Skip to main content

Illusions


The first time I read Richard Bach was in 1980. I read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and it obviously led me on to Illusions. As a 20 year-old man who was terribly immature and even silly, I found the two books a great inspiration.  Both the idealistic Jonathan and the reluctant messiah of Illusions grew in my consciousness for many years.  Then I grew out of them.  The other day I was looking for a light read as I was recuperating from a viral fever which left me rather debilitated.  Illusions caught my attention.  It kept me riveted though I now don’t agree with quite many of the things in it which were gospel truths for me some three decades ago.

The basic assumption of Illusions remains true even today.  It will remain true any day.  The world as seen by most people is an illusion.  We keep chasing shadows such as money and positions, luxury and redundancy.  We seek to fill the ineluctable vacuum with religion and god(s).  It’s only a few rare beings, highly evolved beings like the protagonist of Illusions, that realise the futility of all human endeavours. 

Human endeavours keep the world moving forward.  Achievements and more achievements.  But the world keeps becoming a worse place for living in.  We are still living in illusions.  All the progress, all the religions and gods, all the gurus and preachers haven’t added a modicum of refinement to the human soul.  The really refined being will continue to be shot dead like in Illusions.  Perverts rule the world.  Religions and gods are the palliatives that soothe the bruises so that we can go on with our perversions.  Illusions are the only truths.



Comments

  1. Pranju chakrapaniJune 28, 2017 at 1:47 PM

    What made you grow out of that illusion? Practicality of mundaneness? I suffer from solipsim, I still believe in the illusion that I am living in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJune 28, 2017 at 7:18 PM

      The stupidity of the practical world steals our illusions. And then gives us perversions in their place.

      Delete
  2. Durga Prasad DashJune 30, 2017 at 3:38 PM

    There seems to be not much difference between the concept of 'illusion' of Bach and the Indian concept of Maya, which was enunciated in the philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 3, 2017 at 9:45 AM

      Yes, there's much similarity between the two notions.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 3

Street leading to St Francis Church, Fort Kochi There were Christians in Kerala long before the Brahmins, who came to be known as Namboothiris, landed in the state from North India some time after 6 th century CE. Tradition has it that Thomas, disciple of Jesus, brought Christianity to Kerala in the first century. That is quite possible, given the trade relationships that Kerala had with the Roman Empire in those days. Pliny the Elder, Roman author, chastised in his encyclopaedic work, Natural History (published around 77 CE), the Romans’ greed for pepper from India. He was displeased with his country spending “no less than fifty million sesterces” on a commodity which had no value other than its “certain pungency.” Did Thomas sail on one of the many ships that came to Kerala to purchase “pungency”? Possible.   Even if Thomas did not come, the advent of Christianity in Kerala precedes the arrival of the Namboothiris. The Persians established trade links with Kerala in 4 ...
10 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
10 comments
Read more

Five Microtales

1.        Development             Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and many others stood at a distance, along with their families, and watched their huts being pulled down by a bulldozer. They were asked to leave the place where they had been living for decades. “The government has taken over this land for development works,” an officer said. Chamar, Lohar, Mehtar and the others spread their bedsheets under a flyover over which flew opulent vehicles of development.   2.        Impersonation             The old woman went to the Women’s Welfare office. She wanted to register herself for the Prime Minister’s monthly welfare scheme for the old and unemployable women. She placed her thumb on the scanner for Aadhar authentication. “Not matching,” the officer said. She was arrested for trying to impersonate. Sitti...
8 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
7 comments
Read more