Soulmates at Crossroads

Men and women -- even man and wife are foreigners. ~ Mark Twain

cc at crossroads

Dear Ⓟ

You don’t conceal your mind. Not only me who has spent his life with you, but anybody would know about your feelings. You don’t say it in words, but everything is apparent by your gestures. And you dislike when any woman tries to be intimate with me. You have shown your attitude to such woman and frankly speaking, they found no reason to displease you. You are so cordial and submissive that nobody likes to hurt you for no reason. You demarcate your possessions precisely. I hope you remember the Italian girl Giovanna who was tactfully put off by you.

How much time is required when two persons living under the same roof would understand each other? It seems half century is not enough. The bond changes with time. Infatuation, emotions, passions and social-moral bonds traverse through different level of the psyche and consciousness on the path of marriage. When we reach to a conclusion, something happens to shake the foundation of our belief. We are left flabbergasted. I never claimed that I understand you, but at the same time, you were no stranger to me. Simplicity is a dangerous weapon. Innocents have hurt more people than crooks.

What is the saturation point of love? What is the beginning, middle and end of it? I do not know. Nor can I classify my certain emotions as love. I open my heart to every good listener. I love telling stories with wit, sarcasm and humor. I laugh heartily. I earn admiration or sympathy at my will. A negative catalyst can stop this chemical reaction at any time. Why not enjoy the ride while on it?

We were not sure about the destination when we began our journey. Retrospectively, I have no reason to doubt that everything happened for some reason. Some lessons were cheap, others were trifle at great prices. You can’t learn every lesson at the right price. Life is not mathematics, nor it is a business. I found you in a labyrinth and thought you too were lost like me, but now I realize a pattern in it. We spent our life in the labyrinth, but the passage appeared new every time. So I say benefit of experience is limited. Even in the same situation, same option would give different results. Boredom was kept away by the newness in the appearance of the passage, but weariness found its way into the soul. You were cheerful and I was melancholic when we reached to the opening of the labyrinth. May be I had started enjoying the confusions it offered. Or maybe I enjoyed your company in the solitude.

I asked CC what does she think about our relationship. To be precise I asked her, “Do you think I love P_.” You know what was her answer. She said “I see there is respect”. Then she pondered, got perplexed and nodded her head vigorously. She wanted to say something specific, but was hesitant. Ultimately, she said, “Don’t ask me such question, I am confused”. I wanted her opinion since she was good at analysis. I have never asked this question to anybody else, including myself. She has been on her own in this wide, wild world since her early teens. She got her education in the school of the world, which even the best universities do not teach.

If love does not become respect with the passage of time, it is lost. When passions are turned into embers, the companionship keeps the fire alive. Her observation was perfect. Love is not a possession. Love is freedom from bondage. Sometimes I feel like a cage-bird, but I am as addicted to cage as I was to the labyrinth. The security and care are my rewards. Adolescent crisis, Mid-Life crisis and Later-Life crisis is caused by a shift in roles. At the junction you have to play two roles. The commitment to role playing also strengthened our relationship.

It is hard to understand why a man would drop his wife for another younger woman, especially when he is the father of her children. The woman who gave him moral support during his early struggles in career, is deprived of the fruits of his success. He makes financial provisions for his wife and children, but has no time to share emotions with them. I think it is a crime, not only against his wife and children, but against the entire humanity. You cannot lust like animals, when you are supposed to act humane. The sufferings of women are universal. It needs no language, to communicate. They just know when they meet. Why a happy woman should feel guilty for the sufferings of another woman? Because she knows her happiness is temporary.

CC grew up under the cries and moans of her mother. She grew up fighting her insecurities. She loved her father. He had all those qualities, which made her proud of him. In a way, she was of opinion that it was the fault of her mother that she could not keep him happy and contended. She was scared to live life of her mother, so she became melancholic, while her own spirit wanted to be cheerful. So she escaped. Her whole journey is an escape. But she is not running away from a place or people, she is running away from her own self. That is not easy. The past haunts until you decide to confront it. Face to face. It tormented her and made her cry, but she cried on her own, like a brave girl. I hate people who need a shoulder to cry.

