Pithy Prose

              Pithy Prose                                             

What is this life, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night

A poor life this is, if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The essence of the poem ‘Leisure’ by famous poet William Henry Davies stands redundant in the byte-sized modern times of tweets and e-singles. Tweets have been packaged by the literary inclined as TTT – Terribly Tiny Tales, at par with a potent 30-sec ad film, which renders a complete story. Each hour of our kids’ lives is structured and programmed to deliver saleable productivity.  Dayanita Singh, the bookmaker and photographer, launched a campaign on Facebook regarding changing bookshop presence in the Indian milieu. Jairaj Singh penned an article in the New Yorker regaling us with the receding façade of his father’s bookshop ‘Fact and Fiction’. These were the deeply entrenched symbols of yesteryears, where book-lovers browsed and curled up on sofas for hours on end, reflecting and contemplating their readings. These oases of rumination are struggling for survival in the face of recent Rs 1200-crore single largest funding for Flipkart, the Bangalore based burgeoning e-bookstore giant. 
Short films like Bombay Talkies opened to critical acclaim and success of Short+ Sweet Theatre festivals in the Indian metro for the fourth consecutive year are proof of the literary world striding hand-in-hand with T20’s and  quick power workouts. A play as short as ten minutes is a doorway to a novel idea in scriptwriting. Short films termed as celluloid nibblets by the Times are the demand of the hour and creating waves at film festivals and multiplexes.  The short story is the new literary format digestible during lunch hours on easily accessible/portable kindles and smart phones. ‘The Gorkha’s Daughter’ is a short story collection by Prajwal Parajuly, born in Sikkim to an Indian father and Nepalese mother. He signed a record-breaking two-book deal with UK publisher Quercus. The five-figure deal makes Prajwal Parajuly, 27, Quercus’ youngest author and the youngest Indian ever to sign an international book contract. The book is out in the market and was discussed critically at the Jaipur LitFest, a sure indication of the popularity and resurgence of the short fiction genre in the contemporary world. The fever has caught on and novel writers are now switching over to the new demand of the digital era and new formats of writing. I recently read a short story collection ‘Difficult Pleasures’ by Anjum Hasan. She revels in the luxury of variety, of trying out so many different garbs or voices. But the perfection lies in its brevity and pointedness and really, in the feeling of expansion into life that penetrates our consciousness by means of a style that produces a sense of truth and richness.

The good side to the new pithy story is that more people are reading.  Creative juices armed with technology are flowing and making numbers experiment and explore roads not travelled so far. The so-called loser or the twit, who floundered in mathematics, law and sciences, is the new success story, albeit with different marketable creative ideas.  Is this phenomenon an avant garde movement which has taken us unawares? No, not really. Short stories have been around since the times of the caveman who regaled his community with his tales of the day’s hunt.  Samuel Becket’s play ‘Breath’ and Haiku, the ancient form of Japanese poetry belie the fact that it is a modern artistic fad.  The difference maybe that its staging and prodigious production no longer shocks and stupefies audiences, and the bizarre, the better.  We could conclude that literal brevity has been around, but is now rampant and a more appreciated art form.  

The grouse with writers of the lengthy genre is that they abhor brevity. They wax eloquent and enjoy getting deep into the complexities and intricacies of their characters. Is there a market for their writing heavy with metaphor and figurative language? The statistics indicate that it is shrinking, but would become extinct, is hard to say.  No, definitely no. And I am very emphatic here. The masses may follow a particular trend, but there are the cultural creatives who need leisurely hours in time and indefinite space to live, breathe and be themselves. They are the sussegads of the world who believe in the moment stretching into eternity and adhering to one passion for entire life spans, albeit, voluminous books like Meditations, Summa Theologica and Ulysseus.

I recently viewed a timeline video on books in the next century. A boy walks into a store which is lined with books and is flabbergasted with what he sees. He cannot fathom, what are these voluminous bundles stacked endlessly on the shelves. Hearing the exclamations, an old man emerges and is delighted to see the young teenage boy. He introduces him to the sublime feel of books in your hands and turning of pages to follow the progression of the book. The boy is amazed and carries home a stack of books to read at bedtime. A completely new experience to him, rather like seeing a vintage buggy and wanting to drive it and test its engine.

