The Square Root of Two

All real numbers are irrational

Photo: Madwell

All real numbers are irrational

Everything that is real is irrational. I am real that is why I am irrational. We live in the society of hypocrites who live artificial life, and entails be real. I am so sorry; I am not one of you. Love me or hate me, better hate me. I am not worthy of your love. After all, you are part of them-a hypocrite.

I met her first time in the library. Books are my only passion. There was no rationale in her being there. She was beautiful, and not in the ordinary way. She had divine beauty, if you can forgive me for using the word divine. Living with mortals sometime, I may think like them, even though in reality I am immortal.

"Love at first sight" how idiotic and irrational. What could be the rational in falling in love at first sight? Very illogical. When I was fully confident, I decided I am in love.

I was looking at the signboard of genre above Almira of books. It was Philosophy. All the more irrational and hence better. A divine beauty in search of Philosophy. I took the book she had put down. "Marriages and Morals", by Bertrand Russell. I was looking at the book and smiled at her. She was offended. Offended girls look more beautiful. I bowed to her. She ignored.

So once again, I find myself in love. Nothing is more irrational than love. Even life which I have always been so severely condemned may have some meaning, as the Buddha and of his like claim, but love, no they never said it has some meaning. The buddha said "unfathomably deep, deep like a fish course in water is the character of women". Can there be more degrading than this. If you say this about the woman you cannot say anything about falling in love with a woman who has no character.

Yes, saying that the character of a woman is like a fish course in deep water is like saying they have no character at all, and to fall in love with them would be a mere foolishness. No rational man would ever do it.

Moreover, you say love is blind. It means it makes you blind, and how something that causes blindness could be a rational, and an affected person who goes blind would become irrational.

Love has no criterion of beauty and ugly, rich or poor, old and young, it is so irrational a thing that people are ready to accept any nonsense in the name of love.

I loved this irrationality about love, there are not any limits, with whom, where, why, how many times, there are no rules.

Being irrational man, I fell in love many times.

This girl in the library I fell in love with is somewhere on my long list, since I have forgotten the count.

Not only love, but also marriage is irrational. Human is polygamous by nature. By marriage people create a family and pass on their fortune to them, thus rich becomes richer and a poor, poorer. At least there are laws about marriage, but love has no law to be subject to. The society is more irrational than any individual is.

I have a great condemnation of society in my heart. Society has good reason to be irrational, but nature has no reason to be irrational.

Society can permit your falling in love many times, though it cancels your driving license if you break traffic rules even few times. Nevertheless, how do you justify producing billions of sperms just to fertilize an egg. That is simply stupid. What a sheer wastage of life force. No theory of probability can justify it.

However, I always take advantage of probability theory while proposing a girl. Every fifth girl has always accepted my proposal. This one was fifth. Let us see.

The girl walked up to me.

"Can you suggest me a good book on existentialism" Her eyes were like a lake I would love to swim. Though I don't know swimming. May be I will be drowned and died. Will she come over to funeral?

Sure, I would have embraced her, at any other place. Time is essence. The time between my decision to propose and making a proposal is sometimes in a nanosecond.

"Read Notes, from underground by Dostoevsky".

Is it in this library?

It was. I have stolen it. I was prepared to speak the truth. Why truth? I asked many wise people. They are confused. I think the truth is irrational. It has created more chaos than harmony. Suppose all husbands start speaking the truth about their extramarital affairs, how much hurt and agony they would create. All offenders if speak truth, there will be no place in jails. A lie saves so many lives. I propagate lie.

"No, this library has modest taste in philosophy. If you want I can lend you one".

"How"?

"Come to my house, it's not far."

It was my fifth proposal in last one week. I propose only on weekdays. I enjoy my weekends.

She agreed.

We were walking.

"Name"

"Urva"

I looked at her.

"Suits you"

"How"

"Everything is excessive" I looked at her bosom.

She was red.

"What's your name" She distracted.

"Vijay"

She looked at me and said" Tower of Victory"

"Would you climb?"

She was red again.

 All girls are equally fool or wise. Make a yardstick or parameter as to what a girl of a particular age should know. Suppose a girl of eighteen should know literature, movies, driving, dress up, make up, music, cooking, stitching, embroidery, mopping, swapping etc. Besides being at least average in studies. Apply research methodology of mean, mode and median, all girls will get an equal number. Every beautiful girl knows she is beautiful. Every girl who knows she is not beautiful creates an image of her beautiful self.

