A fellow blogger whom I requested for a review of my short story collection, The Nomad Learns Morality , turned down the request on the grounds that my stories were pessimistic. “Howsoever wrongs have been done in the past and howsoever bleak the present may be appearing, optimism needs to be preserved in one way or the other, that's what I feel,” he wrote to me. It is almost impossible to come across such candidness in today’s world. I found my respect for this blogger friend increase manifold merely because he cared to express his opinion so frankly. That’s my pessimism and my realism. When I say “It is almost impossible to come across such candidness in today’s world”, I’m expressing my pessimism. But my respect for the friend’s candidness is my realism. Is it the duty of a literary writer to preserve optimism? The lion’s share of the world’s best literature would be rendered trash if we answer in the affirmative. From the great Greek classics to the contemp
Cerebrate and Celebrate