Robinson Crusoe...

...is a fascinating book. It has pages after pages of emotion, drama, adventure, history, geography, philosophy, and human psychology.

I had read the Paico Classics' pictorial version of Robinson Crusoe. Since then, I had harboured a desire to read the original. While reading it now, the sepia-toned amazingly life-like picture strips of the comic kept coming to mind. The book was written in 1719, and so the language is quite dreary and long, so I still prefer the comic.

What the book has on the positive side is the portal to the early eighteenth century. But it made me quizzical and angry the way certain things were written. For example, Crusoe's colonial attitude towards the first human being he meets in 25 years. You would think, he would want to befriend the new person in his life, for Crusoe is really hungry for human company after two-and-a-half decades of solitude. He keeps calling him a savage and then as if that wasn't all, one of the first words he teaches the new guy is to call him 'master'.

The worst thing is that it is not even subtle. You know how for example western world can become patronising towards the eastern world without wanting to be? Or how the most liberal people turn into bigots without realising? Daniel Defoe wears his views on colonialism, racism, christianity and theology on his sleeve.

In spite of all this, the book is a roller-coaster adventure. It kept reminding me of days, especially in Auroville, when money was sparse and how I had to keep creating cheap stuff from local technology to spend as less as possible on tools and yet derive as scientifically rich a dividend as possible. Comparing myself to Robinson Crusoe would be laughable, but this is a book where you keep doing two things: imagining and reminiscing. That makes for a great work of fiction doesn't it? Where the reader can personally connect with a rare occurrence.

How does one save one's children from the big bad world? You can empower them and then release them, like seeds bobbing in gusty wind. You can not hold them back, but you don't want to let go either. You can never know what is gonna happen to them and how they will turn up. But you can't keep protecting them too. I just want to empower my kids to stay happy and positive whatever the extrinsic situation be, and not just keep it to themselves, but take out some time from oneself and make a difference in others' lives too. A streak of sensitivity is a must, especially when more and more people around you won't be. I guess the most difficult part will be to teach them how to be balanced and open. My mind goes back to what my parents did. I know it sounds like a self-compliment, but I guess Aks and I turned out to be quite okay. And if I could manage at least that much, I would pass. Sometimes I think I will make a good father when my kids are younger, but will be ghoulish when they will enter teens. That'll be the problem of being born to a control freak.

Am so much more sympathetic of my parents now than I was in my 20s. I understand more and more the challenges of parenting. You want to do enough, but just enough. Man, it's difficult.
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My stay in paris is equivalent to a terminally ill patient who has eaxctly 365 days. He is sad, but anything but complacent and every fucking second counts for him. I am glad for this feeling without actually having to die coz it makes me hungry for newer things all the time. No day is like any other. Yeah, I am tired much of the time and sleep a lot in my spare time, but I think boredom can be the worst thing that can happen to life - it's worse than tiredness.

I thank whatever it is that brings me to experience such amazing places and people. Every time I think it can't get better, it does. I seriously don't know where does one go though, from Paris. The saturation point will come some day when new experiences will stop moving me coz I have been to enough number of unique places and the tiredness will come when I will not want to meet new people, and that will be a depressing day.
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When you yearn for something very strongly, there's a tinge of sadness associated with the achievement of finally making that thing happen. One of the most unattainable things for me in life was watching a Grand Slam, prefereably the Roland Garros. I did that this summer. To top it, I watched Martina Hingis play. While I am still not over that excitement, in a very very small way, I am feeling complacent. I don't like that feeling. I think I have a clue why that might be happening. Though it was never listed, once I experienced it, it became a strike in my to-do-list. I need to forget about the strike and just remember the experience. But there's another thing. The joy of first time is always different from the subsequent ones. The first analogy that jumps to mind is that of the first kiss. While the feelings about the person you are with now might be the same or even more fervent, there's something about the first one that is always special.

Maybe rightfully so. If one keeps obsessing about a single thing throughout one's life, how does one focus on other experiences? Feeling a little satiated about tennis makes space in my heart for some other joys I would like to pursue. So after all, it's not such a bad thing.
--

My natural state of mind is not positive but of perpetual questioning. Fortunately, I have a tendency to gravitate towards more positive outcomes and thoughts rather than the negative ones. If I face a problem, I wouldn't say, 'forget it yaar, be positive, everything happens for a reason.' I will try to fathom out those reasons in excruciating details. But rest assured, those answers are almost always going to be positive. The secret is that I know where I want to go, so all this reasoning and logic of answering questions and arriving at answers is a big farce. It's like working a problem backwards. So, though I am not a very positive person naturally, I seek positivity, and hence arrive at that. On one hand, I know that I am deceiving myself, on the other I let myself do that coz I feel more empowered, coz the reasoning is not half bad, and coz it allows me to keep my logical swords sharpened.

