Mujhe tod lena banmaali, us path per dena tum faink....

Chaah nahi main surbaal ke gahanon mai guthaa jaaoon
Chaah nahi premi maalaa main bindh pyaari ko lalachaaoon
Chaah nahi samraton ke shav pe hey hari daala jaaoon
chaah nahi devon ke sir per chadun bhagya pe itaraaoon

Mujhe tod lenaa banmaali us path per dena tum faink
Matribhumi per shish chadaane jis path jaye veer anek.

-Makhan Lal Chaturvedi

While commemorating this precious day of Indian Independence I would like to recite this poem of Sri Makhan Lal Chaturvedi. I have known this poem since my early childhood and no poem by far could efface the impression it made in my mind. This poem evokes an interesting anecdote connected to my frivolous childhood.

I was so fond of this poem that whenever someone would ask me to recite a poem I would take this poem (as I had remembered it by heart) and recite in full rhythm with the finest possible gravity and crescendos. I had an uncle. After listening to my poem he would ask my father's name as if to test my skill. When I would tell him my father's name and he would interrupt me in-between and would tell me with his adorable chuckle-" no son.. don't you forget. your father's name is Sri Makhan Lal Chaturvedi" and we would laugh together.

I love this poem not because it evokes my memory but because it is lovable. I have rarely seen such an allegorical poem fermenting such loads of inspiration and patriotism. The poem contains no big words like the chhayavadi's poems-Himadri tung shring se prabudha shudha bharati... nevertheless makes an unforgettable impression.

The other poem which I love most is by Mohammad Iqbal...

Saare Jahan se achha Hindostan humara...
Hum bulbule hain iski ye gulistan humara..

The depth of love for one's country and the gravity of thoughts which it provokes are a rare combo seen in a patriotic song...

Poet's forte in his finesse in ferocious play of words is clearly distictive in this poem. . And his light style of preaching is praise worthy.

Majahab nahi sikhata aapas main bair rakhana..

This line is relevant even in the present scenario..in the fastly developing India. Fractious elements have largely proliferated themselves ...we are still eclipsed by religion, caste and other darkening elements. We actually have not understood the meaning of Independence still.

Kaisi hai pehchhan tumhari ...raah bhulne per milte ho...

We celebrate THE DAY and think that we have fulfilled our obligations towards our country. But is it all we need to...

Instead of celebrating Independence day with fanfares... Why can't we let our heart burgeon ...why can't we forswear such foolish concepts of religion ..caste ...why can we forgo our fanaticism...?

Why don't we say .....WE ABOMINATE RELIGIONS...because they alienate.

About authors and their writing styles - Amitav Ghosh

A popular book is identified vicariously with by the reader and a good book in addition evokes constructive cerebrations.

I have many friends, who love reading books but balks when asked to read Indian writers. When I asked one of those friends why he doesn’t like to read Indian writers, he replied me that Indian writers neither know how to write nor do they have a topic other than some bromides. I could enumerate a number of Indian authors which he should try to see that his presumption was nothing but a mere abyss. I didn't, however. One of such writer I am going to write about is Amitav Ghosh and the book I am referring to is "The Hungry tide".

The Hungry Tide

I was a little bit apprehensive towards reading this big fat book. I anyway started the book only to find that how enthralled I was by the engaging words of the authors. The Hungry Tide is a story of exotic mangroves of large archipelago in the Gangatic delta- Sundarban. It’s a story of Love, envy, aspiration, enthusiasm and adventure. The characters he has conjured up are mostly the commons nevertheless enthusiastic, zealous and wannabe.

The story embarks with an absolutely crowded railway station and very beautifully identifies the protagonists of the story. The author's selection of a diversified introductory-plot to conjure-up the protagonists and most of the characters to be seen in the consecutive sections is awesome. The story burgeons in remarkably spontaneous manner as the time moves. The story diverges then converges and then again diverges followed by a series of such events maintaining a wave of rhythm. The author very splendidly makes the story free of intricacies however he is not able to refrain from making the essence (in his story... it is 'Love') convoluted. Amitav Ghosh's love is full of co-incidences and presumptions. Interestingly his male protagonists (in the novel no distinct contrast has been made to define the protagonists. Though female protagonist is well defined...there is no single male protagonist) fell in love with same woman. And that twice. Yet, a remarkable delineation of LOVE in the story can be seen in the book. This portryal parallels with that of eminent bengali writer SHARATCHANDRA CHATTOPADHYAY. Unlike many of his contemporaries he believes in tacit talking. The love he imagines carry no word, carry no limit. That is the most impressive thing you can feel. His faculty in making two people get along and do good even when one doesn't understand other's language is applaudable -Fokir is illiterate and understand nothing but Bangla and Piya Roy only English. However they have not problem in dealing with each other...they understand each other...and get along.