CC shared many things with me, which I can’t share with you. That would be a breach of trust. Once, after an intimate conversation she said "I think I should not have told you these things. This is usually shared between two women.” I was happy that she talked with me as she would talk to a woman. If I have that much feminine in me, then my soul can dance in ecstasy.

You like normal, decent people, because you live a normal decent life. You shove the things under the carpet. I appreciate this kind of life. You are like an anchor to my comfort zone. When my ship is on the High Seas, it faces the storm bravely. You are my strength. I falter, but I falter to rise again with more determination. Every war has made me stronger and indefatigable.

After CC, Jenny came. Being Asian she had better adaptations. She had locked her past and had thrown the keys in the ocean. (She lived on a yacht as crew). She is ambitious and cannot afford to be emotional. Every traveler has his own search; they find glimpses of it in our home. We live a museum life. Jenny did not find anything interesting in our home. My conversation with her was many times sarcastic. She was hurt by my remarks about her small boobs. She had laughed and pulled her T Shirt forward and peeked inside as if to confirm. I love when people can take even a silly joke in spirit.

You might be bored by now; I will tell you more in my next letter.

Yours

VBG

Letter 1 

Letter 2

Letter 3
Letter 5

Read more articles here

©  Vipin Behari Goyal

Philosophical Poems The Stolen Boat By William Wordsworth

When The Majestic Becomes The Monstrous

The stolen melons are the sweetest, stolen apples taste the best. The poet has reminiscences of adolescent age when he stole a boat for a ride. The poet in the very first line says that he was ‘led by her’ to the place where the boat was moored. The nature (or her) steered him to steal the boat. The pleasure is not absolute, but a ‘troubled pleasure’ that pricks his conscience even after he has retrieved the boat at its former place. So the aftermath of the ‘stolen’ thing is a haunted conscience that troubles the thief for a long time. It may trouble lifelong depending upon the severity of crime, mental condition when the ‘crime’ was committed and the sensitivity of the person to react to a situation.

During the adolescent age mind is experimenting and experiencing many new things. It has more attraction towards things forbidden by society. Stealing is not necessarily for permanent possession or consumption of a thing. The boat was stolen for a ride and was to be moored in the same place once the adventure of the journey was over. The innocence in stealing makes the poem attractive. The magnitude of the crime is trifle and readers are full of sympathy for pious thief.

The poem is a confirmation of the age old saying ’guilty conscience pricks the mind’. The guilt may supersede the magnitude of the offense. The monster is within us. The daring is not in confrontation, but in hurried escapism to save the psyche from some irreversible damage. The poet decides to turn back with ‘trembling oars’. Things appear beautiful from a distance, when we go closure the ugly side is revealed. Sometime the revelation is so all of a sudden that a person is taken aback with a shock of the unexpected. The unreconciled psyche sends a danger signal and ‘defense mechanism’ insist on avoiding the cause of trouble.

All craggy hills have hidden monsters. If the boat was not a stolen one, the boy could have enjoyed the lofty and majestic hills, the shades of colour bathed in moonlight, the silence and solitude. The journey in a stolen boat started with a beautiful scenery of ‘small circles glittering idly’, ‘elfin pinnace’, ‘silent lake’, ‘like a swan’ are some beautiful perceptions of untroubled mind. The mind is mesmerised, and has obliterated the moral coaching done by society. The ‘natural’ seems to have won over the ‘artificial’. Society is appalled by pleasure of an individual and it always strikes with a greater force. The majestic becomes monstrous due to change in perception. The means become more important than the end. Poet surrenders his inner 'Self ' which is molded by outer forces. He is compelled to retreat. Even the retreat is not graceful as the ‘way back’ to ‘covert of the willow tree’ also appears ‘stolen way’. The poet is now ‘in grave and serious mood’. The ‘familiar shapes’ become scary and pleasant images of trees, sea, sky, green fields and majestic mountains are vanished. Now a ‘grim shape’ that keeps on ‘growing stature’ stands between him and stars symbolic of ‘material self’ and ‘pure self’. Every experience teaches a lesson. The poet gets a peep into ‘unknown modes of being’ a ‘darkness’, ‘solitude’ or ‘blank desertion’. Those parts of his existence were hidden somewhere in depth, hitherto.

