BOOK REVIEW : More than a life – SADHGURU by Arundhathi Subramaniam

BOOK REVIEW : More than a life – SADHGURU by Arundhathi Subramaniam

He baffles me and continues to do so. He is a mystic but still a mystery. He is referred to as Sadhguru. In his own words “When someone comes from their scholarship, they are referred to in different ways. If someone comes from an inner experience, they are referred to as Sadhguru. The word “Sadhguru” is not a title. It is a description. Sadhguru means “uneducated Guru.” I am almost hundred percent spiritually uneducated. I don’t know any scriptures, I have not read the Vedas and I didn’t bother to read the Bhagavad Gita. I come only from my inner experience and the only thing I know for sure is this piece of life from its origin to its ultimate.”

For many of us brought up on a diet of the archetypal saffron clad sloka chanting Gurus, Jaggi Vasudev remains an enigma – the jeans clad motorcyclist mystic, the snake handling charmer, a fakir dressed in long flowing robes, a turban on his head, an overgrown white beard or a modern day Moses.

All this aside, he is a charmer. He seems to have the answers to all the questions thrown at him by the media and the likes of Barkha Dutt or the retorts of die-hard atheists like Javed Akhtar. What captivates is his erudition and his slightly nasal but deep voice which holds the listeners attention. Whether I believe all that he says or not, I like to listen to him.  

Arundhathi Subramaniam in her brilliant Introduction to ‘More than a life – SADHGURU’ says that “the book is an attempt to share some of that sense of wonder that these years of knowing Sadhguru have been about. More fundamentally it is an attempt to tell the story of an exceptional man.”

The blurb on the back cover says ‘This is the extraordinary story of Jaggi Vasudev or Sadhguru – a young agnostic who turned yogi, a wild motorcyclist who turned mystic, a skeptic, who turned spiritual guide. It seeks to recreate the life journey of a man who combines rationality with mysticism, irreverence with compassion and deep self- knowledge with a contagious love of life. Pulsating with his razor-sharp intelligence and modern-day vocabulary, the book empowers you to explore your spiritual self and could well change your life’.

Arundhathi says that her book is a subjective account of one man’s life journey – or more accurately, life journeys and is based on conversations with the Sadhguru and with those acquainted with him, as well as archival material from the Isha Yoga Centre at Coimbatore. Herself a skeptic she says “Gurus didn’t happen to us urban women. Psychotherapists happened to us. Books and conversations happened to us Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard and Krishnamurti spouting friends happened to us. Gurus belonged to another era – a simpler world where there were simpler divides between the leader and the led. The only guru I could envisage was the sage in a B-grade Indian mythological movie with a candyflos beard and an air of constipated benignity.” Strong words one would agree, but that was all before she met with the Sadguru.

It was in 1997 that she says something decisive happened in her life, she felt she was dying, nothing physical or psychological or depression. In short, one can decipher it is that strange feeling of impermanence of one’s own existence in this world. I may equate it with Sartre’s ‘Nausea’. She says “This strange encounter with death had brought with it an unambiguous picture of what really counted.” She became seeker for she did not want the comfortable uncertainty of the committed agnostic; she wanted the clarity of one who knew. After a prolonged experimentation with various methods and yoga, she came to the conclusion that the answers if any, were to be found within oneself. Then in May 2004 she attended a talk by someone called Sadhguru. That perhaps was the starting point for this book – a way of understanding who this man was and what was it that he conveyed. A skeptic in the beginning, one gets a feeling of a slow but a steady transformation into a believer.

This book is a fascinating journey of a man born Jagdish Vasudev to a Sadhguru. One may or may not believe all that is written in the book about the life of Jaggi Vasudev especially where he talks of his various previous births and the quest to establish the Dhyanalinga, which reaches fruition only in this birth. I am a skeptic, but I also want to believe. I have not been able to grasp the significance of the Dhyanalinga being made up of pure energy and the processes involved in establishing it.

After listening to his various conversations I cannot but agree with Arundhathi when she says “What has always fascinated me about Sadhguru is his breathtaking sweep of knowledge about varied aspects of life and the effortless manner in which he seems to garner it.”

It is not my aim to put down here the life story of Jaggi Vasudev, it is done in a riveting manner by Arundhathi. I found the book engrossing felt totally involved reading it. But I would like to quote some portions from the book here which I found illuminating and of significance to our own questions.

“The mystic is just someone who has realized what is there. Others don’t because they’re too self-engrossed to pay any attention to life”

“Liberation is not my idea; it is the fundamental longing in every form of human life.”

“Destiny is hundred percent your creation. Even now that is so. It is just that you are creating it unconsciously.”

