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Antichrist and other philosophies

“The Antichrist can be born from piety itself, from excessive love of God or of the truth…” That’s one of the concluding lines in Umberto Eco’s fabulous novel, The Name of the Rose . I’m celebrating the 30 th anniversary of the publication of the English translation of the novel.  The original Italian version was published in 1980. The novel is set in a Christian monastery in Italy in the early 14 th century.  The plot unfolds in seven days in the year 1327 though the background will span many years earlier. Those were the years in which many people were burnt as heretics and witches by the Catholic Church, the most powerful religion of those days. Eco’s novel illustrates in its own subtle way how a very innocent woman was burnt as a witch simply because she had to sell her body to two monks in the monastery in return for the food she could take home for people at home.  The monks in question are tortured as heretics, and they are not innocent anyway.  The inqu

Funny...apes

Delhi is too cold for me. I like it hot. So I decided to take some sunshine though the sun was too cold for me this morning just as it has been for quite some time. But some interesting photos I got as I stood on my balcony reading a novel...; Monkeys  come and go. As usual. But one monkey gets the other to bow down.  To stoop low.  Too low.  That's Delhi.  That's administration. That's human life.  That's life... Then the deal is settled. Once the deal is settled, we look the other way.  For the next prey!? And life goes on in Delhi or anywhere in the world of men/women PS: Believe me, each shot above was taken in the same sequence as given here.  Only the text was invented.

Simple People without a Leader

The English translation of Umberto Eco’s novel, The Name of the Rose , was originally published 30 years ago.  It’s the only novel of Eco that sold millions of copies.  I started re-reading it during this brief winter break in order to re-live the thrills I had gone through reading it about a quarter of a century back. While I’m about half way through the brilliant novel set in a Benedictine monastery in medieval Italy, I would like to share a thought from it on why certain new teachings, especially religious ones, gain popularity among the masses. In the medieval Europe, any new religious teaching [what other teaching was there in those days?] would be viewed as heresy, a challenge to the authority of the Pope.  Eco’s protagonist argues that the majority of those who flock after the new teachers are the “ simple” people (who lack “subtlety of doctrine”) who are also marginalised by the dominant classes.  The marginalised people are powerless in any society.  What th