So if you appreciate them it always conforms to her view.

The provision of Experimental Error in Research Methodology makes it irrational exercise. Whatever may be the dependent and independent variable of beauty of a girl, if beauty is in the eye of the beholder it makes beauty dependent on extraneous variable. Which will be an experimental error and whatever conclusion you will draw will be erroneous and irrational? To protect results from extraneous variable we do randomization. It is like being irrational to rationalize.

Out of my habit of analyzing the data, I drew curves for events from the first meeting with the girl to break up. Surprisingly, in most of the cases it is a normal curve without any skewness. I always avoid skewness. I do not want to postpone my expression of desire if I like a girl, and once my object achieved or not, if the relationship is dead weight, I get rid of it earliest possible. Most of the time both of us feels relieved by termination of the relationship. I create such circumstances. If we go to have to depart, let us depart as friends with some sweet memories. It's my motto.

Though I am mesokurtic and like the humpedness of the curve. I wish to enjoy my relationship for a reasonable time once it reaches its peak. It is like a bell in the temple. That is my best time in a relationship with a girl.

When we were walking, a car stopped near us. It was Audi and my friend Ravi Shankar was driving. My all friends are poor only Ravi Shankar is rich. Usually I dislike rich people. Rich people are like lepers. They are so obvious. Being rich is their solitary quality. They are very proud of all those things for which they should be ashamed of. Vulgarity is their passion and sarcasm is their wit. For me they are 'untouchable'. Since I have been very popular, they always envied me and searched for an opportunity to make me look down. They never got it.

Ravi was also one of the stereotypes. But he had certain qualities for which I liked him. He behaved differently with me. He sought my advice in his love affairs. His taste in art and culture was slightly more refined.

He asked whether we want a lift. I looked at Urva. The expression on her face was of consent. Ravi took us to my home. I did not request him inside.

I lived in a small house, with a tiny garden in front and two servants who lived in back out houses. They were father and son. Father cooked food for all of us son cleaned house and ran errands. My house was decorated with excellent aesthetic sense. Partly it was the contribution of my all past girlfriends. They always attempted to regulate my life by arranging the things in order of their choice. Some preferred books in drawing room other in the bedroom. I obliged them by permitting to interfere.

The peasants live a rational life. They do physical labor to earn money and fulfill their bodily needs. They do not sell their mind. To sell mind just to quench your physiological need is just one of the most stupid things. Not only you sell your mind, but also the mind becomes a garbage bin by collecting wasteful information, which does not play any role in improving life. On the contrary, mind becomes conditioned and later by the time you realize the wastefulness of life you were living some sage tells you to unlearn and make your mind unconditional. So I do not learn anything which later I will be required to unlearn.

There was silence. We were walking leisurely when I asked

"You know 2+2=5"

"Yes, I do fuzzy math."

"You know the square root of two plus square root of two is equivalent to one."

"Yes, the sum of two irrational numbers could be a rational number. However, why are you asking?"

"Are you irrational?"

"Yes, I am. No girl would go to the house of a boy without knowing anything about him."

"Are we not complimentary to each other?"

"You mean biologically or mentally."

"Both."

It is still too early for me to decide.

I have made my mind. It is either you or none.

What is the logic?

 Read more articles here

©  Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpt from a forthcoming book

So It Was Not A Goodbye

                              The Divine Experiment

Photo By CC: Void To Void

C_C,

Every end has a new beginning. I bid you a farewell. Thought, you will be lost in the mist and clouds of Himalayan Valley, and the world beyond that. We have departed never to meet again. Though this thought was depressing, but I had reconciled with it. I never look back, nor do I chase shadows. I just keep on walking in the opposite direction until everything stops making sense. I have deliberately separated your initials by a space, a void or rather a subtle void in between your initials. You are an illusion and reality at the same time. Once you were a reality, now you are an illusion.

I said to you few shocking things. Whatever I told you, my intentions were good. A man needs to be judged by intentions. My intention was to heal a bruised soul. A pure and divine soul, which was a victim of the callous world. Tears wash the stains of the soul. You said ‘you learned from me’, and you know what ‘I unlearned from you’. My learning had made me complicated, dubious and rational, which consumed my vital forces. Then I met you, a breath of fresh air. At first sight, I felt no vibration. You appeared just like any other Western girl looking for the solution of personal riddles in the mystic land. There is special providence in the fall of Sparrow (Shakespeare). The fresh air had touched my skin to penetrate deep and affect my psyche. I started unlearning. Will you be surprised if I tell you that now I am on the path of simplicity, faith and intuition. My intellect has deceived me. Now I need to ensure that intellect  was the real cause of my void.

