एतेर्नल Prayer

I pray with borrowed hands

Lent to me with fatelines which bow to the sun.

The Nothingness of Personality-- J L Borges

I am not I. There is nothing in 'me' that is permanent and unique. Who am I-- if I am my visual representation, then darkness would annihilate me. If I am a compilation of all my memories, then the act of forgetting will be tantamount to suicide.

Well this is the point that Borges, that great Argentinian philosopher, poet and writer tries to make in an essay titled 'The Nothingness of Personality'.

There is another essay he wrote on similar lines called 'The Personality and Buddha". He avers that Westerners have misunderstood Buddha in totality if they can't grasp this subtle point - that psychophysical existence of man does not constitute 'self' or the I.

Am I Borges of 9.30 pm or 9.31?

Ultimately he is making an interesting point that I am this moment. This present, this current existence is all you can lay your claim on and no more.

This moment, for example (if I take my case) -- when I am writing this post, thinking about the imminent rain (well the skyline is grey and clouds look intimidating), this thought that shall I leave the post and grab my blue sneakers and go for a walk and Jorge Luis Borges...this is me.

This is I.

I am no longer the person who topped in English but returned crestfallen from school on results day because my science scores were low.

I am not even what I was 3 minutes ago thinking about rain, cloud and walk.
I am now- typing these three words which could be the most revolutionary words uttered since the French Revolution.

Ciao

Faulkner and Iqbal

Haven't read anything lately- not even the newspaper since the last post. Living in my lalaland if there is such a xanadu.

Was very intrigued by a paper bag made out of Organic Chemistry textbook. And this brings me to the question- why is it so fascinating to read about alcohols and esters on the back of a paper bag than in school Phew!

But today I resumed my desultory reading somewhat- d'sltry because it drifted from Iqbal (the great Urdu poet) to the great author William Faulkner.

Iqbal was an unassuming poet and scholar and very emotional and ardent too in the matters of heart.

One day he reached late for class and justly chastised for being late. To which he replied tongue-in-cheek -- " Sir, Iqbal (glory) comes late."

I think I will end this post with a Faulkner (who was originally Faukner ) quote which so succintly defines my approach:

"I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it. "

Ciao

Hindi Film Lyrics- fiction or addiction

It has been raining since last night. The wind, cool and scented with soggy smells of leaves and trunks, sweeps some drizzle into my window.



I am listening to an old Hindi song that means:



It is the month of rain

And the wind is howling its protests.

The heart is dancing

Like a peackock in the forests.



Which forces an unhappy question to pop up on its own: what are Hindi film lyrics doing in a purportedly fiction blog.



Well films qualify as fiction too and poetry is the most elevated form of fiction.



Actually our real lives have become so grim due to stress, news, terrorism and obsession with looks, that it seems true beauty is in quest of fiction to save its soul.



I like that sort of fiction- beautiful.



And what opened my eyes to beauty were: Arundhati Roy's TGOST and Gulzar's lyrics.



Their pens ooze poetry-- just cup your hands to drink this nectar.



...The rain has slowed a bit...another song is playing on my 2.1



Oh life, please embrace me...

For I have embraced every one of your sorrows

Isn't it?

Knut Hamsun: The Call Of Life

It is so wonderful to sometimes discover the name of an artist whose art elevated your mood to an ethereal plane.

I am talking about Knut Hamsun. Now I know he is a Nobel Laureate and the originial 'psychological novel' guy inspiring the likes of Faulkner and Hemingway.

Back in my film school, I saw a black and white film called Sult. The hero is hungry---famished would be a better word. And he is beginning to develop a mental illness due to the constant hunger. What finally happens is something you might be inspired to read about.

However his conversation with his shoes was absolutely surreal....i mean 'psychologically realistic" lest the genre-obsessed haul me over the coals. Only last night we learnt to distinguish the fine line between magic realism and psychological realism as so tersely pointed by J M Coetzee about Gabriel Garcia Marquez.