Books may not be printed at the rate they are now. Over the years, a time will come when they will be coveted pieces of treasure owned by a few elite of the world, just like old masterpieces of art. Each copy will be estimated in millions of dollars and will grace the shelves of museums and those who can afford it and love to read from it – an experience par excellence and euphoric. A time machine which takes you back into the leisure of William Henry Davies filled with the wonderful world of celluloid books with their wispy markings of ink recreating characters into larger than life human beings.

More than two centuries ago, the great poet William Blake offered the world the most extraordinary of possibilities to teach us to see the sacred in the mundane and the profound in the prosaic.

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

and eternity in an hour.

Innumerable miracles occur every day.   The morning sunrise, to tides in the oceans, the appearance of flamingoes heralding winter; waiting for us to see them, to notice them and, most importantly, to find our essence and core in them.

Sant Kabir

al- Kabir

Ah!  The conundrum of the mystic SANT KABIR, an  illiterate, a julaha(weaver), a tradesman, a householder in the eyes of the world. The dichotomy deepens when you read the writings of Guru Nanak and Rabindranath Tagore, who celebrated his ordinariness, hailing it as the most extraordinary thing.  The mixed legends further deepen the mystery of his birth and the essence of his philosophy. He is "at once the child of Allah and of Ram", and his teachings are a blend of the Brahmin, Sufi , Vedantic or Vaishnavite.  He stumped the pundits of his times with his simplicity of thought and action. He was all about LOVE and an all-out effort to attain the INFINITE.

Through the mundane, meditative activity of his weaving, he weaved philosophical couplets(Dohas), Shalokas and Sakhis. His path was a search for truth; and living the life of a family man with two children, he observed the ways of the world and broke out into spontaneous VANI and Songs steering his fellow townspeople into the light. A great revolutionary of his time, he held all religious dogmas at bay; ritualism, ascetism, idol worship, pilgrimages and the caste system. All are equal in the eyes of the Creator and each one of us is capable of a direct relationship with GOD.

He recited and sang songs of pure joy in dialects of Avadhi, Braj and Bhojpuri. To a modern reader, the experience would be as if reading Chaucers’ English in the Canterbury Tales. He expounded on the essence of all religions in India,, in a simplistic yet most effective style, complete with colorful imagery. Kabir is a very important figure in contemporary times. He is unusual, in that he is spiritually significant to Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims alike. He synthesized the nectar of myriad paths and proclaimed One Truth.  Kabir touches the soul, the inner core of a human being and awakens him to a life of alertness sans the veil of dualities, wherein your inner and outer balance to an even keel and you cross the ocean of life joyously.

We are all familiar with his couplets , we read and recited them in school :

 Pothi Padh Padh Jag Mua, Pandit Bhayo Na Koye

Dhai Aakhar Prem Ke, Jo Padhe So Pandit Hoye

Merely by reading books,  no one became any wiser

One who reads the word of Love, only becomes wise

Dukh Mein Simran Sab Kare, Sukh Mein Kare Na Koye

Jo Sukh Mein Simran Kare, Tau Dukh Kahe Ko Hoye

In anguish everyone prays to Him, in joy does none

If one prays in happiness, how sorrow can come?

His songs were compiled by Guru Arjun Dev of the Sikh tradition, and 500 verses are a part of bhagat vani in Guru Granth Sahib. Later,  Rabindranath Tagore enumerated them in ‘Songs of Kabir’. ‘In the collection of songs translated here, we find examples which illustrate nearly every aspect of Kabîr's thought, and all the fluctuations of the mystic's emotions: the ecstasy,

the despair, the still beatitude, the eager self-devotion, the flashes of wide illumination, the moments of intimate love.’

“mo ko kahân dhûndho re bande”

O servant, where dost thou seek Me?

Lo!  I am beside thee.

