The Mystic Masseur By V.S.Naipaul

This is my first experience with Naipaul and the novel happens to be one of his first novel. He wrote it long before his claim to the Nobel prize, when he was just 25.



















The book is about a Tridadian mystic (or a wannabe mystic) Ganesh Ramsumair. It is a funny narration about the Indian obsession for mystics and one educated yet lazy fellows rise from a struggling teacher to a mystic to a minister.

Naipaul has a way with words. And for the story - a quick and easy read.

???!!!!!!!

I am yet to come to terms with it. Someone I thought I have lost, I have beleived will never understand me, will never accept me without a radical change in me, finally came looking for ME, the real me.

Four days back, I was prepared to take the final blow. Yet things happened just the opposite way. I don't know.. let me take some time and try to figure out.









I would whole heartedly part with all the diamonds
If only you could give me back the moment you gave them to me !!!

frustrated..

How do you know you are a religious fundamentalist and a hopeless fanatic?

When you "think" that you believe in one God but you unknowingly believe in atleast, two - one who created your like minded fanatics and the one who created others.

When you spend all your "life" preparing and waiting for death and after life of a better re-birth.

When you think life is not to be lived but is to be spent waiting for the paradise.

When you think you are the privileged and chosen ones than all others yet talk about values like humility, love and compassion. (!!!!!!!!!!. Yup, that is how they do.)

When you think God is a tyrant who takes pleasure in parting the ones who love and splitting families by making you the "only" privileged one.

When you don’t realize the value of the life you have in hand which is to be celebrated and waste it telling all others who “live” that they are wrong.

When you try to “confine” the omnipotent, omnipresent God into one book or philosophy.

When you try to scare "others" projecting God to throw you into an eternal torment for a mere 70 or 80 years of life on earth, just 'cos they have their own understanding of God, which again they think is God revealed. (And you say God is love??? Your God scares the hell out of me. Devil could be kinder!!!!)

When you “believe” those who have a different opinion on spirituality or doesn’t approve of God or your framework of God are “devil” sent. (Do you guys mean God is not the only Creator, Devil is one too? Interesting !!!!!!!!!)

When you think it is a "master-slave" relationship.

When you think life is nothnig but a pre-coded algorithm. (If you are to dine as per your algorithm, you don't have to move your a**. It will be spoon fed to you by an invisible hand)

This is an endless list and anyone who wants to contribute or contradict is welcome.

PS: The above observations are very much based on personal experience. The author willingly tried to be one of them, yet failed miserably, which forces the disillusioned lass to conclude that she is either a satanic reincarnation or one with a reservation in the Hell. May God show her the light.

"Who wants to go to Heaven? It's full of people who did nothing when they were alive. At least Hell is full of interesting people."
- I don’t remember who said this ;(

Three Men in A Boat - Jerome K Jerome

If it is to be made into a sitcom, I bet that all the "Friends" and "Mr Bean" fans will shift loyalties.

lost ..... yet to find

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

Mark Twain

Amerika - Franz Kafka

The Karl Rossmann saga leaves me baffled... I flip my book and check the front page again, is this Kafka. Did I mistake????!!!!!!!











My so far rendezvous with Kafka - The Metamorphosis, The Trial, The Judgement - had been on a different level altogether.

Somehow, I loved the other novels better. This is ofcourse an admirable book, but doesn't go with the usual Kafka tag. What I love in his books are that unusual turn of events, mundane yet brilliant narration and the sheer unpredictability of events. (Oops ..... does that make it sound like he is one of those thriller writers??)

I have got a collection of his short stories(???????) lying in my shelf. But I feel I am getting addicted to Kafka and Marquez. (Got 3 more of Marquez to read. I burnt a good hole in my pocket last month.) So I am taking a break. How about Three Men In A Boat for a change??? (Geeeeeeee... and I bought that 50 bucks from the roadside. They don't sell Kafka there ;((...)

;( / ;)

There is a soothing comfort while you walk on the same roads, talk to the same people and celebrate the same festivals. Something that shake you out of the "other" world you belong to.

The farthest you go from home, the strongest is the pull back. The deepest are the emotional attachement - both to people and things. Yet, it is a very remote possibility that you would be able to give in. There are hundreds of other things that keep you away. Sometimes for the rest of your life. The financial burdens, the never ending ambitions etc etc etc.