Respect is not important. You always need a reason to respect somebody. But you can love anybody without a reason. Learning weaved a web around the senses and reduces perception. Love is that magic which breaks the talisman of flesh and makes you see things with feelings. That kind of unconditional love, a panacea of all suffering, evaporates like camphor in the heat of a ruthless world. You have hidden that love in the secret crevices of your heart and sometimes it overflows and soaks a deprived soul, just like an aimless drifting cloud of valley soaks a wanderer for nothing.

You need not to be grateful to anybody. Rather, people should be grateful to you for being around. As I am. If people are disappointed in you, it is their problem. They are greedy and want more, while you have already given more than they deserve. Forgive and forget them. They are normal selfish people who value a thing only when it has slipped out of their hand.

You wrote, “Also, some things you said..maybe I should have said something and I didn’t”. That makes you more beautiful as a person and as a human being. In these two dots followed by ‘maybe’ is the secret of the universe. This kind of silent conversation is the strength of any relationship. It is good to leave things unsaid. Conscience doesn’t permit us to be judgmental.

You are warm, as warm as cozy blanket you are wrapped up in the valley of Himalaya, right now. I would pity the person who does not find you warm. Why should you bother for such kind of insensitive person?

This whole gambit is no experiment. It is a divine plan. We cannot always make things happen. Sometimes they just do happen to us. Your smile is very precious CC, smile if it makes you happy to think that the entire episode was an experiment, but rest assured it was a divine experiment.

Ciao

VBG

Letter  1 

Letter  3
Letter 4
Letter 5

Read more articles here

©  Vipin Behari Goyal

A Passage To India By E.M.Forster

The Secret Of Indian Caves

A Passage To India By E. M. Forster is a tale of two British ladies who came to India to understand real India and Indians. Like all other Europeans and most of the Westerners they are disappointed, discarded and miserably fail in their mission to the extent that one of them Mrs. Moore is older and less tolerant to cultural shock dies during her return journey. The delineation in the many aspects of the novel such as theme and narration is amazing. The use of motif, allusion and symbol is so strong that what is left after going through novel "what remains is much more than a cluster of impressions, some clear points emerging from a mist of uncertainties” as envisaged by Percy Lubbock in his book “The Craft of Fiction”.

The turning point is in the cave visit by a group of friends. G. L. Dickinson had asked a very pertinent question to E.M.Forster.

“What did happen in the caves?”

It is same as when someone asked Samuel Beckett “Who is Godot?” He said I would have told it in my book, had I known it. It puts a question mark to the omniscience of the author. Sometimes Author can be as innocent as his readers. Forster himself did not knew what happened in the cave. His guess would be as wild as that of his readers. The speculation leads to debate, and obscure often leads to self-realisation which is the ultimate object of the author. When Buddha said “Be your own light”, meant that I have searched some universal Golden Truth, but you will have to search your own truth for salvation. What is the use of writing a book, if it does not help readers to understand the life better?

The visit to the caves starts with a train journey to Marabar Hills, where the caves were located. The train journey in India is an experience in itself. When Gandhi returned from London after his degree in Law, his political Guru, Gokhle advised him to travel the length and breadth of India by train. The rattling noise made by train has a rhythm and rhyme which soon synchronises with torrents of thoughts that come to surface of sub-conscious mind. The sound is catalyst to the train of your thoughts. It simply reinforces your positive or negative thoughts. Both the British ladies felt a listlessness, monotony due to vague, desolated panorama around them.

Mrs. Moore was tired and had no enthusiasm to participate in matrimonial plans of her would be daughter in law, Adela Quest. Adela  was bored and skeptical about her future with Ronnie in India. She was worried that all Anglo-Indian ended up hating Indians after a year. Her husband already had a low opinion about Indians. So far she had seen nothing that would determine the inferiority of Indians. She was advised to keep a distance and never mix up with them. Ronnie was annoyed when she was left alone by Fielding with an Indian after a tea party. She was also introspecting over her prospective relationship with Ronnie.