The way the author introduces the character is also worthy praising. Unlike the characters in "The fountainhead", the author let his characters interact with the environment, he let his character grow, develop and change. Characters are not doctrinaire rather they are more realistic and acclimating. The other interesting thing about his character is they are effeminate-they are emotional, loving and caring...exemplification of Indian psyche. Let alone the female characters, be it Nirmal or Kanai or Fokir or whoever...everybody shows the same sense of loving persona.

Amitav Ghosh is also very wise to establish a brilliant concord between the parallel moving stories. He is also very articulate in making a parallel with stories of different epochs. He is clever enough to re-broach different subjects before it can vanish from the reader's mind. Though at someplace as one of my friend suggests he is not able to make necessary celerity in the story and overworks with the words (I was too absorbed to notice that).

The book is articulately written. Like most of the good writers he is competent in the requisite creativity in the story building but most importantly he is also endued with the prudence in selecting the words according to his plots. The words are so carefully calculated that leaves no sign of anachronism. I love this novel also because of the inevitable vicarious bond it makes with the reader. Like a popular book it engages you, absorbs you and like a good book it provokes a number of thoughts...answered and some to be addressed.

Commemorating Munshi Premchand on his 125th anniversery....

I was browsing through the BBC web page and I found an essay on Munshi Premchand. A citation by a political science professor, Prof. Ramkrishna Tripathi, caught my attention which hinted that Premchand was rebelious and anarchist by his very nature.

I don't chalange this argument as I never knew him personally but if an author's canon can be an authoritative depiction of his own psychology, any student of Premchand ( I believe each of the premchand's book in itself is a complete doctrine....and as soon as you start reading a book...you become a desciple of the doctrine...) can point out the fallacy of the statement.

What I believe is .... he had shown a disposition of protest but he never was prejudiced. He never bothered to demonstrate a cataclysm in any of his novel. He believed in descretion of a man....probably that was the reason he never tried to influence the people by his would-be ways to deal with a perticular problem. Be it GODAN or NIRMALA or any other novel or be it a short story like "POOS KI EK RAAT" he portrated what he saw...the delapidated the then prevailing socio-economic condition of india. He sought to make a change but never tried to attempt to do it in his work.

When NIRMALA was married with a too-old man for her age.....she never protested or she never made a striking difference. She complied ...defered to her condition...she suffered....she resented her not contending disposition....BUT she never tried to change the prevailing condition.

When HORI was made penniless by "the leech"... more popular as MAHAJAN....he never protested....although DHANIYAN showed a murmer of protest but before HORI's strong aversion for contest ..she also gave-up.

His protagonists are more realistic then anyone's...there are some air of protest ...

BUT he never gave a clue of his being "DISPUTATIOUS".

On the contrary ... his protagonists are quite complaisant as much as they are shown byoyant (even in the face of agony). (Hori feels exurberant when an animal browses through his field and destroyed his DHAN... at least he would not have to stay in the field in the cruel winter again watching for his crops.) ...

He provokes a necessity to deal with this brutalities...not necessarily by revolution.

As Prof. Shubharao clearly states...

"उनके लिए बाग़ी या इस तरह के विशेषण प्रयुक्त नही कर सकते हैं पर हाँ प्रतिरोध की उनकी मूल प्रकृति थी ये हम स्पष्ट मानेंगे."

Prof. Tripathi amend your understanding of Premchand, the novelist.

Remember sir

There can't be a more depraved LIE than a misconstrued TRUTH.

"Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress"

-Ayn Rand.

Favorite quotes from The Fountainhead.



