.

If you are down, get back to work. Most probably you'll end up inventing something.

2:30 to 2:40 (am)

So, it's almost like 2:30 in the night and i am thinking of all the things that have changed in the past few years and all of those that haven't - things that were not supposed to change, or to be precise, things that i used to think won't ever change (okay fine! things that won't change THIS much).

i haven't yet quit smoking. i still find liquor undrinkable, still can't talk on phone, still find getting to the login pages difficult and i'm still confused between fusion and fission.

Okay, i still get bored while writing when i am not in a grumpy mood and i still can't come up with a random post that is funny but not sarcastic.

It's always been about me.

I wish I didn't have to tell you, "I'm not happy with your happiness. It makes me sad to know that you are happy and I'm not."

No offence

Do artists fear they'd lose their credibility if they were easily understandable? Does a simple sentence make an otherwise incredible idea a common one? Has art always been a rebel?

A time will come when doing the normal will become uncommon. Probably then we'll get back to trying to be normal.

Gone Catching in the Rye

If someone asked me which book I wish I had never read, my answer would be - The Catcher in the Rye. It sounds rather cliched, but still, my answer would have been the same had I been asked to name my favorite book.

The book seems cursed. Yes, I say it again - cursed . It's like a frightening truth that lures you into revealing it to yourself. However, it's the truth you ought to know, and you just can't ignore it and remain a phony all your life.

Sadly, it has one of the most innocent protagonists - Holden Caulfield. So much so that one feels bad for him to be associated with the all the bad publicity the book has got. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/301077.stm)

I was reading an obituary of J.D.Salinger where the author had written how so many American teenagers' interior life approximated to that of the 'teen hero' in the book, Holden Caulfield's. The phrase 'teen hero' stood out to me for it's sheer oddity. I can't recollect a more oddly placed phrase in any of my recent readings. Imagine Holden's reaction on being called a teen hero - "He was this handsome young teen. They called him a teen hero and all."

Holden Caulfield is not a teen hero. He is a part of us - the normal people- who are not always confident, who are annoyed by stupidity, who make mistakes and regret later, who can't always muster the courage to say things that they want to, who, at times, want to run away from everything but can't because they all have an old Phoebe to think of. He is there in the soft spoken spin bowler, the all-renouncing retro-spectator, the beautiful princess, the ever upbeat sportsman, the all witty genius, the kid , the happy girl, the employee, all of them.

The multilingual critics never found the book a work of literary art, and the well-read, degree-educated elite class still discards it as just another middle class rant. However, Catcher in the Rye remains one of the most influential books of our times.

Rest in peace J.D Salinger.


some comments at -
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=7454&start=75&edition=2&ttl=20100205100532


I read Catcher last year as part of my Higher English course and loved very word. As a 16 year old male, while reading it, it does still relate to teenages of today. It is an amzing novel and one of the best. I really do hate reading, yet every time we read on I wanted to continue on.

When studying it properly you discover the deeper meanings of the novel better, rather than just reading; Salinger regularly uses symbolism to create a much large image and meaning of 'The Catcher in the Rye'


--------------------


"Maybe it's a generational thing but I and most people I work with are degree-educated, often multi-lingual, and fairly well-read.

None of them know or care about Salinger, and I must admit, I find the coverage baffling."


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As a strange litigious malcontent recluse whose best known book inspired the assassination of John Lenon and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.

Catcher in the Rye isn't a patch on his short stories - "A good day for bananafish" remains my favourite.




http://thephoenix.com/Boston/arts/96659-jd-salinger-1919-2010/

Angro-logs

Why is everyone so angry?

I'm bored of sarcasm,your wit and your anger. Give me something else.

I'm a part of the 'Establishment'

I've been one of the regular college going guys - wearing my seriousness, writing down my angst and speaking like a rebel whenever given a chance. Though I never had one, I had always wanted to wear a shirt donning Che Guevara who, for some reason, was a fantastic figure and his face on my shirt a perfect ostentation of my efforts to appear detached from the system. Not to mention, I was, in a sense, completely ignorant of the background, the true details of Guevara's works, his policies and, without taking anything away from Che, the irrelevance of such a figure in terms of Indian administrative system. I wonder if 'The Motorcycle Diaries' could have been as influencing for me had Che traveled in local buses and visited villages in Bihar and Orissa and done what he had done across South America [of course they wouldn't be calling it The Motorcycle Diaries in that case].