“Self-Realization is less about getting somewhere than about realizing there is nowhere to go. It entails not an acquisition of knowledge, but an unlearning of received wisdom. What was limited knowing has become boundless unknowing. That’s wonderful enough for me.”

As a conclusion I quote Arundhathi once again “I remember what I wrote in my first article on him five years ago: ‘Let’s say we disbelieve the whole story about his yogic mastery and enlightenment. We’re still left with an interesting deal. There’s brazing wit, a refreshing lack of piety … a razor sharp intelligence … a contemporary vocabulary, the teaching of a meditation process that requires no faith, only committed practice. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev wears the air of a man who’s figured out how to lead a life of sanity. Perhaps that is enough?’

 About the Author

Arundhathi Subramaniam is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Where I Live: New and Selected Poems. She has written a prose work, The Book of Buddha, and co-edited an anthology of contemporary Indian love poetry in English, Confronting Love. She describes herself as a wondering, protesting, but committed Isha yoga practitioner and perhaps more of a devotee than she lets on.

Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam on Saturday won the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her work When God is a Traveller. – THE HINDU  January 25, 2015

FINDING NEEMA – by JULIET REYNOLDS - BOOK REVIEW AUTISM

FINDING NEEMA – by JULIET REYNOLDS - BOOK REVIEW

AUTISM

On my walks on the seashore I have come across challenged children being escorted by their parents or caretakers for an outing on the beach. I have seen a father and son running alongside. The son, a handsome young f ellow taller than his father, was obviously autistic. But what attracted me to them was the care and love for the son that seemed apparent on the father’s face. Often I have wondered as to the travails that parents of such challenged children have to face, the sacrifices that they have to make in the process of ensuring that their child is brought up in the best possible manner within the limitations imposed. I have also tried to place myself in the position of the autistic child and what the world means to him. There is a passage in my book ‘I am just An Ordinary Man’ which I take the liberty of quoting here – “That night I had a dream. I was a young boy on the beach, holding my father’s hand lost in my own world. The people who passed by, looked at me strangely. I wanted to talk to them, but they moved away. I did say something but they seemed not to understand what I was trying to tell them. The gentle pressure of my father’s hand comforted me.” That, I agree really cannot give the actual picture. But that’s how I felt. Of course subsequently I read somewhere that ‘People with autism have said that the world, to them, is a mass of people, places and events which they struggle to make sense of, and which can cause them considerable anxiety.’

Ever since, I have tried to read about autism, but these were all technical, describing the disorder and the various methods and avenues available for dealing with this condition. I was on the lookout for a book which would give hands on experience in dealing with it. That is when I chanced upon ‘Finding Neema’ by Juliet Reynolds, on the recommendation of a friend.

To place the book in the right perspective it would be necessary to reproduce here the blurb that appears on the back cover –

“Honest and unsentimental, yet funny and compassionate, Finding Neema is the story of an autistic boy from the eastern Himalayas, brought up by the author and her husband, a gifted Indian artist.

Set against the backdrop of the art world in India, and interwoven with reminiscences of her own unusual life and marriage, Juliet relates a compelling story: the couple’s unplanned adoption of Neema, son of their maid, Poonam; their endeavors to have his autism diagnosed and treated; and Neema’s emergence into adulthood as a valuable – though still dependent – human being. The book also delves into Neema’s background and tormented early life with his dysfunctional family, thereby touching upon some of the more lurid aspects of developing world poverty and introducing into the narrative an assorted cast of characters, some appealing and some appalling, but all of them colorful. Poonam’s story of abuse, self-destruction and faltering redemption – at once poignant and astounding – forms an important strand of the book and is related with special insight and frequent exasperation. Not only does the author tell a story of autism quite unlike the many already told, she also places it in an Indian and South Asian context.”

The author who is of a mixed Irish and English descent decided to make her life  in India and has settled down here and shuttles between Delhi and Dehradun where she has her home. She is a writer and art critic specializing in Indian art and cultural and political issues. An occasional film maker and married to the reputed Indian artist Anil Karanjai (who died in 2001), apart from writing in various publications in India and abroad, she has authored another book ‘In the eyes of a Rasika’ a book for the lay reader on the relationship between art and politics and art and science.

