John
Keats admired beauty. Otherwise he could
not have written the poem ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’. The poem narrates the story of a knight in
the middle ages who met a beautiful woman in some wilderness. She, the beauty, allowed him to take her on
his horseback to some places as he wished until finally she took him to her
cave and lulled him to sleep. When the
knight woke up, the beauty had disappeared.
He went in search of that beauty all over the valley. Keats’ poem ends
with the statement that the knight is still searching for the beautiful woman
in that valley years and years after she deserted him. You would think he was a ghost in case you
met him there in that valley.
Seekers
of beauty became ghosts in Keats’ era (early 19th century)
But
Keats belonged to an era when people, at least some people, quested after truth
which they thought was beauty. “Beauty
is truth and truth beauty.” Didn’t Keats
write that too? And you don’t need to
know anything more than that, Keats said that too. How idealistic! No wonder the guy died at the age of 26, in
poverty. Anyone who equates truth with
beauty cannot live long. Should not, in
fact. How can we, the pragmatic people,
bother to care for truth which is equal to beauty and beauty which is equal to
truth?
That’s
why our own Gabriel Marquez, who died a few days back at the age of 87 having
relished the luxury of life, wrote the short story ‘Sleeping beauty and the
airplane.’ In that story, the narrator
feels he is lucky to have a beautiful woman on a seat next to his in the New
York-bound airplane. But the woman falls
asleep as soon as the flight takes off.
The narrator is left to admiring the sleeping beauty until the end of
the flight. His indirect efforts to wake
her up are all in vain. At the end of
the flight, the beauty “disappeared into the sun of today in the Amazon jungle
of New York.”
Beauty
lies in the Amazon jungle of New York. We, Indians, will soon have the Amazon jungle
of New York coming to India too. Our
economy is poised for a revolutionary rejuvenation. The Amazon jungle of New York coming to the
starving millions of India’s wilderness is going to be a new miracle of 21st
century. The revolution has begun today, 26 May 2014. A new Beauty is
going to be born in India. You and I will be
Keats’ knight in the wilderness or Marquez’s admirer in the airplane. There is no other choice, I think. Marquez is a better option, of course: let the
beauty sleep and let us make money writing stories about her instead of letting
her bewitch us.
Let us brace ourselves for the revolution to come. Of the two I would still prefer Keats.
ReplyDeleteThe Revolution has just begun. There's a whole new world awaiting us! Keatsian quest will be in vain, I assure you.
DeleteBeauty is truth,
ReplyDeleteTruth beauty
That's all ye know
All ye need to know
I know your blogs
I confess I'm the admirer of your pen
A marvellous creation indeed.
Thanks, M. Your knowing me personally helps avoid a lot of misunderstanding. There are some readers whom I perplex apparently with my "ravings" :)
Deleteravings - Please read my reply comment to the blog The Enemy Within. A coincidental one.
DeleteAnd I know that truth takes refuge is such unheard blogs. Modi can't hear them too and if he hears, Keats' fate might befall truth.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the beauty in Marquez's story is described as "Oriental". We the people of the Orient are very resilient, we will manage in Modi Raj too.
DeleteDo you think Jews weren't resilient during pogroms? If they had had, how did it help them? To some extent people who helped them out of concentration camps would have been resilient. But when in the jaws of death...
ReplyDeleteIndia today should never become that horrible place. Because the Tamil's voice was not heard at the center, you see, sir.
Please read the article related to the same at
ReplyDeletehttp://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/reel-it-in-poland-hollywood/1/357484.html
where there is a mention of Scindler's List, a movie about the rescue of Jews from the Concentration Camps.
By any chance if you get a copy of Schindler's List please share it with me, sir. I too will if I.
ReplyDeleteI suggested the students of class 10 to watch it if they can while they are at home for the vacation. I had given the necessary introduction too. I'll see if a copy can be obtained.
DeleteThe Tamil problem is just the beginning, M. Unless Mr Modi handles certain issues with a lot of care and astuteness, there will be serious consequences. This precisely was my apprehension and still is.
Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder! No?
ReplyDeleteYes, Amit, and it is precisely that inner beauty, subjective beauty, which really matters. All the rest is drama or politics or both.
Delete