Gunahon Ka Devta

When Debu, my only chat friend(He is a computer science graduate from IIT Kgp, recently working with Samsung in Bangalore), recommended me this book, I politely said that I dont prefer that kind of book. By that kind, I meant, you very well know, which type of books.

This was my knee-jerk reaction after knowing the title of this book. I was quick to judge(so like me!) and I was sort of offended for having been taken for that type of guy who reads that type of books! But then he said that this book was an Academy award winner and a must-read for those who think that there could be anything that can be treated as a must-read. I was convinced enough to take a chance, after all I read Devnagri very fast.

I visited a Book Fair in Delhi or Ranchi, I dont remember where, and bought it. I must say that was a very good day of my life.

This is an all-time favorite book of almost all who have read it and here I include the people who do nothing else but read, and here I also include the people who picked it up with soaring expectations.

But I am not writing this because it is a super-hit book. I am writing it because I love it.

I hardly write reviews. I know people who do this better than me. So I leave it to them. But when Gunahon Ka Devta is in question, I must do what I have never done.

After spending a considerable number of hours with books and bookworms, I have a decently large sample size to make an observation about the category of books. There are 3 type of books I read.

1. Books that are written by brain.

2. Books that are written by heart.

3. Books that are written by soul.

I must say that I dont read unputdownable books. No serial-killer protagonists for me. Less due to excess of scorn and more due to shortage of time, I dont read the bestsellers and the charbusters. So I exclude the books that are written by other parts of human anatomy. Leave it. Lets not waste words for them.

Witty is the word for the first category. The author makes penetrating observations and uses spectacular language to leave you amazed and you marvel at his sheer power of making you amazed. Overall, it's an amazing read.

Moving is the word for the next category. These books might leave your face stained with lines at each side of your nose. You walk dazed throughout the day and you might find yourself examining your life, your relationships with those you love and your priorities. You feel unperturbably placid. Overall, it has a cathartic experience.

There is often an overlapping between the second and the last. The difference is that the former is more or less temporary but the latter leaves an indelible impression on your mind. This book belongs to the third category, the book that is written by soul.

Have you ever visited a small temple in a village? A temple surrounded by serenity and silence. A temple with ivory-white walls on the top a of a hill where you feel yourself lost in harmony with everything around. Have you ever been there?

This book creates the same ambience in your mind.

It is a love story.

But dont expect any cool-dude with a kick-ass confidence and a slapstick humor duly developed to make your dil go mmmm here. Chandar is far less disingenuous a character. And he is very simple and honest. There is nothing fake about him. You might not even notice him on the street. But you long for him for your entire life.

And there is no outwardly modern but actually traditional girl here. Sudha has never been exposed to smart education. She is innocence personified. She is so lovable that anyone would love her. She is the one who contains in herself the timeless beauty in the expectation of which a man wants to love a woman.

They don't go around with each other and have fun. Their love is not burdened by rituals and kitsch. Their relation has no social value. And their love is not that is shattered by one blow. They are not 'I-tried-but- it's-not-working-out' type people who seek the exit door as soon as they could.

It is a story of a boy and a girl who were not waiting it to happen in their life because it happens in everyone else's life and how wonderful life would be if it happens soon enough! They are not dying to make it happen. Well waiting for it is no way wrong and even you and I do it. But it is not our story. It is their story who live in Allahabad where life moves at the speed of an old melody. They share a cute nameless sibling-like relationship and imperceptibly become dependent on each other emotionally. When she fights with her father then it is only him and noone else who can persuade her to eat.

This is the thing that I liked the most. They didnt realize that they were in love! They were absolutely unaware of their own feelings for each other. When they come to know that they are going to be separated (by the girl's marriage) then only, very gradually and very unassuredly, they realize that what is between them has exceeded the boundary of friendship and perhaps it is what people call Love! But they are more confused than they were sure.

Imagine a sad bride who can not help thinking about a man who is not her would-be groom. And who is being teased by her giggling friends about her first night!

Imagine a man who simultaeously discovers his love for the bride and who is responsible to make various arrangements for her marriage. He is being torn apart by his mental conflicts and dilemma and suddenly he hears a call, 'O Chandar, beta where are you? You are sitting here! See where the doodhwala has died! Go and fetch him'.