‘Finding Neema’ is a poignantly written book where the author sketches her unusual life in this country of her choice, blending with its various colors and smells, customs and practices and above all choosing to remain and live here. Neema forms a very important and integral part of her life and therefore though this book comes out as an autobiography, it is all about Neema. In a sense one comes to feel that in him Reynolds has found her calling for therein lies the authenticity of her life. There are portions where she has been brutally frank about her own feelings of desperation and helplessness in dealing with Neema’s condition and his growing up. There are times it appears, where she subconsciously feels whether the agony of it all was worth it all. But her fortitude and single minded purpose sees her through. One of the most poignant portions in the book is when her husband Anil passes away suddenly leaving her all alone.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior. Autistic people suffer from impairments from to severe and have difficulty with social communication, social interaction and social imagination. This of course does not mean that they lack imagination as many people with autism are very creative and may be, for example, accomplished artists, musicians or writers. As they are prone to cycles of progress and repression, it becomes all the more necessary for the parent or caretaker to be accustomed to such ups and downs.

‘Finding Neema’ gives us a caretaker’s account of bringing up an autistic child and in the process discovering that innate compassion lying deep inside  us and the inner strength for finding a true meaning in life. I am quoting portions from the last lines in the book, which serve to summarize the author’s feelings –

“Neema lives in his own special world – free of ideological angst, innocence of humanity’s follies, not fearing cataclysmic events – he restores to me a sense of optimism, keeps me anchored in a saner reality. I couldn’t have asked for more from a child of my own”

THANK GOD IT DID NOT HAPPEN

THANK GOD IT DID NOT HAPPEN

A calamity was averted today. Maybe I should have said a fatal accident was averted today. I would have been in the midst of what could have been a disaster.

Thank God the brakes held.

Thank God I saw it happen just in time, I was alert.

Thank God I wasn’t speeding.

Thank God I did not hit the bicycle or the cyclist. Not my mistake, he was on the right extreme side of the road and he skidded and fell just in the way of my car, both cycle and he.

Thank God I was wearing the seat belt. I could have had a whiplash.

Thank God no other car rammed into mine.

Thank God I was saved from all the messiness that accompanies such accidents – Police, Insurance, Hospitals, court case, injuries and etc. But perhaps the most calamitous would have been carrying the guilt of having been responsible for someone’s death, throughout my life.

You will notice I thanked God seven times today. I did not know who else to thank. I could not have thanked my wife, she had no role to play and ‘Thank God’ once again she was not there on the scene. I think that the first exclamation that comes to mind in such situations is ‘Thank God!’ whether you believe in him or not. This comes automatically and may not mean anything except affording you a release from all that pent up sensations that have built up within you in such situations. Try putting in some other word other than ‘God’ and see how you feel. A small exercise but would be worthwhile.

You may of course say “Bullshit man, what are you talking about? How does God come into any of this? It’s a freak incident, you were just plain lucky.”  But definitely when you want to express your disgust or disapproval of what is happening, the first exclamation that comes from your lips is “Oh shit!” and you will find more colorful four letter words to vent your anger or expressing extreme disapproval.

On second thoughts I found that I could have said ‘Thank my stars’. I have never owned a star so how could I thank them. Or you could have said to me ‘Thank your stars’ after listening to my escape from a very messy situation. There are billions, trillions and more of them out there, so which one should I thank. The only stars I know are the filmy kind, who of course may end up thanking their stars for having made them into a star. For all you know I could have averted the situation if I had gone through ‘What the stars foretell this week’.

On third thoughts I could have said ‘Oh Gosh!’ or ‘By Jove!’ exclamations I remembered hearing from the more Americanized amongst us, both exclamations of surprise. So to really comprehend what they meant I sought refuge in the Free Dictionary. Well I did learn that both are exclamations of surprise and excitement. But the really revealing part is that they are somehow related to God (may be minor Gods but all the same God). ‘Gosh’ is used to express surprise or emphasis, you can always say “Gosh she’s a stunner” or something like that. It is North American in origin and used as a euphemism for ‘God’. So I could have said “Thank Gosh” but somehow that does not sound as lyrical as ‘God’. Then I experimented with ‘Jove’ and it didn’t sound alright for the situation on hand. But again ‘God’ did not leave me as I found that ‘Jove’ is derived from the old Latin word ‘Jovis’ another name for Jupiter the king of the Greek Gods.

“Wish you Godspeed” I heard someone say when I started on my journey. He could have said “Wish you speed of light” or if he wanted me to take some more time “Wish you speed of sound”. But it was explained to me that it had nothing to do with speed, only expression of good wishes for my journey. I thought that maybe they had missed an ‘O’.

So why does God creep into all this again and again. May be I got too carried away. Now where did we (sorry that should have been I) start all this rambling. All because I felt relieved that nothing untoward happened. But the moral of all this rambling should not be lost and may be the entire episode can be condensed to two words ‘Drive Safely’, which of course is in your hands and hope the other guy on the road also does, which of course is in his. Well ultimately leave the rest to God. Rest in peace or rest in pieces.

