Slumber is More Sweet Than Toil

Blessed are Idles For The Kingdom of Heaven Belongs to Them

                                                 [Lord Tennyson and Bertrand Russell Photo By CC]

Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his poem Lotus-Eaters has praised the slumber. The brave and courageous Ulysses finds himself defeated by arguments of his mariners :

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Marines didactically prove the superiority of slumber:

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave

In silence; ripen, fall and cease:

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

Ultimately Ulysses finds himself cornered and he has no argument in favour of hard work, toil and working endlessly. None of the living being is doing so in the nature. So he yields to the wishes of his fellow mariners:

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

The virtues of Laziness are yet to be explored. Tennyson has given arguments from mariners who are mostly not so well educated, but their arguments are so down to earth that not only Ulysses is speechless, but even today the readers are left astounded by strength of arguments.

Intellectuals have read Bertrand Russell’s views on the virtue of idleness. Still more inquisitive have read the Zen which emphasise on quality of life. The leisure and recreation are important determinants of quality of life.

One esteemed member of “Lazy Club” was spotted driving fast by another member. In next meeting he was served a show cause notice. He explained that by mistake he had pressed the accelerator that day and then was too lazy to remove his foot from it. Undoubtedly he won the trophy for laziness.

Many times laziness is camouflage in action.

Remember, what T. S. Eliot says about action in his play “Murder in the Cathedral”.

“Action is suffering and suffering action”

There cannot be better condensation   of thoughts evaporated by hard boiled brain storming.

All the suffering of the world comes from action. All of us suffer the pain of death whether we work hard or sit idly. Everyone suffers from Final action that is death. If we make efforts to escape that final action or even have fear of it, which again is action, we suffer more. So action and inaction have the same significance.

A sanskrit verse says

"Those who work hard to acquire knowledge die,
Those who sit idle and remain ignorant too die,
Then what is the use of clattering the teeth."

(In ancient time initial knowledge was acquired by cramming.)

Robert Browning in his poem "Rabbi-Ben-Ezra" 

"Not on the vulgar mass
Called 'work' must sentence pass
Things done,that took the eye and had the price
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice.

You are trying to weigh diamonds on hay scale (Phelps). World is not going to judge you by toil but by your achievements.

When Buddha pronounced his four Noble Truth he had similar interpretation. “All is suffering” and “There is cause of suffering” are first two Noble Truth.

Buddha.net has a simple interpretation of this as

“The causes of suffering lead to suffering, suffering produces the causes of suffering which again produce suffering. They are circular.” 

Religion has remained the best shelter for idlers. Since the surplus produced by proletariat was extorted by Kings and Priests, they were revered and worshipped for their skills of extortion. Surprisingly the story has not come to an end despite many centuries of oppression and many revolutions.

 As leisure differs from idleness for being purposeful so does inaction differs from idleness.

Whatever wrong is happening around, you are responsible for that, even if you are not directly involved in its occurrence. Only because you are present at that moment, even if you had no means to stop its occurrence, would not make you free from bondage of the Karma of inaction.

Writing and reading more than this would be a toil.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Games Spouse Play

                  Ten things to do when you feel ignored

In ‘Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf’’ By Edward Albee, the author has shown the hollowness of the society. Two couples play many different games in one night. That is one of the best American dramas. In actual life this drama is always going on. The games are different for each couple.

In ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ By D. H. Lawrence, Constance and her crippled husband Clifford Chatterley play games with each other. The emotional neglect by husband inflames physical desires of Connie and she is hurt because her husband is more aristocrat than her.

The Judiciary is unanimous that 'emotional neglect' of a wife or husband is a sort of mental cruelty. Some examples can be quoted,

1. If the wife does not serve food on dinner table, she is considered to be neglecting domestic duties

2. If the husband while going to office does not bid farewell (no hug, no kiss not even smile) to his wife, he is guilty of emotional neglect.

What is there between husband and wife, which cannot be classified as mental cruelty, if seen from a certain angle.

Look at Anna Karenina in the great novel by Leo Tolstoy. She could neither ignore the cold behaviour of her husband nor the advances made by flamboyant Count Vronsky. The main plot and sub plot of the novel are an excellent example of the games spouse play.

Whether it is ‘no-fault’ divorce law of US or section 13 (B) of Hindu Marriage Act that permits divorce by mutual consent, the society is unable to sustain the institution of marriage and has made it convenient for couples to walk out of wedlock even without any paltry ground.

