Love it was that made us!

 

Love and music have been in the air the past fortnight and I have been ruminating on the power of love to enrapture, beautify, heal and comfort. Romance stories have been a part of our reading journeys since we were fired by hormones in our teens. Books like Gone with the Wind, The Thorn Birds, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Rebecca have enthralled us and led us on trails of passion and delight of our own. Each one of us craves for the right love to enter our lives to render us from the everyday monotony and harshness of life. The power of LOVE elevates us and fills us with an ultimate feeling of well-being and happiness. From reading and seeing love around us, it is only when we embark on our personal journey of love that we realize that it is not about receiving but giving love, which ultimately fulfills and enriches us.

The books we read are not just love stories, but life stories. Some of them have stayed with me for the larger than life portrayal of a character or an interlude which became life lessons for me. Anna Karenina has been hailed a great classical love story against a backdrop of nineteenth century Russia. Is it only the story of the aristocratic Anna Karennina and her all-consuming passion for Lord Vronsky, a forbidden love that then leads only to pain and destruction? There is a parallel strand of the story of Levin and Kitty, a juxtaposition of the two lives or maybe two novels in one. While Anna Karenina burns brightly for a time, Levin and Kitty light a fire that will keep them warm throughout life. The love life of Levin is crafted on the marriage of Leo Tolstoy himself and Lev which means Leo in Russian is a character sketch of Tolstoy in the four years that he took to write the book.

The Russian society of the times was undergoing an identity crisis. They did not know whether they were western or eastern and under the tutelage of the Czar, they aped French custom and etiquette to the letter and in a sense they were performing as if on a stage. In contrast Levin a socially awkward but generous-hearted landowner prefers to live in the countryside, away from the gliterrati of balls and horse races. He grapples with questions of the meaning of life and strives to find truth in his work, land and relationships. Kitty is sacred to Levin, right from the first day he sights her skating and he is overwhelmed with joy and bewilderment. In spite of their daily differences and squabbles as spouses their relationship blossoms and strengths based on the sacredness. He works hard not only to provide for his family, but makes Kitty his closest companion and friend, his soul mate.  He endears himself to Kitty by opening his vulnerable emotional self to her and is sensitive to her every need and fancy. Whereas his friends are concerned with power, position and money to impress their wives, he is a man of courage, sensitivity and heart. Kitty matures slowly and realizes the hurt she has inflicted on Levin by initially rejecting his offer and wows to be authentic and herself in her pursuit of life. She is her most rational self when Levin is lost and confused about the uncertainties of life – his greatest suffering. His sincerity and search for truth culminates in hope and redemption when he realizes that his life does have a higher purpose: "...my whole life...is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it." Tolstoy came upon the virtue of man to transform himself and his potential for goodness and betterment during the writing of this book, where after his life towed a more spiritual path. Levin and Anna are both in turmoil about the question of one’s role in the greater scheme of things, but Levin does not shoot himself, or hang himself, he lives. He is anchored by the love of his family, land and workers.  The book does not end with the tragedy of Anna but with the fruitful life of Levin and Kitty in the countryside, imbued with hope and faith, sharing and giving, and the triumph of the human spirit to higher levels of consciousness.

The relationship of Celie and Shug in The Color Purple is a hard to forget lesson in love. Celie is a scared downtrodden, heavily abused and exploited girl in a black household who is raped for years by her own stepfather. To save her sister the same predicament, she marries Albert who has designs on her sister, and looks after his children, gets beaten, abused and is uncared for. She hates herself and has no identity except being used and worked over and over all her life. Her meeting with Shug Avery, a blues singer and a long standing lover of her husband, brings her across a character who is apparently strong, independent and spoilt as a woman. Celie is astonished to witness the tantrums of Shug and sees a different face of her husband who walks like a dog behind his mistress. She falls in love with Shug and there begins a sexual, deep-rooted companionship of two utterly different women. Through Shug she experiences the pleasures of sex, joy and delight of loving human touch and care. A relationship which lasts decades is mutually beneficial to both and Celie flowers into a new woman with a light step and confident gait. Shug also opens Celie’s eyes to new ideas about religion, empowering Celie to believe in a nontraditional, non-patriarchal version of God.  She realizes her worth, comes to love herself and turns her talent of sewing into a self supporting profitable business and walks out on her husband. After being voiceless for so many years, she is finally content, fulfilled, and self-sufficient. When Nettie, Olivia and Adam return to Georgia from Africa, Celie’s circle of friends and family is finally reunited. Though Celie has endured many years of hardship, she says, “Don’t think us feel old at all. . . . Matter of fact, I think this the youngest us ever felt.”
Heidi likewise in her eponymous book brings tears of joy to my heart every time I revisit her in my rereading. She is a lesson in love and life, saving and reforming the lives of every character around her, namely her cynical cold grandfather, the sad, blind and lonely, Peter’s grandmother, her handicapped rich friend Clara and the lost, scatterbrained Peter. Her weapon of transformation to joy, happiness and wholeness is her infinite capacity to love, care and fill her surroundings with the sheer joy of her being. 
Although Vanity no Apologies is the mantra of the age we live in, yet  peace, bliss and joy is in giving and receiving love.
Love it was that made us and it was love that saved us
Love was God's plan when He made man God's divine nature is love
Born of God's love we must love Him
That's why He made us to love Him
But only when we love all men can we partake of God's love (2)
Love is a wonderful thing, joy in hearts it will bring
where there is love there is God and where there is God there is love
Love transforms, heals, and renews. Let’s go find the magic in our lives!

