Monday, October 30, 2006

Airplane

Are we different people free floating thousands of feet above the ground? Everything that holds us down left behind, left down there, and us soaring with happiness, with the lightness of unbeing.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Walking, No Talking

Walking is for me a private activity. Something to be carried out in the dim environs of Jangpura parks, with not very many like minded people about. Which is why I was rather taken aback when tonight two impudent young men on a motorbike entered this zone of contemplative peace. Last evening, at the Lodi Gardens, was disturbing in another way. I usually prefer to let my feet loose and meander all over the extensive gardens, but yesterday decided to take the fixed path many trod every day.

And felt, strangely, exposed. As though the presence of the hundreds (determined or joyful or sullen or indifferent) walking by and alongside put me in the limelight. The first few metres were, yes, self conscious. Then the rhythm of my walking and the rhythm of my thoughts took over and I was walking as freely, uncaringly and eccentrically as ever in that private space jotted by my feet.

sympathies all around

Finished reading a week back - and recommending, THE CORRECTIONS by Jonathan Franzen.

The book is a tour de force, "a vivid reading experience of tremendous texture and dimension, a masterwork of observed detail. It's not always likable, but it's real."

Most astounding is the ability of Franzen to get into the skin of each character, in turn, and show the reader their world (including that of a 75 year old with Parkinson's and dementia) and leave no room as to the validity of their world view; and then get into the skin of the next character and make the earlier character seem villainous, unbalanced, or quite mad. Alternately, to show them up in all their confusion and weaknesses when in their skin and when outside, as specimens of normalcy and amiability.

In other words, he accomplishes the feat of creating characters as complex as human beings really are.