My atheist friend said “What Crap! If at all you have to thank someone it should be the manufacturer of the car, for the brakes held and the driver of the car behind for not ramming into you. There is no such thing as a God, who had come down to save you. As for the cyclist it would have been enough to let out some choicest abuses at him for that would have given you immediate release. Who is this God anyway that you have to thank him?”

Then it came to the turn of the existentialist in my group of friends. He was silent for some time as if he was in some deep thought and ultimately opened his mouth “There is no sense in trying to analyze what happened or what would have happened or what will happen. What happened just happened, that’s what life is all about, nothing more nothing less. There was nothing before and there is nothing beyond. You will discover your authenticity when you stop driving your car and avoid such situations.”

The Agnostic butted in “I do not know whether it happened or did not happen for I was not there to witness it. I only have your word for it and I am skeptical of things that I have not seen.”

So you see it all started with that episode today. I never knew that ‘God’ would generate so much discussion on such a small happening. I wish I had never said ‘Thank God’. By the way the truth is I never said anything except stopping for a moment to ensure that the cyclist was not injured by the fall and once satisfied that he had not hurt himself, I drove away. I should confess that I was though shaken up for the moment.

 As a small exercise can you count the number of times that I have used the word ‘Happened’? I have not yet done that, for what I wrote so far just happened.

CONFESSIONS OF AN AUTHOR

CONFESSIONS OF AN AUTHOR

Of late there has been a disquiet surrounding me. The atmosphere is stifling and I gasp for breath. It is not a physical ailment I know, for it was only last week that I had been to my physician and he certified that everything was fine. I have been staring at the computer for half the night and not a single word has found its way on this expanse of white in front. May be it’s the Writer’s Block once again. So I found the only way to break it is to write something even if it is incoherent. You are the best judge.  I had for long rejoiced and reveled in the achievement of having at last become a published author. It does not really matter that it was self-published. You see there was no real choice here. But I was happy that I had the book in my hand and it was even more gratifying that some people did buy and say nice things about it. Well I really liked what I had written for I had put my heart and soul while doing so. May be that was a mistake, for now when I delve deep into my being I find that I have nothing much to explore within. The process of writing was the process of living and that’s what I experienced with my first book. But then it dawned on me that I would have to continue writing if I had to continue living. That said, the question before me was ‘What do I write?’ That shows that I have come a long way in the two years from the time when I wrote ‘Why I write?’

Today I felt happy. I found my book on the coffee table in my relatives place. After all any visitor to her house would have at least out of curiosity picked it up and wondered what it was about or who the author was. I thanked her for having given it a visible place in her living room. I was sure she had not read it and I was not wrong. But I was happy it was not confined to a place along with the old newspapers.

A good friend of mine over the years, called up to tell me that she had at last purchased the book and finished it within two days. She said she liked it. But when I asked her to make a review and put it up on the site, she had only this to say “I have known you for such a long time and could connect with a lot of what is written there. But it is not possible for me to write a review for it could be a very biased view and therefore not an honest one.” I respected her view point and did not pursue, but still I could not understand her logic.

A debutant author and one who gets his work self-published looks for ways and means of getting people know about the book. Apart from the social media setups he looks to his friends and relations for support. He does not have the luxury of funds to have his book on the shelves of a bookstore or for promotional marketing campaigns. I have earlier moaned about getting more number of likes on the social media than the number of books sold. I could emotionally blackmail some of my friends into buying the book, but most of them have been shy of putting up reviews. As for relatives, the really close ones in the inner circle, I am sure that except for one or two none of them have read it though I have found a copy in each one of these households. When some asked for a copy, I just told them to go online and order for it if they were really serious. I said there are no freebies.

Sometime ago there was a large gathering of colleagues in Mumbai which I could not attend as I was preoccupied. They were gracious enough to hold a book launch and I did connect up through Skype with them when they did that and thanked them. It was a wonderful gesture on their part and everyone applauded. There were about eighty of them present. That was all. Nothing more happened. The few who had purchased it had done so earlier, of course by now you should have guessed how. 

Why all this castigation from my side? I have at last arrived at a sense of propriety. I have accepted that’s how it is. Each one of us is busy with our own problems, with our own priorities. Ever since, I have been at peace with myself. Now I do not talk about the book when I meet people, except when they ask me about it and I tell them where to get it.

