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Love’s conundrums

John Powell was one of my favourite authors for a very brief period in my youth.  I was a student of religion then and I found Powell, a Jesuit priest, stimulating.  He combined religion with psychology in a very captivating manner.  In his book The Secret of Staying in Love he said, “It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” Those were days when I had not learnt to love.  I was in search of love, though.  Looking back from the vantage point of an ageing man, I know that I was in search of certain very basic human needs, simpler than love even.  Simple recognition, may be.  Just the need to be recognised as a human being worthy of his existence.  The search for such simple things when you should be concerned about more serious things that befitted your age makes you a laughing stock.  I was a standing joke among my compan

Arjuna disarms himself

I quit! I lay down my arms once and for all, Krishna, this is an unjust war. Even that old one you made me fight equipped with the dharma of nishkama karma was not all that ethical, you know very well. We cheated many a time in order to win. We won but Ashwatthama had the last laugh. Who are we now fighting? Those whose ancestors conquered our ancestors, ruled over us, set up their god over ours, and wrecked our temples? Can we remedy the ills of history that lies dead and rotten? Can we reinstate the valour of our warriors who were beaten thoroughly and disgracefully? Does our present honour depend so unabashedly on rewriting the epitaphs on ancient tombstones? Who are we now fighting? Those whom we kept suppressed and oppressed worse than the animals we slaughtered to please our gods, those who bore our shame and shamelessness as their burden for centuries and centuries? Does our dignity depend so much on the indignity we heap

Choice of Happiness

Albert Camus’s novel, The Plague , tells the story of a plague that broke out in the city of Oran and how different people responded to it.  Dr Bernard Rieux takes positive action.  He does not believe in god or religion but believes in a personal as well as a social code of ethics.  He devotes his entire time to fighting the plague. Father Paneloux, a Catholic priest, thinks that the plague is a punishment from God for the people’s sins.  However, when a young boy dies and Dr Rieux questions Paneloux about it, the priest is faced with a test of his faith.  He cannot discover a satisfactory answer to the radical question about the validity of his faith.  He dies clutching a cross.  Dr Rieux knows that he did not die of plague.  He died probably out of the painful realisation that his God was not as meaningful to him as he believed so far.  Jean Tarrou, the chronicler of the plague, knows that human existence, suffering and death have no rational or moral meaning.  For him

The drenched wings of a narrative

“We are going to do one of the most interesting and creative exercises in writing today,” I began the class. It evoked nothing more than the usual response: a few sparkling eyes and others which said something like: “How can any writing exercise ever be interesting?” “Narrative writing,” I went on.  Having explained what a narrative is and how to write it, I give them a question to write a narrative about a cycle ride on a rainy day.  Riding a cycle when the rain is dancing passionately on your face is an exquisite experience, I started off for an example.  A few more eyes sparkled. I was bathed in the rain’s dance. I went on.  I whistled my favourite tune.  But the rain sealed my lips with its kiss. A gasp escaped from one of the students.  That sealed my lips.  “Ok, start writing now.  That was only an example.  You imagine your own ride and make your own romance with the rain.” “What happened after the kiss, Sir?” asked one student. “You can’t whistle whe

Ram Raj

Fiction “When you were a drunkard, you were a much better human being,” said the wife. The husband was shocked.  He had stopped drinking for her sake.  Just for her sake.  Only for her sake.  Moreover, he had become religious for her sake.  He visited the church every Sunday for her sake.  He mumbled the evening prayers at home every evening just for her sake.  He sacrificed himself, his ideologies (as if he had any) just for her sake.  He had even dared to question the PM, the invincible hero of the country, just for her sake.  He offered to cook too, just for her sake. “Oh, no!” She said remembering the only time he had cooked earlier.  They had to go out for the dinner.  “I wish you were just human. Not so rational.  Not so convincing.” She said. “Give me an hour, will you?”  He asked. She was ready to give anything for those good old days. He went to the city and drank just two pegs.  The breathalyser of the police can smell even half a peg, what do

Self-confidence

There are some writers who compel you to read all their works.  You stumble upon one which captivates you and you move on to the next and the next.  One such writer whom I fell in love with in my late twenties was Carlos Castaneda.  I was working as a teacher in Shillong.  I discovered Castaneda purely by chance in the State Central Library.  The Teachings of Don Juan was, I think, the first book of his that I read.  It bewitched me so much that I went on to read all the books of Castaneda that were available in that library.  The library had five or six of his books though he wrote 12 all of which went on to become best sellers. Castaneda was an anthropologist who learnt shamanism.  He wrote as if Don Juan, the shaman guru of all the wisdom in his books, was a real person.  Years after I read the books I came to know that Don Juan was a fictional creation of the author.  Castaneda’s integrity was called into question.  That did affect my admiration for the books.  Yea

Self-importance

Image courtesy: Onedio New Year resolutions never worked for me.  So I stopped making them long ago.  But this year I made a resolution.  And I know it will work.  Because I have already made it work to a large extent in the past year.  That was one of my few achievements in 2017.  To live without any feeling of self-importance.  That’s my New Year resolution.  I have already tried it quite successfully in the past year and it is immensely rewarding.  I’ll tell you why. I used to feel hurt by the deeds and misdeeds of other people.  Then came a flash of inspiration at some point in 2017.  Probably, it was not a moment; it was a gradual realisation, the result of a protracted self-examination which started some time in 2015 when I lost my job in Delhi which was one of the best things in my life.  The depression that followed lasted months and made me extremely contemplative.  Why do I feel hurt easily?  It’s because I consider myself important.  What if I just let go t