India has some of the oldest rock formations. Forster travelled India twice in 1912 and 1921. He was impressed by its ancient wisdom. The rocks are the oldest dwelling structures in human civilisation. They are hollow cavities in the mountains. The huge grey elephant and the mountains have an impression of the magnanimity of the nature and the smallness of man. The void of a cave symbolises the void in human life. The huge inflated ego of man have like the mountains have caves that are void, hollow and empty.The void which is offended by any kind of intrusion. The nothingness of eternity is conquerable by silence and solitude. Both the ladies who were skeptical and contemptuous about their surroundings had a terrible experience. The intensity of  the shock is directly proportional to the intensity of repulsion.

The hallucination starts with certain Echoes. The various sounds created in the caves since troglodyte inhabited them had no escape and the resonance caused is usually the echo of the voice of soul. All the sounds merge into the ultimate and the first sound of universe “Aum”. This sound is a combination of three Sanskrit alphabets that represent the Sun, the Moon and Fire. Everything- even nothingness, is transient in nature. This transient nature of her own microcosm hits Mrs. Moore like a thud in a physical form. Every relationship culminates in nullity.

It is immaterial if Adela was raped by Aziz or not. Did she made up the story to attract the attention of people? Was it her tantrum to get rid of her fiancé? Was she prejudiced to the masculinity of Muslim and was disappointed by dispassionate approaches of her fiancé?

The answer is left to the reader to guess. What happened afterwards is unimportant.

Other related Post

Fiction and Philosophy

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Simplicity Personified in Literature

                  Simplicity is not Stupidity

One of the side effects of rapid advancement and consumerism is the extinction of simplicity from society. The youth is sapiosexual and is aroused  by intelligence only. It is also taken for granted that all successful people are intelligent or vice versa.

The qualities like an opportunist, cunnings, street smart, hypocrite, snobbery which were once looked down upon by the society are now being appreciated. Some rich people act modestly and people take a note of it, but for too small of a man, modesty is in vain.

The word simpleton has originated from simple which means a foolish or gullible person. Homer describes a combination of socialist and simpleton as 'knowing many things, but knowing them all badly'.

The Idiot by Feodor Dostoyevsky is said to be an autobiographical novel. Prince Myshkin had spent time in mental sanatorium. He is subjected to many disasters just because he is a simple man. Author confirm the view that sanatorium is the only secure place for stoic saints who do not believe in the power of money and sex.

How bad it is to be innocent in this corrupted world? The command  'Let child be thy father' is in the praise of innocence and purity of heart. No child is born crook, we make him so. We don't want to take responsibility so we say he is born like that. The age of innocence of children is also thinning out fast. The time is not far when only a nascent child would be innocent.

Michael K in J. M. Coetzee's book "Life and Times of Michael K"  is such a person. He is a pure soul untouched by perils of the world and fails to understand why anybody would harm him when he does not want to harm anybody. Actually, this innocently simple man is a depiction of our inward journey that wants to take its dead mother (conscience) back to its rural home (purity).

Harper Lee in "To kill a mocking bird" suggests to kill a mockingbird could be a sin because mockingbirds simply provide pleasure with their songs, saying, "They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

 To kill a mocking bird is to kill someone simple and harmless. What was once prohibited is now a treasured game of rich and affluent. The coming generation (not youth, but middle aged neo rich) is haunted  by the ruthless savagery of cut throat competition and has already put all values at stake to win the race. Simple people happily provide their shoulders to aid them in climbing the stairs of success.

William Barrett in his book "Irrational Man" writes about a story by Kierkegaard. The story is told of the absent minded man so abstracted from his own life that he hardly knows he exists until, one fine morning, he wakes up to find himself dead.

 The whole civilization is that absent minded man, busy in creating a weapon of its own end. Would you call it smart or simple?

Kalidas is an Indian Scholar who created literature in Sanskrit was simple to the extent that he cut the same branch of the tree he was sitting on, thus he would fall as soon as he cut the branch.

The modern society does not dare to be philosophical. 

Milan Kundera, who claims that Nietzsche's hugging of the abused horse to be a symbolic gesture against the dominance, the arrogance of the human mind over nature, against the blind worship of progress.

The cycle of comprehension goes like this. Simple to Complex to Simple. The initial Simplicity is of ignorance. When learning starts the things become complex, but with the dawn of ultimate knowledge the simplicity reoccurs. That is the Wisdom.

It is easy to be complex. In fact, everyone around us is complex. We have forgotten the taste of simplicity. A simple man is queer, incomprehensible and easily rejectable. His humble acceptance of rejection  proves our theory that he deserved to be condemned.