Now to the question which I raised in the first paragraph – ‘What do I write?”. I found that I lack imagination. I am unable to disentangle myself from my immediate surroundings and the exploration of the meaning of life. Connecting with a large number of authors through social media especially, I have found that the predominant genres resorted to are Sci-Fi, Paranormal, Vampire and Murder mysteries. Writing Sci-Fi and Historical fiction requires tremendous amount of research and imagination which I found I was not capable of doing and as for the others I am still not tuned to them. I have concluded that I am better off writing immediate and direct experiences, for that is charting out a way forward for me to understand an individual’s place in this world. Well you may ask why publish the book at all, if it is all about understanding myself. I might as well write it down and keep it to myself and read it whenever I feel in the dumps. You are right to say so, but I also write for some people out there and that’s why. I also confess that it feels nice when you know you have connected on the emotional plane. May be it is also because I have started writing at a relatively older age and these are the thoughts that occupy my mind day in and day out. I have been discovering (like I said in my first book) that every person has a story to tell. May be I tell it for them as I see them, though of course there is a possibility that they may see it differently. I have stopped writing about a possible future, I write about present reality. But perhaps I shall one day write about how to change the present reality to a possible future.

Some of my friends and a few reviewers have asked me whether I planned a sequel to my first book ‘I am just An Ordinary Man’. I could not answer them then but when I look at what I have written subsequently I might as well say yes. The thrill of living is in experiencing, the thrill of a journey is the journey itself. Life is one long journey to a destination. It might involve a series of journeys, a series of destinations to reach the final one. So that could be the answer to ‘What do I write?”

Ultimately I did find my calling. While the first book was an inner journey, the sequel would be a journey out into the external world where lay many lives that needed to be understood, for only then would my comprehension of what life and this world is about, would be complete. While the first one was all about introspection the second one is about being part of a larger process, a process of experiencing. No knowledge of life is complete without introspection and experiencing. This book is all about that. This is a book of ‘many lives’, simple ordinary lives, nothing dramatic or sensational. It is about people whom we have met sometime, somewhere; people who have left an imprint on our minds. It is about people of whom we have heard and cherished their memories. There is nothing like a better life, a life is a life and has to be lived within the constraints of each individual’s boundaries that define the circumstances of his birth, where he has had really no choice and the subsequent choices he makes to deal with the vagaries of a life that is indeterminate.

OF SPIRITS AND POSSESSIONS

OF SPIRITS AND POSSESSIONS

“But mother, do people get possessed by spirits of the dead?” I asked. I was eight years old then and I was frightened of the dark. Every night diligently my mother used to apply the vibhuti (holy ash) on my forehead before I went to bed, a habit which I have retained to this day and did it to my children till they grew up to ask “Papa do you really believe in all these things?” but they never objected. Even now when I visit them I repeat the procedure and they indulge me. This habit has never left me even after I had grown old enough to ask my mother “Do you really believe in all these things?” But she persisted and I never objected. Habits die hard I have learnt. On those rare occasions when I forget to do it, I would wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream have a drink of water, pick up the vibhuti from the puja shelf, apply it on to my forehead and go back to bed and invariably to a sound sleep. To this day I have not questioned this ritual for it has become a part of my daily routine.

“Have you been listening to your grandmother’s stories about her childhood and her life in the village?”

“Yes Amma, she was telling me as to how one of her friends had been possessed by an evil spirit.”

“Oh that’s her favorite story which she keeps repeating to everyone. Well I shall tell her not to frighten you with such stories. You don’t have to be frightened of anything, just repeat all the prayers I have taught you and don’t think much about it” She replied trying to reassure me.

“But Amma” I persisted “is it true? Have you seen anything like this?”

“Well” she waited for some time as though in deep thought and then said “Yes I have, but I shall tell you about it some other time” and she ended the conversation.

My father was a man of few words and he was never really interested in any of these things, but he did tell me once “See I have been away from the village for a long time now. May be I have also heard about such occurrences from my mother. I haven’t come across such cases myself. Some people believe that there are such things and there are others who believe that these are on account of psychological disorders. I don’t give it much thought and so should you.”

What had once been a fear turned to curiosity as I grew older and may be bolder. But that does not mean ‘I did not believe in all these things’. My mother did finally relate to me some of those stories which she said she had been a witness to. Now who would question or have reasons to doubt a mother’s word and that to at that young age? I listened as I sat clasping her hand lest I be borne away by an unseen hand.

“You know I have seen my own cousin being possessed by a spirit. It stayed in her body for twelve years before it finally left her” she said.

“But mother how did you all know she had been possessed? How did it happen?” I asked.

