BOOK AND ME PART 2

It was time to finish off KAFKA and so the TRIAL and CASTLE the 2 greatest novels I have ever read was endured and conquered atlast. The librarian directed me to the old classic section. I gleefully accepted and never dared too much except MobyDick,Old Man And The Sea ,Farewell To Arms-Earnest Hemingway,.Siddhartha of Herman Hesse, Lolitha, Of Sons and Lovers. The second greatest writer as I see it was Dostovsky-Idiot, Crime And Punishment ,the Karamazov Brothers.Nobody has ventured in to the depths of human mind as Dostovsky and the hero of idiot is my favourite of all the times..then it was Jacqueline Susanne-Valley of Dolls, Love Machine, Once is not Enough. Gone With the Wind, Godfather series, Papillon and Papillon2,Thorn Birds the humorous Vet series-James Herriot[must read-for laugher].,.50yrs best of readers digest articles, ,Adventures in Two worlds, Citadel by AJ Cronin,the Grapes of Wrath by Steinbech, Humbolds Gift by Saul Bellow, Dr.Zhivago-Boris Pasternak,Cancer Ward-Solshenitzyn, Longest Day, a Bridge Too Far, Private War-Cornelius Ryan,great 2nd world war novelist were the librarians courtesy.offcourse I had to dole out 10% of the cost when rs150 was my p.g stipend. It was time to leave calicut.soon I married and joined ottapalam in81 after 2 yrs imprisonment in a rural dispensary in Koodaranhi in Malabar where I could lay hands on a few Malayalam hit authors like M.T,Thakazhi,Muhammad basheer,Malayattoor,O.V Vijayan,Uroob,Muttathu Varkeyetc etc

For another 6to 7 yrs I had forgotten books and was busy making my career graph ,raising two children who were quite handful. Once they had started schooling I joined municipal library adjacent to our hospital. It was a treasure trove. I began with the medical horror fiction series by an ophthalmologist-Robert Cook-Coma, Fever, Sphynx, Brain, Mutation,Harmful intent,Sydney Sheldon novels I liked-Naked Face,the Otherside of Midnight, Bloodline, Rage of Angels, Tell Me your Dreams etc,then Wilbur smith novels.then more serious types like Milan kundera of magical surrealism ,Thus Spake Sarathusthratha- Nietzhe,Alexander the Great[biography] Rebecca by Daphne Du Marrior impressed me. The Roots,I just loved it. Soon it was the turn of Michael Crichton novels, One Who Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, the Third Wave by Alvin Toffler[must read], Foucaults Pendulum by Umberto Erico, Autobiography of a Yogi and not but the least Salmon rushdie-the Midnight Children, East-West, Moores Last Sigh,.then one science writer Capra-Tau of Physics,History of Time,Road Ahead, I am o.k You are o.k on transactional analysis, Freuds-Psycho Analysis---, Jane Austen-Pride and Prejudice, Great escape, and another of my favourites the crooked Jeffrey archer-Not a Penny More Not a Penny Less,Kane and Abel, Shall We Tell the President, Matter of Honour, Diary in Prison.Of Human Bondage, Razors Edge-Somerset Maughm were an eye opener[the hero whom I disliked most was from of Human bondage. Paul Coelho-Alchemist,the Valkyries, Pilgrimage, Devil and Miss Prymm, the legal thrillers of Grisham – the Firm, the Time To Kill. the Pelican Brief, Chamber, Partner I liked,one of my favourites Agony and Ectasy biography of Michael Angelo, Lust For Life on Van Gogh by Irwing Stone,90 minutes at Entebbe, Munich Olympics are great thrillers in Isreili history.

Another pause for a few years as I became the Superintendent at O ttapalam and another 8 yrs flew by,meanwhile Shyam had taken the baton from me and became a ‘rabid reader’[the only thing I remember is I bought a book for the 1’st time in my life ‘complete short stories of Sherlock Holmes ,for Shyam as a present during his schooldays]
Now that I retired I took up reading under the tutorship of Shyam from his bookshelf at Pune and had a good catch of fish,a large one at that was Murakami-Kafka On Shore, Bird Chronicles, I rate next to Dostovsky,where fishes fall from the sky and cats talk,wonderful artist. It is the turn of Henning Mankel – side tracked,the Selfish Gene, Ian macEvan-Saturday,The Remains Of The Day- Ishiguro , KHA-a book on Hindu mythology , Love in the time of cholera by Garzia Marquis, Life of Pi, Momo-Emile Ajar[must read],Historian ,Catcher in the Rye, Mother’s milk, Inheritance of Loss ,God of Small Things, R.K Narayan-Malgudy Days, In Cold Blood, No Country for Oldmen-Macarthy ,Animal People, Disgrace-Coetze, Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead-ayan Rand on modern objectivism[must read],Don’t Kill a Mocking Bird, Davinci Code ,Deception Point, Zorba the Greek,the Last Temptation of Christ-Kazantsakis,the most recent one on hold is Life and Times of Micheal K by Coetzee
. Missed authors-Tolstoy, Mauppesante Maxim Gorky, Pearl s Buck ,Thomas Hardy-Emily solo, Bertrand Russel, J.Krishna murthy ,Osho , Origin of Species-Darwin.

