THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

Image Courtesy: Google Imagination often becomes my factotum in daily affairs. It helps me wake up at the start of every lousy day and pushes me forward, showing me impressive things, giving me the baksheesh of hopes and so on. I am not against this elusive partner. I, sort of, like it. That is the reason why I suspend my questions about what would happen in the future, if the ‘what if’ of imagination leads my way. Image Courtesy: Amazon To tell you the truth, imagination never betrayed me, although some times, the grand pictures it shows about the time to come and the time present fail to materialize completely. But that is OK. Materials are of this world. Imagination is of another. Jan 14 th , 2013 morning, I woke up thinking about what if I create an idea for a sequel to James Patterson’s new series of novels, Private . I wanted to keep that thread of imagination hidden away in my coffer, so that no one could copy it or take advantage of it. Patterson had alr...

Image Courtesy: Google A rt. What is it? May be, just may be, if you answer this question, you will forever  cast out  art! That is, if art is the spontaneous and requiring the interference of the Divine, the indefinable  then  by defining it,  you are ruining it . Or perhaps, the answer to the question above is art  itself . If art exists for its own sake, then the answer to what art is, carries everything it needs to survive. Let’s go down to the bottom of this question now and find out what the basic element in both these hypotheses is.  Undoubtedly, it is the spectator. Image Courtesy: Google Art is created for eyes, ears, minds, souls and beings. Without them, art is meaningless and has no right to exist. To some part, this is close enough to exhibitionism, isn’t it? Well, we better do not judge. I said that because most of us believe in the power of judgment to either simplify everything for them, or just to...

Image Courtesy: Google The epilogue to Jaipur Literature Fest was a police notice to the organizers. The police had asked them to stay in the city until the investigation on the sociologist Ashis Nandi’s statement is completed. Ashis Nandy, a prominent figure in the Indian socio-political and cultural scene had made a statement regarding corruption during one of the speeches he made in the festival. His whiplash was not just targeted at corruption alone, but caste. And not just any caste, but those who are traditionally classified as the “lower castes”. Image Courtesy: Google Ashis Nandi said; “most of the corrupt come from the OBC, the Scheduled castes and now increasingly STs, and as long as it was the case, the Indian Republic would survive.” The question of truth in this statement is meaningless to search for. As one can see, he had made a blind generalization on the relationship between corruption and people from lower caste. People from these communities enjoy rese...

Image Courtesy: Google Most of the literary festivals around the word are supposed to offer the following things: Books, stories, poems, words, and the wonderful chance of meeting the people who write them. Literature festivals never talk politics or race or casteism or gender. Exposing certain breeds of cultural tyrants is not deemed to be the purpose of Jaipur Literature Fest; at least, I think so. Who in the world would buy what I just said about literary fests? At least I won’t. In this paradoxical idealism, I can see the traces of myself being negated and asserted and negated again. Literature festivals do talk politics, race, caste and gender. This later thought is the reality and the former, naïve idealism. One can see in this case, reality creates wounds while naivety heals them. After previous year’s fray by the Islamists and Hinduists, I was doubtful if there would be another JaipurLiterature Fest in the coming year, meaning 2013. I was so...

Image Courtesy: Google The routine drama of daily life is mostly structured like this: Getting up in the morning, morning chores, breakfast, getting the daily bus to work, forgetting to put the signature in the attendance column, screeching at the maximum voice to students who hardly believe in the prospect of listening to another young person who boast of being a teacher, having the same tiffin for lunch, dozing off in the afternoon light-hours, taking the same bus back home, thinking about the benefits of exercise and regretting over not getting enough time for workouts. Image Courtesy: Google In an attempt to make a difference, I started a new habit lately: buying news papers every morning at the news stand, where I get the bus to college too, inside the old bus stand. I always held the argument that news papers in Kerala never learnt how to balance news from different areas. Most of them have a surplus political content. In one of the confer...

Image Courtesy: Google This article is especially for those who belong to the world of art, writing in specific. At least you should have an idea of how books are created and what magnitude of labour goes into the production of them. If you are unable to connect with it, please clickhere . Beauty is inexplicable and it serves better if one leaves it to be so. But often we encounter trends that might suggest a different truth. From movies to fashion, from literature to social activism, there exist patterns to which each individual belonging to these activities tries to cling to. Or else, doom might befall them. It is truth. This can be illustrated with some simple examples. If one needs to look beautiful, and wears mud on one’s face, that would not guarantee admiration, but quite the opposite. This is true with movies or writing too. In politics too one finds no different story. In politics, we have all been granted unusual amounts of rants and promises o...