I wish, one day I will be able to go back, buy a small home there and settle down. But how or when will I cut myself off from where I am now, is a big question mark. How will I let go of a decent pay check, how will I ever be able to live a homely life and how will I be able to give up my longing for the finest things in life. Even if I do, I will be thinking only about myself if I go back leaving everything behind. I have my aging parents to look after, a brother whom I want to free of all responsibilities so that he can go chasing his dreams .......

Home or "naadu" is just a distant dream. Not a goal. May be it is better that way. Had I been staying there, I would never have valued anything.

my take

All religions are based on the fear of death. All try to avoid it. Yet reality stikes - death is the only certainity. Then we talk about after life and re-births.

Candide-Voltaire

Reading Voltaire was a strange experience. All I had was a vague idea that he was a renowned French philosopher. I didn't even know what his philosophy was. I still don't know.




















Candide was a controversial book when it was published. It is said that Voltaire mocked at a couple of then prominent political, religious and philosophical figures in this novel. To be frank, I didn't enjoy it the way I could have enjoyed had I had a thorough understanding of the background of that era.

Voltaire never admitted to having written the controversial Candide. The work is signed with a pseudonym "Mr. Dr. Ralph."

The core idea of Voltaire was to mock at the then eminent German polymath Leibniz who thought mankind lives in the best of possible worlds. The naive protagonist of Voltaire, Candide, goes through the worst imaginable conditions. Having born and brought up in the coziest of atmosphere, one fine day he got thrown out to face the real, harsh world outside.

The best of Voltaire comes out in this sentence where Candide's philosopher teacher tells him - Nose is there in that shape so that we can keep spectacles on them.

Candide was Voltaire's, an agnostic, way of lashing up the clergy he loathed and the same novel led to the Church's loathing towards him.

The events, the narration, the thought - everything is so different from any book I have read. Though I didn't particularly admire this kind of prose, it still made quick and good read.

confusion

There are two worlds. I belong to both. But being in one precludes the other. And I am struggling to figure out how do make them both meet. In the meanwhile, life moves on. Each moment lost in confusion is lost forever.

''Love in the Time of Cholera” ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

''I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love’’ said Florentino Ariza to Fermina Daza. Indeed, it was true. He waited with a burning in his heart for 51 years, 9 months and 4 days, since he rejected him at the age of twenty.

















How many of those eternal love stories have you heard and seen in real life? I have to say, even the legendery Romeo & Juliet or Laila Majnu can be counted only after this masterpiece of Marquez.

Marquez has been my favorite writer ever since I read the Nobel winning One Hundred Years of Solitude. Now I have 6 of his books and 3 are yet to be read.

How do I describe this book? I am at a loss of words. Can I say it is a triangular love story? But I don't know if the relation ship between Dr. Juvenal Urbino and his wife, Fermina Daza was love or as just a successful marriage.

The story begins with Jeremiah de Saint-Amour's death and keeps us guessing who are the lovers? And by a quirk of imagination, Marquez presents us Florentino Ariza, making his second proposal to Fermina Daza, on the eve of her husband's funeral.

As the story of three lives - the doctor, his wife and her former lover - unwinds, the author keeps us hooked with his delicate details and gripping language. And at the end we see the triumph of love in a altogether different light. The author shakes us out of out conventional definition of love and the familiar Shakespearian turns of a love story.

If you have ever loved anyone for reasons that surpass the matters of common human logic, read this. Or you may perish without feeling through Florentina Ariza and his unrequited love.

paradise is ...

When the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards --
their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble –
the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say,
not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms,
"Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading."

~ Virginia Woolf ~

If there is a paradise, that has to be a big library, with all the books of this world. Those who enter it will be eternally hungry, for nothing but to read more and more. And I wish, I be a life time member there and sit there and read and read and read, leaving this mad world outside. Sigh..........

There is no place on earth that keeps me happier and at peace than a book store and the first loyalty card I owned was that of CrossWord. And I piously spend a portion of my earnings there that one day I aspire to be their most privileged customer.

There was a time I used to buy ten books at a time from the roadside vendor. Off late, I have decided to buy only from good bookstore. 'cos a truck load of them may be the only saving I would be leaving behind when I leave. So I have to buy good quality ones, internally and externally.

It is a habit originated from home, which I consider is the greatest gift I have been given.

There are people who don't share my passion, those who wonder "why?" and those who think I am pompous to talk about books. But the fact is that I am addicted to them, all the time.

I wish the Hindu philosophy of births and rebirths are true; one life is not enough even to go through the best of books. Even if I die, may Virginia Woolf be true about me, and I be given a place in heaven (or hell) where I am left alone with countless of books.

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.
~ Louisa May Alcott ~