Nostalgic 4. Eowyn

My reading list, for a long time, had gap right in the middle. I read comics a lot, then moved into Russian classics (because they were available cheap!) and then discovered the old English classics from my mom's old college books and moved on to more contemporary classics and on and on.  

I never realized that I skipped some entire genres and have been reading stuff that have been making my life denser and denser. I never learned to unwind. I am the serious-looking, Sartre-reading, no-nonsense guy. I took a lot of pride in that as well.

Then the winter in Omaha happened. Going by the standard of the Prairie winters, it was a harsh one in 1998. It was full of long nights with deafeningly mad snow-storms, which basically bury you in the apartment. 

And it was a lonely winter as well. I had not many friends at that time and it meant ordering more serious stuff from the likes of Huxley, Sartre, Camus, Proust and many more. And the weather played a good sport making sure I don't get out for anything other than real necessities.

It was there Haridas entered. Hari is a nerd of nerds. He is a jolly guy with some real awkward manners which if it were not for his wit, will look weird. He was working for some project in Lincoln. He read, and read stuff that are on the other end of spectrum as far as I was concerned.

(L to R) Hari, Prasanna and me when we drove along the SR1 from LA to SF

He usually rents a junky second-hand car on those Friday evenings and drive all alone through the dreary prairie lands through snow and sleet and land up in our apartment.  And then we talk. Those were exciting nights. We often argued like crazy and if I were angry, he always had a smile on his face which is disarming. We argued about Dostoevsky Vs Wodehouse, capitalism Vs communism etc. I loved arguing because he is not only equal, usually he knew more about stuff as well.

I've never read Wodehouse or Tolkien at that point. But the seeming citadel of the French masters are not to be trifled with. So the night long arguments with storms outside, hosting parties for the rest of the guys (still arguing!), the never ending arguments when shopping for groceries and in the local B&N exhausted us but he is a friend I respected. We flew some places, drove to some but wherever we went, we argued. 

That's how I started reading Tolkien. 'The Hobbit' is no more than the normal Ambulimama story. But the LOTR trilogy was mind-boggling. Each character was etched in memory and what history! I actually started reading the back-histories, the stories of the early days in middle-earth and I almost sank without a trace there.  

I loved Arwen. When read about Luthien, who forsake her eternal life for love, I was hooked. But of all, it was Eowyn, who catapulted into my imagination. Her love for Aragorn, fighting for Rohan, she kills the witch-king, nurses Faramir back to health and then ultimately marries him. She does nothing out of the ordinary and still retains that aura of the charmness around her.

And then Haridas disappeared. Married to a doctor in D.C, its been years since I heard from him. True to his form, he is missing from FB as well. Where are you, dear friend? Time for more arguments.

Nostalgic 3. Reds

It was about 1988 that I cam across a book on the Second world war in our school library. Although we call that a library, truth be told, it was a single book shelf with some interesting and some real stupid books. Nevertheless, it is a place I can read without having to buy and so by the time I finished my schooling, I've read every one of them books.

The book on the Second world war is a book published in Russia. It had some neat, big maps attached showing the movement of troops, divisions etc and pretty much covered the war with its causes and more importantly, how the Red army and Stalin turned the tide for the Allies. There my fascination with the Reds started. 

It was a time of cheap books from the multitude of Russian publishers, Mir, Raduga, Progress etc which are real cheap and of excellent quality. I read a lot of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Gogol, Gorky and almost all the Russian masters. Those were fantastic days. I also read Lenin and Marx during this period.

I consider myself a cynic. I believe no good will come out of anything and people are selfish, when you really get down to it. So it was good see a people raise out of this instinct to overcome and revolutionize Russia and thereby showing an example to the rest of the world. I was naive, at best.

 There use to be a program, every Friday night, on Doordharshan called 'The world this week', which was a primary source of information for me during those days. So when I saw the Berlin wall came down during that time, I couldn't believe it. Why would a communist country betray itself and try to be like its capitalist neighbor? How stupid it can be? I believed it to be a capitalist conspiracy.