The Bunyan Tree, Butterfly and the Traveler Image Courtesy: Google When he was in the land of Indus , Alfadur lived inside a banyan tree in the form of a small butterfly. He never went searching for flowers and never wandered the land and glided on the breeze like ordinary butterflies. His only companion was the tree, the wide, vast and ancient banyan tree. The banyan tree was near the holy river of the Hindus, where the river met the sea of the Arabs. The wooded area surrounding the tree hid it from the eyes of the world. Days and nights, Alfadur slept inside a small cavern in the tree, until one day, when he woke up and took human form. He became a naked woman and started walking around the tree with her gaze fixed upon the ground, as if in search for something. Before long, the neighbouring bushes and thorns shook and from the figs that lay on the floor came a crushing sound. A young man emerged from the bushes. His name was Aamod. He too was intently searching f...

Rape is to force someone to have sex when they are unwilling, using violence or threatening behaviour . This is the definition, upon which the law of morality and judiciary works, not the Indian politicians, not the media guys, not the intellectuals. I pained to see the recent developments surrounding a rape happened in Delhi . The victim has lost her struggle to get back to life. She failed in what we can call an instinct all of us will have when we are brutally chased to death—the struggle to exist. In the sane social life, it is better to die than living a life of shame, but when it comes to real life, we all will struggle for our life. When a fellow being is struggling hard to hold on to life, what our fellow human beings need to do? Image Courtesy: Sarath Krishnan Image Courtesy: Sarath Krishnan The following are the lines of argument made by Arundhati Roy and some Dalit activists, or so I have understood them (http://www.reporteronlive.com/story/5897/index...

“The world is nothing but a bunch of thin lines separating what we think as extremes.” (236) Harlan Coben; Caught . Courtesy: Penguingroup.com Caught is a novel that begins with a surprising twist in the destiny of a social worker. This opening part introduces another major character, a reporter. However, even after the twists in the beginning that could very well remind the readers that much would be coming in the following section of the book (and that is guaranteed), the rest of the novel, until the ending part, remains rather bleak for a thriller. In the case of some books, all is well that ends well.  The novel ends with three words; “I forgive you.” This sentence reflects happiness and contentment, a perfect way to end the book. The language of the book though, is not literary and is matter-of-fact. This could be substantial in creating a specific voice for the novel. Coben’s language has its influence upon readers undeniably; it takes the readers into its flow and ...

Pain never takes vacation. Here is another news of girl-missing. There is no telling what I feel or what any of them who are close to this girl feels. I do not think this is a time when we can think about sorrow and pain. This is time to act, to find them, all those missing from their homes, their families, and beloved ones. Image Courtesy: Facebook This is yet another instance of how social media can be of great help. I received this picture from Facebook. Here it is. My review of Harlan Coben’s novel Caught comes next!  The waiting is over. The year 2012 came to a close and the next started off. There may be people who celebrated this shift, this change of speculative time. I am not one among them. I could not, and shall not. I felt hollow within myself. It seems my mind is just reflecting the intellectual and psychic vacuum of my nation , where any one can get raped and killed on open and justice is just a cliché. Courtesy: Google Images RIP Delhi girl . ...

This is a recent case of girl child missing , from Star City , West Virginia , the  United States . This picture says it all. I uploaded it from my Facebook page. I spotted this picture shared on one of my friend’s wall. I shared it on to my Facebook timeline from there, thinking it would be helpful for some aching hearts to find out where their only panacea, their lovely daughter, is. Image Courtesy: Google This picture has been added on this blog, to create more chances of finding Skylar Neese . And to let the family know people do care about them, even if they are miles away, on the other part of the world. The news and search of Skylar Neese’s disappearance reminded me of a book I read about three months back: Harlan Coben’s novel Caught . I had announced a book review before two months on this book. Due to some reasons this review could not be posted until now. However, with this post my intention is to renew that promise and to let you know that the r...

Image courtesy: Google Teaching English at a local college provides me the necessary income for survival, since my books have not started their earning journey into the wide and wondrous world, yet. Still, I must say, teaching provides me not just money, but the experience as a person undertaking a professional responsibility. This experience amalgamates the innate creative impulses into a literary text exhibiting order, alignment, pattern and style, elements that are much needed in any writer’s success journey.   Even if I hadn’t taken this job up, I would have learnt these elements, but perhaps in the hard way, who knows. Doing any other job, while pursuing a writer’s life, can bring to the surface a similar set of experiences that at a second stage, can culminate into a writing genius. I hope the story I am going to tell here, might influence, inspire and help move forward many like myself, who at some unfortunate turn in their lives, are forced to believe they are ...