We have already set foot in an era where the young have a fantasy for the rebel shirts, the finger signs, the high pitch metal growls - decrying the gods, the administration, everything that is supposed to be a part of 'the system'.

We are all rebels, we hate how the system works, we all want to change it, but most of us don't know what to do about it and hence we conveniently choose to become its critic - rebels of the system who sit at the corner and abhor it. This attitude, as per my experiences, might be because we have never tried to understand how this ever despised system is supposed to work and why it doesn't work the way we want it to, if there is any such way.

Once, while rambling on the internet, I stumbled upon the Government of India website which led to further discoveries of other departments, run by the Indian government, and the way they are planned to work. A look at the report on a recent Economic Survey (http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2008-09/esmain.htm) and I was disgusted at the level of my ignorance about the country I have been living in for all these years - how 25% of us can't spend more than 20 Rs. a day, how 50% of our children are still malnourished, how 35% of us don't even know how to read and write - the list is endless.

I, like billion others, have been a fierce critic of the way our governments work. For example, I was, similar to the kind of minority mentioned by Prateek Prasad in one of his blogs(http://theretrospectator.blogspot.com/2009/08/revolutionary.html), one of the critics of the government's proposal of establishing more IITs. To be honest, the content of the blog wasn't enough to convince me that the the government had reasons -other than political- for doing that. The blog was sentimental at best because it was supposed to be voice of one single person. It took a stint of dedicated readings and a lot of data to make me visualize how vast the needs of such a hugely populated nation as ours are and how difficult it could be for the policymakers to strike a balance between something like providing internationally competent higher education to a selected few and managing the majority of the population still struggling with hunger, lack of primary education, and basic facilities like drinking water and proper sanitation. I looked at the government's proposal from my point of view and I was eager to judge that only a selected few, like us, should be eligible for such high quality education. I forgot about thousand others who are worthy of such education. Similarly when I cribbed about the reservations in jobs, admission processes, and the preferential treatment to some sections of the society I forgot to think about the conditions that most of the people from such sections are living in; the government, the system, it doesn't. Yes, there are a few of us who misuse such facilities but that's our fault not the system's.

Our problem is not the system but we ourselves, and the middle class, the 'so encumbered, so restrained' middle class should take the bulk of the blame because they [we] are more in number when it comes to counting those who can help make the functioning of the system smoother and the results more inclusive. We are quick to dismiss things as the ones not concerning us, unworthy of our attention - "Politicians are despicable because they are corrupt." Aren't we corrupt? Don't we need someone to stand with a whip in his hand for making us follow a rule as simple as wearing a helmet while riding?

We never stop for a minute and thank the system for doing the little but indispensable things like running the local buses, building footpaths, running government taps, public toilets and many such things because most of us don't use it. What's more, we even disdain those traveling in the overcrowded buses, queuing in front of the government taps.

Only when one buys a 5 rupee ticket and stands in a local bus with a guy who earns a meager 60 Rs. a day will one understand the importance of a system in place.

The fact of the matter is that we should consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have a system which provides us with a plethora of facilities at our disposal. We have one of the best written constitutions in the world which guarantees, at least on paper, the security of the rights of every single national, a respectable and largely untainted judiciary which provides even the most destitute with a branch of its unshakable roots to hold on to when in need, and a bunch of brilliant policymakers who design the working model, all of which are integral parts of building a sustainable and self sufficient framework.

What we lack is the skill of execution. All the policies are wasted if we don't execute according to plans. The middlemen, mostly middle class people, fail us. What we require is not a change in the system but its overhaul, tightening of the loose screws here and there, a lot of oiling and a few replacements if necessary, but before that we need to believe that our system works and that it can be bettered . We need to appreciate what it strives to do for us and what it's capable of doing. We need to take pride in what we do. We need to acknowledge that our system, despite being without the support of majority of its beneficiaries, is so liberal to give us the freedom to be a critic.

We don't need a new system. It's already in place and it needs - more than a Che Guevara - a few helping hands and some believers.

I respect the system that I am a part of and I'd rather be a laborer and be a part of it than be a critic and sit outside it.