I am feeling dizzy while writing it. And if you feel that it is a usual hindi-film story with the usual overdose of glycerine then it is I to blame and not the book. The moon is not less beautiful if the poet is inarticulate.

Well, what does he do? He suppresses his feelings. After all the girl is the daughter of his professor whom he worships. And it is sheer impunity and treachery to love his daughter. And the groom is many times better than him. He must not wreck havoc in a house where marriage is taking place because of his stupid emotions. He must keep his thoughts to himself and take care of where the hell the doodhwala is!

In this book, the writer doesnt say anything great about this supreme sacrifice. Rather he doesnt judge anyone and anything throughout the book. This is other beauty - no judgements, no logic, no rhetoric and no metaphors- and yet the effect!

The girl conforms to his father's wish and is peacefully married away but she could not do further. She could not make herself happy. She was incapable of enjoying herself. She falls sick, withers away her health and eventually dies before her clueless, helpless father and Chander who is a God of Sins! His nobility and loaftiness of character turns out to be the murderer of one he loves most! And his sacrifice couldnt outdo his love.

Read this book for its ambience if nothing else. I have found very few books who belong to the third category. Only The picture of Dorian Grey comes close to it because of Sibyl Vane and her understanding of Love!

The author, Dharmaveer Bharti, says that writing this book was like a heartfelt prayer for him.

"While writing this novel I experienced same type of feelings, which one does, when one is praying with full faith in the time of deep distress.... It appears as if same very prayer has been ingrained in my heart and I am repeating it."

Bhartiji, I assure you that as a reader I had had a similar experience.

Also read this post by Akshaya.

The balance question

We have a simple balance with us. No distortions; analogous to the good old unbiased coin of the bad old questions of probability that you might have solved in your std 12th.

We place 1 kg mass on the one scale and 1/2 a kg mass on the other. The former scale (heavy with its greatness, as a branch full of fruits) goes down lifting the latter scale. Fine? Now we put another 1/2 a kg mass on the second scale, without giving any jerk, any impact, we observe that it comes down (with its newly acquired humility) lifting the first one.

I'm sure each one of us has seen this phenomenon many times. A balance is a very useful and very popular instrument and its ability to balance is so much appreciated that it is accepted as a symbol of justice. But lets chuck philosophy for a while and return to the world of physics. Have you ever wondered why this happens? Why does the first balance comes up and the second balance goes down when we keep the weight on the second one?

This is an interesting question and you can try to solve it.

Try to make a diagram when you put the 1/2 kg weight at the second scale. We see that there are two mutually cancelling torques about the hinge, so we dont have a net torque.

Also, the total potential energy of the system also remains the same(gained by the first and lost by the second).

Any answers?

Krishna Consciousness

Since last weekend some thought waves were disturbing my mind. I allowed them to play their game in my mind and yesterday, finally, while I was riding back to my place, they presented themselves as a coherent picture. Let me share this picture with you and hope you will be able to see it as I did. It might require some abstract thinking but I will try to minimize your efforts. Let's start, come on.

I'm going to explain this, let's say, hypothesis by using a model. Let us visualize this model first. It's a very familiar model. Remember the diagram of an atom? A nucleus surrounded by concentric circles(orbitals) having electrons revolving around it. Also, there are fewer electrons in the orbitals that are closer to the nucleus, for instance there are only 2 electrons present in the 's' orbital. On the other hand we have more number of electrons in the outer orbitals, like 'd' and 'f'. You might have guessed that I am talking about some sort of hierarchy. If you guessed so, you are right. There are very few electrons that are near to the nucleus, and this implies something. I will talk about it in the following paragraphs.

That's my model. And I am sure it will make sense to you. Also, in this model, the nucleus as well as the electrons denote something. We will come to it later on.

Every electron enters to the system from outside the system. It starts from a point at the outermost circle, the periphery, and continues to make its way towards the centre along a spiral path. In every system here, the cyclic coordinate denotes time. The radial coordinate would denote different values as per the nature of the system. In the next paragraph we will talk about it. Usually an electron goes comes and closer to the nucleus as time progresses. It gains that value with the time. Sometimes, under favorable circumstances, a jump from an outer circle to an inner circle is also possible. It means that sooner an electron comes nearer to the nucleus. This jump saves time. A quantum energy is needed for bring about this jump and again it is supplied from different sources in different systems. I hope we are not confused till here.