Just because they did not learn the tact to ignore the things without tentamounting to emotional neglect.

It is best to ignore the trifle, but it is not good to emotionally neglect the spouse. They have a moral obligation to pamper the Ego of each other once a while.

Ten things to do when you feel ignored:

1. Go by Old Testament law of ‘Tooth for Tooth’. Ignore 'being ignored'.

2.  Act normal, even if your mind is storming. After all world is stage and we all are actors (William Shakespeare).

3. Be more aggressive while talking on the phone or with vendors. Rebuke anyone on a fake call. It is not only catharsis for your own self, but also puts your spouse under psychological pressure.

4. Wear your best dresses or change your wardrobe (ignore your credit crunch). A well dressed woman has more self confidence, more self-esteem and makes spouse jealous of her. Love me or hate me, but you can’t ignore me. Right?

5.  Be extra cordial to the friends of your spouse.

6. Pretend to pray even if you don’t believe in God, like in Tall man Small Shadow. It puts off even hard nuts and they crack.

7. Bed is the best place for reconciliation.

8. Only insecure persons emotionally neglect. Search for the cause of that insecurity and mend it.

9. Do not involve your friends in the game you are playing with your spouse. You will only worsen the situation.

10. Some mental cruelty may strengthen the nuptial bond when reconciled.

Finally, remember ‘Gone With the Wind’. How tactfully Rhett Butler ignored Scarlet by mocking her and eventually  tries to win her by indifference and cruelty. Scarlet obsessed by Ashley scorns the men and wins them.

Miracles of emotional neglect are yet to be explored.

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

The Charms of Domestic Violence

                                  He Hit Me (and It Felt like a Kiss)

                                                                                 [Image Courtsey: Wikipedia]

Ten sentences that are prelude to Domestic Violence

It starts like this at a  point of time in the marital relationship

1. I am fed up with you
2. Leave me alone
3. Get lost and never show me your face again.
4.  I think we are not made for each other
5. You are no more same to whom I loved
6. Better to be stranger than enemy
7. I curse the moment I fell in love with you.
8. I hate you. /I hate everything about you.
9. I want to walk out of marriage
10. Our marriage is a blunder

These dialogues are obviously followed by satires, quarrels, mud-slinging, blame game, manhandling and what we call as domestic violence.

Then we need more counseling sessions with a Psychiatrist to reconcile the situation and to heal the bruised ego.

Domestic violence is one of the most ignored crimes all over the world. The rate of domestic violence should determine the Happiness Index of any country.

Very surprisingly, it is equally popular (?) in rural and urban areas, but the number of cases reported are more in Urban areas.

We have some other issues to ponder than compare forms and types of Domestic Violence,

James Hartford, Jr. Who was charged for beating his wife in Detroit was wearing dirty white tank

top  with baked bean stains on it set the trend for "wife beaters" shirt and gave new dimension to

 the age old hobby of showing off vulgar proud in masculinity as macho man.

Ten options woman has:

1. To hit him back only once to make him realize that she too can do it

2. To hit him back equal or more to settle the issue once for all, Tooth for tooth.

3. To apologize even if it is his mistake and accept his dominance

4. To walk out temporarily and stay with friends or walk in Public Park.

5. To walk out of relationship permanently.

6. Call the Police and file a suit

7. Shut herself in a room and have a shot

8. Break crockery and create tantrums

9. Wait till he is sober and then discuss with patience

10. Last but not the least, which you might be doing often is, forgive and forget

All above solutions are for so called Normal people, exceptionally if you are sadomasochist or a 

lover of  book "Fifty shades of Grey", you have to search for reasons why did you enjoy reading

 that book which normal people discard as  disgusting. If you really felt like being kissed when 

you were hit, the secret lies in the deeper layers of your psyche. May be

1. That is how your mother or elder sister who was your childhood idol behaved

2. You were exposed to  media which glamorized this kind of behavior

3. You suffer from a guilt-conscious and like to be punished

4. Your relationship is Love- Hate type and you hate your weakness (love) for him.

5. You were victim of child abuse.

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian have been used by artist to highlight the domestic violence against women.

When a matter pertains to human psyche the list is always endless since every individual has a 

different perception and reacts differently. Every case is different from other and some 

generalization is possible only after research.