Authors tend to appreciate simplicity in their text. They want to save the world from the madness of so called progress.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said "In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity."

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

Irresponsible literature in the shadow of Mythology

                                Literature and Mythology

Nearly all oblong or circular, and as if traced with the compass, they seem to form one vast archipelago, equal to that charming group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, and which mythology in ancient times adorned with most graceful legends.~Round The Moon by Verne, Jules

Mythology is defined as "the body of myths belonging to a culture. Myths are traditional stories about gods and heroes. They often account for the basic aspects of existence — explaining, for instance, how the Earth was created, why people have to die, or why the year is divided into seasons. Classical mythology — the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans — has had an enormous influence on European and American culture."(The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy).

Literature is "the best expression of the best thought reduced to writing." (Encyclopædia Britannica).

The comparative study of the mythology and literature of various cultures and countries has helped in drawing conclusions about philosophical and psychological changes that came with cultural advancement of civilization. Literature in context with mythology has potential to reach intellectual mind which may prefer or condemn the advancement of civilization over culture. The values of society are reflected in both mythology as well as literature, but mythology is closer to collective consciousness and as Emile Durkheim said "the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness."

He has used the word 'belief and sentiments' to appreciate the differences, yet an analogy that exists between an individual and the society, the interaction in them results in creativity. The object of study of Mythology is to support various Psychological theories, that is why it can be said that nothing new can be written in Literature after Ramayana and Mahabharata. The thin line of demarcation between normal and abnormal vanishes when human psyche is understood in the context of mythological stories. That was, in a way, an effort on the part of creator to make human mind free from guilty conscience, which is quite necessary to maintain an equilibrium in the society.

That literature which was once created orally, with the advancement of technology reached to present stage when paperback publishing is called traditional and the day is not far when it would become extinct and eBooks and audio books would take over the market only to save the future human race from hazardous consequences of paper industry. With the expansion of reach due to increased rate of literacy in third  world countries and advance technology author had to act more responsibly for the cultural advancement of the society, which he has conveniently overlooked.

Many authors do hard work and spend  years and decades to do research on a subject before they give final shape to a book. One great Indian scholar and author Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan traveled to many eastern countries like Nepal, Tibet, Russia and China to collect manuscripts written in Pali and Sanskrit and brought them back to India on several yaks to write fiction based on these books. William Dalrymple when writing his book 'City Of Jinns' collected many documents from survivors of British India.

Literature can and must be created out of Mythology but a great caution is required. The book when read after few centuries should not construe a wrong picture in the mind of the reader. Nobody gives that right to an author.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

How to determine your Literary Quotient

What is your Literary Quotient?

While I.Q. ie. intelligent quotient is measure of cognitive abilities estimated by ability to answer intelligent question and E.Q. emotional quotient is ability to use both your emotions and cognitive skills and is estimated by the ability of a person to deal with tricky situation, L.Q. or Literary Quotient is your level of understanding Literature which determines your cognitive skills, emotional maturity and ability to handle tricky situation intelligently.

The formula remains the same:

 Now refer to my earlier post of Break your Glass-Ceiling. I have described various level of understanding of literature.

These are as follows:

Here are books or authors at each level:

1.Comics—

2.Enid Blyton- Famous five series

3.Alice in wonderland, Alibaba, Arabian Tales, Sindbad, Marco Polo, Panchtantra, Little Prince, Gulliver’s Travels etc.

                                       1.  GLASS-CEILING

4.Romance books and love story--Mills and Boon (Mostly Girls)

5.Sci-fi fiction, Horror for boys, though it could be vice versa or both.

                                         2. GLASS-CEILING

6. Matured romantic books—Gone with the wind, Thorn bird, Sidney Sheldon,

7. Suspense and crime thrillers—James Hadley Chase, Robert Ludlum, John Grisham, Mario Puzo

                                          3. GLASS-CEILING

8. Books based on facts- Ken Follett, Irving Wallace, Wilbur Smith, Arthur Halley, James Clavell

9. Banned books —Lady Chatterley’s lover, Lolita, Nancy Friday, Anonymous

                                     4. GLASS-CEILING

10.Fiction with philosophy—Ayn Rand, Paulo Coelho, David Brown, Khaled Hosseini, Murakami, Aldus Huxley, George, Orwell. Saul Bellow

11. Autobiographies—Benjamin Franklin,  Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi,

                                        5. GLASS-CEILING

           
12.  Classical Books—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare,   Jane Austin, Pearl Buck, Earnest Hemmingway, Somersaught Maugham, Bertrand Russel