Travelling at sea was never a smooth sailing for mankind. Even the veterans had many kinds of illusion and hallucination in the calm of the sea during a voyage. The adolescent mind of the poet is quite imaginative. An ‘optical illusion’ is easily transformed into ‘fear of unknown’ which is an integral part of the human psyche. Society exploits this fear to frame the structure and framework of institutions.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

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The Last Ride Together By Robert Browning

The Wasteland By T.S.Eliot

Ode On Melancholy By John Keats

Sins of Individualism

Why Suicide is the final solution for Modern Man

Superman at bridge

There were three Homo sapiens The Apeman, The Modern Man and The Superman. They looked very different from each other. Only a biologist could say that they belonged to the same species of the animal kingdom.

They all lived on the same island. They were constantly in conflict about values. The conflict grew in magnitude with each passing day. The thought of suicide occurred to them simultaneously. They reached to the bridge. They did not know what was at the other end of the bridge. So far they could see, it was spread like Anaconda on the sea.

The Superman  decided to walk into unknown and discover the other end of the bridge. He had accomplished impossible by sheer 'will to power'. He was an explorer and instead of reason he had more faith in the power of his sub-conscious mind.

The Man had a doubt if he can use the bridge which was made by 'the strength of collective man' to attain his personal objective of suicide. He stood on the bank in contemplative mood. He desired to be 'loved alone' due to his 'self love'. He loved the seclusion caused by his self love. He had no desire to cross the impassable sea of universal love.

The Apeman was interested in suicide out of curiosity. He wanted to survive even after committing suicide. He had survived so far only because he trusted his instincts. The Apeman reached to the conclusion that he would not ‘exist’ if he commits suicide. Recently he had herded cattle and his likes on a mesa. Now he was most powerful amongst all hilltop habitations. He was Seer in the eyes of his people. He knew about some others of his kind who lived on the same island, but thought and acted differently. But he kept his own kind away from those contaminated species. So The Apeman decided to return without committing suicide.

The Modern Man was looked down upon with contempt from The Apeman and The Superman. He was left alone at the bridge. He thought that not only the other ‘classes’ but his own kind also hated him for what he was and what he had accomplished, by inheriting sustained variation due to his constant 'struggle for existence'.

The variations were infinite and inheritance was never absolute. Moreover, he could never know if the variation would be beneficial or harmful to his species in the future, even though they helped him in survival. The struggle that was once need of the hour became his inherited trait.

The ‘fear’ was now an inherent part of his ‘psyche’. He had created new ‘phantoms’ to be afraid of. All phantoms, since the beginning were byproducts of ‘death’. The modern man was determined to conquer this fear. He wanted ‘Nirvana’ not only for himself, but for the entire race of modern mankind. He acknowledged himself as ‘absurd comedy of reproduction, and had no interest in perpetuating a comedy that turns into tragedy. Death was the only rational solution.

So he jumped from the bridge.

Surprisingly, he did not fell in the river. His location was restored by a electromagnetic device. The bridge was a modern bridge made by modern technology. Nothing could fall in the river which could pollute it. The sensors observed that the Modern Man had contaminated mind. The sensor also suggested the Modern Man to read the "The Waste Land" By T.S.Eliot.

Keep reading for the interpretation of "The Waste Land" by the Modern Man.