“As usual and as was the practice she had gone to the river along with her friends in the early morning for a bath. When she came back we found her eyes were very red and she had high fever. The doctor was called for and he gave some medicines to bring down the fever. All the while she had not spoken a single word. But we knew something was wrong as her movements were not normal and restlessness was evident. It was after the doctor had left and that my aunt went to her and applied the vibhuti on her forehead she shouted in an unnatural voice and in a dialect not common in our household that the ash was burning her forehead. She knocked the container from her mother’s hand and started abusing her. It was a completely different person we were seeing. Her face had contorted and the soft lines had disappeared. My aunt was a strong lady and she had seen too many of such happenings in the village to be put off. She was sure that her daughter had been possessed. She stood there and stared at her daughter and asked ‘Who are you?’ Her daughter replied ‘Muniamma’.

Her friends said that she had slipped and fallen into the river while having her bath. Though she managed to swim back, she appeared unwell and had come back home without saying anything to them, contrary to her normal nature. It was only later that we came to know from some of the elders in the village that the place where she had fallen was exactly the same spot where years ago a woman belonging to another community had committed suicide by jumping into the river. Her name was Muniamma. My aunt was now certain that it was the spirit of that dead woman which had possessed her daughter and it fitted in with the change in personality and the dialect in which she spoke. My cousin alternated between periods of possession and normalcy. It was during one of those periods of possession, when my aunt asked why her daughter was being troubled and entreated the spirit to leave her body that she was told that the spirit had come to stay. During such times my cousin used to be as far away from the puja room as possible and used to close her ears when the chanting of prayers took place.

For twelve years she remained like that. During this period countless pujas and rituals were conducted, though the severity of the possession did not increase and no bodily harm occurred. At last a tantric from Kerala was also called for exorcising. We still do not know whether this had any effect, but at last one fine day my cousin spoke saying that the spirit was leaving her body. She returned to normalcy soon after. Of course she does not remember all that she had said and done during her periods of possession.”

It was the first of such stories related to me by my mother and of course my grandmother who had even more bizarre and older stories to relate. May be these were so deeply ingrained in my psyche that years later as an young adult I had not shaken off the possibility of such happenings, though I was convinced that these were due to psychological imbalances like schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder and similar ailments. There were instances which left me wondering whether they were dreams or a figment of my imagination but when they occurred they appeared so real. As a young adult, while residing in the college hostel I had a strange experience. Working late into the night to finish off the project on which I had been working, I got up from my chair and stretched out on the bed for a small break. I do not remember how long I lay there. I had been staring at the ceiling listening only to the sounds of the ceiling fan when I thought I felt a strange presence at the edge of the bed near my head as if someone was looking down at me. I could clearly see the contours of the room in detail and the face of my father who had long since passed away. The moment appeared frozen and I found myself totally immobilized for some time. It was with great effort that I was able to shake myself free and I sat up.  Everything was as it was in the room, but it took me some time to come back to normalcy. I drank some water and applied the vibhuti which I always carried with me, on my forehead and went back to my table to complete my work. That night I did not sleep till the early hours of the morning. Looking back I have always had mixed feelings about the incident. It could have been due to the images of my father which were always there in my mind coupled may be with the many planchette sessions which me and my friends used to indulge in, more out of curiosity then any belief. But at that time it felt so real. One thing I was sure, that I had not fallen asleep, but may be my mind was playing games. Whatever it was, it was eerie while it lasted.

Years later I saw the movie ‘The Exorcist’ and a series of such films on the paranormal, of possessions and ghosts. These were not mere grandma tales. They were much more deeply ingrained in the human psyche. The belief in manifestations of the spirits of the dead is widespread, dating back to animism or ancestor worship in pre-literate cultures. Despite all the predominance of rational thinking and advancement in human knowledge, there still exists that element of doubt on the immortality of the human soul.

I remember the time when I was returning from Rajkot to Ahmedabad by car. It was late into the night and suddenly I found my driver accelerating on a lonely stretch of road on the highway near a place called Limbdi. I asked the reason and wanted him to slow down. He said ‘Saab, there have been strange occurrences on this stretch. I was told by a fellow driver that once when he was passing this spot, he had heard someone tapping the rear window of the car asking the passenger to open the door. Can you imagine Saab, someone tapping on the window of a vehicle travelling at sixty km per hour? The passenger was in a state of shock and the driver had the sense to speed away. Such happenings have been reported by others also.” Naturally I spent the rest of my journey looking out for the unknown visitor. One does not give credence to such things. After all my rational mind said at that time of the night it is but natural that one is overcome by drowsiness and imagines things that are not there. Also that stretch of road was notorious for late night road accidents, a monotonous long stretch when drivers tend to feel the drowsiness more and lose control of the vehicle. The very fact that accidents did occur there was again attributed to paranormal activity. The mind plays games but are we ready to accept that is the case. 

