accusations of them being of 'Loose Character'. When would people learn that Manipur is not a City("yaar, it has a 'pur' naa, as in Nagpur and Kanpur
(photo taken from here.)
Ignorance is Bliss. That has been one of My Many Mantras that I use when needed. Life is a Little Too Complicated to be Governed by a Singular Thought. But this particular Mantra need not apply regarding Your Knowledge about Your Own Nation. It really is Dis-Heartening to know that People of Our Country know Peanuts about other areas in The Same Republic. When a Huge Uproar is being made about Indians being Attacked in Aussieland, it would also do Well to do a bit of Introspect, regarding the Prejudices people have about Both Foreigners and their Own Countrymen. Its Bitter, its Un-Pleasant, but its An Hard Truth that Decades of Dirty Politics and Prejudices have Succeeded in making Absolute Strangers out of Indians .
A south Indian is Perennially a Madrasi(though after Lola Kutty, one M has been Almost replaced by another, Malayali) and Santa and Banta are supposed to be the Official Representatives of Sardars. Worst is the case of North Easterns . They are outrightly ruled as Non-Indians("are unki ankhien dekhi hai naa"). So much so that a Khasi or Nishi(and I expect you know Who Exactly they are) would be made to feel like An Alien in the Capital of his Own Country, his Own Land
I am from the North East. Ethically I belong to the Mainland, but This has been my family, my community's land for Generations. I am supposedly 'Lucky' that I have 'Normal Features’. That I look 'More Indian'. That I don’t have to be mistaken as a Chinese or a Japanese everytime I visit New Delhi
And until That Day arrives, my NE Friends would continue to be called 'Chowmein Walley Chinkies' and would remain a Foreign Bunch of Peoples in their Own Country and among their Own Country(wo)men.
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It is always a Social Service towards The Greater Good of the World when you Recruit some one New into the Ever Growing Club of Book Worms. Recently, I have done the same. My pal, Mr.XYZ, always wanted to be 'In'.
Time was when Harry Potter was THE Rage. Few Read the Books and Most Saw the Movies. The 'Readers' were Termed The Coolest Ones Ever. We had Our Own O.W.L.s Tests. Our Own fan Fics, with us Gliding and 'Magicing' in them. We knew All the Spells and Potions, and even Invented a Few of Our Own. And All were Awed.
So Mr. XYZ was (and still is) in Our Group, and incidentally All except Him had read the Books. It was Such a Shame, and Mr. XYZ felt Booed. So he asked for My Copy of ‘Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone’, and he was Determined to finish it. A Week Later, I found that he was still on Page 2. I felt Vexed, and Instantly took My Beloved Book away, while his Pleas echoed in the School Corridors left far behind My Back. I had Saved a Great Book from Disgrace. I was The Last Lost Templar Knight, and the Book was my Sangreal.
Cut to 2009. A few days back, while One of My Most Annoying And Closest Friends was browsing My Tiny Collection of Books (I had Borrowed his Borrowed 'Mein Kamf', which was in Very Plain Terms, Very Plain), Mr. XYZ felt an Urge again. He borrowed My Only Copy of 'The Adventures Of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys' and read it All. And I was Scandalised. That was the First Book he completed in My Knowing. Next went 'Dracula', which wasnt similarily Admired. Blood Suckers out, Hormonal Detectives in.
After that he Read and Lost an entire collection of Drew and the Hardys. And then Another. When I was going to suggest 'White Fang', My Inner All Knowing Self warned against it, and I Heeded. And later I knew Why.
Weeks later, he came and asked for Chetan Bhagat's 'The Three Mistakes Of My Life'. Then 'A Night @ The Call Center', and last mein 'Five Point Someone'. Now I dont have Anything Against Bhagat. I like His Books, albeit on a Different Level than others. He Writes, well Okayish and I Do own All of his Works. His words are first analysed for their Commercial Value, and then Inked on the Paper. At Rs. 100, his books are like those Mass Produced Chinese Products. No High Performance, just Temporary Entertainment.
So Mr. XYZ fell in Love with Bhagat, and then He let Me know that I read Boring, Thick Books (hello, 'The Godfather' is NOT boring. The only Boring Books that I ever read were My Textbooks and Jerome K. Jerome's 'Three Men In A Boat'). But that’s what happens to Obsessive Bhagat Lovers, they begin to Lick those Chinese Goods-Like Books only.
Khair chodo, the Good Thing is that he finally began to read Literature other than those Dry, Un-Refreshing Refreshers. Any thing Other than that is Welcome.