I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor

  in Kailash:

Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and

  renunciation.

If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt

  meet Me in a moment of time.

Kabîr says, "O Sadhu!  God is the breath of all breath."

“sâdho bhâî, jîval hî karo âs'â”

O friend!  hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,

  understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.

If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of

  deliverance in death?

It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him

  because it has passed from the body:

If He is found now, He is found then,

If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.

If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.

Bathe in the truth, know the true Guru, have faith in the true

  Name!

Kabîr says: "It is the Spirit of the quest which helps; I am the

slave of this Spirit of the quest."

Kabir’s granth “Bijak”’ tells the secret of the treasure which is hidden : the word tells of the human being: there are but few who understand it.  Bhakti is the core reason of our existence on earth. The love of GOD: all else is false. The sole way of deliverance is through love for God. The Bhagat  performs bhagati , in an abandonment of love, from whom he has been separated by Kaal and Maya. Trust in God, love for God, with no thought for anything else that is all. 

‘Anurag Sagar’(Ocean of Love)  by Kabir  is a dialogue between Kabir and his disciple Dharamdas, who is also accorded the credit of recording the oral works of Kabir. God wants to save Dharamdas (us), as he loves us, but we are caught in time( Kaal). He intervenes and reaches out to us in myriad ways and persists in his presence and love for us. But Dharamdas has many, many doubts and is completely ignorant. He asks Kabir questions and Kabir answers him, each time clearing the path to unity with the Infinite, making it a plausible journey. The exchange on the role of mind in a human being is really revelatory. The tricks that the mind plays and keeps us bound in a cycle of karma and illusion. 

I humbly and sincerely wish readers to set on a journey with Sant Kabir , by reading and reflecting on his writings. It seems the Garden of Eden really lies in wait at the end of our journey, if we live and follow the purpose of our lives! 

Kabir has many answers for us! Read on and act such that each of us becomes a harp whose music fills the world! 

Book Review - 'Consequences'

         Book Review

Drinking and Driving  (DAD) ,  a menace on Indian roads, forms the central theme of the book ‘Consequences, ‘ written by Nigel Fernandes.  Secret conspirators are at work to STOPDAD , a calling card which is left with every accused that they target and eradicate.  Their DADly list constitutes names of persons accused for drinking and driving and playing with innocent people’s lives.  It’s time to face the consequences for  their carelessness and negligence through a timely terrifying reality, rather than waiting for a  judicial system caught in red-tape,  intricate channels and endless delays.  Justice is a concept in the minds of the population but for the vigilante conspiracy at work,  muscle power is a reality and they are covering ground fast through their clean and targeted operations.

Colourful Bombay, with its quota of famous celebrities, roots the timeline of the book.  The pace is modest and a lucid description of the gory murders holds the reader’s attention for more to come. The special task force at work to solve the murders is quintessentially muddled and the media is portrayed at its sensational best. Tip-offs of the murders to a lady reporter echo the action in the movie ‘A Wednesday’. The plot and execution of the novel befits a TV thriller series or even a Bollywood flick.

Each new chapter jumpstarts a sequel event in progression and pushes the plot to a climax with its surprise element. The dedication of the book and clues all along authenticate the larger DAD conspiracy, such that the final twist does take the reader unawares. The tutorials on Indian Penal Code and biological responses of the human body to surgical treatments can lead the reader to further research. The relationship of the protagonist to his sister and close family is sweet and inspite of his huge ego, he comes across as an obedient and endearing person.  

The book is a quick-read and would appeal to those who read on kindle or have an inclination for short stories. The language is easy and flowing with no intricate references. An entertainer on a wet rainy day, when other options are limited and one is confined at home. The writer has managed to convey a social issue through his story and the need for reappraisal of laws concerned with Drinking and Driving cases in the country at large.

A neat package recommended for a read while travelling, lounging or before sleeping. Happy Reading!

About the Author:  Nigel Fernandes lives in New Zealand. He grew up in Bombay and is a freelance marketing and media specialist. His other passions include wind surfing and running m