So recalling the film, I thought I must sample something from Hamsun's treasure trove. I found a preview of the book- Hunger on which Sult was based. But that tiny morsel could scarce quell my hunger. So I picked up 'Great Stories By Nobel Prize Winners' in which there is a story by the Norwegian Nobel Laureate called The Call of Life.

It is so simple that it defies all expectations. Yet it's honesty leaves a mark. It is the story of a man wandering the streets at dusk when he sees a woman strolling about. First he thinks she must be like so many others- "creature of the night".

However it turns out that she has far more dignity than to simply accept the narrator's arm at a go. But she eventually relents and they end up in her house where she gets intimate with him. It is only later he notices that this young but ravaged woman of 23 or so has a corpse of an old man in a coffin in the drawing room.

Then suddenly the mist lifts and all becomes clear. Here's a widow, fresh and free, heaving a sigh of relief at the turn of the event.

I like such matter-of-fact stories. A story does not always have to end in high drama. It can sometimes be a slice of life and therefore its climax and resolution can only be about "moving on".

Wish I could lay my hands on Hunger and read it voraciously (pun intended).

J M Coetzee on Gabriel Garcia Marquez

J M Coetzee's inner workings (essays 2000-20005) is a book I recently picked up on a rainy morning, wet to my skin.



Of the 21 essays, I selected the one on GGM's Memories of my Melancholy Whores.



In most part, Coetzee quotes from the novella and outlines the plot of MOMMW.



Then he turns to comparison. Seems that not only Marquez's latest offering based on the basic structure of his previous work (Love In the Times of Cholera), there are other writers who have explored the theme of old age and paedophilia like Japanese writer Kawabata. But Coetzee is quick to point that "Marquez not so much imitates Kawabata as respond to it'.



Then Coetzee mentions the influences of Marquez like Sophocoles and Faulkner. As per Coetzee Marquez is the true successor, legatee of Faulkner and Sophocles's influence ? Well here is a funny story- his first book LeafStorm when read by his friend left the latter shocked. Its resemblance to Antigone was so palpable that GGM felt embarrassed at his 'subconscious' plagiarsm and made many changes to it to redeem himself from the public embarrassment of plagiarism though unable to privately hide his pride about the coincidence of thought in good faith.



Then he makes a controversial point: Is Garcia, the very Czar of Magic Realism at all one?



Now run a quick google search on the genre Magic Realism and the search engine will most probably throw GGM in all the metatags.



However Coetzee, a recent Nobel Laureate commenting on another, feels GGM more fits the description of Psychological Realist.



Coming back to the theme of paedophilia, Marquez has touched but not elaborately commented on it in Love In the Times of Cholera, described as an "autumnal comedy" by Coetzee.



Coetzee makes the point that what we outsiders consider 'magic realism' is perhaps commonplace if not real in the Spanish literature. Cervantes' Don Quixote is as much a fantasy married to reality with fuzzy boundaries.



Now this means the next post is about Magic Realism and that surely means Midnight's Children revisited.



Ciao

Unforgettable Characters

Let me list out the books which I recall having read and from which I have derived some meaningful insight about life.

1. Disgrace by J M Coetzee

2. The GOST by Arundhati Roy

3. Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

4. David Copperfield

5. Great Expectations

6. Oliver Twist

7. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

9. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

10. The Curious Incident of Dog at Night

11. The Da Vinci Code

12. Digital Fortress

13. Chrnonicles of a Death Foretold

14. Memories of My Melancholy Whores

15. The Kite Runner

16. City of Joy

17. Jude the Obscure

18. Pride and Prejudice

19. Sense and Sensibility

20. Many Sidney Sheldond but his bio The Other Side of Me is best

21. Papillon

22. The Godfather

23. Heart of Darkness


and this is going to be followed by the books I am going to read.ho ho.