NavDharmyug

“ What chance would the craftiest biographer stand against the subject who saw him coming and decided to amuse himself .” – Wrote Julian Barnes about Gustave Flaubert , in Flaubert’s Parrot ( Click here to read review ) , a semi-biographical fiction on Flaubert. Essentially his point is let the writer be, as a person, that is. Jane Austen makes for an even difficult person to be traced. Mr. Austen Leigh (Jane Austen’s nephew) wrote about her, “ I doubt whether it would be possible to mention any other author of note whose personal obscurity of was so complete.” It sure does help when we consider the work of a writer which defined the way we looked at things for generations to come. That is the reason having spent one chapter arguing against it, Barnes ended up writing Flaubert’s Parrot and I end up writing here about Jane Austen. But this is not a biography, not even a biographical note (which can be found on Wiki - Link here ), rather a homage and an ode.   ...

Human Rights Watch has published a scathing report titled "India: Stop Treating Critics As Criminals"  (Click to read)  on the the ways, it posits India handles dissent. When I objected to it on Twitter, Ms. Meenakshi Ganguly from HRW told me that this refers to the colonial laws and not to the current political dispensation and also is not particular about India but such reports are prepared for other countries (particularly colonial countries as she would say). I asked her that by the definition of colonial it would also include US and Pakistan and asked her links to report on these two countries, which is awaited.  For some reason, there has been a tendency to broad-brush India as such of late. I saw particularly scathing, and largely unsubstantiated articles in newspapers like Guardian when Indian PM Narendra Modi was to travel to the UK. They would innocently appear when Modi was to interact with the west in International papers, and when there was an...

To doubt, to debate, to negate, counter and argue is the greatest virtue of human mind. It is a pity that we have long since forgotten taking a position. Then, one might argue, why should one take a position- any position? Why do I have to side with any truth which I have not discovered myself.   The people are divided into large masses, a huge chunk of human sea, split by diverse conviction.   Social media which was invented as a platform to share one’s own convictions has long since been reduced to a virtual battleground. A converse opinion is responded with  a feral violence. I do not feel happy anymore about debates. They aren’t debates.   There can’t be any debate without decency. The world is fractured and it demands that I lean to one side or the other.   Why must I surrender my right to be an individual and join a group to seek strength in number? Why there are no debates which either converts my opponents or me? We are fast turning into a wor...