The thoughts that came to my mind suggested me that there are many types of worlds existing in this universe. All these worlds can be seen and understood by our nucleus-electron model. One of these worlds is a world of truth- the intellectual world. At the center of this world, truth(nucleus) exists. Everything else revolves around truth. Everyone travels along the spiral paths and gain knowledge(value) with time. If a seeker(electron) is lucky enough to find a Guru(energy) then he gets a quantum jump and learns lessons quickly. It's so easy to verify this. By education, by reading books we learn quickly that otherwise would have taken much longer time. And if we get a mentor then the learning process is further catalyzed.

But this intellectual world is an ideal world where truth exists in the center. Actually, in non-ideal intellectual world, truth is slightly dislocated. It is so because the non-ideal intellectual world is generated by the ideal world's mapping on the practical world. When it is mapped on the world we live in, it becomes the academic world which is not a purely intellectual world. In the academic world, unlike the intellectual world, truth is not the nucleus. Every non-ideal world is bi-nuclei world, it has two centers so to say. In the academic world, for example, we have truth as the first and power as the second center. We not only acquire knowledge but also strive to obtain a degree that helps us to achieve some sort of confidence or control that is nothing but an indicative of power. Does that explain the cut-throat competition for IITs and IIMs? Does that explain the meaning of success? Yes, it is nothing but a quantum jump towards the center.

Similarly we have the aesthetic world having beauty at the center. We might have other worlds as well but I think I have mentioned the prominent ones.

Now we can move on to the worldly world that dominates all the other worlds - the political world. It is this world that modifies a purely intellectual world into an academic world by its sort of 'electromagnetic' influence. Now no credit for guessing what lies at the center of this world. Obviously power. Power. It is the power which makes this system run. Again, we must remember that noone, nobody can reach at the center and holds all the power. Look around. Can you find anyone who has infinite power? No. There is noone. Not a single man! Even the most powerful man has his insecurities. Even he has a man or a group of men to be afraid of. You may think about it in detail. But the immutable fact is : The center is not for any electron, there exists the nucleus.

In our world, where we live, we have mostly bi-centric worlds, except the pure political world of course. I acknowledge that this model is a very basic postulate and it can be developed further. I am just presenting a foundation, a template.

These thoughts were disturbing me because I wanted to find out my world. I was seeking the nucleus that will become my goal of life. Will it be truth? Or beauty? Or simply power? Or something else? Which type of electron am I? What is my essential nature, my Dharma? Which element is predominant in me? Yes, that's the word. Predominant. Of course I want and I need all, truth, beauty and power as well, but which of them would rule my destiny?

Ohh, I don't have to worry about that. My destiny will choose me, or perhaps it has already chosen me. My task, my duty is only to allow it to work through me. I must submit myself to it, the higher force.

"I am an experiment on the part of Nature, a gamble within the unknown, perhaps for a new purpose, perhaps for nothing, and my only task is to allow this game on the part of primeval depths to take its course, to feel its will within me and make it wholly mine. That or nothing!" - Hermann Hesse

That's my MORALITY! My only morality!! I am feeling so light! And lighted!

So far so good. I was making sense to myself at least. But then an image flashed in my mind! Out of nothing! It was a revelation! Almost miracle! I have no expression, no word to articulate my amazement. I felt that I have gone crazy! It was so much shaken that I did something very stupid, something I had never done in my life. I bought a cigarette and smoked!

You know what did I see? I saw Krishna! I saw his Sudarshan Chakra.

Eureka!! This is the world we live in, this is the political world!! And His finger is there at the center! He is at the center! He is omnipotent, the one who has absolute power.

Some more contemplation explained our craving for power. As the chakra is revolving around his finger, the proximity to the center gives stability! Those who are at the periphery are weak and vulnerable. They are likely to be thrown out.

I know it was crazy. But this is what it was.

And it was not all.

