NavDharmyug

Silences have settled on the day like dew-drops of a receding winter night. The day stands at the cusp of weather where winter recedes and the summers descends. Fogs have lifted and the skies are cloudless and clear. I walk through the lane, on which shadows have spread themselves beautifully. Words come to my mind: "The patterns shadows make, these ZIg-zagging lines like some slithering snake; Sneak in surreptitiously l like some memory lost, A memory of warmth, surviving,  Undying winters and unyielding frost." The bright sun rays languorously lie on the Earth, with their long legs spread under the sketchy, shifting shadows of the trees. A perfect day to reclaim the me-time, basically, catching a corner bench in the park for myself, before it is appropriated for the day by some cozy couple. I mutter wordlessly, seeking forgiveness from the angel of Love for interrupting the just right of a young couple wh...

"Thus Nature spake- The work was done How soon my Lucy's race was run! She died and left to me This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And never more will be. " - Three Years She Grew, William Wordsworth Death always comes with a bit of spirituality. Still, some sorrows are so close to the soul that wisdom can not wash them away. Post-funeral, no matter how much water we pour over our body, there is a bitter taste of ash and sand which remains at the tip of the tongue.  I had first seen her when Nonu, my kid was in junior school, Five years back. That was the age when all kids look similar, similar miniature-esque walk of toy soldiers, similar eyes with bewildered happiness, running aimlessly around in the manicured school lawns, amid the quacking ducks. She was her classmate and older by few months.  Quite soon she was regular at our place, her house situated close to ours. She was exceptionally talented in penci...

The Fall  - By Albert Camus Published: - 1956 (Penguin) Amazon Link: Click Here Genre: Fiction/ Philosophical/ Classic What is the purpose of literature? - Entertainment? fun? happiness? Revolution? Sharing of knowledge? Quest for knowledge? I found the best answer in Matilda of what good literature is and should be , a book for children by Roald Dahl " So Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone." I would think this all comes together in literature. But the most important thing for a good literature is that it depicts the writer's search for truth. He (or she) might make you laugh, cry, have fun while he searches for the truth; but if you play along with complete faith, you will find yourself embarking on an invisible journey which moves acros...

I am in Pune. There are rains. Rains came to Delhi and passed it by. I too ran off to Pune. I do not know why. There is such a severe stench of mendacity in the air which settles around this time of the year. A pretense of significance of my life in other lives around me, a pretense of significance of my life, in its own solitude.  The city, which is always green and lush,  is violently green today. The airfield, the roads, the buildings- are all clean and washed and shiny. I did catch some drizzle outside the airport. Just a slight drizzle, failing miserably to clean the cobwebs on my soul. A soul that has aged years in last year. I finished Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre on the flight.  The novel is a philosophical story wrapped around the search and eventual futility of existential meaning. I am always contemplative around the birthday (this I wrote last birthday - Why I Hate Birthdays? )  . This birthday is even worse. While people claim that Forties is the...

Solitude is an essential part of writing life. Writing is a lonely profession. One ought to step on this path if one is able to survive through the long, voluntary spells of solitude. We must not confuse loneliness with solitude. Loneliness throws one down the dark abyss; solitude is the pair of wings that intellect provides to lift the soul out of those depths.  The best of the art emerges out of a certain tranquility of mind, a quietude of being. It borrows wisdom from market-places, it derives truth from the people, but the truth which is visible to the writer, is often not visible to the very people from whose life he derives and distills it. What separates the characters of a story and its writer is the ability of the writer to pull himself back from life, to stand away and apart, to have a distinct vantage points, to watch it with an odd sense of detached empathy. The difference in this vantage point, from one writer to another is the reason stories written about th...

Life is brutal and boring most of the times. What makes it still bearable are some sudden moments of sensations which stir the soul and sets the spirit soaring. Such moments are far and few and fickle and feeble. The moment which in the middle of the excruciating pain of longing of immense loneliness suddenly transforms into a tranquil sense of solitude give a rather engaging turn to a boring life limping under inevitable ordinariness. The moments when pain and ennui, without any notice to us, turn into magical and mysterious, funny and forgiving are rare and accidental. It is therefore very difficult to write about life as it is and still sustain the interest of the reader long enough for the magical to emerge from the mundane, for truth to arise from travesty. One does not find such writing often. Call it experimental writing, call it new-age writing, call it whatever, it is the art of telling the plain truths of uneventful life in such an eventful manner that continues to ke...

There were many things of immense import which begged to be written. Religion in politics, the art of creating a narrative- how slyly media creates a narrative. I was reading Sol Stein on Writing on the way to office on Friday, and it occurred to me, the total apathy with which a student, a leftist leader from JNU charged with rape is being treated by mainstream media. A regular in TV debates, a known figure from a University much in news for all wrong reasons of late, and media acts as if nothing has happened. The silence is to kill the story, so perfectly dead truth being presented. Nothing beyond facts, no flesh, not blood, not personality caricatures. It is discomforting. But then I will write about it next week. This week, I write about simple pleasures of life. My monthly visits to children library with my eight year old. Here it is, I share my Saturday with you. While on my way from the Car workshop where I had dropped the car for repair, I get a call from Nonu (my eig...

Book: The Waves Author: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Genre: Fiction (Spiritual/ Philosophical) Style: Experimental Published: 1931 Publisher: Hogarth Press Rating: Must Read, Classic “The Author would be glad if the following pages were not read as a Novel.” – Wrote Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) on the manuscript of The Waves (Initially called The Moths ). It was first published in 1931.  We are close to a century since this book was published, still this book is unparalleled and unequaled. The Independent called this Book of a Lifetime . This is not an easy book to read. Beauty is never too easy to create, or is it ever too easy to savor to the fullest. Both production as well as the consumption of true work of art needs to be earned. This is a difficult book to read yet immensely elegant and infinitely exquisite. The story, unlike most fictional novels, does not unfold through dramatic events. It doesn’t depend on drama, it deftly steers clear of th...