Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Two Books

Dear readers,

Day before yesterday, I paid a visit to Blossoms Book Shop in Bangalore. I was looking for either of the three books -
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Oranges are not the only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl.

It was strange that I couldn't get either of them, considering the fact that their collection is pretty extensive. Instead I ended up buying Anne Rice's Violin and Joe Sacco's Palestine. Basically, both of them were picked via a blind plunge.

Regards.

Friday, September 23, 2011

I threw the Yellow Spray Paint away

"Eventually you fall asleep. And when you wake up, it's true.
You are part of a brand new world."
- Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

It has been a week less than two months that I have left Kharagpur. It has been a huge shift from the hectic schedule I had been surviving with in the last six months of my Ph.D. Nowadays, I do nothing.

Kafka on the Shore is a strange book. I am not trying to review anything, but just to be clear, it is a strange book. I am unsure of its meaning, lost in its allegories and metaphors. The story seems to be non-existent. Still it feels so good after finishing the book. Leaves a nice after-taste, a satisfying sense of umami.

Ph.D. life was much more organised. It was anchored, too. Thus resisting any free body motion of my thoughts or actions. The implications were calculated, the directions were computed and the journey was constructed. What happens now is a different question.

Two strange parallel lives lead their individual ways only to satiate the drive of emotions and prejudices. One does not know of the other. One does not come to know of the other even in the denouncement. Yet, they are related. They could be two bodies shared by the same soul. When the purpose of one is over, the soul fragment abandons the body. It's all a theory. The hypothesis holds true until a counter-evidence comes along. Science has always advanced from counter-evidences.

Little did I know of, what had I got myself into when I joined the doctoral program. Things you take for granted no more remains so once they become the essence of your identity. After that, you fight for it. Even if that means sleepless nights without proper food. I have an unfinished business that when completed at the right time will close the entrance forever. What's opened has to be shut. The time hasn't come yet.

I wait patiently.

Kafka on the Shore is a strange book. You might like it. You may not. The book exists along with millions and millions of other books. You may want to walk into it, try to perturb the lives of the characters. To them you are just a ghost staring in their direction. They have grown used to such lost souls. Occasionally, they might release a sigh of sympathy. You may never notice.