 It took a while but when I started reading the non-Russian literature, the other window opened. But the communism by its promise of an equality and a world where everything is for everyone was more inviting than anything else offered by others and I was hooked during the 90's as well. And I read a lot.

When Russia collapsed in the early 90's, it was incomprehensible to me. I was unable to believe that Communism was being beaten by a drunkard on a tank. It took a few more years and a lot of reading to understand the world as it was then. It was a world which was just lurking below but I was so blinded by the propaganda that I willingly ignored it. 

Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa, Emma G, Gorky are all still my heroes. People who put the goodness of others above them and were willing to die for it as well.  The dogma they chose, at some point, overtook them and they were changed. I am not even sure whether they even realized it. The scenes changed so fast, Socialism took on many avatars and today, we do not even realize that there is now no realistic alternative to Capitalism.

I've mixed feelings on the world of socialism as it existed and the utopia that is still being talked about. The cynic in me is stronger than ever and I don't believe there will be a revival of any sort of the communism, that I am vaguely aware of. Its a sad thing to not even have a dream.

Nostalgic - 2. Ophelia

The year is 1993. It was the holidays after my twelfth standard exams. I was going to the entrance coaching classes. And I got hold of an old copy of the entire collection of Shakespeare. Though I've read the stories and some sonnets, it was all done without interest and the size of the collection terrified me.

Then I started with the comedies. The language was difficult and the annotations for most of the passages was not there as well. So it was a struggle to read through. I persevered because I loved good stories. And slowly the magic of words and the Shakespearean world started its enchantment. It was a world filled with fools, princes, paupers and princesses. It was a world I love even today. 

Viola, one of the heroines of 'Twelfth night' was a favorite at first. She is feisty, cunning, fumbles her way around and with the advantage of hindsight, I think I loved the name more than the character that inhabited it. So it was Viola for a while.

 After the comedies, I moved on to the histories. Most I could only understand the stories without understanding the background of it. But it left with a never ending fascination with Ceasar and his exploits (which made me a huge fan of the Colleen Mccullough's "First man in Rome' series in later days).

Only when I started on the tragedies, did I realize the power of Shakespearean writing. 'Hamlet' made an everlasting impression. It is difficult to express but I remember reading it again and again hoping against hope that somehow the story might change to have a happy ending. 

More than the tragedy of Hamlet, it was Ophelia who broke my heart. Relatively speaking, she has only a minor part and most of it happens after she becomes mad. The innocence of her character is what drew me in. 

She is probably in her teens and loves Hamlet. He spurns her but he too loves her. Hamlet and Laertus, who is Ophelia's elder brother are good friends. Due to his madness at his father's killing and his mother's hand in it, Hamlet kills Polonius, Ophelia's father. Thus Ophelia finds herself in an impossible position. 

She cannot marry her father's killer, whom her brother has planned to kill. It drives her mad, or is she already mad singing songs around the castle. It is difficult to understand. She never protests and conflicts herself with her love for Laertus and Hamlet. She wanders around and drowns in a brook and dies. On her funeral, Hamlet confesses his love for her and sets the stage for the climax with an argument with Laertus.

The vulnerability of her character and the impossibility of her situation puts her in a place difficult than what Hamlet finds himself in. Ophelia could not break the heart of her brother whom she loves and cannot let go off Hamlet and ends up going mad. 

It was the scene of her death that's heart-breaking. It is so tragic she sings even when she is drowning without realizing that she is drowning. It is difficult not to visualize the scene when reading it and the visual it brings up is certain to haunt one for many year, like it has been haunting me all these years. 

The death of one so young, so full of love, so much torn by events not in her control and one who goes mad and drowns herself in a brook not unlike a muddy pool of water conjures up an imagery of such tragic proportions, when I read the lines even now, it is difficult not to feel the sadness of life itself.

"There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death. "