Mini Reviews 2

Frances Ha:

This is the season of black-and-white movies. Though I couldn't enjoy Oh Boy as it was in German with french subtitles, I definitely enjoyed this one. You would think B-n-W will hide stuff, but that's not true. I kept focussing on cracks, crevices, folds, wrinkles. The distractions of the colour are absent and you take in the frames much more. It gives a nostalgic feel to the proceedings as well, an old-world vintage charm. I wish the movie could rise above the visuals. The trailer was lot worthier than the movie. What was good was Greta Gerwig.

Man of Steel:

It was a mistake going for this movie. Waste of my time.

We Bought A Zoo:

Nothing great. Predictable.

Stoker:

One of the creepiest and more graphically violent movies I have seen so far. People are made off with for absolutely no rhyme or reason. However, very stylised and aesthetically made movie. Which makes it creepier.

21 Jump Street:

We don't have to feel inferior. This one is a witness to what trash Hollywood can produce given a chance.

Of Space, Sleep and Shade

University of Paris was divided into 13 autonomous institutes in 1971, and I am currently working in one of them. We are outside the Paris city boundary (but part of Île-de-France). I recently got a chance to see one of the other 12 universities. I have been there before but haven't been there recently and my belief just got reaffirmed that it's always good to work in a place outside the city. If inside, the least they could do is to give the buildings and people some breathing space with boulevards, cycle tracks and jogging alleys and make it greener by having patches of woody areas throughout. UPMC, the university I visited today is at best a concrete jungle. It's one of the best in Europe but it sucks to look at. The only good thing about UPMC is that it is built on the banks of the beautiful Seine river (with its dirty bottle-green coloured water). Thanked my luck that I didn't decide to come to UPMC.

The common thread in all the places I lived, worked and enjoyed has been that they were cushioned in their respective bubbles.. Though I did not decide on the places based on their landscaping, I enjoyed being there because they were spacious, wide, green and full of unadulterated oxygen. The Farm, Danagram, Auroville, IISc, and now Orsay and Maison, they are all places very near to civilisation but detached and buffered. That's what is endearing.
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It's good to be in Paris and travel outside for work because there's no hustle-bustle of the city, metros are always empty coz you are travelling in the direction opposite to the swarm, and you come back in the evening to the dazzling array of activities placed before you on a platter. It's another thing that am shit tired by the time the evening arrives and don't feel like doing anything but sleep in my warm room, but I have devised an idea that works surprisingly well. I have to spend 30 minutes in the metro and sometimes more if there's snow. As soon as I embark, I find a seat and start my 30-minute long nap. It's not sound and deep but energises me nevertheless.
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Last few days have been extraordinarily sunny and it was disappointing. If I needed sun, I would be in India. Bring on the cold! My moods in the morning depend on whether I open my eyes to direct sun rays or diffracted light. It never really pours here which is good coz one can leisurely walk around even during rains. Today while commuting, I kept observing the rooftops for some reason. They reminded me of some Indian houses, like our old house in Gopuri. We had windows in the roof for the skylight to come in. Of course, in summers we have too much sun in Wardha so one needs to have an exact reverse system. We first had a simple curtains-drawn and curtains-withdrawn system, but then my techno-genius dad came up with a wooden trapdoor system which was augmented just below the roof window, and could slide up and down over a wooden plate, effectively covering or uncovering the light outside. It was obviously up in the roof, so we would use a long bamboo to slide the trapdoor. It was a daily ritual which I had forgotten about, and these french roofs brought back the memory.

On a tangent, many houses in these parts are un-plastered and look beautiful because of the exposed walls that disclose the stones they were built with in a very aesthetic way. I have been a fan of the cobblestone streets of Europe (who isn't?). A house wall thus displayed looks just like extensions of the streets, bringing to mind 3-D arenas that Cobb and Ariadne walk (climb?) on, but this is way more beautiful.