THE DEATH OF A BOOKSTORE

THE DEATH OF A BOOKSTORE

In the past ten days there have been two articles of note in ‘The Times Of India’ Hyderabad edition which serve as precursors to the obituaries that would follow of the Bookstores that we have grown up with and got used to. Sadly yes, it is like the death of a dear and near one and the grief that follows. The first one on 25th March 2015 announced ‘Iconic City Bookstore To Shut Down Shutters’. Since it is reported from Hyderabad anyone familiar with the city will immediately be able to place it. “Shop in Abids to make way for swanky shopping mall” the old makes place for the new, bringing an end to a generation that found unbounded pleasure while browsing through the books stocked neatly on dust free and polished shelves, and attended to by a knowledgeable owner whose love for books seemed equal if not more than what you had prided yourself with. AA Husain and Co. had been in existence the since the mid-forties of the last century and was turned into a bookstore in 1949.

The report quotes the current owner “Since 2010, the footfalls at the bookstore have dropped drastically. I believe it is because of the spurt of online bookstores. People find it convenient to buy books at either bookstore chains or online stores. Business for independent sellers is no longer profitable.” While book lovers are obviously upset those who will be most hit are the employees of the old store. Life will no longer be the same for them.

The second which appeared on the editorial page yesterday 4^th March 2015 is by Dileep Padgaonkar ‘Browse No More – Sad but inevitable aftermath of the closure of a great bookshop’. He refers to iconic bookshops – one in Pune, the International Book Service located in Deccan Gymkhana and the other La Hune that has been operating in Paris since 1949 and known for its famous clientele “This where the Surrealists led by their, guru, Andre Breton congregated. On any given day you could spot celebrated writers, painters and filmmakers – Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Picasso, Max Ernst, Truffaut, Godard etc.- intently turning the pages of a book.” I also quote below the last portion of the article by Padgaonkar that sort of sums it up –

“Some lament the ‘emasculation of culture’ and the ‘cancerous growth of commercialism. Others stress the ‘inexorable logic of the market’ and the ‘democratisation of reading’ in a digitalized universe.

What the closure of a good bookshop portends though can hardly be denied. It deprives us of one of the gentler pleasures of life; Serendipity. This allows you to browse through books at leisure in the hope of discovering quite by chance, one that captivates your fancy.”

In this context I reproduce below a page from my book ‘I Am Just An Ordinary Man’ –

“I have enjoyed browsing through the books in the bookshops, apart from buying them. Though you have your Crosswords and Odysseys now, with their stacks of books along with other items as a one stop buy, I miss the old worldly charm of a Higginbotham at Madras or a Manney’s in Poona which were dedicated to only books. But these were large stores. The books I bought in Bombay were all from the pavement shop which you can still find when you walk from Victoria Terminus to Flora Fountain. Many times I have stood there gazing at the books. If what you were searching for was not available, the shopkeeper would get it for you. I have walked those pavements any number of times when I was in Bombay; during the day, during dusk and sometimes at night while going back to the railway station to catch the train back home. But if I remember one shop with special affection it was the ‘East West Bookshop’ in Baroda situated in one of the interior roads. That is because of one kind old man. The shop was small, his heart was big and his knowledge of books immense. Though he used to deal with customers by just getting the books they wanted, for me he did that little bit extra. He used to take me to the interiors of the shop and pull out books which had been lying there untouched, but meant a lot to him. He knew I was interested for he would then launch into a brief summary of the contents of the book and recommend to me for reading. Perhaps the most valuable of my acquisitions from there was a hard bound old edition of Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Idea. When I was transferred from Baroda and made my visit to the shop before I left, he took me to the nearby hotel and bought me lunch. That was his way of showing affection. He wished me all the luck and then I left. I did visit the shop once or twice thereafter whenever I came down from Ahmedabad. Of course I never left without buying a book. Well that was a relationship and when I touched those books while cleaning them today, I thought of him. I do not know whether he is there now, but I am pretty sure he is not, for it has been nearly thirty five years since. I do not know whether the shop exists, but if it does, then I am sure it will not be the quaint old shop with a soul.”

Dileep Padgaonkar has aptly summed it up, and I have felt the same as a lover of books. I have never found myself comfortable with an e-book. Even to this day I like the book in my hand, to own it and find its rightful place in the bookshelf. But I have woken up to certain realities as an author. There are thousands of writers out there who struggle to see their book in print. Only a miniscule are successful in getting a publisher to accept their manuscript, which with any luck will be able to find its place in a bookstore. Stacking books in a bookstore involves holding inventory and this involves cost which the publisher does not want to risk for a debutant author. I have tackled the problem of ‘The Writer’s Dilemma’ in my post of 27^th July 2014 at http://subbusg.blogspot.in/2014/07/the-writers-dilemma.html and earlier light hearted posts on the ‘Travails Of An Aspiring Author’. The only way out for such writers is through having their books published by way of self-publishing. There would be no rejections by publishing houses and the costs would be under control as they would be POD print on demand. Anyway I still have not understood the standards by which publishing houses accept or reject manuscripts. Many books accepted and published by the publishing houses have failed to take off, while a number of self-published authors have made it big.  So you see as a self-published author the digital online stores have become a boon. I do whatever marketing is possible through the social media and hope for the best, footfalls in a bookstore do not ensure sales.

