A JOURNEY THROUGH MY BOOKS
Of late and
even earlier as long back as six years, when I wrote my first book ‘I am just
An Ordinary Man’ the need to understand ‘Who am I’ slowly intensified, and
naturally, this took me back down the years to my childhood from where I tried
to trace my journey to who I had become and ultimately what I will be in the
years to come. This was an inward journey and it took me back over the years to
that little boy who would sit on the banks of the river Thamirabarani, with the
others and feel the flow of the cool waters caress and the little fishes which
were in abundance, nibble his feet. This was a vacation which I looked forward
to every year to spend some time at my ancestral home. The memories of these
annual vacations still inhabit the recesses in my brain, to be called upon, to
relish in solitude and remind me of my roots.
It was a
passage from Alex Haley’s book ‘Roots’ that set the momentum for my second book
‘Darkness and Beyond – A Medley of Many Lives’ where the longest story is titled
‘Roots’ and in which I first travel back to my ancestral house with the intention
of selling it and realizing that one cannot erase away the generations and cut
yourself off from the reality of who you are. Haley in his book says –
“In all of
us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and
where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow
yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an
emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” – Alex Haley, Roots
‘Roots’ is
not autobiographical but a fictional biography of my grandfather and his times.
Most of what is written about Sankara, my grandfather, is true. It is fictional
in the sense that I was only a baby six months old and never seen him. I
reproduce some passages from the first story ‘Roots’ in my book ‘Darkness and
Beyond’ –
‘This is
where my grandfather lived till the end of his days, and this is where my
father said he wanted to settle down after retirement. It was not that I had
come in search of my roots or to relive those moments of my childhood which I
had spent here, for that was a long time ago. Now I was quite comfortable and
satisfied with where I lived. The trip was primarily commercial as the house was lying
unoccupied for a long time: for more than three years now. I wanted to explore
the possibility of selling it for whatever it was worth’
‘I had
felt a strange presence when I first entered the house. It was as if someone
was beckoning me to come inside. Now as I sat there, I felt the presence once
again; only this time it was stronger. Beyond the silence in that room, I could
hear the chanting of Sanskrit shlokas (prayers) emanating from the puja shelf.
I remembered it was here that my grandfather used to sit and do his daily
worship. I imagined him sitting there with the vibhuti (sacred ash) smeared
across his dark forehead with his eyes closed as if he was in a divine trance.
I remembered sitting near and watching him. I was too young when he passed
away. Whatever I knew of him was through my father, mother, and grandmother.
Now as I sat there, he seemed to come alive and the house once again resonated
to the sounds and voices of those years gone by.’
‘Now when
I look back, it is with a deep sense of sadness that I remember him. To me, he
symbolized the last of a lost generation, a generation that took pride in
belonging, a generation proud of its roots, its temples, and its Gods. It was
strange, but Sambasivam uncle’s last words to me “I do not know when or whether
we shall meet again” keeps ringing in my years even to this day. It was as if
he had decided that he would keep his date with destiny in the village of his
birth and the house of his ancestors and that his ashes would also be consumed in
the sacred waters of the Thamirabharani.’
‘Autumn
Leaves’ in a sense is a continuation of ‘Roots’ depicting the disintegration of
the joint family system and the movement away from the villages necessitated by
the need to seek a source of livelihood and the presence of opportunities
outside our comfort zone, in the process moving further away from where our
roots lie –
I needed
answers to pull me out of this angst. I decided that it has to start with
understanding myself and for that, I needed to go back to where it all started,
my parents. And that was what took me to India, to search for the great Banyan
tree under whose shade generations had come and gone, the sacred Peepal under
which the Buddha attained realization, the burning ghats of Varanasi where one
understood the meaning of life and death and the heights of the Himalayas which
promised a peep into the unknown. -Autumn Leaves
The seed for my
book ‘Autumn Leaves – Seasons of Life’ was sown when I sat listening to Nat
King Cole singing ‘Autumn leaves’. The hauntingly captivating voice captured
the poignancy of loneliness and a lost love. The falling leaves symbolized the
drifting away of relationships, of life itself. Autumn or the Fall had always
fascinated me with its colors, but at the same time, there was a despondency
that it would soon come to an end. When I asked two of my friends their views
as to what Autumn symbolized for them, one said it was the full attainment of
all that life can offer you, with all its colors it was a ‘beautiful life’. The
second view was that it represented sadness, as after all this achievement, the
leaves would turn brown and fall to the ground, a symbol of our approaching
end. Two divergent ways of looking at life itself. While the first reveled in
the present moment, the second despaired at the approaching darkness.
A quote from
Ernest Hemingway- ‘You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each
year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the
wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the
spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.’
Ultimately it
is through Mrityunjay that I arrive at an understanding of what it is to live.
The Diary of Mrityunjay in a sense is a chronicle of a man’s search for a
meaning in life –
‘I have
learned my lessons. I have realized that the world is real and our existence a
necessity. Life and death are certainties
and so is all the gamut of emotions that we experience on our journey. The
earlier we accept this, the easier would it be to live. One does not learn by
moving away. One learns by sticking it out and facing the truth of our
fallibilities and that alone is the only way to overcome them. I have also
realized that relationships are pure when there is understanding and
acceptance. Relationships are based on trust and empathy, to support each other
and being there for each other.’
The journey
through my four books has taken six years, but it has opened my eyes to the
need to understand where I came from, what I have been, and where I will be
going.
I thank all
those who have been there with me on this journey, encouraged, understood, and
accepted me for what I am.