Last but not the least, greatest book ever read was BHAGAVAD GEETHA of Swami Ranganathananda, Ashtavakra Geetha commentery by Chinmayananda, Vedanta a treatise by G. Parthasarathy [must must read].

Hope The Fantastic Voyage Continues.

BOOKS AND ME - PART 1

The word ‘BOOK’ spells magic in me.It was,is and will be the life line that links me to my outside and inside or in short music to my soul. The sensual rustling of the pages or the intimate smell of the new paperback or the haunting scent of the old worn out second hand books with its wornout edges,the deadly silence of the library with the wooden shelves,the bold titles captivating the eyes,the scenic pavements of the metros scattered with new and faded second hands sends a shot of adrenaline in me catapulting to another world where only’ Words’ rule,and I cry,laugh,contemplate,sympathise,empathise
despise or adore the characters,I relate more to them than in the real life.They claim it’s a hobby but for me it’s celebrating life.
This blog is dedicated to those who introduced ,sustained and elevated me to a different level and my hats off to them.My journey started when I was 3 to5 when meena chithy opened my mind to the world of stories or so called tales right from the hindu epics Ramayana and mahabharatha,indeed she is a born master in the art of story telling.Each scene and every character will take a 3d figure and dissolve in you.The one which captivated me most in those primitive years was the ‘Count Of Monte Cristoe- I just fell for Edwin Dantes,he was my hero.Rama and Krishna came a tad late. I still remember her with the exploits of Athos Pothos Aramis and D’artegnan in the Three Musketteers or cried on hearing the Tale Of Two Cities and shivered in my sleep after her narration of Horror Of Dracula.
My appa used to bring me presents of the tamil monthly Ambulimama from his shopping trips and he was the first to incite me to the written word and Vikramadithya,Thenali raman,Birbal and the heros of the epics drew their magic in me.It didn’t took too long to dive in to the Epics proper,Chakravarthy thirumaghan[Ramayana],Vyasar Virunthu[mahabharatha] both by Rajaji[c.rajagopalachari,the first governor general].The original Valmiki Ramayana,a treasure of my appa,succumbed to my craze.. There was an attic in my grandfathers bedroom full of old hardbound tamil novels that attracted the 7 year old’s curiosity and since climbing up and down was tedious I used to lay down there itself surrounded by books all around and attacked them like termites.the most remembrable? of the lot was Ponniyinselvan,Thillanamohanambal,Chithirapaavai,Thuppariyum sambu,sankarlal,washingtonil thirumanam etc etc.i never read any comics or cartoons and only lanuage that I knew was tamil and a little bit of Malayalam
From 5th standard onwards I started learning the queens language and chithy and appa waved me off to other frontiers. Now the abridged version pulled me to English literature and the usual Alice in wonderland,Robinson cruso,Shakesperian dramas,the works of Alexander dumas and charles dickens,the Arabian nights,the knights around King Arthur,Around the world in 80 days,Lorna doon, Silas marner,Adam bede,the Black beauty etc etc ruled the roast.The trap was set.The first real break was Sherlock Holmes and till today he remains one of my favourites . The next on course was another of my favourites Perrymason series with his secretary Della street,his detective Paul Drake,the police lieutenant lt.Tragg and attorney general Hamilton berger. I nearly read 20 to 30 novels from Raju mamas collection.As all of you can surmise the next step was James Hadley chase and I chased all his trash in my tenth standard..Agatha Christie with her bald headed Poirot and the old Miss Marple cannot be just ignored,but Mouse trap remains my favourite.. Now the college library at Maharajas college ernakulam was my next stop and the James bond series and Arthur maclean series of naval warfare-the Guns of Navarrone,
Hms Ulisses, Fear is the Key,Ice Station Zebra,the Bear Island,Caravan to Vaccaris,Force 10 from Navarone,Where the Eagles Dare were easy prey.By this time I could read My experiments with Truth by BAPPUCHI, Discovery of India by chachaji.,4 minutes a mile by Roger Bannister[nondetail in predegree.] Uncle Toms Cabin, and the last Will of nehruji,fine English!
Now I had to shift to Kottayam for my medical graduation and had begun the next level of fast fiction Arthur hailey who first introduced research in fiction and I was fascinated by his works like Airport, Hotel,Wheels, In High places,The Final Diagnosis,Strong medicine,Runway 08,Overload,Evening News of which I liked final diagnosis and airport. By this time Harold Robbins had become a hit and I turned to Carpet Baggers,No Stone For Dannyfischer, Never Love A Stranger. Dream Merchants, 79 Park Avenue. Betsy,Pirates for a tad of sex. The Frederich forsythe’s Day of the jackal is history and I continued him with Odessa file ,Dogs of war and Negotiator. Robert Ludlum could not be ignored and the spy saga continued with Borne Series, Gemini contenders,Ostermann week end,Matarese cicle Chancellor Manuscript.For godsake,I never purchased any of these books, the friends were great.
The entry of Pg.Woodhouse was accidental but I became a great fan of Jeeves the butler and his satire of the English lords. The stint at kottayam was followed by my translocation to calicut for my p.g.studies and those 2 yrs was my golden period, courtesy a classic librarian who introduced me to real reading and I owe a thousand thanks to him. It was a lending library with not much clients and when he asked me what books I read,I boasted of Arthur hailey Ludlum etc,he smiled ‘ choose what you like from the new and old collections and always noted what I took.I started with Leon Uris-Exodus,Mylai18, the Trinity etc and switched to Irwing Wallace-the Word the Man ,Prize Qb7 and on to Larry Collins and Lapierre series,all of them impressed me a lot-the Freedom at Midnight,Is Paris Burning,Oh Jerusalem,City of Joy
.the librarian intervened and suggested ‘why don’t you take up some serious stuff’.he pointed to a small book of 100 pages titled THE STRANGER,’please try this one,I won’t interfere anymore’ and smiled cunningly and I took the bait which was my downfall to the glory of the hell,the author was one Mr.Camus. To be frank towards the end of 4th yr at kottayam I had taken up grass and hooch seriously and this trait grew to magical proportion at calicut and Camus book with grass in my circulation elevated me to unwanted heights and book reading later was adding a different dimension to my life altogether.The Nausea and Plague followed and I became an antisocial animal atlast.Then I sought the librarian,s help and he suggested Sartre and Sigmond de Bouvre, ‘EXISTENCIALISM, became my mantra. It was one of those murky monsoon days of Malabar and the librarian asked me whether I liked short stories and promptly I said a vehement ‘no’ ‘.Doctor’ he cajoled me ‘ you will never like his style but you ought to give it a try,I won’t charge you if you don’t finish it’ and gave me ‘ the Metamorphosis and Other stories. I can never forget that night. It was history and KAFKA became my mentor,torturer,tormentor,destroyer,my ‘ alter ego ‘and what not. I don’t go deep in to his words or his philosophy but got lost in his mind. I wanted to learn German,that was all.