What I admire most in Ayn Rand's style of writing is her 'catechismal' depiction of characters. She is particularly impressive in disseminating her ideas while simultaneously portraying her characters.

"........ Never ask people. Not about your work. Don't you know what you want? How can you stand it, not to know?"

Howard Roark, Part 1, Chapter 1, pg. 33

( you can see the same vigor in these lines....
"The most depraved type of human beings....(is) the man without a purpose."
'Atlas Shrugged' 1957
)



"....One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name. It is one or the other...."

Mr. Wynand, Part 3, Chapter 4, pg. 444



"It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions, the thing that had created the building against things that made the play possible-two forces, suddenly naked to her in their simple statement-two forces that had fought since the world began-and every religion had known of them-and there had always been a God and a Devil-only men had been so mistaken about the shapes of their Devil-he was not single and big, he was many and smutty and small."

Part 3, Chapter 8, pg. 492



"Don't allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living."

Ellsworth Toohey, Part 4, Chapter 14, pg. 636



"Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independece. "

Part 4, Chapter 18, pg. 681


"Civilization is the process of setting man free from man."

Howard Roark.

About authors and their writing styles-Ayn Rand

I love reading books. Though I read them irrespective of their genre or theme; I have certain reservations towards certain type of books. I prefer books preferably dealing with the intricacy of human psychology. I also like to read books describing some unprecedented and bizarre tale. Being an engineer by education and a buff of science by usual disposition I also love reading science fictions. Before I forget I must point out my passion for poetry inclusive of Urdu Ghazals and Suktiyan in Sanskrit.

I am very critical about the quality of the book I read. I can discount the lack of relevant subjects but I can't condone if I find the book a mere bromide. I strongly believe that the creativity and uniqueness are ingredients of highest import for a good writing.

I dedicate this post on my favorite authors and books. Every author has an unique style of writing....in this post I would like to discover those fingureprints of authors.

Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead

I start with Ayn Rand. It might seem to be premature to comment on her style as I have read only one of her book- "The Fountainhead". So I will cite referenes only from this book to bolster my arguments.

Born as Alice Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Rusia, she was a firm supporter of individualism. She never seems to adopt the long established and practiced Aristotelic's philosophy:

Man is not the best of things in the universe
(Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VI)

She advocates the individual power and importance of conviction as quoted in The Objectivist Ethics-

The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himslef, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others...

(The Objectivist Ethics, 1961)

Such philosophy should not be misconstrued as she says about her philosophy in more lucid words:

My philosophy, in essense, is the concept of man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his nolest activity, and reason as his only absolute-Ayn Rand


The Fountainhead in the cursory reading seems to be mere a story of an adamant however an extremely devoted architect, Howard Roark. But a slight more cerebration gives the glimpses of the power of conviction of Ayn Rand and presents the conception of new doctrinaire.

The story begins in the serenest possible manner in a manner that it disguises the magniloquence to be seen in the due development of the story. She maintains a rhythm ... an impressive and optimized celerity throughout her book.

The interesting thing about her style I noted is her bohemian introduction of her characters. She uses a new or existing (sometimes redundant as least it seems to many of her reader) character to introduce a new or existing character in a new plot. She very nicely uses references and cross-references to give every shade of the psyche of her characters as viewed by others. In doing so sometimes she becomes too diffuse to maintain the interest of the reader.

She sometime overwork on a particular character to such an extent that the reader feels detached with other characters. Lacking in maintain a parallel between different stories sometimes make it a little less compelling. Nevertheless a not so critical reader is so absorbed in the grand and consummate description of the ongoing story that he usually fails to notice any such incompetency.

One of the most remarkable and unconventional of the author is the formulation of her character for they are psychologically intact decanted with strong unadulterate-able conviction. With all her unique allusions and insinuations she delineates a character. She is amazingly adept at depiction of human psyche. The story develops with the course of time but whatever may come, the characters never abandon their psyche as if they are beyond alloying. However maintaining her esoteric portrayal she makes it not-so-easy to predict her characters actions and intentions in a particular situation.

She deserves kudos for her equally absorbing denouement of the story. The words finish but the story never stops. The momentum it gains takes the story much further to a new horizon in the reader's imagination. This is the most adorable of her writing (especially I take it so as I hate end ... let there always be a beginning)