Literature helps in developing insight.

The frequency, intensity and duration of domestic violence has some statistical correlation with 

conjugal activities of the couple which needs to be explored. Havelock Ellis claims that for women pain and sexual pleasure were sometime indistinguishable; the normal manifestation of women's sexual pleasure are exceedingly like pain.

George Bernard Shaw's play 'Pygmalion' is based on social realism. Higgins in last Act says to Eliza " be off with you to the sort of people you like. Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a thick pair of lips to kiss you and a thick pair of boots to kiss you with."

However literature,  traces romanticism in domestic violence and accepts it as an expression of love since the Middle Ages.

 © Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate,Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Right to Fall from Grace

Right to Fall from Grace

Every person who enjoys a social statue earned by years of labor is always scared of society. He does not want to fall in the eyes of society. The society is conservatives, thrives on tradition and laws of puritans is its backbone. So you can never expect society to be "open minded", pragmatic, revolutionary and ahead of its Time. They do not change their rules easily. So they do not appreciate your falling from grace. Shakespeare in his sonnet 94 says-

"But if that flower with base infection meet

The basest weed outbraves his dignity"

The sin was committed when forbidden fruit was eaten and repercussions are still faced by the innocents for doing what they think is right. Even that society is not in the making which would permit an honest person to fall from grace without feeling guilty, insulted and conscious of it.

It needs braveness on the part of society to society in permitting people to fall from graces with dignity. Unfortunately, society is a bundle of callous, redundant and imbecile minds who collectively form a collective conscience, which is their mirror image, illuminated manifolds.

Those who do not want to follow the dictum of society are labeled as epicureans, and put in a prison of isolation or in the company of the same types like criminals or quarantined to save the honorable members of society from contamination.
Alfred Lord Tennyson was against providing any liberty so far as chastity and purity of home was concerned. Though he expected both husband and wife to follow the ideals. No amount of passions, however true and intense it may be, can excuse in his eyes for violating these ideals. Chastity and purity are not obsolete, and will never be obsolete.
                       "The Woman's cause is Man's;
                         They rise and sink together"
So fall of one is fall of another also.

Right of Dead to decent Burial

On the other hand same society has forgotten the age old Right of dead to decent burial. We are not talking the deads of a commoner, though it is debatable if the dead body of a king is superior to the dead body of a pauper, even many dignities were subjected to disgrace which brings shame to the whole humanity. The dead bodies of Saddam Husain or Osama Bin Laden were subjected to so much harsh treatment that one would wonder how much civilized we are.

In Shakespeare's famous play Julius Caesar, Octavius says

"According to his virtue, let us use him

With all respect and rites of burial"

What made him think like that. He could have easily thrown the dead body of Brutus in the Mediterranean unceremoniously. Can a dead body be an enemy of anybody?

"The leaves of Grass" are being crushed by those who were supposed to protect it. What is their hope after this destruction? 

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author of  World is Conical' 

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/

In The Honor of Oldest Profession

     Beauty of Fallen Women in Literature

Let us begin with Buddha and Christ. Two renowned Gods who have shown the path followed by millions. 

Buddha broke the rules of commune and gave entry to chief prostitutes of Vaishali (ancient state of India) called  Amrapali. Well, she was so extraordinarily beautiful that she was officially compelled to the profession so that many could enjoy the virtue of her beauty. The Buddha concluded "Being a prostitute is not an obstacle to enlightenment if she is willing and diligently practices Dharma. In fact, the experience of a prostitute could help her towards enlightenment sooner than otherwise".

Mary Magdalene was one of the most favorite disciple of Jesus Christ. She accompanied him everywhere. Saviour showered her with kisses frequently. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her?" She was present at the time of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Mary Magdalene being a repentant sinner was found more worthy of enlightenment like Amrapali.

Osho after deep contemplation on Hindu philosophy wrote his spiritual marvel "From sex to the super consciousness."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Jenny" rewritten many times is a poem of monologue addressed to dozing harlot in her surroundings.  The anxiety of 'speaker' for exposure to disease and social ostracism is also evident in the poem along with acknowledgement of his own absurdity as his "thoughts run on like this/With wasteful whims more than enough" symbolizes  emptiness of words by thoughtful man.