THE RANTINGS CONTINUED

Where did I go wrong? When,where,how?.As I face the mirror,I am unable to spot the face staring back at me.No ,it is not me for sure,but somehow I note the stranger before me is not altogether unfamiliar to me.if you can better delete the meanness in his eyes or edit the scowl or the crooked smile leave alone the selfishious stench emanating from the whole figure ,not withstanding the totally lovelessness whispering from his heart or the egoistic ballooning of his head,may be I don’t see any reason why he cannot be me. But how come all this transformation in such a short time ,or is it that I have never had a look at him for decades?,.That is a reasonable possibility,considering the fact that I had no mirrors for a long time or is it that I knew it all along,but could not come to accept it,was I escaping from my trueself?. No, that thread of reasoning is impossible since I can dissect myself severely like I do to others.May be I couldn’t crack the bony hard shell I have weaved over myself to protect from external injuries,the vield attacks of deceit,contempt or the so called isolation inflicted by the society.I am not sure,not at all.
I am pretty sure I was a good ,nice kid till my youth,I could ‘ love’,nobody can deny that,I am capable of loving,crying,yes, I remember I could laugh aloud from the bottom of my heart for sure and never felt any malice and whole heartedly believed in everybody and the faith in relatives friends and society was unflinching.,infact you won’t believe it--- I was romantic too !.
There is not much time left to undo .but one thing I know,the only short cut to rediscover myself is to relearn the art of ‘ love’ and ‘ faith’ the two presumptions under which we all live or die .I am ready for the kill,but Show me the man who can teach me these two!