NavDharmyug

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...

Don't get me wrong. I am not a depressed teenager contemplating death as a plausible way out of life. I have too tough a hide for that. There used to be a time when Birthdays excited me to no ends. A birthday is a perfect occasion to reconfirm and substantiate one's station in life. Friends embrace, kisses, blessings- your role as a father, husband, child is all settled once again. Your station in life is substantiated, reaffirmed. You are a prince (or the princess if you are a woman) for a day.  But then you grow up, get wiser and broken from inside. You realize the inadequacy of the dream to keep you aloft. You no longer levitate, in spiritual terms. You dread the day, you drag yourself through it. It lies at your door, like a dead dog, in such an awkward fashion that you cannot walk around it. The pretense of your being a special person doesn't survive unblemished for even for an hour- an unadulterated, unbroken hour.  You realize that the day is as crappy ...

Literature helps us interpret and understand life. It helps us tolerate the aspects of life which escapes our understanding. There are words which refuse to be fossilized. There are timeless words which breathes even when buried under the dark layers of earth. That’s what we call classic, which in terms of relevance and wisdom stays untouched, unmoved, unblemished by the cruel winds of time. You sit down with them, slowly move the dust on the surface and a shining, tranquil, splendid emerald appears like a crystal ball holding all the answers to the myriad questions life throws at you. Today, we often do not have time and patience to read these classics unless you are a writer trying to learn the craft or a rare reader of refined interest. Accepted, it isn’t easy love to live with, for these words need much more than fleeting flirtation to spell out their meaning to you. They need deep dedication, a profound passion and as Nietzsche would say, “one has to be willing to wash his f...