Elizabethan Era of Poetry was followed by prudish and repressed Victorian Era and passionate emotions were expressed in floral symbols. Even then a book like "My Secret Life" by anonymous author Walter were secretly read by many aristocrats.

After the second World War there was a lot of Holocaust Literature written as memories of sufferers or eyewitness of the holocaust. House of Dolls By Ka-tzetnik describes the Jewish women kept in concentration camps to quench the  carnal thirst of Nazi soldiers. Like Amarpali beautiful Jewish girls were also compelled to serve  the militia.

All over World beautiful women are admired and desired by everyone, but only mighty and wealthy people have a right to possess and consume them.

These fallen women are like "Light House" for the fallen authors (suffering from author's block), drifting in the ocean of life.

Garcia writes "Memories of My Melancholy Whores". May be  Delgadina of Garcia is the Jenny of Dante. Across every Era the characters come back with the same vivacity as if they had never left.

The collective psyche of all authors dead and alive and yet to born creates immortal characters.

Look at Nana by Emile Zola. Or at Adriana of A Woman of Rome By Alberto Moravia.

Adriana confesses "I had taken up a very hard profession..."

They are the women who have washed the sins of others at their own cost. They are the combination of Magic and Mystery. Divine Sinners. Stoic Streetwalkers.

Who could be a better character to suffer from existentialist angst than a whore.

Adriana felt a strange pleasure when money was thrust in her hand for the first time and that kind of description is only possible for Alberto who doesn't write the book as an author but becomes Adriana himself.

 The man from the underground meets Liza in a brothel in Dostoyevsky's Notes from the underground. His encounter with Liza is the climax of the book, after which this beautiful novel ends. As if Author wants to say I have nothing more to say. Liza was once humiliated for having a stained soul refuses to accept money and comes out to be a pure soul.

 Yoshikawa in his book  The Art of War says "People tend to be put off by the idea of selling sex, but if you spend a winter's night with one of them and talk with her about her family and so on, you're likely to find she's just like any other woman."

This idea of treating the all human as normal could revolutionize the gender equation and thus whole society. May be that would be the alternative Society we are looking forward to when what has so far been condemned would get appreciated by society. Imagine how it would diminish the load from society to tackle the repulsive crimes of illegal trafficking, and authorities who handle law and order would be profitably deployed for protecting the society in the real sense.

How does it matter what you sell? Your mind or your body?

Selling body for physiological needs, like hunger and sleep could be  less heinous  than selling your mind.

Golden has fictionalized the character of Iwasaki's true life story in "Memories of a Geisha" to the extent that the beauty of a literary figure is lost in the wave of overtly dramatized plot.

On the other hand Poly Adler makes most honest confessions in "A house is not a home". She says "It is traditional that prostitutes are a sentimental lot, and in the main, that is true." And "What it comes down to is this: the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the merchant, the landlord, the druggist, the liquor dealer, th...e policeman, the doctor, the city father and the politician--these are the people who make money out of prostitution, these are the real reapers of the wages of sin".

And who is the female who is not a prostitute and who is the male who is not pimp?

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

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

*Some quotes are from the forthcoming novel by the Author "From Under the Carpet"

Contemporary Pastoral English Literature

                      The glamour in rural life

The various aspects of rural life, its subjects, descriptions of countryside shepherds and cowherds and their vagabond lifestyle has always fascinated the readers.

Who can forget the famous character, Konstantin Dmitrich Levin from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. He demystified technology and used it in Agriculture. Of all the male characters in the book any urban girl would easily fall in love with Levin rather than rich, flamboyant  Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky or a powerful cultivated man like Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin.

The dehumanizing factor of technology and if it is possible to make use of technology for inner peace of mind is well explained by Robert M. Pirsig in his book "Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance". The combination of two diagonally opposite virtues "rationality" and "romanticism" could be devastating for future human civilization. The beautiful part of the story is protagonist opts for less traveled side roads rather than Highways to explore and appreciate the slow pace of life, that explains a lot of philosophy in itself.

In Wuthering Heights the conflict of its occupant who are wild and passionate with calm and refined, and setup of the story in the bleak hilltop is symbolic of the unbridgeable gap in the rationales and romantics.

Encyclopedia Britannica defines pastoral literature as a  class of literature that presents the society of shepherds as free from the complexity and corruption of city life.

