THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Abraham Maslow's pyramidal representation of the possibilities a human being is capable of in a self-actualized model of living came to my mind as I observed the events in the story of the Animal Farm and its animals. Strangely, the concept of self-actualization is not precisely associated with George Orwell's Animal Farm . Animal Farm is a political allegory. It unveils and analyzes the impacts of an authoritarian society. The characters in this book include both the subjects and subjugators. Nowhere in this book self-actualization becomes a discussion. This the exactly the why behind the reference to this significant stream of psycho-philosophical outlook named self-actualization. It is not the presence of individual growth of the characters that become our point of observation but its absence. If the farm animals represent the Russian proletariat as popular criticism asserts in various reading of the text, something is seriously wrong with such a model. The only...

If you could read Salman Rushdie’s latest book Joseph Anton stripped off the subtitle autobiography, you may very likely find the story of a hunted man. Certainly, something draws us towards the plight of the hunted. Perhaps, every one of us might have been in situations that are little different, at some point in time. Or we fear, sometimes, we might be forced to live in the shoes of those who live in constant fear from the hunters. I came across Louis L’Amour through a deliberate accident. I like to think of that event as a pleasant treasure that the Book Universe had in store for me. I had never heard of him before. Never had I had the chance to read a western thriller novel. Of course, I knew about Zane Grey and others and knew what the genre has in store for the readers. Call it prejudice or awareness, if you will. That does not change the reality, tough. Anyway, this coincidence altered by the unexpected turn of events. The first book I read of L’Amour was about a hunted...

Nature has a way of doing away with its problems. Man has looked at these ways with extreme disapproval, calling it disaster, natural calamity, etc.    It's been the way in English language, or perhaps most of the languages in the world, to address the totality of humanness as 'human nature'. We often say, it's my n ature or it's natural for me to do this or that. Are we justifying ourselves using this term, as if being in harmon y with our true n ature is somehow rewarding?   What is N ature?    I s it what we see outside? Or is it the real stuff that is inside of us? Is N ature a dictating force, like school teachers, parents or governments ?    Tomorrow (June 5) is World Environment Day (WED). It seems, as an observer, when I contemplate, that this day is purely celebrated for asserting our awareness that we, humans are somehow superio r to N ature. Why else would we even consider a day to commemorate ...