13. Text books of Philosophy, Psychology, and History to understand literature.   

                                       6. GLASS-CEILING

14. Philosophical or Psychological Fiction—Robert M. Pirsig, Jostein Gaarder, Mark Haddon, J.M.Coetzee, Gabriel Garcia Marquezss,

15. Self-improvement Books-- Malcolm Gladwell, Robin Sharma, Rhonda Byrne

                                     7. GLASS-CEILING

16. Philosophical Fiction- Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kafka, Hermann Hess,

 17. Supernatural and spiritual literature- Harold Kushner, Dalai Lama, Swami Rama, Swami Yogananda, Richard Bach, Elizabeth Gilbert, Mitch Albom.

The list of authors is not exhaustive but you will understand what level of books we are talking about. Now follow these steps:

1. Honestly decide your Glass-Ceiling Level. If you have any confusion, you may take help of your parents, spouse or a friend.

2. Multiply  that Glass ceiling Level with Ten(10). That would determine your Literary Age.

3. Now fill the formula for L.Q. with your Chronological Age and Literary Age and multiply with hundred (100).

4. Match your results with following table.

Marks	Literary Status
Above 200	Literary Guru
150-200	Literary Expert
120-150	Literary Worm
100-120	Literary Brilliant
80-100	Literary Curious
Below 80	Literary Dull

4. You have determined your Literary Quotient.

Example:

Suppose your Chronological Age is 40 and you have read books up to Glass Ceiling stage 5 multiply this with 10=50 divide by your chronological age which is suppose 40, then 50 divided by 40 multiplied with hundred is equal to 125. So your L.Q. is 125 and you can classify yourself as Literary Worm.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Cover Page of Novels By Vipin Behari Goyal

                                                What is in the Cover Page

The art of cover design of a book has become very important these days. Authors and publishers spend a lot of time and money on that. The buyers who are sincere readers have started taking the decision to buy a book on the basis of cover design. Though they also might read the blurb of the book to decide if the contents of the book suits to their taste. They also cast a cursory glance at the bio of the author, if they have not already heard about him. Does bio help them to decide whether to go for the book or not in any way? Or the cover design is the most important thing when a book is in hand. What makes the first impression on the mind of the reader title of the book or blurb, name of the author or his bio? If a reader has already heard about a book or author and he has already made up his mind to go for it, then of course there is no stopping for him.

Many publishers put the title of the book and the name of the author on cover page without any artwork. Still, those books are sold in volumes. But those authors belong to classical series for whom one can say "even name is enough". Those books are like jewels in the bookshelves which the owner proudly displays. Nothing distracts your mind from the contents of the book.

What could enhance the beauty of a good book? Amrita Pritam's books use to have paintings of Imroz as cover design. It was a unique combination to show how two different artists perceive a phenomenon with same intensity, except that a writer depends more on the imagination of reader while painting the picture of a scene with a keyboard on the screen.  

Sometimes an author would be puzzled if the cover page is more important than the content he has written. Many times publishers ask the author if he has any cover design in his mind. If he is suggesting one, the publisher would distort it with so called artistic improvisations that the author would even feel ashamed to condemn it.

Who is to be blamed if the cover page is totally irrelevant to the crux of the story? It is made on the basis of the title of the book and has nothing to do about the contents of the story. The cover designer is not a reader mostly. He is someone who more or less is, technically adept to tackle a cover design software. Cover designing a book is not lucrative profession, or rather it should not be. There is ample scope in other commercial fields for them like advertising. Publishers are commercial people, they are in the trade to make money. They are not a philanthropist or social activist. They are only happy when they earn profit by selling books. So they adopt gimmicks of attractive, sensational cover design. The reader might be misguided but the purpose of publisher has been served.

Author at a point of time is made to think that he has done some mistake by writing a book and having desired to see it published. So he suffers the punishment of harassment and pecuniary losses with determination to succeed.

Because he has faith in genuine readers.

Howsoever complicated this business of publishing and nexus of publisher, copy editor, cover designer, distributor, typesetter, professional reviewers, advertisers may become obnoxious, but the whole trade is merely a link between author and reader.

In India the youth has become mature as readers and his craving for serious reading is apparent. The days of Indian M&B and that type of cover designs are counted. May be they would target preteens instead of Young Adults in the future.

Kudos to generation x...y....z...

©Vipin Behari Goyal