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Other related post

Right to Die Denied

Three Girls on the Bridge in Search of Identity

The Story of Three Girls On the Bridge in search of Identity

Edvard Munch at Tate Modern

Three girls decided to cross the bridge. The bridge was made of ropes and wooden planks. The planks were weathered and the rope was sick. They had no work on the other side of the bridge. They wanted to cross it for the sake of fun and adventure. When they were almost at the midway the bridge broke. One girl fell down in the river, one was hanging by holding the rope and the third one was still standing on the plank of the bridge that was about to give way. The Fallen, The Falling and About to Fall are three women(girls became women when bridge brakes) about whom the whole literature of the world has been written. The women were not insecure, only bridge was insecure. The juxtaposition created an illusion which women enjoyed.

The river beneath the bridge thronged with dead bodies of male. From above the bridge they looked dead, but actually they were not dead. They were at various stages of unconsciousness. Youth was unconscious and elders whimpered inaudibly in semi consciousness. There were no children. No literature in the world has ever portrayed the suffering and agony of the gender of this species. The Nausea had caused Metamorphosis in The Strangers. They all had similar faces. Why would anybody take interest in them. They were all archetypes of cave man wearing different masks. Civilization taught them to conceal their true-type. They were basically disorganized, aimless and inactive. 

Women were organized, active and focused by their natural gift of virginity, menstruation and menopause. They searched for identity since they knew they have one. The man was even unconscious about that. He  became active only when provoked by women.

The level of consciousness of the males changed due to Fallen girl. The Fallen girl had the role models of Anna Karenina, Moll Flanders, Constance Chatterley  and Madam Bovary. All these women had flouted the prescribed norms of the society and lived their life in their own way. The society looked with awe, but did not dare to condemn them. The readers loved them. Atwood would appreciate them for being Bad Women. They did not care two figs about anybody's opinion. They were all part of a stream, which was not unidirectional. Magnanimity and meanness are unconfined. The Fallen women had more magnanimity.

Read Burn Me Naked.

The Falling woman who was still sticking to unstranded rope, and each strand was breaking under the pressure, looked up and down. She was not afraid to fall, she was just waiting for all strands to break and then she would have a natural fall. She remembered the naked dance of Connie in the rain. Connie was in unison with nature. The dance was not an effort of celebration, it was a synchronization of her entire being with all the elements of nature. She danced like a peacock. The final strand would break by her will to power.

The one who still stood on the damaged wooden plank of the bridge was Emma. She had a conditioned mind, initially. She thought fallen are lower class, falling are middle class and she herself was upper class. After repeated mistakes she had learned her lessons. Now she knew her "matchmaking" was actually voyeuristic and she always took pleasure in imagining those couple copulating. Thus she herself had vicariously enjoyed the clandestine pleasure of proximity and copulation with almost all the male characters around her. Now, after getting married with Mr. Knightly, who was much older than her, she knew in her heart that Harriet and Robert Martin would supersede her in  carnal pleasure. So about to Fall was in no way different from Fallen and Falling.

Vipin Behari Goyal

Author

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A Tale of Castrated Bull

Right to Fall from Grace

The Hybrid Women

In the honour of Oldest Profession

The Adultery in Literature

Rousseau and Broken Bridge

Forced to freedom by General Will

Photo:Courtesy

Once an assorted group of travelers assembled at one end of the bridge on a river of backwater. It was essential for them to cross the bridge to reach their destination. To their utter dismay, they found that the gatekeeper  at the bridge has stopped them from crossing the bridge. He said that bridge is in dilapidated condition and it would be dangerous to cross the bridge. The bridge may collapse and they may die. Apparently the bridge was intact. These people were desperate to cross the bridge. One of them was an elite, one bourgeois, one peasant and one looked like a scholar.

They had nothing in common except their goal to cross the bridge. They saw gatekeeper as an obstacle. The gatekeeper explained that he has orders from his superiors. If he permits and bridge collapses, he would lose his job. The gatekeeper gave them an occasional stern look. He was not armed, still he conveyed his authority. Moreover, he had locked the gate with a chain and filled the entrance with fallen trees. The travelers belonged to a sovereign democratic country which ensured them “freedom” as a fundamental right. They all had the freedom to walk in any part of the country. The state represents “general will”. General will is not necessarily will of all. In will of all individual selfish motives also work. The general will is the mandate of rational people for common good.

