Protected: From Lolita To Lalita

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

FT : The Grand Old Dame Speaks

Her novels cover the great themes of human existence – love, betrayal, race, slavery.  Margaret Atwood calls her one of the pre-eminent American novelists of all time; Chinua Achebe praises her courage for asking the most haunting questions in black history.  She is studied in schools and universities across the US and is that rare thing in the literary world: both critically acclaimed and read by millions.  Today, though, Toni Morrison wants to talk about her hip: “I’ve been walking like the hunchback of Notre Dame,” says the 77-year-old in her soft, deep voice. “Thing is, I’m a total shoe freak, I buy them everywhere.”…..Many writers of Morrison’s generation are tackling the subject of ageing – Philip Roth (75), Gabriel García Márquez (81) and David Lodge (73) are recent examples.  Given her hip trouble, is she tempted?  “I’m not.  Even my editor said, ‘But Toni, we die.’  Not being around doesn’t bother me – except that I’d miss my grandsons.”  We are lunching in Princeton, where Morrison is Robert F Goheen professor in the humanities…..Even in casual conversation Morrison measures the weight of her words and images – her assistant’s car is “blood red”; winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 introduced “that other gaze” to her writing; as she tells stories she recreates her interactions with people and repeatedly uses her own name.  In her prose, she says she feels the music so strongly that when she heard actors emphasise the “wrong” words in audio versions of her books, she decided to record them herself.  “You rely on a sentence to say more than the denotation and the connotation; you revel in the smoke that the words send up,” she explains.  We are here to discuss A Mercy, Morrison’s first book for five years, which introduces Florens, a young girl with “the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady”, sold to a passing trader to pay off a debt.  Set in 1680s America, in the early years of slavery, the novel follows a small community – black and white, indentured and free – driven apart by religion, prejudice and brutality, though not race…..

(click for larger image)

Though Morrison’s novels all grapple with oppression, she says she never wanted to be the voice of the African-American community: “I thought I was writing about what I was interested in.  No one comments when a white person writes about a white person.”  Attempts to marginalise her have failed; Morrison’s novels have a mass appeal that is perhaps surprising, given that her books are anything but easy reading.  The narrative seeps through the prose and can be hard to follow; you often have to read pages, even whole sections, again; the writing has a beautiful, slow rhythm but this also makes it hard to break out of to read faster.  Morrison smiles: “Readers say, ‘Your books are so hard’; I say, ‘I have no words in there you don’t understand.’”…..The world has changed since she started writing, she says.  For the young today race is a battle already won: “Young people are not interested in that racism stuff.  They fall asleep as soon as you start talking.”  So how does that make her feel? “Good, good,” she laughs and slaps the table.  “That is what they are supposed to do.  They don’t want to hear about that and they don’t care.”  She enjoys the punchline so much she repeats it…..In 1958 she married Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect whose name adorns her books.  They divorced six years later and she never remarried.  Previously unflappable, Morrison gesticulates as she talks.  “People say, ‘Do you live alone?’ Or, ‘You raised your children alone.’  And I say, ‘I was never alone.’”  Only recently has she become the sole occupant of her house: “I had a family, I’ve got sisters and brothers, my mother was alive and this, that and the other.”  Nevertheless, the theme of desertion and solitude is evident throughout her fiction.  This is a reflection of American history as a whole, she says, which is defined by the immigrant experience, the lack of a motherland.  “There is a sense of loneliness, deep loneliness in so much American fiction and life, like something has been taken away.”…..

Reference : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b1c8c954-ac59-11dd-bf71-000077b07658.html

The Deep Symbolism Of The Mahabharata

B R I L L I A N T !!!

The `Mahabharata’ has a deep underlying symbolism.  Imagine Draupadi as the human body.  The Pandavas, the five senses, are wedded to it.  Their first cousins, a hundred in number, the Kauravas, are present in the form of the tendencies of the mind.  Yudhishthir thinks that he is a good gambler and so would win over the Kauravas.  The senses also think that they can win over the tendencies of the mind.  The Pandavas keep gambling till they lose everything, including themselves and their beloved wife, Draupadi.  Likewise, we lose everything when we gamble with our tendencies, and, like the Pandavas, end up in spiritual exile.  The body is demeaned, like Draupadi was, and only divine intervention can save it.  However, our body does not abandon us, even when we lead it into exile.  However, there are some good tendencies also.  There are many good people in the Kaurava camp.  But, Krishna advises Arjuna to kill all of them, implying that all tendencies, both good and evil should be exterminated.  They are already dead, he says.  You are only an instrument in making this evident.   If a person has to gain enlightenment he must overcome all the tendencies of the mind, good or bad.  These do not have an existence, apart from what we have given them they are already dead.  However, we keep them alive by our own acts, and, by our own acts, we can kill them all. Only then will we be free.  Kurukshetra is the world in which we live this life, witnessing a war between our senses and our mind’s tendencies.  Dhritarashtra symbolises the mind, which gives birth, in a sense, to our tendencies.  He was blind as the mind is to its tendencies.  His wife, Gandhari, was not blind but chose to blindfold herself.  Even when we have a choice to see, we choose not to see.  

None of the Pandavas were born of their mother’s husband, Pandu.  Their mother, Kunti, had been given a chant, which invoked various gods who fathered the Pandavas.  The Sun was the father of Karna.  Dharma, the god of duty was the father of Yudhishthir and Indra the king of gods was the father of Arjuna.  The god of wind, symbolising strength, was the father of Bhishma and the Ashwini Kumars were the fathers of Nakul and Sahdev.  Our senses are basically part of our divinity, the instruments born to keep us in this form.  The original name of their mother was Pritha, signifying Prithvi, the Earth, and she took the name Kunti when Kuntibhoja adopted her.  So, the Pandavas were born through the conjoining of the Earth and the divine the body and the spirit.  Karna was born of the Sun-god and the Earth mother.  He is a symbol of our ego.  Like him, our ego is also armoured.  Only the guru’s intervention could get the armour removed.  Similarly, the guru helps the seeker in killing his ego.  Krishna’s form, too, is symbolic.  Deep blue is the colour of eternity.  It is the colour of the sky, and of the deep ocean.  Yellow is the colour of the earth.  A deep blue god-image enclosed in yellow clothes symbolises the spirit clothed in the body.  Krishna, then, is a symbol of the body and spirit, a symbol of you and me in our enlightened form.  When we become aware of our true self, we realise that there is no difference between us and Krishna or Vishnu, of whom he is an incarnation, as, indeed are we.

Reference : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lifestyle/Spirituality/Speaking_Tree/
Symbolism_in_Mahabharata_has_spiritual_insight/articleshow/3418050.cms

Al Gore’s Graphically Inconvenient Truth

Cool graphic.

Reference : http://www.loosetooth.com/Viscom/gf/inconvenient_truth.htm

Maureen Dowd : Are Men Necessary ?

Ms. Dowd appeared on The Charlie Rose Show on Nov 23 2005, as part of her book promotion media rounds for ”Are Men Necessary ?” (a must read for Dowd fans).  As usual, it is time well spent.  Check it out.