I am missing him!

I think I am missing him. This is not the first time that I am missing someone like this. But still he is special and I am missing his each and every word, the moments we spent together, my sleepless nights after his meeting and his unending stories.

For last few days we were away from each other, at least 800 kms. Otherwise also he is thousands of miles away from me. But I always feel his presence when I am at home. I keep listen to him quietly. He takes me for the World tour from Afghanistan to Iran, Iraq, the places I would like to visit searching his footsteps. Slowly, I start feeling sleepy but he doesn't stop, just goes on and on. I close my eyes and sleep in his lap feeling his body moments. Till morning he sits besides me.

He is actually an intelligent man. Of course, he does not need my certificate, the whole world would agree with me. I am the stupid person realised it late. He articulates things whenever we meet. He has lot of knowledge about the World and has a presentation skill also.

These are not only things I like about him. What I like most are his views. They are very much anti-establishment and against imperialist powers. He has gained that authority to speak against his own country, England and the superpower America. He is no more a citizen of any country, father, lover or anyone but an individual in true sense.

There are many such things that brought me so near to him and now he is a part of my life. I don't want to end the relation so early with him but want to cherish it.

More I miss him more I would go close to him and communicate with him. But I don't want
him to stop, he should go on and on and on....

Hmmm I think I need to meet him tonight where I left him last, page no 298 of The Great War For Civilisation by Robert Fisk.

Things Fall Apart

I just finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian author. The book is based on the South African tribal culture, which is on the verge to change and people's dilemma over accepting the new World.

It portrays life of the tribal people, their happiness, sorrows, rituals, beliefs and gods. Everything seems fine and normal with the people but change is inevitable in life. That change comes in the form of Christian missionaries.

The villagers are confused over resisting or embracing the Christianity. It is difficult to suddenly abandon their culture and take on the new unknown one. Some of the them are excited about the
Christianity and its modern look while others are adamant to leave their roots easily.

Though, I am not in favour of any religion, I liked the technique used by missionaries to show the tribals that their Gods do not exist. But the same formula can be implemented to show that the God otherwise also does not exist. It is very interesting to know.

All the tribes have their evil forests, which are preserved by the community. Missionaries come to the villages and build church and other institutions on the same land. They challenge the God of the
tribesmen that if he really exists then he would stop them. Poor villagers keep waiting that their God would punish the missionaries for the blasphemous act. They wait for few days and months but nothing happens and that raises question in the minds of tribesmen about their God.

The incident leads to the curiosity about Christianity among the people and some prefer conversion. In initial stage, the clan's outcasts people get converted and embrace Christian values which give them more elevated status than the original.

The missionaries with their modern technologies and thoughts create threat to the age old methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. The methods, once necessary for the life, are now,
dispensable.

The title of the book which has been taken from W B Yeats's poem "The Second Coming" is very expressive.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Death for Life

I have been reading William Dalrymple’s new book Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. It is based on real stories of nine people in search of piece, divine and sometimes giving up materialistic world.

A first story is about a nun of Jain religion. She gives away all her life with the belief that all attachments bring sufferings and finally embraces Sallekhana- fast to death.

Her life talks about all sacrifice, control of emotions, pain, sufferings to take new life. “When the body withers completely, the soul will take a new one, like a hermit crab finding a new shell. For soul will not wither, and in rebirth you simply exchange your torn and old clothes for a smart new suit,” she says.

After reading the entire story I have failed to understand the philosophy of the religion. It goes against the basic theory of human birth. We are born to live and death is the ultimate reality.

Why one has to forcefully push oneself to death when we are born to live the life. Living is the basic instinct of human being. All the discoveries and inventions in human history may be good or bad came from this instinct.

Now the second half part of the philosophy, which says the death is only for the body but the soul gets rebirth. It means you have greed to get another body. So, to get a new body, you torture the earlier body by giving up food, pulling hair, refusing to wear proper clothes etc.

I wonder why these contradictions in the theory are not being raised by the followers.

A Foreign Correspondent

Some people are born to do some jobs, this is what I have concluded from the initial few pages of a book by Rober Fisk : The Great War for Civilisation. I am zapped by reading few hundred pages of the book. Fisk was born to work as a foreign correspondent. He has been working in Middle East for more than 30 years and settled in Beirut now. He was one of the three journalists who interviewed Osama Bin Laden before 9/11. Fisk has a great understanding of issues in Middle East and his stand has been always anti-imperialists.

The preface of the book is very inspiring. He says 'I suppose, in the end, we journalists try- or should try- to be first impartial witness to history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'We didn't know- no one told us'.