I thought how amazing it is. Krishna is in the power chakra and he is also outside it!! Wow! So there are other ways to go to him. Yes there is spiritual way, nay there are many, infinitely many spiritual ways. Every religion is a way. All the ways lead to Him.

Then the halo around his head attracted my attention. Ha Ha.... I found the intellectual world as well! And His head is at its center. His head is the nucleus. The truth lies in His head. We can never know it all. We are not allowed the truth. Though we can and we do acquire knowledge.

I was actually feeling out of my senses. Strange thoughts were invading my poor mind. And I was secretly enjoying as well. But I must admit I was a little scared.

The last thing that needed an explanation was Love. Where is love in this schema? I didnt see it anywhere. It is perhaps too fine for my eyes. But then I thought that it is love that is the reason behind everything. It is the force that inspire electrons to revolve around the nucleus. It is.. ohh I must stop, it is blasphemous to talk more about it, it is ineffable, it should not be trivialized...

Last Night

I usually take long walk in night, alone, or with little mp3 player which sings my favorite songs for me. Music and night and solitude!! Wow!! It's SUBLIME! It's complete. Perfect. You dont want anything else. You don't get tired. You almost walk on air. You just feel happy. It's my type of fun, and I can't tell you how much I love it! I have always loved night. I have always been in awe of her beauty, her capacity to flood me with delight and intoxication. She inspires imagination and give it wings to fly away to distant lands, vast oceans, high hills and dark forests that I have never seen before. I see myself picking flowers I never had smelt before, fruits I never had tasted before. I look for my Eve and we eat all sort of forbidden apples in our garden. I create my own small world there where all my little dreams are fulfilled. It's the very existence of this world, however ephemeral and however volatile, that gives me enough enthusiasm to face the sun next day! Don't you have your own little world where you visit and get rejuvenated? I am sure you must have one. Anyways, lets come back to night before I talk more nonsense. But still I don't understand how others fail to see the way I see. Believe me, night is made for sleeping, and something else, and something else too.

OK. Let me ask you a question, an interesting question. Have you ever wondered how many type of nights we have? Think. Have you ever thought that tommorow's night will be different from yesterday's night! Why? Oh it's so simple. It's so because we have so many moons. And so many stars. And so we have so many nights! The landscape of sky remains the same every day, but it alters every night. And so the world remains the same every day, but it alters every night! We have at least 15 type of nights depending on the shape of the moon. And then 14 more depending on the moods of the moon. It is altogether a different experience to see a moon on its way to her glory. Those nights, of course, she shines more cheerfully. Her face glows with only she knows what. And then comes the festival, the night of the full moon! Oh it's the night of magic! How else can you explain what happen to us? It's the night when poetry descends onto earth, from heaven, in form of milky smoke, giving highs to mankind. It's the night when love blooms in the heart of men and women. It's the night when desire stretches her limbs in every breathing creature. That's her charm! That's her magic! We can hardly capture her magnificence in words. She is ineffably fine for words. She slips through them.

Can you find the Great Bear tonight? No, you have to wait till summers. But yes, you can see Orion if you want to. What I want to say is that if we include the stars and their patterns then we have even more type of nights. I dont know how many. But sufficiently many. Don't you feel thrilled? I do. I have so many varieties to explore and enjoy! Apart from it, I feel a sense of freedom in night. I find a privacy in the openness. Free from heat and dust and noise and haste, I walk freely knowing that nobody is looking at me.

I had developed this habit during my stay in Germany and now this has become a part of my life.

Last night too I felt an urge to take a long walk, at 11.30 night. Some questions had demanded a ransom of appropriate answers to release my peace of mind that they had abducted. So I had to think over them.

But can you do anything when there are people with evil intentions ambushing behind some shady place waiting for you to pass by? I was almost scared when Ravi put his hand on my shoulder. I thought that my songbird is in danger, its so nice, anyone would want to have it. And I was in no mood to part with it. Well I knew karate once upon a time but I am not that young and strong anymore! And anyways my punches and kicks have long been decimated by rust due to disuse thanks to my peaceful(ahem) nature. I put off my earphones and shook hands with him. Thankfully it was him. Then I saw Akshaya who was walking towards me with utmost physical application, stuffed with kebab as he was, and looked like a typical character of one of (his favorite-) RGV's underworld movie. And he was doing what he always does - he was saying something. Bad of course as I made him walk. In summary, apart from breaking my chain of thoughts they blasted me for not hearing their calls and having been devillishly lucky to miss the pebble they threw at me! Mind you they are my friends!

