Digging for Meaning

The measure of greatness of any literary work is the no. of questions and debates it stirs up in one’s head and heart. ‘The golden notebook’ is priceless. May 3, 2008 23 :14 I am reading Doris Lessing’s ‘the golden notebook’ right now. The author’s note has some interesting points that made me ponder. First - subjectivity. Essentially, how can one remove one’s experience from that of the rest of the mass’s. “how can you write about your petty little issues, when world is going through so much’. How can one not be political. How can one just reside in his own cocoon, without thought to the rest... well, this links up to a myopia of a thought culture that we have inherited from our subordinated forefathers of Raj era. Today me with Kasturee and Ashima were touristing around Mumbai, when Kasturee remarked, upon seeing a heritage building, as to did the government just ‘steal’ these structures from British or what? I was left aghast then. We are still the White man’s burden, ...

I feel cheated when subjected to literary works or cinema. The good art, good cinema is characterised by a focussed thought, a focussed reasoning that while being genius and revolutionary, is at the same time blinding and constraining. I see people bound up by the beauty of these constructed worlds, never to admit the world around as their own. Well, that’s not my reason o f complain though, I don’t read too much, only as much as my curiosity and hunger wishes, nor do I allow myself to fall away in quotidian stupor by keeping my curiosity and hunger for wisdom sharp on the granite of my senses. I try and absorb and diffuse the wisdom garnered from the art through me around me, trying to comprehend the world through it, trying to see the beauty that lay hidden beneath. I only have 2 eyes; maybe the author’s/artist’s eyes would lend me some new vision... My reason of complain is that that art, resplendent with the genius in it, binds me to its reasoning, to its ideals (at least for a ...

The measure of greatness of any literary work is the no. of questions and debates it stirs up in one’s head and heart. ‘The golden notebook’ is priceless. May 3, 2008 23 :14 I am reading Doris Lessing’s ‘the golden notebook’ right now. The author’s note has some interesting points that made me ponder. First - subjectivity. Essentially, how can one remove one’s experience from that of the rest of the mass’s. “how can you write about your petty little issues, when world is going through so much’. How can one not be political. How can one just reside in his own cocoon, without thought to the rest... well, this links up to a myopia of a thought culture that we have inherited from our subordinated forefathers of Raj era. Today me with Kasturee and Ashima were touristing around Mumbai, when Kasturee remarked, upon seeing a heritage building, as to did the government just ‘steal’ these structures from British or what? I was left aghast then. We are still the White man’s burden, ...