The scholar was the rational being and he was quick to understand the situation. He evaluated the pros and cons and postponed his journey and returns back. He knew that to obey what is best for all is to maximize the freedom for each.

The peasant was born in slavery and for slavery. For him realism and idealism were two sides of the same coin. He had never argued with authority in his life. His slavery was  natural freedom in comparison to his master who was forced to freedom. He decided to cross the valley by long and arduous route.

The elite was of opinion that generally the people are stupid and do not understand what is good for them. The wisest did not govern many. General will is a farce and he is not bound by that. The representative of the masses had vested interest in all kinds of prohibitions. They were acknowledged by ban and prohibitions. It diverted the attention of people from real problems. People were forced to keep on demanding what is rightfully theirs. He summoned a higher executive.

The bourgeois suffered from a terminable disease. He had heard about a physician who lived across the bridge. He thought he had a right to risk his life in order to preserve it. The elite had gone to retire in nearby shrine. Bourgeois was alone with guard. He wanted to bribe gatekeeper to allow him to cross the bridge. He decided that first he would convince gatekeeper. He will pass his own disunity of soul to gatekeeper so that he agrees to lose his fullness of existence. Selfishness is servitude to sociability. Bourgeois was in fact a social man living in the social conditions with his artificial constitution.

He whispered in the ear of gatekeeper. The gatekeeper looked puzzled, checked that no one is around and nodded. After some time, he unlocked the gate of the bridge. Bourgeois passed on to the bridge.

Vipin Behari Goyal

President

English Literary Association

JNV University, Jodhpur

P.S.

Artists may kindly contribute relevant pictures for the essay.

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

Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust~Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's ashes reaches home in Colombia

[PHOTO-LA TIMES]

The news flashes a host of memories when we were caught in the magic web woven by Gabo ( the affectionate nickname of the Author) in his books "One hundred of solitude" and "Love in the time of cholera".


Review of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" on goodreads.(17.09.12)

"For a week when I was reading "One hundred years of solitude", I was living in Macondo and lost all my connections with the real world. Every person I met I searched for either Aureliano or Arcadio in him. The whole world could be divided in two types of people Aureliano or Arcadio. The fluidity of transcendence is superb from one Aureliano to other Aureliano. The ordinary has inbuilt extraordinary in it. Rather "more the ordinary" proves "more the extraordinary" in it.
At one time superstitions and premonitions come true, at another time a long narration culminates in a quotation like "Poverty is the servitude of love."
The last paragraph of the book is amazing."It was the history of the family, written by Melquiades, down to the most trivial details, one hundred years ahead of time. He had written it in Sanskrit...".

There is only one epic "Ramayana"  that was written much before the happening of events.

I salute Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez.~Vipin Behari Goyal (Author)

This is what Superman says about his own masterpiece:

"One day I discovered the right tone—the tone that I eventually used in One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was based on the way my grandmother used to tell her stories. She told things that sounded supernatural and fantastic, but she told them with complete naturalness. When I finally discovered the tone I had to use, I sat down for eighteen months and worked every day.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude."

According to Terry Pratchett "Magic Realism is like polite way of saying you write Fantasy".

Gabo says "The trouble is that many people believe that I’m a writer of fantastic fiction, when actually I’m a very realistic person and write what I believe is the true socialist realism."

Author himself want his work to be classified as Social Realism rather than as Magic Realism.

Let us see what the difference is:

Realist author writes about the realities of life as perceived by him through the senses and experience. That reality may not be absolute reality. Perceptions are also deceptions.

