Skip to main content

From Camus's Absurdity to Zorba's Santuri


 Life is a mystery to be experienced, not a puzzle to be solved. However, experiences can be terrible and terrifying more often than not. Life is not a fair game. It's a rugby of bullies. It turns a deadly battleground occasionally. Nevertheless, it has its music, its moments of awe, its sweet orgasms. 

I'm participating in this year's A2Z Challenge thrown by Blogchatter just for the fun of writing something non-political and possibly more exciting if not inspiring than politics. Life is the theme. But life is too vast a topic for a blogger to handle. Life is an infinite and eternal ocean with relentless waves and winds, as well as corals and pearls. A blogger can at best look at a tiny fraction of that infinity, that eternity. And I'm gonna do just that. 

The series is tentatively titled From Camus's Absurdity to Zorba's Santuri. It is going to take a deep look (as deep as a blogger can go, of course) into life's ocean starting with its absurdities. We'll move through such phenomena as the bandwagon effect, fictional finalism, Kafka's prison, serendipity, utopian chimeras, to the secret of Zorba's happiness. 

I said it was going to be "non-political". Well, can you really discuss life without touching upon politics? Isn't politics an integral part of the game called life? Isn't it politics that makes life the misery that it often is? Isn't our entire history from the most ancient civilisations onward about our kings and their henchmen? Do the workers who actually built the monuments and mausoleums find a mention anywhere in your history books? 

April won't be political anyway - not too obviously, at least. I shall try my best to keep politics away with a barge pole. I hope April will engage you meaningfully here in this space and thanks to Blogchatter team for their support. 

PS. I participated in this programme last year too and the result is still available as a free e-book titled Great Books for Great Thoughts. 


Comments

  1. In politics, I feel that 'the more things change, the more they remain the same'. It does not work on rules, ethics or anything deeper, I suppose. Personally, I could not learn anything worthwhile from political discussion, in spite of being a native of the state (U.P.) where politics and political discussion is the primary occupation of nearly everyone.

    Nevertheless, I read your each and every composition, whether political or non-political. All your commentaries carry a fresh and new perspective to the concept. And personally I am an admirer of your non-political compositions -- there is so much to learn and discover there. They are my all time favourites.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm excited by this comment coming from an eminent scholar. Glad you expressed it so openly.

      I don't enjoy writing politics. I don't usually discuss it with people either. There's something detestable about it. Yet the way our country is turning citizens against one another, making one the enemy of one's neighbour in the name of religions and gods - this is extremely wicked in my opinion. Much worse than what the Congress or the British or the Mughals did.

      Delete
  2. Loved your theme on life. And as I recently learnt in a session with a writer, even a fictional setting is politics since it comes with a set of rules and baggage. Looking forward to your posts. All the best!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you.

      Can a writer actually do away with politics? You're so right: even fictional settings are political one way or another. I have to set my story somewhere, some time, and that place as well as time has its politics. How can any writer worth his salt escape that politics?

      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

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

War and Meaning of Victory

In the summer of 1999, while the rest of India was soaked in monsoon and Cricket World Cup, the country’s soldiers were clawing up frozen cliffs daring the bullets that came shooting from above. India’s incorrigible neighbour had sent its soldiers and militants to capture the snow-covered peaks of Kargil. It was an act of deception, a capture of India’s land stealthily. The terrain was harsh and hostile, testing the limits of human courage with every jagged step. The Kargil War was not just against a human enemy, but against peaks of stones and snow where the air itself was an adversary. Three months of bitter conflict and subhuman killing ended in India’s victory over the invading Pakistan. Victory! July 26 is celebrated ever after as Kargil Vijay Diwas by India. What is victory, however? Philosophically, I mean. We are supposed to be rational (philosophical) creatures, after all. “ W ar does not determine who is right,” Bertrand Russell said famously, “but who is left.” Every...

Stories from the North-East

Book Review Title: Lapbah: Stories from the North-East (2 volumes) Editors: Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih & Rimi Nath Publisher: Penguin Random House India 2025 Pages: 366 + 358   Nestled among the eastern Himalayas and some breathtakingly charming valleys, the Northeastern region of India is home to hundreds of indigenous communities, each with distinct traditions, attire, music, and festivals. Languages spoken range from Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic tongues to Indo-Aryan dialects, reflecting centuries of migration and interaction. Tribal matrilineal societies thrive in Meghalaya, while Nagaland and Mizoram showcase rich Christian tribal traditions. Manipur is famed for classical dance and martial arts, and Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh add further layers of ethnic plurality and ecological richness. Sikkim blends Buddhist heritage with mountainous serenity, and Assam is known for its tea gardens and vibrant Vaishnavite culture. Collectively, the Northeast is a uni...

The RSS and Paradoxes

The oldest racist organisation in the world is all set to celebrate the centenary of its existence. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was founded in 1925 with the specific goal of unifying the Hindus in India under a religious and cultural banner. The Indian Independence struggle that was going on in full force at that time was no concern of the RSS. Though it gave the liberty to its individual members to take part in the struggle, the organisation’s official policy was to stay clear of it altogether. That was only one of the many paradoxical ironies that marked the RSS which was a nationalist organisation that cared little for the Independence of the nation. Today, the Prime Minister of India is a man who was trained and nurtured by the RSS. Shashi Tharoor wrote a massive book on the paradoxes that underscore the personality of Mr Narendra Modi. The RSS and paradoxes go hand in hand, if we take Modi as a specimen of the organisation’s great achievements. Tharoor’s final asses...