I think all the journalist should adopt this attitude, at least I will. I have finished just few hundred pages of the 1200 of the fat book. But they just kept me engaged that I never felt like keeping the book aside. The opening of the book is with his first encounter with Bin Laden. First interview is not very descriptive but the second is.

After reading Osama's version over US invasion in Afghanistan and some other Muslim countries, I was amazed. Osama's some of the arguments against US sound logical but the way he has adopted to fight against the US are wrong.

In today's modern world, one cannot win a war in the name of religion. There has to be a direction to the war, which would be beneficial to oppressed. But people like Osama have no ideologue and no logic to their war. The question which always disturbs me is how long this battle between Christianity and Islam would go, killing crore of innocent lives.

I think to find out my answer, Fisk's book would definitely provide me some background and details of root cause of today's scenario.

Too boring...

I have been reading former BJP leader Jaswant Singh's autobiographical work A Call To Honour for more than 10 days. It is too boring and unnecessary lengthy. I don't even feel like reading it further but I want to read about Kandahar plan hijack case. I need to bear the book for may be one more day. I should finish it tonight.


But after this experience, I am not going to read his new book, Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, which created lot of controversy and as a result he was expelled from the party. I completely agree that everyone has personal opinion and Singh expressed it through the book. However, forgetting the main culprit of the partition Lord Mountbatten, BJP again opened a fire against Jinnah, Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel.

The boring text is also affecting my life. I have started feeling very dull and without any enthusiasm. I think I should finish it fast.

Nemade in Crossroads

I went to crosswords yesterday after three years may be. Please do not get surprised because it’s not on my way. I saw a board SALE from outside and immediately went in. Thousands of titles lying on the shelf and table and discount were up to 50 per cent.

Most of the books were really ordinary Dan Brown, Robin Cook, Sidney Sheldon, Paulo Coelho, Orhan Pamuk and many more for which you don’t need an discount. These titles are always available from Rs 50 to 150 at any road side shop in fountain. I was bored. I saw the entire collection twice but couldn’t find anything interesting. Some good titles I already had.

I must mention that they had en entire collection of Noam Chomsky and Karen Armstrong. Finally I got a story book Where The Jackals Howl by Amos Oz.

But a book shelf with regional books attracted me the most. It had Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati books. I was happy to see them. Surprisingly, in the Marathi collection books, the store had all books by Bhalchandra Nemade, one of the great modernist writers in Marathi. They had Kosala, Bidhar, Zool, Jarila and Hool. Some other good authors like Uddhav Shelke, Shyam Manohar and Rangnath Pathare were also in the collection. I was very happy to see the small Marathi collection among western, American and English Indian authors.

There is a common complaint from publishers that Marathi books have no buyers. But I think if available easily at any book store or at least the big one like Crossroads would definitely have buyers.

Bonus!

I got bonus last week. You may not believe but its true. One may wonder about the bonus in recession time so I have to tell the entire story. It actually started with a proposal of Maharashtra Government to build a 309 ft tall statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Arabian sea opposite to Marine Drive. The Government appointed an advisory committee for the project and Shahir Babasaheb Purandare was chosen as the president on it.


The controversy started when Maratha organisations opposed the appointment of Purandare alleging him to be biased and writing pro-Brahmin history of Shivaji. There were hot debates from both the sides (not from Purandare but his supporters) and some part of the history was questioned.


One of the allegation from the Maratha organisation was that the character of Shivaji's teacher Dadoji Kondeo did not exist. The Government also removed the mention of it from history books of standard 4th.


I have learned Shivaji mostly through my school books or short stories so this encouraged me to find the truth about the Maratha warrior. There are hundreds of books on Shivaji but I wanted to read some


One my friends suggested me a book by Jadunath Sarkar 'Shivaji and His Times'. It was published by Orient Blackswan. I went to them to collect the book. Years back, I was a frequent visitor of the office, as my friend was working there so knew some people there.


I just said hello to them and then came the surprise I mean bonus. One of the employees there offered me to write some review of there newly published books. I said ok and their kind sales manager handed me three books! (wow) namely This Gift of English (English Education and The Formation of Alternative Hegemony's in India) by Alok K Mukherjee, Good Women Do Not Inherit Land (Politics of Land and Gender in India) by Nitya Rao and Cinema and Censorship : The Politics of Control In India by Someswar Bhowmik.


One book about Indian cinema has been already taken by my friend in office and promised me to even review it. Now I am thinking which one to choose first for review.