So you see my priorities as a book lover and an author are at loggerheads. But to sum up I can only say that I would still like to see my book on the shelf of a bookstore and watch surreptitiously with glee some customer picking up the book and browsing through it   

MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING by VIKTOR E. FRANKL - A BOOK REVIEW

MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING by VIKTOR E. FRANKL

A BOOK REVIEW

About the author – Viktor E. Frankl was Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School. He was the founder of what came to be called the Third Viennese school of Psychotherapy (after Freud’s psychoanalysis and Adler’s individual psychology) – the school of Logotherapy.

Born in 1905 he died at the age of ninety two in the year 1997. Logotheraphy is based on the belief that it is the striving to find a meaning in one’s life that is the most powerful motivating force in our lives. When asked about the difference between psychoanalysis and logotheraphy, the author puts it a nutshell by saying that while in psychoanalysis the patient must tell you things which are at times very disagreeable to tell, in logotheraphy he must hear things which sometimes are very disagreeable to hear.

This a small yet powerful book for it details out the development of his theory through his own experiences of the holocaust during World War Two. Having himself survived Auschwitz and the other Nazi concentration camps he brings to the fore man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. In the author’s own words –

“An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize values in creative life, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also a purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior:  namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.”

The book is in two parts – Part one gives an autobiographical account of the author’s experiences in the Nazi concentration camps, living every day in the uncertainty of whether he would see another day, watching fellow prisoners being taken away to the gas chambers and wondering when his turn would come, enduring the sufferings heaped upon all the prisoners. It is about how everyday life in a concentration camp is reflected in the mind of an average prisoner. He talks about the sacrifices, the crucifixion and the deaths of the great army of unknown and unrecorded victims. As you read you are able to visualize the horrors of the Holocaust in graphic detail.

It is in the midst of all this brutality heaped by man upon man and the suffering that never seemed to end that the prisoner lives what is called a provisional existence for the prison term was not only uncertain but unlimited. Not being able to aim at an ultimate goal in life he ceases living for the future. The person who had lost faith in the future was doomed. The author quotes Nietsche “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how”.

But it is easy for the author to say that it did not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. One gets the feeling that throughout the book the author speaks in the language of a psychotheraphist and which is of course true. But if one puts himself in the position of the average prisoner who has reached the end of his tether I think the ‘why’ and ‘how’ would have ceased to have any meaning. I quote the author’s words when he talks about the meaning of life –

“the meaning of life, differs from man to man, and from moment to moment. It is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements ‘Life’ does not mean something vague but something very real and concrete, just as life’s task are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny and which is unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny”

That is true, but it is when he says that when man finds it his destiny to suffer he will have to accept his suffering as his task, his single and unique task that we may ask is it really possible to expect that. It is here that the author does sound like a preacher. How many are really prepared to carry the cross.

Being a psychologist the author also touches upon the psychological make-up of the camp guards. Part one is intense in its descriptions and analysis of the inmates and their life in the various concentration camps. Being told by an inmate and a psychologist at that, it makes powerful reading. It also lays the ground work for the author’s exposition of his theory of Logotheraphy and its practice.

Part two – Logotheraphy in a nutshell.

This part is divided into several sections where author discusses the neuroses that arises from existential problems and the dynamics involved, the understanding of which is simplified by anecdotal references. But it is the sections on The Will to Meaning, Existential Frustration, The Existential Vacuum, and The Essence of Existence that I found of particular interest. I will try to summarize these sections below for they are reflections of Existentialism –

Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a secondary realization of instinctual drives. His will to meaning can be frustrated. This existential frustration can result in neuroses. Here the author says that the term ‘existential may be used in three ways 1) Existence itself, the specifically human mode of being 2) the meaning of existence; and 3) the striving to find a concrete meaning in personal existence, that is to say the will to meaning.

Quoting the author the existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century – “No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).”

The book first published in 1959 has undergone many reprints and translations in various languages and has been labeled as one of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust. It is also called a remarkable tribute to hope and offers us an avenue to find greater meaning and purpose in life.

This perhaps is one of the books I would place on my shelf of the great books I have had the opportunity to go through.