    

The Point of it All

The reading habit in India has come of age considering the lakh and a half footfalls at the recently concluded Jaipur Literary Festival.  Litfests in the country are a new genre of festivals gathering momentum over the last ten years.  Every other city boasts of an art/lit fest,  the Apeejay  Kolkatta Literary Festival, the Mussourie Writers’  Festival, the Hay Festival  and Bookaro, to name a few.  Is it a passing fad or a lasting phenomenon and has the common man become an avid reader?  These are questions which spring forth, but going by the mere 10,000-sold mark of a book which becomes a bestseller in India , the story needs to be  investigated. 

I was a delegate at the  Goa Art/Lit festival . The mood of discussions and debates propelled me to continue the experience and I found myself part of the burgeoning crowd of intellectual elite at the Jaipur Literary Festival. Itl was hosted at the Diggi Palace within the heart of the Pink City. Readings were held simultaneously at six venues ( lawns and halls) of the palace.  One had to be present at the reading tents well in advance to secure a seat , which I got used to after the first day . What heartened me was the turnout and active participation of youngsters at the readings.  The old and older people were in attendance as usual.  It was a congregation of the intellectual elite from various cities of India and abroad in their winter best. The writers, literary agents and publishers from India and abroad completed the circle of the most elusive and celebrated people from the world of books.

The talks celebrated great writings from poets and writers, lyricists and novelists, environmentalists and journalists, and the power of great ideas to transform our way of thinking. The festival became a playground of the exchange of views and meeting of minds that inspired revelations- personal, political and educational. A Chinese writer remarked during one of the discursive sessions that he was both astonished and warmed by the wide open debate between writers, journalists, members of the civil society and the audience without any embargoes so much in place in his own country. He felt intrigued by the diverse voices applauding and at the same time critiquing the government and other policy makers. If one tent hosted a political debate on breakout nations, another talked about the history of literature and yet another about the nature of a Punjabi. Religious and spiritual readings interspersed the chain of hot topics thronged by thousands from all age groups. Then in the end, we went and spoilt it by the 2013  controversy by a sociologist about the age-old caste factor in our country.

Dalai Lama was the star of the festival with every person in attendance beelining to hear him speak on truth, honesty and the need to educate our hearts and minds, the so-called process of self-engineering. Each peaceful mind adds to the peace of the world and there is no THEY and WE , for as it came up in the talk about Kipling, They are nothing but We. Buddhist monks created magic each morning with Buddhist chants in Pali and Nepali, and another, beginning with  poetry from the archives of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, too.
It was global in its reach and yet anchored by 17 Indian languages. Bollywood, too, was equally represented by lyricists, actors and directors. The panel discussions ranged from folk elements in cinema to the onscreen image of a woman. Young adult workshops at Samvad were led by eminent educationists on the latest pedagogical practices in education. The bookshop engaged the crowds effectively by proudly displaying works of all writers in attendance. The DSC prize for best South Asian literature and the showcasing of the Booker of the Booker prize shortlists were programs not to be missed.    The readings ran clockwork with close adherence to the printed schedule and protocol. Kudos to Namita Gokhale, Sanjoy Roy and William Darlymple.

That’s the bookish side of the picture so far. The other side introduced the idea to the spectators that though we are here for books and for the sake of books only, it would be too boring without music, food and controversies to sum the matter on a somber, pleasing note. The venue did not seem like a cosy village of booklovers and writers but a commercial hub, with food stalls, crowds, as if thronging fairs of colour and music, and Rajasthani cuisine and fashion in full splendor. Did this showmanship detract book lovers and writers from their activity of serious discussions or spurred them on with its alluring whiffs of colour  , is a matter of debate in itself. For me, it was the latter, provided they come up with a much bigger venue to house the noise and congestion of a huge audience or spread the events over 7-days at least.

The fest was an ultimate pleasant interlude of writers, publishers, literary agents, debutant authors, and readers. Coming back to our original question of whether the events (I have been part of the Bookaro, and Kala Ghoda Lit Fest too sometime back) are an evidence of our improving or revolutionizing reading habits in the present times of the visual media and gadgetry. The pointer is towards young India with never-ending deadlines and short attention spans. Or is it a cool quotient to be seen at such spots of the literary elites. You mention books as you drop names without having read them.  Maybe they are new centers of business and touristy agendas under the garb of literary and cultural promotions. The fast growth and explosive popularity has achieved the inclusion of corporate sponsors. In the solitary world of books, reading and  writing , these incursions are indicative of a defining change in the modern times of writing, selling and promoting books. Certain writers and avid readers like to remain far away from such happening fairs.  But the question remains ‘Is the general public reading?’

Brand Books Festivals are here to stay. What form it will evolve into, only time will tell. Let’s wait and watch as the Tamasha continues, said Amitav Ghosh.