The rural life is romanticized but the harsh reality of discomforts and malaise are overlooked. Exaggeration is allowed in the literature to make a point. The plantation literature romanticizes Old South in "Gone with the wind" by Margret Mitchell  but does not try to escape the harsh realities of life evident in childbirth and miscarriages.  Scarlett's love for Ashley, who represent Old South is like chasing an impossible dream that one knows in his heart would never be fulfilled, is romantic and she overlooks Rhett's love who represents New South that is opportunistic and strong willed to succeed is realistic.

This dilemma of realism versus romanticism has baffled the society for long. Though a champion of realism the human mind finds its solace in romanticizing.

Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez has undoubtedly been one of the best authors of our time. In his novel "One hundred years of Solitude" he has given vivid descriptions of banana plantation age and calamities in the imaginary town of Macondo. He weaves a dream that entangles readers who not only when novel is read, but even much after that has a hangover of the town and the characters who lived there refuses him solitude. That is called magical realism.

In his other novel "Love in the time of Cholera" the old age and death has same suffering as that of youth. Could death be romanticized in a better way?

Another best author is J. M. Coetzee. His widely acclaimed novel Disgrace draws a clear line of demarcation in the treachery of urban life and rustic yet peaceful ambience of rural life. David the professor is  humiliated and sacked from the University after complaints from his student (Melanie), though the act was consensual and on the other hand, in the rural farm his own daughter is raped, but she refuses to act humiliated shows that technically advance urban can lead to a disgrace which even a dog would not face in real and pure rural life.

One can read my book "Empty Cocoon" about conflicts in rural-urban life.

Overburdened, the super human would find the true values of life under the shadow of an old tree in the tranquility of a village pond where the dust of the  cattle and trailing herd man returning home would obliterate the view of sunset.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Age of Wisdom in English Literature

                                    Waiting for Age of Wisdom

George Ritzer the sociologist, first time used the word McDonaldization exhibiting the Fast Food characteristics adopted by society. The four primary components identified by him have also moved in the Global Literature. The Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey are the McDonald of Literature.

McDonaldization is nothing but another kind of rationalization emphasizing change in traditions and cultural values. The shifting of values is not in the positive direction. Even though the nature is doing its best to teach the predicament of advancement, man is not yet ready to learn any cheap lesson. The question is who would pay the price of costly lessons? Obviously The Poorest class of the mankind would suffer the disasters created by nature, and the rich would get another chance of proving their generosity.

An eBook can be published much quicker than McDonald delivers Pizza at your doorstep. So far as writing a book is concerned, it is just like McDonald doesn't grow the potatoes to make McFries similarly authors, hunt for ideas and plot of the story in published or unpublished literature of other authors. If authors could only learn to grow their own potatoes, they would never be labeled as McDonaldised.

How many copies Sold? Is the first question when you talk about a book. The Sell has become synonymous with quality, while once it was believed that quality always suffers in the hands of quantity. Why otherwise Carlyle should say 'There are nine fools in the world for one wise man..."One should write what people want to read or one should write what he wants to write and should not bother if his work is accepted or rejected by society. Is there any responsibility to refine the taste of people on the creative artist?

Predictability is a great asset for any product to win the heart of the customer. A book having clichés like Love, Girl Friend, Boy Friend, Heart, Friendship, Break Up along with an enchanting book cover of boy and girl, holding hands, crying, the monogram of a broken heart or walking in different direction have become the success formulas  in literature. Also, you have to encash the wave of theme or genre, if live-in relationship is in thing write about it and if semi-erotica is breaking the record of Sale, you must also try your hand on that. Many Indian Publisher would conform to the view that books are sold by name of the title and attractive cover design.

                                                                               pixabay

If we look further back at the post industrial revolution and the emergence of romanticism we realize that despite the advancement of science and technology man has remained spontaneous, irrational, imaginative and emotional. In the entire cosmos there is a cycle of the Age of Barbarianism,  Age of  materialism, Age of individualism, Age of industrialization, Age of enlightenment, Age of Romanticism, Age of rationalization and Age of Wisdom. We are only few centuries far from Age of Wisdom.

Literature is now mostly being read for entertainment. A novel is like a peanut you want to munch while travelling or waiting in a queue at the dentist. What we need is the De - McDonaldization of Literature. Micro-cosmos within man is harmonious with nature only when he shed off all that is artificial and learns to respect what is Original and Natural.

© Vipin Behari Goyal