We always begin journeys after some considerations. We all do. I would say, I am really not that kind I just jump into things especially things that I love. Failure or success is a lateral thought I keep that aside. "What’s wrong in trying?"
My people used to tell me that that is a very wrong notion. Because it’s a risk which we take. And risks are dangerous and sometimes the results are outright awful. That’s the catch; my people were always worried about results, about what others would think and I was the rebellious elder born son who used to do things just for the sake of doing it. Forget the results. Now, if you ask me whether I do think of the results? Yup, I do, but that did not or does not stop me from doing a lot of the things that I did and I shall be doing. The ends do not stop me from working something out with the means. I have been trying to be like that since quite a long time and they are all tired about telling me how it’s bad. So they stopped and I continue...
The result is that my experience is something which I calculate in what I do on a given day and what I've carried further on any given day. All experiences need not be exemplary in its morality or its values. They just need to be experiences - bad or good. Would you have to learn from all of them? Well, I can tell you one thing somethings can be really outright pathetic and may be the whole world would think that’s a lousy way but if you like it lousy or way too awful keep it with you and enjoy every moment of it.
A lot of people have passed me by during my little lifetime that I don't even remember quite clearly each one of them. They are all there somewhere still living, some successful exactly the way the world wants them to be, some others successful but not what the world expected out of them and some others shamefully and regretfully failures the way they never intended it to be. But what I wonder is that why do we or they themselves have to differentiate anything or anybody based on some wondrous idea we generated in our long history or span of so called human growth.
Why can't we be just simple humans? It’s true that we are animals. I completely support that concept. The other day, I was watching "Animal Planet" and there was this program about Lions. They just go about their business. The females of the species have a pride to take care and they do that. Some days they are successful, some days utter failures. Here, when I say failures it means they do not have food for that given day. Now that is exhausting in a jungle especially when you are the king out there - on top of the food chain. But the pride sticks together and they stick together not to allow any other lonely pregnant lioness to be part of the pride. There idea is simple, it's a tough world (understand) but it’s also important to understand the economics of food. They can manage a big pride but no extras. Live and Let live but no concessions. We call them "Wild animals". Bah!!
But consider ourselves - humans, its way too dismal. We are worse than the wild animals. A group of people taking care of each other would complain and rant on the possibilities that were missed and not taken. They would cut each others throats and kick out at each other on every opportune failure from anyone within the group. Forget outside of the group that does not even exist. It’s just a mundane existence where what matters is just one's own self. We are considered social animals. We are not even close. I sometimes, feel that our problem is that we can think and that the mind can conjure up a million ways of figuring out a load of stuff, and most of that conjuring seems to be not very worthwhile in terms of the larger good.
Anyway, coming back to knowing of the self, me being human and social and all, my exposure with books and what I am has been designed due to the presence of books in my life. I began, I still remember with comics: Phantom, Mandrake, Bahadur (Indian), Superman, Spiderman and the works. I never felt even once that I wanted to become any of those super characters. Instead I always loved the way they went about their lives. I mean their homes, their girls, their dog etc all those aspects were cool to me. Then I moved to Secret Seven, Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys blah blah blah. The next growing up stage was "Three Investigators". Hell, that changed my attitude towards books. I loved the way Jupiter Jones would think and how sensible even Pete (I hope that was his name) was. I loved the introductory element of having Hitchcock write something in the preface, I reckon. That was brilliant content management. I loved the idea, now that I think, it is brilliant way to bring me into the set-up because there was this massive aura about Hitchcock and he being the person introducing the story went a long way, at least, one me and my impressions. I reckon, my obsession with Jupiter Jones began due to that introductory aspect.
By the time "Three Investigators" was on I was thinking the "secret seven's and famous five's and Hardy's" were all absolute crap. Then one of the guys in my school introduced me to some Sidney Sheldon. Waoh! Now there was sex involved and that took up quite a bit of my time. I mean I loved every bit of it. The excitement of reading some cowboy "Louis L'amour" stuff and then switching to Irving Wallace, Ludlum, Forsyth and hell what not. How can I forget Perry Mason and Agatha Christie in this list? And, guess what I was hell bent on covering up all the books. I was keen on reading everything they have written. Then one day I found that they almost write the same thing over and over again, in different methods, vaguely different ways and we love the excitement of something which does not give us any answers. We just love the excitement of not wanting to think beyond. Just the matter written on those light brown pages, take them exactly by their face value. I could not relate with any of those people, those characters (except the guys who had a chick in bed anytime they talked - wonderment {how the hell!}. I was not confused or loosing it or anything of that sorts. But I started to hate the crap that the paperbacks were delivering.
Then started the development. I was introduced to Dostoevsky, Kafka, Russel, Sartre, Kazantzakis, Kant, and Shakespeare. I began to read poetry - Neruda (to impress the girls), T.S.Eliot (For myself), and Robert Browning etc. Satire - George Orwell was very impressive...
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