Well, I knew that the night had been ruined. I had to salvage whatever I could. So I sat with them and listened to them. Akshaya lambasted in his usual style a few popular writers and IIMs and professors and us of course :)

After sometime, an irrepressible desire of having tea surged in Akshaya's body. That means that the night is gone! It has happened with us earlier too. We came back at 4.30. That too because we had to attend office. Yesterday too we took our bikes and rode to Pune railway station. I love that place. I love that place. I love that place. I rode at 100 kmph, wow! the night was saved finally! It was such a fun to fly on the empty roads! Boy, night is beauty!

We had had our tea with Sachin and Sahir. Sahir whom I worship, even Akshaya does so and anyone else would do, provided he has two things- 1. a heart, and 2. exposure. Even talking about Sahir is so much fun!

What else does one need in life! Sometimes I wonder why people are crazy after useless things when happiness is spread in so many little things. Almost everything which can give you enduring happiness is free! You don't have to be a millionaire to buy music, noone can buy music. Neither night nor solitude. Leave it. I was so happy. Music and night and solitude, everything was there. I dont exactly remember what we talked because it doesnt matter. I remember that I felt quite nice and I wanted to stay there and had more cups of tea. I wanted more Sahir and more Sachin and more of everything. But again, we had to come to office today. So we rode back at 4.30.

I am amuse - The critique

I have already talked to Akshaya about it. I will not write an exhaustive review. I dont have energy to do that.

I know Akshaya through his writings at this website. Click on that link,I am sure you'ld like it.

Every age is marked by a force, a predominant force that shapes the psyche of that generation. This force influences us in every conceivable manner, economically, culturally, intellectually and psychologically. I think we are living in the age of corporatocracy. Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and other contemporary philosophers are extensively working in this area and letting us see what is invisible with eyes we are allowed to have thanks to media. And thus every serious, purposeful and responsible writer is bound to express his views, if not his stand, about it. If you click on the above link, you will come to know about his views as well his stand on this. There is no ambiguity, he is characteristically unequivocal about it - he is dead against this corporatocracy, the postmodern evil.

Lets come back to the play. Before the beginning and after the end of the play the organizers profusely thanked the sponsers without whose support the staging of the play could not have been possible. It struck me how Akshaya would have felt then! I realized how awfully difficult it is to be a writer! Even Noam Chomsky needs the support of media to criticize it! And media is confident enough to allow some gadflies buzzing around.

1. The realization that you can hardly aspire to fulfil your dreams without the financial support of the one you deeply despise is emotionally exhausting. Read this. I cant imagine what damage it can do to your self-esteem if you actually go and ask for his help!

But this is what you have to do.

2. You have to keep in mind the psyche of your audience, the english-speaking people consisting of a majority with egos bigger than brains. I am talking about the majority of course. They come to theatre to see highbrow stuff and not the regular bourgeois kitsch. They are well-read people and they have fairly good taste due to exposure to quality literature. So you have to sell them something that appeals to their genteel taste. You must do justice with their high expectations. However, you must keep in mind that your play should, most favorably, give them a chance to relate to what they have already seen. Most of them come to see what they have already seen. This helps them to pass expert comments to the uninitiated lot and feel nice about it. As an Indian, creating something really original could be taken as insolently ambitious!

3. India is a huge country and you are a small person who belongs to a small place having small issues. You might be having a cosmopolitan outlook and all that but you are most likely to be touched by the things that have shaped your thought structure. There are certain regional issues that seems important to you. And as a writer you wish to do something about it. You want others to be sensitized about it. But given the diversity of our culture, you might feel absolutely un-understood or even misunderstood by your audience. It is difficult for a parsi, born and brought up in Mumbai to relate with the issues in the life of a Bengali woman.