Since World is Conical and is divided  in two uneven halves, Proletariat and Capitalist, Oppressed and Oppressor, Rich and poor, Haves and Have-Nots,  and if an author chooses to write about the poverty stricken  people, their life and sufferings (and few breezes of happiness) and struggle, he is said to be writing about Socialist Realism.  

In Magical Realism some unreal events are interwoven in a real story so skillfully that the unreal also appears to be real.

Many authors like Gabo deny their work to be Magical Realism, which is not as high stature of the work as Socialist Realism is.

The magic spelled by him will continue to enchant many coming generations.

The news about the transfer of his ashes appeared as follows:

"The ashes of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez are heading to the country of his birth, Colombia.

Garcia Marquez -- known to his fans as Gabo -- had been a journalist early in his career and traveled around the world. He settled in Mexico, where he lived for many decades before his death in 2014 at age 87.

But the author of the "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" often set his fictions in Columbia. The Caribbean city of Cartagena, particularly, served as muse and inspiration."(LA Times).

Writing Tips by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  based on his various interviews:

1. Talk to Old People: Old people are treasure house of stories. Listen to them patiently. Gabo himself was inspired by his grandmother's impassive narrations to write the story of One hundred years of solitude.

2. Read Great Literature: Books written by great authors are always source of inspiration. Gabo wrote his first story after reading Metamorphosis by Kafka.

3. Visit Old Places: Specially the places where you spent your childhood. Your school, playgrounds, city library. It will bring a flood of memories and you would be able to relive a new experience.

4. Writing is hard work:  Gabo considered writing to be a hard work. He said "Ultimately, writing is nothing but a carpentry." He has further explained that "Writing something is almost as hard as making a table. With both, you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood. Both are full of tricks and techniques. Basically very little magic and a lot of hard work are involved. And as Proust, I think, said, it takes ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration."

5. Read "Earnest Hemingway on writing": Gabo was also inspired by this book. He has appreciated the way Hemmingway has compared writing with Boxing. He agrees that you have to be in a very good emotional and physical state to be a writer.

6. Be a Perfectionist: Be your own best critic. He says" I think that I’m excessively demanding of myself and others because I cannot tolerate errors; I think that it is a privilege to do anything to a perfect degree."

7. Don't be a megalomaniac: Often Authors does this mistake to consider themselves as center of universe and society's conscience.

8. Work in a familiar environment: Some Author's think that they can write better in some resorts or hotels. William Dalrymple  wrote his book City of Djinns in a resort at Luni near Jodhpur. Gabo finds that familiar environment are more congenial for writing than strange places.

9. Choose your best hours: Every person has different best hours of the day. Author must identify and utilise his best hours.

10. Work very hard on First Paragraph: The first paragraph decides the fate of the book. Gabo says "One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily."

Rest in Peace Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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

RIGHT TO DIE DENIED

Jain Religious Rites Banned :Death, Law and Literature

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.’” Friedrich Nietzsche    

The right to Life is Fundamental Right in Indian Constitution. A literary interpretation is that the Right to Life automatically includes "Right to Die". Otherwise how we would justify that so many millions of people have Right to Life but are not provided with the means to sustain that Life.

Jainism is one of the oldest religions. The last prophet Mahavir is more than 2500 years old. Nonviolence is their main preaching. How such religion can permit voluntary death, if it is at all violent.

Many hundreds of Jain old people opt for Santhra or voluntary death in India.

Emily Dickinson welcomes to death in her poem “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

         

Because I could not stop for Death,

He kindly stopped for me;

The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality....

Walt Whitman says Death is a prize won.

                         

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's perception of death is

                         

The Cross of Snow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,

A gentle face--the face of one long dead--

Looks at me from the wall, where round its head

The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light....

William Blake in his poem On Another's Sorrow see Death as kind relief

         

Can I see another's woe,

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another's grief,

And not seek for kind relief?..

William Butler Yeats in his poem A Dream Of Death has wondered about solitude death provides.

