THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Routledge Publishers publishes a book in 2001. The book is, Modern Man in Search of a Soul , written by German psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. I consider Jung, one of my gurus. The book seems significant to me in two ways. One: Its title reminds me of another life changing book namely Man’s Search for Meaning . Two: I have an intuitive awareness that all human beings undergo some form of soul-searching at least once in their lifetime. What I realize today is more significant than a man’s soul-searching. I realize that sometimes, celebrations search for man. Before untangling the knots of this puzzling thought let me take a moment to wish each one of you out there, reading, thinking, and sharing human being, a very happy Onam. A celebration is in search of man. By ‘man’ I do not mean a gender specific entity. I would like to use the term to refer to the entire human kind. Apart from being a Malayalam nostalgia, Onam is yet another celebration where the role of humanitari...

There is no other way to fool someone better than to speak of these two in antagonistic sense. Technology is not in antagonism with tradition nor is tradition antagonistic to technology. They are in mutual alignment. In fact, their mutual correlation even surpasses those devices and symbols that come to our minds when we contemplate these two universal notions. Let me elaborate on what I have already said with a new example. Occasionally, my computer breaks down. I use an old desktop version of it. I am no computer savvy. But I use this legend of technology whenever I can. The limits to which it could help us have no limits. Therefore, when this device breaks down I feel great anxiety. What would happen to all my readers’ souls across the universe that are at this moment in dire need to peruse some wise damn pearl of wisdom that I puke out random! This worries me a great deal, as it might, any self-confident writer, blogger, or columnist. One of the many painful realities ...

I published a book named Better Than All Happy Ever Afters to legitimate the celebration of Valentine’s Day. This happened on February of this year (2016). The book made me not very rich financially but it definitely made me wealthy in terms of relationships. Through the work on this book, I got to know many young voices, talented and certainly bearing the mark of genius in literary art. The underlying existential dilemma was palpable in the Editor’s Note that I wrote in that book. Love becomes a challenge. It obviously is; ask any sufi poet for better clarity on the supernatural aspects of love. For mortals, it certainly comes with its own qualms and worries. There was another underlying problem with Valentine’s Day. It was a day that celebrated open celebration of love and romance. When would someone commemorate an open celebration? When that particular aspect of existence is no longer present, right? Celebrations have this odd reality around them: they always mean the depa...