So all english-speaking, theatre-going people have a better idea about European life than about the Indian life, whatever it might be. Keep this point in your mind.

Accepting this severely delimits your choice of subject. Now, given all the other considerations and constraints, you are not very much encouraged to raise Indian issues. So, as Akshaya says, give them comedy!

Now I am going to give my review on the play. I have taken two parameters by which I am going to judge the play. One is the choice of subject and the other is the treatment of subject.

1. The Writer: Perhaps writing a good comedy is not easy, so give them something that is in and which has some cerebral quality as well. But what? Mystery? Suspense? Thriller? Good enough for a novel but perhaps not feasible in a play. So invoke psychology, and all the concepts of alter-ego, schizophrenia etc.

The choice of subject was decent. And politically correct. It was, I think, written to entertain and it did the job successfully, I must say. The treatment of the subject was even better. The good acting and quality direction seized the attention of the audience.

2. The Drunkards: Personification of one's alter-ego and presentation of the inner conflicts that wage a war in one's mind. A topping of wit with some twists and turns sprinkled over it. Overall a delicious preparation! Akshaya is a readers' writer and the readers like him for whatever he writes. A brilliant effort.

The choice of the subject was suitable for his debut. Very un-Akshayally he wrote a nensensical play that made some good sense, keeping in mind the other factors that were too important to be ignored. This play could have been staged anywhere in the world, in India or abroad, and aroused more or less similar response. The identity of the audience didnt matter much. This was a safe play that was played safely. It continued to grasp the attention of the audience. It is nice to write for the readers without having to do anything with them! Indian readers deserve nothing better. Indian audience deserve the same.

The plot is, no doubt, interestingly made. Very artfully and very subtly, and in the course of the play, very smoothly, the dominating and the dominated selfs exchange places. The acting was superb and so was the direction. I had gone there to watch this play and I must say that I was not dissatisfied with it.

3. Cross talk: Disappointing. 'I am amuse' dies here. I could see no muse in any of the following playlets. I could see no link between this playlet to the preceeding ones. And I could see no sense, no purpose anywhere anytime in this one. This failed to keep the momentum that had been created by the earlier plays. And it failed to entertain us even. And why the hell this title - 'I am amuse'? Why not 'I am a muse'? And why not something even better?

4. End of innocence: This was about a boy who was reproached and humiliated for failing in mathematics test. His parents contrasted him with his kid sister who was in the same grade and topped the class. Noone seemed to be happy about his extraordinary performance in literature.

I liked the choice of the subject. Comparison among siblings, suppression of creativity of an individual etc are relevant topics to talk about. Our society is yet to find an answer to these questions. So we must be reminded that these issue do exist.

But the treatment of this subject was pathetic. The direction as well as the acting was mediocre. This playlet demended more sensitivity and vision than provided by the director. The boy tenaciously defends himself with the blunt dialogues he is given and imparts little effect on the audience. He is stripped of his dignity and tenderness that would have given more strength to his character. He is made to present his marks in english to justify his being poor in maths and he is made to invoke a number to drive his point home. Instead, his gift in arts could have been shown more subtly, less loudly and more effectively, and perhaps with an element of surprise as well. There should have baan a scene and a situation to do what is done by the boy. This surely would have done more justice to the purpose of the writer. But the writer didnt appreciate the power of the unsaid. And the director couldnt provide the dramatic effect to a good idea. The point is to be understood is that everyone knows what the writer wants to say, the content doesnt matter much here. Here you need to show the ghar-ghar ki kahani in such a manner that the audience realize that it is wrong. Art has a power to convert but there was little art in this play.

5. Down payment: I do not believe in comparisons but its simplicity made it the best. The choice of the subject could hardly have been better. I am in IT industry and I have seen people living their life hinged on credit cards and insurance policies. 'Take loan, shop and pay later' has become a lifestyle. We have become runaway consumers and we readily book a flat, a car and what not immediately after getting a job. We need such reminders.

The treatment of the subject was also good. The plot was very simple and it didnt need much input from the director. I am sure the audience will remember the message of this play long after they will have forgotten all the other.

On the whole, watching this play was a nice experience for me. It justified my riding to Jazz Garden, Koregaon Park, a place I am not very crazy about.