I dreamed that one had died in a strange place

Near no accustomed hand,

And they had nailed the boards above her face,

The peasants of that land,

Wondering to lay her in that solitude,

 Robert Browning  in his poem A Death in the Desert has given a beautiful description of death.

Almost all writers have praised the mystery and awe of death and old age.

In Harakari Seppuku  is defined as "Japanese ritual of the samurai used either voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies (and likely suffer torture) or as a form of capital punishment for samurai who had committed serious offenses, or performed because they had brought shame to themselves".

Likewise, in Rajput warrior's ritual of Johar was performed. The act is defined  as the practice of mass suicide carried out in medieval times by Rajput women to save their honor from invaders.[Photo:Kalyan:Johar(self-immolation) by Rajput widows after war]

Another popular ritual was of Sati. Sati refers to the obsolete(?) Indian funeral custom where a widow, was expected to immolate herself on her husband's pyre, or committed suicide in another fashion shortly after her husband's death at war or from other causes.

Voluntary death is not a transgression. It is a highly acclaimed transmission of one form into another for a better purpose. Especially so in Santhara. Jainism otherwise also has a strong belief in penance.

 According to Jainism the Pudgal or Matter has two forms 1. Gross 2. Subtle. Gross matter is perceptible, everything that we see around us, while subtle matter is manifested as Karma. The Karma gets attached to a soul as dirt gets attached to the sticky surface. The object of austerities and penance is to annihilate old karma and stop the influx of new karma.

Dainik Bhaskar-Jain Community protest march against the decision of High Court prohibiting Santhara

How any legal system can stop anyone from achieving the highest objective of salvation. One of the major objections raised is priests of Jain could not produce any religious text in support of the rituals. The Jain scriptures are some of the oldest scriptures known to human civilization. Rig Veda finds a mention of the first prophet of Jain religion. At that time the information was passed from one generation to another by word of mouth. Since the Santhara is being performed for centuries and is part of religion, it cannot be denied on such a paltry ground.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “Many die too late and a few die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange: “Die at the right time.”- Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche)

We have a history of privilege to end life. ~Tall Man Small Shadow. ( A youth is convicted for attempt to suicide and faces humiliation, while an old Jain Lady is revered for Santhara i.e.fast unto death)

31 August 2015

Supreme Court Stays High Court Judgement

Justice seems to be prevailing. Supreme Court stayed the High Court decision that Santhara is also suicide and thus illegal. Various religious bodies of Jain Community had filed petition against decision of High Court of declaring Santhara as illegal. The same tenets were considered while granting stay that have been raised in the article. The Santhara is part of Jain Philosophy, and courts should abstain from interfering in the core rituals of any religion.

According to Durkheim the abnormally high or level of social integration results in suicide. He made an observation that the rate of suicide is low in Catholics since they have normal level of social integration.Low level of social integration results in disorganised society and suicide is seen as last remedy while in high level of social integration the person think himself to be a burden on society and thus commit suicide.

Santhara is also governed by this "Control Theory" of Durkheim.(You may Tweet this).

Social scientists have expressed concern over increase in suicidal rate in soldiers and students. Both of them live a mission oriented life. They work not only for duty but to prove themselves. The high expectation of society, insecurity,apprehension of failure,lack of self confidence,peer pressure are some of the other reasons of suicide. State should provide them stress free environment and society should take care of emotional need of these segments of society.Meditation camp can be arranged to reduce the anxiety by acceptance of inevitable.

Kota in Rajasthan(India), is hub of tuition centres for students aspiring to be IITian or a Doctor. Every month few students commit suicide in this city. Parents have put lot of expectations from their children. Invariably the students have left a suicide note addressed to their parents. In the note, they have apologised for their inability to fulfil the dreams of their parents.

Kamala Das famous English poet could not reconcile her inner world to her external world, her body to her soul, she addresses her monologue to the sea who(personification) can act as medium of her salvation (suicide).

O sea I am fed up
I want to be simple
I want to be loved 
And
If love is not to be had
I want to be dead,just dead.

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